Entering Massed Combat: Outbreak Defence

Accumulated Experience: 85320

Experience awarded based on contribution at end of combat.

Contribution: 0.000%

“It’s quieted down, some.” The gruff guard-captain in charge of getting us into the dungeon was displaying a weird combination of being overawed at our status and dismissive of our level. “His Lordship’s party went right after the first wave died down. After that, they stopped for a bit, but now it’s coming out at a trickle. Natural spawn rate, I guess.”

He didn’t seem happy about outfitting us with the Duke’s precious gear, but “King’s Orders” weren’t to be dismissed. We had our own arms and armour, of course, but we were being supplied with supplies, rope, pitons and potions. All good stuff— or I should say Great Quality stuff— that filled for all the things that we would have brought if we were planning on delving a dungeon today.

Not all of us were going. All three of us Champions were, but Kaito was the only one bringing her entire entourage. This wasn’t a fight we were going to win with numbers— our entire plan was to hope that one of our gods had something figured out. Risking anyone else seemed both foolish and callous, so we were going down with the absolute minimum of support.

That minimum turned out to be the entirety of Kaito’s harem because they refused to let her out of their sight. Given that, it made sense to regard this as Kaito’s show, with Isidre and I along for support.

I assumed Isidre had her own reasons for leaving her support behind. I know I did.

“If I don’t make it back from this crazy plan,” I’d told my guys, “Someone needs to be around to keep those kids safe.”

“And how are we supposed to do that?” Janie asked incredulously. “If that giant gets out, he’ll munch on your dungeon for a snack!”

“It’s still hidden,” I pointed out. “It’ll go for one of the others. And, I don’t know what you can do in the worst-case scenario. Maybe evacuate them? It’s hard to say.”

I sighed. Despite the King’s statement, I didn’t think there was a limit on how bad this could get.

“Let’s focus on the less-bad options, where the dungeon is contained, but I don’t come out. In which case you’ll need to sort out… everything. The kids, Rhis, the bank back in Talnier.”

“Shit, that sounds like a lot of work,” Janie snorted. Kyle and Felicia were looking worried. “So you had better come back so I don’t have to do it.”

We walked up to the sally port. Since the courtyard was clear, we should be able to walk right in. I was temporarily disguised as one of Isidre’s followers. Officially, it was only two Chosen saving the day. I was in the centre of the group, with Kaito and Isidre on either side. The girls had made growly noises when Isidre wanted to walk next to him.

“Do you think this will actually work?” I asked as we walked up. “Or is it all an elaborate plot to get rid of the King’s problems?”

“It’s not the first time I’ve heard of this… phenomenon. Stories of Champions up against impossible odds triumphing… through skill, but also with the aid of incredible coincidence.” He sighed. “I’d rather not be putting it to the test, though.”

“It’s like one of your isekai stories, isn’t it?” I said glumly. “Does this mean that we’re destined to triumph?”

“My experience has stayed fairly close to the genre so far,” he admitted. “But… if anything was actually destined, I don’t think there would be a need for us to be here.”

“Duit wouldn’t set me a challenge I couldn’t overcome,” Isidre interjected. “At least… I think she wouldn’t.”

We walked into the courtyard, picking our way through the monster corpses. Everything smelled of blood and ichor. It reminded me of Talnier, after its Break.

“Insects, spiders, crabs and reptiles,” I pointed out, identifying the corpses.

“Yes?” Kaito said, not understanding.

“No slugs or slimes,” I explained. We’d been given a briefing on what to expect on each level. “And the reptiles don’t look like the really big ones. They might not have been able to make it up here, but the slugs shouldn’t have been stopped.”

“They can squeeze through small gaps,” Kaito said. The big reptiles—”

“We should probably just say dinosaurs, even if they don’t have the name for them,” I said.

“The dinosaurs then, are on the seventh floor, while the slugs are the level below…”

“There must be something keeping the slugs back, and it's probably the squad that was already there.”

“Let us hope then, that they remain alive long enough for us to reinforce them.”

The first floor of the Maze of the Forsaken Giant was a literal maze. A warren of tunnels made for insects and other burrowing things. Not the best choice for disgorging a horde of monsters, but I wasn’t sure if dungeons planned for future breaks.

The tunnels were plenty large for us, a lot of the insects were significantly bigger than human size. The giant lizards and snakes that had come through were mostly based on a long, thin body plan that had also had no problems coming through. I didn’t see a Tyrannosaurus rex fitting in these tunnels though.

The only obstacle remaining here was the darkness, which I dealt with via a [Light] spell, making my first contribution to the team. We did have light-stones and a few glowing weapons— a marked improvement on lanterns, but a [Light] spell or two was more convenient.

Slaying the occasional fresh spawn was easy enough as we followed the map we had been provided and made our way to the second floor. This was more of the same, with different insects. It was also almost empty, and we made our way through without trouble.

