Dungeons are often aligned to certain elements, which makes them a prime candidate for dragons to inhabit. The elemental alignment might be bait for the dungeon to attract stronger inhabitants that it could respawn on its own. Often the dungeon catches smaller elementals like elemental Fey and turns them into its creatures, enslaving them to its purpose. More powerful creatures might enslave the dungeon, or come to some sort of equilibrium with the dungeon.

#Warnik’s Perspective

The fight through the level wasn’t that hard. The flame boss they fought on the previous level was a challenge since the heat sapped his energy, and he always had to worry about fighting off heat exhaustion and worse heat stroke. This level was cooler, felt like the open plains in spring.

The level was quiet though, much quieter than the previous level. The earth level had the sounds of animals and monsters. The fire level sounded like a fire crackling in a firepit. Or the sounds you associate with an active volcano. This level though, it was dead quiet. The only sound was from the two of them. Dimitri’s leather boots scraping on the ground, the jiggle of his harness buckle, and the occasion impact of the spike at the end of his poleax against the ground.

They’ve fought through four rooms, and so far they’ve found a bunch of things that haven’t really helped. They found an abundance of coins, gems, and other things that will be good to sell. They did find some magical armor, sized for a human. They’d resize for larger people like him, except for his Forsaker abilities disabled the sizing enchantments.

“Fifth time’s the charm, right Dimitri? After this room, we should find one of those monsterless rooms and take a break. For some reason, I’m famished right now.”

“Probably replenishing your energy, my man. The energy for your passive abilities has to come from somewhere.”

“Yeah.”

The new room was different than the others they fought in. The ceiling was low, only about twenty feet over their head. It didn’t leave much room for fliers to move around. The far wall was lost to darkness, even the mage lamps that lined the wall faded out on the far side.

“We got a hike, Dimitri.”

They decided to keep near the edges of the circular room and slowly work their way around it. What they were looking for was probably in the middle. Either the dungeon had gotten tired of them always using the doorways to bottleneck the monsters or other adventurers had done the same and now they had a circular room, with no corners, and no features along the walls.

“This reminds me of some April Fools dev notes.” The warrior commented.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, there was a mini-dungeon they kept tweaking to make it more challenging. The players always found a place they could stand and either take no damage or where they could break line-of-sight from the boss. So once they had in the release notes on April fools, ‘Quagmire Mini-Dungeon is not a circular featureless room.’”

“You think this is a room like that?”

“Yes. Expect a fast-moving boss that turns invisible.”

“” He heard the spell being cast behind him. “I don’t see any magic auras. All I see is the void around you. There’s nothing within the range of my spell.”

“Okay, let’s go right down the middle of the room and see what attacks us.”

As they moved forward they were still surprised when several large figures dropped from the ceiling and attacked them. They were clad in black from head to toe and stood even taller than Warnik. They were the first to attack with lightning javelins and lightning whips.

“Get down!” Warnik yelled as he did his best to stand in the way between the incoming magic and Dimitri, but he couldn’t block it all.

The warlock was prepared for a fight and was able to dodge most of the attacks by falling to the floor, only a couple of lashes from the lightning whip hit his form, making him convulse from the jolt of electricity.

Warnik did his best to knock the javelins out of the air, but he still took one to the shoulder. The electricity seemed to flow over his form, but stopped a fraction of an inch away from his skin.

“Damn it!” He swore and trusted that his passive abilities would heal him eventually, and pulled the javelin from his shoulder with his left hand and threw it back at the black-cloaked figures before him. The blood flowed from his wound and he felt it as it stitched itself back together. He prepared his shield for the next attack.

“[He’s took out the Stun Stick, Bruin!]” He couldn’t understand what they were saying, but they seemed intelligent.

“[And he threw it back! I know Valda. Capture them.]” The last tall figure to speak was holding the now dead javelin, the stance was confused, “[Its totally drained…]”

“” Dimitri called out from below him, and he heard the screams from the giants standing behind him. His shoulder was recovering, and he was on the defensive. The javelins were not thrown again, and instead, they focused on using their whips.

He felt the whips as they struck at his armor. The lightning was ineffective, but the whips themselves were annoying. He had to wait until he could swing his ax again before he attacked. At least he kept the attention on him, instead of Dimitri.

