“Every dungeon, if completed in its entirety, may be claimed. Doing so removes all monsters and rewards from being obtained repeatedly and gives the owner near complete control of the environment within. The Delver's Guild and its members have sworn to never claim a dungeon for any reason and those who do so may be penalized with outright dismissal. Every powerful dungeon is a tool for forging weapons, and we will need every last one when another Mega Dungeon like the Vortex appears.”
-Leysara of a Thousand Floors speaking to the Triumvirate leaders
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Far from Earth, there was a planet called Thurmvrel by most except those who could remember its true name. It was a massive desolate rock of a planet with only one desirable resource to its name. The average number of dungeons that had made it their home despite the natives not spending the time to build doors and other kinds of closeable entrances. That was because their society had lived in caves underground and had no need for opening and closing things when the dungeons arrived.
However, because Thurmvrel had no doors its dungeons were very nearly unique compared to all other connected universes. Their dungeons were always open. Normally dungeon exits were closed behind guardians or puzzles meaning that the monsters inside could not escape and had an entrance that could be closed. On Thurmvrel monsters poured from the dungeons, as did their environments. This made the planet a sort of proving ground for the Delver's Guild.
The Delvers Guild was one of the few neutral powers in the connected multiverse. While technically it was a guild and therefore loosely allied with the others it maintained that its purpose was not to intervene in the squabble between the Guilds and the Triumvirate. Its philosophy was clear: all that mattered was gaining power by clearing dungeons. The ruling body of the Delver's guild was filled with all those that had reached a whopping one thousand floors in a single delve. One of the most prominent among them was Leysara and her talks with the Triumvirate had allowed the guild access to some of their new planets filled with nearly untouched dungeons. That had infuriated the rest of the guilds but Leysara had made her move the guild was straddling the divide between Triumvirate and the Coalition of Guilds as they were now called. The neutrality of the guild made them powerful and they acted with that power to seize control of the Thurmvrel system.
The planets circling Thurmvrel only served as jumping points to the only planet in the system that really mattered. Secured by only a few outposts and a handful of veterans, the jumping points were now completely controlled by the Delver's Guild and they made a lot of points selling spots to the rich and powerful of both factions. However, members of the Delver’s Guild could enter into a lottery that would grant access to Thurmvrel.
Demaras wasn’t rich nor was he powerful in any meaningful way. Not many members of the Delver's Guild usually were. Not until a member passed a hundred floors in a single delve, and slew an exit guardian singlehandedly could the title of Hundredfloor Delver be obtained. Dungeons that even had one hundred floors were rare enough, but reaching that floor alone meant endless training, preparation and certainly having a completed guiding path. A feat that Demaras hadn’t accomplished yet for one important reason. His guiding path was extremely long by the standards of the Delver's Guild at a whopping forty points in length.
That was twenty entire floors of delving with each more likely to kill him than the last. Especially with his path selection being so unorthodox, some higher ranking guild members didn’t want him succeeding and inspiring others to take longer and deadlier guiding paths. To push him from the guild they had tried to sabotage him at every turn, denying delving slots, sticking kill stealers in his designated teams, and even extending job offers from other guilds.
A middle management job in the Banking Guild sounded cushy when he slept on rocks because the Basic Comforts were too expensive. The only option that he would’ve considered was Corribaan the Palace of Mages but he had given up on making the cut for that place long ago. But his luck had changed when the lottery winners of the year were announced, he had won a spot to delve on Thurmvrel. The chance to a lifetime to advance his guiding path and possibly even further. Picking up a few more perks and skills sounded nice. So he had trained for an entire year for the delve. His every waking moment was spent researching or training until two days ago when he entered the system for the first time.
Clad in a simple brown cloak to shield against the elements, his gear was hidden from view. Not that being armed was a surprise, but the sheer variety of what he had would turn the heads of even experienced delvers. Two bandoliers of various alchemical mixtures crisscrossed his chest, a small but powerful eight shot arcane cannon hung from his right hip, and a shortsword from his left. Still more gear was hidden inside various pouches lining the inside of his cloak as well as several small knives hidden within his boots, and sleeves. Demaras wasn’t going to Thurmvrel half cocked; he had spent an entire year preparing for this.
It was the culmination of his last gambit on advancing as a delver. Most dungeons were booked out for years, and finding new ones was extraordinarily difficult outside of new universes. Even farming rifts were slim pickings especially with his build. Most people looked at it and always asked the same question.
