Micky Was wandering down the corridor of the dungeon. He was a little annoyed with the feeling of eyes on him. But that is what he got for being separated from the group. Luckily he had some experience with it and a group of animal companions to guide the way back. Unfortunately, the twisting corridors of the labyrinth did not make it easy. He wasn’t the only one separated from the group either. While the party had tried to stick together, the dungeon had other ideas. And as they traveled down the corridors and just barely lost sight of each member of the group they had become split. This happened again and again not matter how slow or careful they were. And once they were split the dungeon was bound and determined to keep it that way.

Labyrinths were one of the first dungeons they had encountered with anything resembling a will. And like a poltergeist was a ghost that was just looking for a laugh that might turn deadly a labyrinth just wanted to let you get lost in its grandeur. Luckily for Micky his animal companions were loyal unlike a certain knight… Ok that was unfair, but still his [bonded] companions were able to stay with him. This meant that in spite of the dungeon’s best efforts the [Pink Mage] had a [Furry Furie] and a slime to fend off it’s shenanigans with.

The labyrinth was actually on the smaller side. The class had to go a bit out of the way as the nearest labyrinth was more powerful and thus more deadly than the guild had wanted to send in a class of fledgling adventurers into. Micky had heard it was a part ruins dungeon that had started to decay, and unlike others hadn’t had the problem with the ants in spite of their best efforts. The ants were simply to weak to establish themselves in any way on it’s floors.

This particular dungeon had been an additional week away. So the base camp was now in a small village. The village was an adventurer village set up around the dungeon to cator to the fledgling adventurers that came around looking to dive it’s depths and return with a fortune the villagers would be happy to relieve them of. Fortunes were always such burdens.

Of course looked upon the village and saw his own little village superimposed onto it. He couldn’t help be feel scared for what was to happen now that there was a dungeon. But there was no way that anything that terrible would happen. The stark village he was looking at, with just a few inns and bars and not much else was still bustling with life. Micky was sure his own village would thrive into a town now that they had a dungeon! His village had a lot of farming and lumberyards. His mom, bless her, had worked at one of the yards for some time. And his father worked at a sewing factory, till he was ‘fired’ by the deceased elder. Micky still wasn’t sure if he was hired back by the heirs to his business.

But Micky had to concentrate on his own problems. The furie name Magaera or Mags as Prins had been taking to calling her and pissing Micky off. What was the point of having an epic name and then shortening it to a single decibel? Of course, Micky also used the nickname but it didn’t mean Micky wanted her to keep her original name for more than the five minutes it took to tell Prins what he and named her.

But that was neither here nor there, Micky had his first party member to find and it wasn’t his Prins. He was currently having his furie, as Micky refused to use the name Mags unless outside of earshot of Prins, was currently tracking down the healer. Basic party tactics, always stay with the healer, always nuke the healer, and always stay out of the AOE the healer is bound to agro. Not every party had one but it was good practice to keep the healer alive. Of course, nobody was going to sacrifice themselves for the healer, that would be stupid. Not unless it was a really high leveled healer that had resurrection. And even then only if your body would stay intact, since resurrection needed a body to ‘target’.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Micky soon foud his healer and lead them back to the rest of the party. Scouts were extremely important in labyrinths which was why Micky obviously didn’t have on in his party. He immediately resorted to the thread method which people thought was stupid and didn’t want to have a little thread tied to their waste as they fought the low leveled mobs. They had then immediately gotten separated from each other. And now he had to deal with his furie sending jealous glares at the androgynous male healer that Micky had to keep sending he was not interested in over the link. Mags didn’t believe him and told him that if he tried to mate with this female she would have to challenge her to a duel! Micky kept his poker face up not revealing to the male healer that Micky’s companion was accusing him of both being a ‘true woman’ and wanting to jump Micky ‘without her permision’.

Pagebreak

The never ending dungeon tour was… neverending. But this time there was an interesting twist. They were going to face a dungeon… and destroy it! Many dungeons of this type were immortal but this dungeon was a fledgling demon king. Because of that it was determined by the kingdom that it should be destroyed and removed. This time the raid lead would be the first party to reach the boss room and the rest of the party would be filled out with either first come first serve or ‘special mensions’. In particular reserved spots included, certain level of tank, a certain standard of healer, a support (Micky) and a bare minumum level of DPS. Without the parties having those minimums they wouldn’t be able to complete the raid.

Another thing of note is that it was determined that a dungeon of this level did not have the immortality of it’s larger stronger cousens. Oh, and also that it was the second ‘living’ dungeon type aside from the secret realm they had visited as all world types were ‘living’ growing dungeons. This growth would be unavoidable and extremely hard to near impossible to mitigate. But the nation had it’s ways of dealing with rampant or otherwise dangerous dungeons. At least according to his new werewolf friend. Or should Micky say ‘friend’? Because he was the obnoxiasly overly talkative sort that talked the ear off of anybody who listened. Not that Micky was interested in the topic about the carnivorous cave that he was about to enter the stomach of, but he had repeated himself several times. The werewolf had apologised and told him that it was only the half mood with made him feel a bit like a werechehuahua at the moment.

Micky was just glad for the company of the adventurer crew as the lead them towards the first dungeon actively trying to kill his team. All this time he felt the eyes of all the monsters that wanted him dead on his back. It was unsettling to say the least.

He wasn’t going in with an active adventurer for this trip. While Micky was [Basic: Commander] of his own little squad, a squad without Prin Micky might add. Micky was in the running for the raid leader. Should a low ranked squad that wasn’t fitting make it there first they would not be the leaders. Only those that had a leader with a [Basic: Commander] skill were allowed to be the leaders unless they had notable achievements otherwise. This was an opportunity to raise the skill and thus raise the metrics of it. The commander bonus affected synergy, and synergy… well it was the entire point of a party in the first place. With synergy you could specialize and focus, without it you would have to do everything and anything yourself. Micky was a [Pink Mage] and would never be able to solo.

Micky nervously looked around his new conquest. Originally just a cave with bare walls the surroundings had had the beginning of a goblin encampment that had been cleared out. The demon king had been raiding villages in fast and easy raids to capture breeders. This failed horribly for the goblins but after investigation they had found out there was a young dungeon going demon king on them. Now he had reached deeper into the dungeon and could see that the walls were made of a dark brown pulsing flesh with tentacles crawling up and down wiggling at him. Micky did not like this dungeon on bit!