Another strange thing about dungeons is that they always renew. There were a few cases where dungeons collapsed, but no-one knows for sure why, and everyone involved didn’t make it out to tell anyone what happened. Dungeons are always underground, and the system always tells you when you entered one. Everything about them is strange, why are they called dungeons? If they were a prison, what did they keep prisoner? What are they trying to keep prisoner now?
#Demitri’s Perspective
He was worried. Mostly about Warnik, his friend’s habit of going berserk was not like him. He had always seemed calm before, but then again they had never met in real life. And here they weren’t what they were there either.
Warnik seemed to be fighting something inside of himself, that kept slipping off the tight leash he was trying to keep on it. That fight along just seemed to make him angrier, and that made the fight harder to hold back.
“Weed!”
“Weed?”
“Yes, we need to find some good old Mary-Jane.”
“Why?”
“Nevermind.”
The walls over the dungeon changed suddenly from rough stone to dressed stone. The sides of the tunnel were made up of bricks that looked to be twice the size of cinder blocks. As they entered the area mage lights on the side of the walls flared to bring the illumination to a little more than what Dimitri was providing.
Warnik visibly calmed down as he went to examine the stone of the walls.
“It’s a single piece of stone.” Taking his mind off the battle that he has been waging inside of him. Dimitri let out a sigh of relief. Eventually, he was not used to dealing with angry people.
“I mean, each brick, or whatever you want to call it is a single piece. It doesn’t look like concrete.”
“What type of stone is it?”
“No idea, it’s the wife that is the rock enthusiast. It does look like a more common rock, not a crystal. There are no bands going through the rock like marble. And it’s not layered like a sediment, so I’d guess it was an igneous rock like granite. That’s really, as far as I can go about it. But what’s more interesting is the top of the tunnel or whatever you call it.”
“What’s so interesting about that?”
“It’s flat and level, not an arch, or a corbeled arch, and it’s made of several of these bricks, pressed tightly together.”
What followed was a confusing discussion about arches, forces like tension and compression, and why the ceiling made no sense. It seemed to calm Warnik down for the most part, where he could at least spout out useless bits of building trivia.
“Really, I don’t know why it’s important.”
“The floor is made the same way. We might be walking on the ceiling of another level.”
“You think we could get down faster by going through the floor?”
“We might be able to, but I wouldn’t suggest it. I’m just thinking about all those stories of dungeons, you know the ones with dungeon cores, and you don’t want to remove the core because then the dungeon will collapse?”
“Yeah? You think this is one of those?”
“It might, science wise, there should be no reason for these stones to stay up in the ceiling or the floor if there’s another level below us. Unless these stones were so tightly packed that friction is holding them up. Even then there should be a dip in the rock. Where those bricks in the center are lower than those on the outside.”
“I don’t see a dip.”
“Yeah, I don’t either Dimitri. Hell, I’m not a mason either. I might be completely wrong, but there has to be a reason why humans learned how to build an arch in the stone age. And the Romans loved the things.”
Warnik seemed… not quite happy… to have a mystery like that to go over in his mind. Something to keep from thinking about what is making him go berserk during combat.
“Can I ask you something Warnik?”
“Yes?”
“I understand why you are upset about losing control during a fight, but why so upset?”
“I guess it’s anxiety. I don’t know what is going on back on Earth. We weren’t asked if we wanted to come here. And I’m upset that my wife will be going crazy that I disappeared. Or did I disappear? Are our bodies laying there dead while we’re here?”
“I guess I understand that.”
“That’s just part of it. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to find a way back home. And I want to find my way back home soon. The other part is from when I was in the military.”
“Why is that important.”
“It’s hard to explain I guess. It’s the difference between warriors and soldiers. Warriors fight for glory, or themselves. Soldiers fight for each other, more than they fight for their homeland. Losing control like I do… kind of makes me feel more of the former than the latter. And that could get both of us killed.
“I also recognize the black vortex it throws me in. I might be oversharing but it’s something I’ve had to fight all my life. I’ve seen it in you as well. Why do you think I always went out and defeated your dungeon so often?”
