Drake stares at the entrance to the Dungeon in confusion. It looks nearly the same as the entrance to the Crystal Dungeon, except grass grows in stripes running along the center longways of the tops of the stones, rather than crystals that hovered above them. The access stone has a circle of grass growing on the center of its top.

I decided to bring Drake to his first real Dungeon after lunch today, to test his navigational ability. I did some poking and prodding after our sex during the storm a couple of days ago, and found out that the Class Trial for Knight took place entirely in one room.

If he is directionally-challenged, then that explains why he didn't take awhile to complete the Class Trial. So it's time to test my theory now. He's still a beginner, with just one full day and two half-days of training, but with how easy things are here and how strong he is, that shouldn't matter too much in terms of completion ability.

"This looks weird," he finally decides to comment.

"The Dungeon entrances all have the same basic layout," I tell him. "The insides, however, are different. They follow a standard format, though. Square rooms, with two, three, or four entryways, with the final room having only one entryway. This is the entrance to the Silent Valley Small Grassy Plains Dungeon. There are five rooms to it with a chance for a boss fight at the end and a maximum of one chest."

However, now that we're in the System, there's a chance that when a monster is killed, an item will be awarded to our Inventories upon its death. Normally, Dungeon monsters simply disappear, making it impossible to loot them or harvest parts of them.

"What kind of monsters appear in here?" He asks.

"Giant rats."

"Those are delicious."

Right. I'm talking to a dragon who used to have an actual dragon form. Even if he's back in human form, he's probably still got plenty of his tastes from his dragon form. Actually, that makes me curious what he thinks of our food. He's eaten people food for a few days now rather than dragon food.

Something to ask him later.

"These ones walk on their hind legs and try to bite you," I tell Drake.

"They're still probably delicious."

"They'd also disappear if you ate them, since monsters in Dungeons fade upon death," I remind him. "So you'd end up with an empty stomach."

"Right," he looks disappointed.

"Come on," I step into the Dungeon entrance and place my hand upon the access stone.

Immediately, a menu appears in my vision.

Would you like to enter the Silent Valley Small Grassy Plains Dungeon? Yes No

I select Yes, and the menu disappears, replaced by another.

There are other adventurers in the access ring. Select up to fourteen to accompany you. Dranakuliansithventomar Done

That explains why he said his name is Drake, which is just another word for a dragon. I have wondered a couple of times since the visit to Granny why that was his name, and now I know that it's not. Chances are, he decided to use Drake because it's much shorter and simpler than his real name.

I pick his name, then Done, and a menu pops up asking me to confirm the party before going into the Dungeon. I do, then the violet runes glow on the stones before we are transported into the center of the arrival room of the Dungeon.

The arrival room consists of a grassy floor sixty feet on each side, the standard size for Dungeon rooms. Hedges fifteen feet in height border it, forming the walls of the room, and a blue sky stretches out above us. The wall in front of us and the ones to our left and right each have an archway cut in the center of the hedge walls, showing rooms beyond. The hedges are two feet thick.

Even though it looks as if we could break our way through the hedges or simply climb, jump, or fly over them, it's not possible. The magic of the Dungeon, of whatever beings created them, prevents such things. No, everyone is forced to take the archways to navigate the Dungeon.

I pull up my Map and fix it into my vision, though out of the way to prevent it from affecting my normal sight. It's showing me just this room at the moment, along with the three entrances into others. I don't actually need it, especially not here, but it's still a good idea to get used to using it in Dungeons. Based on the map, we arrived facing the northern entrance, which I knew already, but it's still nice to see confirmation of that. The room we're in has a green border, with each archway represented by a yellow line on it.

Drake looks around, a disappointed look on his face.

"This room doesn't have anything," he says. "We're already one short just from arriving."

"The arrival room doesn't count as a room," I inform him. "Same with the exit room. Technically, this Dungeon has seven rooms, but only the five which might be able to spawn a chest or monsters count."

"Oh," he says.

"Anyway," I tell him. "I've done this Dungeon dozens of times. Maybe even hundreds. Why don't you lead the way?"

"Okay," he looks between the three doorways.

After a few moments of thought, he walks to the western one, so I follow him in, keeping an eye open for traps. Though it looked like an empty room before we stepped through the archway, that didn't mean much. One can never see a room's true contents before actually entering it.

