The frog lady let out a croak of surprised before looking between them in shock. “Human!? But your kind almost NEVER leave your walled cities besides some adventurers! Most certainly not your knights!” She then looked down the tunnel slowly moving closer to the duo. “Oh by the waters, what dungeon have I wandered into that even human knights have come for?”

Jack gently patted her shoulder causing her to jump and let out a loud ribbit. After barely managing to bury a laugh he took a deep breath and explained. “Look, We are from a very VERY far way away. Another dimension if you understand that kinda thing. We just happened to find this dungeon first and are in no way associated with the humans here.”

The frog blinked a bit as she looked back and forth between the two. “Were you summoned? We have beings come from other dimensions but they are usually summoned forth by a mage of great power. I have never heard though of a true souled being getting summoned though.” She slowly started to relax and started to stand up straight showing she was a head taller than the dimensional duo.

“Nope. We came here ourselves to collect magical gems.” He continued on as John lowered his rifle to finally relax. It was pretty clear now that she was not going to do anything to harm them. Plus, there was the question if she even could even with only mid-tier armor.

“Magical gems? Oh, you mean the catalyst crystals?” She asked before wiping some rat pulp off of the end of her staff to show it was embedded with a few green and black crystals. “Some say they are stone grown from veins of elemental magic. Others say they are remains from souls shedding their ties to the elements as they move on to whatever lies after.” She explained. “Why would you, beings from another world, need OUR crystals?”

Jack looked over to John. “Hey, you wanna cut in a bit? I hate that you are just standing there.” Jack called out.

John simply shook his head a little before speaking up, “Nah, we both know you want to talk to her more and why.” The large man then chuckled as Jack calmly flipped him off.

“Well. Our dimension has no crystals, but we found they are full of energy to power things.” Jack explained as he returned his focus to her. “In fact, they are the best power source we have ever found. So to collect them teams, just like me and John here, are sent out to collect them and send them back.”

“A world without crystals… must not have magic either.” She mused as she continued to take notes. “Fascinating. It would explain why I detected no spell signatures from your armor or weapons. Only magical traces.” Her quill was a blur as she wrote faster and faster. Pages crackling as she flipped between them.

“We use ours to power spells and a few enchantments, but the magic in the air is usually so potent they are often not even needed.” She explained before looking up at them. “Dungeons are usually the best place to find them due to the magical concentration being very high within them.” She lowered her book to look between the two men. Her eyes remaining on Jack far longer than John however.

“So, why are you down here?” John asked as he looked at the remains of the rats and snake. “If you don’t need crystals what made you come down here?”

She let out a long sigh as she rested one of her hands on her hip. “I guess it is only fair to tell you two. You saved my lives, said what you are after, and its not really that interesting to begin with. I came down to search for new things to study and learn from, to grow my levels, and to find items and gold to sell to fund my travels.” She then rubbed her chin with her long fingers before walking close to Jack. Her hips swaying side to side with each step.

“So. You two probably need a guide and someone who knows this world. I want to travel the world learning more too AND I could use some protection. How about we-“ she pointed to Jack, then herself, then John. “-form a party?”

John simply let out a sigh. “Seems like a good idea to me. Besides I know Jack won’t turn it down.”

Jack had just been nodding as he watched her… everything. He knew she probably didn’t mean it but her swamp-witch outfit did not leave much to the imagination. Particularly her chest. Why did a frog have a chest like that he did not know nor care to argue against it.

“Wonderful! I do have one request if one of you don’t mind. I know you said you were human, but I just want to s-“ her words were cut off by the hiss of Jack’s helmet’s seals before he slipped it off. The dim lights highlighting his sharp face, his wild wide smile of perfect white, slender and piercing blue eyes, and full head of golden hair. His smooth chuckle echoed through the cavern as he saw her large eyes grow a bit wider.

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“Much better than the few pictures I have seen.” She mused to herself as her quill went wild on her page. She needed to record as much as possible! Not only was it one of the very few times a human had actually been spotted outside of their enclaves, but they were also from another world!

“By the way. I am Jack and that wall of fuck-you is John.” Jack explained pointing to himself first followed by motioning to his companion. “I just realized we never bothered to swap names!” He admitted with a laugh causing the poor frog to tense up and let out a long sigh.

