With the addition of several new skeletons, and quite a few shields, the barracks we were using was almost bursting with bones, and it wasn't the easiest thing in the world to try to teach most of them the formation they would be using. The vast majority of them weren't wearing much in the way of armor, and some didn't even have a weapon, so they were making do with old pieces of wood, and bones.

With the limited space, it took an extra few days to get the formation drilled into their minds, but after almost a week of preparations, and endless work done to make sure we were ready, I felt confident enough for us to expand down to the fourth floor, regardless of what we'd have to face down there. I'd already sent down two scouts, who had reported seeing a vast open space instead of halls. The ground remained stone, but the ceiling was far above them. There was no light down there, and they could see several lights off in the distance, all clustered together.

I took their report at face value, but it was a bit concerning, considering the formations weakness in open spaces. It would be very useful in the halls of the second and third floor, but the fourth dashed any hopes of immediately conquering an area for us to use as a base. We'd have to either get lucky and find something relatively hidden, or establish ourselves a new base.

The scouts didn't report seeing what kind of monsters lurked down there, but they had discovered various small weapons, ranging from daggers to short swords, although each was in poor condition, but still much better than the skeletons could find in their own equipment chests. One of the weapons had been brought back, a longsword which had the last fourth of it broken off entirely, while being chipped in several places along the blade itself, but there was little to no rust on the metal itself. It was a good sign that what they'd find down there could sufficiently equip them to face the dangers of the other floors.

I gave the broken sword to one of the others, as I was well equipped, having gotten another shield for myself, along with the axe and shortsword. I was all set to head down, and it seemed the others were as well.

Thus, I set out with our expeditionary force which consisted of twenty close combat skeletons, five archers, two scouts, and two members of the E.P.T. I left Lilith and Rivena to manage the remaining forces, and although Lilith seemed a little dispirited, she understood the responsibility I was putting on her shoulders, and accepted her duty.

Rivena wasn't happy with my decision either, but we still hadn't managed to find any skeletons with a natural inclination toward magic, and I didn't want to risk our only healer on a potentially dangerous journey. I didn't bother giving a speech, as there hadn't been a need for one when we expanded down to the third floor, and so I figured treating this as a routine night might keep everyone else from being as nervous as I felt.

Making sure I wasn't shaking, and that my non-existant expression didn't show very much, I led the expeditionary force out of the barracks, and to the nearest set of stairs that were opened down to the fourth floor. After waiting a minute at the top and not seeing any light sources coming up or going down, I began walking down, with the others following behind me. My bones echoed off the hard stone, with the sounds of rattling bones, clinking armor and weapons, and the marching of the others all sounding louder than my non-existent heart, which was pounding away.

It felt like we were marching far longer than we had when we came into the third floor, and I figured it was specifically because of how large the fourth floor must have been, because when we finally arrived, what I saw was much more than I expected from the reports.

The entire floor was massive. I couldn't even see the other end from where we were at. There were lights off in the distance, a little bit to the right of where we had come out, and I could just barely make out the forms of dungeoneers standing atop walls, both standing still and patrolling the length of what seemed less like a camp, and more like a fortress.

Looking up, I could see that the ceiling itself was covered in stalactites, with water droplets occasionally falling to the floor, which upon closer inspection, I realized wasn't stone. It was in fact, dirt. That wasn't the only difference from the other floors. There were rather crude looking buildings made of both mud and stone, dotting the entire floor, as if they were meant to be some sort of village, or town. I assumed some of them would hold equipment chests, while others would hold the monsters of this floor.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I didn't let my initial surprise or awe stop me, and I led the expedition away from the stairs, toward some of the huts. After a few minutes, we were set up inside and around a hut that blocked the dungeoneer fortress from view, so that we wouldn't be spotted by any peculiar people. Some of the more hot blooded skeletons wanted to attack immediately, but I held them back with the promise that once we had enough to completely drown the dungeoneers from the lowest floor to our own, then we would wash over them all like a wave, killing all in our path. These few words seemed to calm them down enough, but they still didn't seem very happy about it. I wasn't worried about that, at this point. I was more worried about who else was sharing this floor with us.

In order to find out this information, I sent the two scouts to do preliminary reconnaissance of the surrounding area, in the hopes that they'd find a group of the fourth floor's denizens.

While they did that, I had the combat related skeletons begin watching the surrounding area, just in case we got any unexpected visitors. The two members of the E.P.T. were stuck inside the hut that was currentliy serving as our frontier camp, as they had very little they could do for the moment.

After getting everyone settled in, I began watching the dungeoneer fortress itself. It seemed to be made of stone brickwork, with four walls, and a basic archer tower in each corner. I wondered if it had come from the dungeon itself, or if they had built it over time. I was leaning towards the latter, since I didn't think it really fit the theme of the mud huts that served as buildings.

The fortress itself looked very appealing, but at the same time, I wondered how defensible it actually was. If it was hard to take, then that would work perfectly for me. However, if it was easy to take, I'd honestly rather use it as a decoy, as I didn't want us to be pushed out of the fourth floor now that we'd actually arrived.

To make sure that we wouldn't get pushed out, I figured it would be a good idea to find or create a fortress of our own, although it would be very time consuming. It was either that, or recruit as many skeletons as possible from the second floor, and simply go further and further down, not stopping until we had people in the floors that the strongest dungeoneers frequented. Neither of them worked very well as options, but until I could think of something else, those would be what I had to work with.

I ended up sharpening the axe as I waited for the scouts to return. It wasn't damaged, but the sensation was relaxing, so I continued, albeit gently, so as to not grind away the blade. I still didn't know if the axe was special or not, but since it hadn't shown off any special properties, I guessed that it was meant to be both ornamental, and practical.

Probably a symbol of wealth or power. Oh well. It's mine now.

It was at that moment that one of the scouts returned. It was a newer skeleton, whose name I had completely forgotten. His voice was high pitched, as if someone was holding it with a rope, trying to keep it from dropping down several pitches.

"I saw some of the floor's monsters!" His words shook me out of the stupor I'd been falling into, and I immediately faced him, my sight boring into his eye sockets. "Show me."

Following him without worrying much about being noticed, we made good time before arriving a good distance away from a nondescript hut. I figured that we would see one of them moving around eventually if we waited long enough, but in order to keep anyone from sneaking up on us, I ordered the scout to watch my back while I waited for any sign of movement.

We weren't necessarily hidden, as we were sitting behind another hut. It seemed there was no vegetation of any kind, nor were there any rocks or even a small rise in the dirt floor. If any other monsters looked in our direction, they'd probably see us without too much trouble.

Luckily, we weren't ambushed or spotted by anybody, and after waiting for about twenty minutes or so, I saw one of them walking out of the hut. They seemed like a very deformed elf, with pale green skin, short pointed ears, a flat nose as if it had been pressed into their skull, and several fangs. They were also quite scrawny, but they were armed with what looked like a half broken axe, and a dented metal shield. Their armor was also better than ours by a large margin, with the leather being supplemented with small strips of metal that had been more or less bolted onto the armor itself.

Furthermore, there were no holes in the armor that weren't meant to be there. Of course, looking at its somewhat beady eyes, I didn't think taking it on was a good idea at the moment. Mostly because they had a similar fighting style to me, and probably a similar fighting style to goblins.

I was looking at the downgraded version of an elf.

Orcs. Of course it had to be orcs.