Andaris admired in absolute astonishment and wide eyed wonder, the spectacle before him. An entrance so large, so grand, it puts even the Rivoli manor’s grand hall to shame. Surely only gods could construct something of this grandiosity. The entrance to the dungeon was magnificent.

A canopy of giant trees, tightly packed together in two neat rows, extending outwards from the mountainside, forming the walls of the entrance. The trees themselves extended over towards each other, to form a roof and were covered in so many vines, an untamed visage of greenery.

The ground was covered in lush green grass and so many different kinds and colors of flowers. A single stone path leading through the inviting tunnel of greenery, towards a hole in the mountain side. The path being made of an almost greenish shiny stone seemed to be well worn, despite the fact that Andaris had clearly overheard that this was a ‘virgin’ dungeon and as such, should not have been tread much.

Dungeons were truly magical places. The source of countless legends and epic tales of heroes. He was once more getting excited to see what wonders lay inside. To forge his own epic tales.

The line he and his party were in, moved up.

Andaris could just faintly overhear their party lead grumbling below his breath about “just two fucking days! And the guild is already all over this place.”

Shivas. Their party leader was a rather ghastly looking man. A slumpy face with an immensely crooked beard shave and more than one missing yellowed tooth. The permanent scowl on his face and hardened brow line, telltale signs of a life of cruelty, be that mostly on the giving or receiving end, Andaris wasn’t entirely sure.

The line moved up once more.

Andaris eyed the guards at the front of the line. He did not know much about the Delver’s guild, save for the fact that they ‘managed’ all the dungeons and collected tax on the delver’s earnings within.

A ruckus drew his attention.

“You guys were not here when I fucking entered!” A spritely man yelled at one of the dungeon guards.

“Sir calm down. I am going to have to insist that you empty your satchel.” The dungeon guard / Delver’s guild representative answered the man in a bored and almost uncaring tone.

“Screw that, this dungeon was ‘free’ when I entered, I’m not handing over shit!”

“Now listen here”, the sizable and heavily armoured guard leaned over in a threatening manner, “There is no such thing as a free dungeon. The guild taxes all dungeons. It’s only when new ones are discovered and they haven’t been informed of yet, that lowlifes such as yourself get to take chances on it. Unfortunately for you, we are here now, and you have been caught. Now empty your fucking satchel!”

With that last threat, the other two guards present also skulked closer to the delver to apply pressure on him.

The delver in turn, took a step back nervously, and then without warning, bolted. He made a run for it, pumping all four of his limbs with every inch of energy he could muster.

“STOP!”

One of the guards leveled a crossbow in his direction and released a bolt. The man did not stop and the bolt missed him by an inch.

The delver passed us in a blur, as the other two guards, who were not wielding crossbows, but rather swords instead, began to give chase.

“Fucking idiot.” One of my party members, Hishan, commented under his breath.

Shivas suddenly pulled his whip off of his belt and gave it a nice big swing in the air to unfurl it partially. It made a slight humming sound as he did so. Then with pinpoint accuracy, he slashed it forward. It hurtled through the air and struck the running man right between the shoulder blades.

The delver suddenly collapsed to the ground screaming in pain. He rolled over on his back trying to reach under himself while arching it, to scratch away the pain, clawing at it. But it was futile, it just made him scream even more.

Anyone seeing him in this state, from that light tap of a whip, would assume him a total coward. Of course they did not know that Shivas' whip had a pretty potent pain enchantment on it, one that he could control at will, to achieve an effect ranging anywhere from making you reconsider your choices, to completely disabling you.

The two guards caught up to the man, still rolling on the ground. He looked up at them from between his tears and even managed to raise one hand up in protest, “No wait-”

His protest was cut short as one of the guards drove his sword right through the delvers skull, skillfully through his eye socket.

“You’re not supposed to kill the runners.” The guard standing next to him protested.

The murderous guard did not seem too bothered and instead pulled his sword out of the delvers skull with a sickening squelch sound. “It’s been a long day.” He retorted rather nonchalantly, while wiping his bloodied sword off on the dead delvers rags.

His partner simply sighed, “You’re gonna get scolded for this you know.”

The murderous guard simply shrugged as if to say ‘whatever happens’, sheathed his sword, pulled the satchel off the man and tossed it to the guard with the crossbow for inspection.

The murderous guard nodded towards Shivas while his fellow guardsman started dragging the body away. “Thanks for the assist.”

“No problem friend.” Shivas replied enthusiastically, even plastering a frikkin’ smile on his face. As soon as the guard returned to his station, of course, Shivas defaulted to his natural scowl.

Most of our party had shrunk away from Shivas during this whole ordeal, fearful he had gone off the deep end. Andaris was also taken aback, but only a little. He suspected that Shivas was simply trying to get into the guards good graces. No other reason for him to be doing something so out of character.

The line proceeded quite smoothly after that, and it was soon our party’s turn. Shivas went about handling the ‘registration’ with the guards.

“So that’s one adventurers badge and seventeen guest members for your party… Alright then, all seems to be in order, you may proceed. Remember, this is still regarded as a virgin dungeon and the guild has little info on it. While you are encouraged to buy such info from them for your own safety, the guild will naturally reward you for any additional info you can provide.”

