It took another few hours to get to the checkpoint on floor ten. While the rest of the floors had been challenging, none were as challenging as the sixth floor. The sun was setting as we walked through the gates into Southport. Before splitting up to our various lodgings, the group agreed to meet at the Guild in the morning to turn in our loot.

“Ah, if it, not my favorite adventurer,” the innkeeper at the Wondering Advetuter said as I pushed into the taproom.

“I bet you say that to all the adventurers who stay here,” I chuckle.

“So you wantin' to rent a room,”

“Yep, not sure how long I’ll be in town this time. The group I joined up with might want to get back out there quickly.”

“Ah, well, if you want, you can pays’ ya go instead of givin' it all upfront, at least until you have a better idea of how long ya be stayin'.”

“That's perfect,” I say, handing him the money for one night.

“Pleasure doin' business with ya. Yar usual room is still free.

Taking the key the innkeeper offered, I headed up to the room and got ready for bed. It would be nice to sleep in an actual bed instead of on the hard floor of a dungeon.

~ ~ ~

The following day dawned bright and clear, with nary a cloud in the sky. The morning was like any other I had waken to since I arrived in Southport with one exception. The message icon in the bottom right of my vision was flashing, indicating that I had a new message.

Hey, Sis. I hope you're doing well. I just wanted to let you know that we’ve settled on a date for the wedding. Don’t worry; you won't have to hurry back or anything. The wedding will be the second week of the twelfth month. –Daniel

Which means I have a little over a month to reactivate the lost dungeon. I thought after reading the message. That should be doable, but it also means that I’ll have to convince Sarah and her group that we need to head out within the next few days. Glancing at the time, I realized that if I didn’t get a move on, I’d be late meeting up with the group.

“Sorry for keeping you waiting,” I said as I got to the front of the guild hall and saw Sarah and her group already waiting there. “I overslept.”

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“Not a problem,” Sarah said, waving my apology away. We just got here ourselves. Shall we head in and redeem our loot? Then I think we should grab a table in the bar area and decide our next steps.”

“Sound like a plan,” I say as Sarah, the rest of the group, and I head into the Guildhall. Just like every other time I had been in the Guildhall, it was busy, and there was a long line for the redemption counter.

“Nick,” Sarah said after seeing the line, “why don’t you and the rest find us a table while Mel and I redeem the loot.”

“Sure thing,” Nicholas says before gesturing for the rest of our group to follow him.

It took us over an hour to get to the front of the line and redeem our loot—a little under forty gold shared between us all, a tidy little profit for a few days' work. Finding the table with the rest of our group took us a few minutes.

“So, I think after that last run, we have a pretty good idea of how to work together,” Sarah said. Oh, there are still kinks to work out, but there always are. With that being said, I think we’re ready to go on this little expedition you were talking about, me. Unless you have any thoughts.”

“Well, it's funny you should mention that,” I say, “because I was hoping we could set out within the next few days.”

“In that case, why don’t you go over a little more about this expedition.”

“Okay,” I say, pulling a crude map of the area from my storage space. Actually, in fairness, it only looks crude because of all the details I had deleted from a copy of the system map of the area. I would have used one of the maps I had found in the archive. The only problem was that there weren't any.

“Well, from this map I found in the Archive, it looks like the dungeon we want to find is in an area halfway between the Gemstone Depths and Evergloom. Of course, finding it isn't going to be the hard part. That will be getting into the dungeon and then fighting our way down to the bottom of the dungeon.”

“And why do we need to do that,” Nicholas asked; apparently, what little respect I had gained from our fight on the sixth floor had evaporated.

“well, that's quite simple. If we want to reactivate this dungeon, Then we’ll have to find its core, and the only access is in the final boss room.” And that was even true to a certain extent. The access to the dungeon's core was in the final boss room; however, that entrance wasn’t obvious and wouldn’t appear to anyone who didn’t have the System Administrator class. You see, the last checkpoint of a dungeon served both as an easy way for delvers to get back to the entrance, but if you had the right access, it also allowed you to get into the core room of the dungeon.

“In that case, what can we expect,” Dominique asked, “monster wise?”

“Well, from all the information I was able to find, the dungeon had fifteen floors, so at a minimum, the final boss should be around level 45. Now, with the dungeon lying dormant for all this time, there is no telling what level the monsters will be. In addition, I wasn’t able to find any information on the types of monsters that inhabited the dungeon. We are going to have to be careful.”

“Well, this sounds more and more fun by the minute,” Nicholas said, his tone thick with sarcasm.

“Be that as it may,” Sarah said. “Is there anything else you were able to find?”

I reviewed everything I had gathered from the system and my time in the archives, and for the next few hours, we developed a plan for how to tackle the challenge.