The first thing Barus saw when he entered the dungeon was fur. As was the second, third, all the way up to forty-seven furballs that all froze the instant Barus entered their perception. There was something unnerving about that many creatures freezing and turning their gazes on you, like you were a slab of particularly tasty meat. Behind him, the other two members of his team entered, stopping at the sight that met them. For a moment, everyone stood stock still, waiting for the other side to make the first move. Then with a snarl the cats pounced, their eyes opening unnaturally wide as they cleared the room with a bound, creating a wave of hungry maws rushing towards the trio.
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I watched in shock as the first room was cleared so quickly that I barely had time to choke on my metaphorical popcorn before it was over. All that was left of was a bloody paste splattered across the ground and walls. A path through the gore was cleared by an Adventurer’s mana manipulation, and they progressed through the room without a problem.
There are moments in the life of every dungeon when they realize that they have utterly over prepared and any ENAD that makes through their dungeon is a total battle maniac who is worthy of the highest accolades.
For me, this was not one of those moments.
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After the first room, Barus jotted his observations in an Adventurer Society form. When they were finished with the dungeon, they would each submit their independent assessments. While the room had been nothing for them, it would be fairly effective against E and low D grade cultivators, and would discourage any unwary dungeoneers right off the bat. After they had finished, they moved on.
Just as they were about to leave the first room, a bellowing roar filled the small space of the chamber they had just cleared. With instinct honed over years the team whirled as one, weapons out. In front of them they found a small kitten, “Mascot, don’t kill me” spelled out over every inch of its fur. They stared at the kitten, then at each other, nonplussed.
“Uh…do we kill it?” Altair asked hopefully. All he received in response was a pair of glares.
Beyond the first room they found a long, empty corridor leading to a circular chamber. Barus scouted ahead, taking out a pole to flick in front of him, scanning for tripwires or false floors. When one of his taps came back with a hollow thunk, he and the others glanced at each before clearing the rest of the corridor with a slight hop, avoiding the trap.
The second room was similar to the first, but, instead of the spotted cat things, kittens with spiraling swirls running through their fur were ambling about.
“Force enhancement runes,” Barus opened his mouth to suggest they avoid the seemingly peaceful mobs, when Altair started tearing through the little beasts like a fox in a henhouse. Shaking his head, Barus followed.
Although the kittens were smaller than the mobs of the first room, they were noticeably faster and stronger, and seemed to possess much more intelligence than their cousins. This meant that it took a bit over two seconds to clear the room, compared to the first room's .83 seconds.
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At this point, I was beginning to get worried. Whatever you said about Adventurers, nobody ever accused them of being bad at clearing dungeons. If I didn’t give the assessment group at least a small challenge, the rating I’d get would draw the dregs of the Adventurer Society to my depths, lowering the amount of mana I could harvest from high tiered spells or the deaths of skilled Adventurers. Despite the carnage wrought, only one of the Adventurers had actually participated in the fight, and he hadn’t even used any spells.
And then I saw it. The permission I needed to turn up the dungeon’s difficulty. As I’d adjusted to the sword-wielding Adventurer’s speed, I’d become more adept at tracking his movements. Which was the reason I saw the lightning-fast swipe that decapitated the Mascot.
“Noooooo!” Ryia screamed, her orb slamming to the floor and rolling around. “What gives them the right to kill my murderkitty!? It had dreams to slaughter a field of Adventurers, to wreak carnage on a level this world has never seen! Revenge! I will have my revenge!” As she talked, her orb grew redder and redder, until she looked like iron in a forge, all heat and flame.
“Uhh… ok?” I was trying to think up something to say but came up completely and utterly blank.
Without a word, Granite tweaked a single rune. It wasn’t something he had discussed with Ryia, preferring to keep it as a surprise if the mascot ever died, but he was sure she would enjoy the irony.
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As Barus took out his notepad, he paused, noticing a small corpse among the dozen or so others.
“Altair?” Barus asked in a calm voice.
“Yes Barus?”
“You killed the mascot kitten.” The man looked between Barus and the kitten, an obviously fake look of confused surprise written across his face.
“Oh. Whoops. Well, guess that’s one problem taken care of. Moving on-”
“Altair, it literally had ‘Do not kill me’ written across every possible square inch of it.”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“If we die, I’m going to haunt you,” Amaris said in a menacing tone.
“Come on, this place couldn’t hurt us even if it could manipulate the space around us, which it can’t. And besides, I’m pretty sure you can’t haunt someone who’s already dead.”
They rapidly traversed the next corridor, Barus once again scanning for any traps, but none showed themselves. Beyond they found a single bronze box standing alone under a spotlight, elevated on a simple stone platform.
