Andaris admired the several dead monsters that lay around him. Killing the giant ant like things, was easy enough now, every member of the party carried both their shiv and a large stone, as a makeshift bludgeoning weapon.

Every member except Shivas. He needed no such thing, when one of the ant monsters approached him, he simply stomped the thing to a pulp with his large, hard boots. One strike usually being enough to end the poor monster’s existence. Shivas really was unreasonably powerful for his size.

And Shivas had indeed been killing monsters, left, right and center. Andaris wasn’t quite sure if it was because Shivas was afraid of losing anymore slaves so early on that master Corvas might be very ‘displeased’ with him, or simply because the main reason for a slave delver party in a virgin dungeon was to be fodder to the unknown threats and once those threats became known, if Shivas was confident in dealing with them, he did not shy away from doing so. Perhaps it was even a bit of both.

Regardless, the group was fighting well together now, easily dispatching the denizens of the dungeon, perhaps partly due to the morale boost of having Shivas fighting alongside them, and doing the lion’s share of the work even. It did not stop him from cursing out loud regularly of course and whipping the occasional slave for good measure though.

Even with all this though, they had lost another two men before they had found their rhythm. One early on to a completely avoidable monster attack, the other to a surprise attack from a new monster type.

The poisonous walking mushroom of a monster, blended surprisingly well with the vines on the ground and one had caught the man off guard, detonating into a cloud of poison. Shivas had, to his credit, attempted to cure the boy of the poison with a cheap antidote potion (they did not carry any expensive ones on this delve, such a thing would be unthinkable for a group of slaves). To his discredit though, Shivas cursed and kicked at the dead boy for being so useless, when the weak antidote potion proved to not be enough to save him.

Fortunately the mushroom monsters were very slow and once the group knew what to look out for, none were caught off guard again. The mushrooms were easily dispatched from a distance by flinging rocks at them until they succumbed to the brutal badgering.

No, the real problem so far had been the hornet like monsters that had made an appearance eventually. Although few in number and the size of an average human's head, they charged at you, stinger first. The other boy that died had fallen to one such attack.

Hit by the stinger, not only poisoned him, but also paralized him. The group had not found out if Shivas would cure him, and if that week potion would have been enough or not, as the paralized boy had immediately been swarmed by the accompanying ant monsters and killed.

No one else had been struck thus far. All the men present skillfully dodged the hornet’s attacks, as they had been so fiercely trained to do. The six remaining boys alive, all weaved between the attacks. They were all that was left of the original seventeen slaves, the creme of the crop that had survived thus far.

And evading the hornets was pretty much all they could do. The flying creatures were quick when they charged (thankfully in perfectly straight lines) and quite nimble and adept at dodging shiv strikes or rock throws. So in the end, the boys mostly served as a distraction while Shivas whipped them right out of the air, with his absurd pinpoint strikes, some tearing the weak hornets apart, others leaving them a writing mess of pain on the ground until a nearby slave crushed them.

Once the last of the monsters fell, Shivas called out: “Alright… We’re heading back for now!”

Most of the boys present were visibly relieved at the news that they had actually made it through the hellish first day alive, despite being dungeon bait for its duration.

Shivas, marking down his final notes for the day, before they began to backtrack, left Andaris time to take one last look around, really appreciating where he was for once, instead of just getting ready to fight monsters.

A dungeon. He was inside a dungeon. He had killed many of its denizens. He was officially a delver. It begins. It begins now.

Andaris broke from his fond excitement when he noticed something just at the edge of their light radius. “Sir!”

“What?” Shivas replied angrily, having his note-taking interrupted.

“There’s something over there, at the edge of the light!”

“Is it Loot? By Teisha’s tits, please let it be loot” Shivas scowled as he made a beeline for the mound, “This blasted fucking dungeon hasn’t given us anything worth a damn so far.”

Shivas and the boys all stopped in front of the dirt mound. It wasn’t so much a dirt mound, as it was a hole in the ground. It looked like something had burrowed out of it.

“What the fuck could have dug into the dungeon floor like that?” Shivas mostly mumbled to himself, before taking some more notes.

Andaris considered the hole in front of them, watching while it was closing up on its own, every so slowly, while the dungeon ‘healed’ it. Shivas was right, what could have managed to dig into the dungeon’s magically reinforced floor like that. It looked like there would be at least one more monster type to encounter on this floor, at the very least.

Once Shivas was done, the group turned around and headed for the passage to the first floor. It did not take long to reach if you travelled directly there, thanks to Shivas’ mapping skills and if you had already cleared the way of monsters. The party should be out before the first monsters they had killed on this floor began respawning. Should.

Once the party finally had the second floor exit in sight, they noticed another party of three members entering the floor. Although he said nothing this time, Andaris could clearly see the cold fury and hatred in Shiva’s eyes. Another group had found the second floor already, their head start was officially over.

The two groups passed each other silently, only nodding in respect as they did. Although they eyed each other warily, no one misbehaved. They both sensed that the other was the only real competition for the floor at the moment. It wasn’t unheard of for delver parties to break out into a fight, especially over a virgin dungeon, but such things happened scarcely, owed largely to the fact that the delver's guild ‘frowned’ upon such things and ‘punished’ it accordingly.

