Once we landed, the plane didn’t taxi up to the main terminal, and instead we were moved off to the hangar area where a ladder was pushed up against the plane. There were a pair of government agents that met us on the ground. They hustled us into a van, and we were on our way. Someone had thought ahead and inside the vehicle they had a nice selection of sandwiches and drinks for us to enjoy, which was good, because I was starving after the flight.
“Thanks for volunteering to do this,” Agent Lopez said. I had almost forgotten that he’d joined us on the plane, since he had sat up front with the pilots to give me and Marie time to review the dossiers and plan in privacy.
“We’re glad to help, is there any new info on the dungeon you can give us?” I asked.
“Yes, I just received an update while we were landing. The rest of the team is onsite, and we have whatever gear you might need there for you to use. As far as the dungeon, there have been three waves of attacks coming out of it, and the creatures have been a few different types. They’ve also been a bit odd,” Lopez said.
“What do you mean odd?” I asked as Lopez scrolled through his phone. Our dungeon had two types of mobs, and a couple variants of each. I assumed this dungeon would be the same, except for maybe having things a bit tougher than kobolds and spiders.
“On the first wave, it was oversized jungle creatures. Something resembling a giant anaconda, and monkeys that used spears as weapons. The second attack was only anacondas, but instead of the monkeys, a pair of dwarves showed up.
“Unfortunately, my team couldn’t hold their fire fast enough and the dwarves shouted something before they were killed. After reviewing the recording, the dwarves had warned that something else was in there, taking everyone that was still alive and dragging them into the dark,” Lopez said, handing his phone over to show the pictures of the animals and dwarves that they had managed to take before they vanished into mana vapor.
The anacondas were huge, and much wider in diameter than a normal anaconda, and could probably swallow me whole. It seemed like they, and the oversized monkeys, were dealt with easily enough from the firepower at the security team’s disposal. As far as the monkey’s they were wearing crude leather armor and had spears with sharpened bone tips on them.
“What about the third wave?” I asked.
“This is where it gets weird. The last wave was a single anaconda, and over two dozen of these guys,” Lopez said, tapping another picture to pull it up before handing the phone over for us to get a closer look.
The first picture was the anaconda, which was the same size as the others we’d seen from the first attacks, but this one had odd symbols painted on its body, and some kind of harness strapped over it. It was almost like it was a pet, or a trained attack snake. The symbols painted on it had a primitive vibe, and even though I was just looking at a picture, they made me feel uneasy.
“Here’s the final creature type we’ve encountered,” Lopez said, tapping over to the final picture.
It had a small humanoid shape with an oversized head, and a mouth filled with needle-like teeth. The thing wore a grass skirt and held an oval shield in one hand and a spear that was about a foot long in the other. It was only a picture of the upper half of the monster, as the bottom had been blown off in the firefight.
Something about the little monster triggered an old memory. I remembered watching an old horror movie with my sister when I was just a little kid. It was a cheesy thing from the 70s, and it featured a murderous tiki doll that resembled the monster I was seeing. The thing had given me nightmares for weeks, and my parents grounded my sister for letting me watch it. It seemed like I was going to have to confront my childhood fears in this dungeon.
“Like the tiki doll monster from that 70s movie,” I offered.
“Kind of, that was one of the matches we’d gotten when we ran the image through the database. There’s nothing like it recorded yet from any of the summonings, but that’s not saying much. Who knows how many worlds are out there, and how many horrible things lurk in them,” Lopez said.
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“Any ideas about how they fight, and what we should look out for?” Marie asked, taking control of the conversation and steering it away from my childhood fears.
“The snakes are about what you’d expect, they tend to not kill their victims, just swallow them whole. As for the monkey things, they were fast, strong, and knew how to use those spears. The tiki monsters, they’re small and hard to hit, and those spears they use are dipped in some kind of paralytic toxin. I still have three guys over at the hospital that are being treated for the toxin.
“Where is the dungeon located? I’m assuming it’s not another amusement park,” I asked, trying to get my head back in the game.
