Multiple challengers detected… Your party composition exceeds the current dungeon setup
< Sufficient energy stored within the dungeon core >
Dungeon difficulty has been significantly increased. Challenge stones will be mitigated and effects distributed for this validation attempt.
Dungeon will return to its previous configuration if changes are not validated. Rewards will be increased for a successful validation of dungeon changes.
Kai turned to Syl as she pulled Mira to the side. "Any idea what changes we should expect?"
Syl shrugged. "Could be anything. Usually, a dungeon of this grade won't have that much energy to mage significant changes. So, I would expect it to maintain its theme. But…"
"But this dungeon's been ran constantly for longer than Cibiale has been a free city state," Alicia said, finishing Syl's statement for her.
"So we could run into anything out there?" Ester asked as she stepped back from the door. "And here I thought I would have a nice easy run now that I got that damn stone. Now it's not even going to do anything."
"Relax, it will work on normal dungeon runs. Now, Mira, we just talked about using this when Ester lost track of me. I was going to give it to you when you made up your mind. But we no longer have the benefit of knowing what we are in for."
Syl was holding out a glowing orb that Kai recognised as one of Syl's condensed skills.
"This will unlock something called the advanced party system action. It is what we use to communicate and keep tack of one another," Syl said to Mira as she nodded along.
Mira was mostly ignoring the glowing orb that was held out to her as she listened, both her ears focussed forward on Syl and what she was saying.
"Please don't think I am using this to manipulate you into staying with us. Think of this as a gift. I promised you, if you still want to return to Mountain, we will do everything within our power to get you back to him."
"We'll go with you to smooth things over if that's what you want," Kai said, giving Mira what he hoped was a disarming smile.
One of Mira's cat like lears flicked his way while the rest of her attention remained on Syl.
After a moment of deliberation, Mira reached out to take the orb.
The moment her fingers curled around it, there was a flash, the orb disappeared, and Mira stumbled backwards.
"Oh, she hands the girl the orb, but me… me she slams it into my head without any warning," Ester grumbled jovially.
Kai was about to point out Mira was just a relatively young woman, but seeing that Ester was about the same height and build as the beastkin, he held his tongue.
Creating a precedent that Mira was vulnerable or needed to be treated differently because of her age or circumstances was a slippery slope he did not want to build. Let alone later fall down.
Sure, Syl was working overtime to make Mira comfortable. But, unlike Kai, Syl had a thousand years of watching people traversing difficult situations where they had lost all control and were thrust into unknown or difficult circumstances. So, he trusted her to handle things appropriately and not cause some misunderstanding as he was likely to do.
Sylph would like to add "Mira" to the party.
Kai accepted the mental prompt from the system.
When Kai focused on his party interface for what felt like the first time in a long time, Mira's name appeared just under Ester's own.
Just below her name, a red bar filled up for her health while another blue one for her mana appeared below that.
He took a moment to focus on Mira's name to bring up a part of the party system he had dismissed a long time ago.
Mira's mental state showed as both enthusiastic and apprehensive.
A contradictory mix if he had ever seen one. But when he thought about it, he would be in the same state joining a group of strangers on a dungeon run.
He dismissed the information and pushed it away so it wouldn't show again unless he wanted it to.
Just as the information was fading, a set of six icons that Kai didn't recognise appeared where Castiel, Fayriel and even Gift's name and information appeared just below his, Alicia and Syl's information.
The icons were greyed out, each of them distinct from the other.
Seeing the new icons alongside the status bars and the markers that had appeared in his peripheral vision to show where people were when they were out of sight reminded him just how game-like his personal System was.
He just needed a mini map to complete the feeling.
A round map appeared in the opposite corner of his vision to everyone's status, the sudden discovery making Kai chuckle. He was sure he had tried to get something like this in the past and got nothing.
Wondering what might have changed, he looked around the room and, seeing that the little map only showed what he was looking at, he pushed it away with a thought.
The new discovery was worth further investigation, but getting distracted with it right now in an unknown dungeon could be problematic.
"…So you can manipulate what you are seeing to work almost anyway you want. You should also have access to our storage system. We will cover that when needed. You got all that?" Syl asked Mira as she finished a brief explanation of how they typically used the advanced party system.
"I think so," Mira said with a nod as her head tilted just slightly off to the side as if she was focusing on something other than Syl.
"And remember, there is something we call party chat. It will allow us to communicate at the speed of thought like this…" Syl went silent. 'So don't be alarmed when you start hearing our voices, but we either aren't talking or we're nowhere near close to you. Distance isn't an issue, and you can talk to anyone of us or all of us at once. The system detects intent and does all the work,' she finished using the party chat, her lips not moving but her words coming through to them all loud and clear.
Mira's ears flicked about in confusion for a moment before they returned to Syl. Her jaw tightened as she focused on not speaking aloud.
'Like this?' Mira asked through the chat.
'Perfect,' Kai replied.
"If you lapse and you find yourself talking to us aloud in the heat of the moment, don't worry, the system will transmit what you are saying to the rest of us if that was your intent," Syl explained further.
