LOWER FLOORS

The dungeon is said to be a maze of floors grouped by levels, with difficulty increasing the higher one goes. Of course one could find the stairs up by going straight to it, but it's more advisable to clean up the floor you entered first for more possibility of finding hidden treasures and loot boxes, also getting monster orb for leveling. So continuing on, through random corridors, we arrived at a wide room infested with goblins.

Sid had already scouted the place so we came prepared. "Are you all ready?" I whispered peering down the corridor leading to the ambush room.

"Yeah," Sky said. "We just hurry into the room then get in formation right?"

"What formation?"

This time it was Sid that answered. "Holden ahead, me and Sky flanking him just behind. We'll step deep enough into the room to give you space to hold the rear."

"Good, Holden go forward,"

"Thought you'll never say," he grinned. "Don't worry, even if it goes bad I can clean up this small fries."

"What about after you attract level 17s?"

The tall man winced. "I'll be off,"

I watched him go then sighed. Sid gave me a reproachful smile but I ignored her. In any case, she and Sky soon followed after him. I waited till they gave me a wide berth before following. Bridget had the rear, but she wouldn't always be here, so I practiced watching my back as I followed my party members.

I counted to fifteen after they entered the room before I followed. The three stood in the given formation facing a group of goblins. The goblins were shrieking, probably to get more reinforcement from all their kins in this floor. That's what's troublesome about these green fiends. They aren't really as strong as say an Orc individually, but they did well in numbers. And they know it.

The two groups faced each other. The monsters readying their weapons and arranging themselves in formation, while we stood our ground and waited for them to attack since we feared going too deep into the room and get surrounded. That'll negate the advantage of the formation after all.

Like us, monsters has classes, and therefore jobs- an area of expertise- too. Immediately I entered I started scanning the Monsters for any that would pose a threat to my party. I found one in the form of a goblin with a blow dart. [Goblin archer,] I nocked an arrow and shot. An arrow in the forehead took it out of the equation. I searched again. One goblin had a bow, I took it out too.

Just then the goblins finished shuffling around and started towards us as one, snarling and growling and shrieking. Spear users lined in front with shield users behind them, lastly was three goblins at the back, two with bows and one with a long staff in its hand dressed in brown robes. [Goblin LV4], I took a moment to study it. Forget its level, it had actual cloths and looked taller, almost adult height. Most likely a mage too by the looks of it.

Considering it a huge threat to my party, I shot an arrow at it, but a green barrier appeared around it blocking the arrow. I scoffed then took out the archers beside it with two arrows from one shot. Deciding to ignore the goblin mage for now, since my chances of killing it didn't seem encouraging, I just drew an arrow out of the quiver in my waist but didn't shoot.

But the goblin mage had other ideas. It pointed its staff at me in response to my attack and fired a ball of fire. I stepped to the side so Holden was directly in front of me. The spell missed, hitting the wall behind me, and the subsequent one was met with my Tanker's raised shield.

The goblin army finally made contact with my party. Holden stopping their charge with his shield. Some tried to round to the sides and surround us but were met by Sid's blurring spear or Sky's glowing sword. One blew them away with a gale, the other absolutely destroyed them. That's the word.

Sky's sword was unstoppable. With a trailing tail of orange light, it burnt, cut, and exploded everything it attacked. Goblin screams filled the air, they kept turning into light particles and monster orbs kept dropping from her side like she was using some kind of cheat. While Sid kept pushing them back with pinpoint strikes in vitals.

I kept peering over Holden, so I noticed the mage pointing its staff at Sky. I pulled the bow and shot. The mage lifted its gaze to me with a scowl on its monster face, stopping its intended attack, then lifted a magic shield around itself instead. The arrow bounced off the arcane wall but before I could celebrate it dismissed the shield and pointed its staff at me. Three fire balls came flying at me.

