Our party was currently walking in formation down the gravel path that led towards the Royal Woods. Z had informed us that the northern and southern zones were considered more dangerous followed by the eastern zone and then finally the west. After we met up at our new compound everyone picked out their rooms and agreed to turn the empty ones into a living/dining room and a study. After getting mostly settled we had a quick team meeting which then leads to us being here, on the road to the west.
“Why hasn’t anything attacked us yet?” I ask Z as I’ve started to become nervous from the long time of inaction. We had been told that the roads outside of town weren’t safe zones, the only safe zones that the Spiritkin knew of were the town and the docks on Croaker Lake. This means that dungeon monsters could be attacking us while we traveled, but not once has that happened.
“All the creatures in the grasslands so far have been lesser rank and underleveled for the floor. I was told that all the real monsters on this floor lived in the forests and woods or the mountains that make up the borderlands.” Z says while casually flipping a knife in his hand.
“That doesn’t explain why they wouldn’t attack us though” I say
“It’s because they’re acting like actual beasts instead of dungeon monsters. A normal animal doesn’t just charge headfirst into something stronger than it, we probably won’t be challenged until we get closer to the Royal Woods.” Z responds
“Guy’s look at this!” Jay says moving towards the side of the path to point out a low growing grass that was just barely visible amongst the taller ones surrounding it. “It’s Ferl Grass, a common magical herb used as a stabilizer in alchemy. It’s hard to find at ranks higher than lesser, but this bunch is Greater rank!” Jay says getting excited about the plants.
“How much are they worth?” Z asks while walking over towards the plants while scanning for threats.
“This bunch would likely be worth 5-10 gold. It's rare to see the greater rank variant, but it's also used less in high rank potions.” Jay says while leaning down and collecting the Ferl Grass into his inventory.
We had all locked our most expensive items using the save slots and then tried to keep the rest empty so that we could actually harvest from the plants and animals on the floor. We hadn’t seen any ores yet, but they could just be hidden closer to the mountains. We kept watch while Jay finished collecting the Greater Ferl Grass, only a single level 15 lesser plainswalker tried anything and we let Hal fight it for the experience. On his own Hal struggles enough from being 10 levels below it that the experience he gains isn’t too bad, but it would still be faster to fight stronger creatures in a group like we’ve been doing up until now.
With the grass collected and Hal’s fight finished we continue to move through the floor. Now that we know that the dungeon is growing useful plants, we try to keep a better eye on the surrounding flora. Jay is hoping to find more interesting study subjects, while the rest of us are most focused on the monetary value of such plants. It takes us a full 3 hours walking at a decent pace to reach the edge of the Royal Woods. The amount of time it took puts into perspective the true size of this floor.
As we reach the woods we decide to take a short break before moving into our most defensive formation and cautiously making our way into the tree line. The trees are tall and imposing, blocking out the vast majority of the light from above. Only thin beams of light make it through the canopy creating pockets of lower vegetation any place that the golden rays touch. The whole forest is shadowy, dark, and foreboding; the tall trees give the appearance of being closed in and surrounded. The whole party is on edge as we walk through these woods. We manage to walk for about 5 minutes uninterrupted before we begin to hear sounds of bestial combat from a clearing ahead of us.
We approach the break in the trees to see a light filled clearing of grass and bushes, all currently being trampled by 2 groups of monsters locked in combat. On one side is a small troop of 7 Greater Granite Gorilla’s, their levels all between 18 and 20. Opposing them is a herd of 12 Greater Steelhorn Deer, who’s levels range between 15 and 18. One group has higher levels but the other has more numbers. At the moment they are mostly locked into a stalemate, both sides are of the same elemental alignment and neither can truly injure the other without overextending.
I silently motion to Jay and Z indicating my plan to them. They nod their heads and move to perform their roles. Jay starts a long chant, speaking as quietly as he can to not draw the attention of the beasts. Z moves away from the group, circling the clearing while slowly shifting into his stealth skill. I place a hand on Hal and Lia’s shoulders indicating for them to hold positions and protect us until we’re ready, then I begin my own chant.
Hal moves himself between us and the clearing of monsters while Lia circles to guard the opposite side from any potential ambushers. By spacing themselves out they’ll be able to respond to a threat from any direction without having to move too much. The fighting beasts seem to finally notice us at the edge of the treeline right as Jay finishes his chant. They begin to charge us, placing their own fight on hold, but are quickly stopped as tendrils of icy cold spiral up their limbs and freeze them in place.
Rime of Root and Limb a greater spell with a long chant time but a wide area of effect, it’s one of Jay’s new spells prepared for situations where we’re completely outnumbered. Already the strongest of the creatures begin to break free but it’s not quick enough, as I finish my own chant. Thick roots called from the surrounding flora and enhanced by my magic wrap around the limbs and bodies of the 19 beasts, restricting their movements and making it difficult for them to free themselves from either spell. My newest Superior Spell Mass Entangle performs its task well, working in tandem with Rime of Root and Limb to immobilize the creatures completely.
