Chapter 5

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[Sigurd]

My first thought was, wow! This darkness goes on for a while, ten steps in and I’m still not out of it. However, another few, slow, deliberate steps carries me out.

One would think that spending two minutes advancing the fifteen steps to get through the darkness was slow, but since the dungeon was unknown I wasn’t taking chances.

I’d heard rumours that new dungeons often tried to throw everything at adventurers straight away in a frenzied effort to kill them, once they had matured and become stable, then they could be farmed.

It was often said that a new dungeon was the most dangerous one and I felt that it may well be true, when they were still getting to grips with things and all the dangers hadn’t been catalogued yet anything could take you by surprise.

Emerging from the darkness, I stumbled around like a baby deer, new to the new world. On uncertain legs I stood, taking in the sights and smells, as everything blossomed around me.

Instead of the small cramped tunnel I was expecting, a large open woodland greeted me. The sounds of life explode over me as I step from the darkness and into the light.

There’s the rustle of the grasses and the leaves in the wind. There’s the humming buzz of flying creatures and the occasional tweet tweet of the birds that call out at me, splitting the serenity of the place.

The sweet smell of sap and wood mixes with the earthiness of the land as it invades my nostrils, carried forth with my each and every breath

The fist floor is a huge cavern populated with a lot of greenery, the floor is coated in a thick layer of grasses that obscure the floor. Waist high they could be hiding all manner of creatures.

Emerging from the grasses are thick wall like hedges, they don’t block much, but they divide the floor into rough rooms, within these rooms are large drooping trees, their thin vine like branches brush the floor as the wind shifts them.

Across the room, on the opposite side, I thought that I could see a simple staircase. A cave exit, under the branches of one of the droopy trees.

Taking a few more steps, my focus returned to me with a sharp shock. That was bad Sig, I chastised myself, I was rusty, having gotten distracted so easily. Whilst I was staring around, mouth open like a gormless idiot, I could easily have been taken unawares.

With my senses returned, I carefully observed my surroundings looking for any kind of threat. None appeared however, I was lucky my mistake had gone unpunished. Though it wasn’t that likely I would have died to such a mistake it was something I couldn’t afford to make alone.

As I set off exploring the floor, I pushed my way through the grasses, avoiding the thicker patches as best I could.

Though the level seemed to be fairly straight forward I hadn’t found anything but the walls, they were made of tough wood with thousands of small innocuous spikes on.

It was odd, nothing that I had seen so far would pose any threat, there were no large animals or even predatory ones that I could find, no traps for the careless to blunder into, nothing at all. It seemed to be just a small cavern filled with life.

I continued to explore the floor for about half an hour before I spotted it. Under one of the trees was a treasure chest, it was a similar colour to the wood and hidden in the roots of the tree.

As I got closer, I realised something felt off to me, the tree looked wet, odd. Edging my way in I thought it looked like it was coated in something, like a slick film covering it, sap?

I pushed aside some of the dangling branches my axe head as I prepared to step within the layer of branches. This was a mistake!

They reeled back and the whole tree seemed to come alive. It whipped out at me sending me sprawling, back to the floor. Thankfully I had fallen out of its reach.

Standing back up, I looked around quickly, no approaching threats. This was something new! I had never heard of trees like this, sure there were plant mobs, but they were more like animals when the dungeon was finished with them, giant plants that could swallow a man whole, mushrooms that hopped around, but a tree that came alive, odd!

I was smiling as I thought about it, this was new! I was excited to delve further, this was great, new things to explore, I had originally given up delving because my team and I were weary of the same things day in day out, the deeper dungeons that had things we hadn’t seen were far too dangerous for our average team and all the others I had experienced myself.

Returning to the tree, I pondered the best way to approach it, eventually I decided to give it an early pruning.

I stood, just out of reach, calmly hacking at the tree until it couldn’t get at me anymore. As expected, the chest was a little meagre, containing only a few low value coins. But I was happy nonetheless.

The trees looked wet from afar because they seemed to be coated in a thick sap, it clung to the bark forming small rivulets that ran down the cracks. I didn’t have a vial on me for this trip and I wasn’t taking any risks by trying to collect some, an issue for the next trip.

Time for floor two, perhaps there would be danger there, floor one had been an easy one and I suspected the dungeon wouldn’t give out another free shot, it had to recoup the mana lost at some point and it couldn’t just give out these levels if it was to be sustainable.

After another hour, I had neared the stairs, they were made from the roots of the willow at the exit. Very clever dungeon, very clever.

It fit the aesthetic of the room perfectly, and considering the trees were alive before, it induced a note of panic that they would disappear from beneath me, if you looked carefully you could see through the roots; a long drop would await me if the stairs went away.

I already liked this dungeon, I suspected that learning its depths would be a great deal of fun. As long as it got harder and more profitable then this would become a major part of the world’s economy.

