"Some dungeons can have special features or traits, referred to as gimmicks. Gimmicks can be anything from monsters always appearing in a group with an odd number of members, to every creature having a random magical aspect, the only constant being that gimmicks always increase the difficulty of the dungeon, even if only minorly, and that dungeons with gimmicks always have better loot, with the increase being directly correlated to the strength of the gimmick."

-From 'Dungeons; by Joss Whilton

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After regenerating our resources, we once again set off, having now been in the dungeon for between two and three days, though it was hard to accurately track the time since the sun never moved. It wasn't until a good hour after we resumed walking that we saw the next group, this time made up of two level 13 mantraps with four snakevines each, which we quickly decided against fighting in favor of sneaking around them, the passive nature of the seemingly in charge mantraps meaning they didn't bother to pursue or even acknowledge us, so we were ably to bypass them without difficulty, a series of events that repeated three more times, every subsequent group having at least eight members and at least one mantrap, before we paused in our search and discussed the situation.

"What the hell, was this a raid dungeon or something?"(Roxy)

"No, the portal was black, that means it's meant for a single party, it would've been red if it was a raid dungeon."(Arnold)

"What?"(Jordan)

"Oh did you not know? Dungeon portals have different colors to show how many people it's meant for, black means 1-5, or a single party, red means 20-30, or four to six parties, and gold means 100-500, or 20-100 parties, each dungeon somewhat scaling the the number of people who enter so long as they fall within those numbers."(Arnold)

"Meaning that either this dungeon expects us to be able to fight almost double our number, or there's something we're missing."(Mason)

"Either way, we should head to the portal and leave before we encounter something less passive than the mantraps, I can already see how a fight against eight or nine snakevines would go, and it isn't in our favor."(Roxy)

"Agreed"(Amy)

With no one arguing, the image of being cut apart by a horde of snakevines overshadowing the greed for EXP, so we made our way to the portal and soon found ourselves standing next to the large tree once more, our circular exploration meaning that had only been a few hours away even after the two or three days we explored. After exiting and looking at the sky, the thick canopy obscuring the exact time but the general light level betraying that it was either sunset or sunrise, none of us having a compass to tell east from west, and checking the dungeon once more showed that it had a refresh rate of three hours, triple that of the tutorial dungeon but still short. Since our original plan was to just stay in the forest for a week, which had either already passed or was one day away, we discussed whether or not to share our discovery while walking back, hunting everything on the way as our box was only a quarter full after we had eaten from it while in the dungeon. It wasn't until I spilled some Lifesap onto a nearby plant while trying to see if it had any healing properties, which it did not, and causing the plant to immediately make the plant grow a little bit that our choice was made for us. As the only real argument for keeping it a secret, besides greed and selfishness that none of us spoke aloud but all of us felt, was that only the higher levelled hunters would be able to use it, and since the dungeon didn't drop any food or even have any berry or fruit bushes inside, that meant that it would directly reduce the amount of food that the town got, but now that we knew that the dungeon dropped what seemed to be magic fertilizer, as I used up the rest of the vial by pouring small amounts on various plants to confirm the effect, that argument was eliminated. Even then, we were somewhat unwilling to share, as if the other teams took as long as we did, that meant every run would take days, and we only had a month of increased loot. In the end, we decided to tell the mayor that the dungeon existed on the condition that we got full rights for as long as we had the loot buff, since a month should be long enough for us to gain a large chunk of EXP and was easy to rationalize to our consciences that it was more efficient for us to run the dungeon as opposed to sharing while it was active, plus the mayor had announced a massive 10k contribution points for each member of whatever group finds a dungeon, more than enough to ensure our families were well fed even without us hunting for a month.

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With our course of action decided, we spent the next two days planning for our next dungeon trip, moving as fast as we could through the forest since the timer for our increased loot was already ticking down, the only reason we were going back at all was to avoid making our families think we were dead by disappearing for a month, and after reaching town we quickly went to the town hall and set up a meeting with the mayor, not even bothering selling our mostly empty box, managing to quickly set up a meeting with Jonathan as he had made it clear to those working in the town hall that anyone who found something important should be able to talk to him as soon as possible, and as one of the more efficient hunting groups we were already somewhat known. Quickly being ushered into one of the back rooms, we found mayor Jonathan sitting behind a well made desk, seemingly examining system screes if his focused stare aimed directly at a wall was anything to go by, though he quickly refocused on us as we sat in front of him.

