The group enjoyed a good meal, a good night's sleep, a good breakfast and eventually, in the morning, left for the Ratcave. The group were in the trunk of the carriage with their luggage, which mostly meant rations and water. Haina told Kiresula that while she probably could forage there, she by all means should not. He had scary stories about people getting confused about similar mushrooms and ended up dead. The dungeon, apparently, loved to confuse people who collect mushrooms by changing their appearance to make them look more similar.

Mayana and Kiresula were hugging while the carriage rattled through the countryside. As it did, Kiresula felt utterly disconnected from the world around her. Her class wanted her to see where she was going. Her skills wanted her to have a mental map of her surroundings. The fact that neither was possible at that very moment grated on her.

When the carriage arrived after a short trip that felt rather long to her due to these factors, (even though her [Grains of Time] skill told her the opposite), Haina ushered them into the dungeon. The group was wearing cloaks with long sleeves to conceal them being glitchlings. The environment was the ruins of an inn, where the entrance to the cellar led to the dungeon. Right now, there was a queue at the entrance and all three of them waited in line. The others were all mostly teenagers and people who had menial jobs and just went into the dungeon on their day off to get some items or skills that they otherwise couldn't. None of them looked like they had good equipment or levels in a combat-focussed class. People chatted with each other, sometimes happy, sometimes nervous and sometimes braggadocious. A teenager, barely old enough to have received his class, joked about how often he'd level up and how no rat had a chance against him. His mother cautioned him to pay attention and not to take any risks, while the older daughter reminded him that last time he had to be carried out and healed there, to which he told her to "be quiet! People can hear us!"

A farmer couple seemed to consider this a pleasant outing and were all over each other in a way that only couples that spent a lot of time together and still loved each other a lot, were able to do. An elderly gentleman tried to corral his grandkids, who were a loud terror on the others in the queue, just as young teenagers in the age where they gain a class are wont to be. A nervous pair of twins was in front of Kiresula and the group. Both of them shifted positions and reminded each other that this would be okay.

The dungeon didn't let everyone in at once: The cellar door closed after each group and remained closed for about a grain of time and then swung open to invite the next group. Or, in some cases to let out the bruised, tired and in at least one case, drunk as a skunk adventurers, having used the instanced setting apparently to get sloshed without anyone interfering. Sometimes, after a group exited, the door immediately closed, sometimes, it remained open to let in another group. As it was still the morning, the groups that exited all looked ready for a good nap.

Eventually, it was the turn of the group of glitchlings. The doors opened and everyone stepped in holding hands.

The rest area of the dungeon was looking like a simple bedroom in a farmhouse. A window opened to a small vegetable garden where an outhouse was located. There was no door, but Kiresula, feeling nature's call, opened the shutters of the window, clambered out and went there, squatted down and did her business. Having done what needed doing, she looked around. And she gasped: The stone slab on which she had squatted just covered a larger hole. It could be lifted and based on what she could glean from it, it should be: There was a series of handholds on the sides of the hole where crap dropped. She felt rather nauseous at the thought of what that meant. She held her nose closed, used her [Illuminate] spell to look into it and saw that the hole was just as dirty as it seemed.

Kiresula returned to the group, but not before investigating the garden and looking at the strange vegetables in there. All of them were basically inedible but had medicinal properties. From what she heard about the dungeon, the plants helped against conditions imposed by the dungeon creatures. Kiresula smiled. This dungeon was prepared well for its delvers. It provided a challenge but also a bit of a safety net should things fail.

Kiresula clambered through the window and told them in excitement: "I have looked for a place to use the facilities and found a secret passage. Yes, it is exactly where you expect it to be."

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Mayana made a retching gesture: "Please tell me that it's in the ceiling. Please!"

Kiresula put her hand on Mayana's shoulder: "What would life be if things were easy? Or well-smelling!"

Mayana looked about as green as a glitchling can be: "It's great that I do not have the exploration related class that helps with climbing! Jokes aside: Do we have to climb down there? I don't think it will help us level up!"

