The waters of Shipwreck Bay glisten in the morning light as I emerge from the forest. It had been over a week since I came to Southport, and I was finally ready to start delving into the local dungeons. Finding a place to buy positions and poisons had been relatively easy. A handful of each was spotted around the merchant district. After visiting some of them, I was a little surprised they were even in business as there wasn’t really anything differentiating them from the rest of the shops. Well, it could just be a case of supply and demand working in their favor, I thought; with so many adventurers coming through the town to delve into the dungeon, it could simply be that those unremarkable shops were getting the overflow from the reset. Anyway, it hadn't been hard for me to stock up on a selection of positions that should be effective on the monsters in the Dungeon.
What had actually taken most of my time the last week was first waiting for the authorization to access the Guild’s Archive, which had taken longer than I had expected. This caused me to extend my stay at the inn by another day so that I had the time to peruse the information in the Archive. Unfortunately, as expected, there wasn’t much information about the Lost Dungeon, as I had started calling it over the last few days. Oh, there was more information about what types of monsters were on the early floors, but that was about it.
The most surprising thing was that the dungeon's location had seemingly been lost to time. Most of the information I had seen in Forestend had the general area the dungeon was located in, but that was to be expected. I was not expecting to find that the Archive in Southport also had no information on the dungeon's exact location. Now that I think about it, I should have; at the time, most people would have known where the dungeon was, so there wasn’t really any need to write down its exact location. The one document I was expecting to find that information in, the Dungeon Discovery report, had apparently gone missing at some point because, as much as I searched, I couldn’t find it.
That was mildly infuriating, but thankfully, I had the exact coordinates for the dungeon, thanks to the system. It just meant that I would have to get a little creative so as not to raise the suspicions of whatever team comes along to fulfill the Guildmaster’s requirement. But as they say, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it; for the moment, I had a dungeon to explore and loot. Taking a final look out over the bay as the sun rose into the sky, a cool early morning breeze wafting over the wave, I turned to my destination.
At first glance, it wasn’t much to look at, a simple, unassuming cave like any other that could be found around this area. Only when you looked closer did you start to feel that something wasn’t right. The cave entrance was too round, and the walls were a little too smooth. Unlike the Dungeon near Forestend, there were no immediate stairs down. However, there was a sense of going deeper into the earth the further you went. After what felt like hours but was only a few minutes of walking in the pitch black, the tunnel opened into a dimly lit chamber, and the familiar minimap of the dungeon appeared in my field of view. I had finally entered the dungeon proper.
Like the dungeon near Forstend, and most dungeons for that matter, this first chamber was a safe zone, but unlike that one, it only had one exit. From what I could see on the dungeon map, this floor was simple as far as layout: a series of connected chambers that led to a slightly larger chamber, which I presumed was the boss room. So there’s going to be traps, I thought; if there was one universal rule about dungeons, it was that the more simple a floor was, the more dangerous it was. Usually, that danger came in the form of hidden traps, and with only one tunnel between each of the chambers, it was almost guaranteed that each of them would have a trap or two.
I don’t even want to know how much processor capacity the DI of this place has dedicated to replacing those traps, if I’m correct. I thought, pulling my sword from its sheath and preparing to enter the tunnel to the first room. With how many delvers come through here every day, the dungeon would have to replace the traps almost constantly as they’re triggered or, in some cases, disarmed to keep the level of challenge consistent for each group or solo delver.
As I moved slowly into the tunnel leading to the first room, I activated Detect Trap, one of the few skills I had given myself at its highest level. While at any level, the skill would have let you see any traps, at lower levels, it had limits, such as range, to the point where at level one, you’d almost have to be standing on the trap for it to detect it and it could detect anything more complex than a tripwire. As it leveled, the range got better, and the complexity of traps it could detect also improved. However, at its max level, the range was only about 10 kilometers, but it could detect any trap, no matter how complex it was, and it also showed the user how to disarm it.
