Jacob

It was harder than I thought it would be to find a map of the surrounding areas that also included the various dungeons that existed, especially since they didn't get nearly as much foot traffic as the Chilaak Catastrophe Dungeon. Most of them held maybe three or four floors at most, while only a few of them had any more than six. It simply wasn't profitable to venture out to them, so almost none of them were marked on maps, except to warn travellers who might stumble upon a small scale dungeon break, which didn't even happen that often around here. Any that did were quickly dealt with by even middling dungeoneers, who had experienced much worse from the first few floors of the Catastrophe Dungeon, especially in the last few months.

I did find a map that suited my needs, despite the difficulties. It was a bit old, but it was far more detailed the some of the newer ones. It had been hidden behind a bunch of other various maps that depicted the city, the forest to the east, and the mountains to the west. Luckily it was still in a usable condition, having been torn or crumpled in only a few places. When I laid it out on one of the nearby tables where people could read about the information they needed, I found that it was a little bit worse than that. It had what appeared to be a stain from what I could only assume was coffee from a long time ago, covering up a portion of the northern side of the forest. Still, the map showed enough that I could see multiple potential locations for dungeons remaining the in uncovered forest area, while three more were near the mountains.

Keeping the map on hand, I decided I would look for anything that listed the dungeons that still remained active to this day. Doing so ended up taking longer than it had for me to find the map, since books about the dungeons around Chilaak were few and far between, while almost every book you did find was about the dungeon in the middle of town. This alone caused me to take extra time even after asking a scribe for help, which ended up amounting to little, since the book I was actually looking for was up in the Senior Analyst's office. Remembering what he had been like during the prelude to the raid, I assumed that getting the book from him wouldn't be much of an issue, so long as he wasn't using it.

I was wrong. I was completely wrong. While it didn't take much for me to be let into the Senior Analyst's office, what I found was absolutely different from what I was expecting. Books and pieces of parchment were scattered all over the room, across the desk directly in front of me, along the bookshelves to my left, plastered to the wall on my right, and completely covering the floor, making it nearly impossible to walk without stepping on something. A chair was overturned and laying on the floor at the foot of the desk, facing me. The analyst had a total of four different cups all filled to the brim with coffee scattered around the room, with the largest one sitting in front of him on his desk, along with four separate books all opened to different areas.

The analyst himself however was nowhere to be seen, but I could hear muttering noises coming from just behind the desk itself. I couldn't help but blink a few times in surprise, seeing the room in total disarray.

Should I... Come back later?

The moment of observation passed before I could make a decision. "Door. I heard the door. Scribe Ferris, did you bring me the extra research documents I asked for? The ones with the weird squiggly lines that were used to mark it?" His voice rose for a moment, presumably directed at me. However, before I could even respond the man continued on. "Nevermind, did you at least bring me the box of coffee beans I ordered weeks ago? They're very expensive, and I must have adequate refreshments if I want to figure out the next stage in this nightmare. Probably going to... No, that wouldn't work, maybe it will... No, that would just be stupid on its part if it has any sort of sentience whatsoever..." He trailed off, going back to the same level of muttering I'd heard from him. I waited a moment to see if he would start up again before I spoke.

"I'm not actually one of your scribes, sir. I was told that you were in possession of a book I might be able to use to help the rest of my party." I spoke even as I heard him stop muttering and probably bang his head against his desk, considering the thud I heard along with the slight yelp of pain.

"Darn it, that hurt." The analyst spoke, coming up from the desk rubbing his head with his right hand, while holding a sheet of parchment in his left. "Not my scribe, right. You said you're here for a book? Most of you people don't ever show up in my office, so I'm curious. What kind of book are you looking for?" All I could say about the man was that he was dishevelled. He looked nothing like the man who had spoken to an entire raid group. His clothes were a mixture of stains and dust, his eyes ringed by dark circles denoting a lack of sleep, and his hands covered in small cuts that I assumed were from the large amounts of parchment scattered about the room.

"A book on the dungeons surrounding the city, sir. I'm trying to find a way to help the rest of my team get stronger so that we can help out in any way we can, but I don't want to come up with something only for it to be a dead end." I figured being honest with the man might help me out a bit, but I was wrong again.

"You want to get stronger to help deal with this?" He stifled a chuckle, only to then burst into full blown laughter. "You can't deal with something like this! At most you can survive it, and yet you believe there's something for you to do? That's a brilliant joke. Now tell me, why are you really here?" He righted his chair and then sat down, wiping a tear from his eye. I couldn't help the heat that seemed to bloom within my chest.

"I'm not here to joke with you. I am here to make sure my team can help in any way they feel they need to. I am going to make sure we don't get ourselves killed doing so despite the fact that I believe staying here is a bad idea. If you want to make fun of that, fine. Go ahead, but don't you dare tell me that there's no chance for them to do anything. We already failed once, and I watched my friend die. Now he's throwing himself into training and I don't think I'm going to be able to stop him. So are you going to help me or not?" I was very nearly shouting at the end, my hands clenched into tight fists to keep hold of myself.

The analyst didn't speak for several moments, looking over me with what I almost assumed to be disinterest. He then sighed audibly before he stood up, picked up one of the chairs, and set it back down in front of the desk. "I know who you are. Jacob, supposed leader of Dungeon Team Blueberries. One of the few surviving teams to come back from that fiasco. If you're not actually joking then I want you to read something before I give you the book you're looking for. Have a seat." He then walked back behind his desk, and slid a large, heavy book across to me.

