A monster!

It has always been peaceful around the Viridis forest, the wildlife knows not to come too close to the villages, and even in the case of a war they would rarely be drafted. It has some boons to live in a village at the frontier of wilderness.

So it was a surprise when Cindy came running, crying that a giant spider invaded the village. At the beginning they thought she was exaggerating, but Cindy does not have a habit of lying, so when she insisted the farmers began panicking.

As a small group they headed towards Cren’s house, Cren being a hunter they thought he would know what to do. This early in the afternoon he would normally be in the forest, hunting to get meat. But today was one of the days he chose to take care of all his tools and weapons. And he was doing just that when 10 people barged in his home.

He was surprised to see nearly half the village enter his home like that. Everyone began talking of the situation, asking him to help, but everyone talking at the same time made it impossible for Cren to understand anything.

“Hey! Everyone chut up!” He shouted to get some order. “One person at a time. What happened?” Everyone looked at Cindy, who explained how she saw a giant spider climb on top of her house when she was coming back from the well.

“A giant spider?” Cren asks, more rhetorical than a real question. “Yes, all black.” Cindy answers anyway, she is still stressed and afraid. No one in the village had ever seen such a creature.

Cren thought about what could be useful against a giant spider. ‘If it is like a normal spider, except for its size, then a cutting weapon will probably not be effective. If it is too big, we won't be able to do anything to it.’ “How big is it exactly?” He asked, not about to try and engage a house sized monster.

“Huh, I’m not really sure. I saw it and fled quickly.” Cindy did not take time to inspect the monster, she does not have the courage to just stand there and analyze the menace.

“It doesn’t matter if you are not accurate, just give me an idea of how tall it would be when on the ground and its width.” Cren has a habit of hunting big prey, the plains have many big animals roaming around.

“I’m really not sure.” Cindy insisted, not wanting to give false information.

“Don’t worry, even if it is bigger than what you say, it shouldn’t be by much.” Cren said, trying to make her talk. “And in all cases we will see it too, so an idea would help.”

“Then, I think it would be around knee height, and it should fit in the cow’s water trough.” Cindy was obviously uncertain of her words, but Cren didn’t care, Cindy couldn’t be too off mark, meaning the monster was not too big.

“Alright, we should be able to kill it then.” Cren said, still thinking on the odd matter, but finally deciding that he would after taking care of the invading monster. “Everyone, take whatever tool would be able to crack stone and come with me.”

The people did as asked, they were stressed about the ordeal and didn't know what else to do besides following the instructions of the only member of the village who kills animals as a job.

Fortunately, this village, named Orpul, is a well off one. With its 23 inhabitants, the majority being farmers, the tax to pay each year is reasonable. Furthermore, the merchant city of Narmis is only 3 days of travel to the west. All that made it so the farmers of Orpul could buy metal tools.

Cren told them to take tools that would be able to crack stones, and so everyone took their only tool that would be able to do so: their plowing hoe. Hitting stone with it would dull the blade, and make them need to go to town and pay to get them repaired, but better that than dying to a monster.

When everyone came back, there were 2 problems, the first being that not everyone had a weapon, or rather hoe. Each household having only one set of tools, they are expensive. The second is the fact that Cren has iron forged weapons, but he is the only one who has enough money to buy iron tools instead of bronze ones.

“A Bronze hoe should be enough to at least crack its carapace.” Thought Cren, organizing the groups to follow to Cindy’s house. On their way, Cren saw it, turning around as if it was confused about its surroundings.

Cren made the group stop at a good distance from the giant spider. He observed it, and tried attracting its attention by making a large move with his arm. When the creature didn’t react, Cren drew his conclusions.

“It seems to have a bad vision, at least out in the sun.” He whispered to the group, agitating his arms to show the lack of reactions from the monster. “Alright, I have a plan. We will bait it and take it by surprise.” Cren began explaining his plan. How two men should go around the houses and place themselves under the roof and wait for the monster to climb down.

The plan was for them to wait for it to come near, and then crack or even break as many legs as possible. In case it responded to the attack, they would flee and join Cren with the mob of villagers to surround it and kill it all together.

But the plan didn’t go as prepared, the monster stopped after touching the wall, likely sensing something wrong. It dripped some venom on one of the men, and both of them bolted to Cren and the others. The monster even seemed to mock him and his plan by passing through the village and going out of the village by using the entrance.

The worst was that Cren tried to make everyone jump on it at the same time to bombard it under hits, but nobody dared to! Cren would have done so himself, but if the Bronze tools didn’t at least crack its carapace, then he knew they should not approach it at all.

Cren tried following it, but after getting some distance to the village, the monster jumped at a frightening speed. In seconds it traveled a hundred meters, Cren would never be able to follow that thing.

