Dungeon core found!

The 3 villagers, Cren, Hardwin and Adam divided the 7 DD members between them to have them all sleep indoors. Samantha insisted that they could just make a camp and use their own material to not bother them. But in the end she accepted the offer, it would spare her team to have to lose sleep to take guard turns.

At their level they do not really sense fatigue the same way ordinary people do, they could refrain from sleeping for a week, and it would feel to them as if it was their first time skipping a night’s sleep. While they still need to sleep, their need is reduced, not everyone has the same reduced factor though, so they keep a normal day/night sleep schedule.

Before going to sleep, Cren went to Cindy’s house. He knocked at the door and waited for an answer. Cindy greeted him with a tired air to herself. “Oh, Cren. Did you just get back?” Cindy was surprised to see him.

“Yes, the others are already heading to go to sleep. Those two are from the DDs of Narmis.” Cren gestured to the two men besides him. Esteban waved his hand while saying “Hi”, and Kunibert just saluted by nodding.

Cren asked Cindy about the situation, she told him that the monster did not make another appearance, but that the forest seemed strange for 2 days. It seemed quieter, the birds sang less, the habitual deers and boars that they could sometimes see at the edge of the forest seemed less common. It was nothing certain, it could just be a coincidence, but wariness can be wise.

“Alright, thank you. Sorry to have taken you away from slumber for so long.” Cren said, apologizing for having awoken her. To his surprise, she answered that it was no problem, she was not sleeping yet. The giant spider still haunts her whenever she closes her eyes. Cren wiched for her to recover soon, and left to go to sleep.

“Could this be the cause of magic?” Cren asked indirectly, not turning his head to look at the two following him to his house. “It could, but it is highly improbable. Sarsaw could inspect her, or Samantha could check if she has any form of curse placed on her. It is not my specialty.” Answered Kunibert.

Once arrived at Cren’s house, Kunibert and Esteban were shown the room where Cren keeps all his weapons and tools for hunting, it has enough space on the ground for them to sleep on. The dungeon dwellers got their sleeping bag out of their bag and installed themselves, and fortunately for everyone, the night passed without any incident.

When the sun rose over the horizon, Samantha, Sarsaw, Esteban, Marianne, Nebile, Pàll and Kunibert were already preparing for a trip in the forest. They checked their gear, rations, and memorized the position of the village on a map, so that if they somehow find themselves lost, they can use the sun or stars to find their way back.

“Alright, let’s get this mission started.” Said Samantha with hope and excitement in her eyes and voice. “Let’s get a better life you mean, don’t you?” Teased Sarsaw, smiling. “Yeah, let’s go to get a better life!” repeated the others. “Hugh, you are all unrecoverable. But I agree, when we find this dungeon core, we will have all we need to get ourselves a good, enviable life.” Samantha finished.

Nebile, the scout of the team, departed first. In the team she is the quickest, Samantha and Sarsaw can keep up with her pretty well, but only if they use all their speed enhancement spells on themselves and each other, while Nebile just uses her body. Her senses are also extremely sharp, able to sense things from far away.

The rest of the team began to follow her, while Nebile went in zig zags to cover a wider area, the others followed her general direction. If they tried following her while she goes forward, she would need to wait for a long time before she could get reinforcement. So they use this method to keep the advantage her speed and sensory range gives, while also counting its weakness and providing a counter to it.

Every half hour, Nebile would get to her team to make a short report of what she detects, discrepancies and such, so that the group can decide where to head to and strategies. It also permits Nebile to get buffed by Samantha and Sarsaw, they use spells to enhance her stamina, senses and recovery capabilities. This way she can move for monger without tiring, and with a better efficiency.

After 1 hour and a half, Nebile returned once more to give a report. “We are on the right track I think, there are fewer animals in this direction. They also seem to be more on edge than those around the village.” Reports Nebile. “Anything on the manascope?” She asked a second later.

Samantha noted the information Nebile gave her, a habit that served them well during their works. At Nebile’s question, Samantha turned to Kunibert, the one using the manascope. It is a machine designed to make mana types visible to humans. It uses a great quantity of mana to use, and the more control one has over his mana, the less the machine has to compensate for it, so it uses less mana. Kunibert has the best mana control in the team, so he is the one using it.

“Let me check.” He said, gathering mana in the binocular looking instrument. It took him a good half a minute to gather all the mana he would need, and then he activated it, looking through the glass parts. He observed the surroundings with it for 5 seconds before stopping. “No sign of the evolving-corrupting mana of the dungeon core anywhere. And before you ask, no, the mana density has not changed. It’s not a decades-old dungeon we are dealing with here.”

Marianne, the girl in full plate armor, staggered at the added part. “Hey, you said that just for me? Didn’t you?!” She said, a bit of anger and frustration in her voice. “Well, at least you are able to understand what I mean after so many years together.” Kunibert says to tease her, laughing when Marianne threatens to cripple him in his sleep.

“Alright, you are all cute and all while you have your romantic humor, but we are still on a mission, so-” Esteban began his habitual rebuke to the couple, but he shut himself when the both of them turned their head to look at him. Marianna grabbing her war-hammer and Kunibert raising the mana density above his hand. “Never-mind, just tad it down a bit please.” He corrected himself.

