Dungeons

When Dungeons first appeared they shook the entire world, both physically and metaphorically, causing countless earthquakes and tsunami's, tearing themselves out of the earth they were born from and bringing about famine, poverty and disease.

It was a group of Followers that first entered a Dungeon, their anger and hatred fuelling them, they would not be seen again until two months later when they exited the same Dungeon. Their families and friends had thought them dead and given up hope of seeing them again, when they appeared again from the great Dungeons Gates. Everyone was ecstatic when they realized they were still alive and started to quickly bombard them with questions of what happened in there.

It wasn’t long into the interrogation, that people realized that there was more to the Dungeons then they originally thought. Inside the Dungeons housed both danger and fortune, the group found that many types of monsters never recorded before lived inside the Dungeons. But at the same time it was home to great treasure’s beyond their wildest dreams, gold, jewels, weapons, grimoires and even skill books could be found here.

The main treasure they returned with though was some special, they had walked further down Their Path’s faster than anyone had been able to travel before. The constant battles and stress had forced out every drop of their potential it could, bringing them to a level that they never thought they could achieve.

With that fact and with the desire for treasure, many other Followers decided to take the risk and dive into the Dungeon. Bringing back different treasures and experiences and as time went by humanity started adapting into this new way of life until eventually Dungeons became a part of every day life.

As the day’s went by the Followers started discover more and more about the Dungeon's, from how fast Monsters would start to re-emerge, to discovering hidden rooms and the treasures they hold, even how Dungeon floor's inside the same Dungeon could hold vastly different Monster types and how different environments could give clues to what Monsters it did.

Everything was going quite well for humanity after a while, the Followers that were allowed into the Dungeon where all strong and experienced so the rates of deaths and injuries were quite low, it generally became a more peaceful and prosperous time for humanity.

Until one day a party decided to sneak into a Dungeon in the cover of night, before them now no one had tried to enter the Dungeons at night. Most supply stories being closed and if they needed help or emergency healing the healers and other personal would be too tired to care for them around the clock and so it was outlawed as to not put too much pressure on anyone and allow better oversight to the Dungeons.

Now as the Dungeons where underground or in enclosed area's, the Followers could never tell the time of day inside without time measuring instruments or magic, so they believed that Dungeons wouldn't change in the night as they didn’t have a typical day or night cycle.

It was a mistake of the party to make such an assumption, the night brings a new challenge to the Dungeon. The night allows the Floor Boss’s to have full control over their Monsters on their Floor, when the party first entered the Dungeon everything seemed normal, but they soon they realized it wasn't, when they found and killed their first Monster, the Floor Boss found out that his floor had been invaded.

Before they could kill a second Monster, a swarm of Monsters had come and overwhelmed them, wiping out the party in seconds. Unready for the massive numbers that came down upon them, they wouldn't be found until the next morning, their Equipment and bodies had been left but damaged beyond all recognition and use. It was only when their families reported them missing that they were able to identify them.

From then on, Dungeons were guarded at all times making sure no other party could make the same mistake.

A mistake Hadrian had nearly just committed not long ago.

When he killed the last skeleton inside the book store, night had just fallen in the Dungeon, not quite enough for the Floor Boss to find his location, but just enough to know something had killed a monster on Its floor.

Finding out someone was killing the Monsters on it floor, the Floor Boss became both enraged and terrified, not for years had someone tried to challenge its floor. From experience, it knows that if it allows them to stay alive much longer, they would eventually try to challenge them and with how fast Followers normally grow in the Dungeon, even if it was a relatively amateur Follower, if left alone for too long they would eventually become a threat.

Not wanting any threat to itself or its rule, the Dungeon Floor Boss controlled all the Monsters on its floor to start a sweep throughout.

This Floor Boss was a bit of a coward thought so it separated its Monster by strength, keeping the stronger Monsters closer to itself and having the weaker monster go out further and further from it.

While this strategy allowed the Floor Boss to feel much safer, it also allowed a much better situation for Hadrian, with the weaker Monsters search throughout the outer areas, it leaves him in a much better place, the weaker Monsters would actually give him a chance to grow and much better chance at hiding. With only skeleton's sweeping the area he is in and their weak sensing abilities they walked right past the House he was sleeping in, without even been alerted to his presence.

Waking up a few hours later, Hadrian was feeling at lot better, his stomach no longer in pain. With him being unaware of what happened that night, he makes his way out to the blacksmiths and into the main road. Starting his journey back by walking to the Gate to the safe zone.

It didn't take long before he arrived, at the Gate.

Noticing that the land around had been disturbed, he wondered what was the cause of it, “What the hell happened here it looks like an army had passed through here?”

Walking up to the Gate, Hadrian was just about to enter it when he hears a sound.

'Click' 'clack' 'click' 'clack'

Stopping he turns around recognizing the sounds as the noise skeleton's make, he goes towards the sounds hoping to maybe find a lone skeleton for some extra EXP, his low intelligence really messing with ability to reason and linking the noises with the disturbed ground.

Walking over the hill Hadrian got a sight of what was making the noises.

It was a group of skeleton's, ten skeletons to be exact, more than Hadrian has seen before, not wanting to alert them, Hadrian slowly tries to return to the gate.

Slowly creeping back, making sure to keep an eye on the group, as he starts to lose sight of them as he gets further and further away.

'Click'

Bumping into something, Hadrian stops dead. He slowly turns his head to find a skeleton standing in his way.

“Fuck” Standing up as fast as he can, Hadrian turns around while drawing his swords, hoping to end this fight as fast as he can, but the skeleton was already mid-swing with its mace beforehand he could even stand.

'Whoosh' 'Bam' “ARGHH!!”, The skeleton's mace smashes he straight into his side, not breaking any ribs thanks to his armor but still causing him some serious pain.

He loses his balance and is about to fall but before he does, he swings Grace at the skeleton's head hoping to end it's un-life. His sword just about connects and the force cracks the skeleton's skull, making it fall to the ground dead.

“Damn, that was a fucking mess”, getting up Hadrian kicks the skeleton's body, angry at it and himself.

“Fucking idiot”

'click' 'clack' 'click' 'clack' 'click'

“Oh, fuck”

Turning around as fast as he can, he sees his worst nightmare.

The group of skeleton's walking up the hill behind him.

“Fuck”