The turrl, no the sciurus had been almost a death sentence. Its speed and toughness were beyond anything Kent was willing to deal with. Yet he also wasn’t willing to deal with the people on the road. Kent assumed that walking the road would be fine. Yet the thought of having his life depend on others, unfamiliar people, instead of his own prowess felt wrong.

Maybe it is misplaced pride or ego. Yet he didn’t care.

He told himself that he would at least try to make his way around the caravan. Should he encounter another sciurus he would turn around. The increased monster level was expected yet, fighting monsters beyond the wall was dangerous. One was bound to encounter such further away from a zone of civilization, and in all honestly level eleven wasn’t even that strong, it was just that he was fighting across two milestones now.

Checking his health prompted him to take a health potion. He had been doing good so far, keeping his supply rather high. Only on a few occasions had he been forced to use one. With seven pots remaining and once again with a full health pool, he felt still fairly safe.

Though, that would change once he met something just a little stronger than the sciucus. It had been a close fight and anything stronger was basically a death sentence. Once again, he lamented his lack of trait. Even a weak one would be a sufficiently good force multiplier.

He braced himself, took a few deep breaths, and began his trek through the forest again. He was making sure to stay very far away from the caravan, as they would no doubt have at least a single guard posted for the night and who knew how they would react to noises in the underbrush. Probably with an arrow straight to the knee.

After a good while, he deemed his distance to the road sufficient and slowly adjusted his path. Only a single other turrl had assaulted him, it had been level nine which was not too bad. He would have to keep track of his positioning even more precisely now. And hope that the road wasn’t unfortunately curved away from him. Thus far it had been straight, just winding around obstacles.

When he heard chittering from off to the side, he stopped all movements as quick as possible. He had heard the turrls make the occasional sound, but this was different.

There was no doubt in his mind that he would soon be discovered by the monster, so he decided to try and be proactive in his monster encounters once again. As softly as possible he stepped towards the sound in the shrubbery. Taking care of not snapping twigs was rendered impossible by the poor lighting supplied by the stary sky.

Yet each time one snapped his heart began racing… and nothing came of it.

The noise seemingly didn’t care. Initially, he had ignored analyzing the sound, yet as he drew closer he took it in more and more. It felt weird. Unnatural. And it repeated itself.

Is that a monster talking? Can that be? Is someone talking to a monster? Yet all his speculations were for naught when he came to a stop on the edge of an indentation in the ground. Overcast by trees on all sides was a little puddle in the ground, a puddle below a shimmering cylinder of light turquoise.

A dungeon entrance. The origin of the sound he had been following.

Welp, I’m dead. Without even considering the consequences of his actions he dashed back to where he came from. This was probably the one lesson that had been hammered into his skull the most. More than proper planting times and procedures. More than taking care of tools and your family.

Stay away from dungeons.

There wasn’t supposed to be a dungeon here. The few that were kept by the cities in the area were all well established and walled off so as to not spill their spawn into the surrounding world. Then again, this dungeon was the reason why dangerous monster populations in the area had been receding, it had to be somewhere remotely close to his home. As annoying and dangerous as turrls were. They weren’t a threat when you weren’t ambushed or flooded in numbers.

He came to an abrupt halt when a louder than previously heard chitter came from in front of him.

Kent’s mind was completely overtaxed by the current situation. A threat ahead and behind him.

Dash to the side… but which? The road. The caravan. They can help. Just as he began turning, he saw a turrl to that side. Ahead of him a larger turrl, almost fox sized, moved out of the underbrush.

This is sooo bad. A few expletives left his mouth as he tried to figure out what to do.

Kent tried rushing the turrl off to the side, but the larger squirrel had seemingly expected such behavior or at least had noticed Kent’s attention lapse. The moment he turned to face the turrl he saw the larger monster charge his location.

All he could do was stagger back away from both the turrl and the as-of-yet unidentified monster.

It worked somewhat. He was slashed across his right leg, a deeper wound than what he was usually dealt by turrls, but his leg was still usable. He didn’t have the chance to consume a stowed health potion because the monster kept the assault up.