"It's kind of like a radio. Only it's mystically attached to us through our personal systems and controlled subconsciously," Kai explained. "Though it seems to be limited in what information we can send. We have to use shared senses to share what we are seeing or hearing, and that can be a bit jarring if you get motion sickness. Would be interesting to give you that skill. I wonder what it would be like to see the world through your eyes, Mira."
Thinking about how things might look through Mira's eyes, he remembered he could use his arcane eyes within the dungeon. He let his eyes flare to life as he released his subconscious clamp on the mana that naturally tried to trickle into them. The dark corners of the room receded in his vision as he guessed his irises took on their normal blue purplish glow.
Everyone turned to look at him for some reason. Mira especially seemed to give him an intense look. Though it was hard to tell with the fabric covering her eyes.
Now that Kai had let the mana flow back into his eyes, he felt that there was something more when he looked back at Mira.
Before he could put any more attention to the odd feeling, Syl tapped Mira on the shoulder, pulling her attention away from him as Syl's own beautiful cyan eyes started to glow.
Mira's jaw went slack as Syl gave her a wink and then turned to Kai.
"Kai, I told you, no one on Alea has a clue what radios are," Syl sighed. "And yes, sense share would be a wonderful skill to share with Mira. But, to give voice to your own passing thoughts, I'm afraid with us at the start of an unknown dungeon now is hardly the time to run any experiments."
Realising he had made a faux pas by saying radio, Kai looked for something else that would fit his analogy. There was only one thing that came to mind.
"I mean, one of these things," he said, pulling a communication crystal from storage and holding it up for everyone to see.
"That analogy works better," Syl said, eyeing the stone.
"Don't let anyone in the communication crystal industry know we can communicate mind to mind using just the system. While we still haven't found the limit to the range at which we can use the system action to communicate, those communication crystals are sold as luxury goods. It's big money. Which means those involved would happily silence anyone who they thought could affect their profits," Alicia warned the team with a distant look, her golden eyes glinting in the way they did whenever she thought about something that involved substantial amounts of coin.
"They'll not be happy when Alea is fully integrated into the system and more advanced system actions are unlocked for everyone who reaches the right tiers. Now, I think we are all ready to get this started. We go in silent. That means mental communication only," Syl said to everyone.
Their group agreed through the party chat as Ester once again took hold of the doors handle.
There was no notification this time, but as soon as she pushed the door, there was a loud creaking sound that echoed into the room, causing them all to wince.
Ester, deciding not to stretch the sound out any longer, made the obvious choice and pushed the door open faster.
She slid through the gap as soon as it was wide enough for her to get through without snagging her armour and making more noise.
Kai followed immediately after her.
He had to duck as an arrow smacked into the wood of the door opposite the one they had opened to exit what his now adrenalin filled brain told him was a small chapel.
He raised a quick barrier and kept moving.
Stumbling or stalling now could trap the others in the doorway and cause a choke point.
'Orc scout, across by the metal gate to the graveyard. Too far for me to rush,' Ester called as a mark appeared and Kai locked eyes on a tall green orc raising a war bow to fire another arrow.
Castiel came flying out of the chapel behind him. The barrier Syl had attached to one of the old anchor stones the sage had made, now attached to a little harness Ester had made for her, flaring to life as another arrow caught it in a glancing blow.
The orc saw their arrow deflect and made a split second decision to lower their bow and pull a horn from their belt.
Ester was halfway down the path.
There was no way she would make it in time.
Kai conjured a mana bolt as he watched the orc move to duck behind the low wall that surrounded the small cemetery they found themselves in.
Kai went to release the mana bolt, but there was a blue flash from above and watched as the now headless orc toppled out of sight.
'Damn, Kai, you took its head right off,' Ester said as she slowed to a stop and turned to look around the corner of the gate at the now dead orc.
'That was Castiel,' Kai said as he watched the little white dragon fly a low circle around the perimeter of the graveyard. Her nestmate, Fayriel, already flying counter to her.
'Area's clean. No sign that any of the patrols heard anything,' Syl said as her wisp form drifted back down from above.
Castiel appeared on his shoulder, and she chirped that there was no prey to worry about.
Fayriel took up a similar position on his mother's shoulder when Syl turned back to her human form with a theatrical burst of cyan flames.
Mira and Alicia came out of the little chapel and looked about.
'That was quick,' Gift complained as Alicia slowly released the tension on the shot they had prepared.
'Er guys,' Ester called from where she was crouched next to the dead orc, 'I think I know one of the changes the dungeon went through.'
'What is it?'
'This isn't your run of the mill corrupted, dull, brutish orc. It's a partially corrupted Orec'kien,' Ester explained as they all walked over to her.
When he could see the corpse of the orc better, he had to agree.
The orc looked like it was mostly green, but when Ester pulled aside part of the orc's shirt, the flesh was a patchy mix of green and sickly dull red.
It wasn't at all what he had expected from skimming the dungeon guide or from his lessons on the myriad of races on Alea, and how they differed from ones found in rifts and dungeons.
