What they found under Puebleque were spiders and... a city. The buildings were golden, of all things, with glass windows, that were either cracked or reduced to shards on the floor.

The guild made its way through the streets of the city, making sure they were not separated. With Ludwig and Ebony leading the charge, the only thing they had to deal with were the smaller spiders.

This city, heck, just one of its streets, could see each one of them so rich they wouldn't be able to know what to do with their riches. But they all knew, that, if they dismantled the entire city, not only will they waste a lot of time, but they will flood the markets with so much gold the entire world economy will crash.

So, after the city was cleared by the spiders and the eggs that were left behind were made into omelets, just in case, Leander made himself a platform and addressed the guild.

"This city of gold once belonged to a civilization older than the elves," he told them. For, this was what Soed and Alklair could agree on, and they were the guild's resident history experts. "And we will not chip away at the buildings."

No one argued with him. This gold was too much trouble to get, worse to keep.

"We will take everything that is not nailed down. And we won't breathe a word of that to anyone," Leander stressed the word not, for he knew that his own platoon was guilty of taking a door, from Belle's dungeon.

"How long do we have to pi...loot the place blind?" Leander grinned at Antonia, who had nearly said pillage.

"The city is big, so, no more than three days. Stay in your platoons. I will assign you all three stone golems each. Remember, if we have missed a boss mob, run for it. Get back-up. Then, go back and smash its head," Leander was answered by the roaring crowd.

The city of gold looked like it had been abandoned in a hurry one day, before the spiders had moved in. The wooden furniture, which had been well-polished at one time, has long since been reduced to wood cuttings, but there were plenty of things to be looted.

Jewelry boxes, made of steel and filled to the brim with all kind of decoration. The cutlery was not spared, either. As it was made of silver and that was in almost all the houses. In some, it was made of gold. In others, more wealthy ones, out of titanium.

The adventurers were already making plans of getting all that titanium to Ulric and having him make them grade 10 weapons and armor. For he was one of the few people who could.

The allowed time passed, and the guild gathered back before the platform on the main street.

"Now, I will understand if some of you want to go home," Leander began, but people began to shake their heads.

"What about the Father of Monsters! We have to catch him," Valerie called from the crowd. That mob, if it was alive, had brought down such a rich civilization and erased it from the memory of the world. It could do the same with the surface civilizations at any time.

"Yes, if we leave now, people will forget about this place. Then, the mobs will get up to the guild house and swarm Huergaz," Dorian also was not in favor of leaving.

"We are adventurers, not soldiers. You said so yourself. But we have something in common with them. A sense of duty, so to speak. We have to show our worth," Alklair spoke and everyone nodded.

"Thank you," Leander bowed, and he pointed to the direction of where they have come. "There was no dungeon core in here, but we can't think there is no core in the surrounding area. The city of gold had been overrun in one fell swoop. There is a core, somewhere around here. Did anyone find ancient texts as you looted?"

A couple of adventurers raised their hands, and Leander nodded to Soed.

"Go with them. Take Alklair. Find any clues as to where the core might be hiding. We can't leave our backs turned to it. Or leave this city for the spiders," Soed nodded and went to Alklair.

"Come on, partner. We have a job to do," Alklair nodded, but his eyes were narrowed. Soed had called him partner, almost absentmindedly. Like it was a habit.

Could Soed really be Asmodeos? How old had Asmodeos been when they had first met, in that abandoned mine where the necromancer was soloing a swarm of goblins? Asmodeos had never, not once, given him a hint as to what his age was.

But, to expose Asmodeos now, with the guild not being as strong as it had been when Alklair joined it, was folly. Asmodeos could bury them all in here, go to the surface, and then do to Huergaz what the Father of Monsters had done to this city.

Then, a thought struck Alklair. Could it be? Was Asmodeos the father of monsters? He could understand the words of the lost civilization better that Alklair, for all that the former guild master was an elf and the words were reminding him of his mother tongue.

If there was no other choice, then Alklair would fight Asmodeos. But, he would not attack Soed until the man showed his hand. They stopped before a large stone slab, that had hectically written words on it.

"The Father of Monsters brings the plague," Asmodeos began to read. Then, he stopped. "Alklair, I don't recognize that word."

"Eternity, it is eternity. But, instead of the dot over it, it has a line," Alklair clarified. He looked at the adventurers who have brought them here, and wondered if he could protect them from Asmodeos.

"Eternity is over. Our time is over. We must go to the blue emptiness, or perish. Huh, sounds like they thought that the land above was dangerous, or something." Alklair nodded. Then, he and Soed shared a look.

"Alklair, weren't the first elves short? Almost no bigger than goblins? And, all the golden furniture shows that it was meant for short people," Soed began, and Alklair's eyes widened.

"Are you saying that the elves lived in the tunnels? That the Father of Monsters pushed them out and up, and they...evolved? But, only mobs change so drastically," Alklair couldn't wrap his head around the thought that his predecessors might have been comfortable in those tunnels. What had made them forget where they have come from, then?

Asmodeos looked at the foreboding words. A plague, huh? Well, it was good that Valerie was with them. For she was the Plague's Bane, and no plague was going to get the guild down on her watch.