It didn't take them long to find the dungeon. It was a small round dome in the earth, no taller than a man. It would be easy to miss, if not for the fact that no plants or trees grew over it. In the hungry Jungle, it stood out like a bleached white bone in the middle of a garden.

There was a hatch at the top of the dome, with four indentations for hands. That reminded him that, with Ruth here, they had one more than normal. That meant there was an extra person to split the rewards with.

Well, they hadn't been likely to get anything decent out of this dungeon anyway. Getting twenty percent experience for killing a level 10 monster wasn't much worse than getting twenty-five percent.

Four of them placed their hands in the indentations, and the hatch cracked open with a pneumatic hiss. They dropped down the ladder into the dungeon's entrance. It was a small, circular chamber with white walls and a single exit. There were a handful of rune circles glowing on the walls, like lamps. The second all of them were inside, they received a system message.

CONGRATULATIONS! You have discovered the dungeon GLORIOUS ASCENSION TO ULTIMATE VICTORY. Spawn level: 8.

“That's a name,” Ruth said with a laugh. “Is that normal?” She pulled out a notepad and some setting clay and started getting measurements on the runes.

Mary shrugged. “Anyone can change the name. A scout was probably having a laugh.”

After a few minutes of waiting for Ruth to finish, Darius adjusted his glasses. He probably thought the nervous tick was subtle. “Can we please just get this over with? Some of us have plans for later today.” He looked around with a frown. “Where are the monsters?”

Mary stepped past him, through the seemingly empty doorway. It rippled like a disturbed pond as she passed. Josh clapped Darius on the shoulder and followed her, his armor clattering as he did.

Passing through the invisible barrier didn't feel any different than stepping into a cold room, though far more sudden. On the other side was a room identical in size and shape to the first, still round and white. Mary had her gun out and was getting ready to fight.

Four small creatures, the general size and shape of raccoons, were spread around the room glaring at them. But these animals had already been corrupted by the Jungle. Their tails were thick, thorny vines, and more thorns sprouted from their fur at random locations. Some of them dripped liquid.

Procyonic Thorntail. Level 10 Monster. Yeah, it's an evil raccoon. Really, this dungeon is a terrible environment for them, you're going to have an unfair advantage. You should probably leave. That poison is painful. Or don't! It would probably be funny to watch you die to a level 10 mob.

Poison, Josh thought. Brilliant. At least they had a Mender.

Thankfully, the monsters hadn't attacked yet. Before they could change their minds, the rest of the party stumbled out behind them.

“Stephen, Ruth, you're in the back,” Josh ordered reflexively. He drew his sword. His steel sword. He had decided against bringing one of his wooden ones, even with Ruth's enchantments. “Danson, you're with me. We're the distraction. Mary, you ready?”

She checked her revolver one last time, all trace of silliness gone. “Ready.”

“Go!”

Josh jumped forward and, to Darius' credit, he was just a step behind. One of the raccoons hissed and leaped forward, its thorns extending even farther. Josh stepped to the side, letting Darius move in. The raccoon slammed into a glowing blue shield made of light that surrounded his body. Properly distracted, it left itself open for Josh to stab through its neck in one swift, sure motion.

Mary's gun roared, the sound echoing in the enclosed space so loudly that Josh thought he might be deafened. He ignored that, though, moving on to the next threat.

The next raccoon didn't leap at him, but attacked his ankles, trying to dig through the wooden shin guards with its teeth. Though the armor saved him for a second, it wouldn't hold for long. Josh kicked the monster hard enough for it to hit the wall, then followed after it and swung his sword. Attacking small monsters was always awkward, but he managed to skewer it on the end of his blade.

A moment later, another gunshot echoed around the chamber. Josh turned to see Mary glaring at him, looking annoyed. She said something, but there was a ringing in his head, and he couldn't hear her.

Stephen pointed his staff at him. Healing magic flowed through Josh, and his hearing returned even as the ringing disappeared.

“She said, she wanted to get more than you,” Stephen explained patiently. Even as he spoke, the red mist rising from the monsters transformed into white and flowed into all of them equally.

