[3rd Person POV]
Inside a Castle, an elf, with light -almost white- green hair, walked in a determined way. She had just left a room of great importance and seemed to be heading towards the entrance of that same castle.
She held a scroll, with a golden seal, firmly in her right hand, while her left hand had a sort of badge. Approaching the entrance area of the place, there were some guards, and behind each of them, there was a kind of portal wide and high enough that it was possible to pass one carriage at a time.
"Good morning. I am here on command of the council to use this portal." Said the elf, looking at one of the guards.
"Good morning, Lance Aureate. Of course, I'll let you through. Just as a reminder, this portal is connected to Beast Glades." Said the guard, confirming to the elf the destination she would enter.
But before Lance could enter, she stopped, literally one step away from going through the portal. "Some problem?" the guard asked, wondering how she was acting.
"..." she took a long breath "Phantasm. Why are you following me?" She said looking behind her, it was complete emptiness, or that's what anyone would think.
In that simple space where there was no one, another elf appeared, with dark hair and a wide smile. Unlike the light-haired elf Lance, who had a more innocent and mature face, the dark-haired one had a more playful and cheeky expression.
"I just wanted to see how you were doing since I didn't take orders. Is there a problem, Alea?" The dark haired elf said, smiling.
"But you might end up taking orders while I'm gone." The light-haired one retorted, making the dark-haired one sigh and the smile instantly disappear.
"I know. It's just... You know how weird these abnormal dungeon recon missions are getting. I mean, Thunderlord came back from his last mission after a whole week with no response, and he doesn't even mention what happened there to us. But I hear there have been some casualties on his team." Aya said, worried about her colleague.
"Don't worry... I was assigned to investigate a A-Class Dungeon. And the people assigned to work with me are all comparable to A-Class adventurers, besides having worked together for some time, that is, they know the flaws of each and how to overcome them." Alea said, trying to calm her friend down and smiling at her, but before she finally made it through the portal, someone else appeared.
At the end of the corridor, quick footsteps could be heard and soon it was noticed the existence of a plushie-like person running towards the portal area, or at least it looked like a plushie. It was actually Lance Ohmwrecker, she was so small, looking so adorable to hug and not so muscular, that if it weren't for the shape of her ears, everyone would think she was a human child, not a adult dwarf.
"Oh! Hello Elf Lances! Mica is curious to know where you are going." She said in her classic way, she looked like she was holding a parchment in one hand, like Alea.
"Oh... Good morning. I was going on a mission in Beast Glades... And this one was just watching me and WILL STAY HERE." Alea answered the dwarf, while looking at Aya, who was sighing again in defeat.
"Oh! Mica understands. Mica has an important mission to do too. Deliver papers!" She said excitedly raising her hand that was holding the parchment which was tightly rolled up, but clearly had a lot in it since it was dense.
"Are they using you as a deliver girl again?... My god, I don't know how many times my leader complained about the Greysunders using you most of the time just for that, after all you're an excellent Gravity Mage." Aya commented, making Mica jump a lot.
"Mica doesn't like that either. Mica prefers exploration missions!" The dwarf said in a cute way while complaining, but then stopped and walked to a portal. The guard in front of that portal had already given space for her to enter. "See you later! Mica wishes you good luck!"
"Good luck for you too." Alea said as the dwarf entered the portal, she also didn't take long to enter the portal in front of her.
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[Alea Triscan POV]
Passing through the portal, I ended up coming across a simple and neat landscape of a mini camp around, with most of the snow that covered the ground already removed from the surroundings so as not to disturb the locomotion of people there. That was one of the private portals of the Council, it was made that way so that it wouldn't draw the attention of common adventurers when a Lance needed to go to Beast Glades more discreetly, without flying.
I was greeted by two guards who soon took me to a small makeshift hut built next to the portal. Inside there were only chairs and tables, it seemed to function as both a cafeteria and a meeting room for the guards who had to stay here at all times.
"So Lance Aureate, where are you going with your team?" Asked one of the guards as he took a map that was focused only on the region we were in, but was semi-detailed, with locations of all dungeons discovered so far.
"Oh... Here it is." I handed him the scroll I carried. The head guard soon opened it and started reading while his colleague was arranging some things on the walls.