The numbers and speed caught me off guard, but I quickly ducked back behind Holden, avoiding by the lowest margin. Only then did I realize I'd used Shadowalking by instinct, that's the only reason I had avoided that attack! It was too fast... That was fucking close. Grinning from the exhilaration, I nocked three arrows shooting them at the left so they curved to the goblin mage, then nocked another three and shot to the other direction. I took out one more arrow then waited for a brief moment before shooting it at the ceiling.

I peered out. Just as the goblin dispersed its arcane shield after blocking the six arrows coming from both sides. The seventh and lone arrow struck it on the forehead in a perfect parabola. It staggered back with widened eyes then broke to light and dispersed in the air. A monster orb fell a moment later.

I killed a level 4...

It wasn't strength, I'd outsmarted it. It'd drop its barrier by itself, cockily thinking my attack was done... That's something I'd learned. Levels mattered less than the strength of one's skills and their resourcefulness. Levels only strengthened existing stats and skills, not give more. Example, say a level 25 can't beat a competent level 1 without using their skills. The levels makes one stronger but you'd need a load of them to be superhuman. Skills are the equalizer, they could help a low leveled person take out a strong one with a sneak attack.

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After that I joined the fray as we made quick work of the rest of the goblins. More poured forth from the entrances scattered around the wall but they too met their demise rather quickly.

I went to pick back my arrows, to recycle them. Holden started gathering the monster orb, piling them in a heap. "Twenty- Seven," he said. "With the three prior, that'll make thirty, do you want to share it here so we could gain more strength before we continue or wait first?" He looked at me. "But know that we don't have anything to carry it in. Your backpack is full, I suspect?"

"How does this usually work?" I asked Bridget. She was standing at the door doing nothing. I'd noticed she had prevented the goblins coming from behind us from joining the fight earlier.

She shrugged. "It's standard procedure in parties to share when you have a good pile. That's a good pile."

"Okay, Sky keep the four special ones separate." I was referring to the one from the level 3 orc, level 4 goblin mage and a two level 3 goblins among the goblin army. Sky had killed both.

"That's twenty six," Holden said doing that in place of her.

"We take six each eh?" Sky said. "What do we do with the two?"

"We leave it for the next distribution," Sid replied then looked at me. I didn't quite like how they decided on their own but I couldn't dispute the reasoning. I nodded.

"Cool," Holden grinned and went about sharing it.

Following what we read in textbooks, half the party would absorb the orb while the other stay back and keep watch. Holden and Sid went first, then me and Sky followed, so we avoid being ambushed when occupied with increasing our strength. At least that's the idea.

"What are we going to do with these?" Holden asked as he saw me pick the higher leveled orbs, while I let him pick the other two lower leveled ones for safe keeping.

"For points once we return," I said. It's better to only pick the more valuable ones to exchange, because storing space is limited. "How long do we have till we have to leave, Bridget?" At the same time I checked the time. [01/34PM]

"You have till 4pm, so we start returning to get you back before curfew,"

"Is there a time one cannot cross the wall?" Sid asked. Kyle had hinted at that but we never saw it in any of the books we read about in Camp.

"Not really, but..." Bridget said. I thought she was frowning beneath the winged helmet. "There are certain days that Diggers cause more trouble. On Wednesdays, is their day of worship,"

"Like Sundays for Christians?" Sky said. "What's their religion anyway?"

"I don't know, maybe digging?"

I stared at the automaton wondering if she just made a joke but I knew next to nothing about her so I couldn't tell. Still, I decided to dismiss it. "Anyway if everyone is done resting, let's move on." I said. "I want us to clean this floor before our time is up,"

"Wouldn't that be pushing it?" Holden asked.

"Well, we only have Bridget for today, I want us to use her to the limit. This is our biggest chance to level up. But I do have a question," I looked at her. "You said the dungeon gives us stronger opponents to balance things out because of Holden, what about you? You are above level 40, wouldn't that be a problem?"

"None," Bridget shook her head. "The dungeon does not react to automatons, that's one of the reason we are choosing as Wards instead of professors or surgeons,"

"Cool," Sky said. "Camp got everything covered eh?"

