It had been an interesting day, getting to know my fellow competitors. Some of them had group matches in the evening, but those of us who didn't ended up visiting a theatre, after I mentioned that I wanted to play tourist around Synklisi. A theatre wasn't something we had back in Dawnhold. It was hard enough to find a single [Bard], never mind enough of them together to put on a show. Again, it would be nice if people would realise that a specific class wasn't needed to perform.

Not that their classes were useless; back on Earth, we had such niceties as microphones. Here we did not, but it didn't matter; every [Bard], whether singing, speaking or playing, was completely audible, and the balance between voice and instrument was perfect. No need for a mixer desk here. Okay, so I had to admit that throwing in one or two people who didn't have the required skills wouldn't work. I doubted that any thought had been given to the acoustics when building the place, either. Again, the System was blatantly cheating, and was cutting out a lot of the hard work that would otherwise be necessary.

The show itself was some sort of absurdist comedy. It was quite funny, but would have appealed to dad more than it did to me. Xi'Zanno certainly appreciated it more than I did, ending up in almost constant hysterics. Thinking about it, given the way the Law worked, the range of genres they'd be capable of performing must be rather limited. Maybe they could do shows where all the characters are intelligent monsters? Would that work around their inability to imagine people murdering each other? It would depend on whether someone was capable of pretending to be a monster, because that would require them to imagine themselves doing monster things...

All in all, despite my fairy-induced loss of appetite, the day hadn't been a write-off. Nor had the previous day, to be fair. It had merely been... unexpected. My main reason for being here, to gain the four levels needed to change class, may not be going very well so far, but my secondary reason, to explore, was progressing just fine.

I made it back to my room, where Bluvre started cracking some vulgar joke again, before Vyre shut him up with another boot to the face. One of those two was definitely not guardian material, in my opinion... Nevertheless, it wasn't long before I was asleep, ready for the third round tomorrow.

I awoke to the sound of a loud ringing bell. It was the same sound as the one that rang to signal a dungeon break, but unlike last time, when it turned out to be a slime-induced false alarm, this time it was ringing continuously.

"Isn't that the dungeon break alarm?" asked Vyre, dragging himself out of bed.

"Yes," I answered.

"No," contradicted Bluvre, peering out of the window. "There are people running around out there, but they aren't heading to the dungeon."

"All delvers, the Emerald Caverns are under attack," came a voice, shouting from the corridor outside our room. "We request any willing combatants to assemble outside the distribution warehouse in ten minutes."

I heard the messenger run further down the corridor and start repeating his message, leaving me stunned. Under attack? By who? No-one else in the room spoke, but moved as one to start gearing up. I joined them, strapping on my armour as quickly as possible. This wasn't really my problem, and I wasn't sure if they'd even let me join in, given my age, but I intended to volunteer, regardless. I still had my staff stored in my [Item Box]. I didn't have a sheath for it, and I'd had three years of growth since I last used it in a real battle, making it a little short, but neither fact would stop me from bashing things with it. There was also my lightning glove, which may be a bit dangerous to use with friendlies around, but would be a devastating weapon in the right conditions.

Ten minutes later we were out in the dark street, with what must have been two hundred more delvers crowded around. Dru'hazzak walked out of the warehouse door before cupping one pair of hands around his mouth and emitting a shrill whistle. The group of delvers immediately quietened, turning to look at him.

"The Emerald Caverns are experiencing a serious dungeon break!" he shouted. "Not of the usual monsters below level five, but their whole dungeon seems to be emptying itself. They've already seen monsters of level twenty emerging, and it's getting worse."

There were a number of gasps around me, a reaction which I well agreed with. What the hell, Erryn?! What was she doing? She makes the dungeons safe and then does this?

"They're holding the line for the moment, but with so many of their high levelled delvers here, they can't last for long. We're sending backup. The portal is prepared, and there'll be people on the other side to direct you where you're needed. Rank fours first. Go!"

"I knew dungeon breaks were getting worse, but this is ridiculous," said Vyre next to me, fists clenched, as a dozen armoured figures made their way through the crowd. Or just jumped over it.

"Getting worse?" I asked. "Since when? I thought they just happened randomly from time to time."

"I don't know the details," he answered. "Just that the first dungeon break was recorded a couple of hundred years ago, only consisting of level one monsters, and they've been increasing in quantity and average monster level ever since. These days there's a few every year, with monsters up to level five. At least up until a few years ago, when they suddenly stopped. But twenty? That's just insane! And if he's right about it getting worse... Their dungeon is fifty floors deep! We're lucky we have such a big group of delvers sitting so close to a direct portal."

"Rank three!" shouted Dru'hazzak, causing a larger portion of the crowd to hurry into the warehouse. Most had already worked their way to the front, expecting to be called next, and the procession was quick and efficient. From those around me, I saw people gripping weapons tightly, fidgeting nervously, and generally looking frightened. These delvers hadn't been risking their lives for years, thanks to Erryn's dungeon changes, but were now facing an unknown situation in which their safety would once again be at risk. Yet not one of them turned and ran...

