Dungeons – These are magical training grounds for adventurers who can also capture various types of loot within them. There are several levels of difficulty with numerous dungeons within each. The levels are - The Cellar, The Dungeon, The Cavern, Deep Dungeon, Ancient Ruins, and finally The Underworld. Successful completion of dungeons rewards experience, loot, and helps meet your quota.

The Adventurer’s Guild

Leaving the dungeon turned out to be anything but trivial. While the bosses were defeated and nothing respawned in the final boss’s lair for unknown reasons, the other seven levels were crawling with respawned monsters. Looking up at the higher level, Nash left the empty halls of level eight behind.

The higher level was less cavern and more dungeon, with finished walls and massive columns. Within were numerous groups of zombies roaming the massive floor. Nash frowned as he gazed at them all.

“I could really use that pocket healer about now,” he muttered under his breath.

Despite his words, he would never have left her or anyone else in slavery if he had the power to do something about it. He didn’t regret his decision in the least. Now, he just had to find a way to avoid or defeat all of these overpowered mobs with an untested and untrained fighting style. Nash groaned inwardly.

Another crazy idea came to him and he smiled. He’d have to be fast, but he had a plan. Nash started forward but avoided the first couple of groups. He had made it a third of the way across when he finally ran out of space. Instead of retreating, he charged past the nearest group and into a group further away. Hacking and chopping with his new axes, he marveled at their destructive power.

While he fought to keep the zombies at bay, he circled the group and charged into another group further across the room. Now, Nash was almost to the other side of the room. He took the opportunity to use his new Evade ability with the group and dove through them, coming up on the other side. Nash broke into a sprint the instant he was clear and smiled. He had taken a couple of hits, but nothing serious.

With all five groups now closing in, he activated Moonglow’s on-use ability and dropped a Starshower” down upon them all. The damage was slight but it did slow them down and allow him to widen the gap between him and the undead pursuit.

The next room had a checkerboard pattern that he had memorized on the way in. While zigzagging across the map, he could hear the zombies activate traps that pummeled them until they were almost all destroyed. Nash finished off the couple that made it across with a few swipes of his axes. He was starting to enjoy this new and refreshing fighting style already.

Taking the stairs up to floor six, Nash gave a wicked half-smile. This level was a rest level. Hundreds of slack-jawed mindless wandered the room. They were called the Lost ones and were supposed to be adventurers that had failed to defeat the next floor boss and had their wills taken away. They were harmless unless attacked and very few parties bothered with them because of their low experience values and the time it would take to defeat them.

Nash attacked the nearest one, noticing its eyes turn from yellow to red. It moaned and tried punching him with a pale-blue fist. Nash used the opportunity to practice his new weapon skills and abilities, the Lost Ones being too weak to cause him serious harm or overwhelm his dark regeneration.

Nash spent hours fighting the Lost Ones; one, two, and three at a time. The experience gained was paltry but he was quickly learning his new fighting style and abilities. He was now comfortable with his two-ax style and had learned several abilities.

Blade Barrier – A two-weapon-style defensive kata that would increase defense and deflection ratings

Charge – A fast sprint attack of up to thirty feet

Dark Regeneration – A heal over time effect gained after defeating an enemy

Evade – A fluid agility-based kata that would increase evasion rating

Vengeance – Turning an enemy’s attack back on itself

Mirror’s Edge – Using the flat of a weapon’s blade to reflect a spell back upon the caster

He now had enough skill and knowledge to continue up the rest of the levels out of the dungeon. First, he decided to finish off the last few Lost Ones. He was a completionist, after all. Once the final Lost One dropped, Nash received a new notification.

Achievement Unlocked: “I Never Met a Lost One I Didn’t Kill”

Title Awarded: “Reaper of the Lost”

Item Added to Inventory: Mini Lost One – Cosmetic Minion

“Well, okay then,” Nash muttered, shaking his head at the off-the-wall rewards. Shaking his head and shrugging, he continued to the next set of stairs heading up. He figured, worst case, he could sell the thing... assuming it wasn’t sentient. If so, he’d find a way to free it.

Through the rest of the dungeon’s levels, Nash employed every trick he knew and invented a couple to evade, destroy, or trap every creature between him and escape. On level five, he pitted the lacedons against the sahaguin. On level four, Nash dropped a vat of molten metal into a room filled with sentient slimes. On level three, he lured dozens of salt golems into a pool of water where they melted as he fought them. Nash knew, of course, that he wasn’t that good. Running the dungeon backward was giving him a huge advantage.

By this time, he had an even better handle on his fighting style and had leveled up three more times. He had also acquired another 25,245 steel marks and a Ring of Wisdom which he planned on selling for even more marks. However, it was level two where things took an interesting turn.

Nash walked up a set of stairs carved into the rock. They led to a short passageway that ended at a large room filled with water. A path of flat rocks sitting just above the dark water’s surface led to the other side of the room. Two long metal poles protruded from holes in the cavernous ceiling on either side of the meandering pathway.

Nash knew what the poles were for and pulled a stone lever to his right, just inside the passageway to the stairs he had just taken. The probes sunk into the water and an electrical buzz and smell of ozone filled the air. A moment later and a dozen fish-like creatures bobbed to the surface. Nash didn’t get any experience for the kills, but he had quickly cleared the room.

