The staircase that lay beyond the ruined doors wound down through the darkness for what felt like miles. The smooth, white stones that comprised the stairs stood out in stark contrast the rough gray rock of the mountain itself, which seemed to comprise the walls of the peculiar tunnel. As soon as Ether had put a single foot on the staircase, a prompt appeared.

You are about to enter the Forgotten Temple Ruins dungeon.

View Dungeon Rules?

{Yes} {No}

Ether briefly considered asking Perseus for an explanation instead, but immediately dismissed the idea. Clearly, a lot had changed since the beta, and if the game wanted to explain something for itself for once, he wasn’t about to turn it down. As he clicked yes, each of the three received a sudden message.

Experience points are not directly gained in a dungeon.

Instead, they are slowly accumulated in the dungeon’s core, and bestowed to the conquering party after successfully defeating the dungeon.

The more dungeon monsters a party defeats, the more experience points they gain.

In the event of a defeat or retreat, roughly one quarter of that bonus experience is bestowed upon the defeated party.

Equipment found in a dungeon is immediately marked as belonging to the party.

“Well that’s interesting,” Perseus said softly.

“What is?” Shar asked.

“The last few lines are new,” the [Rogue] explained. “Giving out exp to the people who fail is kinda weird.”

“Read it again,” Ether shot back. “Losing gets us a portion of the bonus experience - which we earn from fighting monsters. If we fought anywhere else, we’d get the full amount immediately. They want us in the dungeons, so they give out a pity prize for anyone who can’t finish what they started.”

“Are we going to stand here all day trying to get inside the heads of the people who built this place,” Shar asked with a single raised eyebrow, “or are we going to clear the dungeon?”

Rather than answer her aloud, Perseus activated his movement skill with and darted down the stairs, which proved to be a mistake. A cry of surprise echoed up the stairwell, and the pair still standing at the top shared a look of sheer exasperation before quickly but carefully following their overeager friend.

Neither of them were able to suppress their laughter when they found the source of Perseus’ distress. At the foot of the stairs, where three hallways intersected in a small square room, the overconfident young man hung upside down, caught by a simple rope snare.

“Yeah, yeah, they changed the traps around. It’s hilarious,” the embarrassed [Rogue] said dryly as he slowly spun in place. “Can one of you stop laughing long enough to cut the damn rope?!”

Shar stifled her chuckles, nodding at the pale man. She backed up the stairs to gain some extra height, ran as fast as she could and bounced off a nearby wall, using her [Slice] skill to sever the thin rope tied around his ankle. “Your welcome,” she said sweetly as Perseus faceplanted into the hard, unforgiving stone floor.

“I hade you boff,” came the muffled response.

“Love you too, buddy,” Ether said, still chuckling as he pulled the man to his feet. “Gotta say, your trapfinding skills are really impressive.”

He received a flat stare by way of reply.

“I’m serious!” the [Adventurer] said with a completely genuine smile that could in no way be confused for a smirk. “I’ve never seen anyone find a trap that quickly before! Interesting methodology, though. Most people try to find them before triggering them.”

“I’m not warning you when I see the next one,” the pale man threatened.

“That’s fine,” the party leader quipped. “I’m sure I’ll notice it once you fall into it face first.”

A howl echoing through the stone corridors, cutting off the [Rogue]’s scathing retort.

“Well,” he grumbled as the sound drew closer, “at least the mobs didn’t change.” Cracking his neck and drawing his knives, Perseus raised his voice. “Prepare for fire breathing wolves, everyone!”

“I’m sorry, wha-” Ether was cut off as a wolf with glowing orange eyes rounded the corner of the hallway to their right. It’s fanged maw opened, revealing a small ball of flickering flame at the back of its throat. The [Adventurer] acted entirely on instinct, spinning his glaive and triggering his only defensive skill as a rapid barrage of small but dense fireballs sped through the air towards him. He felt the air around him rapidly heat up as he barely managed to block the fiery assault.

Perseus wasted no time, darting out from behind Ether and throwing one of his new knives with skill empowered speed and accuracy. The wolf fell to the floor dead before anyone even saw the first combat notification.

Blazewolf level 8 has detected the party.

Blazewolf level 8 has dealt 2 fire damage to Ether with [Piercing Fireball]

Blazewolf level 8 Marked the party.

Blazewolf level 8 has died.

“Fuck,” Perseus exclaimed with a scowl, darting towards the fallen wolf to retrieve his blade. “They did change these things!” He spun towards them. “Run!” he shouted, pointing towards the middle corridor. “They gave these bastards Mark! The whole pack now knows where we are!”

What sounded like dozens of howls echoed through the halls as if to emphasize his statement. Wide eyed, his friends looked quickly at one another and nodded in unison. Darting after the now sprinting [Rogue], the party prepared themselves for a vicious battle.

A lone goblin - or at least, something that had once been a goblin - calmly walked down the long stone staircase that had been so generously revealed to them with their familiar, Bob, close by their side. A wolf with glowing eyes raced up the stairs to stop them, but the girl’s vicious claws tore out the peculiar wolf’s throat in an instant. It shuddered as life left its body, only to be quickly replaced by something new.

