Chapter Thirty One

The gem got worried when it saw the newest invaders enter its territory for two reasons. First, twice as many invaders as normal entered. Normally they came in groups of three, now there were six of them entering at once. The second problem was how well armed they were. On top of what looked like high quality armor, all but one of them had multiple runes. Based on past experience that meant that every single one of them would be a formidable opponent.

Since large group of formidable opponents certainly could be dangerous the gem called for some of the drybolds warriors. It had them gather in the valley and prepare for an ambush. Then it started to listen in on their conversation.

“So how are we going to tame this thing Bjorn? I heard they haven’t even found the core yet.”

A big man who was presumably Bjorn sighed and said “Didn’t I tell you to be careful what you talked about? We don’t know how sentient the dungeon is. It could be listening in on us now.”

“Cmon Bjorn lighten up” the first man responded “The dungeon is new so I doubt it's figured out language yet. Talking will make everything easier.”

Bjorn sighed “ What would have made everything easier was if you listened during the briefing, but since you’ve already blown our cover I might as well tell you. We might not know where the core is but we do know where the strong defenders are. No self respecting dungeon keeps its strongest defenders far from its core so if we go to them we should be able to find it easily enough. In this case that means going up and searching every inch of the island we were told about.”

The men continued talking, but the gem stopped listening. It had heard enough. They weren’t here for resources or training. They were here for it. A boiling rage started to spread through the gem and every creature in the dungeon felt it. All rules that were meant to attract new adventurers were off. The gem called for the rest of the drybold tribe and all its defenders in the valley and had them gather at the entrance. It had them wait there while it tried its best to exhaust the invaders.

Normally nothing would happen if the invaders didn’t touch the stalagmites holding up the rock falls, but now if they got close enough that they might be injured the gem would trigger the trap on its own. The poison shooting plants acted similarly. Instead of waiting for the invaders to try and pluck them, they simply threw as much poison into the air as they could when the invaders got close. These changes weren’t enough to bring the invaders down but it would weaken them.

While it was doing all this the gem continued to listen in on everything the invaders were saying

“The dungeon could definitely fucking understand you Gunther. Now we are going to have to deal with everything in the dungeon trying extra hard to kill us.”

“Sorry boss. You know I was seasick during the briefing. I’ll take the front to make up for it.”

As they were having that conversation they stepped into a dead end. It was just what the gem was waiting for. The thick stone wall dropped down behind them and the room started to flood. The invaders pounded on the stone blocking the exit, and surprisingly they started to chip it. The gem widened the channel to the river and soon they were entirely underwater. A feeling of relief washed over it, but then it examined the invaders more closely. They didn’t seem to be affected by the water at all. All of them had air bubbles surrounding their heads preventing them from drowning. On of the invaders had their hand on a rune and appeared to be making the air bubbles while the rest of them just pounded on the stone. It took them nearly half an hour, but they did manage to get through. They came out the other side cursing and angry.

“This is your fucking fault Gunther. No one mentioned any trap even close to that dangerous. If you hadn’t opened your big mouth then we wouldn’t have even had to deal with it.”

While they were doing that the gem was swearing to itself that it would add as many snakes and fish as possible to that trap for the next time. Maybe even poison too. It didn’t have too long to think about that though because they started going through its territory once again.

It took them quite a while since they were being bothered by traps at every turn, but after half a day of slogging through the tunnels they started to make their way upward. The gem was about to send its drybolds in to attack them from behind when it sensed another group entering its territory. That made it rescind its orders to the drybolds so they weren’t caught in the middle of the two groups.

As the new invaders moved through the dungeon quickly by following the trail of destroyed traps, the first invaders travelled through a plant floor without any issue. They killed every creature they came across, used air runes to avoid the poison, and only got small scratches from the moving plants. The fish floor that followed it was also a disappointing failure. One of the invaders made a shield of wind strong enough to block the fish and then they just walked through the entire floor.

The next floor was less of a disappointment. Having already passed through one plant floor easily the invaders dropped their guard. They started a fight with some of the rabbits and snakes on the floor without checking what plants were in their surroundings. The gem used this to set up a trap. Just as the defenders were attacking the vines on the floor rose slightly and wrapped all of the invaders legs in their thorny embrace. Then a man-eating plant that had been concealed in the foliage struck and swallowed one of the invaders that was in the middle of the group. While the invaders were trying to free themselves from the vine the rabbits and snakes used their stone-shatteringly powerful bites to leave deep wounds on the invaders legs.

Then the invaders broke free of the vines. They slaughtered everything that had been attacking them and hacked the man eating plant until they could get their comrade back.

