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“I don’t want to die.”

A magician hugged one of his knees and cried. Those words kept slipping out of his mouth on repeat like a delirious man. I don’t want to die.

I don't want to die.

I don’t want to die.

I don’t want to die.

Please, don’t let me die!

He cried out in anguish, and what roared back at him were dozens of growls and battlecries, coming from monsters as fierce as lions. Those monsters walked circles around the magician, only being hindered by the stone walls surrounding him. If not for that, he would have already been torn to pieces.

The magician heard their roars and staggered backwards, pressing himself furth against the opposite wall. No matter where he moved, he could still hear the scraping of monster claws against the stone, and their hungry growls.

He held his right wrist tightly and began shaking. Tears ran down his face and his legs uncontrollably trembled. Puddles of sweat had already accumulated near him, and he’d just about wet his pants. He was a wreck, and he knew that. But still…

“Please, don’t let me die here…”

The roars grew louder, and then the walls began shaking. Cracks spread across it, and the eyes of those devilish monsters poke through the cracks in the walls.

He knew it was time. Those monsters would break through any minute. And there was nothing he could do about it. So once again, he grasped his right hand tightly and closed his eyes. Only then could he find solace in the face of death.

Death.

The face of the ugly, horrifying monsters that broke through the stone with the taste of blood on their minds.

X X X

My friends and I stood in front of the infamous Treasure Dungeon, which sat right below a giant mountain that towered over us. Its exterior didn’t look like anything extravagant, just a normal dungeon. Apart from the large stone column pillars that supported the roof that hung over the entrance, most of the dungeon was built on the inside of a cave in the mountain. Sure, there was a door and fancy chiseled stone as the walls, but the building looked like it was eaten up by the natural stone of the cave.

Now that I had enough sightseeing, I turned to do a headcount of our entire party. Here was our lineup:

Eliott “Lio” Meyne

Formation Role: Main Rear Ranged Attacker

Fiar Doniz

Formation Role: Vanguard Ranged Support

Kueler

Formation Role: Vanguard

Charliette Glaciare (Me)

Formation Role: Rear Support

This was the party lineup that we had to choose. Christia's wound from the Dungeon of the Dead still hadn’t fully recovered, so she couldn’t go. As for Dalat, he hadn’t shown up to go adventuring with anyone lately. I hope he was alright.

I wasn’t complaining with the party we had, though. We had both Kueler’s experience, given how much older he was compared to the rest of us, and Lio’s power. Combine the two assets and we would basically be unstoppable.

The first thing I did yesterday morning was head to Master Lio’s place to tell him what I had found out from the bartender. He was shocked at first, saying “What?!” And even when I suggested we go there, he shook his head violently and immediately yelled “No way! That’s crazy!” His yell was not much louder than how he normally spoke though.

We argued about it. I said this was our only chance at getting all the money we needed in one fell swoop. But he fired back with a fearful glance. “I’ve heard stories about that dungeon, it’s extremely dangerous! We are not going. I’m not throwing my life away for coins, and neither are you.”

“But come on! You’re strong! You can handle anything in there. Besides, we could have Kueler and everyone else to help us out!” I screamed back.

“You overestimate me!”

That conversation we had yesterday was more like a magic duel, where magicians shot consecutive rapid-fire spells at one another. The two of us fired words and arguments at such a similar speed. Back and forth, we were both under constant fire from each other.

It was clear that Lio did not want to go, nor did I want to force him. But I really didn’t want this opportunity to go by. Others may come and take the treasure before us. As much as I wanted to go, I respect my Master’s wishes. I wasn’t going to make him go.

Instead, I would go myself. Without saying another word, I walked out of Lio’s room and stepped out onto the street.

“Wait! Where are you going?” Lio had followed me.

“I’m going to the Treasure Dungeon.”

“But…” He stared at me. He must have seen something in my eyes, because he soon sighed and his shoulders slumped. “Fine, I’ll take you to that dungeon. Only on the condition that you follow everything I say. And let me be the one to organize our plan for when we go inside.”

And the rest was history. I agreed, and Lio began preparations and even invited the four adventurers to come with us. The specific formation we would get in once inside the dungeon was all his idea based on his knowledge of each of our abilities and skill sets. He was sure to be cautious about this trip. Kind of made me nervous.

What was in there to scare Master Lio this much?

