While she was free to take on as many quests as she wanted, Tess had been stopped by the receptionist when she tried to take all of the ones available. Something about making sure there was work for the other adventurers. Really though, it was not like they had taken those quests, so why not let her? Regardless, she now had a dozen requests to fulfill from the dungeon at the edge of town.
Apparently it had some fancy name given to it by the Adventurer's Guild proper, but everybody locally called it The Crypt. Given its location in a graveyard and name, Tess rapidly concluded that it was infested with undead. She was not really equipped to deal with undead, but it was only a yellow rank dungeon at its worst, which was several floors down.
She pulled out the dagger that had been gifted by the village of Kelt. It was small and more of a glorified kitchen knife than a dagger, but it was a kind gesture. That was the extent of her gear. No armor and no other weapons to deal with the monsters within.
“Magic and muscles it is,” Tess joked, reminded of a dance one apprentice had taught her.
The Crypt's entrance was located in the dilapidated mausoleum at the center of the graveyard. Apparently once it had been in use by the region's governor, but after an earthquake had knocked the structure down the System turned the site into the dungeon. Any attempts to rebuild the site since had seen the mausoleum destroyed within a day.
Tess walked right up to the shimmering portal that denoted the dungeon’s distinct instance apart from reality. It was this portal which meant that despite the danger a dungeon presented, there were no guards. She examined the outside, using Analyze to see if there were any correlations between this dungeon and those within the Tutorial. Unfortunately, the skill showed no revelations that Tess did not already know. It left her without a good gauge of how her power stacked against the Adventurer's Guild rankings. With a shrug, she stepped through the portal, disappearing from reality and into the dungeon.
She materialized in a deep room lit only by a single torch. A set of stone stairs ascended behind her which was the way out. Experience told her there was no backing out now, so she faced the first decision.
“Left, right, or straight ahead?”
A rattling sound echoed down from the path ahead. A smile spread across her face.
“Sounds like they're ready to say hello.”
A trio of skeletons emerged from the doorway, wielding swords, and charged at the living being they saw as a threat. Little did they understand the nature of the threat before them.
Tess casually dodged a series of attacks from the slow moving swords as she analyzed the fighting patterns. There was no thought put into the attack, no style or form. Just a mindless sharp end aimed at the enemy. Not that she was expecting complex maneuvers, but the lack of variance was disappointing.
Her first strike was a punch to the head of a skeleton, detaching the skull from the body. Whatever magical animation powered the skeleton crumbled with the attack, as the remaining bones clattered to the ground alongside its weapon. The skull shattered into pieces from its impact with the chamber wall.
“One.”
The other two skeletons continued their mindless assault, but were quickly dispatched similarly.
“Two. Three. How many will fall by my hand today?”
Despite its best efforts, the Crypt offered no new challenges on the first level, as she found it was full of skeletons that fell to flurries of well placed punches and kicks. Tess would dodge warrior's swords, deflect archer's arrows, and even counterspell a few mages. It reminded her of the undead dungeon within the Tutorial with its simplicity.
“Where is the challenge?”
At least the loot from the random chests here on the first level gave her a little something. She found herself a proper dagger and a simple wizardry hat. As she stared at her two pieces of treasure, she reflected on what it was that she was going to be. She had the capacity to be anything, but what did she want to be? Magic was fun, adaptable, and most of all useful. Using weapons was intense, trying, and required just as much thought as magic. She wanted a bit of both. The idea came to her.
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“Spellsword.”
One capable of using magic to enhance themselves, their weapons, and could occasionally fire off something big while still being able to go toe-to-toe with a swordsman. Tess conveniently ignored the fact that she would probably best straight mages or swordsmen without the use of the other. Too long had she dreamt of her grand adventure, fed by the stories of the countless apprentices, to let something so small derail the fun she was going to have.
She felt the uptick in her stats as she pulled on the hat, and the sureness of her motions as she mimed a battle against an opponent with her new dagger.
