Chapter 6 Dungeon Diving

The next day the squad went to the local dungeon together with their trainer. The dungeon was located at a secure spot within the city, with its own walls and guards. There the trainer had them take out their tokens, which showed that they really were legionary trainees. The trainer himself had his own badge on his uniform.

“Why all the security?” Asked Sam.

Deon answered her question: “You really don’t know? I thought everyone knows about the need to guard dungeons against dungeon breaks.”

“Uhh, well I don’t. Assume that I don’t know anything and I’ll tell you guys about my situation some other time. Care to explain this dungeon break thing?”

“That’s when a dungeon grows strong enough to level up and change itself. Most of the time the floors change stay mostly the same and the monsters change to stronger versions of themselves. Other times the layout changes or the monsters switch to a different kind. But what’s more important is that the dungeon always needs to get rid of its spawn points. This means that it sends the old monsters out of the dungeon. Not only does every monster that’s inside the dungeon go outside, but it also deconstructs the spawn points into the base monsters. Some scholar calculated that a spawn point has a base of ten monsters. This means that a total of eleven versions of every monster in the whole dungeon escapes the dungeon at the same time.”

“Wow, that could be a major problem if it happens inside a city.”

“Not only in a city but also outside of one. There have been instances of entire regions that had to be abandoned because of a strong dungeon break. Walls don’t mean that much when hundreds or thousands of monsters assault them.”

“Okay, I get the defenses now. But why only two guards then? I mean, two guards won’t do much against those numbers. And why checking everyone going inside the dungeon?”

“Wow you have a lot of questions, don’t you? The two guards are there mostly for people going into the dungeon as you said. This is because there is a fee to enter most dungeons. As for the breaks, those don’t happen all that often. The guards will probably raise the alarm, and maybe try to delay the monsters a bit while their numbers are low. After that it’s up to the soldiers on the defenses.”

At that point they have arrived at the dungeon portal.

“Okay trainees, this is it. As you don’t have your legionary class yet, you can use your own weapons for now. It wouldn’t do to send you in with weapons that you’re not used to, even if the monsters on the first floor are harmless.”

This made Sam look around, all the others had their weapons with them. Sam herself only had her goblin knife.

Before she could mention this, the trainer went through the portal first. The others quickly followed, leaving Sam alone in front of the portal. After a moment she shrugged and stepped through.

Status updated: Entered Firecracker Dungeon.

The rest of the squad was waiting for het on the other side of the portal in some kind of cave. Sam could see an opening that led to a huge open area. The floor was made of stone, with smaller and bigger rocks littering the floor.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“What took you so long?”

“Well, I was contemplating about the fact that I’m entering a dungeon without a real weapon.

“You could have mentioned that earlier, you know. While it’s not useful to have you use weapons that you’re unfamiliar with to get to the level 10 threshold, it would have be better to give them a bit earlier in your case.” The trainer thinks about it for a moment. “You know what, why not. I’ll lend you a weapon, but don’t you dare accept the skill if you get it. Also don’t dismiss it, just ignore it. I don’t want your peculiar skill to change it when you switch classes.”

With that he pulled a short sword, or maybe a large dagger from out of nowhere. Sam glanced at the others, but when nobody thought it strange to have weapons appear out of nowhere she just ignored it for now. Almost shyly she accepted the blade. It was almost as long as her forearm, which was a lot better than the small goblin knife she still carried around.

“Now that that’s settled, let’s go through some rules. First, the enemies on the first floor are called fire slugs. I don’t think I need to tell you that those are no danger to anyone. It also means that they give almost no experience, especially in groups like ours. The second floor has fire toads as monsters. Those are still not a big danger, but be aware of their tongues. The third and also the last floor that you are allowed to enter, has fire ants. Beware of taking the ants lightly, they might individually be a bit weaker than the toads, but they are a swarm type. Take one down and three might try to take revenge.”

The trainer looked especially at some of the male fighters in the squad.

“You guys are allowed to move on your own on the first floor and with a partner on the second floor. You may only enter the third floor with the entire squad. And make sure to keep the stairway to the second floor in sight if you go there. We wouldn’t want to lose any recruits on their first dungeon dive, now do we?”

Apparently that was the gist of what the trainer wanted to tell them, because the man conjured up a whole sofa from out of nowhere and laid down. Within moments they could hear him snoring.

“Okay, let’s just go to the third floor and get this over with.” One of the archers, Jasper if Sam remembered correctly, decided for the group.

Without a good idea herself, and not wanting to keep the others from entering the third floor, Sam just went with them.

The first floor was a breeze. The four archers shot most of the slugs before the others even knew they were there. Once in a while a shard of ice was shot by one of the mages, taking out the rare slug that wasn’t taken down by the archers. After about half an hour they finally located the stairway down to the second floor.

There they got to a second cave-like room. The only difference that Sam could see was that the big open area where the monsters were, now had some kind of plants that grew close to the bigger rocks. Those were long stalks of red grass or something like it.

Soon after the squad left the cave, they found the first toads. With a yelp Erik dodged to the side, when a red tongue was spat through the space he had occupied only moments ago. Without hesitation one of the other fighters, Lufir, swung his sword and sliced through the tongue. Moments later the toad was shot by three archers and a mage.

“Okay, we need to watch out for those guys. No idea if it would have damaged you a lot, Erik. But safe to say that a tongue that’s on fire would give you a nasty burn.”

Sam took a good look at the toad, and it was clear to see why they had missed it even though they were on the lookout for them. The toad had almost the same color as the rocks, and the skin had an unevenness to it that also mimicked the rocks.

With all of them looking out for camouflaged toads, they didn’t have much trouble with them. The archers still took out most of them before they became a threat, and both mages now used their skills to take out the stragglers. Only once or twice did the fighters need to intervene when a toad came close enough to spit their tongues at the group.

When they finally found the staircase to the third floor, after almost an hour searching through the second floor, they were surprised by the fact that there were seven toads milling around close by.

“It almost looks like they are guarding the staircase.” Virgil, the mage that spoke the least, mentioned.

“That’s a possibility,” Leophon said, “my father taught me a bit about dungeons. They protect themselves if they see intruders breezing through the floors like we have done. Especially if they think that their monsters might stand a chance of defeating the intruders.”

“I don’t know why it would think that these weaklings would stand a chance,” Jasper answered, “let’s show them who’s boss!”

With that he started shooting his arrows at the toads. Not to be outdone, the other ranged fighters soon joined him. It took the six of them only moments to clear out the seven toads that were close to the staircase.

Immediately the group descended towards the third floor.