“What the hell is a level 40 monster doing here??!!” Jay yelled running back, the Monster, (you can think of it as a bear with extra-long claws) it swung its arm at Franz, the teams’ double hander, there was a crack, as bone gave way and Franz fell back, just as Boris jumped in, shield raised. The monster lifted its claw and brought it down on the shield with a force that made the floor shake, and everyone’s teeth rattle, then there was a pause, as Boris looked at his ruined shield, and the monster looked at Boris. Maria and I (yes, I am here too) had grabbed Franz while this was going on, and were making a hasty retreat. Well as hasty as anyone can while carrying someone as large as Franz, behind us I could hear pained breathing, but I couldn’t tell if they were from the monster or Boris!

As we staggered back towards the dungeon entrance, I pulled a potion from my inventory, that is my job after all, and poured it down Franz’s throat. It won’t make him walk again, but it will stop the bleeding at least. We were out, I felt dizzy, and out of breath, but we were out! And there was Jay, a few metres from the entrance leaning on a tree, clearly out of breath. I was glad to see he had gotten out at least, Maria was less pleased; “You bloody coward, why’d you turn and run like that?!” she yelled, leaving Franz and I panting by the entrance “what was I supposed to do? I’m a mage not a knight! I don’t have any stopping power!” Franz tugged at my sleeve diverting my attention, he was looking a bit green, and when he spoke it was in a muted voice, “have you ever seen something like that in there before?” “No” I said looking back towards the dungeon entrance, “No it shouldn’t be possible” “in that case” Franz had a sharp intake of breath as he tried to get up, “we had better move away from here, if it didn’t originate in there it can get out, and we need to report this too!”

Every dungeon has a core, in fact you could say that the core is the dungeon. All cores are made of compressed magic and can be found in some high-level creatures, but a dungeon core is slightly different, it seems to have a consciousness on some level, and when it feels threatened, it produces monsters to protect itself, the size of the core determines, the level and number of monsters it can make.

It was evening and I was cooking as the light began to fade, the guild had sent a high-level team to investigate the dungeon, and they hadn’t come back yet. With Boris gone, presumed… dead, and Franz laid out for at least a fortnight, the party was basically disbanded, and I was out of a job, again. I was the inventory so I was always ‘out of a job’. What is an inventory? Well, it is an interdimensional space that you can put stuff in. But there is a catch; you need manna to use it. Effectively anything you put into the inventory shrinks your manna pool, the bigger the object, the more manna it takes out of your pool. Of cause, as soon as you take anything out of your inventory your manna pool gets bigger again. This leads to a problem when forming parties, (as the lion’s share of exp goes to the person who lands the killing strike,) mages don’t want to waste manna on inventory stuff when they could use it on spells. Warriors, and most other classes, don’t want to waste precious skill points on a large manna pool that is otherwise useless to them. There is however a solution; find someone who has a useless class, and get them to be the inventory… that’s me. I turned the meat on the fire, one side was already slightly burned, while the other wasn’t even close to cooked yet, I sighed; a year ago I had been so optimistic, so convinced that when I got my class I would be away; climbing levels, slinging spells, or maybe blazing a trail with my sword to greater hights, that’s not what happened. I half smiled at my past naivety. On my 14th birthday I had walked into the temple, secretly convinced that I was going to leave with something special, and in a way, I did; illusionist is a rare class less than 1 in 100,000 have it. Now illusionist sounds kind of cool, but it isn’t, oh it is rare, but I can’t affect the real world at all, and when you are fighting monsters, you really need to affect the real world. I got tired of waiting for it to cook through and just cut the cooked meat off the uncooked and started eating it. I had told my father that I wasn’t coming home, I was the youngest after all; nothing for me at home. I had thought ‘maybe I can make it work, utilize illusions in a way no one has thought of yet’ but I hadn’t! Luckily being a mage type, I had a fairly large manna pool to start with, so about a month after I got my class I took my first job as an inventory, and it wasn’t so bad, most of the time.

