Alex’s eyes open to a scene that very much does not look like a dungeon. He and the rest of the party appears to have found themselves on an island, facing the sandy beach, with a dense jungle behind them. The sky directly above them seems to be just regular sky, but going out to the horizon it looks off for some reason.
The best way he can describe it is that it looks like there’s a huge wall around them painted to look like the sky, except the clouds move and everything looks like it should be fine, but is just a little bit off, like an uncanny valley effect. Oh and also there isn’t any water it just cuts off into the air. Dave and Emily are already cautiously looking over the sandy edge, while Stacy has already backed away from the edge as far as possible without stepping into the jungle.
“So, what’s it looking like over the edge there?” Drake and Becca are staying near the palm tree they came out of with Alex, the bark already solid now that they’ve all stepped through, Becca asking the compelling question of the moment. Emily turns to look at them, a dry sarcasm in her voice as she responds. “Well, if you were worried about not having enough air for this survey into the weird, then have no fear. All sky down there, it’s honestly vertigo-inducing. Also I think I can see the moon down there.” Considering Dave nearly stumbles away from the edge, a hint of green to his face, it definitely isn’t a fun thing to look at.
Alex starts pacing, rubbing his chin as he walks. “Alright, we’re on some kind of minecraft-looking sky island. The only place to really go is inward, into the jungle. Without any other information, that’s all we can really do, huh?” Stacy, seeming to get over whatever fears about the edge she had, gets closer to the group as Dave and Emily do the same. The arachnid keeps her eyes on the jungle, all eight of them roving over the flora.
“Look, over there! Looks like a path into the jungle.” She points out what looks like a relatively wide dirt path, winding into the depths of the trees. “That’s almost definitely got traps or ambushes on it, huh?” “Oh for sure. Maybe we can try following it on the side, so if there is anything we can either skip over it or see it in the trees beforehand?” Emily tilts her head as she responds, looking at the sides of the path. With no real complaints from the rest of the party, they move as a group into the trees on the left of the path.
Although the jungle is definitely very jungle-y, no one can actually tell what species any of the plants and trees are. Emily, when asked, says that “They feel like the cardboard cutout equivalent of people to my Dryadic senses. Even though they may look and act like plants, they definitely aren’t real.” With that somewhat ominous warning out of the way, the sights really are quite beautiful.
Verdant plant life lends to thick, hard-to-walk-through foliage, obviously as a way to encorage people to walk on the path but none of the group are that stupid. Small insects buzz through the air, some looking like regular dragonflies and beetles, others looking entirely alien, like the one which looks like someone bred a millipede and a bee together.
Despite all of that, Alex hasn’t noticed any larger life like reptiles or mammals. Now that he thinks about it, there aren’t any bird calls either. “Hey guys, does it feel a little too...I don’t know, quiet?” “Yeah, it’s definitely suspicious...” Drake, speaking up for the first time since they got here, seems just as cautious as the rest of them. Ironically enough, it only takes another minute of walking for that to change.
Emily stiffens, holding a hand up to stop everyone from moving any further. Before anyone can ask what’s the matter, she puts a finger in front of her mouth before pointing up, directing their gazes to the branches over the path. Despite being to thin and willowy to support much weight, several large creatures hang from them like they weigh nothing more than a leaf in the wind.
Hanging from the branches by their feet, the creatures look almost like bats, though with several marked differences. One is, obviously, that they’re huge, nearly the size of a full person all on their own. There is also the fact that, rather than having fur and large ears, they have scales. Honestly Aelx would call them small wyverns if it weren't for the fact that they have bird-like beaks instead of toothed snouts. Thankfully there are only 3 of them, but he’s definitely glad that they decided against just following the path.
Although they can’t speak to each other without risking the lizard-bat-birds noticing them, they had already decided on some general strategies before going into the dungeon. Stacy began to climb up a nearby tree, using some kind of spider-climb Ability to pull it off, while the rest of us got into position. Drake and Dave took the frontline of our group, while Becca and Alex took the middle, with Emily in the back.
With all three magic users charging up spells and the two frontliners preparing themselves to tank if they needed to, all the group had to do was wait for the signal. That signal came in the form of Stacy smashing into one of the lizard-bats from another tree branch, sending it and her to the ground with a crash and some beastial screams of pain. This, obviously, set the other two off and screeching almost immediately, but the magic-users were already on the case.
