"It's kinda disappointing..."

The human girl was completely bored out of her mind, barely dragging herself behind us, and I felt the same, this dungeon business sucked. We encountered no strong opponents and found no epic loot, just a hole dug into the ground, filled with disgusting troglodytes that could be found in any dwarven tunnel, but none of us were interested in them.

I was even relegated to torch-making duties because they forgot to bring any. I created permanent flames fed by a small amount of mana that they carried around, doubling as weapons against the easy-to-defeat critters. Unlike hellhounds, these did not like fire at all.

"Hey Gitaut, do you even need that crystal? Can't we go home?" I joined in on the complaining. "We have been at this for hours, but I feel like we are going in circles and nothing interesting happens."

"Ember, please... Don't call me that." Was the orc's simple answer while he rolled his eyes. Another group of deep underground beasts showed up before he could continue and I quickly dispatched them.

With my fireballs, it wasn't even a challenge. It was mildly annoying to deal with them, and they kept coming for some reason. Well, I guess they were blind and dumb enough to walk right into their deaths.

"And we aren't going in circles, I'm following the mana trails towards the dungeon," Gitaut added after the critter's lives were extinguished.

"What do you mean, towards the dungeon? We are in the dungeon already, aren't we?" The human girl perked up, shaking her head. She held one of my torches instead of her sword, but her school uniform, as it was called, seemed so strange down here.

Although none of us wore actual armor, not even the hobs and the ogre in the first row, these little critters couldn't touch us, so we didn't need them anyway. Omerta was quick to correct Emi.

"This is technically not the dungeon yet, this is part of the entrance. What we call dungeon is in another dimension." She tried to explain, but seeing the human's reaction, it went right over her head. After a loud sigh, she attempted it again. "I mean it's a space between spaces, a different plane, not part of our actual world. But it drifted close enough thanks to the concentration of mana, and an entrance materialized here."

"The abyssal monsters that populate that plane simply dug their way to the surface, that is this cave system, not part of the actual thing." The other orc came to the rescue. His senses told us which way to go, otherwise I was sure that we'd just get lost immediately. The little bastards dug hundreds if not thousands of tunnels without clear logic, and we always took the left ones, which seemed to be the largest as well. "Once we enter the dungeon, it would look like we're overground, and time and space will behave differently."

"Oh, so it's just called dungeon because you have to go underground to access it?" Emi reached the wrong conclusion, so I decided to flaunt my knowledge about the matter. Not like I knew much about them, and it was the first time for all of us, but I still learned more than this human.

"Not every dungeon is underground. I heard about one that appeared in the middle of a city square, as a simple door." I grabbed her attention easily. I even created a tiny door out of flames, and a small ball to float around it as an illustration. "If you went around it, nothing happened, but if you passed through it, you got transported into a different world."

"Right, there was a legend about one that manifested over the clouds, and people had to climb up a tall magical plant to reach it," Omerta added her own story, stealing my glory. "Not to mention, some are underwater, though they must be rare and hard to access because of the Sea of Storms."

"Yes, yes, I was about to say," I claimed, glaring at the orc witch, but another small group of troglodytes distracted us all. This time she was faster and dispatched them with her chained lightning. "Still, these things aren't the abyssal monsters I expected. What are they even doing here? Where are the rest of the hellhounds? Give me something to shoot."

"Weren't you complaining about their resistance to fire? You are much better off with these..." Omerta shrugged, pissing me off. "Well, I agree, it is boring, but boring is good sometimes. Right, shaman?"

"I think they must have come from the nearby mineshafts, then got stuck here because of the Cerberus guarding the entrance," Gitaut responded, although the witch asked something else. Still, this explanation made some sense, Gomel, the dwarf smith did mention something about abandoned mines below the city where they mined all the stone for the magnificent buildings. But Baran, the old dwarf capital had no ores or crystals below the surface, hence they never hesitated to abandon it.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"I wish they were less disgusting though, I'm always worried that their phlegm will get on my clothes, and just ew..." Emi complained too. Since she couldn't use magic, not even with the crystals like her older sister, she had to fight them in a melee, which seemed unreasonable, considering their numbers and looks. "I envy Nati that she managed to sit this part out. How will she catch up to us though?"

