Orrin squinted against the sunlight beating down. He shaded his eyes and glanced back the way he’d come.
I’m in a dungeon, right?
“Hurry up, slowpoke,” Sloane yelled from in front of him. “The path to the lower floors is over this way.”
What Orrin expected was more of the enclosed spaces or maybe large rooms he’d encountered in dungeons before. The first floor of Mistwater Lanterns left him in awe.
He was on a new planet.
For as far as he could see in every direction, grassy knolls crested above pristine ponds. The sun above warmed his skin. Birds whistled in the distant trees, swooping above his head. A rabbit sprinted away from Sloane as she trampled over the tall grass. Hamish and Rhys were close behind, with Iona struggling to carry a pack Orrin hadn’t noticed before.
“You’re sure this is the way?” Rhys asked Sloane as she moved between the small pools of water. Orrin leaned over, trying to see into the clear water but saw nothing. The ponds seemed empty but were much deeper than he’d originally thought. The sun shining above couldn’t illuminate the dark bottom.
“The correct pool is marked. I’ll give you Odranan fucks one compliment. You keep your dungeon well managed.”
Orrin saw Iona whisper something to Rhys but he shook his head.
“Did you all join up as a party yet?” Orrin asked, trudging along behind.
“Oh, I’ll invite you,” Rhys said, looking into the air for a moment. “There we go.”
Rhys Has Invited You to a Party
Yes or No?
“Got it,” Orrin said, accepting the invite.
Usually, a person’s name appeared to the group when they were invited to a party. Orrin waited for something bad to happen but Rhys kept walking. He checked the party log and found Casimir Hale listed under Rhys Tonsa. The collar must be keyed to his fake identity somehow. Annabella really thought of everything.
“Iona, do you want me to carry the bag for you?” Orrin offered, trying to build a rapport with the cold girl. “I didn’t think we would need supplies for a day trip.”
She ignored him and kept struggling through the muck. The path they were on wasn’t the obvious one. That award went to the paved road that moved away from the entrance to the dungeon. Instead, they veered to the right, following the crumpled grass of the last group to enter.
“Iona insisted on bringing some bandages and potions, as well as food in case we end up stuck. You never know what we might encounter,” Rhys answered in her place. “Thank you for the offer but she takes protecting me and my possessions very seriously.”
“Stop,” Sloane said as she knelt and held a fist in the air. “Three monsters ahead. We need to go around that pond and get to the one on the far right.”
“Why is the entrance to the next floor so close?” Orrin asked. “And why can’t we just take those three monsters out?”
Hamish answered his first question, speaking in a low, slow voice. “This dungeon has been excavated over the years. There are multiple spots where we have broken through to the next floor. It makes it easier for dungeon raiding teams to return to the lower floors and keep us safe by culling the strongest monsters.”
“And the monsters?” Orrin pried as they started walking in a crouch along the water’s edge. “We can take three on the first level, right?”
“The first floor is filled with thousands of Sunny Bunnies,” Rhys whispered as if that explained everything.
Orrin sighed. Everyone else had done their research it seemed. He was behind Iona, trailing the group. He surreptitiously pulled his dungeon monster encyclopedia from his pocket dimension and turned to the back.
Sunny Bunny is one of the weakest monsters known. A single bunny can be taken down with a child’s arrow; however, be wary, as the resulting explosion of their body after death can do minimal light damage. These explosions alert bunnies in the vicinity. Larger groups can be time-consuming for the well-prepared and deadly for those caught unaware.
(* alone *** in groups)
“Are you reading a book right now?” Iona hissed, speaking perhaps the first words to Orrin since they’d met.
Orrin closed the pages and waved the book at her. “Just a bit of light reading to pass the time.”
She scoffed. Orrin waited until she turned away to push the book back into his [Dimension Hole].
Orrin wondered how much damage the explosion of a Sunny Bunny would cause him. If he could use a [Light Ward] to protect himself, he could run around and gather a bunch of them up for some easy experience. He might need to try that. Even if he received only a few points per rabbit, he could farm the first floor.
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He considered accidentally getting the attention of one of the monsters and giving up his warding magic secret to the group. It would be easy experience but he didn’t know these people well enough to trust them with that kind of information. He’d use a [Ward] on Rhys if he had to, but Orrin wanted to keep as many cards to his chest as he could.
It took only twenty minutes to reach the right pool from the starting point of the dungeon, but Sloane had them stop and wait in a crouched position for so long that Orrin’s legs cramped up a bit. He finally noticed the small stack of rocks, painted red, that marked this pool as special.
“Rope?” Sloane held out her hand.
Iona glanced at Rhys but complied when he nodded again. She set her pack down and pulled a coil of rope from inside, handing it to Sloane.
“Everyone grab on and don’t let go. It can be scary the first time but you only have to hold your breath for a few seconds. Try and enjoy it.” Sloane wrapped the end of the rope around her fist and grabbed her quarterstaff tight in the other. “We go on three.”
Hamish took hold a few feet behind Sloane. Iona and Rhys took the middle and Rhys handed the end to Orrin.
“Three.”
Orrin gripped his end of the rope. “Are we jumping into the pond?”
“Two.”
Rhys rolled his eyes. “Did you not learn anything about the Lanterns?”
“One.” Sloane jumped. The rest followed, with Orrin being pulled in with them.
Because he didn’t jump, Orrin went into the pond face-first. Water stung his eyes and went up his nose. As he coughed, he realized he was already through a curtain of wetness and was sliding… fast.