Nodding contentedly to himself, he strode across the pathway, making sure to avoid the false rocks that would drop him into the acidic water below. Halfway across, a white-beared man appeared before him. The man was rail thin and wore a robe of black and red velvet.

“Well, boy,” said the old man, rubbing his bald head. “You’ve had a bit of a rough time of it. I hope you appreciated the loot. Figured it was the least I could do after your party abandoned you. Tsk, tsk, tsk... and they got the Challenge Mode: First Kill to boot.”

“Who are you?” asked Nash, scrunching up his brow.

“I’m the master of this dungeon... well, all dungeons really, answered the man. “Surely, you’ve heard of me.”

“Uh.. yeah,” said Nash, his eyes going wide. “You’re part of the Circle of Five. I just...never expected to meet you, especially like this.”

“Yes...well,” replied the man. “Strange times and all that... You see, I’m here to offer you a deal. The Circle’s job is to maintain balance and my job is to ensure that all dungeon activities are fair and equitable. That puts me into a bit of a quandary concerning you.”

“How so?” asked Nash, a prickly cold feeling running down his spine.

“Well... to put it simply,” answered the old man. “You discovered a couple of oversights in our design and used them to your advantage. We call them exploits. Normally, we’d take your loot and experience back and kick you from the dungeon for a time. However, I’ve already spoken with the last judge, another member of the circle, and we’ve deemed it appropriate to allow you to keep your ill-gotten gains due to the extenuating circumstances. That being said, there are conditions.”

“Okay,” replied Nash, a slight quiver in his voice. “What conditions?”

“First, never speak of this again, do you understand?” said the Master of Dungeons, his voice deeper and louder to accentuate the point.

“Absolutely,” replied Nash. “But what should I say happened if asked?”

“Say nothing,” said the man, wiggling a finger before him.

Nash nodded his acceptance.

“Second,” continued the Master of Dungeons. “You are in our debt. Simply put, you owe us. One day, one of us will ask a favor of you. It cannot be refused. Do you understand?”

“I do,” answered Nash, his mind reeling at what kind of favor he could be asked to give by what amounted to this world’s gods.

“Good, now go,” said the old man with a slight smile. “You have someone waiting for you. Oh, and don’t attempt those exploits again. It wouldn’t end well for you.”

The Master of Dungeons blinked out of existence, leaving Nash to wonder who he meant was waiting for him. He had already figured the exploits would be fixed if they weren’t already. He also continued to fret over the future unknown favor he’d have to perform. He wouldn’t find any answers just standing there, so he continued across the path and up to the first floor.

The top-level held the weakest creatures but they were still geared towards a twenty-five-man party. Nash knew that he had survived this long because he had defeated the main boss and that had somewhat neutered the rest of the dungeon.

That was good. His dark regeneration wasn’t quite up to par with his old regeneration ability. Once he had some time, Nash would figure out why. For now, he just wanted to get out and make it to the closest town and closest tavern. He needed a stiff drink and some shut-eye. It’d been a long day.

On level one, more zombies shambled all over a massive corridor filled with prisoner’s cells. Normally, a party would fight its way through and then open the cells to check for hidden loot. Since Nash was coming back out, the cell door keys were hanging up on a peg beside him. Taking it down, he charge a zombie nearest one of the middle cell doors and stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

The zombies threw themselves against the bars to get to him, biting and clawing at the air in a mindless attempt to sample his delicious flesh. Nash used the safety of the cell to systematically cave each of their heads in with his fighting axes. It took a long time and there was a large quivering pile of stinking rot just outside the cell, but he finished the job without a scratch on him.

Using the key to open the cell door, Nash gave the pile of undeath a wide birth. He then made his way to the entrance, stepping around several traps they had already encountered. Finally, the portal out was in sight and what he saw next to it made him shake his head and chuckle.

“What? I can’t get out on my own,” shrugged Tamsyn. “I had to wait for the next party to leave so that I could piggyback through the portal. It’s just dumb luck that it happened to be you.”

“Oh, I think you missed me,” said Nash, his eyes dancing with mirth. “I’ve been in here for hours, there is no way that I’m the first to leave.”

“Well, you’re the first of the Dark faction,” she replied. “Not many of them have reached this dungeon yet.”

“Sure,” said Nash, giving the night pixie a half-smile.

Tamsyn merely harumphed and fell in beside him. The two of them entered the portal together. A flash of light and a swirl of color and they were standing outside of the dungeon but on the complete opposite side of the mighty chasm that separated the lands of Light and Dark. Nash realized that this was going to take some getting used to.

With the nearest town on this side being Gravenport, Nash summoned his newly acquired mount. A large black panther marbled with white appeared before him. Looking at Tamsyn, he asked, “Need a ride?” Then he leaped atop the panther and grabbed the magical reins that controlled the sleek automaton.

“Why not,” answered Tamsyn, smiling impishly.

Nash waited and the nixie girl landed on his shoulder. When she was settled, he spurred the marble panther on, and within minutes, they were out of the chasm. A winding dirt road headed towards Gravenport. Nash took it and headed towards the town and the Seductive Succubus, a tavern so infamous that even the Light had heard of it. Nash didn’t quite know what to expect but he was looking forward to it. Anything to get his mind off the betrayal.