Chapter 26: The Journey To Our first dungeon

POV Javier

A few weeks passed after our disgrace in which we were unable to take a single prisoner. In contrast to Ansgar, who spoke of complete disaster because we had no contact with the enemy, I saw it differently. I took our defeat as an argument that we needed to train more. We had to be able to rely on others and not contribute anything ourselves. It was a fact that we had no talents to detect or pursue an enemy. Our classes were also not suitable for this because we had learned and improved talents other than stealth or survival. However, our training program changed little. Everyone was allowed to continue learning whatever he or she wanted as long as we attended the general academy classes. But we now would took part in expeditions more often in order to be able to increase our level. The expeditions did not consist of hunting monsters or wild animals, as I had initially thought. When I asked our teacher this question, I got a startling answer. There were no more monsters in the larger area of ​​the capital, as they had all been defeated long ago. And wild animals, such as those found in the forests of the West or the mountains of the North, were beneath us and left to the common adventurer. The only accepted method of increasing level, other than training, was exploring dungeons. I found this answer very interesting. I already knew that there were dungeons, but not yet which ones and where they were. In addition to hunting monsters, conquering dungeons was one of the basic activities in role-playing games. According to our teacher, there were two dungeons in our immediate vicinity. There was a dungeon about 4 days to the south, near the city of Tyros, and the second dungeon was about 3 days to the northwest in the middle of the wilderness. We then received a detailed lecture on the subject of dungeons.

The origin of dungeons was unknown and a popular area of ​​research for many wizards in the Empire. The most popular theory was that the creators of the dungeons were gods. No other known being on Narran was powerful enough to create such a vault. All but one of the dungeons known in the Empire were underground and the entrances were all outside settlements. The strong magical aura of the dungeon made people permanently sick.

All creatures from the dungeon could not pass through the entrance. The entrances were mostly archways with powerful magic on them. All dungeons were imbued with magic, so many creatures in the dungeons were magically gifted. The creatures that populated the dungeons were diverse. They resembled the monsters that had once wreaked havoc in the empire and could still be found on the borders today. These include goblins, orcs, skeletons, zombies, slimes, insects, but also very powerful creatures such as griffins, golems or dragons. The dungeons also had some kind of theme. Common theories suggested that they relied on a specific type of magic. The dungeon of Tyros probably had nature as its theme because of the numerous plant monsters and forest dwellers, while the dungeon in the northwest was assigned to dark magic because of the large number of undead. Other well-known dungeons in the Empire were Air, which had flying monsters, and Earth, which had a particularly large number of golems. There was also the lightning dungeon, which was located far to the north in the mountains. Dungeons not only consisted of one large area, but were divided into floors. On each floor there was a staircase or portal to the next floor. The deeper you went down the floors, the stronger the monsters became. The exact number of floors was unknown as no one had been completely defeated yet. But it had to be beyond 40, because 40 was the highest floor that has been proven to have been reached so far. The monsters on this level had a level of up to 80, making them far stronger than most humans. However, there was one dungeon that was an exception to the other known ones. This was the air dungeon. The aerial dungeon was a tall tower located far to the south of Lightburgh. You couldn't see the end of the tower because it was high in the clouds.

At the end of every 5th floor there was a special room or area called the boss room. In the room you fought against a number of monsters that appeared on the previous five floors. One of these monsters was particularly strong and was the respective boss. You could recognize the boss because there was only a single example of this type of monster. Once the boss of floors 10, 20, 30, etc. was defeated, you could no longer return to the floors before. The entrance immediately teleported you to the level after the last boss when you entered. The only known exception was a group in which at least half of the members had not yet defeated this boss. Another exception was solo players who entered the dungeon alone. This restriction did not apply to them. They also had the opportunity to get together in groups again, which was also used frequently. Dates were difficult, however, because when you entered the dungeon you found yourself somewhere random on the edge of the dungeon. The dungeons were so big that it sometimes took hours to find your way back. There were special rewards after a boss fight. First, a chest appeared with random items that got better the deeper you went into the dungeon. But the second reward was the more interesting. A stele appeared that, when touched, gave you two development points. You could immediately spend a development point to improve a skill to the next rank if you met the requirements. This saved the need for an instructor. Any missing EXP was automatically deducted if you chose this skill. If you don't have the requirement or EXP, you can't improve this skill. You could also save it and spend it later to improve your class. The stele was only usable when defeating the boss for the first time. Although that's not entirely true, because there is a way to make the stele appear a second time. To do this you had to defeat the boss as a solo player, which only a few did because the difficulty of the fight was always the same, regardless of whether you were in a group or individually. A group is limited to a maximum of 6 members to receive the stele and a maximum of 10 members to be allowed to enter the boss room. To reach the next floor in the dungeon it was necessary to defeat the boss monster.

In summary, defeating monsters gave you EXP. The stronger the monsters, the more EXP there was. Furthermore, chests containing equipment were occasionally found in dungeons. For defeating the boss monster there was a lot of EXP and a special chest in which special equipment could be found. This equipment can be a weapon, armor, a potion, ingredients for potions, something to eat, or in lucky cases a spell book. There were steles in the dungeons that allowed you to increase the rank of a certain skill if you met the requirements. The steles on floors 5 to 15 allowed an increase to the advanced rank and the steles on floors 20 to 35 allowed an increase to the expert rank. The stele on level 40 granted one the Master rank. The skills that you could increase always belong to the theme of the dungeon. The nature dungeon at Tyros had increases in natural magic that enabled resistance from Earth, Water, Mind, Poison and Paralysis, skills like Herbalist, Foraging or Survival. The dungeon northwest of the capital allowed the resistances of light and dark, mind, paralysis, stealth or concealment. They were all skills of the criminal milieu. Dark magic was still the basis of discussion, but since dark magic was banned, there was still no confirmation that this was actually the dark magic dungeon. But the suspicion was obvious.

Everything we heard was very interesting. According to logic, the steles on even higher floors should also allow the master rank. Was there also a stele for the legendary Grandmaster rank? That would be a very worthwhile goal that I wanted to pursue. I couldn't wait to enter the first dungeon, but that won't be until after our 15th birthday in the summer.

POV Eleonore

I had been very happy that we had no fighting during the attack on the bandit location. So we neither got hurt nor did we have to hurt anyone. In the end, I only did the whole thing because I had no other choice if I wanted to support Corni. I was also happy that the senseless slaughter of animals would soon come to an end. I was conflicted about the dungeons lecture. On the one hand, I was glad that there were no monsters living near us. That way we didn't have to go out and hunt them. On the other hand, that also meant that we would soon have to go into dungeons to fight. The dungeon with the undead didn't sound very nice to me, but I would have a lot of spells in my repertoire that worked particularly well against undead. The dungeon with the nature feature didn't sound too bad to me either, since plants and most animals weren't the creatures that scared me. I didn't like it, but there were worse things.

A week after our 15th birthday the time had come. We traveled to Tyros. While Cornelius and Ansgar rode on horseback, Javier and I preferred the carriage. It took us almost a week because we often took breaks in the carriage. We were immediately let through the city gate after our companion spoke to the city guard. We drove along the main street towards the inner square and there into the best inn in the city. We were supposed to stand by at the inn while our escort gathered information about the current status of the dungeon. We were given a few days to recover before we should move on into the dungeon.