The interior of the Tower was completely shredded in darkness. The moment they stepped in all outside noises and lights were cut off leaving the two flabbergasted. Arath reached inside his bag in order to take out a torch, he had bought, but the lack of any light made this task incredibly hard and only after two minutes of cursing he finally found it. The only problem was how to light it, because flint and steel needed some time and effort to work, so the man gave up, left the the Tower and prepared everything outside. Few shopkeepers started to laugh out loud not keeping back any ridiculing comment mocking the scouts, turning everyone's attention to Arath and Clara.

"What are they thinking? They probably havn't turned twenty and look at them! They have lost their minds!"

"They are going to get themselves killed! Somebody stop them!"

The situation was going out of control and the thrilling gazes of everyone around him made Arath nervous and his hands slippery resulting in the time of lighting the torches being twice as long as it should have.

'Damn it, I will need to invest in Light Crystals once we sell loot from the dungeon. Relying on torches is a bad idea.' Arath wrote in his mental notebook.

When he finally finished, they went back to the Tower hurriedly, this time the situation looked much better, the faint light the torch gave off revealed the room they were in. The long shadows casted by rock formations, lack of any sounds besides water dripping from the roof and an ominous feeling of impendning danger made the cave look extremely creepy. In the middle of the cavern there was a fountain with a shape of a deformed humanoid on top of it. Besides the entrance behind them, three corridors, on each side of the room, led to unknown locations.

"Where do we go?" Clara asked.

"Let me see." Arath took out the Hero's notebook from his bag and searched for a map or any clues for the first floor of the Tower. "It says here that going right is the worst idea for begineers as there are many Cave Spiders in there. Left is the choice if you want to go straight to the boss room and the middle road has the lowest number of enemies but we need to be careful as it is the territory of the strongest guy around here."

"So? Where are we headed?"

"Left. The road to the boss is long and only it was mentioned, so that means there are monsters in there, they are just not worth to write about them in a journal."

Arath unsheated his gladius with one hand and kept the torch in the other, while Clara held her spear with both hands ready to stab anything that would cross her way. The path taken by them was very wide, six people could easily walk arm to arm and there would still be plenty of room. Several meters deep the two discovered long steep stairs, made entirely of black stone, leading to another pitch black corridor. With no light besides the torch it seemed to have no end, the echo of steps got lost in the black abyss and never returned and the odor of decaying flesh penetreted the nostrils making the atmosphere spooky at best. The man took the lead and tried to perceive any dangers lurking at them with his ability, unsurprisingly after five minutes of march Arath noticed that in a cavern to their right there were two adult and about six young blestols.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"A blestols' nest is right behind that corner. They are blind so we don't need to worry about that torch too much but keep your voice down - they have very keen hearing." He whispered. "I will go first and attract their attention while you flank them and attack at my sign. Understood?" Clara nodded.

Arath carefully approached the nest holding his breath in order to make as little sound as possible. When he got close enough for his ability to kick off, and show him where their skin was the softest, he finally started running and stabbed one of the adult blestols right in it's armpit. The defeaning screech filled with pain quickly turned into a roar full of anger and hatred. It turned around so as to get rid of the attacker but another stab, this time in it's neck, stopped it in it's tracks. All other blestols rushed to help their companion but before they got to their destination a quick shout broke the silence.

"NOW!"

Clara jumped with great power, creating two holes in the places she had been standing, and plunged her spear deep into a young creature's belly. It shrieked loudly and fought for it's life for two more seconds, but the bleeding stopped it's agony in no time. Meanwhile Arath finished the first adult and went on to kill the second one. With two giant and one smaller animals lying on the floor quite a big pool of blood started to fill the cavern. The stench that arose in the air was nauseating and made thinking hard. Arath knew they had to hurry up before bigger predators came lured by the smell. He slashed a young blestol and crashed the skull of another while Clara finished the rest with quick stabs of her spear.

"Get their bones and hide. These things are extremely precious." Arath explained while skinning one of the adult ones.

"What about the meat?"

"It's too tough so it's really hard to eat but if we have enough time we will pack it as well. We can't waste anything."

Having said that the two continued the process and managed to pack everything they could, leaving only half the place in the bags empty. Ready to set off and continue the exploration they left the room almost completely covered in blood and guts. Suddenly a scream could be heard, it was filled with pain, grief and suprise, the sound went on for few seconds before abrupty stopping. Clara looked at Arath searching for anwers but the shadows on his faces didn't let her read anything.

'That was definitely a human. No creatures around here sounds like that. If it is a normal predator it will eat that guy and leave upon seeing more of us. But if it is a cruel son of a bitch it will come here following the smell of blood. I don't want to risk my life over finding out.'

"Let's go, hurry to the City. We can't waste any more time here." Arath said out loud and led the way.

The floor was so slippery that they did not even dare to think about running. The light given off by the torch was now slowly dissapearing making the road even more dangerous. Every loose stone and every hole in the ground was now as deadly as creatures living deep inside the caves. They got to the stairs and started to slowly go down crouching. Arath almost fell when his feet couldn't reach another step but he quickly realized that it was just that few parts fell off. Finally in the short corridor leading straight to the room with the fountain the torch stopped burning. It was then that Arath thanks to his improved hearing noticed that some creature was also going down the stairs. It wouldn't be much of a surprise if not for it's amazing speed. It took Arath few minutes to go down while only ten seconds had passed since it appeared at the top of the stairs and it was already half the way down.

"FUCK, move it Clara it's just behind us!" Arath cursed.

They were about to pass the fountain and sprint towards the door, when the entrance opened and a group of nine people entered the hall.

"It is my second cycle in the dungeon but I still get goosebumps whenever I enter this place." A deep voice came from the group.

"RUN! Something big is headed this way!" Arath shouted while passing them trying to reach the door.

They turned to face the boy but before a single word escaped their mouth two heads fell off their previous owners' shoulders creating a geyser of blood.