During dinner, Lady Trym had told Lyon to bring us to the dungeon. It was a prospect so absurd that I didn’t even fully process it for a few hours.

In stories, dungeons were places that great heroes would train and eventually conquer.

In history, dungeons were great sources of materials that kingdoms could benefit from. Several instances of dungeon spawns caused a country to win or lose a war that had previously been deadlocked,

I had never seen one before and was excited to see one of these legends for myself finally.

The Trotter adventurer’s guild was around the size of my old house- that is to say, not very big.

Lyon was waiting for us when we showed up.

“Come with me. We need to get you before we go to the dungeon.” He said, opening the door to the building.

The space inside the building was almost completely taken up by a long line of adventurers, many of which were very loud.

Lyon led us to a group of two who were standing around midway through the line. One was a short-ish woman with jet-black hair, and the other was a huge man who carried an equally large sword on his back.

“If we’ll be waiting for a while anyways, we might as well get introductions out of the way,” Lyon announced, raising his voice so that it could be heard above the chatter.

He first introduced the woman. “This is Sera, our rogue. Don’t judge her by her height- she’s able to kill rank D monsters solo and can seriously wound rank C.”

Next, he moved on to the man. “And here we have Merior, our warrior. Recruited him while drunk in a town up north, never regretted it.”

The two of them looked pretty pleased with their introductions.

“Pleased t’meet ya,” said Merior with a northern accent. “An’ don’t let Lyon sell himself short either. He’ll be up t’rank B soon, jus’ you watch.”

“Next!” Shouted the receptionist at the front desk, signaling us to go up.

“I’m Lyon Trym, looking for a dungeon permit for the day,” Lyon told her.

“Aren’t you all?” She replied. “Party registration?”

Lyon handed her a card. I noticed that there was a rune inscribed on it, which the receptionist linked up to a magic core on her desk. It glowed for a second until the receptionist disconnected it from the core and gave it back to Lyon.

“It’s good. I’ll just need your guild card now.”

Lyon already had it out, immediately giving it to her.

After doing the same thing with the card, she nodded.

“I assume you’ll be bringing those kids with you?”

“Yes.”

The receptionist nodded, handing Lyon a sheet of paper. “Here’s your permit. Your overall party rank will temporarily be lowered to C, which should let you go past a couple of checkpoints. They’ll give you more detailed instructions at the entrance.

After finishing up at the guild, we picked up supplies from the inn Lyon’s party was staying at. In total, the supplies fit into three medium-sized bags that were carried by the party. We kids were also told to carry smaller bags, which Lyon said held our sleeping pads and some food.

Finally, we headed for the dungeon.

Above all else, the dungeon was… disappointing. Based on all the stories I had heard, I had expected something grand, like an ominous staircase into the ground.

Instead, the dungeon turned out to just be a simple hole in the ground. The otherwise flat ground formed into a depression, with the dungeon’s opening dug into the side.

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There was a small guild booth to the side of the dungeon entrance, which Lyon led us to first. Lyon handed the paper he had gotten from the receptionist to the man inside the booth. After taking a brief look at it, the man stamped it with a red seal and handed it back over.

“Your permit’s good. If I could just see your guild identification, then you’ll be good to go.” The man said.

Arnav handed over his guild card, which was given the same treatment as it had gotten earlier in the guild building.

“Alright, you’re cleared until checkpoint 20. Enhanced monsters start appearing at checkpoint 1, and magic beasts have been seen starting at checkpoint 14.” The man declared while handing Lyon back his card. “Good luck with the dungeon.”

The man’s speech had given me so many questions. “Magic beasts” was obvious, but what were “enhanced monsters"? And what even was a checkpoint?

Lyon and his party looked like they knew all these terms, at least. I resolved to ask them about it later.

The dungeon didn’t feel like how I expected a cave to feel.

