~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Victorious Odd Handaxe

Rarity: Uncommon

A handaxe created by a crafter named Victor. Using the hardened claw of a giant blind mole with tempered minerals from the mines, the weapon received a sizeable increase in its hardiness and weight.

Attribute scaling:

Agility x 1.1

Intelligence x 1.15

Additional Skill: Miner's Soul:

There will be close to no damage to the weapon when using it as a mining tool

Weapon Skill: Rock Wall

By hitting solid ground with the weapon, it creates a rock wall in front of the user. The wall can be small, medium, or large. The large version will generate a semi-circle covering the user's flanks.

Mana cost: 25 – Small, 50 – Medium, 150 – large

Cooldown: 10 Minutes – Small, 30 Minutes – Medium, 2 Hours – Large

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Last Autumn Boots (Metal Affinity)

Rarity: Uncommon

Armguards that were created by an exemplary blacksmith and later enchanted by a novice. The materials used are excellent magical conductors. An essence of wind was added to improve its effect.

Attribute scaling:

Agility x 1.02

Additional effect:

When the user is in a life or death situation, their running speed will increase by 20%

Cooldown: 24 hours

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alfen Communicator

A set of items consisting of an earpiece and a necklace. By synchronizing the communicator with other sets, the Alfen Communicator can create a private radio network allowing for quick communication with no need to strain one's voice. The sensors are capable of picking up signals in areas under a certain threshold of mana.

Effective range: 500 meters.

Maximum mana threshold: 1 billion / mm³

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hera splurged a bit and spent the entire 20 thousand gold she made during the last three weeks. Close to half of that was just for the communicator. Their next dungeon seemed to be in a larger area, and Bonnie suggested getting a set of them. They would eventually need something like it, and since they wouldn't be spending so much on food and lodging, everyone agreed. According to the clerk who took care of their order, the communicators would only stop working if they faced something that used massive amounts of mana. Even a simple spell, like a fire arrow, could only reach a density of a few thousand mana per cubic millimeter, and that was inside the spell itself. The surrounding area would barely reach a thousand, so unless they faced something capable of massive spells, there was nothing to worry about.

Everyone got some new pieces of gear, and Runir decided to use a shield. Since he was already close to Bonnie most of the time, he would act as both healer and a tank if things headed towards her. Alex and Blue went with Hera to the Weller's Smithy and saw that Mark was already making some small accessories, although they still had no enchantments.

Now they were all inside the Carpon Caverns, heading towards the east of the city. The doorway was by a caved-in tunnel. There was a decent number of people heading that way, but the road was more dangerous than the one leading to the Underground Forest. A couple of times, a cauldron of bats flew by but was quickly dispatched by the parties on the road.

As they walked, Bonnie explained what she found out about the dungeon, "So, it's called the Kobold Field, and it's actually two dungeons, not just one. We can pick between two sides of a conflict, the troops of the Dragon Kin and the Wolves of the Night. From what I could gather, the objective is mostly the same deal with the kobold threat, but how to get there is different. If we go with the Dragon Kin, we have more tools and traps to place before a large battle. By taking the Wolves of the Night's side, we have to sabotage the kobold's structures and food supply, dealing a heavy blow before the combat. After that, we just need to protect the leader of the army while they fight it off. The quest should be over after the battle. This dungeon also has a ripcord, so to speak. At any moment, if we want to get out of there, we can rip a letter that we get when we start the quest. If we do, we will be teleported out, but we won't be able to go in again until the weekly reset."

"That is a lot of information, nice work!" Blue patted Bonnie on her back.

"It's part of my job. I'm still not sure who the armies are."

"Kobolds… aren't those the things that we fought during that test?" Hera looked to the ground.

"I think so, or at least they have the same name. I wasn't able to get any images from it. Guess people are still not taking too many pictures of the monsters," Bonnie added.

"Hey, don't worry. We are much stronger now. I'm sure we could beat that test without any issue," Blue lightly bumped Hera with her shoulder.

"I hope so. It's still a bad memory."

"Oh right, you guys had Greyson as your teacher. That man is brutal," Runir said.

"Tell me about it. Even here, we don't get as sore as we did during the training," Alex rubbed her shoulder, remembering all the times she failed one of his challenges.

They kept talking until reaching the doorway. Unlike the others that were at least five meters tall, this one was just a bit over two and a half meters, but the width remained the same. It didn't look like the entrance to a different room. It was more like the door of a mall or a hospital. Above the doorway, there were the faces of a wolf and a dragon staring angrily at each other, surrounded by what looked like several swords and spears.

"That's not ominous at all," Alex said as they got closer.

"What? Are you scared now?" Blue joked.

"Of course not. Let's go," Alex was the first to enter the doorway.

One by one, the group crossed over. Before Hera's turn, she used her [Observe] on the doorway.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kobold Field Doorway – Layer 2

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She thought that her rank 2 [Observe] could give more information, but sadly it wasn't the case. Taking a deep breath, she took another step, and the notification asking if she wanted to be taken to the new room appeared. She pressed yes and was bathed in a warm light. After 30 seconds, the glow became even brighter, and she could feel something heating up her skin. Only then she noticed the voices around her and opened her eyes.