The guard giving his routine speech to Shivas, glanced across the assembled group and added, “but I guess you already know that.”

Shivas gave his greetings to the guards and we proceeded into the dungeon.

We entered the mouth of the cave and were instantly taken back by the change in climate. Outside had been a gentle morning sun, with a cool breeze. Inside, however, it was warm and humid. The air was stuffy, but in that misty kind of way.

There were vines everywhere. Covering the floor, walls and ceiling of the cave system like veins of green against the backdrop of a deluge of brown walls. The footing was uneven just with the rocky ground alone, but when you added the network of vines on top of that, this place was no doubt going to be quite hazardous to fight in.

Andaris imagined that few delvers with fire abilities were going to be delving this dungeon with all the flammable plant life around.

Shivas then opened his satchel and handed out weapons to everyone. “Alright everyone in formation, just like we practiced.”

The group quickly sprang into action and moved into position, despite the many looks of trepidation. Andaris was of course not amongst them in their concerns, he was excited. A dungeon delver! This was the beginning of his adventure!

After having examined a crude map that he had retrieved from his satchel, Shivas instructed the party on which direction to go. We all marched on, in formation.

Shivas illuminated the surroundings with a fairly common magical device, a lamp of sorts. Andaris could not remember the exact name of it, however he knew of it. It illuminated a surprisingly large area around the party. It was also a little bit eerie, as it magically illuminated the area directly instead of casting light and shadows. As a result, although the illumination got weaker, the further from him you got. The result was that it cast no shadows whatsoever, just this unsettling, magical, ambient illumination.

Shivas did not hand out any torches and relied only on this light source. Probably he was afraid we would set the entire dungeon floor on fire or something.

The party walked for a long time, twisting through different cave passages, all the while guided by Shivas and his map. Andaris was surprised that in all this time, they had not encountered any monsters. It was not like he knew very well what a dungeon was supposed to be like, it was his first time in one after all, but he didn’t expect this.

Another group of delvers suddenly passed by them, nodding politely as they moved along. Shivas nodded in response, but immediately cursed under his breath as soon as they were out of earshot.

As if to punctuate Andaris’ concerns, one of his party members, one of the few whom he did actually know the name of, Antonio; mumbled: “I thought this was supposed to be a virgin dungeon.”

“Shut up! You’re going to attract monsters.” Shivas scowled, considerably more loudly than Antonio had spoken.

“I hope they haven’t found it yet.” He continued to mumble to himself grumpily.

They continued to march on, twisting through a few more winding passages, some only large enough to crawl through one by one. All the while Andaris was stricken by how quiet it was. You get so used to the sounds of the outside world, that when you’re in a dungeon where there are no insects, no birds chirping, no wind swishing grass and sand around, just silence; it gets a little unnerving.

“Found it!” Shivas suddenly exclaimed.

He had stopped by a wall of vines, that the rest of us had passed, none the wiser until he called out. Shivas used his hands to hastily try and pull back the entanglement of vines to reveal what appeared to be another, more hidden, passage; struggling quite a bit in doing so.

One of the party members moved up and brought his blade out, intent on helping him by cutting some of the vines loose.

Shivas simply shoved him away before he could cut anything. “Fool! Don’t cut the damn vines, they're concealing the entrance. Do you want everyone to find this before we’ve barely even explored it!”, he scowled angrily.

After a bit more untangling and shifting, the vines now resembled more of a veil, than they’re previous, web, and the group was able to squeeze by them, one by one.

Pressing forward, into the narrow passageway, it sloped heavily downwards, making for a steep and treacherous descent. Shivas was however, quite pleased: “Fuck!”, he chuckled, “and hear I thought Spittles had pulled one over on me. Who knew he really did know where to find the entrance to the second floor!”

The passageway eventually levelled out and opened up into a much larger cavern, than anything they had seen before. The ceiling was almost tall enough that Shivas’ light didn’t reach it, in fact, in some places, it didn’t.

The vines were still ever present, but they had grown thicker on the second floor and now lay more across the floor than anywhere else, in a languid manner. There were also bright yellow patches of moss growing along many of the cave walls.

Andaris could hear the distinct sound of movement around them. There were definitely monsters to be found here. He was growing both excited and scared at the same time. Others in the party were not nearly as eager as him and many were shaking and frozen in place.

“In formation”, Shivas once more yelled, startling many of them into position. Yet a few still seemed paralized with fear. For those however, Shivas' solution was simple, he unfurled his whip and struck one of the smaller guys present.

He let out a painful yelp, before he moved into position. The remainders followed suit soon after, clearly having gotten the message despite that having been a rather light tap, considering the boy was still standing.

“Forward”, Shivas commanded. And the group began to slowly advance.

Andaris clutched his bone shiv tightly, all that stood between him and the teeth and claws awaiting them. While he was certain he would be able to move quite well due to not having been equipped with any armour and all, he still felt like his body was quite stiff. He tried breathing deeper to loosen up, but found the collar around his neck to be quite stifling to this effort, despite the fact that Shivas had taken the chains off all their collars as soon as they had entered the dungeon.