Flur
“Do you really think there will be anything different this time?”
“Who can say? The branch head seems to think so, so who are we to question it?” Randy, the boss of our adventuring group, responded to my question with an annoyingly noncommittal answer.
I crossed one set of my arms and spread the other pair wide as I said, “I didn't ask what the branch head thought. I want to know what you think, boss. You've never led us wrong yet.”
“I agree with Flur,” Lance, our swordsman chimed in, “I want to hear what you think. This whole thing seems a bit odd.”
Randy heaved a heavy sigh and stopped as he led us through the forest. Turning around to face us, he spoke, “I get the feeling something big is going on, something we aren't privy to. From what I've heard, some people went missing a couple of days ago. Their levels were in the tens, and even if they weren't proper adventurers, they shouldn't have died in a Dungeon this new. Between that and the rumors that Octavia's been spreading in her drunken stupors, I want all of you on guard. I doubt anything will happen, but it is better to be cautious than to die a needless death.”
“Come on,” Lance interjected as we started moving again, “it's Oct you're talking about. She's a complete drunkard. I wouldn't take anything she says without a hefty pile of salt.”
“The only time I've ever seen her sober was on the way here,” I chirped, “but I've never known her to lie.”
“That's exactly why we should be on guard. Even if it's unverified, never dismiss any intel outright,” our leader admonished.
“Whatever,” Lance huffed.
After a few more minutes of walking, we arrived to the cave that served as the Dungeon's entrance.
“Everyone, get in formation,” Randy called, and we hurried to obey.
He and Muri, our healer, took the rear, while Lance led the way. Following close behind him, I paused to light my lantern as the rest of the group did the same.
The last time we had come to the Dungeon was right after we had arrived in the village. When we had scouted it, it was fairly mundane with nothing out of the usual. I didn't know if that would remain the case this time, but it was apparent from the moment we poked our heads through the narrow hole in the hill that something was different.
Whereas the inside had previously been shaped like a wide hallway, it was now narrow with a few more branching paths visible ahead of us. The walls were also different. Before they had extended to the ceiling, but now, they stopped about eight feet up, leaving about four feet of empty space above them.
“Flur, could you take a peek at what's up there?” Randy asked.
“Aye aye!” I called back as I saluted him.
A second later, I jumped, caught the ledge, and pulled my head up to make sure it was safe. I was met with the sight of a Trenti leveling a staff at my head. The instant I caught sight of it, I kicked off of the wall, spun midair, and slid into a landing on the opposing one. A red mist sprayed from the end of the staff as I did so, but I was no longer in the spell's path.
“Ranged Trenti up here! Nothing else that I can see.”
Crouched slightly to prevent my head from hitting the ceiling, I threw two daggers at the monster. They both struck the creature's eyes. It reared back, and I leaped across the gap. With one pair of hands, I grabbed my blades, still embedded in the monster, and twisted. With the other pair, I produced a second set of daggers and stabbed them into its throat.
[Trenti (Level 1) slain! No experience gained.]
“Clear!” I called out.
“Toss it down. We'll set it outside and grab it on our way back,” Randy instructed.
“It was just a level one Trenti. It did have this, though. Here.”
After shoving the body off of the ledge, I dropped back down and presented the staff it had been holding to my leader.
“It's not as good as mine, but it's not bad. It's more than I'd expect from a Dungeon this new.”
He paused for a moment as he glared upward. Then, he added, “We'll have to report this, so no newbies get themselves killed. An ambush point right inside the entrance is deadly.”
After that, we searched the area ahead. The layout seemed to be a large square with ten-foot-wide stone pillars breaking it up. It was short and far from confusing to traverse, but the layout made it easy for monsters to flank us and strike from anywhere. A Shadow Viper tried to catch us off-guard by attacking from behind, but I spotted it and put a dagger through it before it had the chance.
[Shadow Viper (Level 1) slain! No experience gained.]
“That's strange,” Randy muttered as he stared at the dead snake.
“What's wrong?” our healer asked.
“It's bigger than the last time we were here. That's a little concerning.”
Meanwhile, from our front, a Trenti came running around the corner with a large stick. Lance intercepted it with his sword, cutting the piece of wood in two, but as soon as it had blocked his attack, it dropped the remains of its makeshift weapon and uppercut him in the jaw. Clearly caught off guard by the force of the punch, our front liner staggered back a step.
My eyes widened at the sight, and I dashed in to help before it could do anything else. A few dagger strikes later, Lance had recovered his wits enough to finish it off with a powerful strike.
[Trenti (Level 1) slain! You have gained 2 experience.]
“What?” Lance voiced my thoughts.
“What happened?” our leader asked.
I responded in a far more seriousness tone than I usually used, “We got experience.”
“What level was it?”
“One,” my friend answered with as much bafflement as I felt.
“How much experience?” Randy's tone became far more serious.
“I got two points,” I offered.
“Four,” Lance stated.
“Everyone, we move forward with extreme caution. For a level one monster to give any experience at our levels, it had to be heavily mutated. This could have been a one-off encounter, but expect anything in here to be dangerous. From the sounds of it, it wasn't a named monster, so there could be more like it. Do not underestimate anything we come across in here.”