Z appears in the midst of the disabled creatures and begins to slowly work his way through them, using methodical strikes placed directly into weak points to finish them with as little expenditure as possible. Seeing how effective our spell combo was I signal for Hal and Lia to assist Z in killing the beasts as quickly as possible. Jay and I make sure to follow them into the clearing so that no one is too separated from the rest of the party.
It only takes around a minute for all the beasts to be killed, and that's only because no one wanted to waste any more mana on them. The monsters struggled right up until their ends, but spells that have been enhanced by full chanting times are hard to break out of. After disposing of the beasts we get to the more grueling part. Z and Hal work to skin and process the monster's corpses in tandem with Jay who uses his knowledge to evaluate the most useful parts.
Despite what most people are led to believe, dungeons usually only drop proper `loot` from their bosses and most of the money made from delving comes from ores, plants, and monster parts harvested from the dungeon as opposed to just getting gold and gems outright. The Eternal Dungeon is unique in its method of directly giving out gold and items, but then again that’s actually a more common occurrence within legacy dungeons so it's not that out of place.
We finish processing our kills and under Jay’s suggestion we do a quick sweep of the clearing to look for any useful plants. It’s a good thing we did so as Jay manages to find a small grouping of Greater Lifeshrooms growing on the shaded side of a log. We harvest them and then begin to once again head deeper into the forest. We all agreed that we wouldn’t stay out once it got dark, but we still had most of the day to explore the floor.
Eternal Dungeon POV
I watched the first party to ever delve my depths as they once again managed to be the first ones into my new floor. My aura passively records everything that happens inside it like an omniscient camera so I was able to work on other things while occasionally checking in on the group. I had already committed their names to memory. Thanks to my central pylon which records all of their status sheets I knew both their full true names and what they call each other.
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For the past 6 hours they’ve been slowly pushing deeper into the Royal Woods, harvesting everything they come across. I can already tell that they’re going to have to either stop harvesting or turn back as they’re running low on available inventory space. They might be able to create a makeship bindle to carry extra items back with them, but that would leave them vulnerable to attack and this party is too cautious for that.
So far they’ve ambushed every skirmish they come across, killing the beasts from both sides. They’ve been unknowingly slowly whittling away at the forces of the Prince of Apes, the Prince of Raptors, and the Prince of Horns. So far every time they’ve encountered the forces of the Prince of Wolves the wolves have backed off instead of fighting. The party was confused and cautious at first, but after the wolves never attacked them they decided it was just a quirk of the monsters.
Of course what they didn’t know was that the Prince of Wolves had been scheming behind the other princes back’s. I watched the whole thing go down during the naming of the Royal Woods. The Prince of Wolves let the Prince of Apes take his suggestion which drew the ire of the other Princes onto him. This pitted the Prince of Apes in a 1v2 against the Princes of Raptors and Horns. The Prince of Wolves then nominally offered his support to the Prince of Apes in order to keep the stalemate long enough for the adventurers to come in. He then uses the adventurers to weaken the forces of all other 3 princes while he keeps his own forces in reserve.
I was honestly impressed to see such a brilliant strategy coming from what amounted to a large dog, but to be fair I had left them all in time dilated evolution which did accelerate their growth. The Prince of Wolves didn’t have a more developed soul than the others, I think he’s just naturally inclined towards his intelligence. After all, the other Prince’s definitely seem stronger in other ways such as the brute strength of the Prince of Apes, the speed of the Prince of Raptors, and the magic of the Prince of Horns. Perhaps the Prince of Wolves was simply given enhanced intelligence? Or maybe strategy might be more accurate, after all wolves do use some limited tactics in the wild, this could be an upgrade to that. Regardless of the cause, I’m just excited to see how the Prince of Wolves will evolve when he is declared king.
It may seem a bit early to just declare that the Prince of Wolves will win the contest, but his forces have been barely touched while the forces of the other 3 Princes have been reduced by about 20-25%. Even if the adventurers leave now, the Prince of Wolves will have enough power to slowly finish the job on his 3 opponents or at the bare minimum return a stalemate long enough for more adventurers to show up. It’s still possible that something could happen to change this outcome, however I find that unlikely.
I continue to watch in amusement at the adventurers of Ava’s Own ambush yet another skirmish and quickly dispatch the entangled and frozen mobs. The brutal efficiency with which they slaughter and harvest is certainly something to watch. As they finished with their latest kill they seemed to realize the same thing I did, they were almost out of inventory space. The leader, Ava, did a quick vote on whether or not to turn back early, or to look for the boss first. They decided to keep going in hopes of at least seeing the boss, a mistake considering that the boss would only spawn once a king was determined. It always sucked when the players wasted their time on a fruitless endeavor, so I decided to be nice. The moment they had decided their course of action I delivered a system prompt notifying them of the special Royal Woods Event.
