Giving a final listen to the large stone door in front of them, Gaemo and Logan both gave a hearty push into the two halves of the door. As the rock weathered against the floor, a coarse tone filled the room as it overshadowed the distant sounds of battle. Opening up into a vast room, the party quickly scanned it for any potential danger but was elated when it was devoid of such.

The room resembled a normal entrance foyer, tall pillars held up the 30’ high ceilings with intricately carved spiral designs. Three corridors split off in a forked design, one straight ahead and two slightly to the left and right. The party had to stifle coughs as dust floated in the air, the stuffiness of the interior betraying the time it had spent closed.

“Alright, Logan, the priority is Evén, can you scan their location from where we are?” Gaemo asked as he hacked every so often.

Logan clicked his fingers to use Echo Radar, filling 450 feet away from him on his minimap. The dungeon had several cracks and holes in its walls, possibly from vermin or damage from the inhabitants, so he was able to inspect quite a hectic area. One particular effect of the damaged area was that his echolocation was able to sneak between the cracks and reveal at least some parts of the nearby hallways and rooms.

“No, but there are some people on the right path, I think they are bandits. We could interrogate one of them?” Logan replied as he pointed at the right path.

“Ok, let’s do that. Use Force on any torches they may have, make it dark and easy on us”, Gaemo instructed.

The party prepared themselves for battle, though they were already in a state of preparedness due to entering a dungeon. Since they had no intel on this place they stepped ever so carefully as they followed the directions of the Spellthief.

It didn’t take the party long as they walked down the right hallway before they were met by another set of large stone doors. This one shook every so often as the sound of someone on the other side was hitting it with a large mace or hammer.

A muffled male voice was heard on the other end with the end of the slamming, “Fuck this, the door ain’t budging.”

“You’ve been at it for an hour today, I say we go check that other hallway”, a muffled female voice replied.

The sound of the first voice stepping away could just be barely heard on the other side, the voices getting dampened even further as they moved.

Looking over the door revealed that there was a latch on this side, meaning it could be unlocked with ease, it just needed to be lifted and pulled open.

“Logan, can you tell how many there are and if they have torches or Light Allies?” Gaemo asked as he looked over the door.

Clicking his fingers again, Logan detected five people on the other side, though the coloured dots did not reveal their gear or held items.

“Five, about fifty feet away from the door. Seems there are two hallways that lead away from us. I can’t tell if they have lights or not.”

“Alright, Marcus, you get the door and we’ll rush them. Logan, do as we said earlier.”

Nodding in response, the team got into position to charge the room. Marcus pushed over the latch and pulled on the door with gusto, the coarse grating of the rock alerting those on the other side.

“Hey, it’s opening!” one voice shouted as the enemy team turned to their freedom.

Logan was at the front, his eyes darting around the dots of his map to the area they were located in real life. Spotting a torch in one of their hands, Logan raised his arm and chanted, “Force”, a grey ball of disaster firing towards the aflame stick and shattering it into pieces, the light going out in specks.

Gaemo activated Rush and charged down one of the enemies, his blade lit up red as he cleaved through the man with a Power Strike, their head severing from their neck and rebounding off the nearby wall.

Sincollo darted into the room a hair behind Gaemo, using his own Rush and landing atop another bandit, tearing the man apart with his metallic claws.

Logan’s elementals pelted the other foes with their ranged skills while their master let loose Force after Force into them, making sure to knock them out with Safecasting.

Marcus stepped down into a kneeling position as he fired a few crossbow bolts at the bandits, though he didn’t get too many shots before the practically blind enemies were slain or knocked out.

The fight was insanely quick, with few resources being used. Their foe’s lack of light or night vision gave Logan’s party a major advantage, which was coupled with the fact they were able to surprise the opposing team.

“Anyone see any others?” Gaemo asked as he looked around.

“Nothing”, Sincollo replied as he stood tall.

Logan clicked his fingers before replying, “Nothing I can detect.”

A few moments passed as the team grouped back up and inspected their marks, two were still alive after the onslaught, who were promptly tied up and brought back to consciousness with Healer’s Caress.

The first darted his head around, searching the darkness for who attacked him, “Who’s there? What do you want?”

The second squinted at the silhouettes in the dark, “Fuck, hunters.”

“Well, one of you got it. Now, answer my questions or you’ll be a lesser income for me”, Gaemo threatened.

“What do you mean-” the first began but was cut off by the second.

“He’ll kill us, just answer his questions damn it.”

“You’re the smart one, I’ll ask you. Did your group know how to activate that artefact that teleported you here?” Gaemo questioned.

“What? No, I didn’t even know that’s what did it. We all appeared here differently, we split off from a larger group when we found a crossroads”, the second bandit answered.

“So you’re all scattered. Do you know what this place is?”

“No way in the below. We barely saw anything before we scrambled for a torch.”

“Last question, where is the other hunter that was with me, the female who got teleported with you?”

“Huh? We teleported with a hunter? No clue, we were kinda in the back, didn’t get a good eye on the events.”

