Jen turned as Richard addressed her. She smiled as she spotted the older guide and the archer he brought with him. She rather liked the archers, they tended to be rather safety-minded people. As she focused on them and activated Identity out of habit. She lost control of her expression as she frowned.
‘Great. Another Assassin. Their kind is the worst. All the troublemakers are Assassins. And even if they don’t think they have to try and steal everything not nailed down. They tend to run ahead of the party. Or dash in believing their whole value as a person is based on the number of times they can stab something. Sure, they do decent damage. Amazing damage even with their crazy critical damage perk and the ridiculous amount of attacks they can make. The problem is every damn last one of them has no points in vitality. I end up using all my mana to keep them alive or worse they get themselves killed. Every person I’ve had die in a party recently has been a stupid assassin.’ She ended her long-winded mental rant and realized she had let her annoyance make it to her face. It was obvious the assassin had noticed as well. So she turned her smile up to eleven.
“Hello there and welcome. My name is Jen and I’m more or less the guide in charge of our dungeon parties.” She smiled even brighter as the guy around her own age seemed ready to bolt. She paused at his skittish nature, a bit strange for an assassin being brought to her. Then she again took in the bow he wore and the second pouch on his belt. ‘His identity isn’t showing red so he hasn’t killed anyone. Most likely he lost someone then. Another one like that is it?’
“No need to worry. I don’t bite.” She smiled. “Are you sure you wish to work on your class? It can be dangerous.”
They finally seemed to relax and even seemed to find some sort of resolve. “You said something about a dungeon party? There is a dungeon nearby?”
Jen nodded. “Several. We are actually about to head out. We were short one so you can come along if you like. It is a bit of a walk to the dungeon so we can talk as we go.” Jen smiled reassuringly. “If you are sure you want to do this, that is. If you want to rest. There will be other dungeon parties.”
Dren glanced at Richard who gave him a reassuring nod before giving his own nod to the Jen girl. “Alright. Come with me.” She said.
She motioned for him to follow and he did.
*****
Dren checked his system messages as they walked. Finally, relaxed enough to divert his focus. He was certain they were baiting him in. But it really seemed they were unaware. He wondered if the natives couldn’t yet see the letters next to races yet. Probably not he thought. As while Jen had mentioned the impending invasion it appeared they believed it would be from “aliens” not other humans. While that was partially true, the fact they didn’t consider other humans a possibility was playing in his favor. He learned a lot of things actually. She had warned him to be careful about accidentally hitting allies as it would cause his identification to show up as flashing yellow text. Or flashing red text if he managed to kill an ally. It had also been given as a warning for what to watch out for. Other than that most of what she told him was of little use. Except for information about the dungeon. They had found a number of them already apparently. Roaming monsters were rather rare around here other than packs of wolf-like creatures. They weren’t overtly strong alone. But hunted in coordinated packs making them dangerous but not great for leveling.
Jen said that low monster concentration was common near dungeons. Tho she didn’t know why. Only that her profession let her know it was something to watch for when looking for new dungeons. As for the dungeons, there was a lockout timer on the dungeons. Each could be entered and left only once a day per person. With one of the two, they had found so far being much higher level. They had been farming the other every day.
That was the dungeon they were on the way to just now. While there was no party size limit for entering a dungeon there seemed to be a rather large penalty to experience gained past four people. So that was how many they formed their party with. Jen the healer. A defender named Mike. A mage named Sara. And himself making the fourth. The defender and mage were both level four. The dungeon itself was only level three so tended to slow down past that point. But the other dungeon was level fifteen and apparently much harder. So no one wanted to go in there until they were much higher level. Leaving them to slowly grind out the dungeon every day for what experience they could get as a party.
Speaking of parties. It wasn’t just a group of people going in. They actually had a party feature of the system. That seemed to be the source of his most recent notifications.
Achievement: Fox in the hen house.
You have been invited to and joined a party of natives.
Gained Skill: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.
Toggled skill to mask your information from basic identity skills.
Mana cost: Minor.
Upgrade possible. Slay a dungeon boss while in a native party.
“You aren’t arachnophobic are you?” Mike asked drawing him out of his thoughts.
“What?” Dren asked.
“You shouldn’t mess around in your menus while walking. You are likely to fall.” Sara said, her tone haughty. The red-robed woman was probably the oldest in the group. Dren figured her for close to thirty and she seemed to consider the rest of them all as children. Not in the protective motherly way either. But more like annoyances that she had to deal with.