Special Area Event: Fight of Succession
The four tribes that currently dominate the Royal Woods are each led by a Royal Prince of the forest. Only once a king has been decided will the boss appear. Choose to either join a side or slay all who oppose you. The first to complete this event will receive a special first completion reward.
With the message sent I watched as the whole party froze and processed what their systems were telling them. They once again began a discussion which took an interesting turn. The party's scholar Jay suggested that they seek out and join forces with the prince who led the wolves since the wolves were the only faction they hadn’t harmed or been attacked by yet. The others seem to like this idea, and their worst case scenario was simply killing the wolves leader which would at least be a mini boss that contributed towards the event completion. With a new plan of action the adventurers started to head in the direction the last group of wolves went towards. I watched as they moved deeper into the Royal Woods encountering less and less resistance as they fully entered the domain of the Prince of Wolves. The party has stopped harvesting in order to save what little space was left in each of their inventories.
As they continued their trek at a faster pace, now unimpeded by the local wildlife I started to become excited the closer they got to the den of the wolves. I could see several of the adventurers on edge, they could probably feel that they were being watched as they headed towards the home of the wolves. I looked on with bated breath as the adventurers entered into the clearing that made up the center of the wolves den and they finally came face to face with the Prince of Wolves.
Ava POV
We had been traveling deeper and deeper into the woods for the past 15 minutes. The shadow’s had steadily grown longer as the canopy grew higher and thicker. The low lying shrubs and grasses have been replaced by rocks which slowly gain size the further in we go. As we pass between two large boulders and enter a clearing within them I finally see our goal and it makes our entire party stop at the edge of clearing.
A massive wolf stands upon a boulder in front of us. Easily 18 feet tall at the shoulder and maybe 40 feet long, it looks like he could eat Hal in one bite. His coat is a magnificent white, pure and unblemished, it almost seems to shimmer whenever a stray beam of light manages to filter through the thick canopy. His eyes are the blue of a summer sky and he stares at our party with a piercing gaze.
Hal and Lia subtly move in front of the rest of us, I step forwards to indicate that I wish to speak yet remain behind my two stalwart companions. The Wolf’s gaze snaps onto me and I check his tag before beginning to speak.
Prince of Wolves (Greater) Level 20
“Prince of Wolves, my party and I were informed of the struggle that takes place within these woods. We noticed that your kin never once attacked us as we ventured these lands and wish to offer our aid in your struggle as thanks.” I say drawing upon my noble training to speak to the Prince in a manner befitting his station. I know that he’s a wolf and a dungeon monster, but still It can’t hurt to try.
The Prince of Wolves seems to pause in his glaring to look up at the woods behind us. Moving his eyes back and forth as though scanning his domain. He turns back to me and looks over the rest of the party once more. He sits back on his haunches taking a more relaxed position before nodding towards us causing a system prompt to appear.
Special Event Quest: Prove to the Pack
The Prince of Wolves has heard your promise of aid, but the rest of the pack remains unconvinced. Enter into the territory of the Prince of Horns and bring back 20 bodies to feed the pack.
Rewards: Honorary Wolf Status, Follow up Quest
“We graciously accept this challenge. We shall return to you tomorrow with the bounty you have requested.” I say to the Prince of Wolves while giving him a bow. He nods at this and gives a quick gruff bark that causes the surrounding wolves to move back from our party. I only now noticed that the wolves had been slowly surrounding us while I spoke to the Prince. With one final bow I guide my party back out of the clearing and begin walking towards the edge of the Royal Woods.
That was really stressful, I wasn’t even sure if the monster could be reasoned with. If it wasn’t for Jay and his logical arguments I wouldn’t have even tried in the first place. I guess it all worked out in the end, I’m just ready to get back to town and rest. Unfortunately we still have to leave the dungeon to report to the Guildmaster who no doubt already knows of our absence and knows that it means the second floor is open. I wouldn’t be surprised to find more groups of adventurers in New Beginnings when we got back.
It’s a long 3 hour walk back into the town, the whole time the artificial sun of the dungeon is slowly setting over the horizon. The perfect way in which the dungeon replicates the astral bodies of the sun and moon is honestly a little terrifying. An entity capable of such artifice would be an absolute monster if they learned to cast standard spells. I shake off my idle thoughts, trying not to dwell on things that haven’t happened, as we enter into the town. Surprisingly it seems that the Guildmaster restricted second floor entry as we don’t see any other adventurers on our way back to Wyla. We reach the central pylon and test out the new warp feature that instantly teleports us back to the interior space of Wyla on the first floor of the dungeon. We regroup our party, just in case something happens, and then all head out of the dungeon together. It’s time to report to the Guildmaster and then tomorrow, we hunt.