“Fine”, Gaemo responded before grabbing the collar of the bandit and yanking the man’s face into his knee. He followed up with a punch into the other, knocking both back out. Standing up he addressed the party, “Well that at least tells us that the underlings have no clue about the artefact, maybe a higher-up in the gang knows about it. Their group was stranded, so possibly others are too. That’ll make taking them down easier.”

“If they are trapped we can probably use our skills more liberally if we wait between encounters”, Sincollo announced.

“I don’t like the idea of sitting around if Evén is still around, she may need our help. Or, she may just be stuck somewhere, that’d be the better outcome.”

“Either way we can probably take on the rest of this group, five blind were easy”, Logan added as he began checking the corridors for enemy locations.

Gaemo and Sincollo quickly rummaged through the pockets and bags of the downed foes, picking out a few vials before Logan pointed out their next direction.

Taking one of the hallways led to quite a short walk before muffled noises were heard once more, this time a large explosion in the distance. Gaemo held up his fist to halt the party with Logan snapping his fingers to scan the area ahead.

“Six ahead, one is trying to blast a door, the others are closer to us”, Logan informed.

“I’ll wager they are looking at the door and said explosions, that’ll mean we can attack them from the rear before they get alerted”, Gaemo replied.

“I can help in that, I use daggers for surprise attacks to save on spells.”

“Alright, they should be low enough rank that a couple of strikes from you will be enough”, Gaemo replied with a hint of praise in his voice.

Moving closer, the party were able to spot the team that Logan scanned earlier. A grouping of five bandits sat on the floor, staring at another stone door that was barring their path, another hallway off to the left was where they had presumably come from. The door had a mage standing in front of it, casting spell after spell into the door to break it down.

If they were given some more time they would have probably broken the door down, a large crater was forming in its centre. That did bring up the question if they had destroyed other doors to this point, or if any of the other teams had done so during their day and more stuck here. They were certainly close to the exit.

Utilising Stealth, which was easier due to the darkness and the blasting sounds ahead, the party approached the rear of the bandits. The Fighters let out Power Strikes whereas Logan landed two swift Backstabs into his foe, followed by elemental blasts and crossbow bolts, the party taking down three of the five instantly.

The remaining two jumped at the sight of their comrades getting assaulted, but following uses of Power Strike and a tumbling Logan for a Backstab in aid dealt with those.

There wasn't much of a commotion, so the blasting mage was oblivious to the assault, though he was alerted when a sword was placed over his neck by Gaemo.

“Is your loyalty with your gang or your life?” Gaemo asked intimidatingly.

“I… With you, of course!” the mage stammered as he dropped the staff in his hand.

“Good, tell me, how did you get here?”

“We teleported here, I don’t know how or why. We got separated though.”

“How many doors have you blasted open?”

“This was gonna be the third!”

“Alright. Do you know of a woman who got teleported with you?”

“The one who attacked us? Uh, I didn’t see her.”

“Fine. Anything else I should be informed about?”

“Our gear also got transported! We left our crates a few hallways that way. Take a left then a right to find them!”

“Thank you”, Gaemo ended as he drew back his blade and slammed the hilt of it on the mage’s head, knocking him out.

With the final body hitting the floor the team did another quick looting session, both to up their stocks of potions but also to give their skills some time to cooldown. This also gave Logan enough time to look over Spark as his elemental had levelled up to 10, now being on par with his brother Celsius. With another MP in his pool that equated to 1 MP for Logan if he absorbed the last from both of his summons.

Looking over the bodies, the team were also an eighth done with the gang, though they had been tackling mostly levels 4 through 6. It would be a lot harder to take on those closer to the 10 area. If the rest of the groups were around 11 strong it wouldn’t be impossible to deal with them, it would only be a few shy for a duo hunter team to take down.

Taking the corridor that was opened on the left, the party found an empty chamber with three more hallways. The interior of this dungeon was turning out to be quite the expansive maze, especially if the separated groups hadn’t found one another yet. Taking the left hallway showed a similar sight, though the doorway showed signs of a destroyed door, another destroyed door leading to the right from this chamber.

Reaching the room the mage had spoken of, the party found themselves within a scorched chamber, a circular pattern on the floor depicting where this team had been summoned to. Stacked crates with slumped bags were pushed to the side as well as a bruised corpse that the party could only assume was a rowdy bandit member who didn’t agree with the others.

“Knock that one off the list. Let’s check for anything we can use”, Gaemo announced as he moved to the crates.

After a few minutes of searching, the team found a few more potions to add to their haul, plus some maps and notes for the gang’s raiding routines. The maps weren’t going to mean much if the gang were taken care of, but it would help return some of the stolen property.

Leaving the storage room, the party followed a different hallway, and then another, and another after that. Eventually, they reached another closed stone door that had seen quite a bit of damage to the point it had large cracks that revealed the other side. Which was convenient as the latch was on the other side, allowing Logan to Dimensional Jaunt to the other end and open it for the team.

Opening the door to allow the party to enter, they all began to scout this new chamber. It was slightly larger than the previous ones and had another circular pattern across the floor that revealed another group had appeared here. It was apparent they took another hallway, of which there were two open away from this room, plus the one the party had just opened.