A small blue flame ignited on the goblin-thing’s fingers as it devoured the beast's skills. “Neat,” she said quietly, pointing it towards a second wolf as they came round the corner. She’d learned through her hunting that she could absorb a few of her victims' memories, but she hadn’t expected to learn a new skill this way. Then again, skills were mostly just a memory of how to use certain techniques, weren’t they?

She pondered the question as a ball of blue fire ripped through the air, almost as large as she was, and utterly destroyed the astonished Blazewolf in spite of the 3 level advantage it held over her.

She grinned with malevolent glee at the thought of what it might do to the humans she was hunting as the ashes of the wolf reformed into a blue eyed, malnourished beast. “Stop,” she said abruptly as the two wolves turned to leave.

They froze.

Her grin spread even wider as she pointed behind her. “Go to the surface,” she said. “Hunt weak things. Eat, and grow strong.” What they did after that point was of little interest to her, but the voice echoing within her mind demanded that they spread its influence by devouring as many helpless beasts as possible.

The wolves nodded slowly as they took in the information, and in unison, they leapt over her head to follow her instructions.

Good. She’d been hoping the dungeon beasts would be smart enough to take instructions, but she hadn’t been sure until now. This meant that she could use them to trap the humans.

Not that she really needed to do much for that to happen, she realized as she heard the distant sounds of battle. They’d already attracted the entire pack to their location, and though the halls of the dungeon were rather narrow, the ranged attacks each wolf had and their improved intellect compared to wild beasts on the outside made it almost impossible to properly funnel them.

Waves of fire fell around the one in dark clothes as he practically danced out of the way, his knives gleaming with a cold light as he tore through the beasts foolish enough to close in. She could see something in him - a strange, dark, familiar power. It reminded her of the wolves flames - the power to rip through things, to ignore the strength of steel and skills alike. If she had been asked which of the three was strongest, he wouldn't have been her first guess, but the other two had no such power as far as she could tell.

She quietly filed that thought away as she slipped into a different corridor, fragments of the wolves’ memories showing her the various paths of the labyrinthian tunnels that comprised the ancient temple.

She could easily have attacked while they were busy with the pack, but the odds weren’t in her favor. The pack might well turn to attack her, and while she could draw strength from the wolves as she slew them, her minions returned at level 1 or - if she was very lucky - 2. They needed prey of their own to pose a proper threat, and she had no patience for that right now.

She had come here for something far more important than mere strength.

Dungeons could be retreated from, certainly, but few ever even attempted to do so. The chance of great rewards had tempted thousands to their doom over the ages, and she was sure that these humans would be no different. So, rather than blindly attack at the first opportunity, she followed the memories of the Blazewolves she’d slain towards the dungeon’s center. It took a while to reach it, taking the mostly abandoned side path, but she suspected that she’d still save time compared to the adventurers, who were still busy killing their way through the entire massive pack of wolves. Eventually, she reached a large, circular room with a massive wolf at its center.

She couldn’t receive system messages anymore, but she didn’t need those to know what lay before her.

The dungeon boss - a Level 10 Dire Blazewolf, growled as she approached it.

“Sorry,” she said with a sheepish smile. “You don’t really deserve this, but I need your help, and you don’t strike me as the helpful type, so…” she darted towards the beast, hurling a ball of blue flame at it as it launched a barrage of its own fireballs. The blue flames seemed to absorb the weaker fires as they raced towards the beast, but neither combatant had expected their opening volley to reach their target. The wolf leapt into the air, avoiding her attack while raining flames from above, but the not-goblin scoffed dismissively, weaving effortlessly through the inferno running up the nearest wall. She didn’t feel even remotely threatened by the creature, which left her wondering -

What level was she now? She was able to tell how powerful any given creature was instinctively ever since her rebirth, and she was certain that she was stronger than this wolf, but she had no menu anymore. A sudden thought occurred to her as she launched herself off the wall, landing on the now terrified canine. Would a mirror let her analyze herself like she could analyze the wolves?

She’d have to test that when she was done here.

One clawed hand flashed out towards the Dire Blazewolf’s throat, slicing through the absurdly durable fur as if it were little more than paper. As the light faded from its eyes, the small, pale not-goblin felt a new strength rush into her, but tried to fight against it.

The hungry voice in her head was puzzled. Why wouldn’t she want as much power as possible?

The answer was simple. She’d seen how strong the other goblin had been when it was reborn. There was NO chance it had come back at level 1 or 2. And if it could come back stronger, maybe her minions could too. A beast that can hunt for her is good. A beast that can terrorize her enemies is better.

The hungry voice emitted a sense of silent approval as she tried to hold off the rush of strength and force the pieces of what had once been the boss of this dungeon back together. She felt something struggling against her, and quickly realized what it was.

The dungeon was trying to protect its boss. It was built to work with the system. It didn’t keep bringing the monsters back to life just for the fun of it! It recycled them as best it could, giving some of their strength to the players while keeping the rest so that it could maintain itself.

And now, she’d stolen part of that strength for herself. She smiled as she heard the massive doors behind her slowly creak open, and darted out of sight.

The trap was set. All that was left was to watch them spring it.