Within moments a faint green, earthy light which had been flowing up the tree that the lizard-bats were perched in settled into their roosting branches, making them seemingly come alive. The branches wrapped around the remaining lizard-bat’s feet, keeping them in place no matter how much the struggled and flapped their wings. With them unable to move, Becca and Alex were able to use a combination move.
Becca has an air-based spell, something similar to a buffeting wind but more solid, like being hit with a wall made of condensed air. Alex had what was essentially magic napalm. It didn’t take too much thinking before they realized just how deadly that could be together. With a short incantation and jabbing wand from Alex, and a movement that looked right out of Avatar from Becca, a small wall of burning mist slammed into one of the bat-lizards, sending it and the branches holding it to the ground in a screaming, roasting pile.
Unfortunately this also managed to set free the last lizard creature, since it was wrapped up further along the same branches and ducked out of the way of the fire. With an ear-piercing screech it flared its wings to catch itself, and dived at the party. Drake managed to keep it from finishing that dive thanks to his trident, since even in a rage it didn’t seem to be stupid enough to fly directly into a sharp, pointy object.
Flapping its wings in the air directly in front of the party, the creature gave off another shriek as an odd something began to build up around its throat. It was definitely some kind of magic buildup, and when Alex looked at it, it looked-felt like something between a bunch of neon colors and the feeling when you get lemon juice in a cut. Eye’s widening, he tackled the closest person out of the way before the lizard could finish it’s buildup. “Acid breath, out of the way!”
Thankfully the rest of the party took his advice, darting out of the way as the creature pretty much hocked a massive lougey of magically generated acid at them. When it landed on the dirt where they were, it visibly steamed as it soaked into the ground, the dirt under it noticeably collapsing compared to the dirt around it. Before it could do anymore damage however, a blur of black limbs smashed into the flying lizard, crashing into a tree trunk and crushing it’s ribs between a tree and a hard place. More specifically, that hard place being Stacy’s armored carapace.
“Phew, that was closer than I would of liked, but hey, no one got hurt.” Alex breathed a sigh of relief, looking down to see that he had tackled Dave out of the way. If his blank-faced stare of murder was anything to go by, he didn’t appreciate being tackled by a large dragon-man. Chuckling sheepishly, Alex got up to give him some room, only for Emily to immediately get in his face. “How were you able to tell that it was going to spit acid? Do you have some kind of magic-sensing ability?”
“Huh? Oh, no it’s a skill I got from meditating and visualizing my mana. Well, technically I got another skill before that which is basically the same but for something else, but yeah. Basically it let’s me sense magic as it’s forming, rather than needing to figure it out after the effects already start happening.” From the gleam that came to her eyes when he mentioned it was a skill rather than an ability, he could tell she wasn’t going to stop badgering him until she learned it too. Considering they were currently in a dungeon he decided to nip that in the bud for now.
Holding up a hand to keep her from going off on him, he let her know where he’d draw the line. “Before I try to teach you anything, we should probably not be in a dungeon, eh?”...damn that pout almost broke him, she looks like a kicked puppy when she does that. Rather than try to resist even more, he turns away to see if the lizards dropped anything.
The burned one didn’t seem to drop anything, which is...probably for the best really, whatever interaction happened between his and Becca’s spell meant that even with the body dissolved the spot on the road was still burning like a bonfire. The one that got crushed into the tree however, gave off a little sound as it dissolved. Unlike the tinkling bell that notified people of an item drop like from the livestream, this sounded more like a set of drums giving off a tropical beat. Must be thematic, he guessed.
Walking over to see what could have dropped from it, he sees a folded length of scaly hide, about as large and thick as a folded up winter coat. To his surprise, he also sees Lucy pop up for the first time since he’d entered the Dungeon, explaining what it is that he’s seeing.
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Minor Jungle Wyvern (Acid) Scaled Hide: Average
This is a length of hide from an acid-aligned minor subspecies of wyvern, with only minor abrasions and damage caused by physical trauma. It still even has most of its scales!
“Minor Jungle Wyvern, huh?” “Yep, the other one was an acid type too, though it didn’t really get the time to show it off.” Stacy walks over as Alex gathers up the hide, showing off a long, large fang that looks to have come off the first wyvern she tackled. Remembering that Stacy was in fact the person who killed the hide-dropping wyvern, he holds it up for her to see. “Are you going to want this, by the way? It was your kill after all.” She waves off the question, pocketing the fang as she replies. “Nah, you want to be a crafting kind of guy right? You’ll be able to use it better than me probably. I’m keeping the fang as a trophy though.”
