Chapter 20

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The Third Floor, The Dungeon, Medea Island

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Litan jerked away from his screaming bodyguard as the man stumbled around, flailing wildly. He stared in horror as the man was consumed by an enormous swarm of insects. His bodyguard tripped, falling to the jungle floor. He attempted to roll. It didn’t help. More and more insects covered him, looking more and more like a shifting mound of black sand. His screams became muffled, then abruptly cut off.

He was dead.

Litan had no time to do more than acknowledge his sacrifice and move on. More of these large feline monsters were approaching him and the firebirds above kept up their diving attacks. As he had expected, the insects truly were the main threat of the floor. These other monsters were designed to create weaknesses and openings for the insects to swarm and overwhelm.

He hadn’t been sure about camping in the dungeon, especially when they had so little information on the third floor. It had seemed safe enough with the insect repelling enchantments on their armor and no obvious monsters making themselves known. Well, message received.

Don’t expect to find respite in the darkness of the night.

They fought valiantly. Matha kept diverting the flaming passes of the firebirds, while the two guilders with crossbows continued to pepper the irritating birds with arrows. Litan himself and the other five melee fighters kept the large furred monstrosities away from the more vulnerable of their group. The number of monsters never seemed to change, despite the piles of them that were growing in a circle around the raiders.

Litan, in a moment of relaxation between attacks, caught sight of the mound of insects covering his previous bodyguard. It had begun to collapse, streams of flying insects rising to surround them while the ground-bound did similarly. They had left behind nothing but stark white bones and a glowing core.

He could hear the multiple swarms of insects flying around them better than he could see them, in the darkness of the dungeon. The chittering and skittering of the multi-legged monsters surrounded them. Waiting for an opportunity.

He wouldn’t give them one.

“Retreat!” He shouted, “Activate your Crystals!”

All around him lights flashed, the activation of their teleport crystals as noticeable as ever. He reached for his own crystal and managed to activate it just as three of the monsters pounced at him. A second before they would have reached him he was abruptly somewhere else.

Around him both his party and Mathas’ had collapsed to the ground, reveling in the safety of the exit pavilion. A minute later a group of guilders rushed into the tent with them, composed mostly of healers.

Once they were satisfied none of them were injured, the second type of guilder that entered led them off to the debrief rooms.

Litan and Matha were seated in the same room, soon joined by the Guildmistress herself and her assistant. Despite the late hour, the extremely pale woman hid the signs of tiredness well. Likely, she had been woken to meet with them.

“We’ll keep this brief, as I’m sure you wish to retire to your quarters.” She began, pulling out scribing tools and parchment from a bag as she spoke. “A basic overview of your delve will suffice for now. I would also request a more in-depth report from each of you, to be completed before your next delve.” She started.

“I suppose that would be acceptable.” His sister replied. Litan raised an eyebrow at her. The glance she returned was all the answer he needed. He began with the second floor, as there was nothing worth noting about the first.

“The second floor’s layout changes proved annoying, but unable to keep us from the Guardians arena. Despite its newly shifting nature, the exit to that maze hadn’t changed location in comparison to the entrance.” He informed her.

“We began exploration of the third floor by hugging the outer wall of the cavern, instead of diving into the jungle. We came upon a path leading to a cave, set some ways up the cavern wall. Inside we fought a monster. It resembled a large lizard, though fully bipedal and equipped with stolen weapons and armor.” The Guildmistress’ assistant frowned at that news, taking notes of his own even as the woman transcribed Litans words.

“It had red-brown scales, tough but not tough enough to resist my blade by any means.” He relayed. “There was no contest. It foolishly exposed its neck and I took advantage of the opportunity before the fight began.” He didn’t mention the monsters abnormal core. He would perform his own investigation and experiments on it.

“We continued around the edge of the cavern until reaching a waterfall and river. It was quite fast-moving, white with foam. We followed the river into the jungle until nightfall. Or at least, we assumed it was night. The Dungeon seems to have a mechanism that mimics the sky above, as its sun-simulacrum ‘set’ after a time. With ‘night’ falling, we made the decision to set up camp.” The Guildmistress interrupted him there.

