Congratulations! You have encountered a Survival Event! Balra Queen Lair - Dungeon! You have 24 hours to complete this dungeon or the event will be considered a failure! Rewards available for completion based on contribution!

I read over the notification again when I re-entered the dungeon. It was timed for twenty four hours like the first level of the Old Mining Camp. I wondered if this indicated its difficulty, the first level of Old Mining Camp had been twenty four hours while the second level had been one week. I hoped it would, the first one had been difficult mostly because of my risky use of the bombs, not necessarily the beasts.

I was standing in the tunnel and it looked exactly the same as before directly around me. It continued straight for a little ways and ended in darkness where the hallowed lantern ran out. I took stock of my weapons, my dagger was back in its holster on my side, my spear unencumbered in my right hand. The hallowed lantern was in my left, my bow still secured to my back with the small space and poor sight lines down here it wouldn’t be much use. I checked my interface.

Sylar Till

Age

18

Race

Human

Class

Friend of the Forest

Level

41

Strength

40(42)

Stamina

82

Agility

48

Intelligence

43

Wisdom

83

Charisma

-1

Luck

4

Armor

115

Health

246/246

I decided to hold my skill point for now and wait to see how the next few days developed. I had heavily invested in my Beast Companion based skills to increase the strength of Marci and Van. Without them those skills didn’t do me any good down here. My bomb related skills had thankfully stopped decaying once I used them again in the Old Mining Camp dungeon, they hadn’t leveled again since. I was the only one in the Camp that had encountered skill decay so much of it was unknown to us right now. I checked my skills to see the changes over the week.

Enchanced Explosion

6

Identify

20

Tracking

5

Natural Explorer

18

Remote Detonation

10

Beast Companion

20

Symbiosis

12

Empower

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6

See What I See

5

Clone Companion

6

I opened the map to let my natural explorer provide any more detail if it was able to and was surprised to see some resource markers on the map. There hadn’t been any resources in the dungeons under the camp but maybe each dungeon worked differently. The first marker was pretty far down the tunnel from where I was standing but in a straight line through the darkened part of the map.

Not wanting to waste any more time or let my nerves get the best of me I slowly started advancing. The broken lantern was still providing plenty of light and I day dreamed of a better way to incase the light to prevent having to hold the lantern. After a couple dozen feet there was the tell tale scratching sound of one of the Balra up ahead. I decided to place the lantern down off to the side of the tunnel and braced myself for a charge with my spear.

The Balra didn’t make me wait long as it emerged from the darkness moving directly at me. I crouched down to get the spear in a better position to puncture its underbelly and waited for impact. The dumb beast continued and impaled itself on the spear and futilely swung its legs, unable to reach me. I waited for it to die before kicking it off the spear and triggering Identify.

Balra - Beast - Level 14 - Health 0/90 - Armor 200

It was two levels stronger than the Balra from the outside. My experience bar barely moved at all towards level 42. If I wanted to level down here there would need to be hundreds of the ugly beetles. I started advancing again down the tunnel while thinking about the last dungeon I had been in. The bombs hadn’t damaged any parts of the dungeon when detonated and I wondered if this one would work the same. I might need the bombs to defeat the Queen and it would be smart to test it out before a moment of desperation.

I tossed a simple bomb under the next Balra to charge me and watched with disgust as it exploded guts and bits of shell all over the tunnel. As expected the structure of the tunnel was undamaged. It was good to know that they would work as expected and I didn’t have to worry about the entire tunnel collapsing.

It took at least an hour to make it through this part of the tunnel defeating the Balra one at a time. It became mind numbingly boring but I tried to remain vigilant and not make any mistakes. The stakes for my mother were too high to get seriously injured by being caught off guard against the weak beasts.

