++ The Inspection Party -- Arilla ++
While Feran’s opening the boss door, I check my equipment. Being a hunter I have to bring a lot more than just a bow and some arrows for a dungeon run and now’s the best time to get this stuff ready. While looking for a couple of potions I had stashed away I hear a gasp come from a couple of my other party members. When I look up I see Feran staring at the boss inside. It’s a gigantic hooded knight with beastkin features.
Along with my other party members I end up lost in thought with my only questions being why the huge disparity between room enemies and the boss? A few moments of silence and stillness pass before I realize something and break the news to the team. “This is the high value thing we were worried about, I imagine this thing is built with stats to spare, everyone? Do we fight it?”
Feran looked like she was about to answer when an unfamiliar voice beat her to it, shocking the whole party. “I can answer your worries first, no my stats are not boosted beyond a normal boss of this floor. However if you choose to fight me, I will be doing my job as the defender here…” This thing can speak? That means all of the dungeon's energy was spent on creating a sentient boss. If it has a normal stat setup then the party could beat it, but…
Feran looks like she's deciding between fighting or fleeing, although Vern steps forward and brandishes his shortsword. “Well if it’s not stronger than normal this should be easy!” Vern moves his blade in front of himself and gets into a low-profile combat stance. Seeing Vern’s confidence, everyone but myself and Feran move in with him. I look at the party leader and notice her looking a little exasperated at Vern's bravado but ultimately she nods to me and walks into the boss arena, with me just behind.
Feran stops the party before they engage the boss completely in order to ask a question. “So I understand you are sentient? Would you be willing to negotiate before we try to fight?” I hear Vern groan but Alaine just glares at him in order to get him to be quiet for a moment. The knight only nods in response to the question, which prompts Feran to continue. “We are an inspection team, our only goal here was to get a few bits of easy loot and note down as much information about this dungeon as we could learn. We aren’t here to risk our lives and we only prepared for a common dungeon boss, not one that is sentient. My comrade may think it will be easy to defeat you but my guess is that it can go either way.”
At her final comment the boss rests the gigantic claymore it’s wielding onto its shoulder pauldrons. For a moment we all expect an outright denial, or an attack, but the knight appears to be thinking. Feran takes the opportunity to press for a response. “We know this dungeon is very new and likely doesn’t have much loot even if we defeat you, so if we fight you, we don't want to come off as greed driven. Diplomacy is our smartest choice.” Feran and a couple of us lower our weapons in hopes the knight doesn’t strike, and takes her words into consideration.
A few tense moments of the knight remaining silent pass by. I notice a couple of our allies getting anxious, especially Vern, who I'm pretty sure is just waiting for things to go south so the team doesn’t get held up any longer.
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Finally, the knight breaks the silence and speaks again. What it says lets me release an exhale I didn’t realize I was holding until now. “The dungeon and I agree that we should negotiate with runners that come through, so we have an offer for you. Two actually, the first being you leave now and we simply see one another at another time. The second is that you sign a contract backed by the realm itself. If you defeat me, you may not destroy the dungeon core, or you face the realms harsh punishment. If I defeat you, you will be automatically resurrected at the entrance, without any non-vital equipment. If you agree to either of these options, then you may walk away without risking your lives. Do we have a deal?”
The knight makes no moves to catch us off-guard but the team is still unsure of the boss's sincerity, everyone except for Feran who nods confidently and drops her guard. “Everyone? Put away your weapons, we can come back another time when the guild actually sets out rewards for defeating floors. For now, we accept.” At this clear statement the knight holds out its free hand and opens it, only for a rolled up scroll to appear just above the palm.
Feran sheathes her weapons and the rest of us follow suit. For the first time in my life and possibly for the first time in our town’s guild, our party signs a realm contract with a sentient boss and its master core. Vern is the only one with any complaints but that seems to be more of a gripe about how he didn’t get to fight a boss rather than the contract.
With our run completed, the information crew in our party start writing down and consolidating all of the stuff they found out about this place as we all walk back through the cleared rooms. Despite the sentient boss discovery, the dungeon is fairly standard. While the enemies are weak and the traps sparse, pretty much all early dungeons have a straight line of about 7 rooms that lead to the boss arena. From what they know of dungeons they don’t tend to have branching paths for at least 2 floors. I'm just glad it wasn’t a stat boosted boss at the end as that likely would have been a problem for any future runners.
When we get back to the second enemy room from the entrance, Vern suddenly stops us and gives a silent “shush” with his hand. With that, the whole party instantly gets put on guard, those of us without our weapons at the ready simply start gauging the surrounding room, as unsheathing them would cause too much noise if there is some kind of danger here. Although we can’t see anything out of the ordinary, I begin to hear a brief and soft scraping sound. It’s the sound of a blade being freed from a leather sheath.
Vern looks back to Feran and receives a nod while she readies her sword and shield. Seeing this, I grab the bow off my back. Looks like we’re fighting whoever’s come in behind our group. The two surveyors seem a little hesitant but there shouldn’t be any groups coming in behind us, anyone with the guild knows not to enter a new dungeon unless asked to as it falls under the designation of a restricted area by default. So for the rest of us there’s no question that these people shouldn’t be here.
Unfortunately while I'm caught up thinking about this I’m soon forced to realize that I have made a grave mistake. Our group erupts into a messy engagement as an arrow unexpectedly pierces Domun’s skull from behind, and a large group of ragged looking people barge into the room with weapons aplenty drawn…