“” Another set of screams came from more of the giants.

“[Get the mage!]”

“Warnik, I think I got their attention.”

“Turtle for a minute, I’m going to go engage. When I have broken their formation, run!”

They were outnumbered four to one, and at a tactical disadvantage. He needed to break the circle by taking out two of them. He picked who he thought was the leader and charged. His shield in front, his poleax behind him, and a scream in his throat.

It was impulsive, it was dangerous, and just what you’d expect from a stereotypical barbarian. He channeled the violent emotions into his strike. The poleax was blocked by the drained javelin. The was the giant’s intention, but the poleax had a lot of momentum and rage behind it, and the magical javelin shattered.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Warnik was still moving forward, his poleax on his left side and out of position to strike. His right shoulder ran into the belly of the giant, and the heavy humanoid was moved, pushed back by at least ten feet, and landed on his rump.

The forsaker turned to the next giant and brought his poleax forward. But she was ready for him, and had dropped her whip and pulled out a pair of curved swords. Each one glowing bright blue as electricity rippled over them. She moved to engage the warrior and then stopped in midstep.

“” Dimitri came running by, “I can’t believe that worked!”

Warnik turned and ran after the warlock, they ran about twenty feet, and then Dimitri turned and cast another spell, “” The spell was cast, but instead of an invisible wall, there was a wall thick wall of… something… that stood between the giants and the adventurers.

They reached the outer wall quickly, and Warnik moved to take the point position again, as they used the outer wall to guard their backs. The giants were quick to catch up to them. There were still eight of them. They were closer together now, and even with half the arcs were covered by the wall the barbarian couldn’t defend Dimitri as much as he’d like.

First, it was the room on the fire level that they were not ready for. Now it was a group encounter. They couldn’t control the battlefield. “Dimitri, I think we’re going to have to nova. I’ll go left.”

“Right, ” The mage’s spell went to the right and froze two of the giants.

Warnik turned and went to the left, aiming for the black-clad figure on the left. He knew they were intelligent, and he didn’t want to kill them, but pragmatically he didn’t see a choice.

His mind settled into the same state it had been during the slaughter of the cultists, he became a little detached, almost like a passenger as he swung the axhead and thrust with the spike on his poleax.

“[They’re not going to let us capture them! What do we do Bruin?]”

“[Six on the barbarian! Two on the mage, just tackle them.]”

The attacking giants split up and moved to attack the two adventurers. With six coming towards him, Warnik couldn’t do much except to fend them off. He started to use the poleax as a staff. Then the giants got too close and he dropped the weapon. Dimitri was already being overwhelmed by the two giants that were attacking him.

It turned into a dogpile with him on the bottom. His rage slipped the tight control he had on it, and it fueled his strength. The heavy bodies moved as he started to push them off of him. He was three quarters their size, which gave him more leverage than a typical human. He also had a set of imported attributes, focused on physical abilities, similar to Dimitri’s. In what seemed like an explosion of bodies, the giants went flying.

He stood got to his feet and prepared for the next assault. With his emotions under control again after that rage-filled show of strength, he slipped into a back stance, something he hadn’t practiced for years but still came naturally.

The biggest of the giants came was the first to stand up and he turned to face the barbarian. Mere seconds had passed as he had ordered the giants to tackle the others.

“[Let’s fight then!]” The challenge was obvious, even though Warnik couldn’t understand the words. The giant took his stance and the fight started with him rushing forward.

The forsaker was ready for the charge, he started big with a spring in his legs and a twirl in his body, aiming his barefoot to the head of the rushing giant. The giant wasn’t a novice at fighting either and blocked the kick with a forearm. The force of the kick was still enough to give him pause.

Warnik landed again, and went for a quick punch to the belly of the giant. His middle finger projecting a bit, ‘Point against flat,’ he thought to himself as he bright his hand back to his waist and shot it upwards, his fist undone, and fingers bent so that he could push the palm up towards the giant’s nose. At least that’s where he aimed, but he didn’t take the height difference into account and hit the chin of the warrior. ‘Flat against point.’

He took a step back to increase the range again. He was never good at ground work, having stopped his training before that level.

