POV Pyter Synder

A day after the meeting with guild master Crowe, the adventurer group and himself would go start mapping the dungeon.

The adventuring group and Pyter prepared diligently for their trip into the dungeon. They prepared one of the lifeboats to take them into the dungeon territory. The adventure group leader, Merkelis, along with the rest of the eight members, did something that Pyter did not recognize in their preparation.

Merkelis, in the middle of their preparation, turned to his group. "Alright, Blue Spirits, does everybody have their own offerings? Check to make sure that you have brought it. I have extras if anybody forgot theirs."

The adventuring group, whose name is apparently Blue Spirits, all dug up small leather bags filled with small objects. This confused Pyter greatly as to why this group prepared these small bags of objects.

"Why are you bringing these bags? They don't seem necessary to bring into a dungeon."

Merkelis turned to Pyter, surprised that he was asking that question.

"We do it to gain the gratitude and thanks of the dungeon. Each bag contains something small like a seed or a type of stone, something like that. And we give it as an offering to the dungeon that we are entering. Hopefully, the dungeon appreciates our gift and goes a bit easier on us. But, even if it does not, we do it as a sign of respect."

This surprised Pyter, as he had never heard of anyone else doing this. But he did recognize that it would have gone in one ear and out the other if he did hear about this. It just wasn't something that he was interested in as he never used to go into dungeons to study them.

"Do you mind giving me one of your extras? I believe that it might be imperative for me to take up your tradition of giving offerings to dungeons as well."

Merkelis, who was happy that the unusual dungeon scholar was connecting more with the group, agreed and passed him a small bag with a couple of different seeds in it.

Pyter tucked the bag into his belt and finished up preparations.

Merkelis looked over the group and the dungeon scholar and decided that it was time to go into the dungeon's territory. The group piled onto two small lifeboats and paddled out towards the iceberg.

Once the group reached the iceberg, they anchored the boats to the iceberg and climbed off.

As everybody climbed out of the boats, Merkelis spoke up.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Alright, everybody, this is going to be a simple mapping and information gathering round. We don't know what's going to be there, so be safe, be vigilant, and anything out of the ordinary, do not hesitate to speak up. We will find the passage to the portal before taking the two boats out of the water."

Pyter watched as everybody seemed to listen intensely to Merkelis.

"When exploring the iceberg, stay in groups of two or three. Whistle when you find the tunnel entrance and come back to this spot."

As the eight members of blue spirit went off to look for the entrance tunnel, himself and Merkelis stayed back.

"Hey, Pyter, why don't you help me get the boats out of the water."

With a bit of reluctance of physical work like this, which Pyter quickly hid, he went and helped the leader drag the boats onto a relatively flat portion of the ice.

As they dragged the second boat onto the iceberg, a sharp whistle pierced the air. Within two minutes, the whole group arrived back at where Pyter and Merkelis were standing.

Two men, one with roundish features and purple markings around his eyes and one with gills on his neck, approached Merkelis.

"We found the entrance a bit upwards, in the valley of the two peaks," said the one with the purple markings.

"Alright, let's grab the boats and move out."

The group picked up the two boats along with their gear and started trekking to the entrance tunnel.

Once they reached the tunnel, they saw that the tunnel was not big enough to allow more than one person to walk through at a time, so they all had to go in single file. The group was vigilant as the tunnel was connected to the entrance of a dungeon, and they were in dungeon territory. So Pyter and the four who were carrying the boats were in the middle of the procession, while the others had weapons out and were keeping an eye out for anything. Dungeons don't usually start attacking in their entrance tunnel. Still, you never know, so it was always better to be safe than sorry.

The group made their way through the tunnel and stepped into knee-deep water. When they entered the room, they saw the portal.

"So it was true," murmured Merkelis. "This dungeon has a damn sub-dimension. Well, this just got interesting."

Before Merkelis ordered the group to prepare to go through the portal, he brought out the small leather bag and poured some of the contents into his hand. Merkelis then placed his hand into the water, releasing the objects and murmured something to the dungeon that Pyter was only just able to hear.

"Please take my offerings and give me and my group protection. We do not mean any harm to your core, so please do not take extreme measures against us."

Once Merkelis did this, all of the other group members poured out some of the objects from their leather bags in their hands and placed them into the water. Pyter realized that he needed to do this, too, so he quickly did what the others did.

After everybody gave their offerings to the dungeon, the group split into two and got into the boats. Pyter was quite happy that he was in the same boat as Merkelis, as he thought it was safer.

When everybody was ready, the first boat was pushed through the portal. And once it disappeared into the portal, it was Pyter's boat's turn.

With a push from the paddles, the boat started going through the portal, and in both fear and excitement, he held his breath.