“I thought it was just to frustrate me.”
“See that’s part of what I mean. It’s that black vortex that your mind swirls around, like the drain in a bathtub. Gah! I can’t explain it. Let’s just go find another monster to kill, maybe I can get a handle on this feeling.”
#Levyna’s Perspective
The dungeon took on the look of the stereotypical medieval dungeon after walking for a quarter of an hour. Dank and dark. With walls made of thick stone brick. Torches burned in sconces every ten feet or so. Just to add some atmosphere to the place, several thick chains with manacles were bolted into the walls here and there. There was even the occasional room that had a front wall made of bars.
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Levyna just shook her head as she walked. “This makes no sense.”
“What doesn’t?”
“This who place. Look at the floor in front of us.”
“It’s dusty. It doesn’t look like anyone’s been here for years. So you don’t think this is the escape tunnel after all? We can still go back and try to fight through the demons. You tore through that squad of demons like they were butter.”
“That was only a handful of demons Mariya. There’s literally thousands besieging this city. I’d have to fight them all at once. While I could probably take out a large amount of them, I don’t think they’d even notice before we were overwhelmed. But that’s not it. Look at the torches.”
“What about them? They’re smoky and provide us light so that you don’t have to keep casting that spell of yours.”
“If no-one has been down this path for years, who’s replaced those torches? Who lit them?”
“Um, it all that magic shit. I’ve never really thought about it before.”
“I guess so. Hopefully, the right-hand rule still works.”
“Right-hand rule?”
“Yes. When dealing with a maze put your hand on the right wall and follow it till the end. There’s just one slight problem?”
“How slight?”
“We’ll run into every trap, every monster, and every hazard. It’s also going to be slow, and I don’t have any paper.”
“Why do you need paper?”
“Paper, parchment, whatever. Something to map out the dungeon with so we know where we’ve been.”
“You know a lot about dungeons.”
“We use to play Dungeons and Dragons.”
“You played with dragons?”
“No, it was a game. Look it’s hard to explain, I’ll try to explain later. Especially since it seems we have our first encounter…. Skeletons how apropos.” She looked at the skeleton closely and saw a label above its head.
-[[Skeleton]]
“Oh wow, hooooow useful.”
“What’s useful?”
“Tell you later, let’s fight. Da, da, da, da-da da daaaah…” She started to vocalize as she moved into a rhythum. “Na, na, na, na-na na naaah…” She paused and looked back at Mariya, “Hold back, I want to try something.” She sheathed her daggers, and brought her left hand to her hip, and brought her right hand over as if she was grasping a hilt.
“Come forth Dyrnwyn!” She moved forward, trailing fire behind her, and performed an Iaido move, drawing the sword and striking with on the draw. An arc for fire shot forward in response to her move, slicing diagonally across the skeleton from ten feet away. A rattle of bones as they fell to the ground was the returning answer.
-You have overpowered a skeleton, level 15. Congratulations on killing such a simple enemy with an overly flashy move. You have earned the title: Exhibitionist.
“Hey, I hardly think that’s fair!”
“What’s not fair?”
“This system just labeled me an exhibitionist. I’m not… Really I’m not.” She held a flaming sword in her hand, not quite an arming sword but close. The blade was white-hot, three feet long. She could feel the heat from the blade but wasn’t affected by it.
Mariya flicked one of her long ears, and just raised an eyebrow. She couldn’t help it, and said, “Well you do have a big flashy sword.” She immediately covered her mouth and tried to hide her giggle.
“Bah! I just wanted to see if I still had the sword. I don’t use it that much. I prefer my daggers, they’re faster. And I can get away from danger faster with them. The sword though it’s all power, all get in your face. Not many options for retreat.”
“It has a particular name. I’m not sure I could pronounce it.”
“It comes from Welsh mythology, one of the thirteen treasures of Britain.”
“You…. You have a legendary treasure that is has a name like that?”
