Amongst the seemingly countless tar lakes, one was different from the rest. A large sinkhole sat in the center of the lakebed. Small puddles of tar rested in slight depressions in the soil and a small smattering of beasts roamed around the dungeon entrance to ward off any who were unworthy of entering.
As soon as Yoshitsune and I got close enough, the guardians of the entrance moved to attack us. However, without the protection of the tar, the beasts here were even more routine than usual. With a few swipes of claws and slash of blade, the guardians dissipated into miasma.
We stood at the entrance of the Dungeon. As I looked down the hole, I could only see darkness.
“So, what do you know about this place?” I asked Yoshitsune.
“We heard about it from another demon who claimed to have cleared it with another group,” Yoshitsune answered. “They didn’t tell us what the reward was, but they were so impressively strong that they must have earned something good.”
“You done one of these before?” I asked as I kicked some sand down the hole. “I never found one in the Bowels so I’m not sure what to expect.”
“Expect more and stronger yokai than usual,” she answered.
Without any further explanation, Yoshitsune took a step forward and descended into the hole. Her body immediately disappeared into the blackness as though it was phased out of this plane of existence entirely.
“Great explanation,” I said with a smile and jumped in after her.
As I stepped into the opening, I felt the world shift around me. Then, I was pulled down rapidly like an invisible hand grabbed my legs and yanked me down. I looked up to see the sky disappear and a message appeared.
image [https://i.imgur.com/tmsK54s.jpeg]
Notice
Entering Dungeon: Drowned Giant
I slid down a sandy tunnel for several seconds before being deposited into the starting area. My feet met solid rock and my scales baked from the intense heat. I stood on a narrow walkway flanked by tar that bubbled and exploded like hellfire. Large bubbles popped and flowed the boiling liquid across the passage. Massive skulls protruded from the seas; their eye sockets devoid of all their flesh stared at us newcomers.
Yoshitsune stood a few steps ahead of me; her focus was on the other end of the passageway. Her sword was already drawn and ready to mince her targets at a moment’s notice.
“Let’s get going, we have a lot of ground to make up,” Yoshitsune said.
She quickly broke in a sprint towards the other end of the walkway. Surprised by her recklessness, I hurried behind. My eyes stayed peeled towards these more dangerous beasts that were primed to act like the Kraken and grip us with their tentacles. However, outside of the burbling from the heat, the tar remained relatively inert.
I felt ill at ease. That feeling that you get in the base of your brain when you know someone is gunning for you. A fucker moves from his usual spot in the cafeteria, he switches times with other guys for showers. But you still know he’s there, watching you and waiting for the moment when he can best strike. In those instances, it was always better to go seek them out yourself and beat them within an inch of their life. Unfortunately, leaping in the tar to find whatever lurks below the surface would be a folly not even my most adrenaline-addled brain would jump at.
A large splash of tar swept across the passageway and made my premonition feel like fact. Yoshitsune effortlessly leapt through the air to avoid any of the liquid while I had to arc my body on a much lower trajectory. Droplets of tar kissed my scales with burning passion and shaved off trace amounts of health for good measure.
My eyes quickly darted around to find whatever launched the attack against us. But, nothing revealed itself. The beast chose to remain as an ambush predator, content with its territorial advantage.
The rocky passage no longer became continuous. Large chunks of stone fell away into the tar and left wide gaps between. The boiling liquid that waited in between the safety and burbled death to us.
Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
Yoshitsune did not even hesitate in her calculations. She flung herself across the gap without breaking stride and landed on the other side in stride.
I felt stupid. I was being outdone in fearlessness and it was making my teeth itch in discomfort. Where did this caution come from? It could not be tolerated. Like a gator-skin cannonball, I rocketed my impressive mass across the gap and crashed into the rock. My landing shook the passageway and the tar sat only a few inches behind my heels. I raised my tail even higher to avoid accidentally dipping it in the tar.
These gaps became more frequent the deeper that we got into the dungeon. Sometimes it was a short gap that belched tar when you passed over it. Other times, we needed to jump continuously across many gaps.
The most recent time, the beast I was convinced was following us splashed tar onto where we intended to land. There was little else to do but to accept the pain. My feet were still steaming from where it was charred. Rough rocks dug into the tender flesh and made me scowl in discomfort.
