Arwin’s team arrived at the dungeon around 11 hours after leaving Milten. Their trip went surprisingly well. There wasn’t a single incident the whole way over. Either they’d gotten incredibly lucky or Art had arranged to make sure nobody would follow them from Milten.
He was partial to believing the second option. Arwin wasn’t a huge believer in coincidences.
The dungeon in question was situated at the top of a small valley and surrounded by looming mountains whose shadows cast the dungeon and the valley beneath it into chilly darkness.
There had been no attempt to hide or conceal the entrance of the dungeon. It was a large marble structure roughly the size of a two-story house. Thick beams of white stone rose up around the entrance to support a plain but grand roof. The dungeon had no walls, allowing them all to see the twisting white portal waiting behind the pillars.
Nobody else seed to be in the area. That wasn’t a huge surprise. This dungeon was quite out of the way. Even though Arwin’s knowledge of local geography was poor at best, he knew Milten was pretty out of the way.
There weren’t going to be many people hunting for dungeons this far away from the city. Espeically when there were quite a number of them much closer, and most of the adventurers visiting the area weren’t so obscenely powerful that they had to look for sothing this far out.
That didn’t an sobody couldn’t show up. There was always a chance, and dismissing it would only lead to being surprised. It was far better to prepare for the worst than to expect the best.
“Everyone take so ti to relax,” Arwin said. “We don’t want to go in there exhausted. We're about an hour ahead of schedule. I’m confident we’ll be able to clear the dungeon quicky, but let’s not take any risks. Rest up with the ti we’ve bought ourselves.”
Nobody argued with him.
An hour wasn’t that long in the grand sche of things, and it was well worth the ti to rest instead of pushing ahead like idiots and getting hurt because of it.
Arwin kept watch while everyone else relaxed. There still wasn’t anything out of the ordinary that he could make out. [Dragon’s Greed] didn’t find anything beyond what was inside the dungeon itself.
It wasn’t long before all of them had recovered. There was nothing left between them and the dungeon. So, with little more than a round of exchanged nods, the four of them advanced into the dungeon.
Pale, bluish-white stone materialized beneath Arwin’s feet the mont he stepped through the portal. He was instantly hit with the scent of sothing very, very old. It was sothing between a damp moss and a slightly sickly earthy sll.
They stood in a looming hall, the portal they’d just stepped through at their backs. The arch of the hall was nearly twice the height of a normal ceiling, as if it had been sized for people far larger than normal humans.
A faint glow emanated from the stones. It was dim, but since every single surface in the dungeon seed to be made of the sa stone, it was more than enough to see by for the ti being. There were rectangular holes within the walls to their sides, as if sothing long had been ant to be stored within them, but all were empty.
The hall almost imdiately branched off in two directions just in front of them. There didn’t seem to be any real difference between the two paths — except for the fact that the golden pathway illuminated by the crown clearly headed off to the left.
“Whoa,” Olive whispered. “It’s pretty. In a creepy way. Kind of like ghost stones. Do you think we could steal a rock on the way out?”
“Let’s see how things go first,” Arwin replied. “We don’t want to sohow trigger a trap and bring the whole dungeon down on ourselves before we have what we’re here for. Follow .”
He started off toward the left path.
“We might be dealing with undead,” Kien warned in a low tone as they walked. “This lighting sche is common among such dungeons.”
“The lighting sche?” Olive asked. “You’re telling ghosts have group etings to decide on décor?”
“Probably not ghosts. They prefer a deeper green hue,” Kien replied. “But there could be so wraiths present. And yes. Undead like pale colors. Blues, muted greens, things that feel peaceful or remind them of the earth.”
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“…seriously?”
“Yes,” Kien said. “Do not forget that many dungeons attract wandering monsters. It would only make sense for monsters to be more drawn to dungeons that suit their desires for a ho. Would you want to live in a barn?”
“What kind of barn is it?” Olive asked.
“Perhaps I should have expected that answer,” Kien grumbled, a small smile pulling at his lips. “But—”
A faint click echoed through the hall. Kien’s broom rose instantly as he spun toward the source. Sothing blurred from the walls. Arwin caught a flicker of gray heading straight for Anna’s back.
Caldera materialized in his hands in an instant. He didn’t even spend ti to see what the blur was before the hamr was already hurtling through the air with a shrill scream. There was a heavy crunch followed an instant later by a clattering crash as a skeleton smashed into the wall across from them.
