Edited by: KenChi死

In the end I couldn’t “steal” any body parts for myself. Simply, Loki decided that he would stand over me (as I was collecting body part while performing a slave squat) and keep telling me jokes. Half of them were… not exactly funny. But to the point!

The first floor of dungeon was like a walk in the park. Monsters were definitely annoying, but not dangerous. They were but a more aggressive bunny. The difference of current and just mentioned situation? I wanted to kill bunnies to get something to eat and level up as quickly as possible, here we want to get to lower levels, and as I already mentioned, to level up thanks to those guyz I need to kill over 1500 of em’.

When you need something, those things are running away, when you are no longer interested, those objects appear left and right and are disturbing you from achieving your new goal.

Oh, irony!

Soon I get to know why Marika class was named “Enchantress”.

Your party member [Marika] has casted [Protection of Earth Spirits] on youYour defense was risen

Armor: +5

Endurance: +5

Stamina: +30

Stamina regeneration: upEarth magic is 10% more potentRemaining time: 2h 41m 11s

Your party member [Marika] has casted [Anger of Fire Spirits] on youYour magical/combat capabilities were risen

Intelligence: -5

Vitality: +5

Health: +30

Health regeneration: upFire magic is 10% more potentRemaining time: 2h 42m 36s

The remaining blessing I couldn’t get were (of course) of wind and water (those were given to Loki) and Wind and Fire were given to Mrogul.

“I can only give two blessing per person at the same time, simply too many blessings would greatly reduced each other effects… maybe as I would get more skilled in using my enchants I will be able to cast more of those at the same targets!” Marika explained “You get earth for protection and fire for your magic, Loki got mostly those which would boost his agility, and Mrogul… well… strength and more strength. Boosting his intelligence would be both pointless and impossible.” “And which one you cast upon yourself?” “There are blessing much more powerful, but that can be caste only on myself. Sorry Zari, the best stuff I keep for myself.” She said with wide smile.

We were walking past the curved corridors, here and there killing some more annoying monsters. I took care of the bats, while Morgul and Loki were killing the turtle lizards. And I have to say, that Loki surly knows how to handle his short swords. In my opinion he was showing off, balancing and switching swords over and over again, those moves could be really useful against humans, for they would got scared looking at someone handling those weapons like that… but not on lizards that simply charged either running or rolling at us.

“Ah Marika! I will never got tired of those blessing you cast upon me! I feel as light as a feather! Senses sharper than ever!”

He was, in my opinion, trying to rebuild her self confidence that Mrogul was undermining over and over again.

“Kay kids, first floor is over.” Marika cheered. “Already? This must be quite the short dungeon… I mean we are walking for… an hour? Maybe two?…” “First floor is the smallest one, the weakest monsters are pushed here by stronger. It usually takes 3 days to clear… to get to the 9th floor of the dungeon. Today we should get up to the 5th and made camp there. Next day we should get to the 7th or 8th, and last day is completing the 9th There should be also a treasure chest there… this is why we all thought that dungeon is only 9 floor deep.” “May you tell me why there is a treasure within the dungeon? Last time I checked there were only monsters here…” “The dungeon itself is alive. No one knows for sure what they are, but it looks like the dungeon itself have something from adventurers… Few wise guys came up with the theory that it can suck small amounts of mana and vital forces. Yet, in the end what is alive can be killed. Creating treasurers is one of the ways to lure us here, and spawning it repeatedly over and over again is his way of convincing us to not kill him… her… it… so in the future it may “reward” us once again. Well, there are also Mad Dungeons… those only want us dead, and we have no problem with smashing their cores.”

Dungeon core… Dungeon core… Core… I can eat it, can I? Please tell me I can eat it… But as I can already tell, that dungeons are quite valuable, adventurers would get pretty mad at me if I would keep eating their job source… In some time I would have to look around those crazy, Mad Dungeons…

For now…

“Okay, we are diving lower.”

Stairs. Really? In the middle of the cave there are… stairs… Not that I am complain, it will be much more comfortable than being pushed down by some ravens… yes Sebastian, I am talking about you.