I walked down and around, spiralling down about 15m before emerging from the side of the wall of the next floor. Floor two was similarly themed in terms of nature.

The steps emerged from the side of the cavern, up high, below me was a floor of foliage, the canopy of the tree tops, I took the next few steps down carefully, I didn’t want to fall through to the floor below, not knowing how far that drop was, was both good and bad. On one hand I didn’t know how far the drop was and I couldn’t see it, on the other I didn’t know if I would survive the fall. I was betting that I wouldn’t.

In front of me was a tree trunk that brushed the ceiling several metres above me, the tree was several metres around and cut into its trunk was a small opening. When I got closer I could see that this was a staircase, original. I liked this dungeon.

The tree coiled down a long, long way, and at several points along the winding staircase there were paths that led out into the different layers of foliage. I preferred the stability of the ground and so I continued down the tree in hopes of reaching the bottom.

A few more loops around and I paused at the exit, the floor was dark, the trees having blocked out enough of the light that fell from above to lace the whole floor in shadows.

The floor was coated in a layer of dead leaves and twigs that had been compressed to a woody surface that would at least not be too slippery.

Stepping out onto the soft ground I whipped out my axe expecting an attack, but nothing came at me. It was once again an almost uneasy silence, disquieting and eerie.

I looked around trying to get my bearings, unlike the first floor, where I had entered from one side with the goal to get to the other, this time I had been dropped off in the centre with no idea of where the stairs were. The trees were huge towering monoliths, they climbed up and out of view as their leaves spread out to form the canopies I had passed through on my decent.

As I looked around, I couldn’t see any life, though the signs were there. Birds fluttered around, their wingbeats fluttering around, the occasional snorting grunt echoes from somewhere off to my right and down on the floor to my left, the ground had been disturbed.

From what I knew I thought it might have been a wolf paw print, I wasn’t an expert, but I could see the distinct signs of the pattern, the toes and claws.

The dungeon had finally introduced a predator, at last. I was looking forward to a fight here, nothing got the heart racing quite like it.

I would have to be flawless though, since I had no support I couldn’t even risk an injury here, there would be no-one to drag me out.

Further to the left, the soft tinkle of flowing water caught my ear, it was a slow, trickling stream if I had heard correctly. I made my way over to the stream. I was in fact correct, it was a small stream, perhaps a meter wide and fairly shallow as well.

The woodland was peaceful, the gentle breeze, the trickling water and the sounds of the animals. Animals I had yet to meet.

An illusionary paradise.

If your idea of a paradise was an isolated cavern deep in the bowels of a mountain, filled with things that want to kill you. The only benefit of which is the backbreaking training and the enriched mana that strengthens you from spending time here. It was still great, but I had moved on and the peaceful house in Littlebrook was right for me now.

Since the stream wasn’t anything special, I set off exploring the woods.

It wasn’t long until I ran across a pack of wolves, I had just rounded an especially large tree when I encountered them. At first only one had attacked jumping upon me from where it had hidden behind the great tree.

It scratched me lightly, the claws of its front paws catching behind a strip of metal. The armour had taken most of the blow and though it was a bit mauled, nothing serious had broken.

One nice looping swing from the axe bit into the wolfs neck and dispatched it. Seeing the wolf dispatched its packmates decided to jump into the fray, though too late to save the initial attacker.

Coming up from the death dealing blow I caught a bite on my forearm, the teeth began to close, clamping around the metal and squeezing my arm tight.

I managed to shake off the wolf before swinging my axe from high to low. The blow cleaved into flesh, shearing throw muscle and bone alike and taking off its hind leg.

I buried my axe in the poor monster’s head, dispatching it with ruthless efficiency before rolling over its now dead body to avoid a swipe from its packmate.

Four left.

It took me a good ten minutes of solid fighting before I managed to kill them all and I wasn’t significantly worse off. I had used up one health potion and my armour would need some repairs from a leather worker but all in all I was doing pretty good. The wolves hadn’t proven too much of a challenge for me and I’d earnt enough from the pelts and coins I’d found so far to replenish everything.

The rest of the level was fairly simple, and I had managed to find a few treasure chests with only slightly better loot than that of the first floor.

The oddest thing I had found so far had been the half-buried campsites, it looked like there had been civilisation here despite it being in the middle of a dungeon.

I assumed they were just there for decoration, perhaps they could be used to set up temporary camps for further explorations. Though why anyone would want to camp inside an active level, such a short distance inside was beyond me.

With the floor pretty much explored, it was just about time to search for the exit.

I returned to the stream, locating it by sound as I could hear it from everywhere in the floor. The stream was loud enough to hear and also a unique feature which meant it was very useful. From the stream I would be able to get my bearings and work out where I had yet to go. There - I assumed - the exit would be.

As I walked along the river, following it on its journey I was taken unawares by a big cat. It had leaped down from one of the sky paths in the trees that overlooked the stream and landed on me, sending me crashing to the ground and rolling away.