"Rank two!" shouted Dru'hazzak, and I followed Vyre into the warehouse and through the portal, in the middle of a pack of a hundred others. We emerged not into a building, but into a cavern, six metres tall and carved into solid rock. Half a dozen portals were lined up against one wall. I could hear yelling and the sounds of fighting outside, and shattered containers, scorch marks and other spell residue showed that at some point recently a battle had been fought right here.

"New arrivals, hold here for now," someone shouted in a gruff dwarven voice, as Dru'hazzak emerged from the portal behind the rest of us. "The passageways are too narrow to field everyone. The rank fours are pushing the monsters back towards the dungeon entrance. The plan is to deploy everyone on the first floor, both to enable us to fight on a wider front, and in the hopes that the new dungeon safety net will prevent any further casualties."

The use of the word 'further' there confirmed the assumption I'd made from seeing the damage to this room. If this break had come as a surprise, it would have been some time before a proper defence could be organised, and a surge of monsters would have done some nasty damage in the meantime.

The sounds of fighting were indeed receding. The strategy seemed reasonable; if the dungeon was laid out similar to Dawnhold, a party could occupy each room, and the corridors would form choke points. Was there only one staircase between floors? Were they going to leave a gap around it to let monsters spread themselves out? I didn't know enough about this dungeon to do anything other than follow instructions.

Surprisingly, no-one had commented on my age yet. Then again, with the quantity of dwarves around, height was no longer a good indicator, and thanks to my armour my face or features weren't readily visible. Possibly no-one had noticed yet, in which case I was bound to be in trouble when someone did.

Dru'hazzak had sprinted out of the cavern, presumably joining the front lines. The sounds of combat were now distant, and while I had no idea where we were in relation to the dungeon, given how close the transportation warehouse was in Dawnhold and Synklisi, I would hazard a guess that it wasn't far. They must have almost succeeded in pushing back the battlefront into the dungeon.

We waited for ten minutes before another dwarf entered the room. "The dungeon break has been pushed back, and the high-rankers will have entered the dungeon by now," he shouted, confirming my analysis. "Please follow me, where we'll be setting up a second line outside the dungeon entrance for..."

His speech was interrupted by a resounding crash. Spinning towards the noise, I saw a large section of the floor crumbling away, containers and monster corpses falling into the resulting pit, along with a number of delvers. There were some brief screams, and then silence.

"What?" started someone, before a giant blue-brown hand rose from the pit and grasped at the edge.

Ogre, level 30

There were some gasps from around me, presumably from others in the room with appraisal skills. I eyed up the portal back to Synklisi; it was close to the pit, but for now was accessible. I was sharing a room with a level thirty monster and no-one above rank two... Perhaps it might be time for a tactical retreat...

"It's an ogre! The monsters are tunnelling!" shouted someone. "Get that information out to the front before the rank fours get too deep into the dungeon! We're going to need them out here!"

I saw a couple of dwarfs running from the room, not fleeing but spreading information. Not a single person deserted, and I felt guilty for even considering it. A barrage of magic struck at the ogre's hand, trying to prevent it from pulling itself up into our cavern, so I added in my own lightning. The giant hand lost its grip on the edge, and there was a roar and a crash from below.

Half a dozen more hands rose from the pit, grasping at the edge. There was no way we could stop them all. We tried anyway. I funnelled mana into my glove as forcefully as possible, doing whatever damage I could. More ogres fell away, loud crashes below punctuating our success, but two of them successfully pulled themselves up, standing upright in the large cavern, each four metres tall. They were either unarmed or had dropped their weapons in order to climb, but that hardly mattered; with their size, they didn't need weapons to exceed us in reach. No doubt the ones we pushed back would make another attempt at climbing, too.

This was an utter disaster. What the hell was happening here? 'No-one in this world needs to fear monsters unless they deliberately step into the monsters' domain,' Erryn had once said to me. Yet here they were, tunnelling beneath the Emerald Caverns. When she'd said she was busy a couple of days ago, were preparations for this what she was occupied with?

"Fire mages, left, ice mages, right!" shouted a voice. I had no idea who it was, but people listened, and a wave of fireballs hit the left-hand ogre while storms of icicles hit the right. Other affinities, which wouldn't conflict with each other so badly, hit both. I activated [Strength] and struck a knee with [Far Reach], my attack feeling like I'd hit a solid wall and seemingly doing no damage at all. In that case, I made a thrust instead, aiming this [Far Reach] straight at an eye.

That certainly got a reaction, and the ogre I'd hit threw up his hands as if to protect his face. Then he opened his mouth in a way that looked suspiciously like an orc preparing to use its special attack. I activated [Endurance] just in time. There was no sound, mere ears being able to process the shock-wave about as well as eyes could process the sun, but I was simply lifted from my feet and thrown backwards against the wall, along with every other delver and the entire contents of the warehouse, containers splintering around us. I pulled myself back to my feet, now deaf, but mostly unharmed from the impact. Others weren't so lucky, and of the hundred that we'd started with, only twenty were standing.

Black mana surged and flickered around the portals, which didn't seem to have weathered the attack at all well. They crackled, warped and disappeared. There was no escaping back to Synklisi now.