The day began wonderfully, with a delicious breakfast of eggs and bacon. I was making them and storing them as dawn neared, serving them as people woke up and came to join me around the fire.
We’d cleaned up the surroundings of blood and bodies before we set up camp yesterday, not wanting the smell of the rotting corpses to attract any scavengers, or disturb our rest. Most of the corpses were useless, though there were some bits that we could salvage, even if their value will have dropped from neglect.
One thing that wouldn’t drop in value was the monster cores. After monsters died, their heart and mana crystallized, becoming a monster core. These were often used in magic tools to provide power so those who couldn’t use magic could still use the tools. These kinds of tools could be very simple, but were still quite expensive, so mostly they were restricted to the wealthy.
I had a bunch, but I tended to just use magic directly. However, my stove was powered by a magic stone so it provided steady heat. It made cooking a lot easier.
Unfortunately, I had no idea how to use the ones from this world, since they seemed to work a slightly different way than they had on Valla. I’d tried adjusting things, but to no avail. Maybe this was the reason I’d failed to create a magical alarm clock. I’d been using the cores from Valla, and the ones from here I had to study up on, and the information I needed to do so wasn’t readily available.
I really didn’t want to join another guild, but it was looking like I might have to join the mages guild in order to get the information I needed.
Anyways, after I’d cleaned the immediate vicinity, we’d set up camp. I’d wanted to build some stone walls around the place, fortifying it, but had been told not to. There was a good chance that after we left here some other monster group might decide to return and claim it, making it more difficult when a force came in to truly lay claim to the area.
We couldn’t claim any of the kills for the corpses we dealt with, but we’d have a good payday for what we’d salvaged.
And what we were about to acquire.
After breakfast, we cleaned up our camp, not wanting to lose anything should monsters show up after we left. Or soldiers.
They’d been left fifteen miles behind us, and we’d come another two since then, but it was rough terrain, and they were likely not used to it. Nor were they very good fighters compared to our group. They weren’t bad, but there was a lot of wasted movement and openings not exploited. It made the fights last longer and be more dangerous.
Since this was the second day after our departure, I was fairly certain they’d make it here by this evening. If they couldn’t cover seventeen miles in two days, there was something wrong with them.
So we didn’t want to leave anything for the douches to pillage while we dived into the dungeon.
Actually…
“Hey guys. How are we doing this? I know we’re surveying the dungeon, but this is my first, so I don’t know what that entails. Are we mapping each level completely? Or are we just trying to suss out what monsters live on each and try to reach the bottom?”
“The latter. While we will map out our path, our goal is to investigate what spawns here and how dangerous the place is. Once we know that, the dungeon’s entry requirements will be decided.”
“Okay, sounds good. The reason I’d been trying to get to rank four was because of those requirements. I’d been planning on heading to Uldas, but from what I’d read I couldn’t enter their dungeon alone without that rank.”
“That’s why you stuck around here? Just to raise your rank?”
“No, there were other ones. Like having plenty of monsters to play with, markets with goods from all over the place, and a library I have yet to read my fill from.”
“You and your reading. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, but you seem more like a scholar than an adventurer for how much time you spend in there.”
“The more you know, the better you can deal with situations that crop up. Like your local monsters. I knew goblins, orcs, and ogres from Valla, but there were dozens whose names I learned with no clue what they were. There’s some I still don’t. Like seriously, what’s a gurbnak? I looked through a lot of bestiaries and couldn’t find the damn thing.”
The looked at me for a minute, then broke down laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“There’s no such thing as a gurbnak. They’re a fictional beast written as being wolf-like creatures, but with tentacles growing from their necks with which to grab misbehaving children so they can slowly devour their struggling prey. They come out the night of the new moon to hunt.”
“So they’re the local boogie monsters used to scare children into behaving properly. Got it. Then why would the guild post a request for one? I saw it in the last city I visited before coming here.”
“Probably some parent paid the guild to put the thing up to spook their kid. After all, if its posted in the guild, it must exist.”
I shook my head. What nonsense. Well, I’d seen weirder things. I shuddered at one particular memory, and quickly shut that down.
