The walls of the hallway were smooth, layered stone. I tried to get a better glimpse, but was nudged from behind. I kept walking, looking over my shoulder at Delava. She gave me a glare with that jut of the head as if to ask what I thought I was doing in front of these two apparently famous, at least here, parties of adventurer’s.

“No mortar,” I said, pointing. Which, of course, only got me another eye-roll.

From behind the rest of my group one of the men from Mimic Bait laughed. “I thought you’d been in a dungeon, Blessed of Nalura,” the man said, a deep, sonorous voice that I would have expected to be singing ballads in a tavern. “Dungeons don’t build the way we humans do.”

I’d turned back to face the front, nodding as if I understood that. “The dungeon I was in was a cave system.”

Another voice spoke up, I couldn’t tell which of the two groups the person was from, only that it was a man. “A cave dive, then? First dungeon… What gear did you have, young man?”

“None. I woke up next to a pool of water in a lit little hole. If I hadn’t fallen through a weak column, I wouldn’t have had a weapon. Ended up using a stalactite as a club.”

There were sounds of commiseration behind me, and I did look back this time. Members of the other two groups were looking at me with sympathy and amusement. “Oh, the dungeon would’ve provided something. Probably better than a stone club,” one of them said.

Another responded, looking thoughtful. “Though, it might have reinforced the stone, since he did make it back with it. A proper weapon, for a new diver, don’t you think, Talok?”

The first man that had spoken gave a short nod to the speaker, and a grin to me. “Aye, but be glad you don’t have to use it anymore. If the dungeon did something to it, it likely didn’t last leaving those caves.”

I hadn’t even thought of that. I didn’t remember feeling anything special about the club. It was just a chunk of calcified stone, wasn’t it?

I was brought out of that thinking when I felt a tingle across my skin, a shiver down my spine. I looked around at everyone else, and noticed that they were feeling something as well.

“Nothing to worry about there, young ones. A common occurrence in dungeons if the entrance isn’t suitably large enough to get from the surface to the first floor proper,” the thoughtful man said, pointing at the walls. “Researchers have been trying for thousands of years to determine how it’s done. To us, it says the first floor is near.”

Talok looked back at the man, then forward as the hall continued. He was looking a bit grumpy, his eyes watching for something on the walls. “Dengin, shouldn’t we have split from the new ones by now, then?”

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Dengin, who I’d been thinking of as ‘the thoughtful one’, nodded. He, too, was looking for something on the walls. “Indeed. I do hope we won’t have to clear it all over again.”

One of his party members, a woman dressed in robes, tapped him with her staff on the shoulder. “Hush, Dengin. That just means these first timers will have a little edge as they clear some of it.”

Denging nodded at that, and Talok looked a little less upset. I was ecstatic about that. I remembered my harrowing time in the Tutorial Dungeon. Lots of running, lots of pain, some crying and screaming.

Goddess, I didn’t want to remember all of that. Yet, here I was about to do more of it, and was feeling a little excited about the prospect. I looked at my new friends, seeing the three of them with the same nervous energy I felt.

“Eyes front, now. Opening ahead.”

With those words from Dengin, everyone's attitudes changed. Gone was amusement, gone was sympathy at my plight during my first dungeon. Everyone was now all business. “Weapons,” Talok said.

The whisper of steel on leather hissed as swords were drawn, staves tapped on the ground as wielders changed grips. I pulled out my new club, holding it the way I’d been shown and angling myself so I could keep an eye on my party and be ready to throw healing spells or the one buffing spell I had, should anyone need them.

“Sage, your team first. Kendra knows how to scout,” Dengin suggested helpfully.

I looked at the woman, who with a deep breath gave me a nod and shuffled forward. Her head tilted, snapped one direction, then another. She had described what her job was the night before, the different ways she would look for traps, pitfalls or holes that monsters could creep out of on unsuspecting adventurers. She would look quickly at one place, then snap her eyes to another. She said it helped to keep images from imprinting too much in her eyes.

We all paused, letting her get a good distance from us before following along behind at a slow pace. She held her hand up, giving a short whistle as she dropped to a crouch at where the hall cut to the left. I watched as she slowly inched her head around to get a peek. She held there for a moment, then stood and stepped around the corner, giving a short wave for us to move up but to hold there.

We moved up, Delava in the lead followed by Orthan and then myself. The two more experienced parties hung back a little more, watching. We held there for a long moment, then another. Finally, Kendra came back excited and with a smile on her lips. “Oh, you guys have got to see this!!”

We looked at each other, then back at the two other groups. Kendra was bouncing on her toes, trying to drag Delava to the exit. “Come on, seriously, this is awesome!”

The older adventurer’s shrugged, not really relaxing as we all followed along. It wasn’t that long of a trip. We walked through a blinding light at the exit, and out into open air.

Above us, blue skies and lightly scattered clouds. A few birds, if my eyes were seeing correctly. Trees in the distance, too far to tell what kind. At our feet, a packed dirt path, leading off to what would be the west, judging by the sun in the sky. Talok was the first to speak, but I think it summed it up for all of us.

“What in Anderis’ fiery eye is this??”