Barus shook his hands out, then pulled out several tools. Trapped chests were one of the most common causes of deaths among experienced Adventurers, as it only took one missed trap to end it all. He quickly found the trap’s trigger rune and, by tapping the floors and using his C grade senses, was able to determine the nature of the trap. Once more he took out his trusty 10-foot bamboo pole and carefully flicked the lid open. As expected, a projectile whizzed out of the wall and directly over the chest, right where someone would have to be standing to open it.
Barus approached the chest and looked within. He took out the item he found inside, staring at it for several seconds.
“What is it?" asked Amaris.
With a carefully blanked expression, Barus handed the item to Altair. The man hesitantly took the object and carefully looked it over.
It was a painting of a familiar kitten, the words over its body mostly covered by pure white robes as the kitten, holding a harp and with a halo over its head, knelt before a glowing ball of energy, tears streaming down the small creature's furry face as it explained some terrible tale.
“Uh…wow, what a coincidence. I think I saw a kitten like that somewhere, I just can’t-” He stopped as Barus whacked him upside the head.
A door slid open in the wall, clearly leading to the next room. They waited several seconds for something to happen, but there didn’t seem to be any more ill effects of Altair’s action. With a simultaneous shrug, they exited the room. Inside the next space they found a cat the size of a panther waiting for them, a silvery chest glinting beyond. The chamber was only marginally larger than the previous space, leaving little room for maneuvering.
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Barus barely had time to notice the snarling beast was peak D rank before it pounced, its speed and strength surprising Altair for a split second. That was all the time the enhanced cat needed as it batted him out of the way like a ball of yarn. Instantly Amaris showed why she was a part of the team, streams of air flattening her robes against her body as she sent a pair or wind blades at the charging feline. The razor-sharp blades struck with the force of a charging bull, slicing through the rib cage of the PantherCat and pulverizing organs before digging a furrow in the far wall.
For a second Barus thought that the fight was over but an enchantment, one of nine swirling along the cat’s fur, glowed briefly before burning away. The sliced tendons, ribs, and muscle the wind blades had ripped through regenerated almost instantly, bringing the cat back to perfect condition. It roared, clearly some sort of enhanced attack similar to that of the mascot kitten Altair had killed. The roar had no effect on C rank bodies, and by now the team was once again in its fighting rhythm.
“Grown enchantments!” Amaris shouted over the roar as Altair flashed between the beast and the other two.
Barus summoned a knife from one of his many storage pouches and flicked it at the cat, the blade moving so fast it was just a twinkle in the air, before its velocity carried it through the cat with a spray of gore. While Barus was not focused on combat, being a C ranked Adventurer meant he could at least take care of himself. The roaring cat once again regenerated and was again killed within seconds.
The pattern continued, and Barus began to relax. It was obvious the beast was stupid enough to keep using its one attack, and as its “lives'' burned away it was equally obvious the cat posed no threat to them. When the mob had only four enchantments remaining, Barus was surprised to feel a warm liquid trickling into his mouth. He wiped it off with his hand, then looked in shock as his hand came away red with blood. The beast roared again at the beginning of its third to last life, and Barus was even more surprised as the roar rattled him to his bones. Even given that the PantherCat had been launching the same attack at them time and time again, it shouldn’t have had nearly enough power to actually affect them. Altair sliced through the cat’s neck, killing it instantly, then staggered. He turned his bloodshot eyes towards Amaris, his eyes going wide with shock. Barus turned to find her on her knees, coughing up blood in terrifying amounts. The cat, now on its second to last life, regenerated and roared again, the blast of sound rupturing Barus’s eardrums. His C grade regeneration tried to repair the damage but was somehow impaired in its efforts.
He met Altair’s eyes as, for the first time since they had entered the dungeon, he felt fear.
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Earlier.
No, before that. Wait-too far. Sigh. Closer…STOP. Right there.
Barus shook his hands out, then pulled out several tools. Trapped chests were one of the most common causes of deaths among experienced Adventurers, as it only took one missed trap to end it all. He quickly found the trap’s trigger rune and, by tapping the floors and using his C grade senses, was able to determine the nature of the trap. Once more he took out his trusty 10-foot bamboo pole and carefully flicked the lid open.
The force projection rune triggered by the action sent out a blast of air that traveled through a small tunnel hidden under the floor, shooting a spike out of a disguised hole set into the portion of the wall hiding the passage to the next room. The projectile flew across the room to shatter on the far wall, but thanks to the death of the mascot Granite had allowed himself to tweak a single aspect of the dungeon. In this case, to exact revenge for the death of his beloved kitten he… drumroll please… turned off the autostop feature on the force projection rune.
In an alternate universe, far, FAR into the future, ENADs might protest at what comes next. After all, “matter cannot be created from nothing” they would protest. To this, Granite would graciously reply:
MAGIC, DUH!