“This is quite the curious place”, Sincollo spoke.

“Yes. If it is a dungeon, what normally inhabits it? Or was it a previous temple or estate for an older generation?” Gaemo added.

“If the kaevock works here, is it similar to the place it was taken from?” Logan thought to himself.

As the party were moving about the room to decide which path to take a whoosh of wind interrupted their plans. A bright blue light shone across the floor beneath Gaemo’s feet, turning to a violent red as a loud bell noise started to ring out and echo into the hallways. The Fighter was just barely able to jump backwards before several bolts came singing in his direction as hidden crossbows fired.

“Fuck, get back into our hallway”, Gaemo cursed at the party whilst keeping his voice low to not echo along with the bell.

Scrambling to the hallway they had emerged from, the party hid behind the large stone doors and against the dark walls of the underground. Approaching them at high speeds were numerous footsteps that betrayed both leather and metal armaments.

Logan’s Echo Radar picked up numerous dots, equalling a total of twelve before any more could get added. A dashing ball of light came into the centre of the room as it lit it up brightly, Logan easily identifying it as a Light Ally. It wasn’t the only light, however, as several of the approaching humanoids held torches in their hands and weapons in the other.

As the opposing group entered the larger chamber they formed a circular pattern, with two robed individuals in the middle followed by another Light Ally. The group was formidably armed, and through Identification Logan could tell their levels were higher than the previous bandits.

“Logan, teleport in and take out those two casters, Sincollo and I will charge from this way, Marcus keep an eye out if we take hits”, Gaemo instructed.

The party had plenty of trust in their leader’s wisdom, let alone his experience in taking out groups of traitors, so they had little in the way of discordance.

Looking toward his foes, Logan picked out a spot between the two magi and chanted, “Dimensional Jaunt.”

Disappearing in a wind blast, that alerted the enemies to their location, Logan appeared between the mages and placed a hand on their backs each and chanted twice, “Flame Grasp, Flame Grasp”, flames erupting from his hands and totally engulfing the flimsiest of the opposing force.

The two mages yelled out in pain before both falling to the floor after taking Backstab damages of 120 and 127.

As the exterior ring bandits turned to face Logan, two more fell as the Fighters Rushed into the fray with Power Strikes, while others were caught off guard with crossbow bolts and elemental blasts.

Spinning around, Gaemo let off another Power Strike that severed another head, before bringing his blade to the floor and chanting, “Crescent Slice”, swiping it upwards and creating a large white slash in the air that carved through three bandits at once, creating a crescent arc that sprayed blood in a vertical motion.

Sincollo stood on his hind legs and slammed down with his front, creating a small shockwave across the floor that caused several bandits to stumble and fall to the floor, the saeben promptly moved on top of his enemies to tear them apart.

Logan drew up a Bowen dagger to block a sword strike from an opposing Rogue and landed a solid Force shot into the woman’s stomach, shooting her lower body back and causing her to fall frontwards to the floor. Logan finished off his foe with a quick stab into her upper back.

Using another charge of Rush to push a foe off balance, Gaemo landed two of his combo strikes to kill another foe with red and yellow colours, landing another blue hit on a following bandit and finishing them off with a flurry of purple slashes that cut through the man’s body and sprayed blood behind them, splattering their bandit allies.

Lights danced around the enemies' blades and bludgeons, but most were blocked, deflected, or dodged entirely. Logan’s party were far faster and far stronger, with Gaemo and Sincollo specialising in taking on humanoids even more than the Spellthief.

As the final body hit the floor, the party checked to make sure none were going to get back up or approach from another hallway, before they all let out sighs of relief. Logan’s eyes moved between the numerous numbers floating over the corpses and unconscious bodies.

“I guess we can count ourselves lucky that the first team split up as they did, and that this group didn’t have any rank 10s in it”, Gaemo announced as he cleaned his blade.

“You two used a lot of skills though, that to make sure we came out unscathed?” Logan replied as he looked over at the new window popping up with information on Celsius.

“A few of them looked better geared, you can see how much our skills can do, didn’t want to give them a chance to use theirs. Plus, I wasn’t sure if any other foes heard that alarm”, Gaemo responded as he looked around, “though it seems we’re good on that front.

“You’re a formidable phaser hunter”, Sincollo praised Logan.

“That you are, no doubt you’d earn your metal signet at your next reassessment”, Gaemo added. “How many skill uses you got left?” Gaemo continued as he looked over to Sincollo.

The two Fighters began their own discussion and the corpses were looted, leaving Logan to look over the new window that had appeared.

“Your summon ‘Celsius’ has reached level 11, this is the limit of the summon’s power allowed by the spell Summon _ Elemental, combined with your skill increases. ‘Celsius’ will cease to gain experience until you use a higher level spell or heighten the mastery of your skills.”

“Well, there is the limit mentioned some time ago. I’ll have to think about his role in my party later”, Logan thought to himself as he took a short rest after the most recent encounter.

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