---Perrerian---
The sound of steel crashing against steel echoed through the training grounds, as flurries of sand and dust were kicked up. Two almost six-ter tall steel giants were locked in a mighty sparring match.
The commander of the fort had organized the sparring especially for his guests to watch after lunch. After approaching the fort at the mouth of the cave yesterday there was so back and forth with Jane leading the conversation before they were actually invited inside.
Although Monique was the team leader, Jane was the leader of the expedition and was in charge of Diplomacy, and she did a great job. Without revealing too much, she had managed to catch the commander's interest and the expedition beca guests at the fort, with the promise to get into contact with his higher-ups.
They were quite lucky to be able to communicate with these people, despite having no connection with the system. Monique wasn't privy to the inner workings of the system, but apparently, the language was registered, since it was automatically translated for them.
The Chosen of Athena stood in the gallery above the court, watching the training below with a mix of excitent and skepticism. Although she was not a nerd, Monique couldn't help but feel so excitent seeing actual chs, although the people called these machines Titans.
Although the display was a great show, she admitted as much, Monique was occupied by one thought: Why were they so weak? Watching the encounter in the court, although it was just a sparring, she could estimate their power to be comparable to normal beasts of comparable size.
This was enough to face the monster that would flood out from the cave, big beasts around 4-5 ters were not a problem for these chanical knights, but it seed so... inefficient to Monique. She was not a blacksmith, so she couldn't appraise the chs, but her experience told her so.
She had already seen the potential of sothing like this in the shape of Epsilon's power armors. Despite being way smaller, the power armors easily outperford their size. But these titans felt weak for their size. Maybe their technology was lacking? Although it was hard to believe, looking at the dynamic movents of the giant knights.
Maybe this was how it was naturally supposed to be, if a world developed with magic but without system skills? She couldn't help but be a little disappointed, to finally see actual chs, only for them to be weaker than the average Oathguard.
It was such a bumr, she couldn't even take this obvious attempt to show force seriously. At least Jane had been quite skilled in gaining information about this world. The rchant of Minas Mar had revealed the existence of the hell gate at the depth of the cave system, to see if the people here knew anything about it.
As the conversation went on, they found out that all these people knew were rough myths about anything that happened more than 2000 years ago. Their calendar and proper historical records only started about a millennium ago.
So they had no idea what had happened pertaining to the demons that ran the birthing pools or the winged beings that fought them. But that didn't an this world was free of their influence. Even though the power level disappointed Monique, this was a true high-fantasy world as you would find it in fiction.
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A culture of magic, influenced by the threat of demons, as well as the supposed influence of the divine. They did have a religion, so it was not impossible that there was a god, that actually conquered this world from a tribe of the abyss.
There were a lot of big things they didn't know about the abyss, about this world, and about this god they worshiped, but they could always try to reveal it as they continued on. What was important for their mission was that they were able to confirm the crops and food of this place.
Jane had ntioned their intention to trade from the beginning, and it seed like the commander was almost excessively interested in supporting the expedition in this. he had already sent a ssenger to the feudal lord of the region and assured them an audience by tomorrow.
The chosen of Athena could already sll that there was a situation, but it really didn't take much to notice that they were desperate. Either way, it helped them too, if things moved quickly. They were already scheduled to travel to the territory's capital tomorrow, together with an escort of these titans.
“How do you like our warriors, caravan leader?” the commander approached her. Jane was beside him. Until a mont ago they had been talking among themselves. To the commander, Monique was the caravan leader, while Jane was the head rchant of the expedition. This was how they introduced themselves.
“These machines are very impressive, Commander. I can see how you were able to hold this place against the terrible beast spawning from the caves,” Monique complented the machines honestly, slightly exaggerating the strength of the beasts.
In the story they told he commander, they had played down their strength a good bit, but the overall structure stayed the sa. After the “Gate of Terror” opened in their “kingdom” and the wave of beasts was suppressed ”with great difficulty”, they sent in an expedition that managed to explore the way to the surface with great costs and sacrifice(on the part of the beasts living in the caves).
Under this guise, they were a second expedition, sent here to see if the people of this land could be traded with to support the “kingdom” that had suffered great damage in their venture to suppress the gate. Although it was all bullshit, the commander gobbled that right up.
“Oh, these old things. They are just enough to hold this fort against this cave. Wait until we reach the lord's city. There you will see so of the new ones, the big ones, if you are lucky you might even see a Dungeon Buster,” the commander emphasized that these were old models and there were even bigger and stronger titans.
That implied they had to go bigger in size to make them stronger. Maybe it was a limitation of their technology after all. But sothing else caught Monique's attention.
“Dungeon Buster?” she asked. Dungeon was a word she associated with the system, although Leana told them that dungeons existed independently from the system, it was weird to think that there were dungeons in this place, when there was a massive cave system below them without even one dungeon in it.
Monique had experienced dungeons pop out in literally every nook and cranny they could possibly spawn, but here was a cave system on the level of the Holy Land of the Adventurer guild, without any. She had kinda assud there were none.
“Yes, they are very special titans, created with cutting-edge magic. They are small enough to enter dungeons and still powerful enough to close most of them, “ the commander explained before he stopped himself. “Oh, right. Do you even have dungeons in your world?” he asked. Monique halted for a mont, trying to decide whether to be honest or- she shook her head. She was curious how dungeons were treated in a world without the system.
“ Then you are still lucky. If you think these demon beast caves are bad, well dungeons are worse. They started appearing during my great-grandfather's ti. If left unmanaged, they beco places that constantly spew out powerful creatures. To stop them, you have to go inside, while the insides are death traps barely anyone survives, “ the commander explained how they perceived dungeons.
Monique had gotten so used to clearing dungeons, that it ca as sothing of a culture shock, hearing soone describe them as terrifying death traps. Although this was a proper description of unmanaged dungeons, sothing didn't seem to make sense. If Monique died in a dungeon, she could revive at an adventurer's guild, but the man talked as if they didn't have the adventurer's guild here.
“But as long as you close them quick enough, there is nothing to worry about. That's what Dungeon Busters are made for,” the man concluded, still without a single ntion of the guild. Was there really none?
Monique actually had a slight case of goosebumps, thinking of facing dungeons without the safety net of the guild. It wasn't like Monique had not done so before the guild was a thing on Urth. There were still wild, unchecked dungeons, too, but she still had the system and her martial arts to support her back then. These were normal people, fumbling their way through learning martial arts and magic the hard way.
“What about the ones you couldn't close in a tily manner?” Jane asked from the side, also interested in the topic.
“They beco places like this fort. Since we can't close them, we can only contain the damage..” the commander said solemnly, looking away from the inner court, to the entrance to the cave. His gaze hinted at the dark past of this place. How many people had they sent into and lost in these caves before they decided to build a full fortification to stop the beasts erging from there?
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