No, I shouldn’t be doubting myself at this point in time. I shook my head and confirmed that everyone was indeed with us, then Lio gave the orders for us to get in formation. Kueler hopped in front and pulled his sword from its sheath, while Fiar walked beside him. Lio and I walked behind the two. It was time that we got to see what this dungeon had in store for us.

Kueler was the vanguard, which meant he’d be the first to come in contact with whatever we encountered. It was a tough role only fit for people with guts and close combat prowess. He fit both criteria. Because of his role, he was the one leading the charge into the dungeon, cracking open the stone door and leading us into the darkness.

Once all of us were inside, Lio had pulled the door shut. I had to help him, since he was lacking in the physical strength department. Thus, we established a strong formation where neither the front, sides, nor rear were vulnerable.

Fiar had pulled out a torch stick from his bag that he carried over his shoulder, prompting Lio to light it. My Master shot a tiny fireball aimed at the stick and the top burst into flames. He himself maintained a small fire that hovered over his staff, so we were not completely in the dark.

All that surrounded us was aged stone walls, darkness, and a putrid smell. It smelled like a dog that hadn’t been washed for weeks. But that wasn’t the issue. The main issue was finding anything worth taking back for cash.

Another problem was where to look. This place was barely explored, so we couldn’t rely on a map. So we didn’t know where corridors stop or where other corridors intersect with it. We had to walk aimlessly, but with our guards up.

From word of mouth, there were very powerful monsters lurking in the shadows of this place. It would be stupid to be careless. That was why our entire party moved as a unit, sticking closely to our formation and staring intently at corners of walls or in the darkness where things may hide.

We didn’t speak another word to each other. Everyone’s expression was serious, and sweat dripped down my forehead. The tension in the air was so much that one would suffocate from it. But we trekked onwards.

We finally advanced past the main dungeon floor, and were beginning to see small stone structures all around. They looked like tiny houses, just made completely out of stone. It was very reminiscent of an ancient town of sorts, lost to time and bound to its place of rest in this decrepit dungeon.

Still, no words were spoken, only through our eyes did we communicate or admire the small stone structures in awe. Fiar stared at the structures with a perplexed look. He probably had the same thought as me. Why are these here?

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Master Lio looked indifferent to the tiny buildings that stood before us. He must have seen more interesting things in his extensive time as an adventurer, so he wasn’t impressed.

Kueler, however, began acting strange. He broke formation and walked up to a wall of the closest structure, then swiped a finger across its surface. Dust and dirt gunk latched onto that finger, and rubbed it against his palm instead of flicking it off.

Dust, dirt, and the occasional bugs that hung out on those structure walls. That was all there was for Kueler to gather. But I wondered why he continued to analyze the gunk with maximum effort. Why put in so much effort for that? It seemed so useless, and puts us at danger because of his formation role being vacant at the moment.

I turned to Master Lio, who shrugged. He was just as lost as I was. Then onto Fiar, who wasn’t much better. He just stared at Kueler with narrowed eyes. We were all equally confused about our vanguard’s sudden shift in behaviors.

While Kueler smeared the wall gunk on his palm, he faced the structure and swiped his finger at it again. Then he nodded in satisfaction, as if he were gaining some new knowledge. I couldn’t say what kind of knowledge someone could gain from just taking grime from an old structure, but I’d imagine it wouldn’t be much useful information for a warrior. Perhaps to a scholar or innovator, but not to a warrior knight like Kueler.

Kueler’s madness continued with him smearing a new batch of nastiness onto his hands. All over it. It was almost as if he had the intention of coating his entire arm in that substance.

“Mhm.” Kueler was the one to finally break the long silence, accompanying his noise with yet another nod. “I knew it. We’re not alone.”

“Huh?” I was taken aback at what he said. How in the world did he gather that info from dirt? “What do you mean?”

“They’re already here.” Kueler made a dash to reclaim his position at the front. His face looked hardened, like a man who had gone through many battles.

“Who’s ‘they’ Kueler?” Fiar asked. Kueler’s comment had made Fiar anxious, and so he frantically scanned all about him. Even the ceilings and right below us. But there was nothing.

“Silence,” Kueler shushed us with a stern voice.

We all tightened our formation as we prepared for battle. Kueler and I unsheathed our weapons, while Lio raised his staff and Fiar had lifted his hand in preparation to cast a spell. We were all on edge, even if nothing was in our line of sight.

