Evren woke before the sunrise, ate a breakfast and packed his wagon. He was standing at the entrance to the dungeon with his sword on his waist. He had weighted the end of the pull poles on the wagon in hopes that it would act like an anchor if he had to stop. He had thought of putting spikes on the poles instead of weights, but with the floor like it is now, being paved, he wasn’t sure if the spikes would find purchase and stop the wagon from wandering off. The addition of weight to the pull poles made things slightly more difficult for Evren, but he would see whether it was needed or helpful or not and adjust accordingly.
As he entered the dungeon, he stretched out with his sensory field to see if there were anything nearby, yet it seemed the tunnel was much longer than he had anticipated. He noticed ahead there was an empty room, so he moved forward with his wagon. Inside the room, he found a table that had collapsed, and an overturned chair. There was another tunnel that led away from this room, most likely towards the dungeon, which had been previously built up to only have a doorway visible. The door and the wall built up to block the passage had been torn down and cast aside.
As Evren examined the debris, it appeared as though the barrier had been taken down by people. Many of the marks looked to have been made by an axe or a sword and a few pieces of wood were dented as if struck by a hammer. Evren pulled his wagon through the breach and proceeded into the dungeon. The walls and floor a more natural stone work instead of what had been built up in the tunnel before. Evren had been in caves before, and this cavern seemed unnatural. The floor was flat and level, and the walls formed perfect, although uneven, dome like structure.
As Evren looked around, he sensed something approaching from his left. It walked on all fours, smaller than a dog, but bigger than a rabbit. And it seemed to have a long tail. As the creature came into the room, Evren recognized it as a big lizard. Evren nodded at the lizard, “Oh, hello there.” He said to it. It replied with a hiss and began charging at Evren. Evren, who was unprepared for the lizard to attack, reacted by first say, “What the hell?!” and then by kicking the lizard in the chin, sending it flying to the wall.
Evren dropped the pull poles he was holding and grabbed his sword, but he noticed the lizard had begun to dissolve and dropped a small crystal. Evren watched all of this happen with a surprise on his face, before a look of acceptance appeared. “Oh, see here I was expecting goblins and such. Who’d have thought a lizard would be the first thing to try to attack me?” Evren chuckled as he walked over to where the crystal had dropped and picked it up. It was a small green one, about the size of the goblin ones he had gotten previously.
Now Evren had a choice of which way to go, the left or the right. He wanted to make it as deep as possible as quickly as possible, so he used his sensory field to explore the area. First, he chose the left passage, after a while it branched off, so he followed the left again. That ended in a dead end, so he came back to where it split off and took the other passage. That also led to a dead end, so he decided to check the right passage. That led to a room that split off into three, with Evren taking the left passage first, followed by the middle ending with the right. He didn’t need to check the right one though, as he found the way to the next level down the middle passage.
Along the way to the next level, he fought seven more lizards, each time just kicking them in the chin as they charged at him. When he reached the last cavern, there were three lizards in the center of the room. He took out his darts, sent them flying one at a time at the lizards’ heads, then went to retrieve his darts and mana gems before taking the passage that led to the next level. It sloped down gradually, enough that Evren didn’t have to struggle to keep control of the wagon.
When he reached the next level, he scouted out the path to take using his sensory field. Again, there were lizards, but there were some bigger ones mixed in that needed a couple kicks to keep them down. This process continued with larger lizards appearing every floor until the fifth floor. On the fifth floor was a corridor that led to a large door. Opening the door led to a monstrously large room. It was at the least 100 meters in diameter and height.
Evren stretched out his senses to the room but felt nothing but a small lump in the center of the of the room. As Evren approached, he could eventually see the small lump. It was darker than the stone, but Evren couldn’t make out the shape. He stopped advancing and focused on it, a head raising up from the lump. It looked at Evren and stood up. It was a lizard, about the size of the lizard he met when he first entered the dungeon, but a dark color. Evren couldn’t see it well with the dim light the dungeon provided, but he thought the color might be a dark green.
The lizard looked at Evren then stood on its hind legs and hissed, spreading out its neck like an umbrella. The neck glowed a sickly green color and the lizard coughed something in his direction. Evren cast ‘wall’ immediately and a sticky green substance hit the wall, sliding to the ground. While Evren was looking at the spit that hit his wall, the lizard disappeared from view. Evren could sense it to the right and when he looked over the lizard was charging at him on its hind legs. Evren jumped as the lizard passed through where he had just been. It’s claws scratching the air. When Evren landed, he spun around as the lizard’s tail was closing in on him, striking Evren in his left leg. Evren leapt back in … pain?
