"Relax Chaikaph," said Frizua the healer as he placed his hand on her shoulder, "you know we can't do anything about it. They're all jerks anyway; it will be better in a few months when we get some decent gear anyway."
By the time the team was on the long road from the city gate toward the mountains, all eating their hot morning bun with some meat inside it, Chaikaph had calmed down and was happily practicing throwing her knife at different targets along the way. Elis was as usually keeping a watchful eye out for any opportunities along the road to make some extra money, so every now and then the team would make a detour to kill a small monster just of the path for extra experiences so it was mid-day by the time they climbed the last hill crest before the location of the quest.
As Elis was scrambling a rocky outcrop, as he was talking to the other warrior, Chaikaph as if they were just out for a morning stroll.
"Let hope that this is not a waste of time and their nothing here after all this climbing..." Elis said.
"What... the... H..."
Just as he got his first look at the quest location, he stopped talking in mid-sentence and just stood on the crest of the rocky hill with the wind blowing his untidy hair all over his face. Brushing the hair out of his face he eyes squinted to see the detail of what he saw. In the distance beside a large hill giving way to a valley, he could see a large castle with a central keep standing high in the sky with a strange flag flying on the top. The outer fortification of the castle consisted of a large gatehouse with a fortified wall all the way around it made in what seemed to be on stone as if had been molded into places. Every twenty meter was a large fortified tower with battlements on the tower and on the walls. Elis could just make out slits in the tower where archers would be able to shot anybody approaching the castle.
As Elis move from foot to foot showing his nerves, as he wondered about what was happening and if this was the correct quest location; he could see that the castle was newly built as all the stone look freshly cut except for a blackened area around the entrance to gatehouse that seems to have been burn by a fire.
He could see no apparent guards at the entrance to the gate which he was surprised by for such a large fortification. There was a solid stone road with ditches on either side up the large wooden and metal door in the gatehouse that stood open.
"What the hell," said Chaikaph, in bewilderment," is that?"
As everybody was wondering the same thing nobody gave the smart, but the useless, answer of saying a castle, but they all stood with the cold wind ripping through their homemade clothes causing them all to fold their arms in front of their body to keep warm. Elis started to think of leading everybody back down the hill, but he remembered the amount of money that could be gained from the quest well at least it not an empty valley.
"Well if anywhere is going to have gold or equipment of some value then that is," said Elis in a hopeful voice, "I think we should investigate and see what we find as it did say that it was a discovery of a lifetime. It not many times that you find a large castle in the middle of nowhere."
As the group was still shocked, they were surprised to see that Elis started to walk into the valley toward the castle in the distance. Following him, nobody talked as they were still amazed by the discovery in the middle of nowhere. The long walk to the gatehouse of the castles was made easier as soon of the adventure were on the stone road that was completely smooth like it had been layered by magic.
Caeni, the wizard, kept casting a spell of revel to see if it had any magical properties, but all of his spells rebound as they diffused into the air, with his face getting more and more curious.
Closer to the large gatehouse door, Elis saw a figure of a boy, about their age, standing just inside the entrance, standing out of the wind. He was wearing smart clothes as if he was rich but not an uppity noble with all their expensive weaponry and jewelry that had magical properties. Held by a belt on his waist was a simple mace, that looks dangerous and well made. Elis saw a large puppy at his feet that seemed to be looking at them with keen interest as if he was assessing the threat; they could be.
"Welcome," said the boy," my name is Grikius, and I'd like to congratulate you on being here the first adventure to get here."
"What is the castle called," said Elis in a voice of wonder still mystified even with the polite greeting from a boy about his age.
"Oh, dam I knew that we had forgotten something," said Grikius as if he was speaking to the air with an exasperated look that changes to a smile as he looked back at the adventures, "will it not really the castle that the discovery here, it the dungeon is, that called Hidden-Caverns."
All four of the adventures opened their mouths in shock as they wondered if what they heard was correct. Elis had read stories about the power and wealth of dungeons, but all the stories indicated that they were always surrounded by a large city, not in the middle of nowhere. He knew that there were only a few dungeons in the kingdom, and none of them were near here.
"What do you mean a dungeon," Elis blurted out before he could think of more appropriate questions.
"The type of dungeon that you find monsters in it, and gain money and experience that help you level. We also have a hospice; a shop where you can get equipment and supply; and accommodation if you need. As you're the first adventures here, you can use the accommodation for free if you like and remember you do have the gold to spend in the shop. Did you want me to lead you to the dungeon or the shop first?"
As Elis looked around his surprised team, they all mouthed the word 'dungeon' to him, so he said back to Grikius, "Dungeon please!"