“Anything I need to know before we get there?” “No, monsters are not that much stronger. The fun starts below the 5th. Now , here you go!”

And I was forced to walk directly after Mrogul.

We get to the lower floor pretty fast, and what I saw left me in awe and admiration.

The Dungeon was no longer a plane cave. Instead, the thing I saw was a gate. A big ass gate. With monuments of weird looking giant lizards holding each wing of the gate while looking at each other… hissing? I have no idea what that was supposed to mean, yet their mouths were opened and their tongues were hanging in the air.

“Each dungeon has somewhere something like this.” Loki said standing next to me “Usually it represents main monsters dwelling within it. And yes, this one is has mostly lizards, and each of them is simply… weird. It was called the lair of Nightmarescaled, locals says that it’s one of the dragons offspring that because of its… uniqueness was cast aside by it’s parents and siblings. Born without wings, unable to breath fire, not having even a poison to defend himself nor venom to help him while hunting. His loneliness born madness. In his madness he cried out to goddess of chaos. And she granted him almost impenetrable scales and soaked his fangs in the deadliest venom. But she didn’t do it for she was nice, oh no. Everyone knows that gift from Dark Lady are usually double edged swords. He became powerful, his family once again took him in, and he found love among his reptile-kin. He wanted to kiss her, but the venom was so potent, that his breath killed her before he could taste her lips. Then, there was supposed to be lots of killing, lots of despair madness, some more killing. The end of this story is that he wanted to die, found a lair, yes this very lair, where he laid awaiting for the end. He was waiting so long in one spot in the darkness, that his scales sucked the very essence of nigh.” “You think, that he is living somewhere down here?” “Nope. ‘Tis but a name. I will tell how it really was. The kid saw some champion rank lizard leaving the dungeon, kid told it to the other kid exaggerating a little, the kid repeated exaggerating even more, adults heard about it and added the moralizing part, for kids to now that their prayers may be listened, so they have to be careful what they are wishing for.”

I still would prefer for the legends to be true… for a reason or two. Super hard scales? Deadly venom? Sweeeet.

“Now, even as there is no real danger, we still should move in formation.” Mrogul suggested.

The formation itself was not that sophisticated. Standard 1-2-1, Mrogul as fighter in front, me and Marika as mages in the middle, and Loki was covering our backs… even as we left nothing behind. As we would find some branch corridor we wanted to investigate, we were turning our back to each another (me, Marika and Mrogul) facing different directions (Marika was looking in the direction were we came from, I was looking deeper into the main cave, and Mrogul was looking in the new one) as Loki was carefully walking in, looking for some kind of traps and ambushes.

Usually it ended with Loki coming back smiling under his bandana (could tell that thanks to the wrinkles around his eyes) saying

“No traps nor treasurers, some monsters. We are coming there anyway, aren’t we?” “We are getting paid more if kill more. Easy prey easy cash.” Mrogul was a simple man. He saw easy money, so he was going to earn it. “Easy monsters means mean not that much money…” “And this is exactly why we have to kill lots!”

There was a logic in this madness.

Guardian of the cave [Lizzard]Level8Hp[112/120]Sp[33/50]Slightly aggressive.

Those monsters are instinctively protecting the dungeon.

By protecting we mean killing everything that would walk to close to it.

Hard scales and heavy body do not reduce its capability of attacking quickly.SkillsHardened scales [Level 8]

Earth magic resistance [low] [Level 2]

Fire magic resistance [low] [Level 1]

Powerful Bite [Level 3]

Roll [Level 8]

Fire resistance you say?

[Fire [magic] resistance] [low] [Level 1]The natural skill of a creature that were destined to live in hot areas.

Doesn't provide any real protection from [Fire] sources of damage, instead makes living in hot areas more comfortableDamage taken from Fire source of damage are reduced by 2%

And here I was both worried and full of hopes of getting something useful.

“Mrogul wait!” Loki was somehow enthusiastic. I didn’t like it “Why won’t you let Zari try? He needs to gather some real life experience too.”

I DEFINITELY DON’T LIKE HOW HE SAID THAT!

Mrogul only nodded. He was serious.