“Why did you make that decision?” She inquired. “Would it not be more appropriate to return and next time, delve earlier in the day?” Matha snorted.

“There is far too long a waiting list to guarantee an early delve.” She informed the woman, who should really know this. “It was easier to set up a camp and stay on the third in order to continue exploration tomorrow. How were we to know the dungeon would take such exception to our presence?” She sneered at the woman. Litan placed a hand on her shoulder, wordlessly conveying to be cautious.

“A few hours into the night,” he said, “the dungeon attacked with an endless wave of two kinds of monsters. A large feline with incredibly sharp claws and a powerful pounce. The second was a bird wreathed in flames. My sister’s attention was occupied protecting us from bombardment by those firebirds. After a time, one of the feline monsters destroyed a part of the enchanted armor worn by one of my party members. With the enchantments keeping the insect swarms away broken, he was overwhelmed and consumed.”

“My condolences for your loss.” The Guildmistress commented with a softened tone. They sat in silence for a long moment before Litan finished his story.

“I judged the risk that another of us would be similarly overwhelmed too great, and called for a retreat.” The assistant nodded, obviously approving of his tactics. In his head Litan sneered at the man, even as outwardly he remained impassive.

“Thank you for your cooperation.” The Guildmistress stated as she packed up her tools. “I’m sure you’re more than ready to retire to your rooms, so I won’t keep you any longer.”

Though he frowned at the implied dismissal, Litan and his sister took the opportunity to leave the room and meet the rest of their parties.

They had more planning to do.

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The Tigers and Phoenix performed their roles perfectly!

I knew that just throwing bodies at the Platinums wouldn’t be very effective, but as a method to create exploitable weaknesses they worked beautifully. It’s true that even having them takes away from my original idea of an almost purely environmentally hazardous floor, but it was necessary. Yes, I could have used the Kobolds, but they’re my trump card. Just having generic monsters on the floor will make the guilders feel at ease.

Hopefully they take the hint that I don’t want them in my dungeon after dark and that, if they stay, they should be prepared to defend themselves.

The remaining tigers I spread out evenly through the jungle in pairs, assigning them ‘territories’ and granting them protected shelters the delvers shouldn’t be able to access. Go forth and multiply!

The phoenix flocks dispersed similarly, though in a more communal way than the independent felines. Groups of seven to fifteen phoenix nested together for mutual protection.

The Kobolds quickly adapted to their new neighbors in the treetops. Some even took the majestic birds as companions. The fire shaman was especially fascinated with the firebirds, just as the largest female phoenix was interested in her.

The various mini-bosses were adapting to their new strength and reflexes quickly. I pushed another wave of mana at them all, this time aimed at improving strength of their bones and the resilience of their scales without compromising on their flexibility. The result was almost metallic.

In other news, I’ve finally stuck Lava! Or at least I’ve gotten pretty close. It occurred to me, as the rock I dug through rapidly increased in temperature, that as this was an active volcano there should be a huge amount of pressure building up in the magma chamber. If I just casually poked a hole in the wall I’d likely find my entire dungeon destroyed by the force of the volcano erupting through me!

Slowly, I reinforced the rock between the magma chamber and my dungeon. I’m just going to have to settle for ‘fake’ lava. It’s not really fake but it feels like cheating to not take it from the very real volcano right there.

By the time morning came I’d made steady progress. The Silvers still remained stuck on the second floor, unable to remain for long enough to find the exit despite knowing its relative location. A raid party of Golds made it past the Bloodfish Sovereign after some trouble, though weren’t able to explore much of the third floor thanks to my new monsters. The tigers proved adept enough at defending their territories, and indiscriminate firebombing from the phoenix against unprepared guilders feels… Not wrong, exactly… Unfair, maybe?

Eh. They’ll adapt.

The Platinums did not delve me that day. My spies tell me they’ve begun preparation for their next delve, but are waiting for the Golds to gather more information on the third floor first.

And explore they did. On the second day post-platinum raid, all the delving Gold parties formed up into two raid groups. They spent the majority of the day combing the jungle and fighting off sudden monster attacks. It wasn’t until an hour in that a party found another ‘Combat trial’.

