They soon had the campsite packed up and were off again, deciding to continue following the stream until it was closer to dark. Susan evidently thought the danger had increased, as she now had her gun out and ready to fire, as opposed to before when she kept in in her shoulder holster. That caution turned out to be unnecessary, at least in the short term, as it wasn’t until the next morning that they came across something. It wasn’t a large mutated animal of some kind. Instead, it was a very, very large tree.

Levi was the first to see it above the tree line. Susan was too busy keeping an eye on their surroundings and didn’t have time to look up at the horizon. She was easily able to spot it when he pointed it out though, and they took a moment to pause and process the sight when they came to a turn in the stream with a better view.

It was huge. Levi guessed they must have been at least a hundred kilometers away, but at that distance the top of the tree could clearly be seen, lording over the rest of the forest. He had never seen the famous Redwoods, but they couldn’t have been that tall, could they? The normal trees in the forest already seemed a bit tall for an average pine, but from what he could see this tree had to be at least twice as tall.

The creek was flowing towards the tree, so Levi didn’t need to ask for a detour to go check it out. His inner fantasy senses were tingling, surely a tree of that size couldn’t be normal?

It took them a good four hours to reach the point where the creek was parallel with the ginormous tree, and from there a short ten-minute walk to get to its base. Or part of its base. Levi slowly walked up to it and put his hand on it, making sure he wasn’t seeing things.

“This is real, right?” His voice was unconsciously full of reverence. It was almost like he was in the presence of a primordial god.

Susan couldn’t answer, and just stared at the tree before her, trying to process the size.

They had known the tree was tall, that they could see from far away. But as they got closer, it turned out the tree wasn’t actually that tall. It was hard to judge, but Susan estimated it was less than a 50-story building. That was still tall of course, but it was the tree’s girth that was truly impressive.

It didn’t end. Well, it did at some point, but what Levi and Susan were standing in front of resembled a wall made out of wood more than an actual tree. They could barely see the curvature of the wood as what they assumed was the trunk stretched out in either direction. Levi tried to find something to compare it to, anything that would even begin to describe what he found himself in front of. He couldn’t. It felt like he stood before a cliff made out of wood. Like this was actually a mountain someone had just painted to look like a tree, and that any minute someone would jump out and yell “Surprise!” as the curtain was lifted, and the magician’s trick revealed.

The two of them stood in silence for a while, taking in the huge expanse of wood that filled their vision. Levi hadn’t been sure what type of tree it was from a distance, but now looking at it and appreciating the full size it seemed similar to some tree in Africa whose name he couldn’t remember. Babalabob or something like that. Having something to relate the monstrosity to calmed him down slightly. Looking at something this big made him realize just how small he was. It was easy to just get lost in the majesty the giant tree radiated, but he eventually recentered himself.

“We should walk around it. If nothing else this is a large landmark that would definitely attract someone if they could see it. Maybe there will be some people here.”

Susan nodded. “That’s true. Even if no one is here now, there still might be something like the remains of a campsite. We should be careful of monsters though. This looks like it could be prime habitat for those monkey things.”

They randomly chose a direction and set out to circle the tree. There was a large stretch of grass in between the tree and the pine forest, which made the walk rather easy and pleasant. There wasn’t always a clear path next to the stream and they often had to move around trees and clamber over roots and rocks. Were he not worried about danger, Levi would have been more relaxed now that they were clear of the spooky forest, but, confronted with something as unknown as this giant tree, he thought it best to be on guard. Even if Susan did most (all) of the fighting he should still keep his eyes peeled.

There were quite a few sounds coming from the top of the tree, but as far as Levi could tell they were mostly bird calls. He hadn’t seen any giant killer parakeets yet, but that didn’t mean they didn’t exist. Since Susan seemed to be focusing more on the tree line around them he chose to keep an eye above. There wasn’t any cover short of the forest twenty or so meters away, so he wanted a heads up if they were about to be dive bombed.

“Hey Levi, do you see that?”

Because he was primarily looking up Susan was the first one to discover the hole in the tree. She had to direct his attention ahead of them, where there was a clear indent in the wall of wood.

“You mean that hole over there? Yeah, I see it. What do you think it is?”

“I don’t know, but I would rather not approach it from the side like this,” Susan said. “I think we should move to the cover of the woods and scope it out from tree cover before we move in for a closer look.”

Levi nodded “Sure, sounds good.”

They moved over to the forest before stealthily moving in front the hole in the tree. Stealthily being relative here, as neither one was a particularly adept woodsman. They did have some cover though, which turned out to be irrelevant as there was nothing there once they arrived in the patch of forest opposite the hole. Well, there wasn’t really nothing, there was a hole of sorts, but there weren’t any creatures. The whole area was suspiciously still.

Now that they were looking at it from head on, the hole itself was more of an indent. From what Levi could see, it appeared the tree curved in on itself to from a sort of large doorway shape. Large being about ten or so meters high. The strange thing was what the indent contained, or in this case, didn’t contain. There was an opening there, of that Levi was certain. But what was in it he couldn’t say. There was a strange shimmering curtain of something blocking his view. Except it was transparent. He could both see and not see into the opening at the same time. It was the strangest feeling, and Levi didn’t really have any parallels expect maybe a really thick pane of glass, but even that felt off.

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“Do you think it’s safe to go closer?” Levi whispered. He wanted to check it out and it seemed safe, but maybe Susan knew something he didn’t with her skill.

“It should be,” She said, standing up and walking back towards the opening. Levi followed.

They moved over to stand in front of the opening, the size now appearing much bigger with it right in front of them.

“So, any clue what it is?” Susan asked, turning to Levi. She deferred to his greater knowledge of the System and how it worked.