Grikius nodded and said, "By the way, the guards are an orc, but you don't have to worry about them as long as you do nothing wrong outside the dungeon. Once you're inside it all up to you to decide what you do, but just a note of warning the difficulty of the levels to get harder as you go downward. You might want to want to only fight in the first level on your first trip."
As he warned them Grikius indicated for them to follow him into the courtyard of the castle, with a gesture of his hand. Elis, as was his habit, led the way with the other talking in whispers behind him.
As he exited the gatehouse, he saw the first of the orc guards standing tall with a massive spear guarding the entrance to the keep. He was surprised and slightly horrified as the orc seemed to have a grimace on his face as if he was having trouble going to the toilet and was in a lot of pain.
"You can stop trying to smile," said Grikius to the guard in a voice as if performance was not going well.
When Grikius said that, the face of the orc turned from the grimace to a fierce look that Elis normal associated with an orc, as the signs of pain disappeared from the orcs body.
"Sorry about that," said Grikius with a sad smile," we sometimes forget that it not in their nature to look welcoming, so I asked them to smile at you, which seem to not have worked as I would have liked. The dungeon entrance is in the keep. Please follow me."
Elis following the young man past the guard and through a large doorway into the central keep full of the scrupled statue that seemed to be so lifelike. He wondered how anybody could afford to employ some many artists to work on such a castle. As the adventures approached a large wooden doorway, that was set in each that seemed to be carved into twisting trees with leaves on the branches carved out of stone the door opened automatically as if it had felt their presence.
"This is the entrances to the dungeon, so I'll leave you here when you come out of the shop in the courtyard at the back. It has a sign, and I'll meet you there. Good luck and have a good time." said the polite Grikius.
Without a look back, Grikius left them to their own devices. Elis and his team looked at the long corridor and started down it.
Caeni said in a whispered voice, "Do you know what the finder's fee is for a dungeon?"
"No," said the excited Elis, "but it is going to be large. Shall we find out what awaits us in its depth then?"
The team of adventures
all smiled at each other as they went forward to battle against the monsters that awaited them.
Chapter 3 Adventures
Ceras was in front of the shop with Grikius as they both sat nervously behind the counter, waiting for the four adventures to finish shopping.
“How did they enjoy the dungeon?” Ceras ask again in a quiet voice as not to disturb the shoppers.
“You keep asking me that,” said Grikius slightly annoyed, “and it hasn't changed from the last time I told you, they came out laughing and smiling with a lot of items. It seemed that Hidden-Caverns was also very generous in giving out money for the monster they kill. Here comes the leader, I think his names, Elis.”
The warrior that was still in his homemade clothes that you were required to start your adventuring services in, arms were piled high with clothing, amour, bags, and some weapons. As he walked across the wooden floorboards in the bright and spacious shop squeaked slightly as he stepped on them with his load. Ceras had been watching him going up and down with the rest of the team of adventures for an hour, as they whispered in excited voices.
“You’ve got everything that adventure’s needs here,” said the excited Elis, “I hope you don’t mind by I’ve brought a lot of items and so had the rest it seems.”
With a heavy thud, he placed all of the items on the counter for Grikius to calculate the cost. Ceras watch in wonder as the clever Grikius quickly sorted through the items and seemed to add the cost up in his head and they named the price to a happy looking warrior.
“You’ve still got about half a gold left do you want me to give it to you in silvers,” said Grikius with a smile as he reached into a solid looking metal box and relived a leather bag to count out the change from.
As Grikius finished counting out the money, he passed it out to the surprised warrior, who quickly put the money away in his money purse.
“Do mind if I ask you a few questions?” said Ceras putting on his best friendly smile.
Elis nodded as Ceras said, “How did you find the dungeon? Was it too hard? Or too easy?”
By this time, some of the other team members had a place large bundles on the counter to purchase.
“We certainly made enough money and gain loads of experience,” said an enthusiastic Frizua, “we did have some injuries but nothing that we’ve not seen before.”
“I think that the first few rooms were quite easy for us,” said the wizard Caeni in a soft voice, “but if you’ve just started at level one, then it would be Ok. Once we were got past those rooms, we started to have to work for our money, but it was really exciting as it got harder and harder. We're going back in with all the weapons to see how far we can get.”
“Excepted for me I’m off to the guild to make sure were the first ones to announce the discovery of a dungeon,” said Elis as he was putting on the clothing from the counter “were hoping that it's going to be worth a lot of money. But I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“That great,” said Ceras with his best shop keepers smile on his face as he showed all his teeth, “just remember you have free accommodation and if you need to be healed you can use the hospice as we have a very good healer.”
Everybody nodded as Ceras left the shop to reenter the tower to go back to practice to increase his power for the possible attacks in the future, that now the dungeon was known about. He was happy but slightly worried at the same time as it would be good to see the dungeon gaining strength with all the adventures fighting the monster, but with it came the risk of higher-level humans wanting to take over the dungeon by force, with would not be good for him and Hidden-Caverns.
