Abby consulted her journal. Besides being an actual adventurer's journal, where she recorded her exploits in the eventual case where she would become famous and require such a thing, it was also handy for keeping notes about things to remember, like schedules. Today was ‘Greater Slayer’s’ day to delve. A group of four boys, about eleven years old on average. They were the youngest and most inexperienced adventurers in Setterton. Probably in the world! But everybody had to start somewhere!
Abby had gotten Owyn and herself started around the same age, but as she grew older she was beginning to understand the worries of her parents. These kids were… well, kids. They didn’t look old enough to be handling these sorts of things.
Thankfully, Owyn was the one actually in charge of these things.
“Ready to go?” He asked.
Abby closed her book and stored it back into her bag. “I guess so.”
Owyn smirked, leading her out of the market area of town. “The great Addilena Summers isn’t looking forward to delving?”
Abby hated that name, and Owyn knew it. She also knew he was just trying to get a rise out of her. But she was above such things now. “I’m just… not looking forward to being an escort today.”
Owyn nodded. “I know. Good news is though, with how spread out Bellamy’s Troop went yesterday, we can safely send them alone down the explored paths without worrying too much.”
“We can ditch them!?” Abby lit up.
Owyn couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Don’t say it like that!”
Abby smiled. “Oh thank god.”
“What?”
Abby looked at the road for a bit. “I don’t know. They’re just… creepy.”
“Leery.” Owyn corrected.
“I didn’t want to use that word.” Abby admitted.
“They’re kids.” Before Abby could retort, Owyn continued. “That doesn’t excuse them for their stares or their actions, but it does explain them. Just keep that in mind as you deal with them.”
“Right…” Abby nodded. They approached the edge of town.
“Where were you!” One of the boys shouted.
“You took forever!” Another pouted.
Owyn jingled a bag in front of them. “I was getting your supplies! What’s your excuse! Why aren’t you wearing your armor!?”
“It’s hot!”
Owyn shoved his hand into the bag he held, procuring a bottle at random. He threw it at the boy’s stomach, hitting him gently.
“Bam! You’re hit and bleeding out! Could have been prevented if you were wearing your armor!”
“Gah!” The boy fell over, holding his stomach. He reached for his teammates. “Please. Tell mama I love her… Bleh.”
Owyn shook his head. He walked past the boys, dropping their bag of items in their midst as he went. Abby followed, rather used to this behavior. The boys, shouting out surprise that they were being left behind, hurried to collect their things and put on their armor.
“One of these days we really will just leave them behind.” Abby mentioned.
“One of these days, they’ll actually understand what I’m trying to teach them.” Owyn shot back.
Abby brought out her map, showing it to Owyn as they walked. “Bellamy’s Troop went through here, here, and all through these paths, right the way to their dead ends. Where do you want to go?”
Owyn eyed the map. “So they cleared out the fullest right side and worked their way inwards. Makes sense I suppose, they must be getting used to our schedule now. Means they got the oldest dungeons. And they still did so many? Good for them. Guess we’ll head down the first cutoff.”
The cutoff Owyn referred to was one of the pathways that led down into the deeper, unexplored parts of the cave system. The path was a little wide, with several rooms spanning the width of it, but that didn’t matter. Abby and Owyn had gone down it often enough that they knew the place practically by heart.
“That’ll mean we leave these two paths unexplored. You’re not worried too many dungeons claimed these areas?”
Owyn shrugged. They reached the point in the road where they had to turn off and head into the woods. “Even if there is, Lady Bellamy has that special tracker core that can detect larger dungeons. I’m certain that if she noticed anything out of the ordinary, she would have reported it. Or gone after it herself. If nothing else, we can just claim it’s a learning opportunity for knowing when to retreat.”
They reached the bridge leading into the cave a little while later. Abby and Owyn stood on the bridge above the creek, effectively blocking the way in so that Owyn could do his thing.
He turned to the kids and appraised them. Now that everyone was at the dungeons, the team of Greater Slayer looked properly equipped. Leather armor, short swords and shields each, as well as backpacks carrying whatever else was needed. Much better than a few months ago when they first started.
