Ava POV
It took us a full week to finish all the parts of the questline to open up the third floor. In that time three other groups have already beaten the Royal Woods. The event rotates between killing the current king and declaring a new one. Killing an active King is a questline that usually takes two days at most, whereas declaring a new one can take several. I learned that our group did it the longest way by actively supporting one of the groups in the running for succession. The other group that did the succession battle simply killed three princes and the last one defaultly won allowing them to pass the event. That being said, the rewards we received for taking the longest, and probably most difficult, route were the best out of all the groups. I’m still not one hundred percent sure what the favor of Lord Eternal is supposed to do, but nothing bad has come of it. If anything, things have been going better.
Being both the furthest ahead in progression and the only ones living in the dungeon is a massive advantage over the other teams. Although the new guild building they purchased inside Wyla means that soon other adventurers will be allowed to take residence on the second floor. It also means that my party will have more eyes on them, I’m pretty sure the Guildmaster is still mad that we used our rights as the dungeon owners to take permanent residence here against the Guild’s wishes. Not much to do about it now, the dungeon does technically belong to us. Although something tells me this dungeon would disagree if it heard us.
With the questline done Z had convinced all of us to celebrate in town before finally unlocking the third floor. All the other parties that finished the Royal Woods event were still behind us due to the amount of waiting involved in The Lost Mines questline. The questline is very informative so it was certainly worth doing it. We had a lot of prep ready for the third floor: smokeless lights, rope, climbing equipment, extra clothes in case of water, camping equipment designed for underground, and pickaxes to mine any ores. We also had a rough idea of the enemies we would face and what the bosses would be like.
We knew that whatever we would be fighting would be similar to goblins and that a wyrm was most likely the boss. Although the second piece was an assumption based solely off of the fact that the dungeon had requested a wyrm through its quests. Z had suggested leaving the dungeon to go search for wyrm slaying equipment back in town, which wasn’t a terrible idea. However the rest of the party, myself included, were reluctant to leave the dungeon without knowing how annoyed the Guild was. For now we just all agreed to stay in the dungeon until things were more settled down. Eventually we would just be one of many adventurers who lived on this floor and hopefully the Guild would forgive us for ignoring them.
I saw the edge of the treeline and pushed the thoughts of the Guild away. We were getting close to the third floor. After we completed the questline our progression trackers got updated with permission to access The Lost Mines. We had to walk through the Royal Woods to do so which would’ve been dangerous, but we just took a route that went through wolf territory since it was safest for us. While the wolves were no longer in charge, all of the various beast factions of the Royal Woods always had some territory within it.
As we broke out of the dense foliage and into open space I kept my eyes on the lookout for danger. The terrain quickly shifted from dense forest to massive mountains. We had to walk along the tree line for several more minutes, the whole time keeping a close eye on the mountains. Eventually we reached the designated spot and saw that at the base of the mountains was a cave. We kept our heads on a swivel and quickly crossed the small clearing before piling into the cave entrance. It was surprisingly spacious and at the opposite end of the cave was an artificial looking tunnel that was boarded up with signs on it.
We walked to the boarded up entrance and I placed my hand on one of the boards. I immediately got a system prompt asking if I wanted to enter The Lost Mines. I gathered my party together and we agreed to enter after a short break. I took the time to check all of my equipment and make sure that my inventory had plenty of free space. We had spent a good portion of EC on upgrading our inventories by another 10 slots, doubling the space we had inside them. I still didn’t know why it was measured in slots as opposed to cubic feet since each slot equated to an amount of space, perhaps it was just a quirk of the dungeon. I let my mind wander as I thought about the strangeness of the dungeon while we finished our break.
“Alright everyone ready?” I asked the rest of the party.
We had finished our break and were about to enter the newest floor of the dungeon. It seemed a bit silly considering that we still hadn’t finished the current floor, but it was the dungeons design not mine. After getting resolute nods from everyone I placed my hand onto the board again and accepted the prompt, taking the whole party with me.
I find myself seamlessly teleported into a tunnel with my party all around me. We quickly get into formation and then start moving down the tunnel. The lights in this area are still working so we don’t bother to light our torches, it's better to have our hands free. As we walk I notice the brown and tan colors of the rock start to turn into grays with occasional streaks of black and white. The stone of the tunnel is transitioning to a deeper rock and I feel the tunnel’s temperature start to even out to what it would be below ground, cool but not cold. We walk undisturbed for several minutes before we find ourselves at an intersection.
The intersection is a small circular room maybe 20 feet in diameter. The space is definitely too cramped for all of us to effectively fight. However we prepared for this, we had practiced a new formation that placed us closer together and allowed us to fight closer to one another. Normally a tight formation like ours would be a bad idea due to area of effect attacks (AOE), however in cramped spaces where neither side could use a wide AOE it worked just fine. We were in the middle of deciding which of the two tunnels to take when a group of small scaly creatures walked in from the left tunnel.