“Why didn’t you just pick flight?”
Flight was considered the best overall movement skill by most people. It added an extra dimension to fights even if it was expensive as hell when it boiled down to using personal mana for the skill. Even if it annoyed him every time people asked. Demaras still liked feeling unique for his path choices and in times of stress found himself summoning and glancing at his build every few seconds as the teleportation circle filled up.
Guiding Path: Master of Movement (2/40)
Points: 0
Perks: Perfect Footing
Skills: Shadow Jump, Teleportation (20), Flash Step, Mana Webbing
Available Paths: None
Moving fast was the cornerstone of his style, fighting alone meant that he had to be as fast as possible to counter large groups of monsters. Using specialized movement skills he was about to dodge incoming attacks with ease and deliver his own crippling strikes in return from unexpected angles. All he needed was to complete his guiding path, and without access to known dungeons, Thurmvrel was the place to do it.
Stolen story; please report.
When the teleportation circle lit up, he was probably the only one that could tell what was actually happening. His own mana resonated with the ritual as it folded space around them. The ritual consumed more mana in a few seconds than a thousand of his own short ranged teleports. Space itself folded and the ritual protected the group as they moved through the jagged tear in reality. One moment they were standing in the teleportation circle, and the next they were in a matching circle on the surface of Thurmvrel.
Due to its extremely dangerous nature there were no permanent settlements on Thurmvrel. Only a few scattered camps usually dotted the surface were alphas and encroaching dungeon environments battled for territory. So when Demaras stepped off the teleportation circle and onto the planet he smiled despite the hair on the back of his neck starting to rise. The group that he arrived with dispersed immediately, not bothering to take in the sights or even talk as several darted out into the dunes while a few started to unpack tents.
The dungeon environment they had found themselves in was that of a massive desert. Sand dunes stretched on for as far as he could see with absolutely nothing by means of cover besides the few tents that sprung up around the temporary teleportation marker. Despite the lack of cover, he couldn’t spot any monsters roaming the dunes. He would have to proceed with caution. The extreme heat and possibly camouflaged monsters cause him to make a fatal mistake.
Regardless of the danger, he had to find and kill alphas in order to advance his guiding path. There was no way he was hunting for dungeons in this place, and usually only alphas made it to the surface. From his hours of research Demaras knew that large numbers of alphas prowled the surface constantly, and that below the surface a massive war raged constantly in the tunnels. The outcome of which could see a new dungeon environment appearing in moments from anywhere.
Even then Demaras had chosen this path, and he would walk along it until the end. So with a grin on his face despite the sweltering heat, he quickly wove through the camp and out into the dunes. In the shifting sands his only perk showed its worth. Stepping through the sand would’ve been an annoying and exhausting experience for anyone but him because his perk literally gave him perfect footing. He’d never slip unless he wanted to, and not even rocks covered in slick algae would be hard to jump onto. So many people underestimated the importance of being able to move freely. Walking up the steep dunes was nothing more than a long steep staircase to him.
Keeping an eye out for anything out of the ordinary, Demaras carefully chose a meandering path in the opposite direction that he had seen the people in his arrival group go. It didn’t take long for Demaras to spot what was probably an alpha as he crested one of the dunes. The massive scorpion was the same color as the sand which was likely why the person it was feasting on had missed it. While he was on top of the sand dune, the monster was right at the base to keep out of the scorching sun during the day. The monster was at least three times his height and four to five times as long, and on its back were thousands of smaller scorpions. He froze and crouched slowly not wanting to be seen before he could formulate a plan.
Watching as the scorpion shredded its prey he shuddered as it even reached back and dropped bits and pieces down for the babies on its back. This was not an alpha he wanted to fight but the sight of it feeding reminded him of why he was in the Delver's Guild in the first place. It was a poor matchup, the massive scorpion had both size and strength on its side as well as the smaller scorpions on its back that could easily swarm him. Despite the odds, he had to try. If he backed down now after so long there was no way he was going to advance.
The swarm, he had needed an answer for swarms his entire delving career and had spent the better part of the year of preparation crafting one. The vials across his chest were elemental bombs of a sort that would stick the affect to their targets and spread across the swarm. Fire, ice, lightning, and the pinnacle of what he could create without a guiding path in the field he was the proud owner of two vials filled with psychic storms. Finding the requisite materials was a hassle and finding a psychic to create such a storm was difficult as well but the resulting bombs could bypass most defenses.