Stolen story; please report.
And sure enough, about halfway down the tunnel, there was a crude tripwire trap connected to a hatch in the ceiling. If I had to guess, the hatch would open when the trap was triggered, and something heavy, probably boulders or some other large rocks, would fall on the unsuspecting victim. It wasn’t all that complex, and if you had pretty good reflexes, you could probably get out of the way of the falling objects even if the trap was triggered. Not to mention that the tripwire trigger wasn’t all that well hidden; even without Detect Traps, someone would still have been able to find it.
Which wasn’t all that surprising; this was the first floor of the dungeon, after all. Most traps and monsters would be geared toward delvers between levels one to three. This didn’t mean that higher-level delvers could get careless; even simple traps like this or even weak monsters could be deadly if the victim were caught unaware. Instead of disarming the trap, I just stepped over the tripwire and continued cautiously down the tunnel. With how sneaky Dungy could be at times, I wasn’t putting anything past the DI that was running this place.
Now that I thought about it, it is a little surprising that I haven't heard anything from it. I was half expecting it to greet me when I entered the dungeon proper as Dungy had done all those years ago. I gave a slight shrug; well, it’s no skin off my teeth if the DI doesn’t want to be social, I thought as the tunnel gave way to the first chamber, and I gripped my sword tighter in anticipation of what I would find.
The chamber was a large cylinder with rocky outcroppings around the floor and a small rocky alcove near the center. Prowling around were about ten Level 1 Earthan Wolves, with a Level 3 Alpha Earthan Wolf resting in the alcove, along with two Level 2 Earthan Wolves. I was really hoping a theme wasn’t starting that every time I entered a new area, the first monster I encountered would be a wolf or some variant. While the wolves were significantly lower level than I was, the number of them had me cautious. Even the low-level monsters could be dangerous to a solo delver if they cornered you.
As I look around the chamber, a glimmer of a plan starts to form. Noticing that the prowling wolves end up near the alcove at regular intervals, I waited for the perfect opportunity when most of them would be there and lauded a fireball into the grouping—killing three of the wolves outright and severely injuring four more. Unfortunately, the Alpha was only signed. One of the level two wolves had taken the brunt of the blast and had been killed. The second was completely unharmed, having been further in the alcove, well away from the blast.
While the wolves recovered from the surprise attack, I darted around the room's periphery, quickly taking out the four unharmed level-one wolves. Seeing that I had taken out over half of its pack, the lone and uninjured Level 2 Earthan Wolf howled and charged at me. I was ready for it; as it got closer and lept, snarling, trying to tackle me to the ground, I dodged out of the way and transformed my sword into a hunting knife, plunging it into the monster’s belly and using its moment to slice it open. The wolf was dead before it hit the floor.
Transforming the blade back into a sword, I turn back to the rest of the pack of Earthan Wolves. I was a little surprised that none of the wolves had actually used any magic skills; with a name like Earthan Wolves, I would have thought they would have some Earth-based magic skills. As if my thoughts had predicted it, loose pebbles and rocks around the Alpha started to rise into the air to form a rocky javelin, which was then hurled toward me faster than anything that size should be able to move.
I barely had time to dodge, and by the time I regained my balance, the Alpha was already charging at me. Jumping onto a rocky outcropping, it vibrates a second later as the monster runs right into the rock underneath me. The wolf circles below and occasionally jumps, trying to get me, but I’m high enough that it can't. taking a deep, calming breath, I transform my sword into a bow and pull out one of the arrows I had already coated in a Level 10 Fire Poison. Nocking and pulling back the arrow, I take another deep, calming breath, line up the shot, and loosen the arrow on my exhale. The arrow flies true and hits the monster; red streaks form as the poison makes its way into its bloodstream. The alpha was dead about a minute later. All that was left to do was finish off the remaining wolves, who were still recovering from the initial fire blast.