She was in a large open field with several small buildings, and tents spread around the area. The short grass mixed with reddish earth patches reminded her of the farm she used to go to as a kid. She could see a large wooden wall a few hundred meters in front of her and some trees poking from the other side. Behind her, aside from the doorway, there was a massive grey mountain overlooking the settlement. Yet, the most incredible thing was the sky.

It was such a beautiful baby blue that it even seemed to sparkle like a jewel. Some clouds brushed the space, and Hera could even notice a few different shapes. She kept smiling and walking forward, not realizing that her friends had stopped moving.

Hera bumped into Alex, "Oh, sorry."

"Don't worry. Hey, that cloud looks like an elephant, or am I crazy?" Alex pointed towards the left.

"No, no. That one is clearly a giraffe," Blue said.

The group spent the next ten minutes trying to find shapes on the clouds and enjoying the sun. Until Bonnie took something out of her bag and passed it to Hera.

"Here, we spent too long underground. It's better to use some sunscreen."

"Oh, thanks. I didn't even think about that," she looked at the bottle and noticed the SPF 25 on the label, "Any chance you have an SPF 50 with you?"

"No, sorry."

"That's ok. Thanks," Hera spread the sunscreen on the areas that were not covered by the armor and passed it along.

After taking in the sights, they walked around the settlement. There was a store with essential commodities and supplies such as potions and arrows, a restaurant, and a barbecue place that would grill the meat out in the open. On the other side, there were a few houses and a hostel where parties could share a room. Looking back towards the mountain, there was another entrance with a different doorway inside it. Those were the two exits of the room. Heading towards the wooden wall, they found the guild. It was much smaller than the other branches they had seen. It was a two-story tall building with an area on the side where people could wash their armor and weapons. One side was filled with locker rooms and showers, the top floor for women and the bottom for men. The infirmary was on the other side of the bottom floor, and the terminals along with some conference rooms were above it.

The dungeon entrance was by the walls. There were two sets of gates with a ten-meter gap between them. They were mostly identical, made of the same wood as the wall, with large metal rings that could be pulled as doorknobs. On top of each door, there was a banner. One red with the head of a copper dragon facing right, and the other with the head of a silver wolf with a deep blue background facing left towards the other gate. Surrounding the two doors, there was an arch, making it seem like the entire structure was a single gateway once upon a time. There was a set of lookout towers with stairs heading down on the sides of the apparently larger entrance. Asking around, they found out that the actual room would end a few hundred meters beyond the wall and that during a rampage, creatures would appear from the woods and charge towards the fortification. However, both for the room's small size and the guild's already advantageous position, the rampages here were never particularly dangerous.

As they stared at the entrance, Blue asked, "Hey, it's called kobold fields, and apparently there is nothing but kobolds here, right? Does that mean we are going to work with them as well?"

Hera stared at Blue for a moment, "No, it can't be. I mean, we are helping an army. Kobolds can't be that smart and organized… Right?"

"Well, maybe. I mean, we consider them monsters, but some folklore and books talk about kobolds as tribal societies. What if some of them inside the MAZE just kept developing? It wouldn't be a surprise to have them making armies and even wars, but why two? Are we facing two different tribes?" Bonnie started to create some theories out loud.

"I don't know, and instead of wasting time trying to figure it out, shouldn't we just head in?" Alex suggested.

"Hang on. Let's check if there is anything we need to buy, like tents or anti-venom," Runir said, and they headed towards the guild.

Half an hour later, they were back in front of the entrance. Runir bought the compendium for the red side dungeon and shared it with everyone. In there, it explained that the quest was divided into steps. First, they had to report to the camp's general, and that would trigger the quest. They would be facing kobolds much like the ones that Hera fought during the first test Mr. Greyson gave them. They could be simple footmen that would use various weapons, leaders that could increase the power of those around them, and kobold mages and other higher tier occupations such as assassin, sniper, or champion.

Aside from the Kobold Chieftain, who was the dungeon's boss, the most dangerous creatures were those with Feral in their names. They would keep attacking nonstop, even when wounded. The Feral weren't simply beasts, but monsters driven mad by some ritual. Compendiums never had opinions or strategies for dealing with monsters. They only talked about the creature's behaviors and attacks, but there was a warning by the Ferals: Avoid fighting alone and be sure the monster is dead after it has fallen.

It also talked about the map, it was a field about 3 kilometers long. There was a camp surrounded by trees and a creek about 200 meters behind the camp on each side. If you split it in the middle, the area was almost a perfect mirror. The only difference was the disposition of the camps. One was surrounded by wooden walls and trenches, while the other was hidden deeper into the woods.

"Ok, guys, we have the communicators now. Try to stay in range when possible. Hera, since it's a large area, I think we are going to lean into your map. It's easier than to pick up our tablets. This is supposed to be a battle in a large-scale war, so we need to be careful. Our quests shouldn't put us in the thick of it, but still," Bonnie paused, making sure everyone understood, "All ready?"