It took a moment to reign myself in, but I entered the room completely, took the upright seat, and grabbed the book. It was heavier than I imagined it would be, but not by much. The analyst -William if I recalled his name correctly- tapped the desk a few times to get my attention. "I want you to find the section about the kingdom of Sarillum. Read through it in its entirety. I'll find the book you're looking for, but I have a question to ask you once you finish reading. It will likely take you some time, so don't rush through it if you truly want to help your friends." His footsteps echoed softly as he began checking various reports strewn about the room along with trying to find the book I was searching for.

It wasn't hard to find the section about Sarillum. The beginning of the book had a table of contents and listed it as starting at page 134. Flipping to the page, the first thing to catch my eye was an illustration. It looked like a sort of amorphous blob with feelers branching out. Within its body I could see pieces of both monster and human alike. Weapons hung suspended in the transparent flesh, while others were held by the feelers reaching away from the body. I turned my attention to the words at the beginning of the section.

The Destruction of Sarillum

The specific date of this event was never accurately recorded, although it can be stated that the kingdom of Sarillum fell between 300 and 350 years prior to the creation of this text. It is known that the monster that sparked the end of Sarillum was created on the first floor as a seemingly regular slime. This monster in particular showed exceptional cunning early on, luring inexperienced dungeoneers into several traps consisting mainly of rooms which were normally avoided by slimes, unless sufficiently desperate or foolish, the likes of which are unknown by those writing this.

Soon after this creature was discovered, a team of dungeoneers caught and extracted it from the dungeon, keeping it locked away for the guild to train new dungeoneers. It is assumed that trainees would accidentally get killed by this monster, from which it showed only miniscule improvements to its abilities. This is one of many theories as to how the Slime of Sarillum gained its power. It is also unknown how the slime managed to escape dungeoneer custody, although it travelled back into the dungeon and rapidly took over several floors, enforcing its will upon the other monsters, and causing surges of monster activity that were previously unheard of.

It was reported that the first several floors were unsafe to travel except for the more experienced dungeoneer teams, although casualties would still occur, as evidenced by records recovered thirty years later by military forces from several neighboring countries...

Reading through the introductory information to the section I noticed a few similarities to the situation that was occuring here in Chilaak. The first few floors were too dangerous to travel through, a single monster brought sweeping changes to just about every monster on those floors, and new dungeoneering teams had gone missing in the first few months. I continued reading, the illustration in my peripheral vision feeling a bit more sinister than before.

In the month following the creature returning to the dungeon; as floors became more and more dangerous, defenses were built around the dungeon entrance to keep it secure against the ever growing monster presence, and against those who might seek to undermine the efforts made there. This all was done in vain however, as an overwhelming force of monsters, outnumbering dungeoneers, guards, and civilians alike, swarmed out onto the surface. The ensuing battle did not last very long before all the remaining combatants were routed. The following is an excerpt from a journal that was written by one of the survivors.

So many people died today. I was in the market getting some food for my family when I started hearing the screams. The soldiers and dungeon people alike told us that we would be safe. They lied. I watched as monsters burst through what little defenses we had set up to make the market feel more secure. Skeletons, zombies, slimes, goblins... That was only the beginning of it. I ended up snatching a sword off the corpse of a guard. I can still see his face, twisted in agony and fear. There was this horrible gash across his chest, and I saw his bones just under the skin. When I used to think of bones, I would think of sunbleached animal carcasses. Now, it's just that man's ribs, cracked and bloody.

I didn't know where to go, but my legs certainly did. I was running faster and longer than I've ever done before. Found my wife in our house, hiding in the cellar like I told her to do if something happened. I was too late to get us out safely though. Monsters were all over town, burning, killing, stealing. It was all I could do to pull her along with me, even as the dead shambled after us, rusty weapons and rotting teeth bared the whole time. I saw bodies all over the place. Lying in the street, hanging out of windows, bloody trails dragged into alleys. We were nearly stopped by a goblin. It was us or it. I can still feel my hands shaking as I write this. We're in a small tent that some of the dungeon people are letting us borrow. We're alive. There were... Maybe eight thousand people living there? There's only around fifty people in our group of refugees, and we're one of the bigger ones. I pray to the Gods that we can survive. It feels like the end times are upon us. Gods help us if I'm right.

The following is an illustration of the supposed Slime of Sarillum which at the peak of its power, towered over any normal man and many structures, at over fifteen meters in height and width. The monster was slain by the combined efforts of multiple countries, and several dungeon teams. It was this death that finally ended the Catastrophe of Sarillum.

I looked up from the book to see the analyst sitting across from me, sipping at his coffee with a thin book in front of him. "Short section." I didn't have any other words for him, as it truly was a short section for what was likely a momentous event. The analyst snorted. "That's the more concrete information. A lot of the rest just deals with theory, which by and large is what my job is about. However, there are similarities to that event and this one. What those pages in front of you don't say, is that each individual monster was in the range of level five to level fifteen. Individually they wouldn't give many teams much trouble except for the inexperienced. However, get enough of them together, and that book has told you of the results." He put the coffee mug down, and clasped his hands together. "I'm an analyst. I'm meant to be able to pick out patterns like that, and this has so many obvious similarities that just about anyone could see them, including a child. Do you really think you and your team can help against what is likely an event that is going to shake the world once more?"

His question made me pause to think about what might happen if we did stay to help. Being refugees didn't sound glamorous, and being dead sounded even less so. I still might not be able to get the rest of Blueberries to leave, though. Not getting any payback might not be good for Vance, and if Lilly lost her brother, she might never recover. I took a deep breath.

"I'm not sure if we can help, but I'd like to try." I tried to look solemn as I spoke, staring unflinching into his eyes. The analyst sighed, before sliding the book toward me.

"Very well. Don't blame me if you get killed, though."