I noticed that my health was not regenerating in the Dungeon. The burns and small wounds that I accrued would not subside. There were no symbols by my health bar, further leading me to believe that we were technically in combat.
Eventually, the thin passage widened into a far larger platform. The tar swept to the left side of the platform and rushed over a hidden edge to form a tar fall that crashed on whatever was unfortunately enough to be below it.
Strewn atop the rocks were numerous monster corpses along with a singular, disemboweled demon. A massive mammalian looking beast lied butchered and half-submerged in the tar. The powerful bursts of steam caused its massive body to bob on the surface. Long scorch marks spread out from its body and covered the ground in looping trails of fire.
“Is that body one of your friends?” I asked Yoshitsune.
“No, this one is a lizard,” she commented. “Uragoe is a Tengu and Jarek is some sort of bear.”
“Someone unrelated then. It must be a recent fight if the monster bodies are still here,” I observed. “Should we wait for it to revive or toss it?”
Yoshitsune shook her head and walked towards the back of the platform. A steep set of stairs twisted and turned downwards towards the bottom of the tar falls.
“It’d be pointless to wait. You can’t revive until the Dungeon is cleared or failed. The same goes for the monsters. That’s why we didn’t need to worry about any,” Yoshitsune explained. “You lose significantly more for dying, but it’s worth it if you manage to collect the reward for conquering it. If someone died here, either luck has abandoned them or the group ahead are close to running out of health potions.”
“Can’t they buy more?” I asked.
“You can’t access the shop in a Dungeon,” Yoshitsune answered.
“Thanks for waiting until now to explain it,” I said with dripping sarcasm as I looked over my shoulder towards the monster that was never there. I checked my inventory to take stock of the health items that I had on hand.
“Apologies, Ishmael-san,” Yoshitsune said with a small bow. “I am not very good at explaining these things. Nothing like this existed in my lifetime. But, that is beside the point. We need to push on. It must have taken them days to get this far. It can’t be too much further.”
We walked down the steps. The ceiling grew much lower and the heat radiating from below concentrated in this narrow space. Near-evaporated water formed droplets that clung to my scales like I was a fruit at a fancy grocery store. Large holes in the wall showed the way for monsters to assail a party on their way down. More corpses acted as a trail of breadcrumbs to lead us to our lost children.
The stairs deposited us back on another passageway that crossed the river of tar. Another falls waited on the other side.
However, this time, we heard sounds beyond the gurgling of primordial soup. Shouts and roars could be heard echoing up from the next stairwell.
Yoshitsune, once again, broke out in a frenzied run and forced me to give everything that I had to catch up with her. Crackles of electricity sent sparks off her body like a neon light with faulty wiring. Her punishing hands tightened down on her angry red skin.
Her intoxication finally infected my mind as well. The sheer amount of monster corpses interested me. But, it was the sounds of fresh combat nearby that sent my mind ablaze with the eagerness to throw myself into the fray. The strong hunting party, the strong monsters; I wanted to kill them all and rip the reward that they worked so hard for from their tired hands and serve my own ends. It was not malice, it was what I was owed.
We leapt over the gaps in the rock; our unfettered movement making all obstacles appear meaningless. Stairs were taken several at a time. Sounds grew even louder to compete with the sounds of blood rushing past my ears.
The stairs opened into a massive chamber where a battle of life and death played out before my eyes. Tar spilled down to the foot of the falls. Standing in the shallows was a black furred mammoth. Its trunk sprayed tar and flames down on four demons in front of it. Long toothed beasts prowled onto the rocks to pounce at their enemies.
A massive gust of wind blew at the rapidly approaching beasts and ran massive gashes into their bodies. A large furry demon smashed one of their heads while a gilled woman with skin of aquamarine scales launched globes of water. Finally, a demon that looked like an anthropomorphic weasel stood directly in front of the mammoth and prodded at it with a large spear.
All of them were too focused on their foes to notice that new adversaries had joined their party. However, it seemed that an ambush was not good enough for Yoshitsune. Her body glowed with righteous anger as showered the ground with spark. She pointed her blade towards her hated foe; a demon with a bald head and a long red nose that wore samurai armor. Crow wings sprouted in two black tufts from his back.
“Uragoe!”