The thirty odd figures carved of jagged stone and in the vague shape of humanoids loped down the mountain side towards the line of waiting adventurers, soldiers and volunteers. Their steps shook the ground, but no sound escaped from their jagged maws as they advanced. A wave of skill empowered projectiles crashed against them, causing the frontmost monsters to stagger, so falling, others shattering into chunks of rock as their bodies were ripped apart.
The charge slowed, but didn’t break, monts later the wave of stone n crashed against a wall of defensive skills and raised shields. Stone dented tal, force buffeted rock, the line of humans was forced back. Then, as a skill empowered shout rose from among them that surged their strength, they struck back.
Lucia’s vision was mostly obscured by the broad back of Rou, the large boy taking the brunt of the elental’s charge with raised arms wreathed in scrap tal. He grunted and took a single step back. To her side, Cerri had her hands raised, a look of intense concentration on her face. She was doing sothing, but Lucia couldn’t tell what, perhaps a support technique. Whatever she did, Rou held easier than the frontliners to either side of him, and then as a team they struck back.
Her sword of ivory wood stabbed into the lower torso of the elental Rou was facing as it materialised in her hand with an effort of will and a warping of air. The effects of [Hidden Weapon] combined with [Empower Blade] as well as her sword's natural strength pierced solid stone and punched cleanly through out the other side.
To the large boy’s left, Hylon made a similar attack with his spear, his first strike dealing minimal damage as it glanced off a jagged chunk of rock, but his second and third blows to the sa area dealt escalating damage.
The elental crumbled as Rou’s tal wrapped fist crashed into its misshapen head, but a second monster took its place a mont after. There was another shout, and Lucia felt a small surge of vitality enter her body, but it did little as she wasn’t wounded. There was a flash of light to her left, and a brilliant hamr made of lightning fell down onto a trio of elentals. She wasn’t sure who had used the skill, but she felt its impact with the ground through her knees, and on the top of her head and tiny fragnts of stone rained down from the monster’s that had been obliterated.
A minute of fighting turned into a second, and then as suddenly as the clash between man and monster had begun, it ended. People fell to their knees, so calling for healing, others cursing their fallen foes. A man who she assud was a guard was hauled away, one of his arms twisted unnaturally, a shard of sharpened stone embedded into his chest. Lucia willed her sword to return to the personal spatial storage [Hidden Weapon] created, and let out a sigh as she felt its weight settle sowhere not quite physical inside of her.
“We won.” Rou said, his cheer making those closest to them wince from the volu of his shout. “I knew we’wud.” He slapped Hylon on the back, the blond haired boy almost falling over onto his face.
“Rou, co here.” Cerri said, ushering the massive teenager towards her. He did so, and the girl frowned in concentration as she grabbed one of his arms. “You have hairline fractures, hold still.”
“R’lly? Can’t feel a thing.”
“Yeah, your bones are still reinforced by my skill. Hang on, I can fix it.”
“Anyone level up?” Hylon asked, shouldering his spear. They all shook their heads. “Sha. More monsters where they ca from though, we’re not even to the dungeon yet.”
“How many more of these attacks can we handle?” Cerri asked, looking nervously up the mountain. “How many more can we expect?”
“We’re halfway to the dungeon.” Lucia said, though she wasn’t sure why she bothered. “This is our third encounter, but the number of elentals will increase the closer we get.”
“And these are the smaller ones?” Hylon said, nodding at the piles of rock. “You said there were ones a lot bigger.”
“There are. I don’t know if they will leave the dungeon though.”
Silas and the guard woman walked among the crowd, the old man having put on a set of plate with decorative silver patterns on the shoulders and breast. He saw that his kids were all fine and nodded in their direction, moving along as he talked to the armoured woman.
“Are they flirting?” Cerri asked as she watched them go.
“Gramps has still got it.” Hylon said, a thoughtful expression coming over his features. “Will we have to call her grandma?”
“Gross.” Cerri said, wrinkling her nose.
Hylon laughed. Rou laughed too, but the larger boy clearly didn’t understand what was funny.
Lucia ignored them and adjusted her own armour. Like her sword and mask, it was made of carved, off-white wood, the material light and as tough as steel. It was also self regenerative, but she hoped that nobody would notice. If she never got hit, they never would, and she didn’t plan to.
Once the wounded were tended to and everyone had a mont to catch their breaths, the call went out to continue the trek up the mountain. It was her queue to head to the front of the subjugation force. They couldn’t get lost on the ascent up the slope, but the valleys, gulleys and crevasses were a natural maze. From what her ntor has said about the interior of dungeons, the magic that comprised them had a strange effect on their spatial dinsions. From the few days she had spent exploring the dungeon of rock and stone, she knew it was true.
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The exact boundary between dungeon and natural landscape was sowhat of a blur, but once you were inside, there was no mistaking your surroundings for anything that had been naturally carved from ti and rain.
An outrider team approached them so twenty minutes later, reporting on an approaching stampede of local beasts through a nearby valley. The ground shook monts later as a plu of dust rose into the air. The humans ford up their defensive line, but the goat-like beasts with jagged stone running along their spines and growing around their twisted horns detoured around them, breaking like water as the herd split in two, then carried on down the mountain.
