Caltovortta is the oldest dungeon inside the Kingdom of Everich. Caltovortta means dangerous place in ancient tongue, it's a place that no one in the past ever explored as there was no reason to head into a place full of monsters. It wasn't until hundreds of years ago that humans found out that these Caltovortta places held treasure.
There are many types of dungeons in the world of Gaia. Natural dungeons (created by the world), Divine Dungeons (created by gods), and then Disaster Dungeons (dungeons created from certain disasters which changed the world). Caltovortta is a disaster dungeon that only contained slimes before.
Soon the Caltovortta dungeon became overrun full of monsters, they escaped the dungeon's grasp attacking the Kingdom of Everich. From then, it was decided that dungeons must be regularly cleaned so that monsters will not build up and attack. Any sort of monster group that comes unnaturally could point out there exists a hidden dungeon not found.
Caltovortta has five floors a small dungeon, medium dungeons have around 20 floors, local with 50 floors, and regional 500 floors, and world being the size of 1000 floors. The divine dungeons are special dungeons that are usually for one person, a god's test for the individual.
Coal Ralso knew the Caltovortta dungeon as it's his lifestyle. Adventurers are given rewards for killing a certain amount of monsters in the dungeon. A staple job called 'Cleaning Quest' that pays well, and then they confirm it with a truth seeking orb to see if they actually completed it or not.
Coal usually gets around two treasure chests a week, inside they contain a few materials for mages or previous adventurer's loot. If you are found bringing an adventurer's loot they check if you committed a crime with the truth seeking orb, if you pass then you can sell it, and it passes the test.
If you are found to be a criminal who killed another adventurer in the dungeon, you would be subjected to working in the mines for life on a softer sentence. The worse sentence is to become a guinea pig for a mage.
Inside Coal was currently slashing skeletons with such a fever it would scare a newbie. Most people would see dungeon monsters as trouble and not as a challenge or reward. After all, normally they never dropped anything and were only an annoying respawning obstacle that stopped adventurers from getting the treasure they were seeking.
The Caltovortta is a medium danger small dungeon. It contains maze hallways with dead ends, twists and turns. But with the help of scouts, you can purchase a map from the Adventurer's Guild. Dungeons also have a special event that happens every amount of years, the layout of each floor changes. For the Caltovortta it changes every two years.
Coal also participates to help scout with the Adventurer Guild. As it's a really higher paying job than the usual. With new changes comes new dangers. It's during this time that deaths or injuries of adventurer's rises, and the most deaths are from newbies. Once people understand how to survive, the death count lowers by a large amount.
"I'll rest right here, the next room contains three skeletons, one carrying a sword, one with a shield, and one with a hammer." Coal was currently looking down at the map, he purchased every two years for a silver coin. A high expense that is very helpful, it can be said those who had a map were able to gain double or triple the amount than one without a map.
These maps aren't your still image of a top-down view of each room, no! They contain the things inside each room, the special traits, the location and type of trap inside. How dangerous each room is, what monsters are spotted and where. The maps are lifesaving, containing every information to help the adventurer give an accurate estimate.
"After this room, there are more skeletons over here. I need to take a right, go through that room, then head left."
Coal Ralso was looking at the dungeon map. In fact, he didn't have the third, fourth, or fifth floor map. The reason is that they cost way more than a single silver coin, and he isn't even that strong to kill those monsters on those floors. In other words, they cost more than they give.
This is a simplistic design of what the maps would look like, but just think of it as more detailed like actual old cartography maps.
The cartographer draws an extremely detailed map, there are two versions for adventurers to purchase. One that contains just the rooms and the more expensive detailed one that shows everything inside the dungeon. From the danger zones, monsters, boss, traps, healing fountains, safe zones, treasures, and the staircase to move onto the next floor.
It takes about one hour to move from floor one to floor two, you do not need to defeat the boss to move onto the next floor. In fact, you can avoid them, but the boss is also another thing that drops things from the dungeon. So many adventurers will fight the boss and loot the treasure chests.
Coal had asked for a map with only the rooms and enemies, the adventurer guild is capable of modifying how much info is stored in the maps, and they make it to the request of the adventurer's themselves calculating the cost. Maps have the date already placed on what year it will be effective in.