The giant tossed another punch and this time it was Warnik’s time to block. He didn’t see the kick that was coming towards him until it hit his hip. The pain sent white rage through his body, and that increased his strength again, and his recovery. The barbarian sent a punch back towards the giant who dodged it.

The missed punch was grabbed and it was Warnik’s turn to go flying from a hip throw. He rolled back up to his feet and faced his foe again. So far they’ve traded some punches and some kicks, but there was not much that the Forsaker could do against the giant so far.

“[You’re able to stand up, good.]”

The two came together again, neither one of them seemed to want to bring the fight into a ground fight and they started to trade blows and kicks. Every blow that Warnik landed was matched by one from the giant. He knew he was taking more damage from the giant than he was dishing out but it was a near thing with his enhanced attributes. The passive abilities as a forsaker were allowing him to mitigate the difference in the damage.

The two disengaged again and backed up. Both were breathing heavily, both were suffering from broken and bleeding noses. And multiple bruises and other soft tissue damage. The giant’s jaw had broken at some part and he spat out a tooth.

Somehow or other they had come to an understanding after a few moments. Neither one of them were willing to give up or to back down from the fight.

“[Truce?]”

Warnik understood the tone and nodded his head. Both of them relaxed, and the giant signaled the rest of his cohort to stand-down. At least for the moment.

#Demitri’s Perspective

He didn’t have much of a chance to fend off the giants when they came in to tackle him. His spells took too long to cast, and they weren’t effective enough to keep them back. They needed a larger party to keep multiple opponents back so he could act as a proper artillery piece.

He was released when one giant called for the truce. He knew that was going to have to act as a translator or the negotiator. But at least these giants didn’t seem to be part of the dungeon, despite having weapons fitting the elemental nature of the floor.

“Umm…. Hello?” He started, not the best greeting, but you had to start somewhere, “I take it you aren’t part of the dungeon fauna?”

“[Big words for a small man.]” The giant said with a chuckle. “[Do you speak for him?]” He asked and pointed towards his barbarian companion.

“Yeah, he doesn’t speak the local languages.”

“[Too bad, after a fight like that I would like to know about him and where he learned that. It was rough but he seemed to have some martial training.]”

Dimitri turned and repeated the words to his companion.

“He says that he learned some martial arts when he was younger, over a decade ago, and hasn’t practiced in a long time.”

“[Strange.]”

“What’s strange?”

“[I can understand you when you speak to him, and he understands what you say. But when I talk to you he doesn’t understand me.]”

“It’s hard to explain. We were both summoned to this world.”

“[You’re summons? That can explain things. You hit harder than your rank as a mage implies. And he’s a complete mystery to me.]”

“We were conversing when some cultists summoned us. From what we gathered they wanted to enslave me as some sort of weapon. They weren’t very good with target selection, and since we were together at the time they grabbed both of us.”

“[So neither one of you are willing to be here then?]”

“No.”

He took a bit of a pause and started to explain things to Warnik who looked like he was doing his best to keep himself under control. The barbarian gave a nod in return.

“[So what is a barbarian and a mage doing together?]”

“Err…. Um…. That’s going to be very hard to explain. I can’t really explain it. I had set up something like a dungeon in a game, and lots of people liked to challenge it. He was one of those that consistently beat it.”

“[You set up a dungeon?]”

“Something like that. And Warnik had just beaten it again for the hundredth time.” Warnik held up two fingers, “Ok two hundredth time. And we were chatting when we were summoned here.”

“[So because he was unintentionally summoned, he can’t understand us, but we can understand you?]”

“I think that would be a good explanation. What about you? You don’t seem like monsters of the dungeon.”

“[We’re not!]”

“Why are you down here?”

“[We’re storm folk, descendants from storm giants. This level is aligned with the storm and allows us to live more peacefully. We just have to fight off the occasional monster.]”

“This room seems bare to live in.”

“[You’re right. Our clan is deeper in the level. You two seemed to be methodical in searching for something. We decided to see what it was that drove you.]”

“Oh.” He pointed towards Warnik’s bare feet. “He lost his boots fighting the boss of the previous level. We’re also looking for a crossbow he can use.”

“[Are you willing to pay? I’m sure we can find boots that will fit him and a bow he can use.]”

“Non-magical. Do you think you can accept we won’t fight your clan? Or would you rather us do an exchange here? And what would you like us to pay with?”