“So, everyone finished packing? Great, let’s do this!”
Unlike me who could just pop my shelter into and out of storage, the others had to put some effort into theirs. It took time to assemble and disassemble the things. Raiden hadn’t bothered with a tent, sleeping on a bedroll wrapped in his cloak. He’d brought a tent along, in my storage, but hadn’t considered it worth the effort to assemble the thing if the weather was fine.
With everything stored away, We headed towards the entrance to the dungeon. These entrances were supposed to all be identical, looking like a peculiarly shaped rock with a large hole in one side that led to the stairs downward.
It was my first time seeing one of them, and entering a dungeon, so I was enjoying myself. It was like I was playing an RPG and starting my first dungeon grind. I knew it was the real world, and therefore dangerous, but I couldn’t help but feel a bit of glee.
Had I been alone, I’d have been all ready to map the place out, but since there were others here, I followed along as they started walking.
The first floor was rather small, and we actually ended up mapping nearly all of it before we found the stairs downwards. It’d been tucked in an alcove down what looked like a dead end. The monsters here were slimes and rats. Nothing spectacular, and nothing worthwhile dropped.
Slimes were hell on weapons and armor, but their only drop was their core, unless it was destroyed to kill then in a single hit, in which case you got nothing. Rats could drop their meat, but it was tough and nasty. Only good for monster feed. They could also drop their core, but the ones both monsters dropped were like grains of sand, so small it was easy to lose in the darkness. The core contracted after monsters died, shrinking in proportion to how much mana they contained. And weaklings like these could barely be called monsters.
The second floor was larger, which was normal. Dungeons were like a pair of pyramids with the bottom one inverted. The floors started small in size, growing until you reached the midpoint, then decreasing again. The bottom floor was almost entirely occupied by the boss room, though there could be mid-bosses, usually every five or ten levels, though the books had told of places where it was something else.
One dungeon, called the Prime Dungeon, had bosses on any prime numbers, and had 37 floors. Sadly, the country that housed it was the one that shall not be named, so the chances of me visiting it were almost zero. Maybe if they had a revolution and stripped their church of it’s tyranny.
The second floor housed goblins. Most of them were unarmed, though there were some with sticks. Easy prey.
Third to fifth floor were also goblins, with increased numbers and more advanced species. Since there were tamers, there were also wolves. Still not a challenge. There was a boss room at the end of the fifth floor housing a goblin lord and his entourage, but they were destroyed in seconds.
Since there was a boss, there was also a better reward left behind, but since we weren’t noobs, the steel sword, basic and without any enchantments, didn’t excite us.
The next set of levels, 6-10, housed kobolds, ending in a kobold lord as the boss. They were slightly stronger than the goblins, but had better cooperation. They also laid traps for intruders, but they were crude things and easily detected. The boss reward was an enchanted collar. It increased defence, but it was a dog collar, so it’d be getting sold. Let some poor noob wear the thing.
Orcs occupied floors 11-15, and was where the mid point of the dungeon was. The enemies here were the only ones so far to drop anything really useful, since they dropped their meat… and their testicles. I wasn’t interested in the latter and left it up to Teryll to collect them into his storage.
Aside from the orcs, there were also some animal-type monsters periodically, wolves, bears, and other creatures that lived in forests and mountains, with changes to differentiate them from normal animals. Like the bears having four arms. We even triggered a dungeon trap, a monster house that assaulted us with hordes of fluffy bunnies! Of course these were ones that were larger, with sharp horns on their heads. Still, their meat tasted good for dinner that night.
The boss was an orc warlord, surrounded by over a dozen other orcs, all advanced types, including knights, archers, shamans as healers, mages, and tamers with their beasts, the same ones that roamed the floors. Along with plenty of meat, our reward for taking down this boss was a book. I didn’t know what it was, but it got everyone excited.
Apparently it was a skill book, something only found in dungeons that would teach the user a new skill and then turn to dust. Since it removed the learning process to acquire the skill, these items were highly sought after, and valued. Especially by those who wanted a skill, but were unable to learn it, sometimes despite years of effort.