Demaras wasn’t going to waste them on this fight, but still touched the two precious vials as he withdrew one firebomb. With the swarm neutralized, he could whittle down the larger scorpion easily because of his one true advantage. His speed. Taking a single step while activating teleportation and flash step nearly instantaneously brought him into the air fifty feet above the alpha.
It stopped eating and immediately tried to move out from underneath him even as he hurtled down towards it. Demaras could practically feel the monster's surprise as he threw the vial at it and activated another skill. Flash step was his most versatile skill, and after thousands of hours of training only his arm flashed forwards. It put immense strain on his joints to activate the skill in such a way but it paid off immediately. The firebomb shot out of his hand like a missile and its impact on the back of the scorpion was explosive. Fire erupted and consumed the baby scorpions on its back in moments as it screeched in pain and fury.
The fire created shadows in the slightly darker pit between sand dunes, and Demaras once again seized the advantage. Activating his third skill of the fight and shadow jumping behind it he drew his shortsword with practiced ease and struck at the monster's long and skinny legs. The heat of the fire barely added to the overall heat of the desert and as his strike only cut through half of the scorpion's leg he let out a sigh. This was going to be a long fight he thought to himself as the monster's tail hurtled through the air to strike at him even as it circled to get him within its sights. Demaras wasn’t going to let that happen and simply shadow jumped several feet backwards.
Flash step carried him to its right side where he continued to hack at its legs. Their deadly dance continued in the valley between dunes. The now flaming monster couldn’t catch up to him even as the ambient mana began to thin. Soon he would need to spend his personal mana into his skills to continue to whittle the monster down. However it wasn’t tough enough to stop his sword.
The giant scorpion was slowing down more and more as his precise chops with the shortsword were bearing fruit even as the fire on its back died out. Blue blood congealed in the sand as Demaras finally sliced through one leg and shadow jumped away with his personal mana. The battle had reached its tipping point, and the alpha was attempting to flee. Its injured legs tried to carry it up the dune but he was there, slashing and stabbing into its soft joints where its legs connected to the body. There was no way he was going to give it a chance to heal and rest after what it did to the delver whose remains still sat in the sand below the combatants.
With a simple teleport Demaras stood on top of the dune that the scorpion was so desperately trying to climb and surveyed the area for anything that might have heard the fight. Seeing nothing he glared down at the alpha trying to escape and raised his blade covered in thick blue blood. With the scorpion out of the shadows he could no longer use his shadow step with impunity but he had more ways to move.
Even now he was running low on personal mana to supply his skills with but he fought on. Flash step carried him down the dune and kicked up a huge flare of sand as he moved the instant he spotted an opening. The impact of his sword on the scorpion's legs nearly shook it from its grasp as the flash step skill's weakness reared its head. He could only move in a straight line with the skill, and the line he had taken carried him almost far enough to be out of the alphas striking range. Without even thinking he hurled himself to the side and let instinct honed by years of delving guide him. Skill activation with personal mana wouldn’t be fast enough to evade the stinger if he couldn’t see it coming.
Right where his flash step powered charge had ended, a massive plume of sand exploded into the air as the scorpion struck. The stinger lodged deep into the ground as Demaras rolled to safety as if on solid ground, clearing the attack by mere inches. A tiny flash step away he turned to look at the scorpion as it fell. All four legs on one side had been sliced through, and the monster was sliding down the sand dune and back into the valley. It would eventually die now, regardless of what he did to it and so he settled in to watch it bleed out and regenerate his mana.
It didn’t take long for the alpha to die, only thirty minutes or so by his count. He didn’t even get the chance to regenerate most of his mana. The paths recognized his achievement and Demaras knew that coming here was the right choice.
Points Gained!
15 Points awarded for defeating Scorpion Swarm Matriarch
Immediately after the announcement he sunk his points into his guiding path. Feeling the profound sense of accomplishment and purpose as he continued to walk his path. Then his luck changed. Under the body of the matriarch, the ground began to open up and the desert sand began to fall into the rapidly forming pit. The matriarch's body fell into it and in moments it had grown large enough to nearly swallow up Demaras as well.
As soon as he had seen it happening Demaras knew there was no escaping it. The dungeon environment was changing and he was just unlucky. Like the delver that had been killed by the scorpion there wasn’t anything he could do. He didn’t have enough mana to teleport far enough for it to matter, and flash step wouldn’t outpace it either. His final thought as the ground disappeared beneath his feet was traitorous.
‘I wish I had picked flight.’