The last few feet of the road turned around a corner, then ended abruptly in between two large hills. In reality, the road continued on for some time, probably leading to the nearest city or settlement. But their trek down the road ended here, because the strangely shaped hill on their left held the dungeon that Caius and the others had found.
“It’s right on the main road?” Azalea asked, surprised. “How has nobody else found it yet?”
“Actually, quite a few people have found it,” Caius commented. “I heard of two different groups that have tried to clear it. Nobody’s managed to complete it yet.”
The entrance wasn’t hard to spot, even from the road and through the several feet of tall grass that lay in their way. It was clearly listed as E-Rank. That was the same rank as every other player in the game, she thought. So what was stopping them from clearing out this, the lowest rank of dungeons?
“Only one party has managed to clear a dungeon, I hear,” Riley put in. “Or at least, that’s what people are saying.”
“I wonder if it’s the size of the party,” Caius said. “Because there’s only four of us, but I’m pretty confident.”
“As am I,” Oscar agreed. “Now we just gotta see if that confidence means anything, or if we’re about to walk in to a death chamber.”
The others laughed at that, and even Azalea managed a weak smile. Death wouldn’t have any real consequences for them here, she knew. Still, she didn’t like the idea of failing her first dungeon run. Even if she didn’t care about the loot, she knew there would be a lot of prestige in being one of the first small parties to complete a dungeon. Plus, there could be new magic, blueprints, or recipes in there. She was growing excited at the prospect of earning more Yemon doing trade.
They entered the dungeon after admiring it for a few more minutes, not wanting to attract unwanted attention. The fewer people that knew they were attempting the dungeon, the better their chances of not getting attacked for loot when they left victorious. If they left victorious, the small and anxious voice in the back of her mind chipped in. She told it to shut up and followed Caius.
They used a different formation now that they’d gotten a better understanding of the way combat and monsters worked in Project Terra. Caius, the most experienced warrior and the one with the shield, took position in the front for both travel and fighting. Riley was fast and good with his bow, so he stuck behind Caius with Azalea, letting the warrior serve as his protector. When they weren’t in combat, he’d move ahead of the group to scout the areas they hadn’t yet reached.
Azalea pretty much stuck in the same place for both walking and fighting. Caius had great battle sense, and had been her tank in countless games, so she naturally gravitated to stand behind him. Riley took up a position in the rear with his new quarterstaff when they were traveling, and in combat, he’d take up a position on Caius’ shield side, smacking enemies with the staff and being generally more mobile than either Caius or Azalea.
Riley had explained that, when playing games online, he liked to come into the game with a character concept already fully fleshed-out in his mind, and he rarely changed it. For Project Terra, he’d already decided to play a monk-like character, with quarterstaff and unarmed combat if possible. By sheer luck, he also knew some quarterstaff tricks, courtesy of his plethora of experience with fighting games and playing monk characters.
“It’s just a shame I don’t have access to Ki this early in the game,” he confided to the others. “I really wanted to be like an old-school D&D monk.”
Oscar was also faithful to his character trouble, the rough-and-tumble but suave rogue. He’d made his goal of getting hand crossbows clear from the start. “But unlike most rogues, I’m not really a solo player. I like working in a team, where my stealth and perception skills can be of use. It would get boring being some kind of edgy lone wolf.”
Azalea was surprised by how much thought they’d already put into their characters, but she was impressed. “Do you intend to do any roleplaying in the future? Do you have a backstory written for your characters?”
Oscar had merely shaken his head, but it was clear Riley had thought about it. “Once I learn the lore of the game, if there is any, I’ll make something that kind of fits the theme. But don’t worry, I’ll try to be original about it. I’m not gonna make a bread and butter orphan who needs to avenge his parents or ‘be the strongest in the land’.”
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He’d let out a laugh at that, adding “There are easier ways to make an original character than to dump three lifetime’s worth of trauma into them.”
His oration on character creation and development had intrigued Azalea. He’d actually made her consider putting just a little effort into crafting a character for this game. Caius, she knew, couldn’t care less about all that. He wasn’t the type to seek out lore, and only played games if the systems themselves appealed to him. He couldn’t be accused of being a creative type, but she’d never met a better fighter than him.