“No, no, no. It’s not the real Dyrnwyn. Just the people who made it seemed to like the name. And when they created this weapon. I’ve seen hundreds of people carry their own Dyrnwyns around.”
“You must come from a land of wonder.”
“Well… maybe…. Never mind.” She went over towards the remains of the skeleton and poked through the bones with her toe. She bent over and picked up the sword it was carrying.
“You probably don’t know how to use one of these, but it’ll probably be better than that club.” She handed the weapon over.
“The hilt is short so you can’t use it with two hands, but just think of it as a club and bash things with it. Feel how the hilt is kind of…. ovalish? That’ll tell you where the edge is pointing. Just try to get that into your target.”
“Can you teach me how to use it? You seem to be fairly good with a sword.”
“That seems to be instinct. Maybe if it was a Shinai, I could teach you a bit. We practiced a bit with those when I was younger.”
“A Shinai?”
“It’s a bamboo sword made for practice and competition. I’m not sure any of the skills will transfer to real swordmanship. That’s one skeleton down. You know I was just thinking you might want to keep the club. It might be more effective against a skeleton than a sword.”
#Warnik’s Perspective
He was not looking forward to the next fight. He didn’t know if he would go berserk again, but after five fights, he wasn’t looking forward to the next one. He remembered back to how basic training was and wondered if all that marching was one of the things to help keep the emotions at bay. Knowing that everyone was there for you, and had the same experience going through basic probably helped. Still, he would have to think about it.
The corridor they were in led to another circular room. “Looks like we have another fight before us. We have another fight.” The fights were starting to become routine, he hoped so. If they became boring maybe he wouldn’t feel the rage inside of him.
“It’s another of those giant claw thingies.” This one was a bit bigger than the others they had fought, and this one was sparking.
“Urm Warnik, identify says this is an ‘Adult Dire Claw Fiend.’”
“Really? Are you saying this one is not suitable for family entertainment?”
“That’s a bad joke.”
He knew that he was using humor to fight the rage. And he had no shame for it, he needed to find something. Maybe his friend was right, maybe they’d have to find some Mary Jane or the equivalent, ‘If we do find it, this world better have some Hawkins.’
The barbarian warrior smirked to himself and prepared for the charge of the beast. It was a different charge than he was expecting. The sparking from the claw fiend was its electrical attack which is shot towards Warnik. He gave a start and almost jumped to the side.
‘Wait… Electricity doesn’t move—’ The attack hit him… and did nothing.
“Fucking-A Forsaker for the win.”
He charged forward and used his poleax almost like a golf club, “Four!” The blade bit deep into the shoulder joint of the fiend. A fountain of blood spat into the air, almost like the warrior hit a blood bag on a movie set.
The claw fiend was lifted from the ground and slammed into the opposite wall near the ceiling. Warnik changed his stance, and held his shield before him, waiting for a response from the monster. As he stood there he felt the rage start to build inside of him.
A severed scapula was not enough to down the monster before them. It was hurt and lost the use of one of its forelimbs. The front leg dragged as it brought itself back to its feet. Without the leg it couldn’t maneuver, its fur started to glow brightly, and lightning shot out almost at random.
Warnik could smell the ozone in the air, as the bolts shot at him and around him. He could hear Dimitri behind him, “Oh shit!” With growing confidence Warnik moved towards the beast again, he hesitated as it started to cower before him. The rage welled up at that moment, and instinct took over, forcing the axhead down as lightning continued to cascade wildly around the monster and Mountain Man.
⸘⸘⸘ You have defeated a level 50 Adult Dire Claw Fiend. For defeating a monster 50 levels above your current level you have earned extra experience. By working in a party your reward is reduced. ⸘⸘⸘
⸘⸘⸘ You have shown no mercy to a cowering foe. You have gained the merciless title. Error…. Unable to apply title. ⸘⸘⸘
⸘⸘⸘
⸘⸘⸘ Recuring fault detected…. Unable to apply experience or attributes…. Attempting to remove attribute task…. Error Unable to reference attributes… ⸘⸘⸘