“It really is just a damn hole,” Ty said, sighing sarcastically.

The group was standing around a well set into the ground in the middle of a clearing. The dungeon entrance was a three-meter-wide circular base made of heavy stone bricks built around a hole that fell out of sight in the darkness. There was a rope hanging down into the well, knots tied in it every meter or so.

The clearing that surrounded the Well of Gloom was itself surrounded by trees in the middle of a forest. It would have been entirely impossible to find the dungeon if it weren’t for a hunting trail leading to it and a few random passersby. They were only a few walking hours South of Hillford and there were still plenty of ranches around. Most people were unconcerned with settling down outside of a wall in an area as relatively safe as North-east Sylva.

Allen looked around the clearing. There were plenty of spots that had very obviously been used as campsites not too long ago. The most recent one looked a day old at least. “Maybe there’s a group already in there?” he wondered.

“Wait, so how are we getting him down there?” Ty asked, gingerly pointing a finger at Christopher.

The professor swiveled around in his wheelchair and inhaled deeply. “Well I’ll just fly down there with the rest you; that should be simple enough,” he replied.

“You have a flying skill already?” Ty blurted incredulously.

“No, of course not,” the professor snorted back, “You’re just going to have to carry me.”

“Bruh.”

“I have thirty strength,” Allen said flatly, “That should be doable.”

Christopher nodded after nobody else offered the lift. Thus, Allen backed up in front of the professor who reached out and held on to him with both arms. The wheelchair disappeared into Christopher’s inventory as the two stood up and walked over to the well. Allen quietly grabbed hold of the rope, tugging to make sure it would hold, then he stepped into the well and began repelling down the inside of the shaft.

The ensuing decent into the dungeon took Allen about a minute with the added weight of Christopher on his back. Other than that, going down was easy and the base of the shaft was only around fifty meters down, a pile of loose rubble at the base.

The bottom of the well shaft was blown open on one side, leading into a cavern with little in the way of defining features. It was dark, damp, a little chilly, and smelled like an old basement. There were stalactites, stalagmites and other rock formations faded into the shadows, but that was it, there weren’t even any strange mushrooms or crystals.

Sighing in disappointment, Allen crouched under the broken in section of the shaft and into the cavern. Immediately, he felt the tell-tale tingling sensation that came with entering a dungeon. Then the message popped up a moment later.

You have entered a dungeon: Well of Gloom

Natural – Dark – Level 100

“Level one hundred means we won’t get anything over that limit, and probably nothing above level thirty for the beginning.”

“We should wait here for the others,” said the professor.

Allen nodded as he set Christopher back into his wheelchair. The terrain seemed level enough in the most travelled spots that he could be pushed along with only mild inconvenience. That would probably change eventually, but for the moment, Amelia would be able to push the professor through the caves near the back of the group.

A few minutes passed before the others ducked into the cavern. Ty squinted and groaned to himself while Camila seemed to be completely indifferent.

Amelia looked tense though. “How many floors do you think it has?” she asked, her voice slightly unsteady, barley so in fact, but still noticeable to Allen.

“Not many I hope,” he replied, “More floors just means more boring. The levels of the stuff in here are capped at one hundred, which means it’ll just take longer to get to the interesting fights if the dungeon is spread out over multiple floors.”

Amelia just looked confused.

Camila hummed in response. “You can say that again,” she added. “I never go in a dungeon with more than twenty floors unless its way above my level. Waste of damn time.”

Allen shrugged to himself and strolled off into the cavern, the others following after. Camila and Ty quickly took their spots at the front of the formation while Allen lingered at the back with Amelia and Christopher.

The cavern quickly got very dark as they walked away from where light was spilling in from the well. Without Christopher summoning a glowing miasma construct to fly over the group they would have been blind. It was still rather dim, considering the lack of light aspect, but the pure arcane aspect was just bright enough to see the path ahead of them. It wasn’t much of a path actually, just the most easily maneuverable route through the dungeon.

A few more minutes passed as the group walked towards the far end of the cavern. Allen could see just well enough to notice the roof subtly tapering downwards. He figured they’d reach the wall and look for a way onward from there.

“I… I’ve never actually been in a dungeon before,” admitted Amelia suddenly. She looked back at Allen, perhaps a little embarrassed.

“What? How is that even possible?” Allen asked himself, trying to figure out how to respond to the random comment. “No, I shouldn’t assume everybody puts themselves in danger in this world, especially healers.” The silence drug on for a few awkward seconds before Allen said something in return. “Not big on adventure?” he replied, chuckling.