They were bipedal with scales that matched the color of the gray stone. Their feet were like that of a raptors with 4 toes ending in sharp claws, three toes pointed forwards and one backwards. They stood about the same height of a goblin at only around 4 feet tall. Their hands had only four digits, but all of them looked thin and dexterous, clearly meant for manipulating objects. Within their hands they held pickaxes and they carried large bags strapped to their backs. They wore no clothes other than a simple belt and harness that seemed to be for securing the pickaxe and bag when not in use.
Their nudity wasn’t really a problem either seeing as they had no bits poking out from anywhere within their scales, making them look androgynous to my human sensibilities. They had tails which were about half the length of their body that looked remarkably whiplike, starting thick near the base before thinning off to a scaly point. Their heads were shaped like a crocodiles, with the sensory organs placed similarly as well, the only stand out being the long whiskers on the end of their snout. They had two large eyes that were forward facing and clearly adapted for low light vision. They had two divots on the sides of their heads like a lizard's ears but no obvious organ for a sense of smell. The very tips of yellowed teeth poked out from the sides of their mouths, teeth that I got a much better look at when one of them noticed us and screamed at us before charging. I checked their tags before clashing in combat.
Kobold Laborer (Greater) Level 27
There were four in this group and the one I identified had the highest level. They had us beat by quite a few levels which meant that we needed to be cautious here. I cast my newly evolved Armor of Thorns. Spells often keep the same name when becoming superior, but it had still gained a lot of power. My evolved spell lasted a full hour and offered almost double the protection of the greater version, most importantly it now applied a poison to anyone who took the reflected damage from it. The poison was a simple debuff that slowed reaction speed slightly, but that could make a huge difference over the course of a fight.
Hal and Lia intercept the charge of the kobolds while the rest of us send attacks past them. The Kobolds hold up incredibly well under the pressure due to being higher level than us but eventually they begin to fall. We don’t do anything flashy and keep our mana use to a minimum after the fight so we’re a little tired and not much else. The dungeon had recently gotten an earth affinity which meant Hal’s metal class was receiving partial bonuses for the match. It made fights easier when Hal could exert more of his mana without worrying about running out. For this fight we held back, we had already agreed beforehand to try and train our non-mana skill as much as possible before we had to fight the real opponents. It had the added benefit of ensuring our mana was at max in case we had to fight something truly dangerous. No one in our party had suffered a death yet and we intended to keep that record going for as long as we could.
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With the monsters dead Hal and Lia each moved towards one of the two new tunnels to watch it. Meanwhile Jay and Z worked together to dissect the kobold corpses and figure out if they had any use. This type of monster was completely new to us, not even Jay had heard of it before. Perhaps it was a monster from a thousand years ago when the dungeon was new or maybe it was from another one of the continents? I kept an eye on everyone while the field dissection continued, trying to keep my mind focused on the task at hand. If I started letting my thoughts drift it could spell disaster later.
Z and Jay finished up after two hours. It took them a little too long for my liking but we were lucky and nothing else showed up. The two of them pretty much learned what I’d already assumed, nothing useful from the bodies themselves. At least nothing too obvious, Jay was taking back various samples of organs and fluids to be tested more. If the Wyrm blood was strong enough then it would actually be worth harvesting some of it for alchemists. With the dissection finished and Jay’s inventory now burdened by several cases of labeled vials we moved down the left tunnel.
Our formation shifted to place Lia in the back in order to guard from anything slipping in from behind. We spent several hours wandering the tunnels running into occasional fights with more kobold laborers. We noticed that they didn’t like actually fighting in the tunnel. They were smart enough to realize that with Hal being able to fully cover our front they wouldn’t stand a chance. This led to the creatures often retreating into larger intersections where they could attempt to surround us and more properly leverage their numbers. The intellect they displayed worried me. If the laborers of their kind were this smart, how smart were their betters? Would a superior kobold be able to use proper tactics and form battle formations? We continued on with extra caution, Z especially on the lookout for traps.
Traps. Oh yes this floor had them. The kobolds seemed to be fans of dropping small sections of the ceiling and floor, of using tripwires and spikes. Z said that the traps were quite advanced but to me they all looked incredibly basic and crude, well that’s why he’s the expert and not me I guess. For all that the traps looked basic, it didn’t make them less effective. When Hal accidently hit a particularly well hidden trap I was forced to burn a fourth of my mana pool keeping him alive. It was easily in the top five of scariest things to happen to the party, right behind Lia losing an arm to a frost wyrm. After the trap incident Z started actively using his perception skill, this put him a time limit due to mana use. For the next seven hours of exploration we were forced to constantly stop and take breaks so Z could replenish his mana.
Eventually we had mapped out the entire first floor excluding the one area that was already marked on our maps. The Drop Shaft. According to the quest lore the Drop Shaft was a massive natural formation that was already there when the miners first showed up. The Drop Shaft was the only way to move between floors as the kobolds would collapse any other tunnel dug downwards, the Drop Shaft also happened to be a place where all the most dangerous creatures lived. Luckily according to the Spiritkin we should be mostly safe on the first couple levels, the only warning being not to try and use the Drop Shaft to skip floors.