"Yes... yes... I see... You were ordered to look at the situation of Hell's Jaw. This dungeon is an A-Class and is located...." The head guard said while looking for that dungeon on the map, but soon pointed at a symbol of fire that was there. "Here. That's a few hours' walk east of where we are. With carriage we can cut half time for this, as this dungeon still has too many trees around it, preventing us from passing freely with horses."
"Some way for me to make sure I got to the right place?" I asked as I watched the other guard leave the cabin.
"Well, the entrance to Hell's Jaw is surrounded by 3 things... A circle of dense trees.. then a slightly rocky terrain.. And finally, at the door of the dungeon, a kind of small stream of magma. It's a fire dungeon, and rumor has it that the dungeon entrance itself was actually the mouth of an underground volcano, however, because of nearby dungeons this volcano is now dormant."
"Nearby dungeons you say?... So the other dungeons are also classified as Class A?" I asked curiously, it's rare to have comments about a dungeon being connected in some way with others.
"Actually both neighboring dungeons are classified as Class D, that's because their environment is completely different from Hell's Jaw. So mana beasts from the dungeon you're going to, can't survive for long in the others, even though I said that these nearby dungeons affect Hell's Jaw. It's actually just a matter of temperature. We only found out that they are together after maps of the 3 were created, but there are no rooms that integrate them." He said, closing the map.
"Because of that, it's not common knowledge that these dungeons are so near one of other, only adventurers who are experts in exploration or those who love to collect maps know this. And since there's no way for mana beasts from one to interfere with the others, there's no problem to leave this information as common." He continued talking and put the map into a drawer.
"I see..." I sighed, already imagining what my little exploration in the dungeon the Council wanted me to be would be like. I was only going there because of my mana sensitivity, if it weren't for that, I would never have been ordered to enter, after all I'm a Plant Mage, and this dungeon is extremely focused on the fire element.
"Lance Aureate, the people are ready to go with you!" A guard spoke as he entered the hut and I said goodbye to the head guard.
Walking outside the camp again, I saw a group of about 14 people. Everyone wore white uniforms with a few stripes of varying colors, each color identified the element of each mage, it was an excellent design idea. It was made like this so that in the midst of fights, even not knowing the ally, know who to call to help.
Upon seeing me, they all bowed slightly to me as one of them handed me a set of 3 papers, on them was information about the team I would be working with. There were names and pictures and magical specialties.
"Hello everyone, today we will be heading towards a dungeon related to earth and fire, but mostly fire! It is classified as an A-Class Dungeon. So I want everyone to be very attentive. Understood?"
"Yes, ma'am!"
"Fine, let's start heading there now. I hope everyone has the items in the backpacks or dimensional rings." I said, starting our journey towards the east of the camp.
We walked for some time until we found a dirt path. We continued heading east, following that path until there was a dense cluster of trees nearby.
"Looks like we're really on the right track. So there's no problem, hold on to it." I said as I did a plant spell, creating a sort of flowering stem that looked a lot like a rope.
One of the ends of that stem was tied around my waist, while my group held on to other parts. That way I started to fly a little above the level of the trees so I could see the situation. I didn't even need to fly that much and I already started to see what looked like a rocky terrain behind the trees.
I was floating up there, guiding the people I was with, occasionally using my sensory magic to identify nearby dangers, but luckily, there were only small mana beasts that used the branches of the trees as a home. Moving towards me, feeling my natural rope being always pulled by the mages below, who seemed to be having difficulty moving through the dense forest, compared to me being above.
It took long minutes before everyone was able to pass through the various trees on our way, revealing a clearing with very rocky ground, which extended around 30 meters in radius, with a small magma pit and, finally, a rocky entrance to the dungeon we were going to enter.
The appearance of the entrance was simple, if it weren't for the fact that there were several skewers, raw tree trunks, stuck into the top of it, seeming to create a crown on that mound that was at most 4 meters high. There was a small path of white stones that went from one side of the clearing to the entrance, demonstrating how this dungeon had been found before and that normally adventurers came from the south and not from the west, as is my case.
"Okay, guys, I know it's nice to have some down time after a hike like this. But we've been ordered to see the full situation of the dungeon. Which means our temporary camp will be made inside." I warned them as I used some of my plant magic on the grass around us to force it to grow and give me a sort of chair where I could sit and review my information.
I finally read the list of my group on this expedition. I could see that everyone was on the Yellow Light Stage in their cores. In addition, the vast majority had an affinity with fire and/or earth. The nature of this dungeon really made water and wind mages suffer a lot, due to the lack of ambient mana of their elements.