“Where’s the catch?” I asked right away. “What do you mean?” playing innocent are we? “You are offending my intelligence, you know? Is there some kind of trap? Or he has some annoying move? You accented “gathering real experience” to much.” “Honestly I have no idea what are you talking about...”

But I start looking here and there. But I couldn’t see anything. So I took my boots off.

“Now that’s weird you know?”

Hey! It was not my idea that making the spell working require direct touch with earth!

“Mother of Earth, Hear the cry of your child,

For I am naked and lost in this world so wild,

Embrace me gently, and show me the way,

So for your glory, your foes I may slay..”

The echo of nature resonated through the cave. I saw a how the dungeon twisted and cured for the next hundred meters or so. But what’s most important I saw life forces of enemies. On dead-like cold blue vision of the dungeon that appeared in my mind they were glowing like small red sparkles. And those cave guardians were not the only life forces in this little small corridor.

I looked on the high walls and ceilings. Some gecko like monsters were plastered to the walls with there tongue hanging from their mouth seeking for prey probably with heat detection.

Cave stalker [Lizard]Level7Hp[29/35]Sp[44/50]The weakest support-assassin type of the Lair of Nighmarescaled Dungeon.

All alone they are almost harmless, for they lack the ability of killing.

Instead they are traveling with other monsters supporting them by intoxicating enemies with paralyze venom and disturbing movement with their sticky tongue.

If caught alone they will roar calling for supportSkillsStealth [low] [Level9]

Immobilizing venom [low] [Level 4]

Call to arms

Sticky Tongue [level 3]

I looked back at Loki

“You fucking asshole. There are, indeed, ways of teaching your friends how to deal with difficult situations, but sending em’ right into an ambush is not one of them!” “Eh? But adventurers always like this! Letting a newbie to fall into a pit trap, just to catch them right before they would get themselves impaled… looking how someone charge at the enemy, then he would get surrounded and cry for help… Well, we would of course help you… but at camp time we would have a nice laugh because of you.” “Assholes.” “oy, were are you going?” “You told me to kill them, so here I come.” “Zari… you are outnumbered… you already proved yourself! There is no need to rush! We will help you, so..” Now, Marika was really worried. “Stop it. Let him do what he pleases.” Mrogul quietly growled. “But there is a reason we walk as a team!” “If a man says he wants to do something, let him do it for bloody sake! You will only humiliate him by helping now.” “Not everyone thinks with that mindless orsich code you idiot!”

But I was already there. 2 guardians, 4 stalkers. They pointed their eyes at me.

Pulling the adventurous knife out of the pocket if my belt, watching my footing, I slowly shortened the distance.

I moved in a bow-like trajectory, now as I was aware of their presence and more or less know how they would fight, I tried to walk to them from a direction, that would disturb their team work as much as it was only possible.

I know bout’ you but you don’t know that I know. The one that will move first will lose.

The guardian hissed, and I was finally able to witness, what the [Roll] skill stands for. The beast start running, and after gathering enough momentum… it hid its legs, curved his head and tail, and as one great ball of scales and hissing anger were moving in my direction.

Now, a few things that needed to be taken into consideration. One, he can’t see now. He will roll to the place where he saw me for the last time. Simply moving out of his way would be enough. Two – he is not alone, the other guardian shuffled his body to attack me from the side. The geckos were waiting for now.

Normally it would be impossible to stop such a furious, rolling ball… if you wouldn’t have some kind of war hammer… that’s probably why Mrogul picked this weapon instead of his usual great axe.

But, I am quite skilled in what I do.

I planted a fire wisp on the ground in front of me, took a few steps back, and waited.

The other thing I noticed is that those monsters are slightly intelligent. After seeing me planting wisp on the floor, one of the stalkers hissed quietly. Because of irritation? Because he wanted to warn the guardian about a possible threat? I have no idea.

The only thing I know, is that in the moment that lizard rolled over the wisp, it painted the walls turned a wonderful red.

The cave guardian (the one that was still living) hissed angry, stalkers were angry, I was angry too.

We all were angry and this was but a beginning of our little dance of anger.

Oh, one more thing Jaenther – welcome to the family ^_^