"I don't think she can, we'll go back for her later," Omerta said, acting like the leader of our group. Gitaut was too much of a coward to contest it and technically, she was indeed my superior so I couldn't complain either. "We are just scouting at the moment, thinning their numbers..."

"What? But there is no end to them. If we go back and start over, we'll have to cut through them again." The human girl raised a valid concern. But bypassing them was an option, as long as we knew what to expect.

And indeed, we haven't met anything else in the next hour either.

"Gomel said there were hellhounds and Nightmares, and all we get are some ordinary troglodytes." I couldn't help complaining. At least the human boy cooked some excellent meals we kept warm inside our Bag of Holding. We took a break, and the shaman drew a map of the area we explored so far. It looked extremely detailed, even though he had to cover a large area. It must have been five miles already.

"This is very strange." He noted, showing us the parchment. "The caves always branch towards the outside, so to the right. We always took the left side yet went in a long half-circle this entire time..."

Indeed, according to his map, even though we went five miles, we almost ended up in the same place where we started. Even if I doubted his mapping prowess, his spirits would not lead us astray.

"And you followed the mana, right?" Omerta asked, sounding a little baffled herself. "Almost like it wanted to lead us away from the dungeon."

"No, it drew us towards the center, but no tunnel led that way." The shaman shook his head, then closed his eyes as if he was concentrating. "Yes, the other directions all have weaker traces than this one... I don't understand. We almost went full circle."

"But it's just dirt, right?" Emi asked, scratching her chin as she looked at the map too. "And it's easy to dig or to fill up a tunnel in here..."

"What do you mean?" Omerta raised her eyebrow, but I had an idea.

"Oh, what if the troglodytes came from the nearby mines, and dug into the dungeon..." I started, grabbing their attention. I paused, but not too long before someone else stole my glory again. The human girl was smarter than I gave her credit for. "They couldn't leave towards the city because of the Cerberus, but the monsters or the dungeon itself didn't want them to flood their plane either... So it just kept filling up the tunnels they dug, and this is the closest route left."

"Hmm, that is possible..." Gitaut completed the circle on his map, scratching his temple with the back end of the quill. "Then we should advance until we arrive at the exit, then try to dig towards the center of this cave system, and we'd end up in the dungeon?"

"That would at least mean we don't have to go through all of them again..." Emi jumped up enthusiastically, finishing her meal. "But do we have the gear to dig a tunnel into that place?"

"Oh, don't you worry, you haven't seen it, but Lambert and I can move tonnes of dirt without breaking a sweat." Omerta bragged with a wide grin, exposing her small tusks. "We won't even have to get our hands dirty. But before we do that, we should probably wait for Nati to wake up..."

"Yeah, once we breach the dungeon, return trips will be much more complicated." The other orc agreed, putting away the little map he drew. I just hoped the Black Cat wouldn't be out for days like me. A short break was fine, but I didn't want to wait too long before we entered.

"Can you do it alone? Maybe you'll have to dig for miles, and Lambert didn't come with us..." I noted, but Omerta put her hand on her hips, acting offended. I suppressed a giggle before she could answer.

"I haven't even warmed up, Ember. I can easily dig a mineshaft or bury you since the cave walls are so soft..." She raised her nose, then flicked her finger and a large chunk of dirt fell off the ceiling between us.

"I hope you won't bury us all by accident though..." The shaman noted, but if not for the human girl's next question, he might have got covered with the next chunk. Considering how the orc witch looked at him, I was glad she didn’t know how to kill with her glare.

"And will there be actual monsters and treasures inside the real thing? It won't be as boring as this place, right?" Emi wanted to know, regaining some vigor after the long walk. "Because if it's more of the same, I'd rather go home and convince Nati to skip this one too..."

"I'm not qualified to say because this will be my first dungeon too, but from the stories I have heard, they are all different, dangerous, and exciting," Omerta promised, patting her back after being distracted from that insult. I felt left out but refused to show it. "As for treasure, the crystal we aim for could probably buy you an entire castle, and some of the monsters might have parts we could sell or use ourselves."

"Don't expect gold lying around, waiting to be collected." The shaman added just to clarify. We didn't use money in general anyway. "Unless previous adventurers brought it with themselves, and were unlucky enough to perish inside. But Gomel said this dungeon was untouched for the last decade, and the city was mostly deserted too."

"Good. Anything, but more of these boring troglodytes, please." Emi nodded, taking up one of the torches before we continued onwards.