The cave before him loomed like a gaping maw, dark and foreboding with only the faintest of light coming from the stones further into the dungeon. Arthur wasn’t a fan of the whole look; he wished the dungeon would at least be well lit, from what it looked like they were more likely to wander face-first into a wall than find the core. Fortunately, despite his ridiculous name, it appeared their fearless leader had come prepared as torches started getting passed around.

“The dungeon stones only produce a faint glow so we're going to need those torches. The dungeon monsters usually don’t have much of a problem with the light so be careful and make those torches last. They’ve been specially treated so they should last for days but you never know what you're getting into with a dungeon.”

That made a lot of sense to Arthur, unfortunately, he didn’t get a torch as he was standing in the middle of the group. The torches were kindled, weapons and equipment were checked and the appraisal team pushed entered the dungeon. It was rather anticlimactic, to be honest, they ran into the dungeon expecting an immediate attack, but nothing happened. It was rather eerie. Grass covered the ground, and Arthur could hear the chirping of insects and the rustling sound of something moving through the grass.

“What's with all the plants? There’s no way they get enough sunlight to grow down here.” Arthur had grown up in a small village so he at least knew that much about plants even if he had been taught more about hunting.

“They don’t but they grow anyway, might have something to do with the mana you mage types are always going on about.” Arthur couldn't quite see who had responded to his question in the press of bodies around him, but at least he was tall enough to see over most of them, the torchlight wasn’t the best but it was better than nothing.

The group proceeded through the first floor of the dungeon, not finding anything that didn’t run away from them. Some of those on the edges of the formation talked about mice and insects they had seen, and Arthur thought he had seen a rabbit running through the grass. It was quite boring, and the tension pervading the adventurers was starting to be bled away by the monotony. They had been walking for quite a while, it was a good thing that most of them were stronger than a normal person. Even Arthur had a bit more stamina than a level one person, so he could keep up for the most part with the steady pace that was set.

They proceeded down through two more floors before the appraisal group encountered its first real opposition if you could call it that. A fox took a chunk out of an inattentive leg as they were walking through the third floor, the adventurer was then chewed out by his fellows as he was bandaged up. They had to slow their pace some after that, but they couldn't very well leave someone behind, even if it seemed pretty tame so far this was still a dungeon, abandonment would be a death sentence.

One benefit of being in the middle of the group, other than not being the first attacked by monsters, was that he was right next to the leaders who weren’t bothering to keep their voices down. “Come on Tobias we won’t be able to make it that far, especially if we start getting attacked more.”

“I told you to call me Blood Fang idiot. Also, it’ll be fine this dungeon might be larger than most but we’ve hardly seen any monsters. Even those foxes are pathetic if they don’t catch you by surprise so settle down and we’ll be fine.” Personally, Arthur didn’t see the problem; there had only been one actual attack that hadn’t even been fatal. He was a little disappointed he hadn’t fought anything yet, tier-one was the shortest tier and he was eager to get through it.

“This dungeon is pretty weird though isn’t it Tobias? I mean most don’t bother with things like plants and bugs at all do they?” Arthur hadn't known that, but he appreciated the aesthetic, plain old caves would have gotten boring after a while. He supposed the same could be said of plain old grass but it was something he was more used to.

It took two more floors before they encountered their first problem, the fourth and fifth floors hadn’t been too dangerous. The foxes were more common but after the first incident, the guards drew closer together and managed to stave off another surprise attack. There were also hawks which were quite annoying if not exactly dangerous for people who were wearing a helmet. Unfortunately, Arthur was broke so he didn’t have a helmet and most of the other tier one adventurers didn’t have one either. That led to quite a bit of startled cursing and some quick ducking when the birds came swooping out of the darkness. Arthur had tried blasting one out of the air with a spell but he was both too slow in making the spell and too bad of a shot to hit the bird. He had given up after the first try, better to save his mana for enemies that would sit still long enough for him to hit.

The sixth floor was different though they had hardly made it out of the entrance when one of the adventurers was grabbed by the ankle and suddenly dragged into a bush. The rest of the adventurers practically tripped over each other to get away from the bush as screams echoed rang out in the dungeon. Pandemonium briefly reigned until the higher tier adventurers took action, one of the tier twos forcefully bowled through the tier ones and hacking away at the offending bush with a battle-ax.

Arthur mostly ignored what was going on around him as he watched a wolf growling over the corpse of its kill. One quick swipe of a battle-ax quickly silenced its growls but it was still too late. The adventurer who was grabbed lay in a pool of his own blood, his throat torn out and his eyes staring wide in disbelief. The ax wielder closed the eyes of the dead man and moved back to the main party, where order had mostly been restored.

The death of their erstwhile comrade had shaken up the weaker members of the group, and Arthur was suddenly very glad that he had been put in the middle of the group. Still, they moved on, both the body of the adventurer and the corpse of the wolf were abandoned, neither could be taken with them.

