Incrad had only been captured by the slavers recently, but already the mana draining collar was draining away at his very soul. He had thought that with enough mana he’d be able to use his skills or abilities and shatter the metal collar, but the moment he had tried it had drained his mana before he could hope to use it.
That had been a week ago, he had tried to break his collar twice more before giving up, what little mana he had left wasn’t worth wasting. Even if the collar would drain him ito a husk eventually, trying for a third time would only kill him sooner.
And it wasn’t like he’d be strong enough to escape even if by some miracle he’d managed to break the collar, he was an orc and a strong one at that. But without his mana to enhance his muscles he felt like he could barely lift his limbs on a good day, much less actually run.
That hadn’t stopped the slavers from finally putting him to work with a bunch of other slaves. He had tried to talk to them, but they had been wearing the shackles far longer than he, and most of them just blinked blearily at him. They could talk and think, but they had no will.
He’d end up like that in just a few months, a barely living husk that just did what it was told.
Still the slavers had given him a rusty shovel and told him to go harvest something with mana in it, even if the creatures hungered for mana they couldn’t actually track it, that was the only reason he was alive, just a tool they would use to sniff out mana.
He looked at the rest of the slaves, each of them staring at him with blank eyes, even the elf, the pinnacle of mortal races, fared no better, intelligent eyes now lacking that spark of life. At least orcs and humans could build muscle to strengthen themselves, without mana an elf was practically helpless.
They had left the slavers outpost a few hours ago, heading straight away. Anything with mana around it would have already been found and consumed anyway. And if he wanted to actually get food he would need to find something to bring back.
It was as he was walking into some plains that his nose picked up a trail of mana, far richer than it should have been so far into the slavers' lands. The other slaves felt it too, and rushed past him oblivious to anything but that trail of mana.
He just kept up a steady jog behind the others, something with that much mana so close was almost certainly strong, and he didn’t want to be the first to encounter it. A few smaller creatures in the plains had some smaller scraps of mana, almost enough to be called monsters, and if the other presence hadn’t been drawing them in Incrad imagined the other slaves would have just grabbed a few of the rabbits to bring back, it would be enough for at least a day of meals.
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But that mana source ahead was in a different league altogether, something like that might even get their shackles removed for a few days, so all of them charged past with rusty weapons and tools in hand.
Incrad thought that was rather stupid of them, he’d heard the same speech and didn’t believe it for a second. And even with the shackles of there wasn’t any mana left in the slaver outpost to actually get.
The whole group stopped once the sources of the mana actually came into view, it was a dungeon entrance. Literally everything in there was made out of mana, all the monsters, creatures and walls. Even just reporting a dungeon could get you fed for a month, the whole group even.
The shock actually caused the elf to speak, her voice raspy from disuse “A Dungeon? Here?”
She was right to question it, dungeons rarely formed anymore, and there hadn’t been an active dungeon in slaver territory for at least a hundred years, the slavers had long since purged them from their land.
Incrad knew why, he had come from one of the few places with a dungeon after all, the dungeons and the slavers were at war, and the dungeons were losing. He had grown up and joined the fight with the dungeon of dragons, the ninety floor dungeon, and he had met the slavers in battle after battle. And he had watched as the dungeons territory shrunk, the unending waves of monsters not being enough.
Eventually after a rout he had been captured, and ended up here in front of another, younger dungeon.
It had to be a sign, and Incrad knew what he had to do. He spoke up to the group of slaves, who were still staring dumfounded at the dungeon, they hadn’t even noticed the tracks around the dungeons entrance, and hadn’t even considered that meant monsters could currently be surrounding them, but that only helped his plan. “We should investigate, at least see how many floors it has. If they'll reward us so much for just finding it they’ll definitely give us more if we bring back even more information.” the slavers definitely wouldn’t, they were far more likely to punish them for not bringing the information back right away, but Incrad had no plans for this information to make it back to the slavers in the first place.
The other slaves were too blinded by greed, hope, or hopelessness to realize that though, and they nodded. Only a few of the slaves looked unsure about it, the elf and one of the humans. They had likely seen a dungeon before then, and knew how dangerous they could be. That could be a bit problematic.
Still the group started walking towards the dungeon, its entrance just a set of stone stairs and an old archway. He had the brief thought that the stairs were rather wide for such a young dungeon, but the thought passed quickly. It wasn’t like Incrad had ever seen a young dungeon before.