As they woke up, they promptly ate their breakfast, then went to skim quickly at first through the region.
And it wasn’t long before they found a cavern that seemed to go deep.
After looking at the map, they saw that it wasn’t registered on it, so it either meant one of three things:
- It is a very recent cavern. This would be the best, but the absence of rubbles or other signs of recent changes made it look not very realistic.
- It is a newly created living dungeon. Not the best, but possible. Though in that case, the dungeon wouldn’t be deep.
- It is a living dungeon that somehow managed to go under the radar, killing anyone who found it. That was definitely the worst option, but depending of the size of the dungeon it may be what it truly is. This kind of event already happened before, since not all dungeons are created near the surface; sometimes underground dungeons broke through the surface.
After looking at each other, they nodded and started going into the dungeon.
They found something rather quickly, and that this dungeon, while trying to look like it is small, is actually quite big. That ruled out option number 2, and made them more wary.
But what made them the most wary, is the total absence of monsters.
A dungeon can be broadly categorized in 3 types: natural dungeons, where a higher concentration of mana (of any system and type) is present, leading to spawn of monsters; newborn living dungeons, which are generally quite easy to move through and defeat the monsters, and the dungeon core didn’t achieve full ‘superior’ consciousness1What is consciousness? That is the question... That I’m not answering. :p; and finally old living dungeons, which have achieved full consciousness. And, as always, there are exceptions to these three categories.
Depending on the type of dungeon, the difficulty level can vary.
For instance, Anthesis is a Z-rank old living dungeon, but when it was just born it probably was in the A-E ranks. Though, it probably awakened quickly for being that strong before being explored.2Or there is something else behind that one... ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) And standard dungeons generally vary between 0-C rank, but there are some exceptions that can go way beyond that limit (the strongest natural dungeon was an X-rank dungeon, and was the home of the W-rank gobin Emperor).
“Well, that’s a dead end.”
“Yes, thank you for stating the obvious Daler.” (Finn)
“You’re welcome! Now on to ask the ones behind us to move aside so we can escape!”
“... (Sigh) I don’t think they’ll let us go easily, seeing as they are hiding their murder intent as we came here...” (Jiro)
“Oh yeah, you can detect that. That’s pretty useful sometimes.”
““““...””””
“... Anyway, what do we do? What are they anyway?”
“Well, I think there’s dragon riders at the front, and at the back... A hermadragon? Not sure, I saw an aura like that only once after all... Nevermind it’s a hermadragon they just stopped hiding. Uh, Finn can you do something like right now?” (Jiro)
“... Well not really, we’ll just have to fight... I’ll buff us first though.”
“DorretEntspiSifdittii Retroaa-Ratroaa sog-Tidfiifiifiifii, DorretEntspiSifditfii-DorretEntspiSifdittiinei Retroaa-ee-nei-Ratroaa-ee-nei sog-Tidfiifiifiifii.”
“There we go, I also included a debuff for the enemy. Well not sure it’ll really be enough though, a hermadragon is really tough.” (Finn)
“They’re incoming!” (Jiro)
As she said that, they started seeing dragons rode by... things, small beings that looked like faeries, but giving off an odd sensation.
If Jiro were to try and explain it, these ‘faeries’ looked almost like bloodthirsty spirits that are trapped within faeries body. Or rather, after looking more carefully, within the body of a faery riding a dragon, as they seemed to be one.
These beings also held short double-sided sword-like weapons (these looked like swords first timers could make). All of this combined may make inexperienced admercs think those were small fries, but the amount of bloodthirst they emitted to Jiro’s senses weren’t what “beginners” monsters could emit.
During the time they had to prepare, thanks to the early warning of Jiro, they went into their battle formation, with Jiro at the center front, Tris at the left front, Daler at the right front, Finn at the rear and Laura, the new member, at the center.
They all drew their weapons, and prepared for the first wave of monsters.
The first to attack was the ‘faery’ at the lead. He... It? swung its blade toward Jiro, but Jiro saw the obvious move and tried to avoid the strike. But midway through, he saw an opening that move made the ‘faery’, and had to decide whether to take the chance or not. And indeed, he soon saw the blade change its course to defeat him, were he to take the bait.
Seeing as this bait failed, the ‘faery’ decided to instead attack using the ‘you won’t kill me if I’d kill you at the same time’ strategy, which consists of... spamming attacks.
Jiro then started a desperate defense against this barrage of attacks, and soon enough he saw a real opening, drawing first blood.
The ‘faery’, feeling the pain, hissed, then roared to bring everyone some courage to attack.
It then resumed its attacks, and at the same time, three other ‘faeries’ reached their respective targets – Tris, Daler, and Laura. But these three were no pushover either, Tris and Daler having trained for a long time before and Laura cheating by gaining battle experience from the dungeon, making them win first blood against their respective opponents too.
The others all waited behind, due to the wild slashes that could result in friendly ‘fire’.
After some time, the ‘faeries’ decided to rotate, so as to heal while others whittled down the four of them.
And like that, the four ‘faeries’ went back to heal, but they suddenly realized that they actually didn’t seem to heal. And that’s when they remembered the fifth member of the party, the mage who had no opponent for the first round due to being too far back.
They looked up to him, and behind the slashes of one of their allies, they saw him smirk in satisfaction, with his sword raised.
The ‘faeries’, realizing the deed of the magician, decided to shout to the rest, making them back down a bit and spoke (or made unintelligible noises) to each other. The group of five, seeing that, decided to press the advantage while they could, but they were a bit too late as they suddenly faced a group of three ‘faeries’ each. And while the four were distracted, the hermadragon at the rear of those ‘faeries’ decided to go take on Finn, the only one who had no opponent until now.
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