Even so, there were 4 fire mages, all of them humans; 4 earth mages, some being humans and other dwarfs; 2 magma mages, obviously dwarfs; a water mage and a wind mage, both elves; and... Finally... a human healer.
It was interesting to see one of the rules, which the councilmen created, put into practice. The rule that whenever a team was assigned to a Lance, it must have at least one mage of each race.
I could see the two magma mages approaching me. They were around 1.54 meters tall, a little taller than my colleague, Mica, in addition to seeming to carry very heavy weapons, one hold a warhammer and the other had leather gauntlets and a great axe on his back.
"Lance Aureate, it is an honor to have you as our leader in this expedition that we will be doing." Said one of them.
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"Yes, we'll see if the concerns the adventurers are having are real or just rumors. Anyway, when we go in there, we need to be very careful, okay?" I told one of them.
"Oh! But we've got a Lance with us, and we're all at an advanced level of mana, I don't see how I should be worried, but since you insist on saying that, I'll promise to take every possible precaution!" Said the other dwarf.
"Good to hear that, but why did you come to me?" I asked, curious.
"It's just that we're both the leaders of this group, of course, that's before we're put on a Lance's team." the first said.
"And we wanted to warn you of some things that will be of relevance to you." The other continued.
"And what would be of relevance?" I asked, raising an eyebrow and soon we started talking more in depth about it.
They seem to be mages who care a lot about everyone's well being, as well as knowing each one's strengths and weaknesses, and that's what they came to talk to me about. Normally, humans try to be the leaders of groups and the reason this wasn't true in the group I was assigned was because one of the negative points of most humans that we had here, was that they don't like to take the initiative, for fear of causing more problems than solving them.
Another thing reported was in relation to the type of attack and equipment that everyone had. They all seemed to be great at melee attacks, but only a few that were excellent at ranged attacks, those few being all conjurers and two augmenters that carried bows and crossbows with them.
After this conversation with them and a few more minutes of rest, I got up, approaching the others, who seemed to be talking and polishing their equipment. With my presence there, everyone stopped and stared at me, waiting for me to say something.
"Rest time is over, guys. Let's enter this Dungeon now, be ready!" I ordered as I walked towards the entrance of the dungeon, followed by some of the mages who were already ready.
Another thing they did during that little break was put on their armor. They were simple things that didn't interfere with movement, but still protected a lot of vital areas. I also had something similar, but it was much more resistant material and, unlike them, I didn't have a helmet, instead, I had a kind of tiara that had a magic stone of protection.
The entrance to the dungeon was quite steep, forcing all of us to use a vertical ladder that was there to go down, it was imbued in the wall, made of stone and with leather coverings already quite worn. Arriving on the first floor, I waited for everyone to arrive until we started walking, but what we found was unexpected.
"How strange, normally the first floor already has a lot of mana beasts, no?" One of the elves in our group asked as we walked around the first floor.
It was a rocky cave with the appearance of volcanic stones, the light there came from red crystals that seemed to be powered by the lava that passed through the walls. One of the reasons this dungeon was called Hells' Jaw, in addition to the elemental typing, was the mana beasts, they were all mana beasts that attack with bites and external fangs, most being B/A-Class.
But there we didn't see any mana beasts on the first floor, this was incredibly unusual and made us very alert.
"Yes, we were supposed to be attacked by at least some mana beast like the FireTrolls." One of the magma mages responded as he slammed his warhammer into the ground, causing the item to be coated in magma, and even with that sound and impact, no sign of mana beasts nearby.
"This is very bizarre... I'll be focused on sensory magic the entire time, so I want everyone to be on the lookout for any sign I give, even if it's sudden!" I ordered and everyone nodded, now shifting positions, where I stood in the center with the magma mages, Conjurers and LongRanged Augmenters close behind us and the other mages on the edge.
We walked to an area, where we went down to the second floor, until we saw thick drops of magma dripping from the ceiling and falling to the floor. As if between the floors there was a great concentration of magma flowing.
"How strange..." One of the magma mages said, while focusing on those thick magma blobs scattered on the ground. "I can't feel them, it's like they're not even magma."
Everyone looked at him confused and soon I tried to analyze that thing using my sensory magic, but what I saw made me go into shock for a few seconds, until I answered the group what I did, luckily they didn't seem to realize that I was shocked.
