Belle Rendlow crouched by a tall tree near the edge of the forest, watching as Corbin, Zen, and Justin approached the dungeon entrance. She saw the three young men meet up with two guards, and the three members of the Hollow’s Warriors adventuring team. Belle had been watching over the entrance to the dungeon for the past two hours, hoping to learn more about what was going on. Unfortunately for all those currently by the dungeon entrance, Belle’s highest level skill was a long range auditory skill. That meant she heard everything Corbin, Zen and Justin said to each other, as well as the conversation afterwards. It was much easier for her to concentrate on individual conversations with less people around, and now that there were less than ten people in the meadow, she could take in everything.
When the ground began to shake and the dungeon entrance flooded the meadow with light, Belle was also blinded, even with her hundreds of feet away. She hissed in pain as the light hurt her eyes, and blinked away the spots in her vision. As the light cleared away, she stood up and looked for any changes to the dungeon. She couldn't quite tell all the differences from so far away, though she could hear one of the guards mutter about animal carvings.
Intrigued, Belle walked closer towards the group and the dungeon entrance. She paused when she heard Robin Gray begin to yell. What did he say? Belle listened as Robin explained how whomever just finished the dungeon, also seemed to have claimed it as well. “It seems the Grays won’t get their own dungeon after all.” Belle whispered to herself.
Belle watched for a few more minutes before Robin stormed off in the direction of the village, his two teammates following behind. Corbin Gray didn’t seem angry like his brother, instead he seemed contemplative, looking between Robin and the two young men beside him. Corbin sighed before telling the guards to keep an eye out for whomever left the dungeon. Zen and Justin began a discussion of who might have claimed the dungeon ahead of the Gray household. Corbin left the clearing, seemingly off to follow his brother back to the village. Zen and Justin seemed content to wait by the entrance for the mystery interloper. Belle wished she could wait with them, but stayed within the tree line and silent.
Ten minutes later, Belle was still waiting for whomever had just finished the dungeon. She wasn’t an expert on dungeons, but usually once someone finished a dungeon they exited almost immediately. From what she heard Robin saying, the dungeon had clearly been claimed and that could only happen if the dungeon had been cleared. So the mystery dungeoneer should have left by now, right?
Belle tilted her head slightly as she heard someone yelp and a crash in the forest behind her. Turning her head in the direction of the sound, she listened closer. Throughout the past hours she had heard sounds of creatures in the forest. The town of Rainy Hollow was situated at the edge of a forest of low-level monsters and animals, so she had been hearing sounds of their presence this whole time. But, what she had just heard was no monster, it was the sound of a person. Belle looked back at the dungeon entrance in contemplation, before sighing and crouching back down to the ground. Marge would lay into her if she didn’t keep to her post. She needed to wait for the dungeoneer, not some random villager in the forest.
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When Aurelia had appeared in the forest, her first impression was the sheer amount of glowing mana strands around her. They were of every color of the rainbow and crisscrossed all throughout the forest. She turned slowly in a circle, admiring the display of colors. Aurelia was so thoroughly distracted, she missed the orange fox as it leaped at her, slamming into her mana shield.
Aurelia yelped in surprise, letting loose an ice dagger directly into the fox without a second's thought. The orange fox crashed to the ground, and Aurelia received a kill notification for killing it. She blinked a few times before examining the notification. It had been a level three fox, and she had received barely any experience for the kill. She also did not get asked to loot the fox. Looking a bit further, she realized she couldn’t loot the fox, at least not like she did in the dungeon. Aurelia shrugged and then looked at the fox, wondering if she should just leave it here, or if she should bring it with her.
She crouched next to the fox and placed a hand on its side. With a thought the defeated animal disappeared into her spatial storage. Aurelia nodded, glad that it wouldn’t go to waste now. Aurelia stood up and then tried to orient herself in the direction of the village she had seen before starting the tutorial. How long had it been since she had arrived in Eldria? Hours? Days? All Aurelia knew was that she was completely exhausted and needed a bed. Maybe she would talk to someone as well. Probably.
