The jungle didn’t become much more hospitable during my short stay at Najam’s camp. Monsters still cropped up at every turn, and always with the ferocity of a mortal enemy. They attacked on sight, making the journey a very halting process.
Still, Ren and I settled back into the groove of forest living pretty easily. With Ren’s new sword and the advancements in my own strength, the two of us had a much easier time with the monsters – even the ones that used to give us a hard time before. Adding in the copious amounts of gear that Najam had graciously forced onto us, the journey became almost…comfortable.
And indeed, Najam had held nothing back with his generosity. Since, in his words, ‘we’d paid him back hundredfold’ for his chips, it was actually he who was indebted to us. Which was the excuse he used to load us up with expensive, top quality gear – the best that he’d brought, apparently. And for a chronic preparation freak like Najam, that meant a full suit of lightweight, durable leather armor for both Ren and me. My suit, Najam quickly explained when he realized it was odd he’d brought armor for a woman, was an old set made for Tara back before she’d truly settled into her role of backline offense. A little reworking by the resident leather workers had the suit sitting snug and comfortably over my clothes.
I’d been proud of my armor, finding myself quite dashing clad in the dark leather plates and guards, until Ren pointed out that they should’ve added a face plate on it, since I seemed so fond of hitting myself on the nose.
Aside from the gear, Najam had handed us each one of those little brown pouches that seemed to hold far more space within than should have been physically possible. Najam explained they were called rift bags and, through the magic of spatial runes, had an inside with far more volume than their appearance would suggest.
Within our rift bags were a week's worth of rations and water, along with some other basic survival equipment, and a map that marked exactly the path we had to take to the nearest city. By that point, I had to forcefully put a stop to Najam’s generosity, flustered beyond what my composure could handle, though Tara assured me that eight months of farming a three-rank dungeon would more than earn them enough gold to buy back everything Najam gave us, with extra to spend.
All in all, as Ren and I left the adventurer’s camp with hugged goodbyes and promises of meeting again, we were far more prepared to face the forest than we had been when we crash landed into it.
And as time passed, that preparation reflected in the ease with which we settled back into our routine. With our newfound upgrades, even the few rock gorillas we came across – the strongest species we’d run into – were dealt with relatively quickly. As for the other beasts, they were handled with even more swiftness.
However, for all that was similar, there was one major difference that we found. It happened not long after we’d left the camp, only about a week and a half later. We'd just finished dealing with an earth-type bear-ish animal. It was one we’d dealt with quite often, so it wasn’t a very difficult fight. I sat at the edge of the clearing that our fight had created, sitting watch on the log of a tree the bear had knocked down while Ren busied himself with butchering the animal. It was getting late in the day, and since bear meat was better than the monkey meat we’d already packed, Ren had decided that he’d grab a few cuts from the bear for dinner.
The sun hadn’t fully settled beneath the horizon, and its warm pink glow lit up the trees in a picturesque painting of color I was busy admiring when an unnatural pulse of blue light caught my attention. It was there and gone in an instant, so fast I’d have thought I imagined it had I not felt a strangely familiar brush of Flux against my skin. It was faint, more gentle than the caress of a breeze, but it was distinct. And while I’d only ever felt it once before, it was not a feeling I was soon to forget.
With a budding feeling of anticipation rising in my chest, I let Ren know that I was going to check something out before slipping into the darkening woods. I walked in the direction of the blue light, letting my sense guide me to the well of Flux I could feel somewhere in the distance.
I stumbled into a clearing after only a few minutes of walking, finding myself in an open, circular field of dirt and shrubbery that housed exactly what I had been suspecting. Sitting directly in the center of the place was the familiar sight of swirling blue and purple streaks. A mad grin settled over my face as I recognized it, and I called out to Ren as loudly as I could, not tearing my gaze away from the dungeon portal. I almost instantly realized that yelling in the forest as night was setting was a terrible idea, but I hardly cared at the moment.
Before long, an annoyed Ren found his way to where I was standing, hands still bloody and his face set to scold me. But before he could utter a sound, I pointed in front of us. Ren looked confused for a second, before presumably extending the range of his Flux sense until he felt the mass of Flux that was the portal.
Ren’s eyes fluttered open in shock, before his mouth morphed into a grin of anticipation. The glint in his glossy eyes mirrored my own, and I breathed a breath of relief as I realized I wouldn’t have to convince him of this objectively terrible idea. In fact, we didn’t utter a single word at all, simply smiling at each other before making our way forward with confident steps.
I chuckled wryly to myself as we did. It seemed my time with Najam had made me forget that Ren and I were birds of a feather. He was far from the kind of person who’d try to talk me out of trouble. Which, I realized, shouldn’t have been as relieving of a thought as I found it to be – without a reasonable person to hold us back, after all, we were bound to walk headfirst into terrible decisions left and right.
But while having someone like Najam around would undoubtedly save us from tons of trouble, I wasn’t about to change the way I was any time soon. Especially not now, when the responsibilities on my shoulders numbered hardly higher than zero. Life was just so much more fun my way, after all. And I was always one to live life to its fullest, regardless of the consequences. Or at least, I always wanted to be one, and now that I'd been gifted the perfect circumstances, I'd be a fool not to.