I made a note as we progressed, as a future dungeon builder, to either not bother with mazes, or to change them more than occasionally. The Guild worked hard to map new floors, and I could see why. The difference between wandering around looking for the exit, and walking straight to it, was considerable.

That said, mazes had some uses. They kept the delvers there for longer, increasing mana regeneration. We, and the other delvers, were having that effect right now. Providing more mana for the dungeon to make monsters with. However, that mana didn’t compare to what the Kingdom was outright feeding it.

I’d asked why they hadn’t cut off the dungeon's mana supply, forcing it to subsist on what it could naturally gather.

“A good thought, but that has its own dangers,” the King had said. “An outbreak ends when the dungeon runs out of mana and can no longer summon creatures, but to cut it off from its supply runs the risk of overspend.”

They didn’t actually know how it worked, but I could deduce the problem from their garbled explanations. Dungeons had an upkeep cost, and the more monsters they summoned, the higher that cost. Once that cost equalled mana regeneration, they stopped summoning new monsters. If mana regeneration was suddenly reduced, your upkeep costs could take you below zero mana.

“All we really know is that if a dungeon overspends, it can become damaged and fail,” the King had said. “The structural reinforcement for the large caverns can be removed, and entire levels can collapse.”

About a quarter of the city was built over that dungeon. A collapse could be even more devastating than the Giant escaping.

“One of the many reasons we make taking Dungeon Cores illegal,” the King had added.

All of that said, we found our way easily through the two levels of the insect warren and found ourselves on Barnacle Beach.

“That’s… quite a sight,” Kaito said. Her companions murmured agreement— I didn’t think that they’d seen many dungeons. For myself, I did think it was quite a spectacular view, if not up to the standard set by Rhis’s final level, or the mind-bending rift of the Adamant Guardians Mine.

We were looking at an extensive open cavern. It was lit— the monsters here liked the light— so we could see the full extent of it. It was at least a mile across, and doughnut-shaped, with a huge curved pillar in the centre.

Between us and the pillar was another maze, this one constructed out of jagged pillars of rocks and canyons with equally steep sides. You had the option of following the maze, or avoiding it by making your way along the top. However…

“The barnacles are still here,” Isidre noted.

“Not like they can go anywhere,” Orino replied.

Indeed, the barnacles were still stuck where our briefing had placed them. They were the greater danger of this level. The crabs were generally around Threat twelve, but the barnacles…

[Identification]: - Giant Barnacle - Threat 15 - Properties: Armoured, Immobile, Sticky

I wasn’t sure how barnacles worked, normally. Something about filtering water? These ones were too high to be submerged, so they fed by grasping people with sticky tentacles. At Threat fifteen, we could probably take them, but it would be easier to just avoid them, especially since…

“I expected the crabs to be gone, but shouldn’t there be some water?” Fassi asked. “They said the amount varied, but there’s none at all.”

Barnacle beach was supposed to be populated by crabs below, and barnacles above. Waves swept through the maze in some sort of approximation of the tides. Sometimes just an annoyance, sometimes swift and deep enough to sweep an adventurer off their feet. Not today though.

“Makes things easier for us,” Nori put in. “Though, I was looking forward to getting my feet wet.”

“Not me,” Fassi said, flicking her long ears at the thought. The other girls agreed, so it must have been an otter-kin thing.

We didn’t have a map for this one, our guides had recommended going over the top. This wasn’t a hard maze though, we just had to keep making for the central pillar and look for one of the pits that led to…

“No water in here, either,” Nori said. As the ranger, she’d been taking point and had found our first exit. This was supposed to lead to the water level, but…

“I guess…” I said, thinking it through, “That since the fish couldn’t escape, they were deemed surplus to requirements and… flushed?”

“Yay, no more water level!” Fassi exclaimed. We had been given water-breathing potions for this level, but it looked like they wouldn’t be needed.

“Wasn’t there supposed to be a group on the next level down?” Ettalle said thoughtfully. Everyone got a little quiet. We hadn’t seen any sign of the life that should be on this level, but we hadn’t seen any bodies either.

We kept going, a little more subdued. What had been the underwater level was now another massive cavern, this one supported by numerous pillars. At the centre was a massive pit, from which light shone through from below.

“I wonder if that wasn’t the cause of the vibrations they were hearing above,” I wondered. The centre of the floor was supposed to be the exit but it was raised high enough to stop the water from flowing out. Smashing that barrier would have made a hell of a noise.

We headed over. There were a few dead fish on the ground, but it was clear that the majority of the local monsters had been swept down to the next level. When we got to the hole, we could see the devastation that had been wrought.

Snake Valley had been a kind of labyrinth. With just one winding path to follow, it had been described to us as a sunny, green valley curving around many times until it got to the exit. Quite pleasant, if it wasn’t for the snakes.

It had been turned into a temporary river— a river that was in flood. Debris from the floor above had swept through, scouring the lower part of the valley, leaving boulders and dead fish behind. Some of the water remained, possibly even some of the fish.

At the edge of the devastation, the high-tide mark if you would, we saw our first human corpses.