'Well, that explains what I saw from above,' Syl said as she tapped a finger on her lips in thought.
'Wich was?'
'The dungeons changed the theme from city ruins, where we need to find what caused its collapse, to-'
There was a boom in the distance followed by cheers and bellows.
'-to a city in the midst of falling to corruption.'
Taking out a notebook, Alicia knelt down to inspect the orc more thoroughly.
'What is it?' Ester asked.
'To the best of my knowledge, there has never been any record of an Orec'kien being partially corrupted. Whenever they turn up in dungeons, doesn't matter what they are. Goblins, humans or El'vei, the corruption is always absolute. . Despite the false claims and horror stories of adventurers coming out infected, no one actually knows how the corruption spreads. It's just assumed it's a dungeon thing as it has never been documented as spreading outside dungeons beyond the rare dungeon break.'
Ester turned to Syl, 'You said we had to find an artifact that caused the destruction of the city. What are the odds that we now need to find what is causing the corruption?'
Syl shook her head, 'I doubt we will find anything definitive. I know what caused the corruption and why so many dungeons use it. It's not something the system is likely to share anymore. So far as I can remember, the corruption is still out there in the multiverse. But it is contained.'
Ester just nodded, satisfied with the explanation.
There was another explosion, further away this time.
'But as far as our objective goes, I think you're close. Odds are we need to contain the outbreak. See to the survivors and destroy or, more likely, kill the local source of the outbreak.'
'Good enough for me, where do we begin? Should we go help the survivors?' Ester communicated as she nodded in satisfaction.
Syl sighed and shook her head, 'No, if this scenario is all about the corruption, then the only way to save them is finding the source. It's likely everyone in this city is already infected, they just don't know it yet.'
'Are we infected?' Mira asked, the wilt of her ears revealing her concern.
'There is no chance of that in a dungeon… However, if this were a rift, that might be a different issue. At most, we will get a temporary system debuff if we take too long completing the dungeon scenario.'
'Damn. Being on a time limit is really going to mess with looting this place,' Alica said as she looked at all the buildings that circled the cemetery. 'Who knows what we can find in a city like this.'
'We might get lucky and the dungeon might stay open for further investigation once it's completed,' Kai said as he felt Alicia's eagerness to loot leak through the bond.
'Right, Mira, before we head off. Do you see anything of note? Any dungeon affectations of spirits waiting around to talk to you?' Syl asked, her tone somewhat hopeful.
Mira shook her head, 'Theres bodies, but nothing of interest. It's weird, not a lingering spirit in sight.'
Syl shrugged, 'While system made dungeons usually go to great lengths to make themselves believable. Most people at our level have no way of seeing spirits. So, they don't typically show up until much higher levels. Unless of course it's part of the scenario or theme.'
Kai had a thought. 'Do you want Mira in the party just so we won't send you looking into any graveyards anymore?'
'No, that's just a bonus,' Syl said as she turned into a wisp and shot up high above them.
As marked, dungeon spawned, corrupted started appearing all around them in different colours, Kai got ready and started to release a steady stream of condensed mana bolts to drift up above them.
Alica did her part with Gift to help with Kai's preparations as they created an illusion that would cover the arsenal of Kai's mana that was forming a cloud of death just waiting to be released on their opponents.
Kai glanced at Mira as she upended her satchel. Two heavy, foot-wide metal spheres thumped to the cobbled street at her feet.
Ester gasped as the metal spheres came alive, one collecting dirt from the area around it to form a body of earth around limbs that detached from a clockwork core.
The other rose to float above the ground, a body of flame condensing around the metal arms that clicked out of place as it eschewed the use of legs.
"Those aren't golems. They're bloody ancient automata!" Ester said aloud, unable to contain herself.
'What's the difference?' Kai asked as he absently notice two of Mira's grey icons below her status light up. One was orangy red with the symbol of a flame. The other, a brown with a symbol he guessed was a boulder.
'The difference? The difference, Kai, is no one knows how to get ancient automata to work! At least not consistently,' Ester said as she bounced in her armour.
'Wik is in that one, Pepple that one,' Mira said, pointing to each of them.
'Spirits!' Ester said with a clack as her gauntlet came up to facepalm her helmet. 'How anyone thought they were golems escapes me, you used these in your guild assessment, and no one's approached you yet?'
'A couple of people did… but they felt wrong, a bit off, so I started avoiding them. And it was Pepple who controlled both of them in my assessment.'
Kai was watching as the core of the one that was building itself out of earth disappeared into its still growing body as it started selecting cobbles and placing them on its body like armour.
It certainly looked like an earth golem to him, but he was no expert.
He had lessons that covered things like elementals, and that would have been his next guess. Especially when he looked at the other metal sphere that had grown into a somewhat humanoid shape made of flame, that was just a little shorter than Mira and Ester.
'Where did you find them? The Houses have vaults of them, they're pre system and no one remembers their secretes. To think spirits are the key!' Ester said as she wriggled the fingers of her gauntlets enthusiastically. 'They've had limited success with elemental cores… spirits!'
