“Come on, come on. You know you want to go down. Explore the secrets of the second floor. Imagine all the great treasures you could find.” Breck was talking to no one in particular but referring to a group of travelers who had just defeated Sting.

The group was making remarkable time clearing the dungeon, but that didn’t surprise anyone. The average rank of its members is beginner eight, their leader being basic rank two. As the group debated on proceeding, Breck readied the boneless tribe.

“Kezdet! Get some of the tribe into each of the rooms. Make sure they take some coins with them from the vault. I want only one silver on each kobold, but the mage boss can take four or five silver. Feel free to have them grab whatever weapons they want.”

“Yesss massster. I will sssend them up immediately.” Kezdet stood and shouted orders to nearby kobolds.

Several groups of the enhanced creatures flooded into the vault connecting their living quarters to the second floor of the dungeon. The vault’s walls were full of swords, spears, bows, arrows, leather armor and some pieces of chain mail. In the center of the room was a large circular table with stacks of neatly placed silver coins. Originally Breck added some higher quality staffs for the mages but they refused to use them stating something about needing to find and make their own staffs as part of their craft.

When all the groups were stocked up and equipped, they headed into the dungeon. A group of four filled the first few rooms and a mage, being escorted by three chain mail shirt wearing warriors, entered the boss room.

Breck grinned devilishly when the party started descending deeper into his depths.

“Kezdet, Jeeves, were a go! Get ready for some fun and excitement. Let’s see what the Boneless Tribe can do!”

“Yes, Sir. I will be watching closely.”

“The Bonelessss tribe will not disssappoint you massster. Let usss show you are power. I have faith in usss.”

“So do I Kezdet. I have faith in all of you and I can’t wait to see you all in action against adventurers. Hey, Jeeves?”

“Yes, Sir?”

“Should I leave the exit open for them and just shut the first floor entrance that it connects to?” Breck questioned.

“That is probably for the best. We don’t want to trap them down here or they may think of the dungeon as unfair.”

Breck mentally nodded and removed the door closing off the second floor from the staircase leading outside. Let’s put on a bit of a show. This is the first time we will introduce the world to the Boneless Tribe after all. Generating some wood, he placed them around the walls and ignited them with fire essence. The room was now well lit as the group of four kobolds waited in the room's center.

They were all wearing leather tunics and leggings. Two of them were wielding swords, one had a long spear, and the forth carried a bow with a quiver of arrows. As the four adventurers made their way into the room, they paused in shock at the scene in front of them.

“What the hell are those?” Their leader questioned. “They kinda resemble kobolds but I’ve never seen a kobold that tall. Even chieftain kobolds are only three feet at best. Those are taller than dwarves.”

“And look at their skin. I’ve never seen a cream-green kobold. Not to mention one with teeth and claws as long and sharp as those.” Another member commented.

“They must be dungeon created kobolds or something. I mean… look at them. Those are not normal.” Their mage commented.

“I don’t care what they are or what they look like. I bet they bleed like everything else.” The leader readied himself for battle.

The group followed suit and made their move. Their leader charged forward, thrusting his spear out at the closet kobold. The creature dodged to the side and retaliated with a downward strike of the sword he was wielding. The man was battle trained and pivoted on his heel to escape the blow. Unfortunately, he pivoted right into an arrow from the kobold carrying a bow.

The arrow sunk in with a heavy thud. The remaining kobolds swiftly moved in to finish the man off, but his party was there to defend him. A bolt of green energy sent a kobold soaring into the wall. His flesh was eating itself from the point of impact. He screamed in pain and tore at the wound, but they cut his screams short when a warrior removed his head from his body.

Distracted by finishing off his opponent, the warrior missed the kobold sneaking up behind him. A sword pierced his stomach and poked out the other side. The man spun and delivered a jab to kobold’s chin, dazing him. Before he could follow-up with another strike, an arrow sank into his shoulder.

“Kezdet. They’re working great as a team. Defending each other, capitalizing on their enemy's openings, really working as a cohesive unit. They’re fighting on a whole different level then anything on the first floor.” Breck praised his tribe’s chieftain.

“Thatsss excellent massster. I’m glad you are pleasssed. We fight for you.”

Breck mentally nodded and returned his full attention to the battle. Three of the kobolds were now dead, with the remaining one ripping apart the adventurer’s mage with his teeth and claws. The other three party members were all wounded, with arrows or cuts covering their bodies.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

As admirable as the remaining kobold was, fighting to his last breath, this fight was over. The three melee warriors swiftly finished him. Checking on their fallen mage, the party grimaced. Breck was already collecting the dead man's essence.

The group grabbed the coins from the dead kobolds, which temporarily brightened their mood. Breck wished they would continue, but they were in no shape to fight and the group agreed with his assessment. They limped to the staircase and headed for the surface.

“Hey, I’ll take it. That was an excellent first run for the second floor and now I’m full of essence. Jeeves, I think I’m ready to rank up into the intermediate levels. I’m not sure I could take much more essence.”

“Let me check, Sir.” Jeeves’s golem entered their room and climbed down to where Breck’s opal was located. He placed a hand against it and reviewed its surface. “It does appear you are at near full capacity, Sir. And you don’t have many imperfections left on your surface.”

“That’s great! Soooo… how do I do this?”

“That’s a brilliant question.”