“Today’s lesson will be about retreating. There is no shame in wanting to save your own life, but if you do want to back out, make sure to effectively communicate to your team what you’re doing and why. Cover each other's retreats, don’t ever leave a man behind.”
“Retreating doesn’t mean giving up either.” Abby offered. “Sometimes it’s just for the best to restructure your layout. Formulate a plan based on new information gained.”
All four boys paid very close attention to them, though Abby caught their eyes wandering where they shouldn’t more than once.
Owyn prompted Abby to show them her map. “We’ll be heading down the first cutoff. You will go wherever you want to on the right of that.”
The boys got excited at the prospect of doing a solo mission for once. They excitedly talked among themselves for a while before Owyn interrupted them.
“Once you have collected your four cores, same as normal, you will retreat and report back to us. While we’ll have thoroughly cleared everything in your way to find us, that’s not an excuse to lower your guard. Call out to us in every other room, and we’ll come find you. If I think you’re good enough to keep going, I might let you clear the whole right side.”
That got the boys excited. Due to their age, they were normally only allowed to collect one core each. However, on days where Abby and Owyn directly supervised, they might be allowed to clear more than their share. To do so without their supervision though…
“Are you sure?” Abby asked.
“Look at them.” Owyn said. “They’ve each put on muscle. Their swords are well kept, and did you notice that two of them are carrying knives now? We haven’t taught them about backup weapons yet, and they went out and got them anyway. They’re growing up faster than you or I ever did.”
“That’s because they have a great teacher.” Abby smiled at Owyn.
Owyn spared her a sidelong glance. “We had experience to teach us. That’s a better education than any real person could ever give.”
“And who’s fault was that?”
Owyn cleared his throat. “Let’s move! Adventure awaits!”
“Adventure awaits!” The boys and Abby all responded with vigor.
“God I hate that saying.” Owyn muttered as they entered the cave system together.
“Why?” Abby asked, almost hurt.
They reached the first fork in the road, where light began to grow scarce. As they waved good luck to the boys, Owyn affixed his dorky helmet to his head.
“It just feels inaccurate. Like, we’ve been delving through this cave system for what? A better part of four years now, almost five, and nothing’s ever changed.”
“I thought you didn’t like change.” Abby pointed out. She led the two of them into the first room. Now that she could cast her own light, she wasn’t as willing to slow down for Owyn. As usual, the first room laid empty.
“I don’t like change.” Owyn admitted. “But that’s not the point I’m trying to argue here. The point is that there is no adventure left here. No new things to explore.”
“Should we change locations then?” Abby sounded hopeful, but she already knew the answer.
“Not a chance. Not until we have the money to buy a house in the capital. Then we’ll move.”
The next couple of rooms they walked through were as empty as the first. Without a dungeon core present, no plants would grow either, so they didn’t slow down for Owyn to snoop around for any.
Abby peered around the corner of one more room. Seeing nothing of note on the other side, she retreated to write in her log journal. “And here I was, thinking you didn’t like adventure either.”
“What is it today and the things I don’t like?” Owyn threw his hands in the air. “Adventure doesn’t have appeal to me, it’s not that I don’t like it. The only reason I’m ever here with you is because you convinced me when we were kids that dungeons were cool. And they are!”
Owyn tacked on the last sentence before Abby could retort. She smirked up at him and closed her journal, putting it away. She led him into the next room. It seemed to double back on the way they’d come, but it was still the way forward.
“Are you sure that’s the only reason you came along with me?”
“Come to think of it, you did bribe me with your mom’s apple pie when we got home.”
Abby swiped her shield hand at him. Owyn dodged naturally, chuckling.
They both heard the sound of claws on stone. Instantly, the pair fell silent and into position. Then, about two rooms further ahead, they heard the sounds of fluttering, leathery wings. A number of chirps followed, alerting them to the fact that it was a bat.
Dungeon? Abby silently communicated.
Scout. Maybe. Owyn sent back with a few gestures.
They walked as one entity, creeping forward with cautious intent. Owyn kept his eyes trained forward, straining to see the invisible threads of mana. Mana sense wasn’t exactly related to sight, but focusing on one direction helped the sense, so he thought. And between the two of them, Owyn was the one more magically inclined anyway, so it made sense for him to train his mana sense.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Abby, while not altogether interested in learning magic, had a better intuitive sense for mana. She liked to claim it was due to all the adventuring she’d done, but the more likely answer was that her family owned a magic shop. She’d just grown accustomed to dealing with magic cores and mana while growing up.