'I was wondering why on Alea it was spirits this, spirits that. Maybe there is some forgotten history there,' Kai said as he watched a group of marks move along what he guessed was just a few streets over from them.
'Can I ask how you came upon the Automata?' Ester asked as she moved closer to Mira.
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'Mountain guided me to them, they were in some boxes hidden in a cave. The spirits in the cave were protecting them, they couldn't remember why. My friends helped me get what I could carry. I would have brought more to the city…' she patted her satchel. 'Two was all this would fit.'
'We could get her more! She can store them in the domain and pull them out whenever she needs them. No need for that satchel.. though a ring or bracelet of some kind wouldn't go amiss,' Ester said, eyeing Mira's bag and the two Automata enthusiastically.
'It's an idea for later. Right now, we either need to get ready for a fight or find somewhere to hide,' Syl said as she reappeared.
Kai checked the perimeter one last time as he readied a Spectral longsword.
They had entered the dungeon through some kind of chapel or, now that he could see it from the outside with its walled off cemetery, perhaps it was more accurate to say they had entered the dungeon through a mausoleum.
That little cemetery that they now stood at the gates to seemed to be in what guessed would turn out to be an older part of the city.
They were surrounded by rough stone buildings that had been patched multiple times over the years, the stones often haphazard and disjointed. Rough, gritty mortar that looked like it would fall away with the slightest touch, barely holding everything together.
The buildings were squat and misshapen, each terraced building no shorter than two or three floors with each subsequent floor reaching further over the street below in an obvious attempt to claim more space.
Despite this, the street they were on was wide and well lit, with light coming in curtesy of the open blue sky above the cemetery.
The street itself was wide, with quite a few avenues splitting off deeper into the city.
Kai could easily see them getting overwhelmed from all directions if they hung around here too long
Judging by the group of multicoloured marks Syl had placed there was a group heading their way down one of the larger main streets.
At the pace the group was approaching, Kai and his team had a couple of options if they chose to retreat and avoid the fight.
If they hadn't spent the time discussing the orc they killed, they could have taken a moment to check many of the buildings. But with the time already wasted, they were down to running up one of the other avenues to get away.
That, however, would leave most people with the issue of a headless corpse lying in the street for the group to find and raise an alarm.
But they weren't most people, so Kai looted the corpse as Ester moved out into the centre of the street.
'Just a recap, grey marks are melee, red ranged, blue heavily armoured and purple possible magic uses. Don't know how accurate the marks are yet as it's based on the info I got back on those close enough for me to examine. Just judging by the way you're all getting ready, you want to fight this out.'
They had all followed Ester out into the street as Syl gave her brief.
Ester moved up to the front of the group, facing the junction where it looked like the incoming group would turn the corner.
Kai took his place on her right side, and he was joined by a figure made of stone and earth that was nearly as tall as him.
Kai gave the figure a nod, and the thing's head shifted to form a clay face that smiled back at him with a row of meticulously selected pebbles for teeth and shiny round stones for eyes.
That spirit efforts made Kai smile, and he did his best to remember what Mira called it.
Pebble? No, Pepple… Pepple appeared above his new companion's head.
Mira Squeeked behind him, and Kai glanced back and to see Mira staring above Pepple's head.
Seeing Kai look her way, she pointed and asked, 'What's that?'
'Shit, I thought their name was Pepple. I'm terrible with names. I have this thing where I tag people who I'll see often or who are important to me. Didn't realise I shared it through the party system. What was their name, I can correct it.'
'Not the time, Kai,' Syl said as she walked through the wall of the building next to them.
Kai turned away from a smiling Mira to look down the street to see a mixed group of grey, pink, red and green skin tones form up to look back at them in confusion.
Turns out it wasn't just Orec'kien that lived in this city as a human archer stepped out from the group to lift his bow, just to have a golden arrow lift him from his feet and sent him back seven or so feet further down the street.
The group of dungeon spawns glanced at the fallen human and turned to charge.
There was no organisation to the charge, so Kai prepared an infused strike and held back on releasing his mana bolts.
Ester went to take the front, but Kai put his left hand on her shoulder and held her back.
The next second, the dungeon spawn tumbled over themselves as they were caught off guard by a low, invisible barrier Syl had set up.
Kai discharged his infused strike into those who had slowed as not not to fall on their companions.
He released Ester so she could then barrel into their enemies as golden arrows and bursts of flame zipped past her to pick off the exposed back line.
The few red marks that remained and the two purple marks disappeared as Kai took the front with Pepple coming in just behind him.
It was over in seconds.
'Well that was easy,' Ester said as she smacked a dwarf in what looked like forge leathers on both sides of his head at the same time.
Syl, Alicia and Kai all turned to look at her.
'What?' she said, looking at them, down to the dwarf as it fell dead to the floor, then back to them.
'You just jinxed it, this was the dungeon's way of easing us into it, now it will throw everything at us out of spite,' Kai said.
'Dungeons will do that?'
'Well, no… but good luck proving it. Now follow me. I think the epicentre of whatever is happening here is this way,' Syl said.