Clarissa looked back over her shoulder at the slave party that just passed them, heading back to the first floor passage. They looked pretty beat up and few in number compared to what most of those parties usually numbered, but still, they had an air of confidence.

She did not however share their confidence. That passageway.

“Immaret. I have a bad feeling about this dungeon.”

Immaret turned towards her and angled his head a little downwards to meet her eyes. “Clarissa, this is a virgin dungeon, why would you have anything other than a bad feeling about it.”

“Yeah!”, Hannes chirped in, “There’s a reason most of the parties here are slave parties, they’re all likely to die.”

Clarissa scowled at him, before turning back to Immaret. “I know it’s virgin, but I mean, aside from that.” She paused for a moment to consider her next words. “There’s something wrong with this place.”

“Girl, you always got a feeling. You woman are always feeling shit too much.”

Clarissa raised a fist and made as if to punch the annoying man, as he nimbly stepped to the side out of potential punching range.

Immaret regarded her more carefully this time. “What precisely bothers your Clarissa? I’m afraid a hunch isn’t going to cut it here.”

Clarissa thought over it for a moment.

“Well for one thing, the entrance to the second floor was strange. Not only was it hidden, but it was also rather narrow, as if the dungeon did not want us to find it.”

At that Hannes actually burst out laughing, “You’re a real blast girl! A dungeon that’s trying to keep people out instead of leeching anima off a ‘em. That’s rich!”

Clarissa did her best to ignore him and continued, “I know it sounds strange, but that entrance, it was more than narrow, the mana in there was so dense the rock so strained, it was like the dungeon was fighting its own nature and trying to choke it off completely.”

“And yes, I also do have a feeling about this place.” Clarissa added while glaring intently at Hannes, basically daring him to say something, whom apparently did have some sensibilities as he did not comment further.

Immaret considered her words for a moment before he spoke. “No matter how you look at it, the unknown perils of a virgin dungeon are always dangerous, one bad feeling does not weigh much on this. There are also other instances of dungeons with restricted passage between floors known. So while certainly strange, it is not unheard of.”

Clarissa opened her mouth as if to argue, but gave up mid way and closed it before she said anything.

“Furthermore, with our failed campaign and half our former party members dead, the debt we incurred from the guild to fund the doomed campaign is still looming over our heads. We all agreed, that despite the risks, we could not pass up this opportunity of a new virgin dungeon to attempt to pay off those debts.”

“I know”, Clarissa sighed dejectedly.

“Cheer up Clare, we’re not the same as the rest of this sorry lot, we’re experienced delvers! There’s nothing this dungeon can throw at us that we can’t handle, at least for the first several floors for sure.”

Clarissa had mixed feelings about Hannes being the one to try and cheer her up, but she kept that to herself.

Also, his encouragement did little to dissuade her fears. After all, they were walking into the unknowns of a virgin dungeon here so confidently, when in fact, it was the knowns of a tamed dungeon where their party was wiped out.

“Anyway, big guy, what I’m more concerned about is that sad little slave party that passed us. They found the second floor first and are already on their way back to the guild to spill the beans about all its little secrets.” Hannes made a comical wiggling gesture with all ten fingers as he emphasized ‘secrets’.

“Relax Hannes”, Immaret responded, “Even so, the guild will happily pay for the same information from multiple parties, if nothing else than to confirm its validity.”

The group broke into their usual ‘delve mode’ after that, mostly consisting of saying very little moving along and remaining vigilant.

They walked for quite some time before they first encountered monsters, the areas nearer to the floor one entrance having been cleared out, likely by the slave party they passed. The three of them despite the small size of their party were completely in their element and had no trouble dealing with the unknown to them, monsters.

Whether it was the giant ant-like monsters, or the wasp things or the exploding mushrooms, none stood a chance against the strong and experienced delvers.

After having mapped much of the second floor, a process that had been sped up greatly by the complete lack of monsters in some parts, the group decided to take a break.

The three of them sat down to rest and ate bread that they had packed. They made small talk, like idly discussing the monsters they had encountered thus far and theorizing what the other floors would look like, amongst other things.

The group finished up their meal and rest, and discussed which direction to head in next, all crowding around the map that Immaret had been drawing. Thanks to the relatively clear second floor, they were hoping to quickly find the entrance to the third and pull ahead of the competition.

While debating this, something gave Clarissa pause.

“Guys”, Clarissa whispered to them in a gravely tone, that immediately got their attention. “We need to leave.”

The two mean just gave her a confused and concerned look, not quite sure what she meant. She herself was occupied by her hunters senses busy screaming at her about the danger they were in.

“There’s something out there. It’s way too strong. We have to go now!” Not even when half their party got wiped out had her senses gone nuts like this.

Normally these two would fall in line at such a warning from her, for all their bickering, the group had been together for a long time and they trusted each other. But Clarissa couldn’t blame them for being slow to react this time and instead looking at her like she’d lost her wits.

It was only the second floor after all.