At least, it had once been a skeleton. What remained now were a thousand different shards of bone that glowed the exact sa dim blue as the stone surrounding them. The monster’s body had been completely obliterated. Large chunks of it were lted from the heat rising from Caldera’s head, and there was no sign at all of its head or upper body.
No identification from the sh rose. The monster had died before it had even had a chance to be announced.
They all stared at the monster’s pulverized remains for a second.
“Shit,” Olive muttered. “What did they put in your cereal, Arwin?”
Arwin just shook his head. He’d barely even felt the impact of the strike.
“Look,” Kien said, stepping past Arwin and touching his hand to the wall where the skeleton had co from. There was a suspiciously skeleton-shaped hole in the stone. “It was lded into the wall. Our enemies could be anywhere.”
“That’s problematic,” Anna said grimly. “We could already be surrounded. And the deeper we go…”
Arwin frowned. He was actually less worried about their chances against a single powerful monster as he was a horde of average-strength ones. There were only so many places he could be at once.
“What do we do?” Olive asked. “The mosnters can’t be that smart. One just attacked out of nowhere. But if they can communicate or saw what happened, they could try to ambush us.”
That’s annoying. I almost wish I hadn’t killed it so fast. If I knew what rank the thing was, it would make it a bit easier to figure out where to go from here.
“We need to make sure not to leave any behind us,” Kien said. “Otherwise, we risk a horde bearing down on our backs. This is a high ranked dungeon. That risk is not one we can ignore.”
He’d mirrored Arwin’s thoughts exactly.
Arwin studied the stone intently. The monster had been lded perfectly with the wall. If it hadn’t attacked, he was pretty sure they would have had absolutely no way to know it was there.
“Ah,” Arwin said. His eyes lit up as an idea struck him. “Okay. I’ve got it.”
“Really?” Olive asked.
“You don’t have to sound so surprised,” Arwin said. “It’s a little offensive, actually.”
“Sorry,” Olive said sheepishly. “It’s just Lillia or Rodrick usually co up with the plan. You usually just smack things. I’ll work on being more open minded.”
“So… what’s the plan?” Anna asked.
Arwin glanced from the others back to the wall. Then he adjusted his grip on Caldera. Dungeons were remarkably durable. It was incredibly difficult to deal damage to them due to all the magical power infused into their very being.
But if monsters were hiding in the walls… well, that was a lot easier to damage.
Arwin reared back. He felt familiar magic course through his veins like liquid adrenaline, filling him to the brim. Kien’s eyes widened. He took a step back, pushing the others away with his broom.
Then Arwin swung his hamr. Caldera transford into a streak of molten black motion.
The weapon slamd into the stone to Arwin’s side with a deafening crash. The ground bucked beneath his feet and a huge tremor rolled through the wall.
Two skeletons in front of them were physically thrown free from their hiding spots and smashed into the far walls of the hall. This ti, the sh actually had a chance to identify them.
[Palebone Skeleton: Expert 3]
The monsters charged, but Arwin was already swinging. Caldera slamd into both of the skeletons in the sa strike, sending them both smashing into the wall with yet another enormous crash.
Bone fragnts flew in every direction as the two skeletons were pinned and crushed in an instant. The parts of them that hadn’t been lted into the stone clattered to the ground in a ringing rain.
Everyone stared at Arwin.
“I take my apology back,” Olive said, staring at him with equal parts awe and disbelief. “Your solution was hitting the dungeon?”
“What?” Arwin asked. “It’s a good plan. It worked! And hey, now you get to take so pieces of shiny stuff back. You don’t get to complain.”
Olive looked down at the remains of the pale, glowing skeletons on the ground. Then she quietly crouched and scooped a few into her pouch.
“Okay. Fair point,” Olive said. “But what now? You can’t an to…”
Arwin smiled in response. “Oh, I most certainly do. I have no interest in creeping silently through the dungeon at this point. None of us have a way to locate the monsters in hiding, so I’ll just be forcing them out.”
“I suppose this will give the monsters a fighting chance.,” Anna said ekly, still staring at the remains of the two Expert Tier Skeletons.
“No,” Kien said, shaking his head grimly as Arwin hoisted Caldera once more. “I don’t think it will.”
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