The portal felt exactly the same as the first, that tingly feeling skittering all over my skin as I pushed through the slight resistance it offered. On the other side, we found ourselves thrust immediately into the clutches of a wintery wasteland. Wind howled in our ears, though the decrepit walls of the ruined fortress we stood in shielded us from the worst of it. The same, however, could not be said of the cold.
The cold was immediate and incessant, seeping into my body within seconds and making my bones ache. But I hardly noticed at first, my attention on the board that had appeared in front of my face once again.
********
Welcome to the Tundra Dungeon!
Welcome, player of this deadly game!
Welcome, brave warrior!
Prepare to fight, to win, to find glory!
Or else, find Death.
~~~~~~~
Name: Tundra Dungeon
Difficulty Rating: ⭐⭐
Level Suggestion: 10 – 25
Party Suggestion: 3 – 7
Status: Uncleared
Stages: 2
Monster Type:
* First Stage: Frost Wolves
* Second Stage: Unknown
* Third Stage: Unknown
~~~~~~~
Do you wish to challenge this Dungeon? (Y/N)
********
My grin widened at the sight. “Two-star dungeon, huh?” I said, to which Ren responded with a low chuckle. The rational part of my brain knew that just because it was rated lower than the Zergy Dungeon didn’t mean that Ren and I would have an easy time with it. After all, we had no experience with the monsters we would face, nor did we have pre-planned strategies to deal with them.
But in my eyes, that only made it more exciting.
With a thought, I accepted the challenge of the dungeon, whisking away the old screen and replacing it with a new one, one I hadn’t seen before.
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
********
There are no parties to join.
Would you like to create your own team?
********
I looked at Ren then, who immediately understood and waved me away. “You’re the boss – you do it,” he said with a teasing smile.
I smiled in response and nodded.
********
Please name your team:
********
It took me half a moment to land on the name I wanted to use.
********
Party Created: Rosefire.
Your Party is private. Would you like to make it public?
********
This one took me a moment longer to decide on, but I figured public would be the simpler option, since Ren would need to join too.
********
Your Party has been made public. Un-partied warriors will now be able to join your party.
********
Before I could even ask, the screen changed and informed me that Ren had joined my party.
********
Party: Rosefire.
Leader: Ruby Redthorn (215/215)
Members:
* Ren - (240/240)
********
“Huh,” Ren and I said at the same time. “Wonder what the numbers mean,” Ren said, just as I remarked, “Wonder why it doesn’t say your full name.”
We both went silent again, each considering the other’s point, before simultaneously shrugging in defeat. We were venturing blind into this whole thing, so it was almost impossible to get the answers we wanted.
Giving that up, we whisked away the screens before us and brought our attention back to the reality before us. My clothes were already frigid against my skin, and every movement almost hurt as they hugged my body. Every breath stung all the way down to my lungs, and frost already clung to my eyelashes, the ice drooping down into my vision.
But oppressive as it was, the environment was of little concern to me. It would hinder my strength, no doubt, but I was in no danger of freezing to death. Not when I had Flux still running in my veins.
With a thought, that Flux kicked into a higher gear, running through my body at higher and higher speeds until it burst out of me with an explosion of flames. I controlled the flames to make sure they didn’t burn Ren, but made sure they were just enough to keep him warm.
Ren breathed a sigh of bliss as the warmth I radiated washed over him, chasing away that cold that had been tightening its grip on us.
With that problem dealt with, the two of us turned our attention to where we were. We seemed to be in the center of what had once been a medieval fortress, though now it was little more than an open field with sporadic heaps of square-cut gray stone that were barely an echo of the walls I assumed they were supposed to be.
Only the outer walls demarcating the edges of the fort rose up high enough to provide any kind of shelter, but with the nonexistent roof above, it was mostly pointless.
However, I soon realized, the walls weren’t actually pointless – they simply served another purpose. The moment Ren and I stepped beyond the boundary they had set, it seemed, was the moment that the dungeon run really began. Like the Zergy Dungeon’s hallways, it seemed the decrepit fortress acted as a kind of safe zone, a place where the monsters would not enter. And was the place we had to leave for the run to begin.
And indeed, as soon as we stepped past the zone, we spotted seven dark forms materialize on the far horizon. The world we were in was phenomenally flat, and the knee-high, pristine layer of snow atop the ground was untouched and blindingly white. Thanks to that, it wasn’t difficult to spot the figures bounding across the frigid plain, their target obvious.
After all, blazing orange as I was, I surely stuck out like a sore thumb in the frozen, ivory-white world that I was in.
The figures slowly revealed themselves as they approached. They were, as I’d suspected, the Frost Wolves of the first stage. They were absolutely massive, easily reaching three meters in height and probably almost five in length.
Their bounding footsteps shook the plain, throwing snow up dozens of feet in the air in their wake. I grinned as I met their stares, my hand reaching for the pole strapped to my back. The fire around me flared up, and at my side, purple smoke swirled up into the air as Ren rallied his own Flux. The environment wasn’t one that was particularly tailored to Ren’s strong suit, but that didn’t matter nearly as much as it used to.