Syl led the way further into the city. Guiding them through both main streets, alleys and the occasional building that they stripped bar on passing through.
They crossed out of the old city, avoiding three patrols and obliterating two others that somehow seemed to be tracking them.
The level of each group they encounter increasing as they approached what Syl thought was the epicentre. Things went smoothly, and it wasen't until they reached a gate that separated the outer city from the inner, that they met anything Kai would have called opposition.
The gate was surrounded by corrupted guards. Their armour and weapons were a clear improvement over the somewhat improvised nature of those they had encountered so far had been equipped with.
Even their levels had jumped from the five to ten level range they had been seeing to each of the guards being a set level fifteen with only what they assumed was once a Sargent or Captain that was currently sitting in a side office of the gatehouse with a higher level of twenty.
'This feels like a mid boss, and look, each of the guards has arm bell at their station. That's six alarms. Two on that side, two on this side, and two hidden in the gatehouse.' Kai said as he peeked out of the window of the room they were hiding in of the building far across the main street from the gatehouse.
'Feels more like a skill check for anyone that has managed to get this far without alerting the city to their presence,' Syl disputed.
'What are our options?'
'No chance of going over the wall. The entire length of it is guarded, and the few spots that look climbable are really guarded.'
'Around?'
'Would take too long to get to another gate. I brought us to this one as it actually looked to have the lightest guard.'
'What are the odds there is a smugglers route into the inner city,' Alicia added from where she sat on guard at an open window.
'It's likely. But we set a timer for our discovery when we started killing patrols. Someone or something will eventually notice the missing. The corrupted aren't mindless… well, the dungeon variant nearly are. But the scenario will still play out as if they were coordinating with some level of organisation.'
There was another boom reminding them that there was another conflict going on in the city.
'That, and the longer we take, the more survivors will succumb to the corruption,' Syl continued. 'The only reason this city isn't on fire right now is the survivors don't know they have lost. That there is no saving this city, and they would be better burning it. The source of the corruption is just waiting for them to come under its control.'
'You're sure there is no saving anyone,' Mira asked.
'If I know the system as well as I think I do. Then, I am pretty sure the lesson of this dungeon will fit squarely into the there is no saving the corrupted column of adventuring.'
That seemed to sombre everyone's mood.
'So, going through the gatehouse is likely to raise an alarm. But taking the time to look for another route is also going to cause issues,' Kai said as he took a moment to think.
'What if Gift and I set up illusions? Then Syl can move in and quietly take out the guards one at a time?' Alicia said, adding her own suggestion.
'That might be an option. I could also go disable all the alarms. But there is the issue of the guards themselves having some way of raising an alert,' Syl said, tapping her lip with a finger.
'What if we just bypass the whole thing?' Ester said, joining the conversation from where she stood guard at the door.
'How? Set up an illusion and walk through? The gate probably has mana detectors built in for an attempt like that.'
'No, I mean one of Kai's point-to-point portals. Correct me if I'm not mistaken, but using them to enter the domain isn't their only use, is it?'
Kai sighed and shook his head. 'I need to know where I'm opening both ends of the portal. It might have worked if we had run this dungeon. But as this is our first time, trying to open up a portal on the other side of that wall would be difficult.'
There was a long silence.
'No, I think this could work. Actually, I think that it could get us quite far into the city,' Syl said as a sly smile crept onto her face.
'How?' Kai asked in confusion.
'I scout ahead. When I find a suitable location, you feel out where I am through our bond. If you need more than that, I can use shared sense to let you see the area in more detail.'
'That's… that's worth a try. But won't it mess with the dungeon structure or something dumb like that?'
'No… dungeons don't really consider skill sets. The system just creates a scenario. It's up to us to complete it however we can. It's why it never really punishes anyone for exploiting things. With this one, I think that no matter what we do, the city will eventually come down on us. This gatehouse seems to be setup just for making that happen. We just need to make sure we aren't caught in a bad spot when it happens.'
'I don't like the sound of that,' Mira said as she glanced out the window at the guards switching their positions.
'Well, that's dungeons for you, risk and reward. Until we know the exact clear conditions, we are playing things by ear. It feels like there are multiple ways of doing this one, but my gut tells me this is actually the path with the least risk and the most reward.'
'I like the sound of that,' Ester chuckled.
'Most people would investigate the sounds we keep hearing. Probably make allies with the survivors and get their help fighting their way into the inner city only for the survivors to turn on them when they encounter the root of the corruption. Or they'll go it alone like us and trigger a smaller contingent of corrupted to come after them as the rest deal with survivors.'
'Then there are the stealth teams that will get to the root before the corrupted can react at all,' Kai offered.
'That's what I was hoping to do until we encountered this wall.'
'There's one last option. Full nuclear,' Kai said, folding his arms as he started to wonder if he had enough mana to flatten a small city in a downpour of explosive mana bolts.
'That's a possibility… but I wouldn't recommend it. This isn't like the time we fought the hordes of kobolds from a solid line of defence.'
'Or like when we pushed our way through mindless undead,' Alicia said thoughtfully.