Josh dug some blood out of his ear. “This isn't a competition.”

Mary crossed her arms over her chest. “You say that because you won.”

Josh chuckled. “Yeah, that's true.”

Mary directed her glare at Ruth. “I would have had a better time if someone hadn't jumped into my firing lane!”

“This is literally the first real fight I've ever been in!” Ruth said. She sounded almost cheerful, and her smile was somewhat mad. “I wanted to get some hits in, not just leaked experience!”

“That's not the argument you think it is,” Stephen said dryly.

“You'll get shared experience just by being in the dungeon,” Josh said. “Everyone in the same party is equal.” In the Old World, it had been a common way to power level newbies. You didn't need the weaklings to actually fight to get experience. Now, dungeons managed to both be too dangerous and not dangerous enough at the same time. You couldn't protect a newbie all the way to a dungeon surrounded by high-level monsters, and once you got there, everything inside was too weak to be worth it.

After checking the system messages—none of them got much experience from the raccoons, as expected—they moved on. Josh briefly considered looting the bodies, but none of them had the skill to skin them properly, and they didn't have any bottomless bags to make bringing the whole bodies back easy. He missed having bottomless bags.

The next room was slightly larger, and had six raccoons instead of four. It was only slightly harder, and Ruth did indeed get a few hits in. Josh still won his contest with Mary, though, which put a smile on his face.

Most of the rest of the rooms were much the same. Some were a little bigger, some had a few more enemies, and in some the monsters attacked the second they saw them. But none of the rooms had more than eight monsters, none of them were higher than level 12, and they were never seriously threatened. They cleared a total of six rooms like this, one after another, doing little more than pause in between so that Stephen could heal them and occasionally recover mana. Darius and Stephen both leveled once, which was nice.

They stopped in the sixth room to use the Meditation skill. Well, the system called it a skill, but people said it was actually a technique. It was only listed as a skill because it didn't cost stamina to use.

Under normal circumstances, mana regenerated at a rate of 1 point per Flexibility stat per hour. Considering it was entirely possible for even high-Capacity people to burn through their entire mana pool in one or two fights, that was a huge downside. You couldn't pause for a couple hours after every fight. Mana potions were far too expensive to make, as they didn't have any members of the Alchemist class any more.

Instead, they used the Meditation skill. Everyone learned the skill as soon as possible every reset, usually soon after they learned their first spell. It let you breathe in the mana of the atmosphere, process it inside your body, and use it to refill your personal mana pool. Your Flexibility stat still influenced your regeneration heavily, and it was a common rule of thumb that Meditation changed it from a point per hour to a point per minute.

It wasn't actually that simple, Josh knew. The density of mana in the atmosphere played a huge role. You could even dry up the mana in the atmosphere, using it so fast that more couldn't flow in fast enough to replace what you were burning up. But at their low levels, most of that hardly mattered. Really, even stopping here was just being overly cautious. They'd had no trouble with the first six rooms.

The seventh room was a fair bit worse.

First off, it was bigger. It had one small, circular room that was more like an entry chamber than anything else. An entire quarter of the room was missing, creating an effect like a window into a much broader space. It was another circular room, big enough to park a fleet of cars in. The ceiling was the same height, though, creating the odd effect of making a larger place feel more cramped.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

There were also more monsters. Josh thought he counted as many as twenty, but it was hard to tell because they were all clustered in one big pile, writhing and crawling all over each other.

“What are they doing?” Ruth whispered quietly.

Not quietly enough, though. A large beast looked up, its maw bloody. It was too big and too muscular, with vines writhing around its head like a lion's mane, but Josh still identified it as a horse.

It roared at them, and every other monster perked up as well. In seconds, there was a flood of beasts rushing towards them. Josh identified more of the Jungle-touched raccoons, several birds with leaves for feathers, and a number of smaller rodents that were likely rats.

The biggest threats, however, were definitely the horse and the viper as thick as Josh's leg. Those two both looked as though they had gone through advancement at least twice, meaning they were at least level 16.

“Mary, the horse!” Josh called as he ran forward. “I'll handle the snake! Everyone else, kill the little ones, quick as you can!”