Windale had a couple of town cellars that we used to store food during the winter. They were about as interesting as you’d expect holes with food in them to be, that is to say, they were very interesting at all. Despite that, I had still decided to venture into one. It had felt damp and unpleasant, convincing me to never go into one again.

The dungeon was different. It was still unpleasant but in a different way. Instead of the clammy darkness of the cellar, the darkness in the dungeon screamed danger in a way that both scared and excited me.

The cave had a slight downward slope, though it wasn’t too noticeable. The dungeon was a long tunnel except for the occasional cavern that we reached. It felt a lot like what I would expect traveling through the belly of a snake to feel like.

Once the sunlight from the entrance had faded to almost nothing, Lyon brought out a torch from his pack.

“Agnis- summon!” Was all it took to light it on fire.

His summoning didn’t look too interesting to me, but Mason disagreed.

“Your efficiency… that was amazing!” He exclaimed. “How’d you do it?”

Lyon looked as though he enjoyed the praise, but he was quick to debunk Mason.

“I’m not that special. You just learn more as you age and get more experience.” Lyon said. “At the academy, I was considered just average for someone in class C.”

Mason didn’t look convinced. “So there’s nothing special you can teach me?”

“Not really, no. Though if you want, you could take the lead for a bit. I always found that I learned quickest when my life was on the line.”

At Lyon’s invitation, Mason eagerly went to the front of the group. He walked a little ahead of Merior, who had been leading us before.

“Is it safe for him to do that?” I mumbled worriedly to no one in particular.

Sera quickly alleviated my fears, much to my surprise. I hadn’t even realized that she was behind me. “Oh, don’t worry about him. Merrior’s plenty enough to deal with anything that spawns in before the 10th checkpoint, promise. It’s hard for simple enhanced monsters to overpower a warrior like him.”

I nodded along, but I didn’t understand too much of what she had said. Sera, perspective as she was, noticed immediately.

“You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”

“No, sorry. I was going to ask you guys later, but didn’t know when you’d need to fight or something.”

“Fight?” Sera laughed. “This is your first time in a dungeon, isn’t it?”

I shook my head, embarrassed.

“Don’t sweat it. Everyone’s got their first time, it’s just how it goes. But if you don’t want to sit through another explanation, you might want to remember what I'm going to tell you. You ready?”

Sera paused, waiting for my confirmation. Upon getting it, she went on to explain, “As you know, magical beasts are found in places that have a high mana density. More adventurers go north to find them, but there are some places further south that also have magical beasts.”

“Like the Seduri forest?” I asked. “I grew up near there.”

“Yes, exactly like that. We visited it for some hunting on our way down from the north.” Sera answered. “In places like that, the rule is that the closer you get to the center the greater the mana density, and thus the monsters you face. Dungeons are similar, but here the rule is that the deeper you go the greater the density becomes.”

“Enhanced creatures, which are only able to use mana to strengthen themselves, are found closer to the surface. You’ll see one soon if the worker had accurate information.”

“Magical beasts are monsters that can use magic to attack you directly. Dragons are a good example, not that anyone has ever seen one in a dungeon before. They’re trickier to fight, but provide the more valuable cores.”

“And lastly, checkpoints. We’re coming up on the first one now- they’re just places that the guild designates as camping grounds, where adventurers can sleep together for greater safety.”

The checkpoint we had reached wasn’t very interesting. The mundane of the cave was only broken by a lone guild flag.

“Usually you’d find some camps here, but this dungeon’s already deteriorated to the point that checkpoint 1 doesn’t spawn in anything useful anymore.”

“Any questions?”

“What do you mean by deteriorated?”

“Dungeons naturally deteriorate the longer they exist. Why else do you think that there are always parties rushing to find the core?”

Sera’s made a good point. Why did I just assume that people liked conquering dungeons?

Too much of my worldview was based on stories.

“Is there anything else you’d like to know?” Sera asked.

“No, thank you.”

“No problem! Think of it as my way of paying it forward- if you ever become an adventurer, make sure to help out someone else too.”