A guild of 34 stood outside a cave in the middle of a forest with hardened faces. A legendary greater monarch raid, the only one anyone of them had ever heard of, but two months of strife had dampened the greed and ambition of most.
“We should go in.” One of them finally said.
“It’s too risky…”
“Better than joining the war against those kingdoms.” Ezen snapped. “The locals of this damn world are too powerful.”
“We would be safer with legendary gear…” Another mused.
“Exactly!”
“We go in.” Madar spoke after a long stare at the entrance. “Easier to fight the monsters in there than out here. Conquering a dungeon like this would be an ‘impact’, and we improve our weaponry.”
An order in truth, but he gave it as a suggestion and none spoke up against it. The lure of what they stood to gain from it was enough for some and others simply preferred it to the alternative.
“Prepare yourselves.” Madar spoke with heighten vigor to boost their morale and snap them into focus.
The pathfinder woman who first voiced doubts appeared in front and the guild entered to find crude stone walls. A dingy brown lit only by torches with no artistry or adornments. A relief to many. By experience, aesthetic quality often meant smarter masters and thus greater danger.
Vin the Pathfinder took point and lead them carefully through, though hardly any time passed at all before she stopped to disable the first trap. She continued on and stopped only a few moments to do the same. And again, and again, and again.
“There’s too many…”
“Jom, Zune. Take turns disabling them. Vin, point them out.” Madar adjusted things immediately and the guild continued.
The three scouts did as told without delay. Vin indicated the locations and types of traps along the way as the two others took turns disabling them. Every twist and turn brought more traps without end and all had to be dealt with.
“Magic.” Vine called, and a mage woman walked forward, but before she reached the vanguard, a round spectral monster suddenly rose out of the ground.
A swordsman lunged forward, slashing in an instant, but his blade ran straight through the intangible creature, and the geist let out a grating shriek. A palm of mana pierced the monster true, bringing an shift end to its shrieks. But the creature’s form swelled as its soul detonated in a mighty contained explosion.
The dust and gravel settled and the ward around it held, shielding others from the blast, and more giests flew from the floor and walls around them. Piercing wails assaulted the minds of all and explosions set off all around, as the casters were force to contain them all.
“Round them up first!” Madar yelled.
A rope of mana wrapped around several and threw them together as a giant palm splattered their ghostly forms apart and a shield of mana separated their final death throes from the others. But the giests did not stop.
“We can’t stay here!” Vin yelled, and Madar knew why.
The giests were only regular epic tier monsters. There might be an end to them but it would come too late, after far too much spent on them. Their only choice would be to push through the traps as fast as they could.
“Move.” He commanded, but silently he cursed to himself. Such a devious arrangement was a sign of intelligent monsters, and intelligent monsters was never a good thing.
“Blade trap on the left.” Vin ordered.
A thin man moved to disable it and a click sounded from within. Green acid surged from the same location without warning, melting the man away to nothing within moments.
“Zune!” Another in the party yelled in despair.
“Keep moving!” Madar ordered as he killed another cluster of giests. “Vin!”
The Pathfinder spared a strained glance at her dead comrade and leaped over the puddle of acid to deal with the traps herself. Jom wouldn’t be able to fare much better, but she could at least feel the traps behind the traps with her Sixth Sense. The guild moved swiftly without break, battling every step of the way but there was no sign of an end to their struggles, and many were growing anxious.
“Wait.” Vin called. “Destroy that wall.”
The large bearded bald monk smashed it apart with a single slap of his palm and the walls crumbled in the shape of a door, leading out to another path just like the one they were currently in. Vin passed through with a click of her teeth. The maze was shifting, something she would have realized much later were it not for her Internal Compass trait.
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They charged through, as fast as her trap disabling would allow as she mapped their path in her mind with perfect precision. Soon the layout of the circular maze became apparent and she headed straight for the center, through however many walls stood in their way.
An open doorway was the signal to her success and the guild passed tentatively through to find a chained monster. A giant imposing creature with tan fur, half man half mammoth. The Ganesh Barbarian struggled in a rage as its chains snapped in half one by one and the veil around it fell.
Arrows and spells shot towards it from the guild already in position, and it crashed into the wall before any of them realized, the two unfortunate players in its wake crushed to paste. A Hold restrained his body in place for a moment as attacks shredded its body, but Mammut regenerated in an instant and rammed again, Vin just barely blinking out of its way in time.
The monk burst by the floor boss’ side as white energy surged over his fist and struck with Truestrike at the monster’s soul. But nothing happened, and before the monk could respond, Mammut mauled him to death. A spell assaulted its mind, and a vicious trumpeting roar fell on them all as the ganesh rammed forward again and again.
“It’s not working fast enough!”
“Hold it! Burst it down all at once.”