Josh might be in a non-combat class right now, but he had grown up fighting on the front lines of this war. He had spent more time fighting than most people spent sleeping. Just because he couldn't learn any actual Combat techniques hardly made him helpless.

He swung hard, aiming for the snake. Unfortunately, he missed a step. He clipped a rat by accident, cutting it in two and sending a splash of foul-smelling viscera across the floor. The snake, however, dodged backwards, before hissing and lunging forward again.

He didn't have enough time to recover, and its fangs bit deep into his ankle. He cried out in pain—he'd lost the armor there two rooms ago. He grit his teeth and swung down again. Unfortunately, both his Strength and his Constitution were too low to get a really good boost. Still, it was enough, and the snake was beheaded.

Josh imagined he could feel the poison—venom, whatever—burning in his veins. He checked his stamina; still more than enough left, even with his exertion. He took a deep breath and focused. He hadn't even used a real technique, but he had still burned one point of his tiny stamina pool.

More gunshots echoed around the chamber. Josh had gotten used to ignoring them. He glanced back to see that the horse was closing the distance to Mary, who was backpedaling while quickly reloading her revolver. Without any damaging techniques or spells that she could use yet, guns weren't the best solution against a big, advanced enemy like the Jungle-touched horse.

Josh stepped forward, but his leg immediately collapsed under him. He cursed under his breath. As a Hunter, he'd had half a dozen movement techniques and spells that would let him close the distance. As a low-level Crafter, it was too hard to learn new combat abilities, especially advanced ones that worked at range.

He hefted his sword, cocked it back, and then...

Threw it at the horse.

Throw Sword was an easy technique to earn, but took an absurd amount of effort to get it to reach a useful level. At low levels, you would be lucky if you hit the broad side of a barn, and even luckier if the sharp end hit your target.

And that was if you could learn the technique. Which he hadn't. The rules for which classes and roles could learn which abilities were complex, and mostly still a mystery. The fact remained, he didn't have a single combat technique or spell. He missed his target completely.

Thankfully, he didn't really need to hit his target.

His sword clattered to the ground a good five feet from the horse, which caused it to stumble and flinch away. It was a distraction, and not a very effective one. It only paused for a moment.

That was long enough for Mary to finish reloading.

She shot it twice in the head at point-blank range, leaving nothing but a gory mess. She immediately turned to scan the rest of the room, looking for more targets.

Josh followed her gaze. At a glance, everything else was dead. Between Darius attracting the monsters to himself and Stephen healing him, Ruth was easily able to smash them apart with her enchanted club.

He had known they'd be fine, but still, it was a relief. He let out a deep breath... and then his wounded leg collapsed under him.

He didn't lose consciousness, but he almost wished he did when the others cried out in alarm and ran over to him. Thankfully, other than that, everyone was fine. It still slowed them down, since they had to wait almost an hour as Stephen continuously healed him while they waited for the poison to run its course.

At least he got something out of the fight.

CONGRATULATIONS! Due to testing your designs in real combat, you have learned the blueprint: Pierce-Resistant Armor (wood). It's still made of wood, but it's more effective at blocking arrows! Warning: Blocking arrows is not guaranteed. The System does not take responsibility for arrows piercing through your terrible armor.

It wasn't much, and he hardly got any experience from learning the blueprint. Still, he didn't have a problem with it. This was more of a proof of concept than anything else. Though wooden armor was just a couple steps up from useless, eventually he'd be able to craft something better. And now he knew for sure that he could improve through combat and trial.

Ruth had sketched every rune she came across, even though she hadn't had time to test any of them yet. Even though none of them knew what any of them did, at the very least the extra blueprints from the runes themselves would be worth something. Besides, Josh had some ideas for rune chains that she might like.

“I feel bad for complaining,” Ruth said slowly, “but... is this too easy?” She glanced at Josh. “I mean, I know you were hurt, but—”

He waved her off. “No, it's fine. Getting one moderate injury over seven fights is easy.” He shrugged. “But that's a dungeon for you. All the scary things leave when they can. It's just the weak things that stay inside.”

