After several months, Shane’s party was once again heading to Inari’s dungeon. For them this would be their third venture within this dungeon. The previous time being to remove the blockade they previously placed as well as clearing out any remaining powder that would be left in the dungeon. Alex’s action ended up losing the party their commission for the quest as well as forcing them into a series of compulsory quests to ensure the dungeon remains a resource and not a threat. As such, they were also sent to be the first to explore the changes the dungeon had taken with it’s chance to repopulate it’s defences.

This quest held a great interest not just for the Adventurer’s Guild, but also the for the lord of the land Marquess Alfred Grayshield. A dungeon appearing within his territory ment a number of good things from new resources to a place to train the troops of his army. With such thoughts in mind, he had a village set to be constructed within the vicinity of the dungeon along with the cooperation of the adventurer’s guild. This is so the guild can supervise the dungeon, also paying a small tax for spoils that adventurers bring back from the dungeon.

For the guild, had Shane’s party done the job correctly the first time, then the dungeon would become a simple investment. However, if by leaving the powder that stunned the dungeon turned its behavior to a very destructive path and it had to be destroyed, then the Guild would be forced to reimburse the Marquess for the costs of creating the village. This in turn is turned from the guild to the party responsible for the original exploration. Thus leaving Shane and company in a precarious situation if things go wrong. Their only saving grace being some old tracks found that were identified to belong to orcs. While Shane’s party would still face trouble with the guild, the orcs that are in the area could prove to be a perfect target for blame if the dungeon proved dangerous, as such events have precedence.

While the guild still had a fair amount of work and trouble to deal with, adding the newly discovered orcs, Shane’s party was approaching the dungeon. However from the very entrance, they would be in for a surprise. Beside the entrance to the dungeon, a box appeared to have been carved out of the surrounding rock. The box had a slit at the top and on it’s front read “Donations”. A sight that was certainly unexpected for the party.

“What in the world?” asked Walter as he inspected the box for any possible traps, “Donations? What are we suppose to donate?” While Walter, Shane, and Alex simply pondered on who could have made the box, Ellie thought on how it the box said donations. If this was in a town or city, it might not look to out of place at an orphanage or a church, but at a dungeon? While she couldn’t fathom the reason as to why it was placed here, she pulled out a copper coin and inserted it into the box to see what would happen.

Everyone immediately backed up after Ellie placed the coin in the box. This was due to a slot opening at the bottom of the box and the sound of rolling coming from within. What came out was a small orb that fell to the floor, the slot resealed itself afterward. Shortly after the orb reached the ground, it split open revealing a slip of paper that had some writing on it. Walter approached cautiously and picked the paper up and read, “A silver chest will appear on every floor below the first.” The slip of paper raised numerous questions for the party and gave the dungeon a greater sense of mystery, but at least for the party this likely meant that they wouldn’t have to worry about facing terrible consequences for the dungeon going mad and rallying its forces to murder whatever it can reach. Plus there was the promise of profit.

The party didn’t face any real difficulties this time round as only a couple of rats were fought. While they can be troublesome, they are much more common to beast type dungeons. For Shane and co, this felt more like the dungeon would become more normal than when it threw out foxes with fire powers. Despite the message they received at the entrance, they were a bit surprised to see a path downward leading to a second level for the dungeon. Normally a dungeon would have more density in monsters before they’d tunnel downward. If not for their previous mistakes when handling the dungeon, they might have noticed that the dungeon really was abnormal.

As they continued down, they found the dungeon remained mostly devoid of anything stronger than the rats they encountered. It was known that Dungeons spend mana to built rooms, and with the size of the dungeon currently, it seems that it might not have had any time to properly populate itself. With this in mind, there would likely be a second mission to explore the dungeon in a few days to properly access the scale of difficulty that the dungeon holds. Thus they continue on to scout the rest of the dungeon.

Past the room they descended on was another pair of rooms leading to a Left turn. A strange detail was that there was sources of light within the dungeon at this level. They were small wisps of light that gave the rooms a decent amount of vision to act. After following the path down another two rooms down, they discovered the path split to the left and right. Following a general rule of thumb to figuring out mazes, they went left first. There they found a pleasant surprise.

At the center of the room was a chest. After the party checked the room for either traps or ambushes, they opened the chest. Within it they found a simple wooden bracer. Well it certainly wasn’t the find of the ages, it did represent that the dungeon was more content with luring in adventurers than raiding the local area.

Much like the top level, this floor also took on a winding path as another 5 rooms were past as till they found the core room. The path seemed to continue past the core room onwards though. Along with that, a wolf along with some additional rats were prepared to defend the core room. As they were here to chart the dungeon and not clear it out, they decided to instead take the separate path. Headed down they discovered another chest.

“Is this chest silver?” asked Walter as he examined the chest. The lighting in the dungeon may have been fine for fighting, but making out whether this chest was made of wood or silver proved to be difficult. After finding no traps set in the room, the party opened the chest. It’s contents proved much different than the previous chest as what it held was a Plate. The plate had upon it a picture of a blue bird in a tree branch. Unsure of why something like this would be in a dungeon chest of all places, the party took it and left. The return was far less eventful for the party as they simply returned to the village after exiting the dungeon. They would later learn that the value of the plate was quite high.

Inari, who had watched the parties advance, felt confused. He really thought that the plate he set the chest to spawn would be much better received. It even had a nice picture after all. He was also surprised that they ignored the false core room this time round. He was sure that they would just keep clearing out all the monsters in a dungeon. At least this meant that they might not be bent on his destruction. Well, it’s not like they could destroy me so easily with where my core truly is. The adventurers not discovering that little detail would remain the better outcome though.

Inari had created chests that held a few special properties. They would take in some of the ambient mana flowing within the dungeon to refill themselves with an item on a set list that Inari had programed into the chest. An ordinary chest would hold some sort of equipment to reward explorers for searching away from the direct path. The silver chest was similar, but would hold items intended to give profit. He also had a golden chest which held a much more unique prise, but he wasn’t sure on how he would distribute the chest placement for it. He had intended for silver chests to take more ambient mana to resupply themselves, making it’s prizes rarer, the more ordinary chests wouldn’t take as long to spawn simple equipment.

Most of the time, Inari spent reaching for the top of the mountain, he was even close to reaching the very top. With adventurers starting to arrive in his dungeon though, meant that he would likely become more busy managing the lower levels of the dungeon.With a mental sigh at having to increase his workload, Inari began planning an infiltration of the human village that had been built nearby. All he’d need is a couple more donations for ‘operation funds.’