Then it hit me. A cold air blew past us and gave me goosebumps. Terror suddenly grabbed hold of me, hugging me tighter and overcoming my heart. It was the coldness of death. The terror of one’s fated demise.

Something was definitely here, stalking us. Its lust for blood was so strong that I could feel it in the air around me. Now I could understand why the royal expeditions failed here. Just being in the presence of these monsters gave one an unbelievable sense of dread. This strong presence they had would weaken any prey they came across, stripping them of their will to fight. But we weren’t going to let that happen to us.

We didn’t buckle under the pressure, nor did we flee in fear. We stood tall, readying our weapons for anything that may come. This must have pissed off whatever monsters that were hiding, because they changed up their tactics.

They revealed themselves.

Powerful roars echoed throughout the room… and they originated from above. The ceiling. I instinctively looked up for the source of the noise, only to have my heart skip a beat and all the color in my face drain.

What stared back at me were dozens of monsters that looked like lions with manes made of spikey, porcupine-like needles. Their pelt was pitch black, and their eyes gave off an ominous red glow.

One of them alone would give me nightmares, but there were dozens, possibly hundreds of them that were standing upside down on the ceiling like bats.

Fiar noticed too, and staggered backwards in fear. “Gah! They’re above us!”

The monsters let out an ear piercing shriek, then began descending to the floor like raindrops falling from the sky.

“Keep the formation tight!” Kueler yelled his orders and gripped his sword tighter.

The minute the monsters hit the ground, they made a b-line to us, bearing their fangs.

Our plan hadn’t worked out as expected. Our formation worked when the enemy was coming from any singular direction, but these monsters were closing in on us at every side.

When the onslaught began, one had flanked Kueler and pounced on him, but he sidestepped and pierced the monster’s heart with his blade. That was the first blood. He swatted away and ripped through their numbers like a knife through butter.

“Here’s the plan!” Lio had recollected us in the midst of battle. While I was fighting one that tried to bite at my neck, Lio shot a beam of fire at it. Its corpse fell on top of me. Soon enough my robe will be as red as his.

“We’re kind of busy here!” Kueler had kicked away a monster with his metal boots, simultaneously decapitating the head of another with his swift sword.

As the crowd of them drew closer, Fiar used Flux to force the monsters back and cause them to tumble over each other. There wasn’t enough debris for him to use as ammunition, so he couldn’t use Accelerate on anything to throw.

“Just listen!” Lio had used a spell called Flame Wave to make a circle of fire a whole three hundred and sixty degrees around us, which caused monsters caught on the circle’s line to be burnt to a crisp. “I’ll need you guys to break formation for a bit. Draw their attention away from me so I can get space to use Cautery and blow a way out!”

“Got it!” Kueler nodded, then turned to me and Fiar. “You guys still have juice left in ya’?”

I guess he meant magic energy. “Yup!” I nodded, turning around to stab a monster that hadn’t quite died fully from Lio’s fire spell. Fiar likewise nodded in the heat of battle.

“Good! Take these! Use those fancy spells of yours!” He threw a handful of small throwing knives to each of us.

We both knew what we had to do.

Kueler kept slashing at the enemy, a bulwark that dared not to be torn down by anyone. He moved oddly like a rabbit, nimble and surprisingly quite acrobatic for his age. A monster had charged at him head on, but he jumped and stepped on its head before performing a front-flip over it.

I had thrown a knife at that monster, quickly chanting Accelerate and watching as it blew a hole through its chest. Strong knives really did make a difference in Accelerate spells, huh.

Fiar had done the same, and both of us started launching sped up knives at our opponents. Of course, I couldn’t get reckless. I’d run the risk of running out of magic energy if I was.

We fought like hell, but there was still a small issue: the monsters just kept coming without stopping. There weren’t even signs of their forces depleting. No, as soon as one was killed, another ran up to take its place.

This is bad! Very, very bad!

I had to stop using magic entirely because my magic energy was near empty. One or two more spells would knock me unconscious, so I had to rely on my dagger.

I took a glance at Fiar after batting away the fangs of a nearby monster. His face was starting to look pale, and his fingers convulsed. He was running out of magic energy too.

We couldn’t keep up with these monsters for long. More and more of them began gathering around us. We certainly had done what Master Lio asked of us. He just had to pull through with his side of the plan before we got overwhelmed.

