Log 13:

Date: July 7th, 2190 I.C. 

Time: 13:06

Location: Orken Power Plant Dungeon 

I step through the Dungeon Entrance. The darkness obscured my view, preventing me from seeing what lay beyond it. It was as if I were opening a chocolate box. You never know what you’re gonna get inside. 

I felt a thin layer of Ether envelop my body. The entrance to the dungeon rippled as I made contact with it. Though the sensation of passing through the entrance was similar to walking through the Warp gate earlier, it was much colder as if screaming to me that danger lurked ahead. 

It didn’t sit too well in my stomach that I was going on my first Dungeon Dive in half a year. I couldn’t help but feel anxious. Yet, at the same time, I couldn’t afford to be careless. 

I squinted my eyes a couple of times to adjust them to the lighting of the Dungeon. To my surprise, there weren’t any except for the torches lining the walls. It was eerie that there were torches ‘welcoming’ us into the Dungeon, but Dungeons were strange in the first place. 

The limited light provided by the torches made it seem that the Dungeon wasn’t very spacious. It was shaped like a tunnel, and if I do my mental calculations correctly, the distance from where I’m standing to where the torches are situated should be no more than twenty feet on both sides. As for the ceiling, it appeared to be approximately fifteen feet at its peak. 

While these measurements may seem pretty large, for a Dungeon, it was quite small, which meant that it would be difficult to fight with my Gleafaver. On the bright side, it would be easier to see where our enemies would come from. 

“Shit,” Tanya spat as she realized that her bow won’t be of much use in these tight quarters. “I’ll have to use these instead.” 

Tanya placed her bow away in her compressed weapons case and pulled out two crescent sickles, a weapon originally from Jannad. Their handles were wrapped in a thick fabric that seemed worn down a bit from use, but their blades still shone brighter than the light provided by the torches. 

Meanwhile, Blank had walked over to the wall and snatched a torch without a shred of hesitation. 

“There are no Ruins,” Blank said, waving around the torch. “These are just ordinary torches, we can use them instead of wasting our energy to conjure a flame and Ether life on our Rangefires.” 

Everyone nodded, and Nicolette grabbed another torch. We decided to take two since we might need some free hands for other things in the dungeon. Plus, at least we’ll have people who can engage in combat immediately, if necessary, while the torch bearers keep a lookout in the front and the back. Blank decided to hold onto the first one since he needed it to see the Ruins up ahead, while Nicolette decided to hang onto the second one since she isn’t exactly a combatant. 

Now that was settled, I sauntered over to one of the walls of the Dungeon, pressing my fingers up against the rough sandstone. I channel the Ether contained in my body to my fingertips, the warm energy coursing through my veins, making contact with the wall. 

It was time for the chant. 

>>>

In order for me to obtain the information contained in the Veins of a Dungeon, I need to manipulate my Ether in such a way that it matches the rhythm of a certain chant. Think of it as a password of sorts. The chant is the password, while my Ether is the hand typing away on the keyboard. Make one wrong mistake, and that means you have to input the password again. This precision of manipulating Ether is what makes learning Vein languages so difficult. 

As for Alconian Veins, think of it this way. 

While simpler Vein languages might be similar to making your own password that has some sense to it, Alconian Veins are akin to asking a password generator to generate a random password only to have it spit out a bunch of gibberish that’s even harder to memorize than the simpler password you created. 

>>>

“Ese ot fles ruoy laever dana noit cennoc ahr silbates. Inoa clafo slaut cellet nieht forev ira ot nika wolf taht snive. Eht dnif dan kme.” 

(Rough Translation: Seek and find the Veins that flow akin to a river created by the individuals of Alconia. Establish a connection and reveal yourself to me.) 

My Ether fluctuated up and down through the subtle cracks of the Dungeon’s interior, matching the cadence of my chant that sounded more like a mutter. It didn’t matter how loud the chant was, just as long as you said it correctly and your Ether matches its rhythm. Plus, it’s not exactly the brightest idea in a Dungeon to scream your chant where man-eating monsters could get you at any moment. The only people who would do such a thing are those who are, in fact, idiots or those with a death wish who want to look cool. 

As my chant came to an end, luminous blue lines with symbols engraved underneath them materialized on the walls of the Dungeon, purging away the darkness separating the torches that were there a moment ago. However, the lines only formed across ten feet of wall before abruptly stopping. They stayed on the walls for as long as a breath, then retracted. The blue veins fading away were akin to water pouring into a pit, but the pit, in this case, was my hand, then my arm. 

A surge of information rushed into my brain. 

Yet, it didn’t feel like a rush. 

I could see the information. 

Read it and its complex symbols. 

