In an ancient kingdom, forgotten by time and memory, there was once a town called Mitro. That town grew and grew, when the kingdom fell it was already called a city, but it was once a simple village, or rather, a horrible village cursed by the dungeon. They said that at the bottom of the dungeon there was an orb, a certain magical artifact created by the greatest mage to ever live, Zot the Terrible. That orb and its magic cursed the poor village of Mitro with an air heavy and putrid, an earth that grew little more than potatoes and famine, and dark woods all around that hid away beasts, monsters, and evil beyond comprehension. Though even those evils were afraid to approach the village, kept away by the dungeon.
Well, that dungeon was deep, it crawled into the earth for hundreds upon hundreds of meters, all that to hold the orb of Zot. This magical artifact was said to hold all the spells and mana of Zot. If that was true, it would be the most powerful artifact in existence, greater than the golden apple of Maria the Eternal, more powerful than the sword of Snayor the Brave, more terrible than the walking corpse of Carrion the Rotten, and more valuable than the gold reserves of the whole kingdom, or maybe than all the gold reserves of all kingdoms in the world! Because of this, the dungeon attracted hordes of adventurers that wished to make a name for themselves by capturing the orb of Zot. For thousands of years brave ones have entered the dungeon, equipped with little more than wit and cloth on account of the dungeon's wrath towards anyone that brought more than that into its guts, but none had returned with the orb. That was until Styer the Elf.
The rumours spoke of an elf that was raised by the people of Mitro since a young age. He was brilliant, a true magical genius, and braver than the sun that rises every morning and the moon that follows suit. He went in, with nothing but a robe, some magic memorized, and a small rusted dagger that would struggle to cut through open air. But he made it back, and he had with him a round crystal that shined bright and blindingly powerful. Every magic around it would bend and shift in the air, every sword and arrow would break, and the ground would shake with every step of Styer. The orb of Zot had made its way to the surface. But Styer disappeared soon after returning to the dungeon, leaving behind only a large amount of wealth he'd found in the dungeon to the people of Mitro, which allowed the town, now freed from its curse, to turn into what it was on the day of this story.
The streets were bustling, orcs, gnolls, elves, and humans ran around the town doing this and that, but a small group of people stood out from amongst the crowd. They wore armour white as snow that shined like the sun and on their backs was the royal emblem, a grey wolf roaring to the sky. The person at the front was a small man with hair like gold and eyes like the sea. He was short and his cheeks were puffy, same as his arms, and most of all his belly. He puffed his chest and raised his chin, the clear image of royalty in flesh, bone, and pride. King Yakom stood before a tavern with his guards, the large wooden sign read “Styer's Mug”.
Yakom tried to kick down the door, but almost fell on his back, unaccustomed to moving around in his royal armour as he was, only managing to avoid landing on his behind with help from a guard, the same one that carefully opened the door for all of them to enter the establishment. Yakom spoke to everyone inside.
“My name is Yakom the Wise, king of this land!” His voice was high-pitched and shrill, though his tone was that of someone used to people waiting on his every word. He looked around to the people in the tavern, staring at him with different degrees of confusion and disinterest. Every single person in the tavern was an adventurer, that was clear as day to anyone but the king. They wore little clothing, most of them, some wore armour that was chinked and dulled from battle, others wore magical robes, pendants, and rings of magical power, staffs that held the power of the elements and bags that held scrolls and potions with magical effects. They wore their scars proudly, and their blades even more so. Yakom continued “I am looking for the legend of Styer the Elf! You shall tell me!” He screamed, his voice cracking on the last word like a crystal flute being dropped from the top of one of the castle's towers and violently hitting the cobbled floor. In Mitro, there were no kings. There was only might and honour. The king was blind to this, of course, coddled as he was, but his knights knew the truth of this town, and all of them put their hands on their long swords with hilts adorned with magical jewels and inscriptions that promised blessings from the gods in battle.
His chest puffed, his eyes closed in overwhelming pride, the king stood before the adventurers as they lowered their heads and scrambled to leave the tavern, scared of what the royal guards would do to low-life scum like them. When the king got back down to earth from his cloud of delusion, he looked around, a completely beshmucked look on his chubby face, seeing nothing but empty chairs, empty tables, empty mugs, and even an empty counter, as the honoured barista had hidden in the kitchen, hoping to keep his head on his shoulders. Then, a laughter echoed in the nearly empty tavern.
The king and the knights looked to the origin of the laugh, a guttural thing that shook the ground and the armour of the city-folk. It came from a darkened corner of the tavern. Hidden away was an orc. He was a large man, tall, huge in every way. His pig-like head held a pig-like nose and pig-like ears, not to mention the pig-like eyes, black as the dungeon. He stood, slowly, the guards unsheathing their blades and pointing them at the gigantic man. He held a mug in his hand, filled half-way with a golden beer. The mug was bigger than the head of any human in the world, even the king's. The orc's belly was so enlarged it tipped the table over he was sitting at as he stood, and his hoofed feet made thick thock sounds as he approached the royal caravan. His arms were deeply scarred, holding white and grey flashes like lightning in the night sky. He was wearing only a monk's robe cut at the sleeves. He emitted an aura of unadulterated evil that scared even the knights, as their swords shook and trembled with every step the orc took.