“Argh!” Fiar wailed in pain after a monster had slipped through our lines and clamped down its jaws on his ankle. I had quickly put it down with a thrust of my dagger to its skull.

“Fiar…” I shook the blood off my dagger, but noticed something wet at my feet. It was blood. A river of it drained out of Fiar’s ankle where the monster had bitten down. Its razor sharp teeth had ripped up his ankle and left a nasty injury.

I stared at it, and then it happened. I turned over and gagged. I’d never been in such ferocious combat before, nor have I seen this much blood in one spot. It basically painted the floor red. It made me feel queasy. Fiar’s disgusting wound was the last straw.

“Pull it together, you two!” Kueler screamed at us, but then he noticed Fiar’s wound as well. His eyes widened for a split second, then they hardened. He was silent. No more words of encouragement. All he could offer was a sigh.

It was over. Our line of defense had fallen. Fiar’s injury made him unable to run or move swiftly, which handicapped us greatly. Kueler and I had switched from an offensive formation to that of a defensive one in order to protect our bleeding out ally. But we were running out of steam.

“Ah!!” I had swung my dagger at a monster, but it caught my blade with its mouth and it countered with a swipe of its claws, leaving a gash down my left arm.

This was it. My legs were tired, my left arm began bleeding profusely, and I was losing the energy to swing my dagger further.

The monsters had forced us back to a nearby wall, so we were cornered. Kueler had forced Fiar and I to the wall. He stood in front of us and held his sword high.

“I am a royal knight of the famed Kori Soaro Kingdom! These people are under my care, so I will not let you harm them further!”

Kueler, no. No, no, no. Please. No.

This was a replay of our situation at the Dungeon of the Dead. We were defeated, only Kueler and Christia having the strength to fight back. I felt like crying again. Why did this have to happen again? Why couldn’t I do anything? Still, the tears didn’t come out.

I remembered the face of the dungeon master before leaving that dungeon. His face flashed into my mind. It still haunted me, reminding me of my weakness, my fear. It was happening again. And it was all because of me.

Something bright lit up the room. Just by the smell in the air, I knew exactly what it was.

“Cautery!” Master Lio yelled at the top of his lungs. A fireball slammed into the crowd of monsters, killing them instantly. An opening was ready for us.

While the monsters were blown back, he ran up to me. “Can you still walk?”

“No…” I meekly replied. The second I said that, he dropped to a squat and lifted me onto his shoulders. For a magician, his body was well built.

Kueler did the same with Fiar, who was looking deathly pale. But then the monsters resumed their onslaught, and a horde ran out of a corridor to replace the large amount of monsters Lio had slain. This was bad.

They were chasing us now, herding us away from the entrance where we came from.

Lio took off into a sprint with me still on his back. He didn’t look back, he just ran as fast as he could. I could feel his heart pounding and his entire body shaking. His staff clattered in his palm.

“Lio…” I called him.

He didn’t answer. He just ran and shot monsters in his way with a beam of fire.

“Lio.” I tapped his shoulder.

No answer.

“Lio!” This time I yelled into his ear.

“What is it?! Please, for god's sake, what is it?!”

I didn’t say anything. I could tell he was quivering in his boots. It was my fault. I caused all this pain. But I didn’t want it to cause a death. I so desperately wanted Lio to go back, not leave Kueler and Fiar behind.

“Don’t leave, they need us. They need you!”

“What?” At my response, he turned back. He had outran Kueler, who so desperately tried to keep up with us.

His legs froze, Lio didn’t want to go back. This was all my fault, I didn’t want to doom them.

All of a sudden, a monster had appeared from under the ground, through their shadows. It had struck Kueler from behind, and it sent him and Fiar flying across the room out of our sight.

“No!” I burst out crying. It was all my fault. My greed got the best of me. “Go back there now, Lio!”

Lio dashed off the opposite way where Kueler was. More and more monsters pursued us.

“What are you doing?!! Please, go back! Lio!” I started crying hysterically. Why wasn’t he going back to save them? I thought he trusted them as his comrades… Why then? Why would he leave them behind?

My tears soaked the collar of the back of his neck, and I started beating at his shoulders. “Please, just stop! Don’t go! Don’t leave them behind!”

Lio didn’t listen. He kept on running silently. Yet I could feel it. His heart was revving like a cyclone, and he was right in the eyewall.