I had a deep gouge in my arm and a broken rib from the encounter, but I managed to dispatch it as it lunged for me again. My axe tearing through the torso separated it into two. Its body, now in two pieces hit me and I fell back once again, into the stream.

I sat up spluttering and pushed the cat torso off of me. However, just as I was getting to my feet there was a huge rush of water that sent me tumbling down. In my confusion I was swept along, my focus on holding my axe and trying not to breath in the water.

Before I knew it, I felt the ground disappear from underneath me and then I plummeted down. I screamed, much to my embarrassment and managed to rotate in mid-air, just in time to see myself face plant on solid ground a good 50m below where I had fallen. My vision flickered and then went black.

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[Dungeon]

When I looked for the source of the thumping beat, that echoed around my chambers I saw a man. He entered the dungeon cautiously, stepping forth into the black mist with slow deliberated steps and each time he checked the ground with his axe handle.

It took him about two minutes to exit the 5m of darkness that clouded his vision before he emerged into my first floor.

As I observed his progress it occurred to me that it would be funny to put stairs going down to the first floor instead of the flat ramp currently there as I doubted that most adventurers would be as careful as him.

Back to the man, he was about 5ft 6” tall with dusty blonde hair edging on white and a deep blue pair of eyes whose lustre had faded with the years.

A square jaw bristled with a thick brown beard half of which was going grey. The grey hairs and the few wrinkles that I could see, gave away his age as middle-aged.

He had broad soldiers covered in leather and steel, his waist held a belt with several potions and pouches and in one hand he held an axe.

Originally, he had held it with two but upon gazing at the room he had let it fall into only one and hang from his fingers until the axe head hit the floor with a soft tink.

This lax vacant look lasted only briefly before he snapped back to himself. Pausing briefly, he pulled a face that made me think he was chastising himself and then glanced around with a more direct, pointed look. Analytical it seemed.

He moved forwards and proceeded to examine the plants, grasses, bushes, walls and all the various forms of wildlife he could find before eventually spotting a chest. He marched forward and cautiously pushed open the branches. Fool.

I winced as he was sent falling back. But most of me celebrated that my plants could catch someone with at least a little experience out.

The man was obviously experienced and he soon regained composure and began calmly chopping his way through the tree.

Walking down to the second floor, he stared at the steps apprehensively before plucking up his courage and braving a step. Upon seeing that the roots hadn’t collapsed he continued on.

He paused again at the entrance to the second floor, before spotting the staircase and making his way over to it. I felt that it took him far too long, if all the adventurers were like this, then I’d never get anything done, the incessant pounding that followed along with him demanded my attention and prevented me from working.

Thankfully it wasn’t long before he was on the floor and examining something I hadn’t noticed. It was a wolf print.

I decided that I still didn’t care about it. I had neither the desire nor the time to spend to keep erasing them and it wasn’t as if the mystery of wolves would have lasted very long, as I assumed the guild would soon come and catalogue everything to tell all the rookies.

It wasn’t long before he encountered the wildlife, a wolf. It jumped out from behind a large tree as he was focusing on its packmates and though it seemed to get him good he slew it in quick order. The rest of its pack followed shortly. Shame, I was rooting for his death.

Like a sneaky rogue, he worked his way through the level with ease. But I had one trick left up my sleeve, and by god it worked.

Taken by surprise, he was tackled hard by one of the big cats and it ended up knocking him in the stream before he slew it.

The Water Elementals, sensing a presence entering their stream, sent a wave of water down, to wash away the intruder. This wave carried the man away, down the winding stream and out over the waterfall.

He fell, and he fell fast and landed hard. I winced for him again as he tried to raise his head to look around but, in the end, it fell to the floor limply, and with a wet slap he blacked out.

Strangely, nothing major came along to kill him, in fact only the insects and the non-predatorial creatures investigated him. He received a good few stings and bites that if left untreated could become infected, but I suspected one of the potion things on his belt would cure it all.

I could have directed the actual threats to him, killing him during his rest, but I felt that for the first adventurer, especially one with a bit of experience, a non-interference policy should be best observed. I didn’t want to be killed after all.

Besides, there was something about him I liked.

He was lying on a semi-hard section of ground in the swamp floor. It was a section of grasses that kind of floated on top of the water but were still anchored in place, so they didn’t end up drifting around.

As he slept, water lapped around his waist and started to soak into his clothes. I predicted that it would become pretty uncomfortable for him. Not that it wasn’t already.

He was soaked from the waterfall and in a hot steamy room taking a ‘nap’ in a muddy hot puddle of water being bitten by my creatures.

All to soon he started to wake up, but he appeared groggy and out of it. I guessed he would continue working his way through the dungeon once he had perked up a little.

Since the thundering heartbeat wasn’t lessening I sighed and settled down to watch him bumble his way through until he either died or decided to walk out.