Alex shrugs off the incongruousness of someone as bubbly as her wanting kill trophies, taking off his pack and opening it to slide the hide into for safe keeping. “Thanks, I wonder if this will hold runes better thanks to being a dungeon-and of course you four snuck into my pack.” As soon as he had unzipped his backpack, Alex found himself with an armful of four disturbed golems, likely a bit scared from all the jostling and dodging balls of acid.
After several minutes of calming down his little golems, explaining what they are, and then explaining how exactly he was able to create life to the rest of the party, everyone eventually gets back to following the path from the forest. Now though, Scout was rushing around, keeping within a certain radius while climbing up and down every bush and tree as they go. Actress was currently occupied trying to replicate Stacy’s unique body structure, Dancer was brooding dramatically in the pack, and Lightshow was floating through the sunbeams cutting through the tree branches.
It isn’t long before they find themselves seeing another obstacle from the edge of the path, though this time it is an actual obstacle rather than some monsters. There seems to be what Alex can only describe as a reverse river flowing across the path, two ancient stone structures on each side of the obstacle almost seeming to be like the start and end points of a bridge. The reverse river is like a flowing mass of solid, opaque air moving along in front of them, but rather than being in a channel made by eroding water the reverse river floats along in the air above us, strong winds visible at around torso height for a normal person.
Once everyone was satisfied that the group wouldn’t be ambushed by more monsters, they all stepped onto the path and walked up to the stone structure on their side of the air river. Alex in particular was interested in the odd, almost tribal runes that he could see. Looking at them with his mana-sensing skill, the runes almost felt...artificial, or alien. There was just enough emotion and intention in the runes to do what they needed to do, and seemed to be completely locked into place somehow, he could tell that trying to manipulate them would be like trying to move a mountain with just his pinky. Whether that was because they were made by a dungeon or a general effect of runeing things he wasn’t so sure…
Thankfully he could parse out approximately what the runes were for. “Seems like this whole structure is supposed to be an extendable bridge, at least from what I can tell, though the exact mechanism for how to make it extend is unclear from just these.” Drake crosses his arms, looking around the structure with a small tilt of his head. “Probably some kind of puzzle then, right? We just have to look for some controls or something-”
Before we can even try to start looking the stone over, the two sides start shifting, parts of the structures folding out or around each other and moving closer, eventually forming a solid tunnel-like passage through the wind. After looking around for the source of the change, all Alex-and several others in the party-can do is snort or giggle at the sight of Scout standing on a control panel of some kind, apparently more interested in the panel than the changing landscape around him. Alex picks him up before he can cause the tunnel to revert somehow, and the group carries on unimpeded.
Soon enough the party finds themselves at the base of a large, blocky pyramid at the approximate center of the sky island, not unlike the ones from Aztec culture with some minor changes. For one, there are a lot of pictographs and those same tribal runes, along with a plethora of other powers that Alex doesn’t recognize radiating off of the sandy stone of the pyramid, probably for some important purpose like keeping the island floating or something else like that. It also seemed like the pyramid was segmented, various seems could be seen along the bricks that made up it’s form, for no real discernible reason.
Oh and also there’s a big ol’ dragon thing on the top. Ok yeah, maybe calling it a dragon is a bit much, but it’s a big feathery-reptile thing, like the Minor Wyvern’s ugly big brother. Alex almost wanted to say it was a somewhat decent recreation of what a Quetzalcoatl would look like. As a precaution he put his golems back in his pack while he and the group made up a plan, though thankfully the probably-a-boss monster was sleeping on the flattened top of the pyramid.
After a few minutes of quiet conversation, they put their plan into motion. Stacy, Drake and Dave slowly crept toward the big wyvern and up the pyramid, while Becca, Alex and Emily worked their literal magic. For the forward march team, it wasn’t long before they were right next to the beast, and it was only slightly longer before they struck.
Stacy put a dagger near her mouth and turned it green somehow before stabbing the boss in the jugular, Drake used his trident to tear a massive, quickly bleeding hole in one of its wing membranes, and Dave struck several points along the creature’s shoulders, looking to dislocate them or at least hurt them. The boss awoke with a roar of pain, apparently it’s punctured jugular didn’t disable its vocal cords.
With a flap of its large wings, Drake and Dave are thrown off of the pyramid and down to the-thankfully mostly soft-dirt below. They’re winded and maybe bruised, but otherwise fine. Stacy manages to stay in her spot, probably thanks to her sticky-spider powers, and moves to make some more slashes and stabs at the wyvern from up close. With the tear in its wing the boss doesn’t get more than 10 feet off the ground before falling down again, but with how big it is it won’t bleed out for at least a few more minutes.