“Should we have engaged them?” An adventurer asked.
“No.” Silas said, the old man pulling off his helt and running a hand through grey hair. “We must save our strength and pick our battles carefully.”
===
Shadows lengthened as the sun dipped below the peaks of the mountain range, chilling the air and giving the network of ravines the subjugation force stood above a sinister, almost ethereal ambiance. The light from the torches and lanterns so of the humans carried seed to glint off gemstones of a thousand different colours in the darkness below, but Lucia knew from experience that it was an optical illusion.
Both her and her ntor had initially hoped that they were mana shards, and had been disappointed to discover that they simply didn’t exist. Lucia wasn’t at the level where she had access to skill fusion, people only obtained that ability once they reached level twenty five, but she would one day, hopefully soon. Sobody threw a rock down into the ravine, and the sounds of it bouncing off the angular walls echoed back up to their ears.
“How do we get down there?” Lady Eire asked, the noblewoman glancing nervously around at the shadowed recesses of the mountain. Several eyes turned to Lucia, and she had to resist not reflexively pulling her aura up around her like a protective cloak.
The ground trembled.
She looked back down into the darkness, hoping to catch a hint of gold.
Nothing. She told herself that it didn’t an anything.
“Follow .”
===
“And rember!” Silas called. “Our goal is not to destroy the dungeon, but damage it in such a way that it can no longer sustain the break. While we do this, our containnt teams back on the surface will try to catch and kill whatever monsters slip past us. For lack of any better words to use, we’re going to beat the crap out of whatever this place creates until it goes back to sleep. And we’ll reap all the rewards we can out of it while doing so!”
There were a handful of cheers, but most people were subdued. The rock formation the subjugation party was standing on reminded Lucia of an unevenly built switchback stairway, only if they had been constructed for people twice the size as Rou. The humans had only descended so forty tres, but the abyss they found themselves glittered like the night sky, faint rays of light filtering down through a massive gash in the ceiling easily a kilotre or higher above their heads.
Things moved in the darkness, and already they had been assaulted twice by beetle-like monsters made of obsidian stone that clacked their mandibles as they moved for the skill, the rock around their six sharpened legs rippling like water. The creatures had erupted from a series of cracks in the walls, and had defied gravity as they descended on their would-be victims. They were the size of small dogs, and while likely threatening in large numbers, had failed to break the human’s defensive formation.
The subjugation force spilled out into the large round chamber they found themselves, seven person sized ravines that ran from floor to ceiling invited both danger and exploration, while a far wider crevasse led further down into the dungeon.
The teams were each distributed among the passages, with several that had sustained injuries being broken apart and remade on the fly. The main chamber being designated as an advanced camp, and several support personnel that had braved the mountain scurried around to set things up. They were ordered not to travel down any one tunnel for more than thirty minutes, and to return to the entrance at regular intervals.
Lucia wasn’t sure if that would be enough to stop so teams from being separated by the dungeon’s shifting walls, but it was better than anything she could co up with. Most of the information she knew about the dungeon had been wrung out of her, and she was thankful for it. The less ti she spent in the presence of those in charge the better.
A [Scout] that had been sent down the largest passage returned, materialising in a shimring, if slightly blurry haze of light as their stealth skill dropped. They reported spotting two of the larger stone elental variants, and the three strongest teams were dispatched to deal with them. This ssed up the distribution of ravines, which quickly devolved into a shouting match between competing parties as much of the subjegation’s leadership had also left, being among the strongest people present.
In the confusion, Lucia’s team were left behind as people filtered out, eager to complete their duty, or earn the rewards that would co from doing so. Those with non combat classes, but with supplental skills and attributes that would allow them to fight anyway, were likely hunting to complete the requirents to earn such a class. It was these who would see the most imdiate gain in strength, if they survived.
“Do we wait for Silas to co back, or should we go?” Cerri asked, shuffling nervously.
“We should discuss strategy. We had a plan going in, but fighting may prove difficult in the smaller passages with how… uh, large, Rou is.” Hylon said.
“They open up the further in you go.” Lucia said, the three teens turning to look at her.
“I guess we’ll defer to your experience.” Hylon suggested, getting two nods from his two siblings. “Just don’t leave us behind, yeah?”
A distant, echoing crash sounded from the main passage, followed by the sound of steel against stone.
“Fine.” She said, not liking the way they stared expectantly at her masked face. “We’ll focus on the mission, but I also need to find my ntor. He’s down here sowhere. I… I don’t want to lose anyone else.”
“We help how we can.” Rou said, lurching forward to try and slap her on the back. Lucia side stepped his attempt, not wanting her face to et the ground, or for her shoulder to get sprained.
“Let's do this.” Hylon said, lacing his fingers together and cracking his knuckles. “This dungeon won’t know what hit it.”
A weight Lucia didn’t like settled onto her shoulders. Responsibility she didn’t think she deserved. She regretted not being more forceful when Silas had asked for her assistance. Think of it as a test. Lucia told herself. Don’t fail, no matter what.
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