"Except the Diggers," Sid pointed. "I swear, everyone talks of them but says nothing in the end."

"Well it's a tricky topic," Holden said.

Dungeon floors are like mazes right? They go round and round, branching to different rooms and corridors. But it also has districts, because monsters are territorial. The first part we cleared is the goblin territory, going further we bumped into a red spider creature the size of a dog. [Hellspider Lv1]

After killing it, something Sky did with glee, we backtracked to sweep the rest of the goblin territory in search of treasures. We met no resistance as we went. "That's the advantage of goblins," Holden said. "And most type of monsters in the lower floors, of course; You don't have to go around clearing them."

We found a chest tucked in a dark corner of a room. Holden pulled it forth before pushing the lid open. "Luckily it's not locked," he said. "We'd need a thief in that situation, one of you should learn how to pick locks."

He started bringing out a set of objects. A rusty sword, a dozen cooper and silver coins, a wooden shield and a dull ring. I stared at them curiously. "Is this good?"

"Sort of..."

"The shield will be hard to carry though," Sid said.

"Maybe we can leave it here for when we return," Sky pipped.

A thought occurred to me. "What will happen if another party enters this dungeon after we raid it? Will they find this floor empty?"

"Well, monsters will respawn," Bridget told me. "But that's not important. No one can enter the same dungeon scene in the same day, even if you use a different portal, the dungeon remembers,"

"So the dungeon will take them to another floor?" Sky asked.

"I think you underestimate the dungeon. No, it'll take them to another lower floor, but a different scene. Maybe a city or a forest or even a similar underground but never the same. There are infinite numbers of them, at least according to theory."

"What if I reenter the dungeon?" Sid questioned.

"You'll always return to this scene 25 hours after your exit, after that you'll find a different scene,"

"So they don't always look like this?"

"I told you, they don't,"

I watched in amusement as Sid bombarded Bridget with questions which the automaton answered patiently. We swept the area but found no more treasures so we went on. Into the spider territory. The light lighting the corridors were orange here like flames above, they cast an orange light around like lamplight.

Sid went forward to scout, only for us to hear her scream as she took the corner. We hurried towards her direction, Holden leading followed by Sky then me and Bridget.

We found Sid perched on the ceiling fighting a hord of spiders that spread on the ground, the wall, and ceiling.

Sky's sword lit up as she squeezed past Holden into the fray. I nocked and fired three arrows, taking out the same number of spiders around Sidney. Holden started bashing the spiders with his shield throwing them back. We soon clean them out.

"Sorry," Sid said jumping down from the ceiling. I wondered if staying upside down doesn't make her dizzy. "They somehow sensed me before I could retreat,"

"No prob Blondie," Sky said. She'd got in the habit of calling Sid that, I wonder where she got the idea? Sky is the kind of person you'd just torture yourself by getting irritated at. She grinned.

"Just be careful next time," I said.

"Sure," Sid nodded. Something made me look behind and didn't see Bridget.

"Bridget?" I squinted at the other end of the corridor.

I heard the sound of scuttling in the left side of the intersection, then a giant spider burst into the corridor. The spider was bigger than a person and struggled to fit into the corridor, crawling side ways on the wall. [Hellspider Lv188]

I blinked expecting the number to turn to Lv8 or even Lv18 but it didn't change. Then panic set in, something about the spider set alarm bells blaring in my mind. The spider shot white silky ropes from its mouth, I drew back and screamed. "What the fuck!?"

Using my [Shadowalking] I twisted around the attack, then pulled out an arrow and fired at the monster in autopilot. The monster blurred, disappearing. I looked around but couldn't find it. Something told me to look up and sure enough it was above on the ceiling, raining down cobwebs at us. A web of white silk fell down on me, covering me. I struggled in panic, trying use my skill, but then I started feeling weak and drowsy.

I fell sideways against the wall, my limbs all bound. The last thing I saw was a giant spider scuttling towards me.

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