'City fighting is always bloody and unpredictable. Besides even you, Kai, with all your mana, would struggle to raze a city with mana bolts. Once we know more, we can experiment on the next run we do. Now if you will excuse me, I'm off to scout for a spot for us to portal skip most of this dungeon.'
Before Syl could disappear. Fayriel popped his head out of the front of Syl's leather chest armour and chirped.
Castiel appeared on Kai's shoulder, her little head bobbing in agreement.
Gift appeared in his dragon form, looked at Alicia and then at Kai the before saying to the other two dragons, 'Maybe next time. Even I don't think we can take the guards without setting off an alarm. And yes, we know you two can phase, but it's best we let Mother Syl do her thing alone for now.'
Castiel chirped, and Fayriel sat up straighter as he tapped a claw against the anchor stone on his harness.
'Nobody is saying you couldn't do it. We just need to be careful. This is your first dungeon run. Be good or they won't bring you on more till you're older and can follow a plan,' Gift warned his siblings.
With that, the Hatchlings settled as Alicia took up watch, wearing her spectral cloak and hood at the window of the room they were hiding in as Kai concentrated on retrieving as much mana from the mana bolts he had prepared earlier but not had a reason to unleash yet.
Kai could feel Syl off in the city as she throughly scouted things out. Though at times it felt more like she was doing more looting than anything else.
After half an hour, it seemed that Syl was right about them recognising that patrols had gone missing.
The guard on the gate was increased, and small patrols were frequently sent out to try to find those who had gone missing.
They informed Syl of the change, and she reported back that she was close to the epicentre and it actually looked like there was a large group preparing to head out.
Her new plan was to take advantage of the reduced presence in the inner city and have Kai and the team portal over when the large group passed out through the gate.
It only took the group Syl had marked ten minutes to move from where she was to get to the gate where he was waiting with the rest of the team.
A column of over forty armed and armoured soldiers in matching livery moved through the gate in a rough semblance of what some might try to call a quick march.
With their levels ranging from level twenty to twenty-five, Kai was glad to see them split and disperse out into the outer city they were just about to leave behind.
He focused on the location Syl was sharing with him, where his bond told him she was waiting beyond the wall. He connected that location to the space just in front of him.
The portal opened easily with Alicia slipping through to join Syl the moment the portal was large enough.
Mira followed her lead as she guided both Wik and Pepple through with her.
Kai signalled Ester when it was just the two of them, and she moved away from her guard position at the door to move through the portal first.
Once she was through, he followed and shut the portal behind them.
…
Mira was eager to see Syl again, and she moved through the portal as soon as she was called through.
The moment she cleared Kai's portal, she was struck by how the air here was thick with something she couldn't quite describe.
Mira looked about the empty room trying to pin down the feeling, but it was everywhere.
There were signs that there was once stuff in the room and, judging by the scent of the room, the piles of dust and the wear in the floorboards, it was clear to her the room had recently been emptied.
Syl took one look at her and she asked, 'What is it?' Using the weird wordless communication, she wasn't quite use too.
'This place feels wrong.'
'You see anything?'
Mira shook her head.
'What about that building over there?' Syl said as she pointed to a large building just across the street.
Mira hesitated. Moving closer to the window could giveaway that they were in the building, and the last thing she wanted to be right now was the reason everything went wrong.
'There is an illusion in place, no one should notice us in this building,' Alicia explained as she moved to stand in plain view of the wide-open window. 'No one noticed the portal's creation. Or at least no one has raised an alarm yet.'
'Any issues,' Kai asked as he came through and closed his portal.
Syl and Alicia both turned to her.
Mira moved to the window and looked over at the building Syl had indicated. 'I can't see anything. But this feeling. When I look over there, it gets worse.'
'By the sound of that, we are on track,' Kai said as he gave her a grateful nod.
'That certainly seems to be the case.'
'What are we dealing with?' Alicia asked.
'I didn't scout too far into the building. This whole area is city estates and manors. Most of them empty or abandoned with little of value left behind. Still, good looting when you have our storage.' Syl pointed to the building across the street. 'That one, however, is crawling with soldiers and private guards. Which, upon inspection, are all looking out and not in. So, they're protecting something or someone. Best guess, someone in that manor brought the corruption into the city.'
'Plan of attack?' Kai asked.
'Well, luckily it's not a full-blown estate. There's a courtyard, then the manor itself. Just a main gate and a few side entrances, all heavily guarded. No matter how we go about it, there's going to be fighting. But we have just proven that the best way to access the place works within the dungeon. There are not that many guards in the actual manor. I can see what looks like a dining room from here. We can portal over and search the house. Once an alarm goes off, we can use much smaller, denser barriers to keep the guards at bay while we deal with whatever is at the centre of this corruption. Then we can just collect the rewards and leave the dungeon.'
'Kind of feels like we are skipping a lot of the dungeon. Missing out on most of the essence.' Kai said as he somehow managed to sigh both through the party chat and in person.
'Well, that's because…' Syl glanced her way with her glowing eyes, her sentence trailing off with the obvious left unsaid.