There was a long, somewhat awkward, pause.

“Jeeves. I’ve told you many times before, when I pose a question, I except you to answer and not need me to ask twice.”

“I remember, Sir, but I’m afraid I don’t have a great answer. My database doesn’t point to a straightforward answer. In theory, you need to condense your essence, while perfecting your opal and making a breakthrough with your essence type. Those are the methods you’ve used to make it this far, so it’s likely how you will advance.”

“Likely how?”

“I wasn’t exactly given a manual. This is the best information I can provide at this time. I’m sorry, Sir.”

Breck sighed. I should take it easy on him. He’s doing the best he can and in a short few months I’m ready to hit the intermediate ranks. I should be transcended by the end of the first year at this rate. Haha. I guess I need to start condensing all this essence, but that’s soooo boring.

Breck looked around to distract himself and found a familiar face. One of the few people to delve into the dungeon for a second time and he brought another familiar face from the first group to ever enter his depths. The skinny homeless looking man and the youthful women with the massive pack. What was her name again… Was it, Thao? Might as well watch them while I condense essence.

“Wait a second.” Zach held the group up. “Weren’t we supposed to take Dustin down here? Did he ever end up showing up to the shantytown?” We really need a new name. That's going to the top of the to-do list.

“He showed up as expected but after seeing you and Droknal in such a state, he started studying the dungeon on his own. He hasn’t gone in yet, just collecting a lot of samples from the surface and bringing them back to his field lab.” Thao answered.

“Field lab?”

“Yeah, he set up a big tent to study the dungeon. It’s on the opposite side of the market. I could go get him if you want.”

Zach shook his head. “I’m still a bit sore. It’s probably best not to take him down here until were all at full strength. Its hard enough to survive down here without having to worry about a non-combatant. We can bring him some of the corpses to study.”

“Zach is right >>click<<. We need to heal ourselves before worrying about others. Shall we get started now >>click<

The group proceeding into the dungeon for the delve. The first room didn’t offer much resistance, especially with the addition of Thao tossing them potions and items when needed. After slaying all the beetles, they strapped one of the corpses to Thao’s bag and moved on.

The spiders proved to be more of a challenge for them, but Droknal was able to use his fire essence to clean up the room. Zach, Thao, and even Droknal, took some damage from the monsters, but none of them were out for the count. When the spiders were slain, they collected and divided up the loot, happy with their spoils. It wasn’t until they reached Sting did they stop.

Breck was focused on condensing his essence and couldn’t spare enough attention to take control of his boss. It was one thing to view them fighting, but taking control of Sting would take all of his attention. Because of this, Sting was just hovering in the center of the room waiting for them.

“That’s one large bee.” Zach pointed at Sting.

“That appears to be a wasp >>click<<.”

“Bee, wasp does it matter? There is a giant… thirteen foot monster in front of us. The dust in the room is being blown out by the sheer force of its wings.”

“Are we going in?” Thao sheepishly asked.

Zach looked at her like she was speaking in tongues. “Are you nuts? Sure, we made it this far but I’m running on empty here and I still have pain all over my sides. Let’s get topside, give the spider and beetle corpses to Dustin and get some food. We can tackle this… this thing when we fill up our party.” Droknal stated at Zach in shock. “What?”

“You have grown in the past weeks >>click<<. Normally you would be pushing us to continue.”

“What can I say? When a homicidal, evil, crazy woman almost ends your life, you gain a little perspective. I’m not ready to die. Believe it or not, I do have some dreams I want to see come true.”

Thao laughed. “You would have some dreams seeing that you spent the last few days passed out on your cot.”

“Well… that spoiled my pleasant mood.” Everyone chuckled and headed back through the dungeon toward the exit.

“Hey Droknal. Do you want to change your robes? I brought some spares. You have a lot of holes in your current one and someone might notice you.” Thao opened her pack and rummaged through it.

“That would be sublime >>click<<.” Droknal removed his robe and handed it to Thao.

It was the first time he hadn’t worn his robe in several days, so he stretched a bit before dawning the new clothing Thao handed him. As soon as Breck got a glimpse of him, his mental mouth watered.

“JEEVES! JEEVES! LOOK!” Breck pointed Droknal out. “I need it! Don’t get me wrong, the Boneless Tribe is amazing, but look. That’s a fully humanoid creature with no bones. I could create an entire new floor of those. Hell, unlike the kobolds, I could feed the patten with essence and create any rank of them I want. I could even change them to create sub-races and modified monsters. I have to wait for the kobolds to give birth to replenish their ranks. I need to have that pattern, Jeeves.”

“Calm down, Sir. I agree that you should absorb that pattern, but I can’t read the creature’s rank. They must be higher than you, so I doubt you could kill them. Besides, you can’t just randomly kill an adventurer. You have to let them make their own mistakes and this group seems to be taking things easy and safe.”

“Shit, you’re right. Well, every time they enter the dungeon I’m going to control the monsters to increase their chances. Whatever it takes, I will kill that humanoid bug and take its pattern. He, or she, or whatever, just became my number one target. I will focus on ranking up for now, but if you see any member of that group enter the dungeon, you let me know. Aside from ranking up, they are my number one priority. Is that clear?”

Jeeves nodded. “Yes, Sir.”

“Good. Now to rank up.”