The Beginner Dungeon of Altimor, one of the first found in the region housed a lively township of a few hundred permanent residents that aimed to serve adventurers starting their careers. Altimor was considered the ‘barrier’, where most adventurers who pass the guild exam go to take the final test at the Soline Dungeon.
However, beginner adventurers are highly varied in skill and background. It wasn’t uncommon for a low noble’s son to have his guild exam ‘paid for’ and skip right to a dungeon, hiring a veteran to help them out. Or a poor farm boy, scraping together a few silver to pay the entrance exam fee and get together his old father’s sword only to die on the first floor.
It was a constant occurrence, one that largely weighed little on the minds of most residents of Altimor.
All adventurers agreed after all, that their jobs weren’t a clean one. Murder and death were their entire career. Every day, spelunkers risked their lives in hopes of getting just enough to get by. Some live for the thrill and the power adventuring gives them. Some realized that the military of their nation wasn’t paying them enough, and didn’t give them enough freedom.
Whatever reason you went down into a dungeon, any dungeon, the result was the same. You either live long enough to retire or you die, another name etched into the entrance memorial of the dungeon you were entombed in.
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“Bitch!” A man in full plate snarled as he wiped the blood from his lip. He rose from the dirt, his once gleaming armor covered in blood and dust.
A gilded golden medallion swayed from side to side, the ambient torchlight flickering a quick glare across the dungeon hall. A woman, Adelaine, shifted back, bruises and cuts across her skin. Her soft purple robe was riddled with tears as she raised her staff, its head glowing harshly.
“Y-You bastard! You didn’t have to go that far!” She cried.
“He shouldn’t of mouthed off, stupid prick.” Wilem swayed, taking monstrous steps towards an unmoving body, a sword impaled into his back. With pure strength, he rended the blade from his back, a wicked smile across his face.
“You could’ve just bowed your head and let me kill him. But no.” He pulled his hand to his chest, wrapping his hand around the medallion.
Adelaine’s face turned from shock to dread, her mana was nearing depletion. They had finally beaten a beginner dungeon, she finally had enough to leave this stupid party and make it to Palindor. They’d spent nearly a week down here, eating together, resting together, making and breaking camp. It was her first party. The first people who’d taken her in and given her the time of day.
“Two-timing whore. . . think you can play nice with me? Use me? While you fuck the rogue, talk him into taking my share?” The rage boomed from his voice, letting his anger echo up and down the walls.
“It wasn’t like that--!”
“Bullshit!” The paladin cut through the air with his sword as he quickened his step. “I saw how you looked at each other.”
“When I’m done with you. . . I can just tell the guild that no-name beginner mage couldn’t handle her staff after all.” His voice lowered, death in his eyes as he raised his sword.
She shifted back, waving her hand in a panic as she rushed through the incantation.
Draw from me eternal breath in life, replace my blood with cold and ice. Iceburst!
A crystalline icicle formed before her, accelerating its spin before blasting through the hallway. Mana rippled from the staff before it ceased glowing entirely, mana exhaustion reaching the woman as her arm trembled. A tremendous weight pressed on her extremities as she watched in hope and fear. The stress on her body mounting.
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Wilem snickered, gripping the medallion as he chanted his own.
Grant me divine purity. Protect me from evil. Shield!
The golden medallion warmed in his hand he felt the divine energy channel through him before stopping. The protective forcefield flickered before him as the golden radiance dimmed.
“Protect you from evil?” A sarcastic, snarky voice rippled in the back of his head. The deity of his house, spoke to him? They had a deal. . .
“Belas! We had a deal!” He shrieked. The divine shield shattered as shock crossed his face and he watched as the ice crystal traveled through the air and stabbed through his armor and into his shoulder.
Pain rippled across his body as he stumbled back nearly falling. The crystal’s energy faded, leaving a gaping hole in his arm as his sword slipped from his hand. He bit back a scream while bloodlust eyes tore towards Adelaide.
“You fuck me over. . . you break my family’s oath. I’m gonna enjoy watching you squirm.” His right arm went limp as his left reached for the dagger at his waist, eyeing the exhausted mage. She was in no position to fight let alone run. At the bottom level of even a beginner dungeon, she was all his.
“Somebody. . . anyone help--” Adelaide tried to press up from the ground, her body trembling as a feverish fatigue prevented her from moving. Her eyes flickered as she collapsed. The figure of Wilem inched closer and closer, until. . . he stopped.
Thwick! Thwick!
Two arrows in quick succession flew through the air, one impaled itself into a nook in the Paladin’s platemail while the other ricocheted off harmlessly, the broadhead arrow snapping.
Wilem looked up from his prey, as a monster turned the corner, a skeleton. He muttered obscenities as he snapped the arrow embedded in his armor. The skeleton approached, ignoring the mage who was halfway to unconsciousness on the floor, tossing the bow to the side before equipping a chipped bog iron blade.
The undead monster, its bones clacking as it echoed across the constrained hallway.
The paladin jutted out his dagger, mumbling an incantation in a panic as he cast another divine spell.
“Turn Undead!” his voice croaked, yet the skeleton advanced unimpeded. His god had truly left him. He stumbled back, trying to reach for his blessed sword, yet the moment he turned around the skeleton raised its rusted sword and slashed down against his back.
His plate armor, supposedly blessed by divine might, gave no such protection as the blade tore through the cheap metal. The skeleton wildly whacked again and again.
“Belas! Belas, please! Save me and I’ll repent!” He called out, blood pouring from his mouth as he crawled against the ground. Emotionless and without care for whatever words he spouted, the skeleton loosely aimed one last thrust, the end of its blade meeting the back of the holy warrior’s neck.
Blood dripped from the skeleton’s sword, the hallway empty with naught but the ambient cackle and chitter of the skeleton’s teeth.
Adelaide watched, in horror, that she’d be next. Though she couldn’t help but admit, she had the last laugh. A weak smile lifted her dreadful heart as she let her head hit the cold floor, exhaustion finally taking her.
The skeleton meandered toward the now-dead heap, it looked left to right, seeing the strewn chaos of three motionless corpses. However, the one that caught its attention the most was the shiny little trinket on the one. It dropped its sword like a toddler who found a new toy. It leaned down, heaving the man in full plate over onto his back, his beaded empty eyes staring upwards.
Thin bony fingers wrapped at his neck before tugging at the golden medallion, it wordlessly struggled with the chain, even stepping on the man's chest until it snapped. The skeleton tripped before hitting the ground, surrounded by blood and bodies, it stared at the medallion in its hands with an allure it could not place.
The medallion started to glow, even burn, a fiery golden light seeped from the trinket until the skeleton glowed in a divine wreath. And yet. . . it did not burn to ash nor collapse into bones. Its empty eye sockets stared into the radiant glow until two small glowing orbs coalesced behind the empty stare. And it thought, with clarity of itself and surroundings.
"Do you accept the privilege of Light? And all that it entails?" The medallion glowed harsher with every word, the skeleton slowly nodded.
"Then, accept divinity and carry my power and my name. Belas." The voice seemed amused, not that it picked up on it. The glowing seemed to pulse, radiating energy until it suddenly went dark. The air suddenly felt cold.