Thinking back to when she had teleported out of the dungeon, Aurelia remembered she had teleported herself close to the edge of the forest near the village. Looking around at all the strands of mana, she tried imagining them fading to the background. Aurelia couldn’t concentrate with so much going on around her. To her relief, the strands of mana seemed to disappear, but she knew that she could view them if she concentrated on them once more.
Off to the side of her, Aurelia could vaguely see a blue glow shining through the trees. Deciding to follow the blue glow, she walked in that direction. As she drew closer to the origin of the light, Aurelia saw a shape become more distinct. She realized it was the entrance to the dungeon. Before, she had looked down at it from a bird’s eye view, but now from this angle she could see that it was a cave entrance covered in the blue glow crystals, just like the ones in the entrance room. Now that she was closer, Aurelia could also see that the group of people at the entrance had shrunk. The four people left at the entrance were all watching the dark dungeon entrance with anticipation.
Aurelia winced, realizing they were probably waiting for her. She was reaffirmed in her decision to just not walk out the normal way. Aurelia didn’t mind talking to people, but in this situation, it would have been too much for. What if they questioned her about claiming the dungeon? Nah, Aurelia looked past the dungeon entrance to see the village in the distance. She smiled in anticipation and began walking back through the forest, around the meadow. To make the walk faster, Aurelia teleported forwards as far as she could until she reached the edge of the forest. From there, she strolled forwards, trying to act casual out in the open.
Off to her left, Aurelia could see the stream that had gone through the meadow and down a hill towards the village. The stream flowed around the village in a circle, before disappearing on the far side of the village. Now that she wasn’t distracted by the tutorial or the forest, Aurelia took another look at the village. It wasn’t too small, and she guessed it probably housed between 1500 to 2000 people. The village was encircled by a low wooden wall, maybe eight feet high and two feet thick. It was probably only there to dissuade the average animal, but it definitely wouldn’t hold up to a red claw bear or one of those sloths.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
She began to walk next to the stream until she reached a small bridge at the bottom of the hill. The bridge was in the middle of a dirt road, one part of the road led into the village, the other end of the road went west towards where the large white sun was close to setting. Aurelia stood by a tree next to the bridge, looking between the meadow she had come from and the bustling village nearby.
She looked down at herself, assessing what she might look like to others. Aurelia had received a lot of new gear inside the dungeon, including the new outfit she wore, which looked as good as new despite the various tears and injuries she had received during her long fights. Two snakeskin bracers were laced to her forearms. She had a belt that held three different magical daggers and her wand was tucked into a pocket of her blue cloak.
Aurelia had gone through some effort to try to stay under the radar, changing her stat sheet and teleporting into the forest away from the dungeon entrance. If she walked into the village now, decked out with magical gear, it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that the newcomer might just be the person who completed the dungeon. Aurelia looked around, making sure no one was around, then started making some changes to her outfit. She first took her flame dagger and ice dagger out of her belt and put them into her storage. She followed the daggers with her bracers. Aurelia then took out the satchel from her spatial storage, filling it with her water flask, a pouch filled with copper, silver, and a few gold coins, then placed her folded cloak on top. It was honestly too warm to wear a cloak, so it might seem strange for her to wear it anyways. After making sure her necklace was safely tucked into her blouse and her wand was hidden in her corset, Aurelia walked into the village.
When she first walked past the bridge, there was a sign written on the village wall in what Aurelia now knew to be the common language of Eldria. Thanks to her language skill, she could read the words stating, “Welcome to Rainy Hollow!” She smiled at the sign and continued forwards. The gate to the village was wide open, though at the moment she was the only one walking in or out. The village looked like what Aurelia expected any medieval town to look like. Wooden houses and shops, cobblestone streets, with everyone dressed similarly to what she wore.
