Emily made her way towards the south cliff face that housed the entryway to the dungeon. As she got closer to the location fewer and fewer people were without armor and weapons. She finally made it to the gate and walls that surrounded the dungeon entrance, there to stop any monsters that rarely broke out of the dungeon form attacking the district.
“Adventurer card?” This time Emily produced her newly minted adventurer guild badge. Looking it over the guard shook his head. “With your level you should not be entering.” The guard warned. “Thank you for the warning but I have been training daily for the last five years, I will be fine.” The guard handed her back her card. “It is your funeral. I have seen enough like you to know that.” Without replying Emily walked through the gate and into a large cleared area. Before her stood the imposing mountain face with a large jagged cut in the rock face.
People were streaming in and out of the cut and with a deep breath Emily followed the stream of people heading inside. Going through the dungeon entry without feeling anything unusual, Emily found herself in a large tunnel. Following along Emily walked for a few hundred feet before she stopped suddenly at the sight before her. The tunnel opened up into a huge forest with and mountains surrounding the forest on all sides. The forest had towering oak trees soaring into the air, bright sunlight streaming down form clear blue skies, and birds flew everywhere. Emily knew that the sky and sun were an illusion, so were the mountains. There were rock faces but they did not go up further then a thousand feet and did not go deeper then a few hundred feet if you tried to climb over the mountains. The mountains did have extensive cave system that looked like mining tunnels, form what Emily read the tunnels did not go anywhere.
The first level of the dungeon was truly spectacular. After this level it became a maze of tunnels with larger and larger caves. The last ten levels were said to have caverns with actual small forests in them, and the final level had several caverns with forests that were each a tenth the size of this first level, until you reached the final cavern. The final cavern was half the first levels size and had a rock spear thrust up from the forest floor, with the last monster of the dungeon, a massive Tier 5 Troll, on top.
Emily felt a push form behind. “Move it new girl.” An angry male said. Without bothering to reply, Emily started walking towards the forest, pulling out her two short swords. The main enemy in this dungeon were goblins and trolls but they were not the only monster, there were wolves, bears, large cats, and birds on this level, and the following levels had wolves the goblins rode.
Coming to the forest, Emily started using all the training she receive in another life to blend in, not making a sound, or leaving a trace, despite her heavy armor, as she started stalking through the forest.
“Giggii”
Emily heard the first word sound out, over ten minutes from when she first started stalking through the forest. Coming up silently behind a goblin, Emily crossed her arms then violently swung the swords towards each other, scissoring through the neck of the goblin. Tranquility stopped her form being horrified as blood sprayed form the stump and severed head of the goblin.
You have gained 20 experience points. You have gained the 'First Kill' achievement, you receive a bonus of 50 experience points.
“Giggii?”
Quickly dismissing the prompt, Emily saw another goblin walk out from behind a tree. Emily let go of her right sword, grabbed a knife form her bandolier, cocked her arm back, throw the knife as hard has she could, then deftly caught the falling sword. Emily would have been amazed at how smoothing she completed the flowing motion but she had practiced the move countless times, both in real life and in her mental dojo.
The force of the throw actually picked the small goblin up, throwing the monster backwards.
You have gained 18 experience points
“Giggii!”
Another goblin rushed out from behind the tree, screaming. This goblin had a club he raised up to attack with as he run towards Emily. Gracefully Emily used her left sword to block the swinging club, then with her right sword, stabbed upwards, her sword cutting through the jaw, mouth, and finally the brain of the goblin, killing it instantly.
You have gained 19 experience points
Gasping, Emily took several deep breaths to settle the adrenaline rushing through her. Emily checked her status screen and realized her first real fight in either world had given her enough points to reached level 2.
Name :
Class :
Emily Warden L2
Tier 1 Warrior Monk L2
HP
242/242
MP
846/846
SP
564/564
Strength
29
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Agility
22
Dexterity
20
Vitality
15
Endurance
23
Intelligence
71
Willpower
34
Charisma
11
Luck
6
Emily studied her status screen, she compared it to her old status screen she had a mental image of, and realized the stat points and stat distribution were different form a standard warrior. This made sense because different classes awarded different number of stats and distributed them differently. An archer would lean more towards agility, dexterity, and endurance, while a mage would lean more towards intelligence and willpower.
A Tier 1 warrior would receive 1 stat in vitality, strength, dexterity, and endurance per level with 1 point in agility every third level. If someone took the advance warrior at Tier 2 the stat points would double but the distribution would stay the same. When someone’s skill evolved from basic to common they could receive a stat point, basic stealth to stealth would award a stat point in agility, basic swordsmen to swordsmen would award a point in strength.
Emily’s class Warrior Monk awarded her 1 stat in vitality, strength, agility, dexterity, endurance, and willpower each level, meaning at level 25 she would have 150 total stat points from her class while a warrior would only have 108 stat points, an almost 30% reduction in stats.
Emily dismissed her status screen and started hunting again.
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Emily hunted the rest of the day. Killing more goblins, a pack of wolves, and one bear, Emily may have been low level but her training, the elixirs, her armor and weapons all had a devastating impact on how fast Emily could kill monsters. With Tranquility she could even push sleeping off for a few days but would need to meditate for a longer period of time to make up for it.
During her monster hunting she drifted closer towards the mountains in the east. A scream broke the quite of the forest, running forward Emily come out of the tree line into a grassy field that ended a hundred meters away at the mountains rock walls. An elf archer was on the ground clinching her bloody face while a large dire bear, with several arrows buried in its flank, was being held back by a fully armored induvial with a shield and sword.