With his new black blade, Ren’s frontal combat strength had soared to new heights. He’d been a monster with his dagger, but his swordsmanship was hardly a step behind in skill. And as the wolves closed in on us, he grinned with the same glee that adorned my face and unsheathed his blade, revealing its shadowy length to the world.
Without waiting for the wolves to challenge us themselves, Ren took the initiative and flashed forward, darting through the snow as he targeted the leftmost wolf. It was a good idea – attacking before the wolves could get close enough to help each other out – and it was a plan we’d enacted many times before, when dealing with larger groups of animals.
Ren would target and eliminate one of the beasts as quickly as possible, while I would hold the rest back. Given our battle styles, it was the simplest and most effective plan we’d come up with for dealing with the specific scenario.
Sticking to the script, I leapt forward and landed ahead of where the wolves had been aiming to meet, forcing the six to change direction to meet me, dragging them further away from the one that Ren had singled out.
Flame poured off of me in a torrent of brilliance, swirling like a tornado around me in an eye-catching show of aggression. It was wasteful, more so than usual due to the suppression of the atmosphere, but it did its job well. The six wolves honed in directly on me, leaving behind their comrade to deal with Ren on their own.
A fatal decision for their friend, it turned out.
Ren’s sword was a dark streak against the overwhelming white of the tundra, a stroke of ink on a canvas he wielded like a master painter. Before long, the pristine white of the wolf’s fur was drenched in scarlet, while Ren still danced about, unharmed and sporting a smile so wide and evil I almost felt bad for the wolf.
In the meanwhile, I had the technically more difficult job of holding off the six other wolves, but like Ren, I was more having fun than I was doing a job. Just before the fire-nado evaporated, I burst out from the haze and dashed in between the monsters, wielding my flaming pole like a bat as I weaved my way through them.
My purpose wasn’t to kill, so the pole made more sense to use than my new claws, since the blunt damage and longer range of it was better suited for my job.
I moved like a blazing wraith as I dashed into the group of wolves. Fire continuously poured off of me, evaporating the thick layer of snow around – a blessing for me both because it no longer hindered my movements and because the heat also seemed to slow the wolves down.
Their reduced speed was a great blessing, and the only reason I could keep up with the demanding task. As good as I’d gotten with the fights I’d been through, dealing with six massive wolves at the same time was nearing the upper limits of my skill. I danced on a tightrope, dodging claws and fangs by the skin of my teeth, and occasionally having to take the damage and Revive to survive.
Still, I wasn't helpless either, and before long, the six wolves had lost the lustre of their fur to the constant heat, their pristine quality fading with the snow at our feet as we fought. I wasn’t faring amazingly, though – my armor had taken a few hits, though was mercifully still intact, and my Revive count had already climbed up to 5. All in all, it was a standstill that was just barely tilted in the favor of the wolves. Given enough time, they’d eventually wear me down and kill me before I could finish off all of them. I was positive about that.
Fortunately for me, though, I wasn’t alone in the fight. And the onus wasn’t on me to kill all of them.
It wasn’t much later that Ren dealt with his first target and made his way over to me. Targeting the one furthest from me, he landed a heavy swipe on the wolf’s back two feet while it was distracted, severing tendons and severely diminishing its ability to move.
But, instead of dragging that wolf away, he left it alone and moved on to the next closest beast. Unfortunately, this one managed to react in time, having noticed the fate of the one behind it, so Ren wasn’t able to land a decisive blow off the bat.
Still, having essentially immobilized one was help enough for the moment, so Ren engaged in the second wolf properly, slowly luring it away from the larger group so that he could deal with it in his own time.
With that, I was left with four normal wolves and one crippled one, which lessened my workload immensely. The odds shifted noticeably in my favour, and the wolves lost their overwhelming suppression over me. And given more slack, I focused heavily on the one crippled wolf that Ren had left for me.
Every chance I got, I concentrated my attacks on that wolf, throwing countless fireballs and bullets at it, leaving it riddled with small bloody holes and pockmarked scorch marks. The poor thing had no chance to dodge, and since its comrades were unable to keep me preoccupied at all times, it wasn’t long before the monster was dragged to death's door.
By the time Ren had dealt with his target, the cripple was a breath away from death, and Ren took no longer than a second to end the monster’s life – but, of course, not before scoring a cripple on another wolf by catching it off guard. For all their strength, I realized, the wolves were quite lacking in intelligence.
I guess it makes sense, though, I realized a second later. This is only a two-star dungeon, after all.
My only experience with dungeons had been with a three-star dungeon, and although I’d known that this one was a level lower in difficulty, it seemed I’d underestimated the scale.
Given their limited intelligence, no surprises popped up for the rest of the fight. Ren was allowed to whittle down their numbers until only two immensely weakened wolves remained, and they didn’t last long under our combined assault. Especially when I switched out from my pole to the scarlet claws.
Before long, the last wolf fell and disintegrated into countless glowing white particles, signaling the end of the first round.