So he turned around, and when he arrived back, everyone was of the same mind. The village needs to talk about what just happened. Everyone needed to know about it, so they reunited in the center of the village, barely 30 meters from Cindy’s house.

It took under 20 minutes to do so, and those that were not here when it happened were heavily surprised to hear about it. Or more precisely, about an 80 cm tall spider coming in the village and then slowly going away without attacking anyone on its path.

“Was that a dungeon’s monster?” Asked someone. Everyone panicked when they heard the question. But Cren was here to calm them down. “It is the only possibility.” He answered and continued before anyone would freak out and cause chaos.

“But it acted weirdly, normally when a monster outing happens, the monsters are aggressive and attack anything that moves. This one ignored us and left.” Many acquiesced to this kept listening to Cren.

“I am not an expert on dungeons. Amon, wasn’t your grandfather part of the dungeon dwellers? Do you know anything that could help?” Cren asked Amon, a giant of a man, his body gaining muscles easily, coupled with his height of 1,89 meters, he towers over nearly everyone in the village.

“I didn’t learn much about dungeons, my grandpa wrote a book about how they work and all that I know; But I never got one of thoses, at least that I can remember of. There could be one of them inside my father’s stuff, I could search if you want.” Said Amon.

“If you don’t know anything about dungeons, then yes. Because if we don’t know what the monster’s visit means, then we could be in danger. We will still need to go to Narmis to signal an outing monster.” Cren would not tolerate the village being razed to the ground by monsters coming from a newly formed dungeon.

Dungeons are known for how they shape the environment around them, many tales and chants exist about the phenomenon. Many talked about giant caves having whole worlds underground, others changing whole countries into forests, deserts, plains, oceans, or any other imaginable scenery.

But there are more sinister and darker sides to dungeons. They are vastly known for the danger they represent and their monsters. Many lands fell because of monster outings, a phenomenon seeing hundreds, thousands or even millions of monsters exit the dungeon and destroy whatever life they find.

The dungeon’s existence prompted humans to create what is known as the dungeon dwellers. They are named so because they can go inside a dungeon and fight its monsters, selling the resources the dungeon produces as a way of living.

In ancient times, only 1 out of thousands could become a dungeon dweller. To become one it is necessary to be able to have at least some awareness of mana. Now, 8 people out of 10 can become a dungeon dweller, the reason being that mana sensitivity is hereditary. And this trait slowly propagated itself to become a common occurrence.

But not everyone becomes a dungeon dweller either, and many who do, don't live long lives. A dungeon dweller has many advantages only by being one, they get easier access to information about mana and how to wield it, as well as guarantees for getting armor, weapons, and everything they would need in their life.

While becoming a dungeon dweller is not necessary to learn to wield mana, it is the best one as you would be authorized to delve dungeons freely and have experienced mana wielders to teach you.

What makes it near compulsory to get some way to learn to wield mana is the mortality of freelancer mana wielders. 57% of self learning mana wielders die because of a faulty spell. There are also 12% who die in dungeons because they were too prideful. The 31% left are those who either join the dungeon dwellers, find someone to teach them properly, or stop learning about mana entirely.

Some rare characters managed to defy those statistics, becoming solo dwellers of dungeons and becoming well known. But those are rare and far inbetween, but they generally lack discipline and still don’t have access to the dungeon dweller’s commerce and advantages.

Mana wielders are largely called magic users, even if their spells do not produce magic effects. The religious ones can use some form of faith energy, transformed from mana and returned as blessings from their deity. There are also the physical enhancers, they use mana to reinforce their body in some ways.

The dungeon dwellers are a community that exists everywhere where humans are located, they don’t take part in wars or other conflicts of this type. Though they take refugees that do not have anyplace in them. That makes it so when wars break out, people go and find refuge inside the dungeon dwellers barracks and are safe from soldiers taking the city.

The dungeon dwellers have the responsibility to take care of danger the monsters represent, that is if they are inside a dungeon or not. They must also take care of new dungeons, those that are newly formed have a habit of causing destruction to many villages before the information of their existence even gets to a city.

And when a new one does appear, a party is formed to eliminate all monsters outside, find its entrance, and prepare the terrain for the building of a new dungeon dweller settlement. This process is then followed by the affectation of a voluntary party being permanently positioned as guards to keep the dungeon’s monsters from exiting it.

After some weeks, people start coming and building around the dungeon dwellers buildings, that is how many cities were formed because of the simple presence of dungeons. Even a young dungeon is able to produce enough to have 100 dungeon dwellers live comfortably. And the older a dungeon, the bigger it is, and the more it produces, but also the more dangerous it gets.

And right now, 2 persons are walking towards Narmis to report the sighting of a monster never seen before in the Viridis forest. No one knows yet how this information will affect their lives, but it is a certainty that it will change many things.