The skill book we got was for lightning magic, which was extremely rare. Considering the orc we’d fought was a speed type fighter who’d clad his sword, which hadn’t been able to land a single blow due to the difference in power levels, in lightning. An orc warlord that was a fast moving magic swordsman. He’d have been an interesting opponent, if he hadn’t been too weak for us.
Ogres of various types were in the next set of floors. Some were horned like the oni from Japanese mythology, others were dyed in various colors and could use magic. There were also large animals, some of which were ridden by the ogres. The floor’s corridors were wide and tall to accommodate the ogres and their steeds, and their numbers were low.
The boss of this set of floors, was a Cyclops. The thing was huge, but surprisingly fast for its size. It also had an ocular magic that had paralyzed Karl when he entered it’s range. Fortunately it seemed to have a cooldown, and that we were able to pull him away from the monster before he was crushed to paste.
A small sphere with a paralysis effect was the boss reward. An enchanter and smith could work together to put it in a weapon and make any damage done have a chance of inflicting the debuff on the opponent. While not as valuable as the skill book, it was a great item.
We knew we’d find them eventually, so we weren’t surprised when Lizardmen were occupying floors 21-25. Since the mid point was in the orc zone, there wasn’t much more than this, so we had to come across them here.
The most of the previous floors were like caves, and that continued here, but there were also ponds and waterways at various points which the lizardmen sometimes hid in to try and ambush us. I say try, because we were able to detect them.
As we descended, more and more of the advanced species appeared. Mages, shamans, rogues, even a couple of necromancers. The normal ones were also well equipped, with weapons and armor, which surprised me. None of the ones on the surface had anything like that.
When I asked about it, I was told that they were magical constructs that could only exist in the dungeons, similar to the traps we’d been having to stop and disarm or avoid. Unlike the monsters that were made from miasma and filled with mana, these constructs would fall apart as they lacked a proper vessel to keep them together.
It didn’t happen instantly, which is why stampedes were so dangerous. Well equipped monsters were worse than those who relied on just their bodies. I guessed that it was these constructs that had allowed the escapees to win the battle of the races even though they were outnumbered by the orcs and individually weaker than the ogres.
The boss of the twenty-fifth floor was a lizardman chief. Twice as tall as a normal one, he was clad in gleaming armor and equipped with a trident. Surrounding him was dozens of other lizardmen. While they weren’t as well equipped, they were still armed and armored better than the others we’d faced.
And then there was the chief’s pet. It resembled a komodo dragon, but was far larger. Those who didn’t know better might have called it an earth dragon, but it wasn’t. The thing was massive, with sharp claws and a mouth full of pointy teeth. But it was far too weak to be a demi-dragon. And no, I’m not just saying that because I’m overpowered.
Earth dragons are the weakest of the demi-dragons, but they were still twice as powerful as this thing was. This creature had size on it’s side, but it’d be helpless if it had come across the real thing.
The fight was actually harder than the one on the surface, mainly because the enemy wasn’t fighting us barehanded or with whatever weapons they’d been able to assemble. Nope, they fought like soldiers, ones that had been well trained.
It didn’t stop us from killing them. I got rid of the big bads right at the start, not wanting to see what the chief and his pet could do, then started picking off the magic users. They might have been wearing armor, but there are always gaps, like the eye holes. Shooting amped up arrows through those small openings was tricky, but doable. Especially when they stopped moving for a moment. It was harder to do with the melee fighters, so after the ranged targets were eliminated I jumped in and started getting stabby.
I could have used magic anyways, like using space magic to separate their heads from their shoulders, but I felt the need to move my body.
I was still holding back, and my allies probably knew that, but I was much more active than I had been, so they should have no reason to complain, especially as I handicapped myself, but still took out nearly all of the enemy’s rearguard in under thirty seconds. The ones I didn’t get were taken care of by Susan and Teryll.
The fight took us ten minutes, even though it was objectively a harder fight than the one that took us half the day. Fewer enemies, but stronger, boosted by being geared, and with a giant lizard to help them. Yeah, it’d have been a nasty fight.