The tunnel branched off right where the resource marker was so I turned to follow it down. It dead ended a few dozen feet out in a massive and thick spider web. I could see hundreds of small spiders crawling along the web. There was a hissing sound behind me, I whipped my head around to see a massive spider spinning a web to block off the exit. Not wasting any time I tossed a standard bomb and detonated it after dropping down to a crouch with my cloak covering my body. The explosion of the larger bomb rocked the tunnel and the sound was deafening.

I raised up from my crouch and waited for the dirt and dust to settle. There wasn’t enough of the large spider left to Identify and its web was torn apart. Turning back towards the first web, none of the small spiders had left it. I triggered Identify on the small spiders but only got back basic insects. The framework didn’t recognize the small ones as beasts.

After a little bit of trial and error I discovered that the web itself was the resource.

Bramble Weave - Bramble spiders weave the bramble webs out of a thin but incredibly strong silk. It’s fire resistant and sticky. It takes hundreds of worker type Bramble spiders to craft the weave, the workers and weave are always protected by a Bramble Guardian.

Well that answered the question of the large spider. I wondered how I was supposed to collect the weave. I didn’t have anything on me that would store the webs easily. If things worked out I would have to come back down to the tunnels and collect them later after reaching a safe place in Etes. I checked the map to see that all of the resource markers had changed to indicate more Bramble Weave. At least I knew where the guardians would be this time so that I would be prepared.

I continued on past the dead end of the weave and made my way towards the heart of the dungeon. It began to branch out in more and more directions and I realized that the difficulty may be similar to the Old Mining Camp but the scale was completely different. It was going to take me hours to explore the entirety of the tunnel system.

A few dozen Balra and two Weave Guardians later I reached the first sign that I was moving towards the Queen. A Balra with two massive horns and a significantly smaller unarmored underbelly charged out of the darkness. I tossed a standard bomb and triggered it without hesitation. It killed the Balra instantly but left enough for me to use Identify on it’s corpse.

Horned Balra - Level 20 - Health 0/180 - Armor 300

I was grateful for the ability to exploit the underbelly through the bombs. These would have been difficult grinding fights otherwise. Not for the first time I wondered how other power systems were working for the different citizens of Eter. How many different classes and skills were out there? How would the others from the mine handle these Balra?

My remote detonation and enhanced explosions skills leveled a few more times as I defeated the horned balra as easily as the regular balra. The Weave Guardians were unintelligent beasts as well, they only tried the same strategy of dropping seemingly out of nowhere behind me once I got close to a weave. So far the danger of this dungeon had been underwhelming.

I was moving through a wide intersection of tunnels when I felt a vibration rumble through the tunnel in front of me. The map indicated weaves to the right and left of me but nothing from the direction of the vibration. I decided to place my hallowed lantern down near the opening and placed a standard bomb beside it then backed up to the opening.

I saw a massive shadow charging down the tunnel as the ugly face of a massive Balra appeared over the lantern. It let out an ear piercing scream that stunned me for just a moment as I reactively covered my ears. I was late setting off the explosion and although it still hit the Balra, it propelled it forward and right on top of me.

The weight of the Balra slammed down on me like a boulder from the sky, ripping the breath out of my chest. I frantically grabbed my dagger and began slashing it across its underbelly over and over. It wiggled on top and damaged me just from its weight alone. It didn’t appear to be able to move its rear legs from the damage of the explosion and I was too far under it for its front legs for it to reach me. It died before it could drag itself off and reposition, it took me a few more seconds of being completely vulnerable to crawl out from under it.

I triggered Identify while checking my surroundings. I was alone in the intersection of tunnels and strained my ears to listen for anything approaching from the other sides. I dropped down two more standard bombs to cover the left and right tunnels while I recovered.

Balra Queen Guardian - Level 28 - Health 0/280 - Armor 300

The first beast of this dungeon that could have killed me. I needed to be careful of that scream. If I had triggered the detonation earlier it would have destroyed the front half of the beast instead of the back half and prevented the situation. Thankful there wasn’t more damage done. I leaned over against the wall of the tunnel to rest and reset, still alive I told myself, still alive.