Knock, knock, knock. I opened one eye and looked at the curtains; it was hardly light, Knock, knock, I rubbed my other eye and struggled out of bed, ‘what time was it?’ “Coming” I pulled on some cloths as I went to the door and open it, Amy, the guild master’s daughter, was standing on the other side, “At last! Do you know how long I have been standing here?” She had a look of; ‘I’m really annoyed, but I am controlling it’ without waiting for me to answer her question she continued, “Father wants you for something,” I ducked back inside to grab my coat, and Amy’s voice travelled after me “he said it was urgent!” I grubbed the coat and then paused, it was petty, and it wasn’t a good use of manna, but the temptation was just too great, “I won’t be a minute” I said, pulling a coin out of my pocket, then I concentrated on the image I wanted and cast ‘Imitate’; now the coin looked like a spider, just a little bigger than my palm. It wasn’t the best I had ever done, but in this half-light it would do just fine. I bent down as if to tie my shoe lace and sent the coin rolling out the door ahead of me; a second later there was a scream. Concealing my smile, I walked out the door. The trip to the guild was a quite one; Amy wasn’t wanting to talk to me after the arachnid incident, not that she was very chatty to me at the best of times, and it was too early for anyone to be up. Abor is enough of a back water that it has no night life, the only people who come here are adventures interested in the dungeon, but it isn’t high level enough to draw many. I sighed; wondering what the guild master could want to see me for? Amy led the way into the guild master’s office, it was a neat room with heavy looking furniture, the guild master sat behind his large desk, and on the other side sat two people, who had to be adventures. I did not have an inspection skill so I couldn’t tell what level, or class they were, but even without the inspection skill, I could tell, these two were high level, when the level difference is enough; you can feel it. “Here at last!” the guild master said, hardly sparing me a glance before turning back to the adventures, “As I was saying, this young man was in the party that… err, discovered the, ahem, problem. And the men that I sent to investigate have not returned, so I can only assume that it really is serious.” The female adventurer, turned her head and gave me a brief smile. The man got up from his seat and said; “Well Magnolia, if you are ready, I am quite keen to get started!” He gave the guild master a stiff bow, and as if it was an afterthought said, “unless there is anything else, Guild Master?” “No, no, not at all.” The guild master said hurriedly, Magnolia arose with a sigh, “you are always in such a hurry” I followed them out the door. We picked up Tom, (Xxavier’s inventory) he came hurrying towards us; tripping over his own feet and almost losing some of the healing potions he was carrying. Tom came to a stop in front of us and his face lit up with a grin, “are you the other inventory?” he asked eagerly, I nodded “do you have room for some of these?” he asked holding up the bottles that were trying to escape his grasp, I nodded again, and started putting them into my inventory, Xxavier frowned “Running low on space, Tom?” “Oh, no more than usual sir, it is just that they don’t have the highest-grade potions here, so I got a few extra. I hope that is alright?” Xxavier waved a hand, dismissing such details; “whatever you like, let’s just get a move on!” And that is how I came to be back at the dungeon entrance, I hadn’t thought that I would see it again for a few days, or even weeks; but situations change very quickly! “So here we are” Xxavier said looking at the entrance “single handed sword Tom” he held out his hand as Tom pulled it out of his inventory, “how far in were you when you came across those… beasts?” Xxavier asked as he gave the sword a few flourishes, “not very far” I answered “just over 200 Invar’s*” {* An Invar is a unit of measure derived from the amount of space in an inventory equal to 25 manna points} Xxavier nodded, then gave a slight bow to Magnolia “would you care to go first?” Magnolia raised her chin “why do your gentlemanly manners only ever present themselves when faced with a dark hole in the ground, and never in good society!” “I’ll take that as a no then.” Xxavier said smoothly as he walked into the dungeon, we followed. There is no need for a lantern in dungeons; as you get walk in the light drops, like any cave, but then only a few invars in and the first thin veins of manna begin to form on the walls, giving of a faint florescent light, the deeper you go the thicker the veins get, and the brighter, or it should have. As we progressed deeper the veins still glowed but everything seemed dimmer then normal, of cause that may have been my imagination; seeing the dungeon as a darker, scarier place. But what was not my imagination was the lack of resistance we encountered; the place was eerily quiet, there was no sign of the overgrown rats or moles that the dungeon usually sent to intercept intruders. Xxavier led on, slowly, but steadily pressing deeper into the ghostly dungeon. It happened a little past the point we had met the monster before, and it happened fast! It came from above. One moment we were walking along, and the next, a monster was falling on top of Xxavier, I don’t know if it was a skill, or if he just had a lot of points in agility, but he moved faster than the eye could follow; darting forward and out of the way. The monster; seeing that Xxavier was out of reach swung it’s claw at Magnolia, who was basically standing next to it, she ducked with no room to spare, the claw struck and lodged in the dungeon wall and then, Xxavier used a skill; his sword glowed as he swung it and a wave of energy seemed to run off the blade and into the monster, the force was so great that it dislodged the monster from the wall and sent it sprawling on the floor! Xxavier was smirking as he jumped forward with his sword raised above his head. The force of impact, when he brought it down, made the dungeon shake, and that is not a figure of speech; I know, because the ground in front of Tom and I had cracks running through it, “you have levelled up, level 5 reached,” a disembodied voice notified me, and that is when the floor under me gave way!

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.