We started to move towards one of the three entrances from the first level to the Drop Shaft. We had high hopes that we’d be able to fully map the first five levels before our supplies ran out, we had planned to be here for one week. We wanted to maximize our chance to explore before the other groups started catching up, especially the groups that were higher level than us.
I felt a rise in the humidity and heard the sound of rushing water. It reminded me of the waterfall from the first floor, but far louder. The thunderous rushing sound reached a crescendo as we stepped through an archway and onto an open ledge. Sunlight hit my face for the first time in hours, forcing me to close my eyes. I spent a moment just marveling at how perfectly the sun could be replicated by the dungeon. Artificial lights always felt off somehow, but whatever the dungeon did was a perfect replica.
I opened my eyes and looked around in wonder. A vibrant array of plant life with trees and shrubs fighting to grow upwards while vines and hanging plants grow downwards. Moss covered any surface it could, the humidity high enough for it to thrive easily. Water spilled down from the top of the Drop Shaft as well as from many of the holes that opened up into it. All of the water cascaded downwards making its thunderous chorus each time it moved across rock. The Walls of the Drop Shaft were heavily eroded by the water making the walls incredibly smooth. Between the high humidity and the weathered rock the walls of the Drop Shaft would be impossible to climb without proper equipment or Skills. Thankfully we didn’t need to climb as dozens of bridges and ropes crossed the Drop Shaft going from one level to another, the further down one went, the more dangerous the options of descent became.
The sounds of buzzing and flapping reached my ears and I noticed that the open space was filled with wildlife. Insects moved about laying their eggs in the calm places where the water would pool or zipping about feeding from the plants that filled the space. Birds happily made nests inside openings on the sheer walls or within the branches of the trees. I could even see fish living inside the larger pools of water and even jumping between pools that were close enough to each other. Peering over the edge of the ledge I stood on I could see even more wildlife below. The farther down my eyes drifted the more monstrous the creatures became.
Starlings were replaced by little streaks of silver which I recognized as Shredder Wings. Their razor sharp wings and tendency to congregate in massive flocks made them an extreme danger in open spaces. The tiny wall geckos were replaced by monstrously large Ceiling Droppers which would either drop onto prey below them or use their tongues to drag it up. The insects seemed to be an array of massive versions of themselves none of which I recognized and it was too far to see the tag. I also spied larger land bound predators such as feline and canine creatures that all looked to be adapted for living in the subterranean world we found ourselves in. Seeing all the new creatures got me thinking of new strategies to combat them. From the look in his eyes I could tell Jay was likely excited by the prospect of studying them.
“Our goal is to reach level five and beat the first boss of the floor. The Spiritkin weren’t very specific about what awaits us or what the boss is, so let's be careful” I reiterated our previously agreed upon goal for this expedition. During the questline we had gotten a special progression item that would allow us to teleport directly to the entrance of The Lost Mines as well as its fifth level, but only after we had unlocked them. To unlock the fifth level teleport we needed to beat the boss on that level.
“Do you think that we’ll have enough space to bring back samples of all those new species?” Jay asked with an incredibly serious look on his face.
“I can’t believe you're going to make me dissect every single one of those things” Z said, giving him a look of disbelief. “I was patient with the kobold but there has to be over a dozen new creatures down there and half of them are insects!”
Jay looked at him with pleading eyes. I almost forgot that when he wanted Jay could perfectly imitate a kicked puppy. It took moments for Z to capitulate, his doom only accelerated by his care for his friends.
“Fine I’ll help you dissect them, but only if you agree not to nitpick the whole time.” Z said with a stern voice. Jay quickly agreed although it didn’t look like Z fully believed him. I felt a smile creeping up my face at their exchange.
“Ok enough chit chat, lets get across that bridge and onto the second level before we set up camp for the day.” I order rallying everyone together for the push across the bridge.
It’s surprisingly anticlimactic, I expected to be ambushed on the bridge and forced to fight without getting knocked off. Then again these top level bridges were quite solid, it was likely that the bridge attacks were reserved for either lower levels of the floor or for those who attempted to skip levels. I doubted many adventurers could get past the Shredder Wing flock, much less the many other flying creatures I saw in the Drop Shaft. We got across the bridge in a matter of minutes and found a wide open ledge on the other side. I ordered the party to start setting up camp in a defensible alcove and after half an hour we were eating dinner together.
I enjoyed the conversation that flowed around me, happy to see everyone in such a good mood. Lia handed me another bowl of stew with a smile as Z told an incredibly inappropriate joke about a barmaid. I accepted the bowl from Lia with a wordless thanks and simply watched the glow of the fire, finally allowing my mind to wander. It was a good day, but we made a few mistakes. I would have to fix up the formation tomorrow and try some new tactics I had planned after our fights today. Hal booed and threw his bread at Z’s face after he finished the joke while Jay turned bright red, but everyone wore smiles. Well, everything can wait until tomorrow, no need to ruin our relaxation time. I would wait another ten minutes before reminding them that they had to take watches.