2.3.3 On the Surface (Gunny PoV)

Gunny stands on a rock ledge at the opening of the small vale, looking over the marshy plain that begins here. Two silver foxes sit at his feet, while another lizardman and a few more foxes wait for them on the ground below. "That was the shortest and easiest part of the journey - just a couple of hours down to the bottom of the mountain ridge. Now comes the difficult part - crossing a third of that marshland, the Blackshale Swamp. I'm guessing we'll need three days for that if we don't have to backtrack, and we have five days until the agreed upon meeting time."

An answer to his comment seems to echo from everywhere: "So you want to use those two extra days to look for other dungeons in this swamp?"

"Yes, but without risking the deadline. We'll travel as best as we can for the rest of today and tomorrow, only checking for other dungeons on our direct way. If we make good time at that then we'll start a wider search pattern the day after tomorrow. If we need to backtrack and zigzag too much then we'll delay the search pattern until we're nearer to the meeting point.

Can you try to focus your projection more, Lia? The way it comes from everywhere would be perfect to scare or distract a party in the dungeon, but for working together and especially outside the dungeon it's not the best effect."

"Nice to know - but I'll need a lot more training and levels to get it better. I'll use illusionary signs or letters if it gets too distracting - those are even easier for me. But illusionary audio is difficult, and don't forget that I've only awakened a few days ago. I'll scout ahead a bit."

At that the largest silver fox sprints toward the march.

Late afternoon on the third day of travel the still unnamed lizardman helper approaches Gunny as he stakes along the north border of the river that flows toward Rivansea. "Gunny, Lia sent me - she thinks her foxes might have scented other dungeon spawns while following a sidepath. She waits for you about two kilometer in this direction."

"Scented, heh? How does that even work without air? Let's see what she truly meant and what the xenotic-translation messed up this time. That way you said?"

Half an hour later Gunny approaches a group of silver foxes watching a large tangle of wooden bushes, tendrils and small trees. "Can you now scent dungeons, Lia? Or are you telling me that the General might want to wash more often?"

"No, not the General - but some of his summons and contracts could use more water.

Joking aside - that is exactly what seems to have happened here. We have the trails of several animals that scent of the desert going in and out of that mess of bushes. We haven't seen anything of the entrance itself, but the only way an animal can keep a desert-scent in this swamp is by having access to an area with a desert climate. And that most probably means a dungeon floor. Will we go in?"

"While we are good in time - no, the General only wants probable locations and stressed how important that rogue contract is for a lot of help and local info.The meeting place is still about a day's travel or less ahead, with the rest of today we might get there around noon tomorrow. And I rather use the additional day for checking the meeting place for traps and surprises than to risk anything in an unknown dungeon, even if that dungeon is low-ranked. And we don't even know its rank yet.

But another question, what exactly can you scent? This has to be another case of assumed translation due to the Xenotic conversion the General and me got through, because scenting can't work the same way we remember without air. Where we came from scenting could be used to identify individuals and track their movement as well as where they have been."

"Then your scenting is more powerful than any other scenting I ever learned of. My scenting can't identify an individual - at least not directly. It can detect the environment where a person has been before, and that includes minor differences like between a protected burrow and a grassy forest in case of wild mice or squirrels, but this rarely leaves a track unless the difference is big like between swamp and desert. But it won't detect differences between two people or animals from the same environment.

That is part of the reason why the elves were able to surprise us - their cities try to be as much as nature as possible, and their rangers were in camps designed to follow a forest's flow, so the difference in scant between them and the serene forest of that dungeon exit was really low. It's much easier to detect the difference between a human town scent and the lake scent of that exit for example."

"Good to know, and that is something we have to discuss with the General after our return. For now, just create memories of how that entrance looks and it's position on the map in your status screens and let's go on, we still have a few hours of light to travel."

Let's go on."

Gunny watches children approaching and is a bit uncomfortable when realising that the contract went to a 13-year-old orphan with limited education.

comments like "I'm almost 14, I'll be adult in two months" remind Gunny that even on earth medieval cultures had a much lower age setting for adulthood, and the children all behave rather more mature than Gunny expects them.

When discussing to move on, Briar advises to keep the night here and prepare for a storm they are expecting tonight.

There is a comment that the children consider Gunny's behaviour of travelling without "Raingear" to be rather reckless. Gunny wonders internally what kind of weather they were talking about as there is no air or atmosphere inside the sphere.

The children chare their raingear with the two lizards, and it is revealed that the raingear is mostly ropes and fasteners - allowing everyone to bind themselves on the last trees before the swamp starts.

In the night there is indeed rain - black water - almost everywhere, and everyone is tossed around by some forces the Gunny can't correctly identify. The ropes of the other lizardman tear and he vanishes upward, Lia can barely hold her fox-body below a bramble bush.

This helps Gunny's decision to bring the children to the dungeon as they seem to know how to handle the situations.

While travelling back, Gunny tries to hunt to add some meat to the food as the children are a bit thin, but has a hard time hitting the animals. despite being a good hunter on earth he usually needs four or five tries to get something.

Briar watches this hunting with concern but doesn't comment. The times he helps hunting, he gets the catch on first try, something that adds to Gunnies cursing.