She wasn't stupid. She knew that Syl was being overly cautious because of her.
She wanted to say they could go all out.
'If no friends of Miracle Child are in the building. I would like to burn it down. Miracle Child has not let me burn anything down since we came to the… city.' A deep, warm voice crackled through the chat.
'Wik! You can talk? Cool.' Kai said as he turned his burning blue gaze towards Wik's fiery form beside her.
'Ignore him,' a smooth whisper, 'he thinks everything can be resolved by conflagration, it empowers him.'
Mira just stood there frozen. She didn't know this was possible. Normally when they talked, it was only she who could hear them.
'That wasn't you, Pepple, was it?' Kai asked as he addressed Pepple directly.
Pepple shook his head but said nothing, a low grinding sound coming from him as he stood watching the other building.
'I am the breeze that carries good tidings, Pepple is the silent stone that has yet to find his voice. Few of us can communicate such as this.'
The room grew colder as Chil made themselves known. Wik crackled and flared to drive them aside.
The two of them were always fighting over which of them Mira needed most. Chil only came out on top when the weather was hot and Mira started to sweat. She hated sweating.
Sip, of course, said nothing. She only really showed herself when Mira needed help to find safe water to drink, or it was bath time.
'That was Brees,' Mira said.
'Yes, the Miracle Child you call Mira has long called me and my family on the mountain Brees. I won the race to follow her on her path… I like the plan. If anything goes wrong, then Wik can start his blaze while we retreat to the place where the soul resides. To return only once his children have run their course and their lives extinguished.'
'It would be a good life,' Wik's voice crackled.
'Ok, I guess that's the plan,' Syl turned and pointed. 'That room their Kai, make it quick. We want to avoid that group returning.'
'Give me a minute to find the right spot. I don't have you over there to help pinpoint the location for the portal.' Kai said as he moved over to the window for a better look.
'Mira, are all your friends elements,' Ester asked her curiously.
Mira nodded slowly, deciding to share, she said, 'The other spirits were bound to the land or to something I could not bring with me.'
'Or they were too powerful to form a mutual contract with Mira,' Brees said.
'We need more Automata, they were already trying to power them with elemental cores. A fire core should amplify Wik's power…' Ester mumbled, her communication fading off into contemplative thought.
Wik floated over to Ester, 'A fire core? Do you mean the heart of a dead elemental?'
Ester smacked her helmet. 'Spir- blast, I didn't think. I meant no offence.'
'I want. Consuming one would only aid my flame. Do you have any?'
Ester's helmet shook. 'No, but I'm sure we can easily get you some. The crafters hall has them in abundance for anything from powering furnaces to aiding in rune work.'
'Pure flame. Must be pure. I will eagerly await the meal. Thank you Miracl- Mira's good short metal friend.'
Ester laughed. 'Have you seen my forge in the domain… perhaps you could assist me-'
Syl coughed, interrupting Ester's enthusiasm. 'Really, I love the sudden revelation that we can all communicate. But another group just moved out, and I don't want to waste this chance.'
'I've got the point in space, everyone ready?' Kai said as he pulled free one of his swords and lit the beautiful blue-purple blade made of his mana.
Ester moved up to the front, but when she passed Pepple she tapped a stone on their chest and said, 'You okay keeping the rear? Keep Mira and Alicia safe from anyone who gets past the rest of us?'
Pepple gave her a nod and moved to the back of the queue that was forming. He even gave Mira a crooked smile as he passed.
She wondered if Pepple was having fun?
Pepple was never any fun. Granted, most games she had come up with that included Pepple usually involved throwing him somewhere.
Kai's portal opened, and the group moved through quickly.
The room was large, and no sooner was she through the portal than the items in the room started to disappear from sigh. Each time a member of the group looked at something.
When she glanced at Syl, the woman simply said, 'Making space.'
'That and complete dungeon sets like this can be popular among collectors,' Alicia said from where she had moved up to check the windows. 'I think no one noticed.'
'Leave something to burn,' Wik crackled in complaint.
'The building is mostly wood. It should go up well if it comes to that,' Kai said as he moved around to carefully examine a guard that was passing by.
Mira felt terrible.
She couldn't understand how everyone was so relaxed.
Again, she couldn't see anything wrong, maybe a visible thickness to the air. Faint tendrils of something she couldn't quite see.
There was a creak from somewhere just beyond one of the rooms many doors, and the hairs back of her neck rose involuntarily.
Everyone turned to look in the direction of the sound.
The door handle turned, and the door swung open. The tendrils she saw earlier pulsed to life as more and more crawled into the room from all around the door frame.
A tall, thin human with ghastly grey skin and dark black veins creeping up from the stiff white collar of his suit stepped into the room and to the side to hold the door.
Mr Buttler Lv.30 This butler, long corrupted, serves only the mistress of the manor.
"What's for dinner today? And don't tell me I had to. Kitchen staff killed again, you should have found replacements by now, so I don't want to hear it. My parents will ensure you never forget your punishment," a whiny voice came from the corridor.