“Maybe. Let me see if I can check.”

Levi turned his focus on whatever was in the opening, concentrating on using the System to figure out what it was. If his guess was correct, he should get some sort of feeling or notification. He didn’t get a notification, but the System did confirm his hypothesis.

“It’s a dungeon,” he said, his excitement palpable.

Susan frowned, “You mean like one of those things in castles where they keep prisoners?”

“No, a dungeon is something else. Well, that’s also a dungeon, but this type of dungeon is different. Dungeons are a core aspect of any role-playing game and go back to the versions played with a pen, paper, and dice. It’s basically a giant area where monsters congregate, and people go in them to fight the monsters and get loot. There are often multiple floors or areas and a boss of some kind, usually with smaller bosses leading up to a big one at the end. The monsters usually respawn too, and when you kill them they drop loot. Kind of like I thought the monsters here might, but maybe it’s only the dungeon monsters. There’s often puzzles and traps in them too, so we should be careful when we go in.”

Levi’s’ excitement rose as he continued talking. A real dungeon! Dungeon runs had always been his favorite part of RPGs. He had even helped set a few speed run records by finding out shortcuts and optimal pulling strategies, although he never was able to reach the technical skill to achieve them himself. By the end of his speech he realized he was going in there, whether Susan wanted to come or not. Perhaps that was a rash decision, but he had been thinking earlier about wanting to get stronger, right? A dungeon was the perfect place to do that. Who knew what he could find inside!

Susan cocked and eyebrow at him. “I take it you want to go in then?” Levi was looking at the dungeon the way a dog looks at a particularly juicy bone.

“Well, yeah.” He at least had the grace to look at little bashful. They had been working together, so if they were going to go in he probably should discuss it more first, even if he was planning to go in anyway.

“We at least need to investigate” Levi continued. “This could be a great opportunity. And if it really seems dangerous, we can just leave. Just think of the loot we could find! Flaming swords and wands that shoot lighting! We could even find a bag of holding!”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Susan said, a bemused look on her face. Levi seemed pretty mature in general, but his current actions reminded her he was over twenty years younger than she was. She didn’t really know what he was talking about with all this loot stuff, but based on what he said, this did seem like a place they should try exploring. Susan didn’t know all this game terminology, but she did understand that higher numbers equals more power, and power was looking more and more important in this new land they were in.

They made one last check of their supplies before entering. Levi wasn’t sure they would be able to find food once they were inside, and it would be a shame to have to leave because of lack of provisions. Once that was done, they had nothing stopping them from entering. Susan thought she should be the one to enter first, being the one with the gun and all, but Levi convinced her to let him lead, at least for the moment. It was easy to see he really wanted to be the first one in, and he was able to convince Susan that the beginning should be fairly safe. After one final mental checklist, they finally moved forward, piercing the opaque curtain and entering the dungeon.

Levi’s first sight was darkness. Or well, to be more accurate, it was dark enough he couldn’t see, his pupils still not dilated enough to see in the low light environment he now found himself in. Darkness was just the absence of light after all, so you couldn’t actually see it. Or at least he thought so, but who knew these days? This was regular darkness though, and after Levi and Susan stood there for a couple of minutes their eyes had adjusted enough to make out basic shapes, even if colors were still beyond them.

“Do you think we should use the flashlight?” Levi asked. While there technically was enough light for them to see by, it would be easy to miss something in the gloom.

“Probably,” Susan replied. “If we’re here to explore we need be able to see well enough figure out what kind of place this is.”

Levi nodded, and took his flashlight out of his backpack and turned it on, illuminating the surroundings enough for them to finally get a good look around.

They appeared to be in a cave, which Levi wasn’t sure if he had been expecting or not. On one hand, they just walked into a giant tree, but on the other, weren’t dungeons always in caves? He thought he remembered hearing that caves weren’t nearly as common as novels made them out to be, something about naturally occurring caves needing limestone or something, so maybe it made sense that the dungeon caves in real life needed to be located in a giant tree.

This wasn’t the time to think about that though. If this was a dungeon, which the System seemed to think it was, he needed to be on his guard. But it was hard to stay focused now that he could properly examine his surroundings. The cave was beautiful in that way that only nature could be. Levi had never been spelunking or entered a cave of any kind before, and now that he was in one, he was a bit overwhelmed. There weren’t any of those stalactites or stalagmites, he could never remember which was which, or even any lichen or moss, which he had been led to believe were cave staples. No, there wasn’t anything in the cave except rock, rock, and more rock.

That was what made it beautiful though, the curves and jagged edges having a beauty all their own in their sheer simplicity. The ceiling was a good meter or so above his head, and Levi thought it would take three or four of him holding hands to touch both walls at once. The shadows danced over the walls as he moved the flashlight over them, half expecting to see ancient cave painting of a long-forgotten people. But there was nothing, just a long tunnel of stone gradually sloping into the distance where his light couldn’t reach.

Once he got a good look at his surroundings it made Levi profoundly glad he wasn’t claustrophobic. There was a weight to the cave, almost as if he could feel stone above him pressing down, the sheer mass possessing a pressure all its own. He glanced over at Susan, glad she was holding up okay. It hadn’t crossed his mind that the terrain of the dungeon could affect them. Imagine if they had crossed the barrier and the dungeon had been underwater? Much better it was a simple cave.

“You ready?” Levi asked.

“I am,” Susan replied, adjusting he hold on her gun. “Just make sure to aim the flashlight at anything that moves. I want to see what I shoot at.”

“Will do.”

With their meager plan out of the way, the impromptu dungeon diving duo set off. There was a dungeon to explore.