Having fully rested, regaining his stamina, Coal stands up from the cold hard stone ground. This small room contained a small pedestal of healing water, there was a wooden door that he came through, entering into this small safe zone. It was connected to a larger room that held three skeletons. Instead of heading left, he spotted the safe zone resting here before thinking of his next plans.
Having decided to head to the larger room with more skeletons, he changes his plan after finding a resting place. This place is super crucial to all adventurers, it has magical water that slowly regenerates people's health upon drinking it. It cannot be taken out of the dungeon and beside it does not have much effect, so you must rest in that area for a long period of time.
FULLY RESTED!
A notification told Coal that he is full on HP, MP, and SP. Getting up, he moves onto the next room to continuing to kill skeletons. Before, Coal never really cared about the skeletons, but as he killed more and more, he started to understand their movements from observation. They way they moved and the way they attacked.
They are known for holding their attacks and once a person swings at them, they attack back in a way to perform a double hit, each person connecting their attack on each other. And this is why shields are so vital to newbie's with a shield they can block that ruthless attack method. After all, skeletons don't have flesh, only bones, so it would result in the newbie dying and the skeleton winning.
Whenever he spots skeletons Coal immediately attacks without hesitation, skeletons are slow to act making the first moments a clean way to get in attacks. Spotting a group of four skeletons walking to the right, Coal dives towards them. Sweeping his sword to the skull of the first skeleton.
Crit* -54
Crack*
The sound of the skull shattering into pieces from the sudden strike to the weak area resulted in its instant death. The other three skeletons turned to face the being who caused their friend's death. Sounds of bones clanging and creaking resounded in the room, they rose their weapons to strike at the adventurer.
Coal seeing their basic movements spun around to smack the right skeleton into the rest with the flat of his blade. Stunned from his attack, falling into the others, they collapse onto the cold stone floor. Seeing them fallen over, Coal jumps doing a massive overhead attack, ending the three skeletons.
Slain 💀 ⌈Skeleton⌋ {Lv. 1} gained 4 xp
Drops: ⌈Bone Shard x1⌋ ⌈Rusted Dagger x1⌋
Slain 💀 ⌈Skeleton⌋ {Lv. 1} gained 4 xp
Drops: ⌈Bronze Coin x1⌋ ⌈Rusted Shield x1⌋
Slain 💀 ⌈Skeleton⌋ {Lv. 1} gained 4 xp
Drops: ⌈Bone Shard x1⌋ ⌈Bone Shard x2⌋
Slain 💀 ⌈Skeleton⌋ {Lv. 1} gained 4 xp
Drops: ⌈Bronze Coin x2⌋ ⌈Bone Shard x3⌋
"God Bless!" Look at the drops it not only gave him a total of six bone shards for killing four skeletons but two of them has dropped weapons with those he could sell it to the blacksmith for a couple bronze coins.
Coal filled with enthusiasm of being rewarded continued his journey in the dungeon.
Thanks for the chapter
The year is 1984! This reminds of the book 1984!
He got seven bone shards at the end. If you need to get random maps, you could try TTRPG map generators such as donjon, It makes maps for dnd and Pathfinder. You may want to start giving the dungeons names since it would get very confusing very quickly if you introduce more of them in the story since Caltovortta is their generic name from what I understood earlier in the chapter.
Oh wow thank you I never knew that a dungeon generator existed. I knew of map generators that showed the world I can use this thank you I'll use donjon it looks like it will be helpful and cut down time for me.
Also I suppose I didn't clarify it enough I meant that Caltovortta = Dangerous Place.
Caltovortta is the oldest dungeon in the Kingdom of Everich that is the given name of an ancient tongue and the generic name for dungeons are dungeon.
@Serpentes oh, ok, thanks for clarifying that. I like donjon since it has different "themes" that can influence what monster archetypes show up, so you could easily decide what is and isn't in a specific level of the dungeon also it can make hidden doors/trapped doors and treasure randomly or even just flavor text. I once had a player find a old rusted dagger stuck in the wall after he lost his gear to a teleport trap on the other side of the dungeon, had to sneak his way through goblin infested tunnels slitting throats till he found a 'friendly' troll looking for his great axe that he teamed up with. Great RP that session...