On his command the floor boss struck stiff once more and a volley of death shredded his body apart. His flesh started mending immediately and streams of fire and frost fell over every piece until finally the monster’s threat finally ceased. Stairs opened down in the center in the lull but none felt the joy of victory as it had come at far too high of a cost.
Madar himself glanced around with a grim expression. 8 of them dead on this first floor alone. But they could not leave, and it would do them no good to succumb to panic and despair. “Recover the items still useable. Sharpen yourselves. We will get through.”
A heavy air held the guild but they were no strangers to loss and suffering this far into the new world. Quickly, they resolved themselves and followed Madar down the stairs into a grim graveyard. Graves marked with tombstones littered the foul land amongst barren trees they could just barely make out through the thick mist.
“Detection doesn’t work through the mist.” Vin reported, words Madar would have much preferred not to hear.
“Stay close. Keep your guard up. We find this floor’s boss and move on.”
The guild moved carefully and cautiously and the mist moved with them, providing just enough space to keep vigilance but blocking anything further. Aside from the eerie sense of something watching them, no danger arose, neither in the form of monsters now their environment.
“Trap.” Vin warned as she glided over to a marked grave to disable it.
More such graves appeared on their wayward path until her senses detected something from an unmarked grave. She cast her spell to disable it along with the others and it exploded in vile ghostly mana. Vin appeared back besides the group in an instant, and lurched back from an arrow that cut through the mist.
“We’re surrounded!” One of them yelled as undead of all kinds from epic to rare tier swarmed them. The guild destroyed them all as they came but it their energy was draining and the horde was endless.
“Fight as we move!” Madar lead the charge as the melee players held the line and the casters within supported them.
“Traps, both graves.” Vin warned.
“Get the other one!” Jom rushed to the tombstone marked grave, and the necrotic blast consumed him.
“Shit!” The guild barely had time to mourn as another of its warriors was knocked over a grave, and giant rotting hand grabbed his foot from the dirt.
The legendary tier Corpse Collector, a hulking mass of flesh and bandages, pulled itself out off of its grave and broke the warrior against the ground. It raised its arm again, and Madar sliced it off, one of the others catching the half dead warrior back to the inner circle to be healed. But the warrior opened his jaw with decaying flesh and tore out the man’s neck, an arrow destroyed the turned undead before it could finish him off.
“Boss!” Someone yelled, and the guild turned to a tailed monster made of golden bones.
Madar burst in front and cleaved his greatsword through, only for the terror to shrink into a shriveled Creeper with an unsettling round fanged mouth. Madar cursed but his mind raced in focus. “Chia. Find the right one that looks this.” He decided.
The seer among them understood, and her eyes went white. Her mythic tier skill of clairvoyance could get through the mist but she had another skill far more important, one that would serve them best she save her mana for. Still, the situation had gone far too poorly far too quickly for them to hold anything back now.
Her vision swam through the graveyard floor with the speed of a rogue. Several monsters of the same form she found but all were undone by her truthseeking ability. The other members formed a perimeter around her and fended off the horde as she was left helpless in her search and finally she found the boss. And the boss found her.
A shrieking roar filled the land and the Golden Bone Terror charged towards them through even its own underlings. Arrows and projectiles cracked its bones at most which quickly healed and magic had even less effect. A heavily armor warrior stopped the powerful swing of one of its four cleavers and a golden destructive light struck the monster. But the bone terror raised all four of its arms and cleaved the Heavy Knight into parts.
“It's immune to holy!” A priest yelled.
The guild turned the bulk of its attention to the boss but the bone terror focused only on one thing. It rampaged with great speed straight towards the seer, uncaring of the injuries it accumulate. A player shapeshifted into the form of a giant with all its strength and rammed the golden skeleton away. Its fanged mouth tore into the flesh of the giant and it the opening, its cleaves reaped its second life.
Three more took the vanguard before the seer, Madar among them, and the bone terror howled. A concussive force like the clap of thunder struck them away in the blink of an eye. None perished but the path to the seer was broken wide open, and the giant skeleton swung its cleaver. A mage blinked by the seer’s side but mana frayed as she tried to blink them both away again, the blade cleaved them in two.
The bone terror ravaged their remains until their were naught but chunks of unrecognizable flesh. Aura surged around Madar as he burst forward with maddened rage. A clever sailed over his head and his greatsword claimed an arm. Again and again he swung with the mythic tier Sever, breaking away the indestructible boss until it was brought low at last and a thrust through its skull ended it for good.
“Run through!” He roared as the path to the next stage opened.
The guild rushed in organized formation, fending off the horde as they escaped the dreadful graveyard, and found themselves within a violent blizzard so thick they could barely see each other. Madar glanced around at the 21 that remained, as frostbite already started to slowly permeate through his high vitality, and a sliver of despair took route in his mind.