Ruth nodded. “I read about that. The monsters are only allowed to leave the dungeon once a year, the day before the reset. But why are they here in the first place?”

“It's not...” Darius started to respond, then stopped, looking between them.

“Go ahead, buddy,” Mary said. “I don't think anyone else wants to explain. It's a hassle.”

Darius adjusted his glasses. “They aren't allowed out the day before the solstice. That is when the Tower gathers its energy for the reset. The barriers weaken, and they have the opportunity to escape. That's all.”

“Oh,” Ruth said, nonplussed. “I guess that makes sense. And where do they come from?”

“It's the Jungle,” Josh said, suddenly feeling more tired than he had for years. “The Jungle rips open rifts to new realities, trying to find fresh blood. The Tower then drops these dungeons on them, sealing them up.” He shrugged. “For whatever reason, the Tower can't get rid of the rifts entirely, so it just keeps them contained until we come along. We can seal rifts.”

“Oh,” Ruth said, sounding surprised. “Monsters come from rifts? My tutors never mentioned that!”

“Well, they used to come from the rifts.” Josh winced as the poison took some more of his life. Stephen healed him again. “But once enough got out for their own breeding population, it didn't really matter.”

“I've never understood the theory,” Stephen said, even as he projected light from his staff over Josh. “The teachers explained it, sure. It just doesn't make sense. Why do these rifts appear? Where do they lead? Why does the Tower seal them up?”

“Oh, that's easy!” Mary counted them off on her fingers. “No one knows, nobody knows, and who knows?”

Josh rolled his eyes. “Oi, you don't have to be all snippy.”

She affected a posh air. “I respectfully disagree.”

He scoffed. “Whatever, you spoon. How are you on ammo?”

She checked her pouch. “Lower than I'd like, but not terrible. I can handle one more big fight.”

He grunted. “Good. The boss is gonna be a bitch.”

Ruth looked between them with wide eyes. “There's a boss monster? No one told me about this!”

Darius raised an eyebrow at her. “Then perhaps you should have thought to do some research before diving headfirst into danger, Miss Moore.”

Ruth flinched.

“It's alright, innit?” Mary said, rubbing Ruth's hair playfully. “Don't worry love, it's the boss of a tiny dungeon no one bothered to clear yet.” She glanced at Josh. “What level was that snake?”

Josh double-checked his combat log. “Looks like... level 17. Yeah, that's what I thought.” He stood up and stretched. “Even Mary can handle a boss of that level.”

“It won't be level 17,” Darius warned. He turned to Ruth, explaining mostly for her benefit. “I would estimate level 20. Perhaps as high as level 23. It likely won't have reached its next advancement, at level 24, which is a small mercy, but 23 is still dangerous. I'd prefer to retreat and try again tomorrow, in fact.”

“We don't need to retreat,” Stephen said with a smile. “Honestly, Darius, you act as though I'll fall apart if a monster so much as looks at me. I've been doing well with the healing so far!”

Darius adjusted his glasses. “You underestimate our foes at your peril.”

Josh smiled. “Come on, Danson, I think we're working well together, right? You keep covering him, Mary keeps doing damage, Ruth and I keep covering the gaps. We'll be fine, all right?”

That seemed to mollify Darius. Ruth was less confident.

“Can we get back to the boss monster?” she said with a squeak. “What does that mean? Is it some sort of giant elite with like, six stages and minions and it transforms into a human and traps us in nightmares and—”

Mary clapped a hand on her shoulder. “Breathe.”

Ruth took a deep breath, and did indeed seem to calm down.

Josh couldn't quite keep a small smirk off his face. “Calling it a 'boss' is just a word. It doesn't have any weird special abilities, it's just the strongest enemy in the dungeon.”

“Well, it could have special abilities,” Stephen pointed out. “I don't think it earned its spot in the boss room with a winning smile.”

Josh waved that off. “Yeah, but they're normal special abilities, you see what I mean? Like a bear that can make its skin invincible, not that it can summon an army of angels or whatever.”

Darius did not look amused. “Underestimating—”

“If it summons an army of angels you can say I told you so, yeah?” Josh said flatly.

Darius shrugged and gave up.