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Haythem swatted yet another mosquito. The damn things were out in force today. Looking back at the cave halfway up the cavern wall, he frowned. The path looked very narrow and the crumbly sandstone it was carved into seemed treacherous. He glanced up at the rustling treetops above him, wary for a flash of orange feathers. It looked like the perfect place for an ambush.

“The Platinums didn’t think much of these ‘Combat Trials’,” He started, getting the attention of the other two members of his party. “But that doesn’t mean it won’t be dangerous for us. We don’t often get the chance to fight armed opponents, so be careful.” His friends nodded, and they carefully advanced.

A few minutes later they had scaled the path easily. No ambush, no part of the path broke under their feet. Instead of feeling relieved all it did was make Haythem more paranoid.

Bertram summoned another sprite to light their way. The little fellows were certainly useful, even if you needed to be a mage to summon them. Under the light of the semi-sentient mana-being they advanced past the ruins in the entrance and down a dark hallway. Unlike what had been in the Platinums report, this one was fully excavated. The walls were fully clad in old brick, the floor cobbled. After a minute of walking the tunnel began to brighten.

Soon, they passed through an archway and entered into an arena-like circular room. The roof was raised high into a dome, the center of which was an circular opening through which light illuminated the entire room.

Behind them, a thick slab of stone slammed downward over the archway to block their retreat. On the other side of the room, another slab was raised simultaneously. From it emerged one of the described lizard monsters. Haythem squinted at the creature. He had seen something like it before, he would swear on his parents gravestones. The robed lizard raised a one-handed staff, topped with a pointed mana crystal and let loose a bolt of deep blue lightning.

Bertram had moved the second the monster raised its staff, forming a barrier of light to block the strangely off-color lightning. Flasa countered with half-a-dozen rapidly fired bolts from her crossbow. The creature waved its off-hand in a circle, forming a teal dome of mana around itself which flashed at each collision, then faded from view.

Haythems’ thoughts spun around his head like an out-of-control cart. The mana crystal on the staff was, most likely, a Guilders mana core. it was a desecration, one found almost exclusively in Lost dungeons. The most common school of thought was that to spite their former enslavers they would rip the core from their bodies and use them to craft weapons. Haythem didn’t believe that. He believed the dungeons were inspired by observing humans doing the same with their monsters and mimicked them.

Did the core belong to one of those ancient humans who had once conquered this place? Or was it a more recent acquisition?

“Haythem!” Bertram shouted in the midst of trading bolts with the monster to test its shield. “Think later, fight now!” Haythem shook his head to clear it. His eyes locked on the lizard, newly focused.

“Advance!” He ordered. “We won’t be able to kill it from over here.” Bertram ran forwards, stopped firing bolts and reinforced his light-barrier. Haythem and Flasa ducked behind the shield as well, when the monster started firing more bolts of blue lighting at them. Bertram flinched with each impact on his shield.

As they closed in, the monster retreated. At least, until its back was against the wall. It growled at them and attempted to duck sideways, Haythem rushed forwards, his enchanted sword already in motion. As he cut diagonally across the creatures arm, which it had raised in defense, he was shocked that his sword stopped upon impacting the monsters bones. He abandoned the sword and ducked under a retaliatory swing of the monsters staff.

That was when Flasa stepped in. The woman reached and snatched the staff right from the monsters grasping claw.

“Get Clear!” Bertram shouted. Haythem threw themselves backwards, rolling into a standing position and drawing his spare sword in a single motion. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Flasa do similarly, brandishing the stolen staff in her left hand and a dagger in the other.

In the next moment, Bertrams’ eyes erupted with the fury of the god of justice. Rays of furious light crossed the distance to the monster instantaneously. The monster had hastily re-cast its barrier spell, which had been so effective against the precious mana-bolts and crossbow bolts. It proved less so against Bertrams’ clerical spell.

It was moments like this that Haythem was reminded of the power in dedicating yourself to a single god, even if he had refused that path.

The furious orange light destroyed the lizards shield in seconds, where it pierced twin holes in the monsters’ skull. Bertram ended the spell, breathing heavily, and the monster fell.

They had won.

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