“When will you stop being this childish?” Lamented Samantha. “It is fun and all, but I would like to get the job done quickly. So focus guys, we can’t fuck this job because we know it will be an easy one.” Samantha made the group get back on the work.

Nebile got back to her post, and the others began marching forward again. It took them 3 more hours to finally get something. Nebile got back 13 minutes after having departed last, meaning she had found something major.

“There is something weird ahead, it should be because of the mana. I didn’t sense anything amiss in the mundane matter, but the trees and the ground seems weird to me.” She reported, looking at Kunibert. At the nod of Samantha, he began using the manascope.

“I’ve got something!” He said, his void louder than it should because of the joy of finding dungeon-type mana. “Where?” Impatiently asked Marianna, fidgeting a little. “Huh, now that’s weird, why is there dungeon-mana in the air too?” This sentence made Samantha uneasy.

The dungeons are known to gather, convert and then use mana to corrupt other mana containing organisms to subdue them and use them to get more mana more quickly. In doing so, they gather all the mana they can inside of them, using it only when needed. So it is abnormal to have dungeon-mana in the air,it should be inside animals or plants.

“There is something else.” Kunibert added, his voice becoming more serious. “The trees have normal mana density, but they lost their tree-type mana.” This got the group to say “What?” at the same time.

“It has already had its first graft then?” Lamented Marianne, already seeing her dreams ruined. “It shouldn’t have.” Said Samantha. “ If it had, it would already be swarming us with its monsters. If its mana is around us, it means it can sense us.” She advances her thought, pointing out the discrepancy.

“Then why is it able to get the natural mana corrupted?” Marianne could not understand Samantha’s point. It was Kunibert who answered her. “I think Samantha is right, it could have somehow discovered how to make the tree aspect out of the mana instead of corrupting it. The manaflow in the trees is messed-up, a dungeon’s corruption should not do that.”

This information made the entire group sigh a breath of relief. Then Samantha ordered to get in formation to search the dungeon core, even if it has begun the corruption of the terrain, it should not have finished its first graft. So if they find it quickly enough, they can prevent it from achieving it. The formation was simple: Esteban and Marianne at the front, Esteban wields a greatsword while Marianne has warhammers and maces. Behind them is Sarsaw, in the center of their formation. To his sides are Pàll and Samantha, Pàll being an ice and water mage, while Samantha uses formation and curse magic. The two guarding their rear are Nebile and Kunibert, Nebile fighting as an assassin and Kunibert needing protection while he launches his powerful spells.

They advanced at a normal pace now, where before they moved at the speed a man would run. They walked forward, looking every which way a monster could come from. And not even 5 minutes later, Nebile alerted the group. “Contact at 10!” They all turned, keeping the formation as they turned around.

“Spider-type, get your antidotes at hand and beware of any gas-like poison.” Samantha added after spotting the monster. “What the hell is that?! Can you guys feel it too?” Kunibert suddenly exclaimed, surprised by something. “Feel the mana around us, why is it gathering so much?” He added to specify the abnormality he found.

“Shit!” said Pàll, feeling the absurd phenomenon. “What is happening?” Asked Marianne, while she is greatly stronger physically, she has little control senses to feel mana. She still feels it, but not with the precision of a mage.

“All the mana is circulating around to get inside the monster, there is natural mana in there…” Kunibert added, dumbfounded at the meaning of his words. “Did that shit of a monster eat our dungeon core?!” Marianne screamed while not removing her eyes from the spider.

Kunibert was going to tell them of another abnormal point, but the spider began lifting one of its legs, so the team immediately stopped talking and began engaging it. It was surprised, just for a moment, but it was enough for Esteban to get in front of it and plant his longsword in the spider’s head.

It crunched its exoskeleton like a knife through cardboard, it slided a little at first, leaving a deep mark, and at the point it pierced all the way, it began only moving down. It failed to kill the monster though. It tried getting its fangs to scratch Esteban, surely the thing wanted to poison him.

But Marianne arrived at his side, her warhammer already using her momentum to get a heavy hit on the spider. She was surprised when it dodged by jumping backwards, leaving parts of its head on Esteban’s sword.

Unfortunately for it, Samantha was nearby, using a slowness spell. The spider fell when it touched the ground, its legs unable to handle the speed because of the curse. But instead of getting upside-down, the spider folded its legs to have a more balloon-like shape, making it roll away. It hit a tree soon after, so it did not get that far.

It tried producing webs, using its forelegs to prepare something with it. But before it could do anything, Nebile had her two longdaggers inside the rear part of the monster. She twisted them, making the many legs have spasms. When it fell to the ground, she stood, getting her daggers out.

And just after she got them out, the spider she thought dead, jumped towards the sky, attempting to get away in the canopy. But the curse of slowness was still present, so it barely got to the branches when Nebile stabbed it again, this time cutting all its legs and separating the body parts at each joint.

“The core should be inside of the rear part, the mana is still going inside of it.” Kunibert instructed, Nebile cutting the thing into pieces at the instruction. She got the dungeon core out of the spider's corpse at last, pointing it victoriously at the sky, posing with many drops of spider blood on her.