It was also the last fight of the dungeon.
The 25th floor was the last one, and was almost entirely a single large space made to be a battlefield. There were two other spaces besides it, first the antechamber that led into the boss room, and the treasure room afterwards, which also housed a magic circle that’d return us to the surface.
Our rewards for taking out the boss were two fold. First there was the boss drop, his armor. As suspected, it turned out to be made of mythril, and had a resizing enchantment that’d allow most humanoids to wear it. It was also enchanted with cleaning, auto-repair, and temperature control, so the wearer could stay comfy and clean in shining armor.
Great for showing off, not so much on the battlefield as it would attract the enemy’s attention and make the wearer a prime target. Still, it was nice and sturdy. Mythril wasn’t rare and valuable for nothing. It was far stronger than most materials, and had great magic resistance. It was damned hard to enchant mythril because of this, so a set of mythril armor with four enchantments was worth a ton of money.
The armor was the only the first of the rewards, the item dropped by the boss. As we’d also cleared the dungeon, a second was waiting for us in the treasure room. Set on a pedestal, a short one that even Thilgad had no trouble with, was a bejeweled treasure chest.
It was so shiny and encrusted it was astounding.
Which told us that we were the first to clear the dungeon, either ever, or in a LONG, LONG, time. The longer between dungeon clears, the stronger the monsters become, even if there’s a stampede, as the dungeon becomes over-saturated with mana and miasma.
This also increases the reward for clearing the dungeon, as seen by the treasure chest. The more elaborate it is, the longer it’s been since the place has been cleared.
After checking it for traps, even though it’s the dungeon clear reward, it’s best to be on the safe side, we opened the thing.
Inside was a whole array of items. Weapons, armor, magic tools, gold and gems, ingots of metal including mythril, and other goodies.
As the clearing team, the treasure was ours, and it’d make us filthy rich… if we sold it. We’d only be wealthy if we just sold the gems and lived on the gold.
We checked the items and if they were something someone had need of, and no one else disagreed or wanted it instead, it went to them. Like in a game, it was best to give the items where they did the most good and strengthened the team.
I wasn’t interested in any of the weapons or armor. While I wasn’t using it, I had better stuff stored away. I did want the mythril.
I’d found that even with creation magic, there were restrictions, including being unable to reproduce materials high in magic from mana. The skill worked with them just fine to create items, if I had them to use, but I couldn’t make them from nothing.
Thilgad was the same, wanting them since he was a smith. Fortunately, there was an even number, so the two of us split them between us.
There were also skill books, nothing I was interested in, but ones that would make things easier on others, including one for space magic. There was some debate over having one of Karl’s team learn it, but as none of them other than Teryll had a very large mana pool, it was decided to sell the thing. It was worth it’s weight in platinum.
Those that were useful were used. Including the Lightning magic one from the earlier boss. Teryll had seen me playing Sith Lord and had become interested, not having been so before, since he’d have to learn the thing from scratch.
The group agreed that he could use it, being as interested as Teryll himself had been, especially when it was used on armored opponents, but it wasn’t a good idea to use skill books in a dangerous place. As they taught the user how to use the skill, they knocked them unconscious for however long it took, which could be up to three days from what I was told.
Other than the mythril, there was one item that really interested me. It was a small orb like a snow globe containing a building. It wasn’t a house, but looked like a workshop. None of the others were able to appraise the thing, their skill level being too low, but I could.
[Divine Workshop: A portable workshop made of indestructible materials. The tools within are also indestructible and never need to be maintained or sharpened. Creations made within increase in quality and have the chance to gain additional traits and abilities. Only usable by blessed craftsmen. Binds on use and can be summoned to the owner if lost. When the owner dies, it disappears to seek its next owner.]
This item was made for people like me. And it’s appearance here was not a coincidence. Considering the information said it sought out its owner, it would have likely appeared before me at some point even if I hadn’t found it here.
“You guys mind if I take this?”
“You want to claim it now, before we get someone skilled enough to appraise it? What if it ends up being a cursed item?”