"That's not magma... I mean... It's not elemental magma. It's some sort of magma slime." When I said that, everyone stared at the large amount that was on the floor.
"Are you telling me that this floor is covered in slimes?!?" One of the human mages exclaimed.
"No, slimes of any kind at least stay in a shape with more circumference than that when they're standing still. It's like they're flaccid... As if—"
"As if they're dead?" I interrupted the dwarf mage who had started to speak, and he nodded.
"So this floor is covered in dead gelatinous mana beasts? Is this serious...?" One of the human mages said, as he began to use his earth affinity to create a safe path for us to walk.
"The situation is more extreme than we thought... There was none of that in the reports..." I thought a little while looking at those slime corpses.
We walked along the narrow path that he and the other 3 earth mages were creating for us. It was much safer for us to do that than walking normally around the floor, after all, even those slimes being dead, their bodies still passively expel a very high temperature, which could cause a third degree burn with a simple touch.
"What are the mana beasts found in this dungeon?" the water mage asked.
"According to reports over the years, the mana beasts here have always been magma slimes, FireTrolls, Fire Serpents and Ignilizards." One of the magma mages answered the elf and we continue to walk in that earth way.
"And the FireTrolls are always on the first floor and rarely go to floors below... And the magma smiles are found on floors 5 and 6. So... something is really wrong." The other magma mage commented.
"Something changed the ecosystem of this dungeon..." I could hear our wind mage whispering to himself.
We continued to walk through the dungeon, all the mana beasts we found were dead and others missing. We weren't in any danger, so to speak, but still that made me sick, it was as if the world was showing me signs that it was better to get out of here, but my orders were to make that expedition and, due to my condition, my body felt that I should follow those orders no matter what.
My fears became real when we arrived in the hallway to the boss room of this dungeon, it was strange to say the least, I felt something very strong behind those doors... And there was something that didn't exist before... The doors themselves.
There weren't supposed to be doors in this dungeon... Artificial constructions in dungeons that served to decorate and warn locations were only made in E/D-Class Dungeons, as usually only newbies go there.
"Guys.. Grab your weapons and hold 'em tight" I warned and started to feel whatever was inside moving away from the door.
"Earth Mages! Push the door!" I ordered, and the 4 earth mages stomped on the ground, creating leaning pillars that slammed against the door opening it.
The landscape inside the Boss's room was strange to say the least. While the entire dungeon had magma and lava running through the walls, that room seemed to have undergrowth, a few trees stuck to the rocky walls. In the center was the thing I'd felt before, it was a huge snake with black scales on the tips and a little red on the rest of its body, it had two huge black horns and from the areas between the scales there was a grayish glow.
"What is that?!" One of the Fire mages exclaimed as that snake seemed to spit gray acid in our direction.
My colleagues and I ended up dodging, most took steps to the side, while two took steps back. And that was the worst mistake they should have made.
Even dodging the acid attack, after hitting the ground, it spread a few drops that fell on the armor of one of the mages who walked back, our healer. Not even 2 seconds passed and that drop of acid made his entire armor catch fire, it was a black fire and it didn't seem to emit any heat, but it was burning him, making him scream loudly and fall on top of the puddle of acid that made him burn in a more absurd amount, eventually destroying all of it, leaving only a partially destroyed armor.
I was terrified, not even the poor guy's bones could survive, nothing was left of him. We had just lost our healer in the first moment of real danger.
"Guys! Don't let the acid touch you!" the mage who was on the side of the one who just died, a dwarf, screamed and started running into the boss room.
"Are you crazy?! He doesn't think about running away?!" One of the humans exclaimed in great fear of that.
"Our goal was just to see the situation in the dungeon! We've already seen that here is chaos!" another human exclaimed as well.
I just sighed, even though the order given officially was to explore the dungeon, the order given directly to me was to explore and destroy anything strange and then report back. In other words, the artifact inside my mana core was preventing me from physically escaping until the entire anomaly was destroyed.
"We'd better destroy this thing! Possibly some anomalous evolution happened to that mana beast, and if that's what caused the entire dungeon to be modified, it means this thing can get out of its nest and go to other floors!" I exclaimed and raised my hand, holding my sword, I could hear all the humans swallowing hard in fear of it, while the dwarves and elves looked determined and walked into the boss room with me.
