Vnator

There are a lot of criticisms of this mini-arc in the dungeon (chapters 20-22) that I plan to edit thoroughly soon due to how out of character Artyom acts throughout it, now that the rest of Book 1 is complete. Let me know in the comments what can be done better, especially in the context of the very pertinent information brought up in chapter 23. But in the meantime, I hope you still find some enjoyment here :)

  Artyom inspected the cave entrance in front of him. It was a hole carved into the limestone hill large enough to fit a truck inside. Just as the map had said, this was definitely Crystal Kobold Crossing. Artyom had come here to retrieve whatever mcguffin the Great Hero was tasked with obtaining himself, and to replace it with an invitation to Lord Cabbafor’s party. The hero would be forced to attend to get whatever the item was, and Artyom would have a chance to meet with him in a relatively safe space.

   According to the map Artyom purchased back in town, the cave was classified as a “dungeon,” and marked as extremely dangerous. To most people from Earth, a dungeon was simply a prison built into a castle, but in fantasy Worlds like these, it also meant something quite different. Sprawling labyrinthian structures filled with vicious monsters, deadly traps, and the chance of great treasure, dungeons were a staple in any adventurer economy. Their raison d’etre can vary from a fortress guarding an ancient relic of unimaginable power, to simply a nest of dangerous overgrown pests. According to what Artyom had heard from rumors at the inn he was staying at, this particular dungeon was the former. The large red exclamation marks and “DANGER” written in all caps on the map didn’t do much to detract from his judgement either.

  Artyom didn’t know what to expect inside, so he decided to take a stealthy approach.

  “Detect Life, Mote in the Wind,” Artyom said to himself, channeling magic into his eyes and feet. As basic-level spells, they drained his internal stores of magical energy very little, but would be indispensable to navigating uncharted territory. Detect Life would allow Artyom to see potential enemies from far away, even through walls, while Mote in the Wind would reduce his weight considerably, making it easier to skulk around silently and not trigger any weight-activated traps.

   Artyom entered the dungeon, his knees and back bent, the balls of his feet always being the first part of him to touch the ground. As he made his way to the first winding corner, Artyom realized that there was no natural light inside. Like many aspects shared between different Worlds, their particular qualities varied between them, dungeons being no exception. This dungeon didn’t feature any natural indoor lighting, such as bioluminescent flora or skylights. Luckily, Artyom was prepared for that as well.

  “Pitchblack Vision,” he whispered to himself, struggling slightly to activate it but ultimately succeeding to a limited degree. The walls around him began to glow a light green, but only for a few feet forward. The further walls only gave off a faint glow, just enough for Artyom to tell when the path would branch or turn.

   Raw magic was a strange instrument, to say the least. It had definite and immutable rules, yet there always seemed to be a situation that made you question every single one. The basics, as Artyom had learned it, were simple enough. Magical energies suffused the world, and were absorbed by its inhabitants. Some magical animals used it to grow supernatural abilities, but humans were able to shape it into spells that could be applied to themselves and others. The more you practice spellcasting, the larger amounts of magical energy you could store in your body, which would allow you to cast more spells before exhausting it. The biggest restriction on spellcasting, besides magical energy stores, was that spells tended to interfere with each other. When the magical effect of a spell was applied to a particular part of the body, say the eyes, additional optical spells would require additional energy and concentration to keep active. Of course, that was why most spellcasters tended to stick to fireballs. Throwing around magical explosives tended to preclude the need for finesse.

   Luckily for Artyom, a low and mid level optical spell wasn’t too difficult for him to maintain in tandem. With slightly increased effort, Artyom continued through the dungeon. It didn’t take long before Detect Life picked up something, appearing as a cloudy red glow in Artyom’s vision. He slowly approached the corner before the open space containing the source of the glow and positioned himself in a crouch.

  “... days already,” said someone, in a hushed tone that could only be described as a series of gruff squeaks. The sound of metal hitting rock was interspersed between every other word. “Think we’d… be done… by now!”

  Artyom adjusted the focus on his spells, putting more energy into his Pitchblack Vision and letting Detect Life fall to the side. He could now make out the figure making all of the noise. It was somewhat under 4 feet tall, had a long reptilian face, and was wielding a pickaxe to dig through the cave wall. Artyom figured that this was a Kobold, the species which the dungeon was named after. It looked similar enough to other variants of the species he’d encountered in other Worlds.

  When it came to the level of danger posed by monsters, the likes of Kobolds and Goblins were stereotypically considered to be on the weaker side. The stronger and more intelligent the monsters, the more dangerous they were. While Kobolds were considered somewhere close to sapience and worked in teams, they generally lacked the coordination, tools, and ability to strategize needed to make them into a real threat.

  The Kobold that Artyom was watching finished its grumbling and sat down on the cave floor with a sigh of relief, leaning on the wall. If it was just napping, it wouldn’t be a threat. Artyom recalibrated both of his optical spells and continued onwards.

  Along the way, he encountered more such Kobolds, some in teams, digging away at the cave walls and some carrying large baskets of rocks. The noise of their work helped to cover the sound of Artyom’s footsteps as he skulked past them, a mere shadow amongst the bustling workers.

  “Is this really the dungeon?” whispered Artyom to himself. “Just don’t attract any attention to yourself, and you’re through! What kind of all-powerful goddess hides an ancient relic here of all places? It’s probably the easiest dungeon I’ve…”

   As he was about to finish sharing that sentiment with nobody in particular, Artyom’s foot struck a wire jutting out of the ground. Having magic make his feet as light as feathers, Artyom tripped on the wire and fell to the ground instead of pulling at it and triggering the rockfall trap it was attached to.