We all voiced our agreement, and after we made a small detour to dump the two monster bodies off outside, we moved on. We didn't encounter anything else before reaching the small tunnel that we had spotted the Dungeon Core on the other end of the last time we were here. Unlike last time, it was hidden, tucked away behind a large rock, but having seen it before, we already knew where to look.
“With any luck, we will find the core on the other side, and we can call it a day, but be prepared for a boss, just in case. The monsters here are too powerful to justify their low number, and monsters always guard a Dungeon's core fiercely. Hope for the best, but expect the worst.”
At Randy's words, I nodded and drew all four of my blades. I could no longer feel at ease, and a sense of danger permeated the air. I grinned. I hadn't expected any form of excitement after we were requested to serve as the guild's senior adventurers in this area. The job paid well, sure, but it had been so boring. With this delve, that had changed. Adrenaline was coursing through me, and I loved it.
Lance took the lead and we started to make our way through the tunnel. With every step, the anticipation built, and by the time we neared the end, I had begun to shake slightly in excitement. This feeling, this rush, it was the reason I had left my home in the Great Caverns to become an adventurer, and it never got old.
“Flur, get a hold of yourself,” the unfaltering gnome spellcaster that we followed reprimanded me. I slapped my face with two of my hands to bring myself back to my senses.
“Sorry boss, I'm good now!”
He was right. We were in a potentially dangerous Dungeon. I had to focus.
“Lance,” he commanded, “what do you see?”
“Something I don't like.”
We all tensed at his words.
“Well? What is it?”
“It's a narrow winding path with pits on both sides. There are trees and brush. Also, I can make out what looks like a forest in the distance.”
He paused for a moment before adding, “I think Flur should lead the way. She's better in terrain like this.”
“Ooh! I want to see,” I cheered at his description.
“Can you switch places out there?” our leader asked.
“Yeah, there's a decent sized area to stand right outside of the tunnel.”
“Okay, you two swap positions. Then, we will continue slowly.”
No sooner had Lance taken two steps out than I dashed passed him, doing a slight spin as I took in the sight.
“It's beautiful,” I whispered as I took in the scenery.
“It's too dark for me to get a good look,” Randy stated, “Tell us what you see.”
It was a shame that they didn't share my eyesight. As an insectinoid from the Moth Tribe, darkness didn't hamper my ability to see by much. Light wasn't abundantly native to my home, after all.
The description Lance had given was accurate, but it did little to capture the scene's beauty. In front of us laid a winding dirt path, small pieces of vegetation lining it with patches of grass and a couple of trees to the sides. It was large enough for two people to walk side by side along it, but it wasn't much wider than that in most places.
To either side were the aforementioned holes, but calling them pits didn't do them justice. It was as if the world fell away at the edges of the path. The drop was fifteen feet deep and went straight down. The only reason that it looked like climbing back out might not be impossible was the fact that there were vines and other plant life growing from the walls. Given how sparse it was there, it wouldn't be an easy task, but I found myself wondering if I could manage it.
At the bottoms of the drops were fields of stalagmites, each a piercing spike rising from the ground, but they weren't alone. Brush covered the ground around them, obscuring the actual floor. The view was a strange mixture of tranquil and foreboding.
The room in its entirety was far longer than it was wide, yet it didn't feel narrow. The holes were what I judged to be about fifteen feet across, and on the other sides of them, there were ledges. Along those ledges were trees, enough to give the impression that we were in an underground forest, but they weren't overly dense. That sparseness broke the illusion since I could make out the dark stone just on the other sides of them. Regardless, the view was still stunning.
The only other things I noticed were the exit on the side of the room opposite us and a couple of large holes next to the entrance. They were situated nearer the bottoms of the pits than the tops, but they extended over halfway up. I wasn't in a position where I could see what laid beyond them, but I figured we would soon find out.
Having taken in the room as a whole, I began assessing it in a more practical light. The spikes appeared to be dangerous, but that wasn't what alarmed me. In fact, the source of my growing unease was not any of the things I saw around me. Instead, the cause was what I didn't see. There were no monsters, none at all. That couldn't be right.
I explained what I saw to my team, making sure to emphasize how beautiful of a sight it was, something they didn't seem to appreciate. Sadly, where I saw beauty, they only saw danger, and what I described set off alarm bells for all of them.
“I don't like this,” Randy stated plainly.
“It's too empty. We have to be missing something,” Lance said as he skeptically glared into the darkness below.
“If any of you fall down there, I won't have an easy time healing you,” Muriel cautioned.
I exhaled as I stared at our surroundings. Even if I wasn't as concerned as the rest of my team was, I could recognize that this wasn't a normal second room for a new Dungeon, and I could see the danger.
“So, what's the plan?” I asked.
“We have to make it to the core and get word of everything we have and have yet to find back to the Adventurers Guild. We also need to kill everything we find, recover the bodies, and get details on the traps. The more information we can gather, the better. We are the ones responsible for assessing what this Dungeon is capable of. Our work here can and will save lives, so we need to do our best.”
We all nodded. Then, we began to scout out the seemingly innocuous room.