--
It was late in the evening when Elis ran into the guild room, with its magical light give a subdued light to the large room in the dark of the evening. The same administrator that he had taken the quest out with that morning was still at the counter ready to help people. Elis ran up to her position at the counter and tried to regain his breath as he had run most of the way in his new clothes and armor.
“I’ve come to report in what we found with that quest we took out this morning,” he said when he had finally gotten his breath about.
“Wait a second.”
The administrator walked over to a large tome and placed it on the table looking for the quest that she had taken down last night from the two young adventures.
“Ok tell me what it is then?” she said, dipping the quill into a pot of ink.
“It's a dungeon,” the boy said with excitement, “a full multi-level dungeon like they have in the capital city of the kingdom, that I've heard about.”
The woman looked up in amazement as she looked at the young man and said, “Please place your hand above the sphere.”
To her surprise, as the young man placed his hand over the sphere, it indicated that he was telling the truth. Quickly the administrator scribed an urgent note to the assessor's department to investigate at once.
Chapter 4 The First Challengers
“The guild assessor had finally decided to turn up,” said Hidden-Caverns as Ceras was practicing channeling his magical power through his body, “it's best if you go to the surface and give him a guided tour.”
As Ceras moved toward the door of his apartment, he sighed as they had been anticipating this visit for the last two weeks since the young adventures started coming to the dungeon at first in small numbers, but now in droves as they battled in the first level.
A few of the early group, to come to the dungeon, had now reached the labyrinth, but nobody had been able to complete it yet, so they had not been able to enter the lower levels.
He wondered why had taken the guild so long to send an assessor out but was not too bothered as it had given them more time with the lower level adventure to have a chance to gain experience without any interferences. Ceras was keen to keep the dungeon independent of the guild and any other power structure but still had no clue of how to do that if a high-level noble turned up.
As Ceras approached the portal with its dark surface that rippled as if it was a pond on a winter's day and entered the surface to reappear at the top of the castle were several adventures were waiting to use it to gain direct access to the labyrinth as they had already finished the first level. Ceras noticed that the adventures had a lot of the gear that had been purchased from the shop in the castle courtyard. Ceras smiled as he knew that Grikius was enjoying himself running the shop and was happy to gain the experiences for his trader class.
All of the adventures were doing well. Rinaldo had been continuing to develop his army advancing in the tactician class as well as a barbarian. He was now barding himself as the barbarian general of the dungeon with his horde of the monster at his back. The lower levels still need to be cleared of monsters every now and then as the adventure had not gotten to them yet so he had plenty of practice.
Symania had been working in the hospice with all the injuries from the adventures in the dungeons. She was gaining significant experiences with all the healing she was able to do. Grikius had had to insist that she charged for the healing, but as she was slow to do it, he had taken over the money side of the hospice with a few well-placed kobolds to collect the money.
Rhef, of course, was the busiest of them all, as she was working on level after level of the dungeon with a large construction force that seems to enjoy making more and more spectacular levels. Sometimes the rest of the team of adventures that were now managing the dungeon did not see her for days at a time as she was so caught up in her work.
Walking down the stairwell, Ceras brought up his stats to check on his own progress:
Character Name:
Ceras
1st Class
Wizard
Character Total Level*
10
Major
Strength
Fortitude
Agility
Number
71
71
71
Major
Intelligence
Charisma
Knowledge
Number
95
20
66
Minor
HP
MP
Stamina
Carry Limit
Number
453
605
365
152
Regen Sec
7.1
20
8.1
N/A
It had been hard and intense work, but now he was at level 10, and soon would be getting a new skill next level. Ceras was still slightly unhappy that he needed to put all of this stat point from his level progression, into knowledge, to increase the number of levels of the dungeon. But was happy that the dungeon was able to have fifty levels now. They just need to be built, which would take a while even with Rhef and her crew working so hard.
"The guild assessor is just about to walk in the gates of the gates of the castle, he'll be the older man with all the guild badges," said Hidden-Caverns in a toon of voice that was slightly bored with what was happing.
"Are you not to bothered by this?" asked Ceras to the air as some of the adventures entering the keep looked at him as he was conversating with the dungeon.
"I'm not worried about the guild as they will remain neutral in any conflict between use and anybody trying to take the dungeon over," said Hidden-Caverns in a matter of fact tone, "as they will make money and prestige anyway. So, don't be worried about showing the assessor around, the upper levels as it will help them set some quest for the dungeon. It best not to let them see or hear about the dragon and the lowest level with the dungeon center in it."
"Find," said Ceras as he passed a young group of adventures in the courtyard all excited about getting into the dungeon for the first time, taking away about what they should expect with a map in hand.
Dungeon Battle Page 2