“No, this one was in a personal residence. Thankfully, the home it’s located under is out in the countryside, and the owner was an older man that had recently passed away. We found it late and were lucky to spot it when a satellite pinged on the energy signature now that we know what to look for. The first team on site had to clear away the first wave of dungeon creatures, and shortly after that, the summoned being team was sent in.
“The team was an ad hoc one, and not optimized. They were powerful enough and should have been able to handle anything like you faced in the first dungeon. When they didn’t come out after over ten hours had passed, and more waves of creatures kept emerging, we figured the worst had happened,” Lopez said.
“But creatures attacked from the dungeon we were in while we were still alive,” I offered.
“Exactly, so there is some possibility that they’re still in there. That’s one of the things we want your team to do while inside, you need to look for the first team. Until your experience, and that of a few of the other teams, the creatures didn’t emerge from a dungeon when a team of summoned beings was inside. I don’t like surprises, and these dungeons seem to keep evolving new ones the longer they’re allowed to stick around,” Lopez advised.
“Anything else you can tell us?” Marie asked.
“That’s it for now, we’ll be on site in less than an hour. The medical staff is trying to come up with something to deal with the toxin on the tiki weapons, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Even if they do come up with something, the odds are, the dungeon will nullify the cure since we used modern tech to come up with it,” Lopez said.
We drove through the city of Macon and then turned off onto a smaller country road that led us several miles into the sticks. There were a few houses here and there, but they were really spread out compared to what I was used to in LA. We pulled off onto a gravel road that led us about a mile to the house where the dungeon had appeared. It was a typical house for the region, well-kept but older.
What probably wasn’t typical in this area were the dozens of vehicles, including a pair of armored personnel carriers with their turrets pointed toward the house. Just outside the front door were the other four summoned beings, I recognized them from the pictures in the dossier. As we approached, James, the Wall Warrior, greeted us.
“Marie and Rico, right?” James said, reaching out to shake our hands. He was as huge as his dossier picture had shown him to be. He must have been pushing six and a half feet tall and was a solid 250 pounds of muscle. His background as a bodybuilder was obvious. James’ dark skin contrasted with the white shorts and Hawaiian shirt he wore.
“Hi, is that your typical dungeon gear?” I joked, trying to lighten the mood. Marie and I were in normal clothes, but besides James, and the other tank, Melissa, the others in our party were kitted out in full tactical gear.
“It sure is, at least until we get inside. The system will gear me up when I’m in the dungeon. What about you two, do you need anything?” James asked as he introduced us to the others.
Melissa, our other melee tank was around my age, slender, with hair dyed blue and silver. She wore a pair of tactical pants and combat boots she must have grabbed from the gear provided for us, but instead of any armor, she just had an old and faded Clash t-shirt. I thought she looked more like a barista than a deadly melee tank, but with a summoned being, looks could be deceiving.
“Hi, I’m Melissa, maybe we should get the introductions out of the way and then get you two equipped while we discuss how we’re going to handle this place,” Melissa said, taking charge.
“Sounds good to me,” Marie replied, and we followed them to one of the vans that held just about every piece of police and military gear you could hope for. We picked out what we wanted, and some of the soldiers nearby helped us get everything put on the correct way. While we did that, Marie and I gave a rundown of who we were and our abilities.
Our healer, Nicolas, looked like someone’s chubby dad, and seemed out of place in body armor and with several combat knives strapped on him. He seemed a bit meek but opened up when he let us know how his healing worked. We’d need to stay within twenty feet of him to get the maximum effect, but we’d still get some healing up to fifty feet away. He also had an aura that would help combat any of the paralyzing toxins the little tiki guys used, but he couldn’t heal and deal with toxins at the same time.
The last member of our group, the force mage Eliza, was in her late 20s and had a confident, but friendly demeanor. Average in build, she wore body armor and other gear like she was used to it. She confirmed that was the case when she told us about her background as an Army Reservist who was trained as a Combat Medic. I was a bit surprised that she didn’t get some kind of healing class, but the system did what it wanted to do with each of us.
It looked like we had a solid, competent group. There weren’t any immediate personality clashes or immaturity issues like we had with Elliot. The only trouble was that we were facing a deadly dungeon and had never worked together before.