Jorn

Jameson and Ragnar led the group down the incline. From the center of the group, Jorn could see the shift in mana density and composition using his ability.  Behind him he knew that Liam would be using a similar skill to observe the plant life for any unusually high mana concentrations that indicated a plant-monster and Pak was still playing his  tune, to keep the group calm and observant. 

The incline was relatively steep, most likely because there was not a lot of room within the hill to descend before exiting like there would be in a mountain, and after walking about 35m he estimated they'd descended 30m or so. It was not a very pleasant decline, and they'd probably look into building a staircase to ease the footing.The tunnel opened into a large room, about 10 meters wide and long rounded and 4 meters high, with ores veins along the walls. Thanks to the warning from the fidgety human Jeremy, the group was able to quickly locate and dispatch the enlarged spiders. 

All in all, the room looked like many starter rooms for dungeons. The dungeons instinctively knew to lure in the less powerful sapients like miners and resource gathers with these resource rooms and placed weak monsters to lure in those who would be trying to achieve their first elevation as well. After prospecting the veins and identifying them as average quality copper and tin veins the group moved on. They'd only received 3 copper Deci from the colony of spiders that they'd killed, but that was about normal. Dungeon's did not award powerful groups for farming their beginning rooms, that would chase away all the new comers more likely to die. 

"It's not too bad really, but I hope the dungeon has something more challenging than bugs. I'm still looking for a second beast to tame you know." Ragnar voiced what most of the party was thinking of the loot. When you considered the effort required to kill the spiders, the dungeon was more than generous in any case.

The party continued through the winding tunnels of the first floor stopping frequently to detect traps and mark them down on the map. Along with being a bard, Pak had also spent time learning basic cartography making to complement his skill set. They encounter two more rooms with pit traps and falling stalactites, as well as large bats and more spiders to fight. Ragnar spent a fair amount of time inspecting one of the bat's corpses before slowly shaking his head and stowing it in his bag. 

"They won't do any good as a companion, but at least they might taste better than rat."

Once again Jorn found himself feeling very underwhelmed by the dungeon thus far. It was just bugs and bats and very simple traps. Hopefully he could sell the idea of a training dungeon off to the guild master, but the meager loot would not justify having his entire party stationed here when they could be off earning the guild more elsewhere. 

Continuing the trek through the never-ending tunnel system they started to notice fungus growing along the walls. At first glance it looked edible, but you could never be too sure in a dungeon so Jorn had Pak make a note of it, they'd gather some on the way out.  Finally, they happened along one of the water holes that Jeremy had mentioned. It was part of the recon team's job to evaluate traps, which unfortunately usually meant triggering them.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"Who is feeling up for a swim?" Pak elbowed the little druid who just rolled his eyes and gave the satyr a shove. When it was time to test random traps, it was usually the humans who volunteered. 

"Give me a light Pak, I can’t see much down there." The group had finally found one of the water pits Jeremy had spoken about. As was tradition, a coin flip between the paladin and beastmaster dictated who was going to be the unlucky soul who got the privilege of testing the trap. As expected Ragnar was taking off most of his leathers to make movement easier and had Liam on standby to heal. Pak played a quick 10 second tune on his pipes and a small ball of light appeared, which he attached to Ragnar's hand. With a quick comment about how bullshit flipping a coin against a paladin of fortune was, Ragnar dived in and quickly disappearing as both he and the light rounded a bend underwater.

After about 3 minutes of waiting the group caught sight of their beastmaster again.

"Fuck!" He surfaced amongst the bubbles and a fair amount of red water. Jameson and Jorn helped him back up, which gave them a close up view of the gash along his back. 

"" Liam got to work right away, borrowing life energies and mana from the fungal life in the tunnel walls around him to accelerate tissue growth. The beastmaster explained the trap to them and his tissue knitted itself back together in front of their eyes.

"It’s a really easy and short swim albeit maybe a little tight, maybe 30 seconds until you resurface into a small cave on the other side. There was a small chest and no obvious traps in the room. I spent a minute making sure it wasn’t a mimic or trapped, then I pried it open easy enough." He tossed a small bag with 4 full copper coins in it to Jorn. "If it weren't for Pak's light working underwater, I would have been a lot more injured. The rocks in the underwater tunnel are grooved and sharpened to maim on the way back through."

"It's a bit crude, but I can see how that particular trap could be very effective." 

The druid finished mending Ragnar and after a moment for him to get regeared, they moved on. There were four more of the water pits which the group decided to loot. Once you knew the danger, as long as you had a magelight there wasn't too much risk. In the fifth pit they found something other than coins, 3 average quality copper throwing knives. Nobody in their group used that type of weapon, but they'd probably go for a decent amount if and when the adventurers started flocking. 

"All right guys, we should be coming up on the final room. Do not make any moves against the core, we all know better than that. I am just going to observe the gem-type and shape, so the guild can catalog it." There was no reason to remind the party, but Jameson did it anyways. It never hurt to be too careful in a dungeon.

Instead of a room with the gem embedded into the far wall, the group walked into a large room coated in different kinds of fungus and mosses. In the middle of the plant coated wall there was an archway that seemingly led to the next floor. The group took a break here to collect plant samples to deconstruct later while Pak updated the map he had been sketching of the first floor thus far. 

"Thank goodness. So far, the dungeon was painfully average and the only thing that stood out was the forest above us. If it already has a second floor though that means it grows faster than usual, and the guild will be interested in it after all."

"It shouldn't be that much of a surprise Jorn, your lover girl told you the dungeon had already killed two humans. It is probably just a windfall from them. What the void, even the third human might have died close enough for the dungeon to absorb it."

As much as Liam had a point, sometimes Jorn wished he wouldn't be so pessimistic. The Greensong clan really needed this to work out. The tensions with the high elves on the western border were growing as well as the new King cracking down on what he called lesser-races, pretty much anything that wasn't human. His small clan would not survive a war if they stayed with the guild taking minor contracts, and he wouldn't put it past the king to draft them all into his army. 

So long as he could convince the guild master that this dungeon was worth looking after, he would be able to secure his clan a future far from the capital, and far from the armies.