The next room they entered was empty, and it was here where they met the bat.
Abby and Owyn relaxed.
“Normal.” They reported to each other. Neither of them spotted an ounce of mana on the creature. And so, with a playful wave, Abby left the creature be.
“We should visit home before we go.” Abby said.
“I thought that would be obvious.”
Abby’s smile dipped a bit. “Oh no, are we going to have to write cards to everyone here when we leave?”
“Hey, that’s my line.”
Abby giggled. “It’d be rude not to, I suppose.”
She stopped a few rooms further in to mark down their uneventful journey in her journal again.
“See, this is what I was talking about! Nothing new!”
“You’re just sad we haven’t come across any dungeons for you to dissect.”
Owyn sniffed haughtily. “I do not dissect dungeons, I just-” he waved his hand, searching for the word.
“Dissect.” Abby supplied.
Owyn glared at her, but didn’t have a retort.
“Ok, done. Let’s go.”
They snaked back and forth through their usual route, heading deeper and deeper into the cave system. The further they went, the larger the rooms became. Many of them had multiple passage ways, leading back the way they’d come like a maze. Those passages were marked with a line of stones in the doorway. By doing it with a little bit of forethought, Abby had effectively marked out a straight like through the cave for them to systematically work through.
They kept an eye on the stone frames of the doorways, always vigilant for markings that would indicate if the way forward was a dead end. Over the course of about an hour, they managed to find one single dungeon.
Abby took lead, and thankfully Owyn stayed behind her. This room was one of the ones that had multiple exits leading out. Though thanks to the stone in the doorway trick, they knew the dungeon was coming up long before they had to actually engage. So long as they didn’t enter the dungeon’s domain, it wouldn’t react to them.
When they did round back to face it, they knew what it held. Just a single ratkin. Owyn had a special request of Abby, and she was only too happy to oblige. Abby ran in, eager to feel the rush of combat. The ratkin whirled on her once she entered, screeching. Rather than leading with her sword like she normally would, Abby bashed it with her shield, knocking it deeper into the dungeon.
Owyn walked behind Abby, completely confident in his teammates ability to keep the beast occupied. His eyes flicked back and forth between his necklace and where it was leading him. The core for this room was hiding within a circle of rocks. A miniature castle of sorts. It made him smile.
Abby slashed at the ratkins limbs with the flat of her blade. Each impact caused minor cuts and lacerations on the creature, but none of them did lasting damage. She grinned as the beast grew in fury. Owyn was getting too close to the dungeons core, and the ratkin wasn’t happy about it. However, Abby didn’t even need her weapons to deal with something like this. She pushed the ratkin about with her feet, tripping it up and generally being a nuisance.
Owyn picked up the core. A hexagonal crystal. He touched it to his forehead.
Die! The core shouted at him.
Owyn’s will swelled. A great tsunami against the pitiful waves of the pitiful core.
Create water. He demanded.
The core cowed instantly. It even dribbled a little amount of pure water off its surface.
Owyn grinned, picking a jar out from his bag. He placed the whole core in the jar, repeating his command. The jar quickly filled with magical water. Owyn took a quick sip once it got full before putting the lid back on.
Abby stood upright, brushing off sweat that didn’t exist. The ratkin’s face jerked up to face her. It screeched, scrambling against the loose rocks before running in the direction of the exit. Free from the dungeons control.
“Does it make up for yesterday?” Abby asked, looking at Owyn’s dorky smile.
“Not even close! But can you believe it? A whole core! Sure it has a ‘create water’ spell imprinted on it, but this’ll still sell for so much more than any normal core! Baroness Bellamy is going to be so impressed!”
“I highly doubt that. I heard our Lady Bellamy is able to convert whole cores rather reliably now. And she’s four years younger than us!” Well, it helped that Baroness Bellamy taught her daughter personally, but that age difference was rather significant.
Owyn clicked his tongue, silently agreeing with her. “She’s going to become a full mage before I ever will be.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“Yours, for once.”