"I want all the Conjurers away launching attacks from afar! Augmenters, I want you to attack from the opposite sides of which the Conjurers hit the creature!" I exclaimed as I plunged my sword into the grass of that arena, connecting my plant magic with the surrounding vegetation.
The only two elves besides me stood close, protecting my body as the earth mages began to cast their spells. The magma mages started running around the serpent, while augmenting their weapons.
"Wind Dome!"
"Water Shield!"
The elves did the spells to protect me, while I connected more and more with the vegetation around me. And it was good that they did that, because the serpent spat that acid towards me, the two elements seemed to make that acid not reach me, but the shields needed to be undone soon, otherwise the mages who conjured them would be affected by the fire that would come soon after.
"Earth Shooter!"
The earth mages started to launch projectiles made of rocks from the nearby walls, some hit the snake and others just distracted it, leaving it confused. In addition to leaving the situation favorable for the magma mages.
"Wonderful Magma!" The magma dwarves shouted their spells, causing their equipment to be protected by magma, in addition to them turning around, attacking the mana beast in different directions. The one with a warhammer smashed its tail, while the one with a great axe tried to slash its scales, but didnt work.
I looked back, seeing the fire mages still panicking, so I just screamed. "COME NOW!" This seemed to wake up the humans who started running into the Boss room, they were all Augmenters and were carrying patterned swords and shields.
"Protect the Conjurers!" I exclaimed and then went back to concentrating on the plants around me.
My high concentration made me not look too much at the arena and just feel the grass and trees that existed there. Even so, I felt the heat and impact of the shields that were protecting me.
I strained a little of my white core to feel every inch of the leaves on the trees, bushes, and grass in the arena. I took a very deep breath, feeling my body sweat enough to achieve complete concentration and slowly open my eyes.
The magma mages continued to firmly hit the serpent, the earth mages continued to shoot projectiles, and the fire mages seemed to be creating shields of fire to protect the earth mages from the acid attacks of the mana beast. Beside me I saw the two elves who were in this group well before me, they were panting, possibly because they were spending a lot of mana protecting me.
But they wouldn't need to protect me anymore, I had a plan. "Half of you, hit mana beast's left and the other half try to hit its right eye!!!" I exclaimed and watched the situation unfold.
Stone projectiles tried to push the mana beast to the left and also hit its right eye, the magma mage with a warhammer hit hard on the mana beast's left, and the one who had a great axe was now waiting for the right moment.
And I was going to give him that moment, and I did that by pulling my sword out of the grass and swinging it in a single direction, screaming my spell.
"Great Rose Domain! Wood Smasher!"
The tree to the left of mana beast extended with absurd speed, following the movement I made with my sword. The wood of the tree slammed into our enemy, making its face close to the dwarf with the great axe.
"Magma Lunge!" He shouted his spell, driving his great axe into our enemy's eye. A black liquid, which I think was blood, began to spurt out of his eye, with the axe still in it.
The creature screamed and moved a lot, struggling trying to get the item out of there, but some nearby earth conjurers threw stones at the item, making it dig deeper into the snake's head and stopping it. Possibly causing it to be brain dead as it crashes to the ground.
We were all panting, it was a miracle that, against a mana beast of that type, we managed to attack quickly, with only one person dead in our group. However, it was an intense casualty, as he was our healer.
Luckily, I looked to the side and saw that everyone seemed to have elixirs to fill some of their mana cores. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten mine, thanks to Aya pissing me off as usual. But one of the dwarves offered me half of his elixir, after seeing that I was panting and hadn't taken anything to replenish my mana.
"Well.. We'll have a lot to write in the report, I guess..." One of the mages said as he looked at the mana beast's corpse, which seemed to dissolve in the acid itself.
With that I realized two things, the first was that we wouldn't be able to get its mana core, and the second was that that dwarf's great axe wasn't available anymore. And we could see his face upset that he'd lost his main weapon.
"I agree..." I sighed, finishing off the elixir I was handed, but my pensive period ended when I heard a sound.
In the direction of the sound, it was the wind mage. "Guys! I found something!" he exclaimed and we headed towards him, it looked like he found a hole in the wall.
"And...?" I asked myself and used sensory magic, I could feel that there was a big space on the other side of the wall. "Hm.... Earth mages! Can you break this?"
Upon my question, two of them approached me and raised their hands, reciting a silent spell and slowly the wall cracked, revealing a room much larger than the arena we were in.
And where everything would change.