A screech directed Emily’s gaze skyward were a large roc was circling overhead. It was clear that the roc attacked the group as they were fighting dire bear, severely injuring the elf who had stayed back form the fighting while shooting arrows.
Knowing the situation Emily sheathed her swords and sprinted forward. Picking up the elf’s fallen bow, Emily deftly pulled out an arrow form the elf’s thigh quiver and readied the bow to fire. Taking aim at the roc Emily felt a shudder pass through her, then her eyes seemed to magnify the roc and focus so clearly that she could see each induvial feather of the roc ripple in the wind. As the roc dived towards her and the injured elf Emily tracked the falling roc with unerring accuracy. Just before Emily released the arrow anther shiver ran through her and a feint red glow outline the arrow, Emily, without thinking, released the arrow and saw it almost teleport into the roc’s eye. Even with Emily’s senses and skills the arrow had been too fast to register its flight.
Dropping the bow Emily grabbed the elf under the arms and hauled the elf backwards, the roc flashing passed them, within centimeters, before slamming into the ground at terminal veracity, breaking every bone in the large roc’s body. If the roc had not died from the arrow piercing through it eye and into its brain the impact would have killed it instantly.
Getting out her old bag of holding, she pulled out the lesser healing potion. Dropping the bag, Emily knelt next to the elf, and using her left hand, grabbed one of the elf’s hands, pulling it away from the mangled bloody mess of her face, while using her other hand, Emily flicked off the stopper with her thumb and poured the potion on the elf’s face.
Without stopping to check on the elf more, Emily stood up and took out her short swords. Running around the corpse of the roc, she was in perfect position to jump onto the dire bear’s back. Before the dire bear could even start to respond to this new threat, Emily jumped again. Putting all of her weight and strength behind it, Emily thrusted the swords into the neck of the monster. Still grasping the swords, Emily fell of the monster, tearing the swords through the dire bear’s neck in a spray of blood.
Landing, Emily rolled away, springing up she readied her swords. The move was not necessary; the armored fighter had used Emily’s distracted to impale a sword through the roof of the monsters mouth and into its skull.
Without pulling out the sword, the armored figure left it to run to the fallen elf. Emily calmly walked towards the pair, seeing the elf had sat up and stopped blooding. The lesser healing potion was good at closing wounds but left horrible scars behind, it also was not powerful enough to stop internal bleeding, organ damage, or broken bones, it was this world’s version of a band aid. There were common ranked potions that could heal better but it took a greater healing potion to truly heal injuries. People preferred to use the cheapest lesser healing potion to heal just enough to make it to an actual healer. For some, if the injury was not major, just waited to heal naturally and lived with the scars.
The two finally calmed down and took notice of Emily standing there. “Thank you for saving my sister.” The armored fighter said, the soft voice confirming Emily’s guess that it was a woman.
“I am just glad I got here in time, a few seconds delay..” Emily trailed off. The armored woman nodded. “Yes, my sister would have died from the roc.” Turning back to her sister she again checked on her condition. Luckily enough her helmet had saved her eyes form being torn out but her nose, lips, and chin were badly scared over, still red and puffy. If the elf tried to talk the scars would rip open.
Sheathing her swords, Emily picked up her dropped bag of holding and placed it back in her bandolier. Seeing the other two gather themselves to leave Emily offered. “Do you to need help getting to the exit?”
“Thank you but we can make it back on our own. Again thank you for your help.” With that the armored elf helped her sister walk away, only stopping to retrieve her sword, before both disappeared into the forest.
“Well best of luck to you.” Emily said softy as they disappeared.
Shaking her head Emily looked around at the devastation and finally noticed a large mine opening. Looking at the rough, poorly made, mine entrance, Emily remembered one of the books she had read talked about a dwarf mining iron broke into a cave that had a small seam of deep iron. The metal was used to make weapons and could be refined into deep steel. The weapons made from deep steel were the preferred choice for Tier 2 fighters. Finding it on level 1 was lucky for the dwarf, it usually only started appearing in small patches at level 11, the start of the Tier 2 monsters. Afterwards dwarf’s become obsessed with hidden caverns, using pick axes to see if any more could be found.
Emily wondered if her skills seeing magical enchantments would yield any clues on hidden cave locations. Without any better idea of what to do Emily decided to give it a try.
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Emily spent hours going deeper into the maze of mine tunnels, her perfect memory stopping her form getting lost. Emily felt the ground angling ever so slightly downward, to be almost unnoticed without her senses. After many kilometers in the winding maze of tunnels, turning randomly at intersections, Emily finally hit a dead end after walking for half a kilometer.
Sighing Emily was about to turn around and retrace her steps when she saw a flash of magic. Quickly zeroing in the spot, Emily found a simple runic switch with only a single line of runic code. Excited with the find, Emily pushed her hand forward and used her will like she had done when she broke into the counts mansion, to toggle to switch. Immediately the wall in front of her swung open. Looking passed the door, Emily saw another tunnel. Deciding to investigate the secret tunnel Emily walked forward. As she walked passed the door it swung closed behind her. Emily searched the door and finding another runic switch on this side relaxed, and started walking the tunnel.
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The tunnel went down and down, curving into a long spiral. Emily had started to sprint down the tunnel after a kilometer of nothing, no side tunnels, no caves, just an endless tunnel. After running full out for hours, and going about a hundred kilometers with less than half that in depth, Emily arrived at another rock face. Emily readied herself for whatever was beyond this door, and with a push opened the secret door.