  “Well I feel like an idiot now,” Artyom admonished himself for falling for one of the most basic types of traps as he stood back up. “I guess the Kobolds are at least trying, I can give them that.” Despite the bruised ego, Artyom wasn’t too put out by his mistake. He was fully aware of all of Mote in the Wind’s benefits, after all.

  The delve continued, and it didn’t take long for Artyom to pass the rest of the working Kobolds and roughly-made traps unmolested.

  “Yup, this has definitely been the easiest dungeon I’ve ever been in,” concluded Artyom. “Before this, it was a dungeon designed by a little kid as a birthday present to their Dark Lord of a father. Even the kid had the sense to make their dungeon, you know, deadly. Pitfall trap here, couple of flesh-eating ghouls there. I don’t care if everyone here’s an idiot, even one of them could come up with a better way to kill!”

   As Artyom reached the end of his rant, a faint light began to fill his eyes, forcing him to turn off the night vision spell. He slowly stalked over to its source, careful not to let this supposed end of the tunnel make him let his guard down. He reached the corner before the entrance and poked his head into a large atrium that put the rest of the dungeon to shame. The room was in the shape of a circular dome 200 feet in diameter and extending about three storeys in height. There was no skylight or open roof, but instead an array of magical lights floated on the ceiling, filling the entire room with the illusion of being sunlit. At the center of the room was a large bipedal, reptilian humanoid. Similar in body shape to the Kobolds, the creature stood 7 feet tall and had serpent-like eyes and tongue. It was bossing around the handful of Kobolds next to it, instructing them to continue digging and building traps.

  In most fantasy worlds, Kobolds were considered relatives of dragons, albeit distant, and displayed similar traits, such as a love of hoarding shiny things. Artyom figured that their boss was instructing them to mine out the dungeon for rare metals and gemstones in order to construct a hoard, and to build traps in order to defend it. Seeing how the atrium’s inhabitants were facing one way, Artyom entered the room and quickly made his way around the perimeter of the opposite side to the other end, slipping into the tunnel there and back into the cover of darkness. There were many smaller tunnels along the way, but none of them would’ve fit Artyom, and the one he chose looked particularly important.

  Artyom snickered to himself at his luck as he continued down the tunnel. Less than 50 feet in, and he saw his prize- a shard of silvery metal that looked like the blade of an oversized key. According to the rumors he’d heard, this was part of the key used to obtain some sort of powerful weapon. Sitting on a roughly hewn stone pedestal, the key shard shined with a platinum iridescence, shifting between the many colors of this World’s sun along its edges as Artyom approached it.

  When he was several feet away from the relic, Artyom’s foot began to sink into the ground. It went no further than an inch, but the substance he was in was dense and it required some effort to extract his foot from its clutch. Undeterred, Artyom continued on, making sure not to step in anything else. A reapplication of Pitchblack Vision allowed him to avoid several pieces of metal and wood strewn about, which upon closer inspection revealed that they were chisels and hammers.

  Now in front of the pedestal, Artyom poked and prodded the stone structure to make sure that it wasn’t booby trapped. With his fears assuaged, he removed the hero’s invitation to the party from his bag and swapped the key out for it. Satisfied with his work, he began to leave the dungeon. Around the hazards on the floor, into the atrium, and around the perimeter facing away from the Kobolds, Artyom felt satisfied at a job well done.

  “The second tunnel’s been dug! We’re working on clearing out the rubble,” said one of the Kobolds.

  “About damn time,” hissed the boss, somehow managing to effect a level of gruffness in his serpentine voice. “What about you two? How much time until teams A and C finish up their jobs?”

  “Half a day more!” replied another Kobold.

   “Acceptable, but just barely. See if they can’t speed it up! And wake our artisan up, that lazy bag of scales should’ve woken back up by now!”

   “Yes, mister foreman!”

  The details of the Kobolds’ conversation made the gears in Artyom’s head start turning. All of the tunnels still being dug, artisanal tools next to the poorly carved pedestal, the boss being called foreman? This supposedly ancient dungeon, which exists solely to hold an even older relic, was still under construction!

  The moment Artyom came to the epiphany, the foreman stomped his foot hard enough to shake the ground at Artyom’s feet. A shockwave of force from where his foot hit expanded to the entrance of the cave, causing rubble to fall down from the walls and cover Artyom’s only exit.

   “I didn’t expect anyone to be dumb enough to come here!” said the foreman, as he slowly turned to face Artyom. “Anyone except the Great Hero, of course. But you’re most definitely not him.”

  Artyom looked back, tracing the path of the foreman’s gaze. He could see gray footprints that matched his shoes leading back to the key room. His own shoes were covered in the same material. It was cement.

   “I don’t suppose I could bribe you to look the other way? Great magic, secrets, I’ve got a lot to offer.” Artyom stood up straight, projecting an air of confidence to hide his embarrassment.

   “No can do, I’m under strict orders to get this dungeon ready for the Great Hero when he arrives. And that means I’ve gotta take care of any meddlers. And I don’t dare ignore orders.”

   Oh well, it was worth a shot. Besides, if the dungeon were still under construction, the Kobolds would discover the invitation sooner or later. This gave Artyom a chance to chase away this construction crew so they’d leave his change in place.

   “Say your prayers, kid. I’m sure the goddess is going to ignore them. Attack squad, assemble!”

  Dozens of Kobolds poked out of an alcove on the second storey of the atrium, each armed with a crossbow, and organized to a level of combat-readiness Artyom had never seen before in the species. Without prompting, they all pointed them at Artyom and opened fire.