“Ah, I completely forgot!” She squeaked out with her face turning a bit darker as blood rushed to it. “I am Nelva. I apologize again. I was a bit too caught up in, well-“ She motioned to them both as she recovered from her embarrassment. “-all of this. I did leave my home to learn new things, and this is very much new.”

Jack let out a laugh and nodded a bit. “Fair enough! Well, I am sure we can show you lots of new things and learn together!” He then patted her shoulder a bit. “We don’t have any reason to keep our stuff a secret. I doubt anyone in this world has the precision machinery to replicate it even with magic anyway. Besides, will be nice to have someone local along.” John simply shook his head and started to walk down the hall.

“Alright you two. Lets get moving. We need to at least find a few gems before we head topside.” John grunted out as he started to check around the next corner. “Jack, ears.” He quickly added as he focaused on the monsters that were just down the hall.

Jack nodded and reached into his pack pulling out two bright orange balls of clay-esque foam. “Here. Put these either over or in your ears. Its to keep them from getting hurt by the loud noises our guns make.” He tapped the sides of his head before he slipped his helmet back on to protect his own ears.

She nodded and stuck them over where her ears were in her head. She had already “experienced” the loud noise of the guns going off without them being protected and decided a little bit of protection was a very good idea. The idea was nothing new really. A few high end fire spells were known to make blasts big enough that it would cause ear damage as well.

Once the ear protection was on he nodded and got behind John’s back. Nelva thought about joning the attack, but realized it was probably a bad idea since she still needed to learn just how they fought. Plus, she really wanted to watch and learn more about them. A few taps from Jack on John’s shoulder to signal he was ready and the “show” began.

They whirled around the corner and got into pre-planned positions. Jack slightly in front and to the left of John towards the corner to leave John’s field of fire unobstructed with Jack a bit closer to better use his gun of choice.

Their teamwork against the rats was on point. John’s gun thudding loudly and slowly as he took his time to use the higher caliber to rip apart anything that was larger or seemed to have the most armor. Jack’s shotgun booming and clacking as shell after shell flung double-ought death to whatever was fastest or was getting closest to give John the breathing room he needed to make his shots count.

The cave echoed with the roar of the slaughter. The booms of rounds followed by the wet crunch and other rather disgusting noises of the rounds ending the short lives all over the cave walls, and floor, and sometimes the ceiling if it hit one just right. Still, none was managing to get close and soon the system would only display “killed” over the corpses rather than bother trying to calculate just how much overkill had happened.

It didn’t take long at all before the last of the monsters fell amidst the gore. The two men looked around to make sure none were following the horde before motioning Nelva to come. “Alright, all clear!” Jack said with a chuckle as they topped off their respective guns. Jack sliding more shells into his shotgun while John attached his rifle to his pack to put more rounds into his magazines.

As she walked up her eyes wandered over the remains of the monsters and had to pause to keep her lunch down. She had seen monsters ripped apart my spells before, but this was something else! She couldn’t help but think how lucky she was being used to foul odors from the swamp as the stench of the bodies hit her. She knew right away that those “guns” were not something to take lightly, and how lucky she was that they were on her side.

As they walked over the bodies they paused only to pick up the more obvious crystals. Nobody wanted to dig through the bloody mess even with sealed armor on. Besides, from what Nelva had said they would find more, and better, crystals further in. Nelva did consider taking notes on the damage the guns did, but decided to wait for less graphic subjects.

“So, what ya think?” Jack asked Nelva as John walked a bit behind them. Both to keep an eye on their new companion just in case and also to avoid being near the obviously flirty Jack.

“I think the weapons are very… efficient.” She calmly replied eyeing his gun knowing full well that his weapon had created some of the more “graphic” displays. While she was very curious as to how the guns worked she decided that it was probably a good idea to focus on the humans first. While it was rather strange to her that one was avoiding them both she didn’t mind too much as Jack was all too happy to answer her questions.

As the two talked the trio soon found themselves in a small room with a beautiful red glow. The source? A massive red crystal that glowed with a faint magical fire within it. The two humans stopped and stared at it before looking at each other.

“Jackpot?” Jack asked John who had paid a bit more attention in gem appraisal.

“Jackpot.” John said with a nod.

They then looked at the massive crystal knowing that this hunk would power a block with ease. Plus it would be enough that it would keep their ship fully powered for quite some time even after they sent back a very generous cut back home.

This dimension just kept getting better and better.