Marcus was ashamed of his failure in the dungeon yesterday, but not as much as he was excited to give it another try. His teacher, Rhoam, told him that he believed Marcus could handle a dungeon this young. Yesterday was a wake up call and Marcus was more prepared. He was bringing a shield and would have his extra axe on his belt. Additionally he had coated his shoes with charum weed. It wouldn't act fast enough to kill the rats but they should recognise it and hesitate at the very least.

This was a rare opportunity. Most dungeons within Surah are either privately owned or have very long waiting lists. This one though, is a newborn according to Rhoam. When a dungeon first arrives it sends out a flare to the nearest settlement to attract raiders that it can kill. That means their village would be the only one that knows about it for now. Once it gets a second floor though that'll change. After that even more flares will be sent out to alert other towns and sooner than later someone will try to claim the dungeon.

Marcus was excited. A 20 minute hike and he’d be there, ready to try again.

“Sir,” Rhoam called to his mentor who was walking beside him.

Rhoam grunted in response.

“How long does it take a dungeon to get its second floor?” he inquired.

“It depends on a few things like whether people feed it, but generally they’ll take a little over a week to create a second floor after they’ve flared. Give a dungeon a couple corpses and they’ll make it before dawn though. The one up in Sacreze had four floors in that time ‘cuz people kept underestimating how much the previous guys fed it and then when someone would die that’d be another huge boost.” Rhoam wouldn’t talk a whole lot until you got him talking about dungeons ecology and history, not that he had much scholarly info. His knowledge all came from experience and stories from other adventurers.

Marcus glanced back at the bird dangling from his pack that they intended to give to the dungeon after looting it. It was considered bad manners to get to the bottom floor of a dungeon and not feed it and since this dungeon only had one floor they’d have to feed it regardless.

“How much will a cockatrice help it grow sir?” he queried. “Not a whole lot honestly. It might get a minion or two back faster but it's not gonna get a whole floor off it. It needs smarter, mightier stuff to really grow. An elephant might net the place a new room and a potent new minion, but a cockatrice is barely a meal, which is good. The longer this place has one floor the longer people wont know about it and you can get some real training done.”

“We’ll still come back when there’s a second floor though, right?” Marcus really hoped the answer was yes.

“It depends on how well you do before that happens and how strong this dungeon gets. Dungeons change a lot when they get a second floor. They start developing traps and bosses, even on the first floor. One of Kragmaw’s dungeons had a mythril golem with crystal vipers on the first floor when it only had two floors. Now that’s an outlier, but my point is there’s too much variance when it comes to dungeon strength.”

Marcus had heard much of what Rhoams said before but he wouldn't tell him that. He likes hearing the man talk about dungeons, and he can see a glimmer in his eye when he recalls adventures he’s had.

Marcus started thinking. He wondered what sort of loot he’d get if he made it far enough into the dungeon. He knew dungeons this young typically only had one chest but he asked anyway. “How many chests do you think this will have?” Marcus liked asking questions. It made him feel more engaged even if he knew the answers already.

“Dungeons don't start getting more loot until they add floors. Odds are we’ll only see one and it probably won't even have much more than components in it. If we’re lucky we might get a potion or some gold but I wouldn't get my hopes up. This place is just good for training right now. Maybe some kind of potions too but i'm not big on alchemy so I don't know what rats can be used for. That imp would fetch a decent price if it had wings but I’m fairly sure it was flightless. Imp wings make a decent fire resistant leather if you're not going against anything tough.”

Marcus thought about the imp for a moment and then had a serious question, “Since there was an imp in there is this dungeon going to become hellish and have demons and the like?”

“That’s actually why we’re bringing it a cockatrice instead of a rabbit. If a dungeon only has one choice they’ll have to go that direction, but if we bring it something it doesn't have it might get caught up in experimenting with it. I hope it does. We’d be asking for trouble living this close to a demon dungeon.” Marcus thought it looked like he was recalling something and then he spoke up and confirmed his thoughts. “Worst demon I’ve ever had to deal with was in a place I couldn't tell you. The thing would eat the entirety of anything it managed to get a hold of. Not just the flesh but the memory as well. If someone was eaten by it the only way you’d know is through inference. Party smaller than the party limit? One of you are already gone. Went to a dance last week without a partner? Your partner was eaten. You use a bow but you've only had one arm your whole life? The fucker took it. That last one actually happened to one of my buddies. Worst part is if a party wipes to it no one knows it even happened. A whole party is just gone for good and no one even knows to mourn.”

That gave Marcus shivers. That’s a terrible way to go, lost and forgotten. He was sure there were worse ways, but that didn't make it better. Either way he didn't have time to worry. They were here.

Sniff. “What is that? It smells vile” marcus turned away from the dungeon for fresh air. “mhm” Rhoam acknowledged. “Go in there and find out,” he told the boy.

“Yes sir” the boy happily replied as he turned to face what would be his greatest challenge in his training yet.