Evren looked down at his leg, “That didn’t hurt.” When Evren looked up, the lizard had taken some distance and expanded its neck again, the frill glowing green. Evren cast ‘blast’ sending a burst of air at the face of the lizard. When it coughed out, the wind caught it and blew it back into its own face. It hissed in rage, but to no avail as Evren had closed the distance and swung his sword at it, slicing it in half ending his first boss encounter of the Aernide Dungeon.
A door at the far side of the cavernous room opened and Evren looked at it, waiting for something to come out, but nothing did. He looked back at the now dissolving lizard and found a larger green mana gem waiting for him, and a plain copper ring. Evren shrugged and put the ring in his pouch with the mana gem. He then grabbed the pull poles for his wagon and made his way to the exit on the far side of the cavern, which led to the slope leading down to the next level.
Evren was certainly excited the difficulty seemed to become greater the lower he went but was apprehensive about how challenging it would be before he reached the 86th floor. Evren shook his head of those thoughts and continued down the ramp to the 6th floor. While looking for the route to the next floor, Evren noticed the monsters for this floor were quite possibly bipedal lizards. Some of them were even carrying weapons.
As he found the route, one of those lizards had entered the room he was in. He readied his sword and faced the lizard-man. It stood upright, just over a meter tall, and looked everything like a lizard, except for the hands which carried a weapon. The weapon was a short sword, almost short enough to be considered a dagger, and in its opposite hand was a small wooden shield. Its legs were a little longer than a regular lizard, but its body was still long and slender.
The lizard-man hissed at Evren and charged, swinging its sword from the side at an angle upwards. Evren blocked the blade with his sword and watched the lizard for its movements. When the lizard-man stepped in for a shield bash, Evren stepped to the left avoiding it. The lizard-man then spun away from Evren, sending its tail at him. Evren took the hit in the leg, in roughly the same spot the frilled lizard had. It stung a little more than the frilled lizard and had a bit more weight to it. The lizard-man used the impact to swing back around, aiming its sword at Evren. Evren deflected the sword upward, causing the lizard-man to stumble back. He could have stepped in to finish it off, but this is the first time he’s had an actual sword fight with something, so he wanted to use the time as best as he could.
The fight continued for a few minutes longer before Evren finished the fight with a pommel strike to the monster’s head. He had thought the lizard-man’s skull would be harder than it was. Evren picked up the slightly larger sized green mana gem from the floor and put it in his bag. Evren continued to fight the lizard-men for longer than he needed to when they had weapons. When there were two of them with weapons at the same time, he would fight them both. It was fortunate the lizard-men weren’t very strong with their arms; thus, the swinging of their swords was slower.
It felt like Evren was fighting little evil children. He almost felt sorry for them, but he was having too much fun to care about that. As he progressed, occasionally he would get spirited and his movements would have much more of a flourish to them, or he would shout on when blocking or striking. As Evren moved down floors, he lost track of time. He wasn’t sure if he needed to take a break, or if it was almost evening, or even if it was night yet. He didn’t care though. He figured he’d stop when he got tired.
As Evren descended, the lizard-men would become more varied with the weapons they used, and the fighting style that they displayed. All the better for Evren, variety is the spice of life! When he got to the boss room on the 10th floor, he noted the door, and the size of the room were the same. This time in the center of the room was a lizard-man holding a staff. Evren dropped the pull poles, drew h is sword and waited to see what the lizard-man was going to do. It hissed and let out a guttural sequence of sounds, its staff coming forward and pointing at Evren. A black mist escaped from the staff and snaked its way towards Evren.
Evren dodged to the side, but the mist followed him and struck him in the arm. Evren suddenly felt a cold chill come over him, and he got nauseous and vomited immediately after. He looked at the lizard-man with blurry eyes as it stood there waiting. Evren cast ‘skewer’ at the lizard-man, but since his focus was blurry, the shot was off, and he missed. The lizard-man slowly approached Evren as he knelt on the ground, with his left hand holding himself from falling. The nausea was overwhelming him, and the room was spinning.
As Evren tried to focus on the lizard-man, he held out his sword in front of him as if trying to aim. The lizard-man stopped at the end of the sword, out of range and tapped his sword with its staff. Evren cast ‘jet’ at that moment, a stream of fire extending out from his sword engulfed the lizard-man in flames, causing it to dissolve after falling to the floor. Evren dropped his sword and fell to his side, rolling onto his back. He cast drink on his hand and let the handful of water fall to his overheating head. The nausea and vertigo getting the better of him, he passed out there on the floor.