“What!?” Abby shouted. “How. There’s no way. I held the ratkin back so the dungeon would have less will for you to fight against!”
“Do you want chronological events or just the most recent?” Owyn continued as if he hadn’t heard that last part. “You broke your shield, so we had to buy a new one, additionally missing out on the money we would have gained from the core-”
“Dungeon.” Abby said.
Owyn looked ahead of them, and sure enough, there was a dungeon ahead. The end of the hall had much denser mana than anything normal, making it an obvious marker. Then, Owyn saw what the dungeon had as monsters. Grey, fleshy beings, about as tall as his waist. Their massive bulging foreheads though were the part that really interested him. They acted as natural mana detectors!
“Oh, no way!” He rushed ahead of Abby.
“Ah-hey! Stay behind the shield!”
“Relax!” Owyn didn’t slow down. “They’re just thausens! They’re practically harmless!”
Abby rushed after him. Being much quicker than him, she caught up just before he entered the room. “Just because they’re harm-”
A blue light appeared before her. Perfectly square, with just a bit of text on it, like a page from a book. It had her name, her full name, at the top, her age, gender, race for some reason, and further down were some cryptic letters, followed by some numbers. Between her information and the cryptic portion was a single, purple bar, only just not quite full.
“Owyn?” She asked, unsure of what was going on.
Owyn stood stock still, staring at empty space in front of him.
“Owyn, can you see this too?”
“‘Owyn Erlander’.” Owyn said his full name. “Nineteen years. Male. Hu- uh, human. Uh, S-T-R, and-”
“Owyn!” Abby realized too late that they stood in the doorway of a dungeon. She panicked and jumped in front of him, shield up and sword ready to strike.
The room was about the same size of every room this deep into the cave, although this one had a pond in the back. Previously, it would have been where Abby and Owyn would take their first break of the day, but now, it was populated with monsters.
Two thausens stood at the back of the room, watching them while holding rocks in either hand. Through her mana sight, Abby knew these two were dungeon monsters. Since the whole room was considered part of the dungeon however, she couldn’t locate the core with her sight alone.
The thausens remained where they stood, passively watching the two adventurers.
“Uh…” Abby didn’t know what to do.
“Abby, turn your light off.”
“What!?” Abby turned to look at Owyn.
“Just do it.” Owyn was looking very curiously at his hand.
Abby shifted uncomfortably, eyeing the monsters on the other side of the room. She didn’t like the idea about losing her sight, but judging by all the loose rocks on the ground, she knew she would be able to heard the monsters coming if they moved. She raised her shield to cover her face and stopped the flow of her mana. Her magic core’s glued to her shield went dark.
Abby turned to Owyn, watching as he turned off his light as well. Some shifting of cloth was the only indication she had that Owyn was still there and moving.
“The… thing isn’t creating light.”
Abby blinked uselessly. She then turned back to her front, surprised to see the blue square was still there. Owyn’s light returned, and Abby gratefully followed suit. The two thausens hadn’t moved. Now that she could see again, she even noticed a third, laying dead off to the side. Some clicking sounded close to the pond, drawing her attention. Owyn’s eyes followed.
“Mimic crabs.” He said, brow furrowing at their sight. “You can tell by the…” He waved his hand around his head. “‘Crown’ they seem to have when they’re eating something.”
“They’re not fighting us Owyn.” Abby said. She felt very uncomfortable.
“They’re not.” Owyn agreed, almost frustrated if he weren’t so curious. He left Abby, walking towards the pond. He held his necklace out of his shirt. His eyes followed it to the pond, and then just a bit beyond. Sitting in a little shelf in the wall was the dungeon core. Amber in color.
The blue square in front of both adventurers blinked. Owyn stopped moving to read it.
“Quest: Touch the dungeon core.” Abby read. Owyn nodded. They’d both received the same message.
“What’s going on?” Abby asked.
“I don’t know.” Owyn muttered. He resumed walking towards the pond. Abby, now more unnerved than ever, quickly followed.
Owyn didn’t not know things, not when it came to dungeons. He’d read every book in the Bellamy library, as well as the smaller library the adventurers guild had back in their hometown. He knew every monster, every evolution, every danger. Though Abby hated how that knowledge made him too confident when it came to dungeon delving, she always felt assured knowing he wouldn’t get hurt, nor would he let her get hurt.