Although Stacy is both mobile and can take a good hit or two, it’s clear pretty soon that she can’t handle a big wyvern at close range alone. Which is why it is very good timing that just hen she needs it, a big tree golem starts marching its way out of the forest and up the pyramid, trying to grapple with the dragon while Stacy does her best to retreat.
Making a simple tree golem was surprisingly easy with the help of Emily’s plant animating magic, the runes Alex used to get it running were very simple, just the instructions to approach the giant winged lizard and grapple it as much as possible. Although, imbuing them into such a large object with so much magic resistance did drain a lot of his mana very quickly, to the point he felt lightheaded.
Thankfully he only had one more spell to cast, hopefully. With the rest for the party out of the way, Alex and Becca used their combination move once more, aiming for the golem itself. With a flash of flaming fog, both the giant wyvern and the golem went up like a Burning Man festival. The screaches were not fun to listen to, but in time, all that was left was a pyramid with little licks of flame on the steps, and several objects on the flat top.
Once everyone had recovered themselves in both mana and stamina, they made their way together to the top of the pyramid. There, they saw a large femur bone, looking like it came out of a dinosaur exhibit, along with what seemed to be an electric green bow strung with a pale, dried sinew. On a small pedestal, an orb rested, looking similar to the segmented pyramid but with much more intricate and small segments and more of the tribal runes riddled across the surface.
Becca seemed to be drawn to the bow, while Alex immediately started examining the massive bone. He expected to be impossible to lift, and while it was hefty it was surprisingly easy to lift considering its size, likely having a similar hollow bone structure to birds. Everyone else hovered around what was almost definitely a Dungeon core. Don’t get him wrong, he wanted to examine everything, but he already had the minor wyvern hide, along with this new bone.
Coatalus Wyvern (Greater) Bone: Excellent
The wyvern this bone came from was of a specific subspecies of wyvern was used as a Boss monster in the Palm Isles Dungeon. As a Boss Monster, it was able to grow beyond its peers, becoming a Greater variant. Thanks to being killed in a way that did little damage to the skeletal structure of the Boss, this bone is higher quality than average.
Ah, there’s Lucy again. She had been surprisingly quiet throughout the dungeon, she only seemed to come out when he was examining the drop items. Before he could ask what was going on though, the conversations of the rest of the party caught his attention. Becca was holding the bow like it was a newborn child, and took a moment to snap out of it to explain what her Sub-System had told her about it.
“Anyone mind if I call dibs on this? Wyvern’s Wing here has a natural air affinity, though I’m not sure if it’s because wyverns are air-aligned or because I picked it up. Either way if I learn how to shoot a bow this could be really handy. Or, you know, I could sell it.”
Stacy seemed content to simply have her wyvern fang, but Emily, Drake, and Dave did some rock-paper-scissors to see who would get the Dungeon core for themselves. After a few rounds, some arguing, and the reminder that this Dungeon would likely regain this core after a time so we could just get more, Drake won the honor of taking the prize home, with the promise that if the came together as a party again he would back down from any other Dungeon core claims until everyone else had gotten one. With him placing a hand on the orb, all of our Sub-Systems popped up directly in front of us, showing us an intriguing option.
Palm Isles Dungeon Core on Island 1st has been activated. Would you like to return to your world, or fly to Island 2nd? [Real World] [Island 2nd]
“Wait, is it a themed kind of thing? Like, Island 2nd is the second ‘level’ of the dungeon?” Stacy seemed to have caught on quickly to the differences between this dungeon and the Silverfall dungeon, but before Alex or anyone else could star speculating Dave kept us on the straight and narrow. “We came here to deactivate the Dungeon for now, the longer we spend here, the more likely it is that some kid wanders in and gets killed, even with the time compression.”
With the still victorious mood dampened by that reminder, there isn’t any hesitation about what option to choose. Soon enough a new palm tree seems to sprout from nowhere out of the cracks of the pyramid in front of them, its trunk starting to shimer. Soon enough everyone is back through and safely in the garden, and from the position of the sun, it seems like there really hadn’t been much time since the party entered.
Gertrude walks back into the backyard, likely to grab the lemonade and cookies so that they didn’t get devoured by bugs, and looked a little spooked to see us climb out of the tree so soon. Well, relative to her at least. “Oh, hello again dears! Did you forget something?”