It’s a water slide!
The tube was pitch black and Orrin couldn’t see anything. He felt the pull of his party members on the rope he still held. Questions raced through his mind as fast as they traveled. Was he sliding on rock? How did the small amount of water under him keep flowing? Who created this?
In an instant though, the ride ended. The other four members of the team slide to a stop, using their hands and feet to slow themselves. Orrin’s belly ride only made him go faster and he knocked into Rhys just as the young man went to stand up.
Orrin and Rhys ended in a tangle of arms and legs. Rhys laughed first, with Orrin joining in. The danger of the dungeon was temporarily off of their minds after the fun of the water slide.
“Remove yourself.” A blade touched Orrin’s chest, pushing hard enough to hurt but not to draw blood. He went still.
“Iona, back away now. It wasn’t intentional.” Rhys’s voice was hard and commandeering, at odds with the usual cheeky voice he used. Iona obeyed instantly.
Rhys put out his hand and helped Orrin to his feet. He frowned as he checked over Orrin. “Do you not use any armor or weapons?”
Orrin thought back to his abandoned armor at Annabella’s cottage with a pang of nostalgia. He shook his head. “I have summoned weapons but I’ll attack from a distance.”
“I’d be more worried about Iona,” Rhys joked… or so Orrin hoped.
The second floor was another large landmass with a frozen lake in the middle. Each floor felt like a world in and of itself but Sloane explained to Orrin that after years of exploration, the first thirty floors were well mapped out. Each floor contained a different way of getting down to the next floor. Stone stairs, a hole with a ladder, and a spiral staircase that would have been at home in a castle. It took them two hours to get to the fifth floor and only ten minutes from there to find the stairs carved into the side of a bluff.
“The only downside of using the shortcuts is there are no safe rooms between floors,” Sloane continued to explain to Orrin as they hugged the cliffside and descended. “We can always fight our way through a floor like normal to rest or camp out if it’s a safer floor.”
“Is floor six a safer floor?” Orrin asked, trying not to look at the void to his left. Hamish had taken Iona’s bag despite her protests and taken the lead. Rhys’s bodyguard was holding the back of her ward’s shirt as they shuffled slowly together behind everyone else.
“No. We will work our way back to the saferoom between five and six. It should take an hour but we can fall back and exit the Lanterns if we get overwhelmed.”
Orrin was about to ask another question when Hamish disappeared on the next step.
“Floor six is after this step,” Sloane called back. “Be ready to fight.”
She disappeared.
“Fight what?” Orrin asked the empty space. He turned back to ask Rhys, “What are we fighting?”
Rhys reached Orrin. He held his glaive in one hand and gave Orrin a tiny push with his free arm. “Get going. She doesn’t like heights.”
“Rhys, you guys didn’t tell me what we’re up against on the sixth floor.”
“Skylight Anglers. Flying fish. Just try to hit them and keep them scattered. I’ll take care of the rest.”
Orrin opened his mouth to argue but Iona pointed a wand over Rhys’s shoulder. He put his hands up and stepped back into the next floor.
When the haze parted, Orrin saw Hamish and Sloane already fighting. When Rhys said flying fish, Orrin imagined small fish jumping out of the water. He had some experience with fighting monsters like that.
What he did not expect to see was a horror from the ocean deep floating in the air. A monstrosity the size of an elephant, with an elongated jaw, razor-sharp teeth, and a dangly appendage hanging from between its eyes with a light. A light that spat out darts of magic that splashed on the two tanks.
“Casimir, attack the fin ray” Rhys yelled running by him. Orrin realized he was standing still, watching the fight.
“What’s a fin ray?” Orrin shouted back, throwing a [Gust] at the monster. He also used [Identify].
Skylight Angler – 345/400 HP
“The thing on its head, you idiot,” Sloane said, pointing her quarterstaff. The fish ducked through the air and rammed into Sloane. She vibrated and twirled, tapping her weapon against the side of the Angler. Sloane seemed unharmed but the space she touched on the monster caved in as if it was hit much harder.
Orrin moved up to stand beside Rhys and Iona. He used another [Gust] on the fin ray, causing it to spin up and over the fish’s body. The light magic attacks stopped for the moment and Hamish, finally able to focus on something besides dodging, ran in close. His axe raised high and cleaved through the underside of the Angler.
Rhys swiped his glaive in the air, throwing afterimages of his weapon at the monster. No, Orrin realized. He’s throwing metal blades out of the glaive head.
Iona’s wand pointed at the ground and jagged spikes of earth shot out from under the Angler. Two stuck deep, halting its escape.
The monster was dead in another few attacks. Orrin kept the light away from the tanks and threw a summoned [Fire Sword] at the monster to do some damage before it died.
Experience Gained: 100 XP
Orrin looked at his status and frowned. The fight didn’t take long but he would need sixty-two more Anglers to hit level nineteen. Hamish and Sloane were resting, having used a lot of stamina in the fight. Rhys and Iona seemed fine for now but they wouldn’t have the mana needed to fight as long as he could.
If only he could go off on his own and fight unrestricted, Orrin was sure he could take one of the flying fish down on his own. He just needed to wait for the right opportunity while also keeping an eye out for the supposed assassination attempt on Rhys.
Orrin checked his [Map]. The sixth floor was massive. In his zoomed-in phase, he could see twenty to thirty more red dots signifying more Anglers. He panned out and the number tripled with each subsequent zoom. This was going to be a lot of work.