“I have a good feeling about it. It’s like it’s calling to me.”
No one else was interested, though Thilgad might have been considering he was also a craftsman, though unless he had a god’s blessing it’d be useless to him, so they let me claim it.
Anything that wasn’t needed by someone was going to be sold and the proceeds split between us. However, while there were some good auction houses in the port city, they’d earn more if sold in the capital, where the nobility and royals gathered.
I was hesitant to head there, but decided to join them anyways. After all, if I went there, I’d have to keep my promise and try to meet with a certain girl.
Plus, I’d only stuck around the port city since it had plenty of stuff to help me raise my level as well as to read. There was bound to be other points of interest and things to do in the capital. I just needed to do my best to avoid getting into any sticky situations, especially those involving nobles.
Once we’d finished sorting through our loot, distributing the useful stuff and storing the stuff we’d sell, we went around the pedestal the treasure chest, now rather plain looking, with only some light gilding, and onto the magic circle behind it.
There was always a portal in the treasure room leading to the outside for those who’d conquered a dungeon. It made it much easier to get out, rather than having to walk back the way we’d come or waste the escape orbs we’d acquired from treasure chests we’d happened on.
Some dungeons had ways to move between floors easily, like having teleporters that could be returned to once activated, but for the most part the only quick escape was from the end.
Once we were all gathered, Raiden put his hand on the orb contained within a small pillar in the middle of the circle, and with a flash of light we were back on the surface.
And surrounded.
Ah, it seemed that some time in the last ten days as we’d progressed through the dungeon the soldiers had made it here. They were looking rather the worse for wear, dirty and with wounds here and there, some looking particularly bad. If it weren’t for the fact that their armor was still similar to each other, I’d have taken them for bandits.
There were only ten of them. I don’t know if the others were away from the rather crude camp we’d arrived in, or if they’d perished, and I didn’t really care to…
Raiden on the other hand must have felt some responsibility for them, since he stopped me from leaving immediately.
Okay, so there was also the fact that we were tired. We’d just finished a dungeon, having fought through hordes of monsters and had to find our way through the labyrinthine pathways below ground as we did so. A night’s rest was a given.
I even let him persuade me to pull out some of the supplies prepared for them. I wasn’t in a very forgiving mood, having lost the good feelings I’d had at conquering the dungeon as I saw them, and had weapons drawn on us. They also didn’t seem to regret their actions.
The swords got put away, having been drawn as they were startled by our appearance, but despite what had happened before, they continued to try and treat me as a simple pack mule, rather than a powerful mage.
In fact, they blamed me for all their troubles since we’d parted, including the loss of two of their number. Since they said only two people died, the other four must be off doing something. They’d been warned repeatedly, and still failed to get their act together. They must be noble brats.
While they hated me, they listened to my warning this time and took what they needed from the supplies before I stowed them away again. Then we left.
We didn’t go far, I just opened a portal to the ledge we’d stayed at the day we arrived here. It was nice and high, with few routes up to it, and therefore easily defended. Since it was only a distance of two miles, I could have held it open for a long time, but my companions hurried through like there was still the usual time limit.
There were cries from behind us, ordering me to stop or to not leave them behind, but they were ignored. They were now resupplied, so they should be able to make their way back to the city on their own.
Raiden pulled out the notebook, which had been kept, but not really used since we’d separated from the assholes the first time. He wrote an update, including resupplying the soldiers and reporting the losses.
A reply came that night, and a written conversation was held between the two.
The army was nearby, relatively speaking, being maybe eighty miles away. They’d run into some troubles and had taken longer than intended, but wanted to see if I could drop the soldiers off with the army in the morning.
I really didn’t want to get involved with them again, but the commander had been nothing but polite, so I agreed. It took a bit to find where they were, but I did so, using clairvoyance to scout the area, then told him to mark off a spot to portal in tomorrow morning. Looking again a few minutes later, I was able to confirm the location. With the troops there, we wouldn’t have much to worry about as long as the area remained clear come morning.
We didn’t bother informing the soldiers about the next day’s schedule.
