It had been a month since Evren saw the demon. He had come across goblins on two more occasions, but otherwise it was a safe journey. According to his maps, he should be coming across a town soon. It should be smaller than the one he had first stayed in so it may not have a wall around it. Evren was thinking that there was little hope for this town having survived. His hope wasn't on the next town though, it was in the one after that. That town was said to have a large dungeon about a week north of it.
The town itself was said to have been heavily fortified. The forest north of town had many monster nests in it, making even getting to the dungeon a challenge. The dungeon itself was located within an area so full of hills, one would think they should sprout into mountains. It was within a valley, at the base of a steep hill. The path leading to it a choke point where records of monster ambushes have taken place. The town had set up a tower that had been fought over by men and monsters for years. Neither side quite gaining a strong enough foothold to keep the tower's influence on their side.
Evren was hoping that if the town had been abandoned, that the residents would have escaped to the dungeon. Definitely a difficult situation at best, he wasn't sure which would be the fiercer opponents, the monsters, or the Holy State's armies. He was hoping to find someone soon, he was finding himself to be a boring conversation partner.
Evren stopped the wagon, pulled it to the side of the path where a fallen tree was and partially hid it with some fallen branches. He wasn't hoping to hide the wagon, just to make it look like it had been there for a while. He knew he was doing this to keep someone from stealing his cart, but he was still hoping someone would. That way he'd at least know there was someone around.
He took his sword, bow and quiver with him as he jogged down the road towards the town. On the left of him, his south was a grassy plain, to the north was a thick forest. He followed along the line of the forest until he could see the town. He was then planning to go into the forest to get closer to investigate. The town was on the southern side of the road, so he wouldn't be able to see details. But he could verify the condition of the town, and if there were survivors living there.
As he crested a small hill, the town came into view. There was no smoke coming from the chimneys, no guards at the gate. The simple wooden wall was destroyed in many places, and the town was overgrown with plants. Evren alternated between looking at the forest and the town before deciding on just jogging down the road towards the town. Judging from what he had seen so far, there was no need to scout out the town for inhabitants.
Like the fort and the town, he had been to previously, there were skeletons and rusted arms and armor outside of the gate. Evren slung his bow across his back and drew out his sword, but the bow didn't want to stay in place, so he just held it in his hand. After a quick walkthrough of the town, Evren sheathed his sword and headed back towards his wagon. He planned to search the town more thoroughly upon his return.
He set the bow and quiver in their place on the wagon and pulled the branches off that were covering it. His capabilities in pulling the wagon had increased significantly in the months since he left the first town. Things such as small hills, or branches on the ground in the way wouldn't slow his progress. However, a significant amount of debris, like what was what blocked his entrance to town, needed to be cleared to some extent before he could pass.
Once the debris had been cleared, Evren pulled the wagon into town, planning to see if there were any chance of salvageable items to be found. He also planned to spend the night in these ruins of a town as there was the chance of protection from the elements. He stopped the wagon near the center of the small town and blocked the wheels. He slung his basket over his shoulder and began to explore.
Occasionally he would find an apparently damaged pot or jar that would have its contents ruined by time. He did find a jar of salt that had been shattered, but he was able to salvage some salt that he set aside for later. He found many rusted and rotting tools and weapons around the town. None of which in a good enough condition to salvage into something useful.
In one of the houses, he found a cellar. It seemed dark inside, so he made a mental note of its location to come back to. After exploring the town, he went back to the wagon, and grabbed his jar of salt, taking it with him to where he left the salt he had found, and added it to his own. After packing the salt away, he grabbed one of the torches he had found in the fort town and gave it a small dousing of oil. The torches were in excellent condition for how old they were as they were coated in some sort of pitch.
When he reached the cellar, he casted "flame" upon the torch and carefully descended the weak looking stairs. When he reached the bottom, he noticed the cellar was much larger than he had anticipated and figured this must have been some sort of cave the town had been built over and had been used as a type of cold storage. There were empty boxes and barrels strewn about, their contents long since gone.
He then picked up some things moving deeper in the cave. Judging by their size and the way they were moving, Evren thought they might be large rats or some other subterranean creatures, so he drew his sword and waited for them to appear. He was wrong though. "Only four?" he said quietly as he saw goblins appear from the entrance to the deeper area of the cave. Evren had gotten considerable experience fighting goblins since leaving the fort town. One of the counter measures he made consisted of small shards of metal with feathers on them that he used as darts. The darts wouldn't kill the goblins but slowed them down enough to make them less of a problem. Since there were only four of them, if he injured two of them, he figured the other two would run off when their friends were injured.