My eyes shot open as the blue lines receded. 

“Got anything for us, Ms. Analyst?” Tanya’s voice pricked my ears. 

I nodded, a gloomy expression present on my face. 

“Yes.” I frowned. “But you’re not going to like it.” 

“Spill the beans, will you, Rai,” Nicolette said curtly as she planted her staff into the ground. 

“There’s a time limit to this Dungeon. The clock had started when the Dungeon formed.” 

Gerhman folded his arms together, placing his hand on his chin. 

“How long?” 

“We have until midday two days time. On the bright side, I figured out that the Dungeon is linear, and the Boss Chamber is only a five-mile trek from the entrance.” 

“Anything else?” 

“Yes, the monsters we can expect in this Dungeon are Black Desert Tarantulas, Barbed End Viper Scorpions, and Bouinas. Other than that, I’ve got nothing else, so I’ll have to check at half-mile intervals to see if any information changes.” 

>>>>

Being able to read Veins is not an omnipotent skill. While one can extract information from the Veins, that information is limited. As such, a Vein Analyst like myself has to conduct an analysis at various points in the Dungeon. Think of it this way, reading Veins is like reading a book, except all the pages of the book have been ripped out and scattered across the floor, but the floor is also wet, and the ink on the pages has been slightly smudged. The Dungeon is the book; we can only read part of that book without ripping the pages by conducting an analysis via a chant and our knowledge of the Vein language. While we may not get the full picture of the Dungeon, any information we can obtain is good. Plus, the more the better since knowledge is power. 

>>>

“There aren’t any traps I can find within a half-mile,” Blank said, pointing ahead. “Tread with caution.” 

Tanya pressed the Core on her earpiece and spoke, “Send in Backup in 30.” 

“Understood.” A voice on the other end replied before a loud click ended the message. 

“Let’s go!” 

We had officially begun our dive into the Dungeon. For the first quarter of a mile, nothing occurred. However, once we crossed that point, our first enemy appeared. 

Pitch black arachnids the size of my body with eight long hairy legs with spikes protruding from them scurried across the sandy ground and the walls of the Dungeon. Their six beady red eyes running parallel on the sides of their oval-shaped heads glowing a bright crimson. Their sharp fangs behind their pedipalps snapped louder than their legs scratching against the hard surfaces in the dark, narrow tunnel while their bulb-shaped abdomen shook violently to their movements. 

Black Desert Tarantulas!

These guys were a common monster prevalent in the desert. While they are individually weak, they become a threat when you’ve got over a hundred of them on your tail. However, that’s only for low-rank Adventurers. 

In the blink of an eye, tens of arachnids went soaring into the air. Each with a massive hole on their body. It happened so fast that the Tarantulas were still twitching. Green blood spilled from their body, giving off an acrid smell. One that smelled like rotting human remains. 

Blank was holding a blade in his hand pointed in the direction of the arachnids. The flame of the torch he was holding still flickering as brightly as when he took it off the wall. There wasn’t even a trace of Ether that could be sensed off the tip. I’ve heard of his skills back at the Guild, but seeing them in person was quite different. He was a talented sword wielder. 

Next, I saw the heads of the arachnids fly off, separated from their thorax. The sickles in Tanya’s hands clean without a trace of blood to be seen. 

With a wave of my needle sword, a giant yellow Sigil with a teardrop inscribed on it appeared in thin air, coating the areas with the Tarantulas roamed. Nicolette thrusts her staff, and a glowing orange flame Sigil materialized with flames spewing out of it, incinerating all life it contacted. The Black Desert Tarantulas screeched in agony as the flames burned away their defenses. Their legs contorted in all different directions in an attempt to extinguish the oil fire. 

A white Ether shield enveloped our group, shielding us from the fire. 

“I found an opening. Let’s go!” The Gerhman shouted, pushing his shield through the flames and some burning giant hairy spider corpses. 

Following behind Gerhman, we pushed our way through the Tarantulas, their bodies now crumbling into ash. We kept running until we could no longer see the flames nor hear the sound of scuttling but only the sound of our footsteps. I glanced behind us, there was no one and nothing following us. 

"I think we're okay." 

Tanya closed her eyes. Since she was an Archer, her sense of hearing and sight was much stronger than anyone else's. 

"Anything?" Gerhman asked. 

"No, we're good...for now-" 

"I found a body." Blank interrupted. 

"A what?" 

Blank held the torch closer to the wall off on his right. A cracked human skull sitting atop a pile of cracked bones was nestled tightly into a crevice between the wall ad the sand beneath it. 

"A body." 

My face twisted into one of horror. 

Things were getting strange. 

The time limit on the Dungeon. 

A dead body. 

What was going on?