Once we pass through the archway, we find ourselves in a room with this archway and one in the center of the northern wall. The map I've pulled up immediately adds the room to it with a yellow border, the path between the two rooms turning green. A yellow mark represents the path to the northern room.

Standing on its hind legs in the center of the room is a rat three feet in height, just sitting there, not doing anything.

Drake looks around the room, before beginning to make his way to the rat, drawing his sword with a look of determination on his face. His tail flicks a little as he approaches. He manages to make it halfway to the rat before it seems to notice him, charging forward and attacking. Drake responds by charging forward, moving much faster than I could possibly move right now, thrusting his sword into the rat's chest.

With how fast he charged and his speed, Drake manages to push his sword all the way down to the hilt into the rat, the blade poking out the back of it. His charge doesn't end immediately, and he takes a few more steps before managing to stop. As he stops, the rat fades away as the yellow border on for the room the map turns green, and Drake lets out a disappointed sigh.

He really did want to try and eat the rat.

"It's gone," he gives me an unhappy look.

"We can find a giant rat in the fields outside, if you want," I tell him. "There are some."

"Okay!" His tail flicks a little.

"Did you get a drop?" I ask.

"No," he answers. "Did you?"

"Only those who participated in the fight have a chance at getting a drop," I wave a hand. "The rats can drop basic healing salves, rat steaks, rat tails, and vials of rat blood."

"I thought you didn't fight?" He asks.

"I've been training with knives for six years," I tell him. "And martial arts for thirteen. I'm not a bad fighter. Honestly, I could probably best you, even with your stats due to your lack of training and combat experience."

Though with that Constitution of his, hurting him would be a different matter. My new knives might be able to cut his skin or scales, but I doubt I'd be able to with my old one, no matter how much force was behind the strike. I'd also probably get hurt pretty decently if he did manage to land a strike on me, too, because of that Strength of his.

"No," I wave a hand dismissively. "I can fight pretty well. I can even use a sword, if it came down to it, just not well since I haven't in six years and slacked on the training I was supposed to do before then. I just prefer to avoid fighting if I can't end it with just one or two strikes. I'm a Treasure Hunter, not a warrior. There are some monsters in the bigger local Dungeons I have a hard time killing quickly, so I tend to avoid those as I slip through the rooms. If I actually put up a fight, I'd manage it, though probably with a few more injuries than would make me happy."

"Oh," he says. "Okay."

"Let's move on, shall we?" I ask. "Lead the way."

Drake looks between the eastern archway and the northern archway as if he's trying to figure out which one we came through. After a few moments, he walks to the eastern archway, and I follow him back into the arrival room.

"Empty," he mutters, confirming he'd gotten disoriented just from the fight with the rat.

He looks between the northern and eastern archways in here, before settling on the eastern one and walking through it. When we arrive and my map updates, we find a wooden chest with iron bindings in the center of the room, resting on a stone platform one foot in height and six feet on each side. The chest itself is maybe three feet wide and two high, a little less than two thick.

"A chest room!" Drake exclaims. "What's in it?"

"Nothing too good," I tell him. "It's a basic wooden chest. This Dungeon doesn't have much in the way of treasure. Chances are, it's some earth crystals. Depending on how big they are, we can sell them for around twenty to eighty vanri."

"Earth crystals?" He asks.

"Yeah," I say. "Small crystals you can use to make the soil a little more fertile where they're planted. They're good for home gardens, though some places harvest them heavily in order to use in their farms. It's basically a magical fertilizer that slightly bolsters the land."

Though after we sell them, they'd be sold for a higher price to those who would use it. They can be used for other things, too, but using them to enrich soil is the main one. At least, around here. Some areas, like Forgetown, use them more heavily for forging stronger equipment or magical gear.

"Okay," he starts walking toward the chest, but I grab his arm before he can make it more than a foot. "What?"

"There's a trap," I tell him. "Generally, this Dungeon's traps result in either being paralyzed for awhile or having a fight."

"How do you know there is a trap?" He asks. "Can we get past it without setting it off? Or must we deal with it?"

"That's why a Treasure Hunter is always valuable," I grin at him. "Stay here."

I step forward, sweeping my gaze across the grassy field of the room. While it might not look too different from the other rooms, there are sections where the soil is slightly higher than the rest. That is the area to avoid stepping on, if we want to avoid triggering the trap.