Everyone around her seemed to be excited about something and it took very little time for Aurelia to overhear someone talking about a new dungeon. Of course a new dungeon would be news to the village. If people lived their whole lives near an empty meadow, only for a dungeon to suddenly appear, that would certainly be news. The villagers were talking together in groups and it seemed to Aurelia that they were all talking about the dungeon. She was nervous to approach anyone to ask for directions or help, her gaze darting from person to group to building.
A tap on her arm caused Aurelia to jump in surprise and she turned to her right to see a boy maybe aged ten or eleven looking up at her. “Excuse me, miss, are you new to Rainy Hollow?”
Aurelia paused for a second before answering, “Um, yes, I am new to Rainy Hollow. My name is Aurelia, what’s your name?”
“I’m Freddy! I’m a messenger boy. What do you do? Are you an apprentice? Are you going to be an adventurer?” Aurelia laughed nervously as the boy asked question after question, not letting her really answer.
She opened her mouth to make some excuse as to why she was here, when a large burly man interrupted the two of them. “Oi! What are you two boys doing?”
Two? Aurelia looked around, just in time to see a second younger boy taking a hand out of her satchel, her coin purse in his hand. “Hey! That’s mine!”
Both boys started and ran off in separate directions. The large burly man looked at her as if to say, what’re you gonna do about them?
Aurelia sighed, then remembered she had a skill that could actually help her. Before the two boys both ran out of sight, she took note of the mana strands that followed in their wake. The older boy, Freddy, had a distinct yellow strand, while the younger boy had a darker orange strand similar to his hair color. Aurelia concentrated on keeping both strands distinct in her mind above all others before taking off in the direction of the orange strand of mana. The younger boy had left to an alleyway between two shops, the smell of something rotten strong in the air. Not worrying about the boy getting away, Aurelia followed the mana until the strand disappeared under a small section of a broken wall. She wasn’t small enough to fit inside the hole, so she assessed what kind of building she was looking at. The building seemed run down, the windows all boarded up and the roof seemed in need of repair.
Aurelia was in a back alleyway looking at the backs of all the buildings around her. The street she had left had been busy with people, but back here in the alley, she seemed to be all alone. Wary of what she might find, Aurelia crouched beside the hole in the wall. Peering inside, she didn’t see any movement or light. After taking a few steps back, Aurelia pointed her finger near the hole and used two spatial slashes to make the opening bigger. The spell didn’t make much sound, other than the wood splintering and falling to the ground.
Now that she could fit inside, Aurelia crawled through into the building. Now that she was standing up in the small back room of the building, she could see slivers of light from the boarded up windows illuminate shapes in the darkness. The room was full of wooden boxes and barrels, with not much else. Aurelia looked closer at the orange mana strand as it seemed to disappear into the ground. She walked over to that corner of the room and realized the small boy had gone through a trapdoor.
Aurelia definitely had enough money, that what she had lost wasn’t much to her, but it still had been her money and she wanted it back. So, she did what any person would do. Aurelia pulled up the wooden trap door and started to climb down an old ladder into the darkness beyond.
As she felt for the dirt ground, she could still see the orange strand continue down a dark tunnel. Deciding she didn’t want to walk around blindly, Aurelia pulled a glow crystal from her inventory. The bluish light illuminated the tunnel around her, and Aurelia continued tracking down her thief. The tunnel brought back memories of the recent dungeon she had just left, and she shivered. Why she had to go back into dark tunnels was on her this time, so she didn’t fully complain.
When Aurelia turned a corner, she could make out a wooden door. Excited, she hurried forwards, hoping the boy was close by. What she didn’t see was the dark alcove carved out from the tunnel, and the man who waited there on watch. And unfortunately for Aurelia, while her mana shield protected her from physical blows, it didn’t protect her from the alchemist’s sleeping gas as it filled the hallway around her. She didn’t even remember blacking out as her body fell to the floor, asleep.