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Mike snorted. “He is an assassin. With his agility, I don’t think he will be tripping over his robe hem like some people.” Mike grinned in a friendly manner, but his eyes had just a bit of a glint to it. It seemed he liked the woman about as much as Dren did.
“That only happened once!” She snapped at him. Her eyes hard. “Only a child would keep bringing it up.”
Dren saw Jen’s shoulders lift and drop slightly as she sighed silently ahead of them. Then she turned around with her bright smile, which Dren was now realizing was more fake than real, and spoke. “Please try and get along. We have a newbie with us. So let’s try and do this one by the books.”
Sara gave a small humph but didn’t continue. Instead, she just tilted her head up in annoyance. While Mike flashed Jen an obvious smile before taking on a sickeningly sweet tone. “Of course. Sorry, Jen. Anything for you.” Dren wanted to retch at that blatant attempt at flirting. It seemed the healer felt the same way as she glanced at Dren. Before turning her attention back to the path already being worn into the forest.
Not long after that, the dungeon entrance came into view. It was a huge tree partially uprooted showing an earthen tunnel beneath it. “Will we meet other parties in there?” Dren asked. They had mentioned only that more than four entering at a time would greatly reduce their experience gains.
“Dungeons are instanced. Each party enters their own instance.” Jen explained and Dren nodded feeling his heart already starting to pound. He would clear this dungeon with this party. Then kill them all. While the dungeon was only level three apparently there were some dangers in there that could kill even someone at Jen’s level. She had stated that emphatically to let them know not to take the dungeon too lightly.
One last round of checks was made of gear and supplies. Dren had traded his bow away. Once he showed them it was enchanted with an empowering rune. They had been more than eager to trade him supplies for it. While they had offered even some potions he had gotten two spare daggers instead.
There had even been a push for him to stay and enchant gear instead of going to the dungeon. But Dren insisted on going while making the excuse that enchanting was an extremely long process. Mostly he just didn’t want to enchant the gear of his own enemies. Even trading the bow was something he wasn’t sure about. But he consoled himself with the knowledge he had done a really bad job of it while testing things.
Speaking of enchanting, he had already placed the empower and bleed rune on one of the new daggers leaving it just needing him to fill the veins. It was easy enough to do that much while walking. The vein-filling part was the actual hard part. Everyone ready they stepped to the entrance of the dungeon and Dren saw Jen pause, obviously managing some sort of message. A moment later he got a pop-up of his own.
“Your party has registered to the Forest Lair Dungeon (Level 3). Notice once you exit this dungeon you may not reenter for twenty-four hours.”
Pushing the message away he followed the others into the dungeon. His heart pounding.
*****
Dren winced. The sound echoed off the raw earthen walls around them as the spider flailed away with all eight legs. It scrapped the sharp hard tips of its many legs against Mike’s shield as he pinned it to the wall. It was a harsh sharp sound that Dren found highly annoying. Slipping past the defender he moved beside him and with a single swift thrust of his dagger he silenced the monster’s flailing. His dagger was up to the hilt in the spider. Having slid the wide-bladed dagger right in the hair-thin gap of the chitin at the base of its head. Almost severing the thing completely off.
“Nice job again, Jeremy!” Mike said as he stepped back letting the dog-sized spider fall to the ground. Dren just grunted some, his attention away as he looked for a level-up message that still hadn’t come.
“They aren’t worth much experience.” Mike said with a shrug seeming to recognize what he was doing.
“But there are a lot of them at least.” He added.
Dren shrugged and moved to the corpse. None of them had any skills for harvesting corpses. But Jen had explained that some basic things could be gathered even by those unskilled. In the case of the dog-sized black spiders. The carapace from the largest section of their bodies could be cut free. It apparently was used by a few different professions. Since Dren had the best dexterity and was skilled with his dagger. He had gotten stuck with doing it. Jen had given him a backpack she had worn to place them in. She even promised that he could keep it after the dungeon crawl when he asked about it. Not that he didn’t plan on getting it either way. Mostly he had hoped it was some sort of storage item. But alas it was not.
Dren let his mind drift as his hands deftly went to work.
*****
Character sheet
Name: Dren
Race: Human (I)
Class: Assassin (3)
Profession: Enchanter (5)
Health: 675/675
Stamina: 675/675
Mana: 600/600
Agility 21
Dexterity 21
Endurance 26
Intelligence 23
Spirit 23
Strength 26
Toughness 26
Vitality 26