Kiresula nodded: "I don't think we should do so until we're done here. But if this leads to the core, we probably should know. We don't need to teach it now, but the more dungeons know, synthic magic, the better."

Mayana nodded: "I know, I know, but my mental nose is absolutely disgusted by the smell."

Kju tilted his head: "Maybe we can find something in the actual dungeon to weaken our sense of smell. Or the dungeon is just so putrid that after a while, we don't care anymore."

The others nodded and exited through the dungeon door that was inscribed by a rune of the original people, the Ancient Imperial word "bodrum", a je-ashvehanu squiggle, and the Mainlandic word "cellar". As they did, the air was stale and smelly, the sound of scurrying and rustling was heard. Taking step after step downwards, the group was on high alert. Mayana held her dagger with a fresh fire enchantment in her hand, ready to pounce on any creature that was dumb or desperate enough to get into range.

The first creature that did so was a rat the size of a small dog. It emitted two squeals while clambering up the stairs and afterwards, the noises seemed to focus on their location and approach. Moments later, Mayana had stabbed the dungeon creature into the neck and its squeals and movement stopped. Kiresula gave an encouraging "Well done!" as they made it down the last steps. Then they looked around under the light of Kiresula's [Illuminate]. The room had shelves with pickled vegetables in jars. There were barrels on the ground and based on the smell, they contained salted meat or fish and on the corners, piles of onions and sacks of flour were located. Both the piles and sacks moved too much for Kiresula's liking. She pointed to the movement in the pile of onions that was stashed in the corner of the room to her left and asked: "Shall we?"

"We shall!" Mayana responded and they both kicked the pile. There was squeaking, then one uncomfortably huge grey rat tried to jump at Kiresula. She used an overchanneled [Fire Strike] to bash the creature with more fierceness than grace. In the moment of the spell, her Elemental Awareness temporarily deactivated and while she knew that she had to expect a moment of non-perception, she still felt clumsy when using it. The rat fell motionless to the ground and she moved to stomp on it. As she did, she felt something touch her on the back of her legs. Turning around, she saw Mayana slashing at a rat, blood splattering everywhere. Kiresula once again stepped towards a moving pile of root vegetables and tried a spell that she so far had not tried: [Wind Repel]. Against a flying giant rat, the spell did preciously little, but the sudden confusion allowed her to [Fire Strike] the rat with an overchanneled spell. Again, the rat only died after Kiresula used the mundane force of her body weight on it by stepping on it, not by the magical force of her spells. She listened for any rustling, nibbling or the pitter patter of small feet on stone floor. Her ears found the next rat before she could consciously see it. She kicked the animal as it was trying to approach Mayana's backside. Moments later, the rat tried to approach again, this time slower. Kiresula kicked the creature again and stomped onto it.

She heard an angry squeak and snarl and then, a deluge of rats appeared from everywhere.

Kiresula used kicks, [Fire Strikes] and the occasional [Bite of the Elemental Beetle] towards the eye of a rat. She noticed the fire of Mayana's strikes in her elemental awareness but could not even dare for the fraction of a second to avert her eyes of her part of the legion that approached. She struck the tiny critters again and again, crouching down in order to plant her [Fire Strike]s and [Ice Strike]s better. She noticed that the latter worked better against the rats. She shouted as the onslaught of monsters didn't stop, slowly changing her punches with large, arching movements to clear the area around her. These long swings left her elemental awareness blind. As the fight progressed, she felt the strain on her stamina and the sweat dripped down her back and forehead.

Eventually, the onslaught ceased. The last creatures didn't cause any more of a challenge than the first one and as the room lay in complete silence apart from all of them panting and sweating. Kiresula looked around. She didn't like what she was seeing: There were too many rats for the places they could come from. Her elemental awareness made it very clear that these ratholes didn't lead anywhere. Yes, the dungeon could place some giant rats in there, but it must have created the legion of rats while the group was fighting them, which… was not what dungeons normally did. "I don't like this. I don't like any of this. This is not what a dungeon should do. I feel that there is something I am not seeing! And to be honest: it sends a shiver down my spine!"