The section of wall housing the exit valve slid to the right, both muting the hissing sound of air being released and preventing Barus, the party’s scout, from further examining the exit. As Barus and his colleagues continued down the stairs, the rune continued to produce air at a fairly prodigious rate, causing the air pressure of the closed system to steadily increase. The emergency sealing runes installed after the explosion pinged Granite, who was doing the equivalent of rubbing his hands in gleeful anticipation of the news and sealed the entrance to the boss room.
The cultivators C ranked bodies didn’t notice the gradual pressure change, their resilience for once working against them. As Amaris summoned wind blades, further compounding the issue, and the PantherCat distracted the cultivators, the pressure began to further grow. 20 PSI. 25. 30. 40. 50. A C ranked body can take a lot, I mean a LOT of damage, but by the time the PSI hit 70, then 80, then 90, their bodies were beginning to feel the strain. It didn’t help the Adventurers that the physics of the PantherCat’s concussive attacks operated by increasing the air pressure in a wave in front of it, spiking the air pressure even higher. By the time Barus’s body began to fail at around 120 PSI, a true testament to the monumental endurance of a C ranker, Amaris’s frailer physique was already well on its way to suffering fatal damage.
Worst of all there was no spell, no technique, no mana trick that could get them out of the situation. The only escape Granite had dangled was if the ENADs could defeat the boss. This would crack open a side passage leading back to the surface, slowly lowering the air pressure. But as Barus fell to his knees next to Altair, there was little chance the cat, with two lives left and its roar attack boosted by the environment, would die before the Adventurers did.
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If Granite could have eaten, he would have made a bowl of popcorn.
Given that popcorn wasn’t on the menu, he settled for the released mana of Amaris’s spells instead.
He was startled by how much mana the occasional spells gave him; even the simple wind blades the mage threw out were worth somewhere around 12 hours of his passive regeneration. Each. He could see why this dungeon thing was a pretty popular choice for Cores looking to grow their domains.
“What did you do?” Ryia asked. Granite, too busy watching the spectacle to notice the dangerous tone in her voice, offhandedly explained what had happened.
“TURN IT OFF NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW!” Granite, startled by the sudden outburst, turned away from the scene he was watching and just stared at the Wisp.
“What? Why? Isn’t this exactly what we were hoping for? The strongest message we can send to the Adventurer Society is if their assessment team is killed by fair dungeon mechanics.”
“You call that-” It was the first time I had seen Ryia truly spitting, hopping mad outside of the Mascot Kitten’s death, and that had felt more like a show. “-that abysmal atrocity of a malformed half-baked two-faced underhanded blasphemy of a trap gone wrong a FAIR DUNGEON MECHANIC?”
“...yes?” I barely managed to squeak the words out. Ryia sighed; her anger suddenly gone as quickly as it had come.
“Look, Granite, there is a certain image that comes with being a dungeon. Viscous mobs, clever traps, that’s all fine. But dungeons that stray too far from normal, ones that start making undead creatures or dabbling with void energy, those are the ones nobody ever hears about.”
“I’m not doing anything like that,” I protested, thinning the seal between the final room and the rest of the dungeon just a smidge, giving us time to talk.
“All I’m doing is using the laws of nature against Adventurers. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing-look.” She now sounded frustrated. “This isn’t difficult. Just make normal traps with normal mobs and stop getting your dungeon blown up.”
“Yeah? And where has that gotten me? If I hadn’t set this off, they would have waltzed out of this dungeon like it was prom night, gone back to their little Adventurer branch, and told everybody that would listen what a crappy place this dungeon is. At BEST I would have gotten the raw recruits of the Adventurer Society who came here to get experience in a place that they knew WAS NOT DANGEROUS.”
“WELL MAYBE THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN RIGHT!!! Now for once in this messed up relationship can you get this amalgamation of a dungeon to do what you intend and LET. THEM. GO.”
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The moment the words left Ryia’s mouth, she wished she could have taken them back.
“Granite I’m sorry, I-”
“I think you should leave.” The words came out flat, as cold as the rock Granite was made of.
“I-”
“LEAVE.” The words weren’t spoken loudly, but the mana burst behind them reminded her that while Granite might seem affable, friendly, and far too naive for his own good, he was still a Dungeon Core, with all the power that came with the name.
They had talked about this before, why Ryia stayed. What her motivation was in helping him. She had told him some made up story about new Cores not being able to hold that much information, and Wisps being sent to give that knowledge. She hadn’t told him the real reason, that Wisps were meant to be a companion through the infinity a Core could live. That through all the relationships and isolation of an eternal life, a wisp was the one thing a Core could depend on, their connection enforced by their mana. Ryia realized now that she had been scared, scared that this Core who couldn’t even set up a dungeon without something going wrong would bind her for eternity to him, forever dragging her down with him. Scared that initiating the bond would forever connect her to this naive goofball of a Core.
And now she might never get the chance.
“Granite listen I-”
With control of his mana she did not know he possessed; Ryia was flung from Granite’s domain to the jungle outside.