Amelia shot him a glance and pouted. “I’m not big on dying,” she said in resignation, “I… I was a healer in a monastery for many years until Andy showed up yesterday.”

Allen looked ahead again, unsure of a way to answer. He noticed the end of the first room was not too far off by then. He ducked under an overhanging rock before following Ty and Camila around the dark silhouette of a boulder that had fallen from the roof long ago.

Thankfully, Christopher picked up the conversation before it slipped away. “Which Order?” he asked, “The monastery, I mean.”

“Not all monasteries are healer monasteries,” Allen thought, “I know she’s good, but the major healing orders are pretty insane. Maybe she’s part of one of the minor ones?”

“Oh, it’s not one of the big ones,” she said with a wry smile, as if that was enough of an answer.

Allen squinted his eyes at the girl as she walked next to him, her eyes facing forward. “If it’s not one of the big ones then why not tell us what it is?”

Amelia’s noncommittal response swiftly ended the conversation there. Sighing internally, Allen shifted his attention to his surroundings and all the many sights that could be found down in a hole somewhere. It left much to be desired when compared to most other dungeons.

Natural dungeons, like the Well of Gloom, were nothing more than natural formations that were filled with monsters. Usually there wasn’t even any loot to be found in such dungeons, despite the System deigning it necessary to label them as such.

The monsters themselves were the prize in this case, killing them that is, so Allen wasn’t really concerned with the lack of treasure. By comparison, the lack of excitement was more bothering by far. Most interesting dungeons would have a grand entrance room or some kind of twist. The Well of Gloom was just a normal cavern.

“Hey, path ahead!” Ty called out from the front of the group.

“Fucking finally,” Camila added.

Allen, Christopher, and Amelia caught up with the other two after a few paces. Ty pointed into the darkness of the cavern ahead of them, prompting Christopher to send his glowing ball of mana forward.

The ball of arcane miasma lit up the space just enough for Allen to see the rough wall of the cavern. Three passages opened up on the end of the wall, twisting downwards and into the shadows. The corridors were still just natural cave formations though; nothing in the dungeon was structured. The walls were covered in slick rock formations and a thin layer of moss, just like a normal cave.

“Which way do we go?” Amelia asked.

Camila huffed to herself in mild amusement.

“Two roads diverged in a cave, and I… I took the one less traveled by,” Christopher said wistfully.

“So… we go that way?” Amelia asked and pointed at the rightmost path that curved up and over a rock formation at an awkward angle.

Allen snorted, “Not in this place,” he said, “Unless you wanna get lost for nothing. This dungeon has been explored enough that all the pretty rocks are gone, and the right path is very clearly marked.”

Camila laughed as she took her claymore out of her inventory. “Yeah, he gets it,” she said, turning to walk off down the central corridor.

The others followed in the same formation as before, only tighter. After the entrance had passed, they would start running into monsters. “Well, we’ll run into what’s left of them if somebody’s already been down here just yesterday.” Allen thought, “Hopefully they were leaving and not preparing to go down.”

Another few minutes of walking went by before the corridor opened up into another larger room about a hundred meters across and two-hundred to the other end. The air in the cave had grown still and chilly enough to be noticeable but not yet uncomfortable. The roof was covered in patches of glowing moss that lit up the cave in the same way that dull moonlight might, only a little greenish. Christopher’s light source was still brighter though, so he kept it floating above the group. Thanks to the moss, Allen could see the faint outline of the rock formations filling up the entire room from top to bottom.

He could also barely make out movement in the distant shadows. There were still monsters in the cave. Their shapes were malformed and their movements strange and unsettling. That is, to any normal person. Allen was mostly fraught with a sense of calm indifference, and that was without Dead Calm active.

Camila whistled lightly, enough to alert anything nearby, but not to bring the whole room upon them. She received a few garbled hisses from the darkness in response.

Allen followed Ty and Camila into the open room and jumped up on a sloped rock. There was a thick stalagmite for him to hide behind until he could circle around whatever would come for the group.

Come they did. Three grotesque forms dashed toward Ty and Camila as the two lifted their shield and sword respectively. Allen focused on the incoming monsters and managed to pull up the closest one’s nametag in his mind.

Name: Shade Ghoul

Lesser Undead – Monster – Level 22

“Manageable,” he thought to himself as the ghouls lunged into the light of Christopher’s magic.