Dodging and weaving were hopeless. He managed to not get injured on the consecutive strikes, but with each dodge, he lost meters of space to the monsters.

Just barely did he dodge the ambush of another turrl that had appeared to his right.

The monsters were too many in number and he was losing.

He yelled in despair. For help, for salvation, hoping that someone heard him. He decided then, that he would prefer being powerless in front of humans over being torn into pieces by monsters. Surely, they would be less vicious.

Kent only had a few ideas left. The steadily growing swarm of turrls facing him right now would be his end. He tried one last time to force his mana into the blade in his hand. Maybe he just hadn’t supplied enough the last few times he tried.

Something gave and his entire mana reservoir emptied itself and with it taking the chance of escaping with the cloak’s spell. But Kent didn’t care. He had done it. His dagger had become affected. He looked down while stumbling back further.

His eyes gazed at whatever the mana had enabled the knife to become.

The tip was missing.

Nothing else had happened – maybe it had lost some of its shine but it was hard to tell with the low light level. There was no visible effect, even swinging at one of the charging turrls didn’t do anything.

His gambit had removed options one and two. The cloak was no longer an option as well.

Shit, it would have been the better move in the first place. I’m so stupid.

With a heavy heart, he took three more steps. He would die out here.

There was one other option remaining. As he continued dodging backward he tried to think of any downsides.

The dungeon might be beatable if he had luck. Given the monsters around it he hoped that it was low level. Unless whatever the large monster was came from that dungeon.

And even if he couldn’t. Delayed death was preferable to death right now.

He stumbled back even further, when he had cleared enough space, he turned and ran. After three trees he could see the indentation in the ground. Just a few more steps and he was within grasp of the dungeon’s entrance.

The step that brought him through the barrier made him lose all sense of orientation.

*Ding – You have entered the Tranquil Pond*

New Notification Log Entries:

Tranquil Pond

Level 16 Dungeon – Tranquility Aspect

The Tranquil Pond has not been completed yet. Additional bonuses await upon core release or core destruction

Unconquered

Reopening Schedule – Indefinite

Current Group Size - One

Suddenly his direction of movement changed and he stumbled backward again, after a few more steps he fell to the ground.

At least he would be safe in the introductory area.

It just sucked that he couldn’t leave until the dungeon got completed once. A shame he hadn’t known of its unconquered status before.

He was ready to just close his eyes, and leave all vestiges of hope behind. Instead, he downed a health potion. Instinct of living in the wild for a week had solidified his need for information, an understanding of his surroundings, and knowing how to best escape and fight in a specific location.

What had initially passed as a small hovel or hut turned out to be a small cave at a waterfront. The stony rough walls were dripping water. In fact, they were dripping enough water that a literal creek left the cave through its opening.

His eyes snapped to his status as he received another notification.

Quest Alert – Tranquil Pond Completion:

Objective: Be the first to complete the Tranquil Pond

Reward: Upgrade to an item in the user's possession.

Failure: Death

Death… Figures. Though I’m kinda worried that every Failure thus far would result in my death. Maybe the system wants me dead as well.

The reward sounded very interesting, and now that he had damaged his newly acquired knife, he had two prime candidates for using the reward on. Depending on how the reward system worked he would have to ditch a whole lot of other stuff before claiming the quest as completed.

Welp, I’m really jumping to conclusions. Let’s check this thing out first. If it is just turrls in here, and not that large other thing I might be fine.

He approached the exit, though not getting too close in the fear of baiting any monsters to his location. His memories of dungeon rules were foggy, but what he thought to remember was that you were safe in the initial room until you left it once.

His outlook on the dungeon was quite nice actually. The blue pond mirrored the fluffy cool clouds hanging in the sky and a fresh breeze was blowing in Kent’s face. The large pond was surrounded by countless trees with turquoise leaves. The atmosphere overall was very pleasing.

Pleasing enough that Kent just sat down and enjoyed the view, while slowly drifting asleep.