Waking up I found myself on the ground. I stood up groggily pushing myself off the cold stone floor and looked around to see that we were back at the entrance.
“They are awake!”
(B) “Hugh what happened?”
“We woke up to find Elizabeth passed out on the floor and didn’t see you guys so we went into the temple to look for you. We saw all of you laying on the ground and some weird symbols pulsating on the wall. So we brought Elizabeth down here so we’d all be together.”
(B) “Sorry about that some inscription on the wall sent some kind of energy surge and we all passed out as a result.”
“Why would you all pass out from a message written on a wall?”
(B) “Magic?”
“That would make the most sense. We’ll have to tell this to the guardian when we get back.”
(T) “Get your gear together you helpless lot. We got a temple to finish exploring and we need to find a way out to this village of yours.”
(M) “Give us some time Teage we aren't in a huge rush.”
(J) “I’ll go out into the hall to check for a breeze. It should tell us the direction of an exit.”
(E) “Where am I?”
(B) “You were drug here after the girls couldn’t wake you up.”
(E) “So that's why I feel so stiff and sore.”
Suddenly a big boom came from the hallway and dirt rained from the ceiling as the ground shook beneath us.
(J) “We've got trouble! Grab your stuff now the entrance just exploded and I heard the wolves howling just now. We've got to move before we become trapped.”
We all quickly scramble together our gear and rush out the doorway into the corridor. There were four paths we could take. The way to the entrance which should have wolves streaming towards us, the doorway behind us, and two unknown hallways going in opposite directions to our right and left. The right side side had crystal lights that illuminated the hallway while the left was completely dark.
(J) “This way I think I felt a breeze coming from the right hallway.”
We quickly follow after John as he leads us forward into the dimly lit hallway. I could see better though for some reason and the hallway appeared completely illuminated. While everyone else stumbled forwards. I saw what appeared to be something in the distance. I quickly grab John and pulled him back as we approached what looked to be some traps.
(B) “Stop! Holly can you lend us some light I think there are some traps in front of us.”
“Sure!” She stretched out her palm and a flame appeared illuminating the dark hallway. Showing us all the tiny strings littering the floor in front of us.
“How did you see that?”
(B) “Instinct?”
(T) “Well we don’t have time for this. Can we disarm them or something?”
(M) “I don’t know I’d need some time to look at them.”
We hear barking coming progressively closer from behind us. Growing louder with each passing second.
(B) “Form up against the wall. We’ll use the beasts to disarm the traps. John protect the girls and make sure they stay safe.”
(J) “Well I guess we'd have to fight them at some point. Just make sure we control this chokepoint and don’t let them overwhelm us.”
Teage and me were the vanguard with our weapons drawn while Matt stood behind us with his staff at the ready. John had set his spear to the side and had grabbed his sword in his right hand and held his his shield firmly in his left.
Three wolves soon come into view and leap towards us. Teage cleaves one cleanly through its neck cutting its vertebrae and severing its spinal cord without chopping off its entire head.
I tried stabbing my sword forward instead of slashing and as the wolf jumped me I thrust my sword into the wolf and unable to change his momentum the wolf soon impaled itself on my sword, but his weight still knocked me over pinning the dead wolf on top of me.
The third wolf jumped at Matt, but he quickly redirected the wolf using his staff down the trap filled hallway. The wolf rolled across the floor triggering arrows, darts, and a spike pitfall trap that it fell into. To finish it all off a boulder dropped into the spiked pit crushing the wolf and creating a bridge over the pitfall.
(J) “Glad that wasn’t us.”
(B) “Can I get some help here.”
(T) “Here you go kid.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Teage kicked the wolf off of me and I freed my sword from the dead beast it had killed. Standing up I realized I was soaked in blood and that being a Beast-Kin the blood soaked into my fur. This was going to be a pain to wash out. I look over at the trapped hallway to find that the wolf that Matt had launched had triggered most of the traps and it was safe enough to proceed.
(E) “Is that all of them.”
(J) “Not even close we have to keep moving or more will come. They will probably smell the blood we spilled and converge here so we need to keep moving.”
We get our stuff together and continue onwards. Pressing down the hallway. Every now or then we would find a puzzle, but since we were going up and not down we breezed through these by simple flipping a switch and disarming them.
Some looked complex with either musical levelers, 8 digit locks, and even a DDR style dance room (This was definitely a weird temple). Finally opening the last door I see what the last puzzle is and to my dismay it’s a chess board and there is a burly guy sitting at the table playing by himself.
He looked to be a good two meters tall and had two horns coming from his head. He turns to us and as he does the board falls back into the floor. Realizing what happened he got mad and said.
“Oh come on I almost had it this time.” He looks at us and quickly looks over each of us until he spots Holly and Lydia. “Holly, Lydia, is that you?”