But now… Neither of them knew anything.
“I think… I think I should get the core.” Abby said.
“Yeah.” Owyn agreed. He came to a stop in front of the mimic crabs. The one with its ‘crown’ up walked forward, claws dragging along the ground. It swept small pebbles off to the side, clearing a space between Owyn and the other crab. It then retreated to the other one, and together, they began looking around. They found rocks, and picking them up, they brought the ones they liked back to the center of the cleared area.
Five colored rocks. Five dark rocks.
Owyn furrowed his brows as the dungeon creatures split the rocks into colored rocks and dark rocks. They pushed the dark rocks in Owyn’s direction before retreating back to their original positions with the colored rocks.
While that happened, Abby stood ankle deep in the pond. She could see the corpse of the barracuda off to the side, so she didn’t feel any danger in walking deeper, but still, she didn’t want to. The moment her feet had touched the water, the fish that occupied the little pond had swam to either side of her. They marked out a very obvious trail to the core.
“Owyn?” She asked.
“The crabs are doing something.” Owyn told her. He watched as one crab drew four lines in the cleared space. Two horizontal, two vertical. The lines made a very sloppy box. The crab then retreated and picked up a colorful rock, placing it within the box. Owyn picked up his own rock and did the same. The mimic crab rushed to the rock and picked it up. It threw it back at Owyn, though it came woefully short of hitting him. Not that a pebble thrown by a crab would do much to him anyways. The crab then retreated and watched Owyn again.
Abby could tell she was on her own for this.
She eyed the fish in the pond, patiently waiting for her to enter the pond. The blue square was still there, just off to the side of her vision. It still read out the quest to touch the core.
She took a deep breath. The pond wasn’t that deep. Just past her knees at the deepest. It wasn’t even that far of a walk, merely two dozen paces to reach the far wall. And yet…
“This is what being an adventurer is.” Abby told herself. She took another big breath. “Treading into the unknown.”
She took a big step into the pond.
The water was freezing, but she didn’t stop. She held her shield in front of her for light and her sword up high for comfort. If any of the fish so much as flinched in her direction, she was going to slaughter the lot of them while she ran out of the water. But, of course, they didn’t move. They just sat there, to either side of her. Watching.
Abby made sure the path behind her didn’t close up. She made sure Owyn was still there, watching both her and the crabs with curiosity. She even checked to make sure the thausens hadn’t moved. They too, just stood there and watched silently.
It was all too quiet for her liking.
Abby waded through the water, eventually coming close to the core. She knew for sure that she couldn’t take this thing back in one piece. She had to destroy it. Not just break it in half, but destroy it.
She touched it with her shield hand, holding it still while her sword hand rose higher.
Ding!
The blue square made a sound.
Abby glanced over at it long enough to see that the words had changed again.
“Congratulations.” Owyn read, once again confirming their blue squares read the same thing.
Then, the text changed.
Reward!
Now that she was touching the core, she felt its thoughts. Its intentions. Its will.
Leave.
Abby froze. It gave her a command, but it wasn’t to die, or kill herself, or obey the will of the core. It just wanted her to leave.
Return! The core hastily corrected itself.
Return? It… wanted Abby to leave, and then come back?
The blue square shifted again, the text changing. Now it read “Return tomorrow to receive your reward for completing the request!”
Leaveleave. The core said again, voices seemingly overlapping..
Leave-Leave-return-LEAVE-come back-fuck off-leave-goawayleaveleaveleavereturn-
“Abby!” Owyn shouted.
Abby started, immediately snatching her hand back from the core. The core did not remain silent. Voices rolled over one another, cascading over her mind like an unending torrent.
LeaveLeaveReturnGo-
No. No, this wasn’t normal, you shouldn’t be able to hear cores when you weren’t touching them. Dungeons were supposed to try to kill you, they weren’t supposed to-
“Abby, I can hear the core from here, come on! We need to-”
LEAVE
----------------------------------------
Abby and Owyn slammed into the rock of the doorway, startling the four boys as they were making their way deeper into the dungeon.
“Everybody out!” Owyn shouted with desperation.