"Oh? What brings you all here?"(Jonathan)

"We found a dungeon, but don't want you to tell anyone else for a month"(Roxy)

Immediately after hearing the word dungeon, we all felt a mental tug as the mayor activated [Honesty], which we all accepted as his gaze became much sharper.

"I am not opposed to such an arrangement, but I want a full report on the dungeons contents, loot, or anything else of interest both right now and at the end of the month, where you will hide nothing as enforced by a contract created via one of my skills."(Jonathan)

With none of us against his terms, though we all made sure to carefully read the contract just in case, we quickly agreed before giving him a report on the dungeons level and loot, visible disappointment flashing across his face when he heard that there wasn't any food sources in the dungeon, though the Lifesaps ability to act as magic fertilizer did soften the blow. After giving our report on the contents and location of the dungeon, we all split up to tell our families that we would be gone for a month, having the mayor transfer the 10k points to them instead of us, meeting back up at the entrance to the forest only a few hours after we had left it and hurrying back to the dungeon portal, our quick departure drawing a few eyes. By the time we got back to the dungeon, there were only 25 days left on our timers, so we wasted no time before entering the portal and finding ourselves in the eerily quiet jungle once more. Circling our starting area in the same manner as before, it wasn't long until we encountered the first group of snakevines, a group of three level 10's that we easily took care of, not even needing a break afterwards as we continued on, managing to fight another four groups, each having between three and six snakevines and only the last having two level eleven's, gaining a total of 525 EXP, three vials of lifesap, and a spool of rope by the time we took our first break, the loot timer helping us see that only half a day had passed by the time our break was over. As we got to the point where the levels of the creatures started to match ours, we slowed our progress, now taking breaks after each fight to ensure that we had at least three quarters of our mana before moving on, slowing our progress. It wasn't long before we found our first mantrap of the run, our increased pace at the start of the dungeon meaning that it was at the end of the first day rather than the start of the second that we encountered it, standing still as it imitated a less malicious plant with three snakevines draped around it. In the few days we spent travelling to town and back, we had done a lot of thinking and strategizing for this particular creature, so rather than creating a large blade as I did before, I instead walked next to Roxy as we both counted down from three, synching our timing.

Once our countdown reached zero, an arrow streaked out from behind us and struck the mantrap in its mouth, causing it to let out a screech as its roots tore themselves from the ground to lift its body off of the ground. As soon as the mass of roots making up its legs and lower body came into view, Roxy and I made crystal spikes jut from the ground in opposite directions, pinning the mantrap in place as it squirmed its roots and vines wildly in an attempts to dislodge itself. With their host immobile, the three snakevines quickly abandoned it in favor of lunging towards Roxy and I, both of us having needed to get within their jumping range in order to land our strikes, and while Roxy went forward to intercept one of them, the other two were stopped by Arnold and Jordan. Seeing that the three snakevines were occupied, Amy and I focused on the mantrap, hoping to kill it off before it managed to free itself, and now that it was immobile I was able to use my premade crystal knives without needing to worry about missing. Even under the sustained fire from Amy and me, the mantrap still lasted longer than the snakevines, whose hyper-specialization into ambushes did them no favors in more open combat. Not letting up our attacks until we felt the system ping, letting us know that we earned 250 EXP from the level 13 mantrap and the three level 11 snakevines as well as some plant leather boots that gave no stats, we took a break to regenerate mana and sleep, the perpetual noon throwing off our sense of time even with the loot timer acting as a clock.

We were now at the point we ended our previous run, the enemy groups having rapidly gotten bigger after this point, but we still decided to press on rather than go back and wait for the dungeon to refresh, as we still weren't sure if there was something that caused the large groups to form, or if we were just unlucky, though we were still ready to run if we saw any group bigger than seven or eight, depending on levels and makeup. The next group we encountered was made up of two level 13 mantraps, each with two level 11 snakevines wrapped around them, which we decided to fight after a brief debate, planning to handle one of the mantraps using the previous method, with Roxy switching to using walls to delay the second one until the first was taken care of, the strength of the vine whips from the first mantrap we fought, even after being cut in half, still fresh enough in our minds to make a direct fight unappealing to everyone.