By the time he was face to face with the small human king, the orc spoke, loudly and deeply. His voice crushing the silence mercilessly.
“So you want to know about little Styer, is that right, human?” He laughed again, striking fear into the tavern, making even some of the knights drop their weapons and run out for their lives. “Sure, Yakom was it, I'll tell you his story, true as Beogh.” Said the orc, grabbing at his robes where his heart would be, “My name is Worrack, a simple priest of Beogh the Brigand, and I was the one who raised Styer, right here in this town of Mitro. Pay for my beer, little one. I'll tell you what you want to know.” He said, as he laughed one last time, his belly shaking with every HA and every HO like a monstrous pudding.
Only the king still remained on his feet, completely unphased by the orc's appearance and power. Yakom had no sense of danger, it seemed, and his pride emanated from within his every pore that not even Worrack's aura could penetrate his protective shield of ignorance. He simply smiled, broadly and happily, and nodded his head, snapping his fingers before a buckle-kneed knight handed him a little leather bag filled to the brim with golden coins, that the king then handed to Worrack, the orc, priest of Beogh. The knights took some time to regain their wits, and by the time their eyes could be trusted, the king and the orc were sitting at a nearby table, three large beers already on the table and empty as the human barista approached with the fourth before a single word about Styer had even been spoken.
Worrack let out a burp that shook their knees as the guards fell to the ground, and he began his story, his voice a grumble and an earthquake in one, his eyes narrowing to look at the reddened face of the king.
“Styer arrived at Mitro by himself. He was but a babe, barely a year old, by my eyes. He was an elf, I could tell from his ears, though the rags he was wrapped in were of human making. They held the symbol of the orphanage down south from the city of Crytos. It was a common occurrence, for kids that didn't fit with the humans to be abandoned in the poor and decrepit village of Mitro, left for dead at the edge of the woods. Luckily for the kid, I spotted him and brought him in, and named him Styer as the thing closest to him, other than the woods, was a pig sty.
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He was an elf, which wasn't great for me, as an orc, as you may know. But I raised him as my own. Well, I tried, but he quickly surpassed everything I could've imagined. He was a genius, I tell you, something I've never seen since and had never seen before. And I've seen many adventurers that aimed for the orb, having lived my whole life right here in Mitro. No, Styer was different. I trained him in swords and he could beat me by the time he was five, I had only a single grimoire holding some basic magic and he memorized it before he was ten, though he could only cast a single spell, the Magic Dart. Still, he cast the most powerful Magic Dart I've ever seen, even at that age. He was cunning, careful, smart, strong... From a young age I could tell he was going into that accursed dungeon. I tried to hide it from him, but the other people at the village told him about it, he heard it from all others never from me! I wanted to keep him away from it, to keep him safe, but his talent was undeniable, and even I couldn't keep him from his fate. I was terrified he would die, or return disgraced like so many others. Though, as you know, he came back with the thing, that shining treasure that could calm even Trog.
When he was fifteen, he told me he was going in. I didn't try to stop him then. I saw it in his eyes. Well, he was inside for five years, everyone thought he was dead already, even I. But he made it back, to this day I remember it like it was this morning. The last thing anyone knows of him is what I know. He met me in this tavern after hiding the orb somewhere far away. Where, that I cannot tell you, not even I know that much. But right here, at this very table, he told me his story. What he had to do, to overcome, to crawl down the depths of the dungeon to gather the runes, and the realm of Zot to reach the orb, and then his run back to the surface where he felled angels, demons, and creatures that may better be left unspoken of.
When he entered the dungeon, he first noticed how dark it was, the walls were only occasionally helped with a weak flame. It was labyrinthic, every hallway and corner leading to another hallway and another corner, or worse, a dead-end. The ground was weak, filled with dark holes, traps that would send anyone that stepped on them to a random place in the dungeon, sometimes deep into the guts of the dark and inscrutable monster. But Styer was powerful. He made his way around the first level carefully, conserving his mana whenever he could and resting often to avoid being faced with an enemy he could not fell when he was exhausted, and he was exhausted often. He was still a kid, after all, and fighting even a quokka was a tough task for him in that situation. But he managed, leaving that level mostly unscathed, having taken only a bite from a wolf that caught him off guard. He quartered the animals and even the kobolds that hung around the early levels to hunt novice adventurers. He kept doing that all the way to Zot, he managed to keep a steady diet of beast and man.
His first challenge came soon after he went down the stairs for the first time, the second level of the dungeon. He'd found a simple metal helmet, probably left behind by a human warrior that had been killed as soon as he stepped foot in the dungeon with more than rags, but other than his wizard's robes and that hunk of steel he called a dagger, that was all he had to protect himself against Sigmund the Dreaded.
The legends speak of an immortal human that holds a scythe. He was an adventurer like all others, at some time, but when his group and Sigmund reached the second level of the dungeon he killed all his friends, consumed by a thirst for blood and death. The dungeon does that to those weak of spirit. His scythe sliced through the necks and the bodies of those that trusted him most, and he became cursed to wander the early levels and maim any budding adventurer.