The inside of the dungeon looked no different than a naturally formed cave system as they made their way deeper inside. Here and there, they could see cracks or holes in the walls. More often than not they were simple imperfections, but they occasionally held something interesting for them to check out. Oscar dug his arm into one, retrieving a small chest full of coins and a rolled-up scroll, which turned out to be an E-Rank spell called Control Small Animals. The coins automatically turned into 294 Yemon, which Oscar split evenly amongst the entire party.
“Off to a good start already,” Caius commented. “But we can only hope there’s better loot deeper inside.”
Shortly before their first fight, an ambush by four little goblins, they found the bodies of the first players who had fallen inside the dungeon.There were only two of them, and the bodies had no loot for them to grab, either taken by other players or by the monsters. Either way, Caius, Riley, and Oscar made short work of the goblins. Azalea hadn’t even had time to fire a mana bolt before the creatures were gone, adding another dozen Yemon to their total loot acquired.
The longer they went, the less natural the dungeon seemed to be. The pattern of rough-walled caves slowly began to take on a more smooth texture, and evidence of pillars - even if they were slightly crumbling and in bad shape - appeared. The first time they found an actual room that seemed to serve some kind of purpose, Caius called a halt to their progress, a deep frown on his face.
“Why haven’t we come across that many monsters?” He asked, of nobody in particular. “Also, how have we not found the end of this dungeon in almost an hour of walking?”
Azalea had to admit he had a point. Even she could tell that something weird was going on with this dungeon, and she had almost no experience with dungeons. “It almost seems like those caves just led to an underground city.”
“No, not quite a city,” Riley corrected. “It’s almost lke a labyrinth.”
“I think you might be right on the money,” Caius said. “But the game treats it like a dungeon. At least, I can’t buy the plot of land we’re standing on.”
“Just like the entrance,” Oscar pointed out. “Pretty sure that’s just the game’s way of stopping anyone from blocking access to public things.”
They kept on, and it didn’t take long to find another fight. This time, it wasn’t a goblin, but a tall, grey-skinned troll. The beast was massive - at least eight feet tall - and the battle, which took place in a large ampitheatre style area. Azalea had much more of an impact than she did with the goblins, as the troll proved too resilient to be taken down in a few quick moves. Caius and Riley had to dance around the beast, hacking and slashing and dodging its heavy axe, while Oscar peppered it with arrows from a safe distance and Azalea fired mana bolts. There was a scary moment where the troll slipped out of melee range of the others and charged right for Azalea, but it had been a last-ditch effort, and she managed to run away long enough for them to finish it off.
The real surprise of their “raid” came when the beast had fallen. It dropped a small fortune in money - 1,218 Yemon - and its axe, which in the hand of a regular person turned into a heavy battle axe. It was also Uncommon in equality, and was their first piece of gear that wasn’t plain common in appearance. As soon as Caius sheathed his sword and picked the battle axe up, a bright white light filled their visions. When it cleared, they were left, blinking, at the entrance to the dungeon.
System Message: Congratulations! You have completed a Daily Raid! Please see Chief Sumbat in Silver Village to claim your reward!
“Well, that’s unexpected,” Caius said, speaking for all of them. “So it’s a daily quest. No wonder it didn’t last that long.”
“It also explains why the area was so big,” Riley added, blinking slowly. He still seemed a little bothered by the bright flash of light that had preceded them being teleported out. “Daily raid. So we’ll be able to do that again tomorrow? That’s a pretty sweet deal.”
They all nodded in agreement. Without anything else to do, they silently decided to return to their camp. The wait seemed to pass more quickly than they’d expected, and by the time they’d arrived, the sun was just barely reaching the highest point in the sky. It had taken a good deal of time out of their day to travel back and forth between the dungeon, she thought.
“That was kind of disappointing,” she said, sitting down on the porch of her small home with a sigh. “I don’t feel like that was enough of a raid.”
“Well, let’s eat some lunch, then see if we can get up to more trouble,” Caius said with a laugh. Looking at the other two, he added, “See you in an hour or two.”
They waved their brief farewells as well. By the time Azalea logged off, her character embroiled once again in the casual work of maintaining the farm, they had already strode off in the direction of Silver Village, probably to claim the reward and do some trading.