Arthur was breathing heavily as they dashed their way through the seventh floor, the sixth had been a nightmare but this floor was just as bad. His mana flowed out like wet clay and he molded it into a rough ball which was then unceremoniously thrown behind him. There was a crash along with quite a bit of whimpering as one of the pursuing wolves met the business end of the spell. They were all exhausted, they had been harried by the wolves throughout the last two floors, slowly picking off their numbers. Three more adventurers had died, all part of the tier one group, which made Arthur more than a little nervous as they charged headfirst into what was turning out to be a meat grinder.

At least he was making progress on leveling although it was cold comfort in this particular situation. The adventurer in front of him suddenly stopped and Arthur skidded to a stop and gapped at the little green figure in front of them. Great just great, as if the wolves weren’t bad enough there just had to be goblins too. Fortunately, the leaders of the party were on top of it this time at least, the fearless Blood Fang came out himself and tore his way through the goblins with a bored look on his face. It was frankly quite impressive to see goblins being bisected faster than the eye could follow, Blood Fang was still a stupid name though.

Fortunately, that was the only band of goblins that they ran into, but the wolves were dogged pursuers until they reached the stairs to the next floor. There to most of the party’s relief, they decided to spend the night or what passed for night in the dim gloom of the dungeon, in the stairwell. The torches that they brought with them were burning low, but there were plenty of branches around to make more makeshift torches if push came to shove.

Leaning back against the hard wall Arthur decided to try getting some rest, they would be stopped for at least a few hours. The tier ones, Arthur included, were about ready to drop, but Tobias and the higher tiers were doing just fine. Closing his eyes Arthur tried to tune out the mutterings around him.

“This place isn’t natural I tell ya. Monsters under every rock acting like normal animals, and why would a dungeon keep something like insects they can’t fight at all?” Valid questions, Arthur had never been in a dungeon before and he assumed that almost no one else had either, but this one did seem odd compared to some of the stories he had heard.

“The dungeon might be weird but it's making it easier for us so I won’t complain too much. What's bothering me is how that Blood Fang and his cronies are acting, they could have done this dive by themselves probable, mark my word we weren’t brought along to help we’re bait at best.” That was an uncomfortable thought, but the strong adventurers didn’t seem that concerned with the lives of those weaker than them.

“Blood Fang my hindquarters, his name’s Tobias and you know it. Even if they are using us as bait, there is not much we can do about it, is there? He’s a bloody tier three in case you haven’t forgotten.” Arthur rolled over trying to block out their conversation.

“You think they’ll kill us on the way out?” The nervous man asked, sounding like he’d rather not hear the answer.

“Na I don’t think so. If something too dangerous comes up they’ll let us get slaughtered to cover their exit but it's no skin off their backs if we do live. They just don’t give a damn about us one way or the other.” Silence ensued briefly leaving only the crackle of the torches in the background.

“That's the way things are for tier ones though isn’t it? You never see an old tier one in society, we’re either going to make it to tier two and be slightly more relevant or die trying to get there.” Grunts of agreement sounded out along with the shuffle of steps as the group dispersed. Arthur snuggled down in his ratty cloak and finally drifted off to sleep the conversation he had heard playing again in his head. Make it to tier two, make it or die trying.

These guys are idiots. The stupid invaders had burned down another one of his bushes. It was annoying to regrow plants and it took too long to let them just come back on their own. Maybe I should just have Sora and Aspen jump the group now while they’re sleeping.

I know you’re annoyed Valens but you might want to reconsider that idea. He had finally managed to rouse Magnus, but it had taken forever to get the drake to wake up.

Oh, come on Magnus this is a great plan. My bosses will slaughter at least most of the humans which should get them out of my dungeon and stop them from burning down my plants.

Magnus shook his head and sighed. You see the guy who killed the group of goblins they ran into, yes? Valens nodded the one with the ridiculous name. Right he’s tier three which means nothing in the entire dungeon besides me has any chance against him.

Wait what? So then why isn’t he just delving the dungeon by himself then if he’s so strong?

We might know that a tier-three would be strong enough to clear the dungeon but they don’t know that. This group is trying to explore the dungeon and then report back on what’s down here. The lower tiers are along to provide a distraction if they run into something too strong, some dungeons have the nasty tendency to have their dungeon bosses wandering around the early floors. Valens could see the upsides to that, a quick and overwhelming response to any invaders. Other than that as they get deeper the tier ones are either going to die or they’ll reach tier two. They don’t send anyone important down here, but they’ll be well paid on their return if they survive.

Fair enough that seemed a little cold though at least to the core, but then again he had his creatures engaged in a perpetual deathmatch that went by the name nature, most of the time at least. What about that tier three Bloody Claw was it? Why couldn’t Sora or Aspen take him down, if they got the jump on him surely he wouldn’t stand a chance.

No, they probably wouldn’t. I’ll explain it later though, it looks like they’re getting ready to move again. The pair of them fell silent and watched as the adventurers prepared to venture deeper into the dungeon.