“Spellsword is so generic though. It needs a better name. Or I do.”
Tess descended to the second floor, ranked Orange by the Adventurer’s Guild, without much thought about where her feet were taking her as she contemplated the name of her build that she would play out. Larger packs of skeletons would come at her, which she continued to effortlessly decimate. It took her a while to realize that there were some new additions among the skeletons.
“What is that?”
Identify tagged it as a Skeletal Stalker. These skeleton creatures looked like a slightly larger human, except with a more hunched back and slightly longer arms. The fingers also ended in sharp looking claws. They were more agile than their normal skeleton counterparts, somehow able to leap around. They even dodged some of her attacks, until Tess focused specifically on finishing them off.
“So I’m better than Orange rank too. Good to know.”
The final floor was Yellow rank. The skeletal packs now mostly consisted of the Stalkers, drawing her attention away from wandering thoughts as the intensity ratcheted up another level. Focus was needed when fighting, and her lack of it was starting to show as some of the Stalkers managed to scratch her here and there. While none of the wounds were serious, it highlighted one thing to her: this was not the Tutorial anymore.
Tess chided herself on becoming complacent. The Tutorial was easy, and that made sense. She had known, had taught, that the world beyond was more dangerous and would kill if those who passed through failed to measure the challenges appropriately. Yet she had made a mistake. Being locked into ‘easy mode’ for so long made her think that she was ready for whatever was thrown at her. Surviving a free fall and fighting these skeletons were the first dangerous things she had done. She may not be someone at level one, but she was not someone at max level either. Was she a Yellow ranker? Or had she jumped in too deep, too early? At this point, it was too late to back out of the challenge the dungeon presented. She was locked into the instance until either she died, or the boss of the dungeon did.
She pulled the hat from earlier a little more snuggly onto her head and pushed open the doors to the boss chamber. It opened into an arena, complete with stands filled with skeletal observers that rattled with likely disdain at her arrival.
“They could be a severe problem,” she murmured as she took in the audience.
The arena had a few pillars around the open area, though a few had collapsed due to damage. Here and there across the stone brick floor were dark stains, which paired well with the corpses in various states of decay. Clearly they were failed challengers. Tess spied a few of them sporting Guild tags, including one with a green tag. As she began to acknowledge the fear that she had been suppressing, movement drew her attention back to the center of the arena.
A black mist swirled, forming a cocoon as more mist coalesced in the space. Suddenly, the mist burst forth, solidifying into a flowing black robe around a form which floated just above the ground. The deep hood on the robe hid the form’s face, until two green flames in the eye sockets illuminated the skeletal face within. It seemed that this one still had some flesh attached to the bones, as she could make out stretching bits moving on the remnants of the face. Identify came back with the label Essence of Death.
“You have come to your demise,” the Essence gasped out.
A staff materialized out of more black mist in the Essence’s skeletal hand. It shook the staff outward, causing a long blade to pop out, transforming the staff into a scythe. Tess could not help but nervously laugh at the sight of what so many apprentices had described as a grim reaper.
“Die.”
The Essence floated towards her, picking up speed as it charged. The scythe swung back as the attack was prepped to remove her head, then came forward with a whoosh that seemed to slice even the air it passed through. All the while, Tess was immobilized by the fear within. Thoughts flashed through her mind.
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Elsewhere
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The supervisor deity was mad. Perhaps it was an understatement to describe it as mad. A little black storm cloud had formed and was following the supervisor around, casting lightning within itself. It seemed that incompetent lesser deity had been giving clients the run-around rather than fixing their problems. Worse, he now had just up and disappeared without even giving a notice! Now every problem that the moron should have been dealing with was now on his shoulders as the supervisor.
“You!” he shouted, pointing at a new unfortunate victim, “You’ve got a promotion to the Maintenance Mode team. Get to it!”
The newly chosen lesser deity scrambled out of the breakroom.