“Where are you healing potions? You idiots let our healer get eaten by a plant. How’s he supposed to heal us when he’s unconscious?”

They poured a healing potion down his throat and then uncorked a vial before shoving it under his nose. The man snapped awake and looked around confused.

“Fredrick, are you good to heal us? We don’t have enough potions so you gotta get up.”

It took a few seconds for the man to gather his wits and then he nodded “I had to use most of my mana to keep from being dissolved by that plant. I’ve got enough to heal you up this time but don’t expect me to be able to do much till i’ve had a bit to recover..”

Another man nodded and said “that’s good enough. Now that the dungeon is hostile I want to get this over with fast so we don’t have to spend the night.”

As the gem watched this it decided to do everything in its power to make sure that their journey to its island was long and hard. It had its creatures ambush and stall instead of planning all out attacks and also made a few other quick decisions. The first of which was to move its tusked defenders up to the island. They wouldn’t be enough to take out the group on their own so they might as well team up with its bear to have a strong last line of defense. Next the gem sensed that the second group was starting to go up, so it sent the drybolds and the other defenders from the valley in to attack them from behind. Then it went back to managing its upper floors so it could tire the invaders out as much as possible before they got close to its core.

Chase

Chase led the group of “friends” he just met straight to the dungeon. They had just reached the clearing outside the entrance when he turned to the one he had met outside the bar and asked

“Are you sure it's fine to bring this many people? I’ve heard dungeons start to get extra violent if you have too large of a group.”

The man waved off his concerns “We’re all professionals so even if it is a little extra dangerous it won’t matter. Plus isn’t there already another group adventuring right now? Even if we went in with a small group the dungeon would probably get all riled up. Now let's get going.”

Chase dashed across the ledge to avoid the fish and everyone else followed. From there they walked into the tunnel leading deeper into the dungeon and immediately realized that something was wrong. Every single trap was already triggered. This seemed like it was good for them since they didn’t have to deal with any traps, but it was making him worried. What group had gone in there before them? Why were they activating all the traps? How good were they to get caught in all the traps and not be injured? He was worrying about these things when the man he was leading spoke up again

“It looks like they are trying to tame the dungeon. We need to go fast or we will end up having to fight them and the dungeon’s defenders at the same time. What’s the fastest way to the core?”

Chase wasn’t sure that he wanted to be involved with this anymore. Then he looked back at all the heavily armed men behind him and decided to answer “We haven’t managed to find the core. That shouldn’t matter though. This tunnel has some dead ends but it all ends up leading to the same place.”

The man nodded and then they started to follow the trail of activated traps until it ended in the middle of a corridor. The man grabbed Chase by the shoulder and said

“I thought there was only one path. If you caused us to lose them then you're not going to be happy.”

Chase gulped and said “This is where the path diverges.” He pointed at one of the shadowy alcoves “There’s a path in there leading up. Since there aren’t any traps triggered ahead they must have gone there.”

The man let go of Chase and went to the alcove. He poked his head through the hole leading up and called down to everyone else “The trail continues up here. Let's keep moving”

They climbed up and continued following the trail of destruction until they heard a sound. The man who appeared to be in charge called for everyone to be silent and then listened closely. The sounds were still a bit distant but the scream of dying beasts and the clashing of steel on stone was unmistakable. He turned back to the rest of the group and whispered

“Now that we don’t have to worry about them taming the dungeon without us let's take it slow. I want them to exhaust themselves getting to the core and then we can ambush them while they are fighting the core’s defenders.”

From there they followed the fighting silently for the hours it took until they saw light shining down from above. They waited till they heard particularly intense fighting and then stormed up onto the island. The first thing Chase saw was the bear. It had gotten even larger than when he fought it and it looked like it was covered in a layer of stone. Next he saw two tusked beasts even larger than the bear. They looked like the things they had been hunting, but they didn’t act the same. Instead of running away they were trying to crush and stab anything that got close to them. Then he saw the adventurers they were about to ambush. They were the six tier two adventurers that had entered the settlement recently.

Chase didn’t know how strong his new allies were, but he didn’t think they were stronger than the adventurers. He looked down at his hand and thought about fixing it. Then he gritted his teeth and dashed back down the hole off of the island. He didn’t know how they would take his leaving, so he sprinted down a floor to avoid them catching up. He glanced behind himself while running to make sure that they weren’t following when he felt the ground beneath his feet crumble. He looked down and saw spikes rising to meet him. He put his hands in front of his face, but all that did was make him feel the spikes go straight through his arms before they entered his face and came out the back of his head.