This is an E+ Tier Dungeon. Do you wish to continue?
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
Both Greg and Matt look at each other as they realize the System spoke to them both. With a shrug, Matt steps forward, but Greg has an idea.
“What are you—”
But Greg doesn’t hear him. The skeleton warrior makes a b-line toward the orc corpse which has been desecrated by the emergence of two skeleton warriors. He rummages through the remains until he pulls out a surprisingly intact Orc skull. Matt watches as Greg stares at his grizzly finding a little too intently before the skeleton rotates the oversized brain casing in his undead fingers a few times before coming to some kind of conclusion.
With a smile, Greg puts on the orc skull and proceeds to knock on the side of the bone-white mantle.
“Helmet."
And then proceeds to do more rummaging.
*****
Ten minutes later, Greg manages to scavenge an Orc Bone Helmet, Scout Slingshot, and the Orc’s leather armor. Matt has gone from mortified to amused as the skeleton walks up to the dungeon entrance with an oversized satchel, a basic shield strapped to his back, and of course, the face of an angry orc warrior.
“You done?”
Greg smiles at Matt, which is a few points creepier than usual, considering it’s between two massive tusks-
“Waste not—”
“Want not.” Mat finishes.
Greg nods and walks into the dungeon entrance.
*****
A dungeon is a hole in reality. A sentient entity that uses the material around it to build and form complex organisms to aid in its growth. As the dungeon grows, so does the complexity of the creatures that reside in it. At first, they are merely mutated and warped versions of local fauna and flora, but eventually they can resemble monstered spewed from the bowels of hell itself. Though most dungeons are destroyed long before they reach that point.
Most
But for now, Greg and Matt don’t have to worry about that as they travel deep into the long dirt tunnels that make up the dungeon’s interior. Matt is flanked by his two skeleton warriors, their minds solely dedicated to keeping their masters alive, while Greg takes point, small rocks in one hand, sling in the other. This skeleton warrior has spent several minutes trying to throw a rock in a straight line unsuccessfully.
“Why can’t I throw this!?”
“You are.”
“I mean straight!”
Matt shrugs. “You don’t have a skill.”
“I need a skill to use a sling!?”
Matt shakes his head, trying not to laugh, “No, you need a skill to use a sling properly.”
Greg grunts in frustration, “Can’t I just practice?”
Stolen story; please report.
“Yes.”
“So, how long will that take?”
“I don’t know, never tried to use a sling… besides, why don’t you know about the System?”
Greg looks at Matt with a tinge of confusion before context clues put it together. “You mean levels and shit?”
“Yeah, levels and shit.”
Greg shrugs his shoulders and puts away the sling and rock for his short sword, “Humans from Earth don’t have magic powers. And if they hear voices in their head, they’re taken to a mental asylum before they shoot up a school.”
Matt looks at Greg carefully while considering his next words even more carefully. As far as Matt knows, he too is a human from Earth, but now Matt is confronted with a new idea. He remembers when Greg threatened to kill him when Matt refused to send him back… to Earth. A lightbulb goes off in Matt’s brain; a boy who grew up in a medieval world where magic is natural and traversing dungeons for loot and to curb the monster population is second nature is now faced with the concept of the multiverse even though he can’t fathom those exact words.
“So you’re from a world without magic?”
“Yeah.”
“And I brought you here somehow?”
Greg turns to look Matt in the eyes with all the menace you can muster with glowing eyes illuminating the inside of an orc skull. “It’s best not to remind me of that.”
Matt raises his hands up in his defense. “I said somehow! That means I didn’t do it on purpose!”
Greg considers Matt’s words and weighs them against his bouts of reasonable anger, and suddenly gets deflated. “Your right.”
“What?”
“I can’t hold this”—Greg waves his hands over himself—“against you…”
“Well…” Matt tries to think of words that fit the situation. “I can’t blame you… I would be pissed too.”
Understanding passes between the two of them in a moment of mutual respect before they shrug their shoulders and continue down the dirt tunnel.
After a while, Matt finds it odd that they’ve encountered no resistance after what should feel like a mile or two of walking. In his mind, even a low-level dungeon should be crowded with danger as the dungeon core sends wave after wave of enemies like an immune system response to invading parasites. But the orcs did spend time down here, he reasons, and they may have cleared up a lot of enemies as they explored downward.
Good thing orcs are too stupid to grab the dungeon core, Matt thinks. But something still feels off.
Something is indeed off, but it’s beyond the necromancer’s current skills to tell. However, they do come across a pile of disturbed dirt with broken eggshells, a sight that instantly draws the curiosity of Greg, who crouches over them.
“What's are these?”
Matt looks over the skelly’s shoulder and sees the rainbow-colored eggshells that appear to have a coating of white slime. His mind thumbs over his internal monster gallery but seems to draw a blank. The shell remains are small but have a thick interior, and the rainbow coloring and exotic patterns don’t remind him of anything he knows that lays eggs. Still, something told him not to touch the slime as a precaution, and a part of him listened to that voice.
“Don’t know, but I wouldn’t touch it.”
Greg leans in for a closer examination. “You think the orcs ate these?”
“Orcs eat anything.”
With a shrug, Greg concludes his investigation and wonders if more strange fantasy shit will happen soon as they wander deeper inside the dungeon. So far, Greg hasn’t been too impressed with the fantasy part of this fantasy world. Everything seems so bog-standard, as if he’s playing an early JRPG from the Super Nintendo era. Granted, that is his favorite era of RPGs with games like Final Fantasy 6, Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest 5, but those games are masterpieces, while this cave in the middle of nowhere feels like a low-quality rip-off from RPG Maker 2000.
At least that’s what Greg is thinking. Outwardly, he marches forward with a smile and a hum, taking in the atmosphere and feigning alertness. Only when the path diverges does he stop.
“Right, left, or center, huh?” Greg points out, though something about the multiple-choice unnerves him.
Matt walks up and stops short of the entrance. He presses his ear against the dirt walls and listens. Then he grabs a rock from Greg’s sling bag and tosses one in each opening. Nothing appears to happen, so Matt steps back and points to the right and center entrances. With a mental push, Matt sends his skeleton warriors into each entrance. And then waits.
For a few minutes, nothing happens until—
Skeleton Warrior has received Severe Blunt Force Trauma
Skeleton Warrior has been destroyed.
Matt grimaces as the center entrance starts to collapse.
“Is that normal?”
Matt shrugs. “Could have triggered a trap that collapsed the roof.”
Matt points to where the skeleton that went right is still walking, “We’re going that way.”
“Why not go left?
Matt does an exaggerated bow meant to usher Greg to the left entrance. “After you.”
Greg looks at the grinning necromancer and then toward the left side, which looks more ominous now next to the literal mound of dirt where there was a path before…
“Fuck you.”
And the necromancer laughs.