After spending a moment plotting out my route to the chest, I take off, jumping and dashing until I jump up onto the platform, making sure to avoid the stones that are a slightly-darker shade of grey than the ones directly around the chest as I approach it.

I pull out my lockpick set as I approach the chest, then kneel in front of it and quickly work the lock open, then lift the lid. I might not be a Thief, but some of their stuff crosses over into Treasure Hunter territory. I won't get the Lockpick and Magical Lockpick Skills, though, since those are for Thieves.

Looking inside the chest, I find a trio of dark brown crystals the size of peas. Earth crystals, as I suspected. I pluck them out and place them into my Inventory, then rejoin Drake.

"Earth crystals," I tell him. "We'll sell them when we return to town, though it won't be much. Lead the way."

Drake looks around the room for the archway, before finally finding it a few steps behind himself. We step through it, then he takes a few moments to decide to go through the western archway.

"Empty," he mutters, and I decide not to remind him that we already cleared this room.

Since we're standing right in front of the western archway, he picks the northern archway, leading us into a room with two rats in it, as well as an archway on the northern wall and on the eastern. Drake charges the closest rat much like he did the first rat, then attacks the other rat, striking at its neck and killing it.

Once they fade away, he looks between the three archways. I can tell he's contemplating going through the southern archway, but I suppose the fact that I'm still standing in front of it changes his mind. He leads me through the western one, which has a lone rat in it, which dies due to a charge thrust from Drake.

Looking around, he decides to take us through the southern archway, back into the arrival room. Then we go through the western archway, into the room with the open chest.

"We were already in here, weren't we?" He asks.

"Yes," I answer, and he sighs. "Come on, I'll take us the rest of the way."

I've already confirmed that he's directionally-challenged, so there's no point in us walking in a circle over and over. Drake follows me out of the room and into the western room, then the northern, and through the northern archway, where we come across another rat, which he kills, then we walk into the exit room, which has a setup identical to the entry ring outside.

"Come on," I tell him. "Step into the ring, we're done here."

I step into the ring, and a message appears in my vision.

Dungeon Completed! Silent Valley Small Grassy Plains First Completion: +5 Class Points! Rooms Completed: 5 (+5 Class Points)

I dismiss it, then apply my CP to Treasure Hunter, bringing it from Level 2 to Level 5, earning 0.2 Agility and 0.1 Magic. Drake enters the ring, and I see him look at something in his vision for a few moments, then I place my hand on the center stone, a menu appearing in my vision.

All surviving party members are present in the Exit Ring, do you wish to exit? Yes No

I select Yes, then the runes glow for a few moments, before we find ourselves back outside in the exact same positions we were standing in when I brought us out. Were others to be here when we arrived, our positions would have been adjusted to allow us to appear without overlapping someone else.

Another interesting thing about the Dungeons is that if a party is inside, and another party came to enter, they would be sent into the Dungeon, but a separate instance of it. In other words, only those who enter with the party leader can be in there, but multiple parties can be doing the Dungeon at the same time.

It's an interesting quirk of the Dungeons, and makes me admire the power of whoever created them even more. Their powers over dimensional magic are amazing, to be able to create things which can create multiple versions of itself simultaneously.

"Are we going to do it again?" Drake asks.

"There's a two-hour cooldown," I tell him. "Before we can do the same Dungeon again. There's another Dungeon a forty-five minute trip from here. We can get there, do it, then return here, and probably still have a few minutes to rest before doing it again."

"Okay," he says.

"And I'll be leading the way in the Dungeon," I tell him, noting the look of relief on his face.

So he's aware he's bad with navigation, then? I guess he didn't want to make me worry about his quest. That's understandable, though. He's told me that the world is dying and he's here to save it. If people who knew about the quest were aware that it was being undertaken by someone who might die of old age before arriving at his destination, they would probably freak out, potentially cause a panic.

Fortunately for him, I'm a little more rational than that.

"By the way, Drake," I say. "I'll be accompanying you on your quest."

"What?" He takes a step back, looking at me in shock, his face flushing just a little. "Why?"

"You're bound to go to places with rare treasures," I say. "And you're doing the Elemental Trials. As a treasure hunter to the core, the idea of getting to take part in that gets my blood rushing."

"Oh," his face reddens a little more. "Okay. We, um, we'll get to see a rare treasure or two along the way."

"Yep!" I grin. "Anyway, let's head to the other Dungeon, shall we? We should be able to finish one or two more runs of each before dinner."