Evren took out two of the four darts he had on him and held them in his hands between him and the goblins. Using telekinesis, he launched one at the far-right goblin, and one at the goblin on the left. He couldn't launch them simultaneously, but the distance wasn't far, and they traveled fast enough that they hit their targets in rapid succession. The right goblin was hit in its left shoulder, while the right one was hit in its stomach. The other two goblins noticed their friends were hit and turned to Evren. Letting out a shrill scream they charged at him.
Evren's raised eyebrow was the only sign of his surprise as the goblins attacked. They had forgone their usual tactics of attacking from range and deception to one of a straightforward charge. The first one was kicked, like a ball, and sent flying towards the wall of the cavern. The other one leapt at Evren; its small claws bared. Evren merely dropped the pommel of his sword on the little monster's head. As the creature lay on the ground stunned, Evren stabbed it through its chest. The rest of the fight consisted of Evren simply finishing the goblins off one at a time. The only one to raise any sort of challenge was the one stabbed in the shoulder, but its straightforward attack, which was to leap at Evren, was met with a swinging sword, cutting it in half from the waist to the shoulder. Evren nodded at the results, as he had been spending more time at night tending to his sword, trying to get it as sharp as he could with the meager tools he had. The whetstones he had were too rough to get the sword sharp, so he had to work harder to maintain an edge.
When Evren finished the last goblin, he headed back to the first one to get its core, but the goblin was no longer there. The one he had cut in half was still there, but it seemed to be dissolving into the floor. When he checked back to the other two, they had also begun to dissolve. He raised his sword to look at the blood on it, but it was already clean, as if the fight was all an illusion. Moving back to the first goblin, he knelt where it was to feel the ground. It looked normal, but there was a tiny gem there instead.
He moved to the other three corpses and found tiny gems at all of them. Looking at them in the light of the torch, they appeared to be small, light blue crystals. Evren closed his hand around the crystals and took out a small pouch he carried in his basket. He set the four gems inside and looked deeper in the cave. "Is this a dungeon?" He recovered his darts and put them away on his armor.
Evren walked deeper into the cave, where the goblins had come from. It opened to a small chamber that seemed unnatural for a cave, but still had the cave feel to it. The ground was level, and the walls and ceiling were made of stone. On the far side of the small room was another entrance, or rather a doorway. After Evren examined the small room, he moved to the doorway. The corridor wasn't very wide, maybe two meters at most, so Evren put his sword away, taking out his blue metal dagger.
As the passage led on, it seemed to have several turns in it that never led to anywhere. At the end of a couple of minutes of walking, it opened into another chamber. It was slightly bigger than the first one, but just as empty. This room only had the one entrance he had come through and after exploring the whole of it, which took no more than a minute, he stood near the center of the room and said, "That's it?"
Shrugging, Evren started heading back to the doorway to leave the small dungeon when something caught his attention out of the corner of his right eye. What he saw appeared to be a small dust devil near the wall. As he watched it, the swirly dust appeared to coalesce to a specific point and began to glow with a dim blue light. When the light faded, a faint outline of a goblin began to take shape. As the image solidified, Evren said, "Ah, that was interesting." As Evren's voice echoed through the small chamber, the goblin gave a shrill shout as it charged towards Evren. When it was about a meter away, it leapt at him. Evren merely held the dagger out in front of him, letting the goblin impale itself on it. It squirmed and struggled for a moment before dying. Evren dropped it to the ground, putting his dagger away.
He waited for the corpse to dissolve and picked up the gem, adding it to the sack with the other gems. Giving another glance around the cave, he headed back towards the entrance. He exited the dungeon through the cellar door into the collapsed house. He then headed back to his wagon, along the way, he looked at the torch and cast a spell called "chill" on it. Ice crystals formed on the torch, spreading upwards among the fire, magic defeating science, the flame sputtered and died as the end of the torch froze.
When he reached the wagon, he put the torch away, and took out one of his maps. Using his quill and ink, he marked "New Dungeon" on the map of this abandoned town. Once he had finished, he began setting up camp in the center of the town.