Styer spotted him around a corner before Sigmund could see him. That was probably what let him survive the encounter. Styer sent a Magic Dart flying towards the dreaded one, hitting him straight in the chest, ripping through Sigmund's robes and burning his skin. He was bleeding, clearly wounded, but he was powerful enough to withstand that much from a beginner mage, even if that mage was Styer. Quickly, Sigmund used the spell that made him so dreaded amongst the dungeon's cretins, his invisibility spell. Styer saw the tall man, his white hair and white beard, even his large scythe caked in the blood of his friends, disappear from thin air with only a puff of mana.
Styer ran, but he had a plan, he always had a plan. The dungeon's layout was unpredictable, but his impeccable memory allowed him to always remember every thing he saw, every corner and every hallway, he knew exactly where to go. He ran for his life, managing to dodge a few magic darts Sigmund cast his way. All he could hear was the mana gathering around empty air before it burst with a flash of blue light in his direction, he had barely any time to jump to one side or another. He turned corner after corner, looking for the perfect location, that one place he had in mind. Then, he ran ahead, he found himself at a dead end, but the perfect place to kill Sigmund. He could hear the faint sound of the wizard's invisible footsteps before they turned the corner to face Styer.
He felt his mana return to him, and prepared to cast his magic dart. The hallway was the narrowest in the whole level, it was long and dark. To Sigmund, who was powerless to escape his urges, he couldn't help but run towards Styer, who simply stood, with his back towards a wall, dodging flashes of light strong enough to kill him if they made contact with his skin. But Sigmund's mind was broken by the dungeon, so he took the brunt of the elf's spells, dart after dart hit him, the light only barely breaking through his invisibility spell, revealing the spots he was hit, his legs, his belly, his already bleeding chest, then finally, his head.
Styer ran out of mana as the image of Sigmund's head flashed in blue, his skull cracked by magic, bleeding profusely from his eyes and his mouth, his nose turned to the side unnaturally. But somehow, he still moved, like a puppet of the dungeon eternally chasing the weak like a coward, a backstabber holding a scythe, death incarnate. He moved, slowly, his invisibility spell finally dispersing, and his bloody smile revealed in its entirety to Styer, cornered by his own plan. He had spent all his precious mana, there was no time to rest and recover. Sigmund raised his scythe high, that blade that had once been steel made a slicing motion towards the elf.
As the blood coursed through Styer's veins, he remembered his training, he remembered dodging attacks much more precise, much stronger than that, even if Sigmund held a scythe that could hit him from afar, he was faster and more agile than the human. Quickly, he grabbed his dagger. Perhaps it was skill, maybe it was just luck, it could even have been that Sigmund was blind from the injuries he'd sustained, but Styer managed to slither his way around the swing of the scythe, the long blade hitting the ground with a crashing sound that reverberated up the handle and shook the human's shoulder violently. Styer jumped, and forcefully stabbed that dull piece of steel into Sigmund's skull, right at the top of his head, and pulled it down with all his force, ripping his skull in half and cracking his face down the middle, two eyes in each direction, as his brains spilled out from his nose and gathered in his slack lower jaw, blood soaking the elf's hands and robe.
Styer caught his breath, the acrid smell of blood and brains wafting through the air like a curse. His sweat soaked into every bit of his skin and his long black hair. Styer stood and looked down at his kill. That had been the first human Styer had ever slain, but it was only the first of many. Before leaving the site, he butchered the meat out of Sigmund, preparing his next meal, and dropped his dagger on the floor, picking up the scythe.
He walked to the nearest stairway, slicing open some rats and kobolds along the way with his newest weapon, that long scythe that had seen too much blood already was going to see even more, but this time, by the hands of Styer the Elf, and not by Sigmund the Dreaded.
As he was reaching the stairs, he made a mistake uncharacteristic of himself. He failed to look down. Maybe he wasn't used to wielding such a large weapon, it hindered his vision, but regardless of the reason he stepped into a hole and fell down the dungeon. He slipped down the walls, they curved and coiled. He was completely covered in darkness and couldn't stop his fall. Then, he found himself somewhere else. He had no way of knowing how deep he was in the dungeon, he had no way of preparing for the dangers that awaited. He held a cursed blade, a helmet on his head that hurt his ears, and some spells, some meat and some potions and scrolls he didn't yet understand.” Said the orc, before taking the last large gulp of his tenth or twentieth golden beer and tossing the obnoxiously oversized mug into the little mound that had formed on and beneath the table the two sat at.
The king had his jaw slacked, his pearly white teeth showing their faces. His eyes stared at the orc as he wobbled from side to side, drunk out of his mind. Worrack opened his mouth as if to continue his tale, but not a word came out before his piggish face slammed onto the table, his eyes half open showing only the whites of his eyes as he fell into a drunken sleep.
The knights were silent, still sitting by the door, completely entranced by the story, and only the king managed to make a sound, snapping his fingers, signalling for the guards to stand up and prepare to leave the tavern. They would return the next day and continue listening to the tales of the dungeon crawler, the one that survived on stone soup, Styer the Elf.