“Daddy!” Lydia runs towards her dad as he picks her up swings her around in his embrace.
“I’ve missed you so much I thought I’d never see you again.” Their touching embrace was very sweet to see and he looked genuinely happy to have his daughter back.
Turning to us he asked “Wait how did you guys find my daughter?”
(B) “It’s a long story, but we are glad that she made it back to you safe at least.”
(J) “It’s the duty of any noble soul to help a young lass in need of assistance. We were glad to help.”
(T) “Though we could use some supplies and a map to orient ourselves, and some clothes that actually fit a Dwarf.”
“So wait up who are you all?”
(B) “I’m Brenner a Fox-Kin.”
(T) “Teage the Dwarf nice to meet ya.”
(M) “I’m Matt the elf.”
(J) “My name is John and I’m a human.”
(E) “And I’m the Draconian Elizabeth.”
“My name is Iroh I’m the leader of our village nearby and this is my daughter Lydia, and I see you have also met Holly. We are all half demons.”
…
(B) “Demons? I thought they were all evil?”
“Well since we are only half demons we have kept our sanity for the most part. But, I am especially eager to hear of your exploits in getting my daughter back to me, and opening the temple that we’ve spend ages trying to get into.”
(J) “Really? All we did was flip a switch.”
Iroh stood there for a second and then burst out laughing.
“The answer to this great mystery was just a simple switch. I can’t wait to tell the others when we get back.”
(M) “About that. I think we still have some unwanted company chasing us so we should probably get moving.”
“What do you mean? Are there monsters down there that were chasing you?”
(J) “No it's some pack of wolves that has been chasing us.”
“Ha! Wolves those guys are just a bunch of wimps.”
He strode towards the entrance as the sound of howling wolves echoed out. We all backed away readying our weapons while he kept striding forward with a fierce grin. As the first wolf broke the entrance Iroh greeted it with a punch so strong it made the wolf’s head cave in and shoot back into the temple as a deadly projectile.
Probably killing some more wolves on its way back down. Then Iroh roared ferociously with such power and force that we all backed up a good ten meters and barely held our sanity.
Holly and Lydia both remained unfazed though with Lydia smiling and cheering him on.
“Get them daddy. Show them who's boss.”
This man was not to be trifled with and if he wanted he could easily kill any of us without batting an eye. He then turned to us after seeing that the threat was no longer going to be a problem.
“Well now that that is taken care of let's head back home shall we.”
We followed him out of the forest towards the settlement we had seen earlier. Due to his antics during that ‘fight’ (more like beatdown) nothing dared to approach us. He carried his daughter on his shoulders and chatted with her as we walked. With Holly following close behind him. We on the other hand were kinda at odds about what we should do next.
We don’t know where we were, we could barely defend ourselves, and the first people we meet happen to be half demon half human hybrids. This definitely isn’t your standard tutorial sequence thats for sure. If this was even a tutorial.
“So what’s your guys story and how’d you find these two?”
(B) “We’d been captured by a necromancer and when we busted out we found Holly and Lydia and freed them. Afterwards we gathered some supplies and tried making our way through the forest to your settlement we’d seen from the mountains. But we were chased by some wolves into some ancient ruins where we found some weird writings and when the wolves followed us in we ran down a hallway that led us through a bunch of trap rooms, but since we were going backwards we disarmed all the traps.”
“Well that's not what I was expecting. You see we’ve been stuck on that board game for the past ten years.”
They were stuck in a chess game for ten years? Man I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not considering some of the other challenges they’d have to have solved.
“But I meant how’d your party come about and what are you doing in the Monster's Abyss.”
(T) “Monster’s Abyss? What’s that?”
“It’s the valley we are currently in. Home to all the most dangerous creatures of the world and no man's land that has yet to be conquered by any civilized countries.”
(J) “So why do you live here?”
He stopped in his tracks and stared me down. “Answer my question first who are you all and why are you here.”
(M) “We don’t know why we are here. I believe it was the result of a failed system, and we all arrived here together. As for why we are a group … let’s just say we all owe Brenner here a favor in some way or form and can’t leave his service until then.”
Thank god Matt was good at improvising as that should keep this guy off our backs about who we are and why we’re here.
“You're going to have to elaborate your tale over some drinks tonight, but that will suffice for now. As to why we live here that I shall tell you tonight over supper.”
He continued walking and after a while longer we all arrived at their village. It was a small cluster of building looking to hold roughly one hundred and fifty people. There were children running around playing tag while some people were working in a small field.
The biggest building in the town was in its center and looked to be some big hall of some kind.The people of the town all had demonic features such as horns, tails, and strange eyes but all of them looked human at the same time.
“Welcome to our humble town of Haven. A last home for darkness in this period of light.”