"Mistress, you had the lord and lady of the house executed a week ago. And you were an orphan long before you took hold of the manor and I entered your service."
"Oh right, who are these people? Guests?" A short little girl, half the size of Mira, walked around the corner to stand in the doorway.
She was thin, to the point of it being unhealthy.
She wore a gaudy pink dress that was clearly made for someone much older than her, and she was covered from head to toe in miss matching jewellery.
Mistress Ophelia Lv.30 This young orphan was given something; it crawled within her and unleashed her deepest, darkest desires.
Her hair was white and thin, but it had been tied back in an intricate jewelled bun. Her skin was grey and ashy, the same deep dark veins that crept up from the butler's neck covered every exposed bit of her flesh. And her eyes, dark, soulless pits, with something old and evil hiding within.
The tendrils writhed around her, crawling all over her body, thick and ugly they
"Intruders Mistress. Robbers, they seem to have taken the dining set… and everything else in the room. " The butler said without a care.
"But that's my stuff? Everything here belongs to me. I claimed it."
The tendrils pulsed with new power as they coiled back, like a viper about to attack.
"Robbers is a bit harsh," Syl grumbled as she moved closer. "Little girl, do you know that man is corrupted?"
No one was reacting; of course, they didn't see what she could see, couldn't feel the evil.
Mira had no choice.
Calling out to Wik to kill it quick. She threw herself at the horror with a dagger.
She was just a girl, no, a thing. If she caught it in a vital spot, it wouldn't matter how strong or fast it actually was.
That's how it always was on the mountain, that's how it would be here.
'The little girl! Named boss!' Kai called out through the party chat as everything seemed to slow down.
Mira was just about to slash the little thing's neck when she was caught by one of the tendrils
Syl appeared behind the monster to bring two short metal sticks covered in glowing etchings down onto her in a series of strikes. Mana bursting from the weapons as they made contact.
Mira pushed forward with her dagger
She was so close, her friends begged her to open up. To let them help against this danger.
A blue flash of mana swept through her.
The blade of blue crackled violently in shades of purple as it contacted the little thing's neck and swept through it.
The black pits that were its eyes narrowed in confusion as it looked past Mira to Kai behind her.
"Huh. So flesh, even that of someone level thirty, still isn't as tough as steel."
The thing's head toppled, and Syl beat it away with an attack.
Mira glanced at the butler.
She had no clue what a butler was, but it hadn't moved.
The thin grey man seemed oddly frozen in place. One half of his body spasmed, while the other seemed oddly still, held by something that felt oddly like Kai.
Mira looked out at the white gloved hand that was reaching out to grab her. She couldn't help but shiver.
Kai whipped his blade through the figure a few times and then whatever held the man was pulled away.
'How did you know, She looked so normal a moment ago? Just a little girl playing dress up with a corrupted butler,' Ester said as she came over to look down on the figure. 'When I first saw her, I thought she was one of these survivors Syl was talking about.'
Kai shrugged. 'Mira clearly thought she was a threat. We were actually lucky Mira distracted her. When I tried locking her down in a temporal distortion, it got pushed away and partially trapped the butler instead. It was weird.'
Syl sighed. 'I was trying to get closer. I should have said something. But I thought I made it clear, if there was a source of corruption here, everything in this dungeon was corrupted.'
Mira looked down at the little girl, who was now crumpling in on herself.
'She looked normal to you? To me, she was worse that anything we have encountered so far,'
'We see it now, the moment Kai took her head off, her glamour collapsed,' Syl said.
The feeling of wrongness had not gone away.
Those strange tendrils were still there, and they writhed and twisted violently as they pulled away from the girl's corpse.
'You can see it, can't you?' Syl asked her.
Mira nodded.
'It's not dead, is it?'
Mira shook her head as she watched the tendrils pulse and grow thin as they crawled out of the room. 'its leaving.'
'What?' Kai asked as he popped his head out the door to look down the corridor.
'The boss…' Syl said as she lifted up a simple pendent that looked like a twisted silver rod for everyone to examine. 'I was hoping this wouldn't happen. But Ester jinxed it. We found the source and weakened the corruption by killing the boss, but I think we still need to kill the corruption. For the dungeon to give out any rewards. The other option is we take this pendent and run back to exit through the dungeon entrance.'
Greater spatial storage pendent. *Dungeon cursed* ( soulbound upon use ) Despite its size, this pendent will hold up to 8 cubic meters or around 28 cubic feet worth of items. Items in the pack will weigh one quarter of what they normally do and will experience 1/6 the normal passage of time.
Warning: this pendent was cursed with a long forgotten corruption that seeps into the wearer, spreading to and giving control over anyone they come into contact with.
Once freed, the corruption must be cleansed or it will continue to spread through anyone or anything that has been exposed to it longer than one month.
Killing the root will weaken the host as the corruption tries to reestablish itself.
"What in the Lord of the…" Kai said aloud. 'Is everything that is happening in this city because of the curse on that pendant?'
Alarms bellowed throughout the city as guards ran past the window.
'This dungeon is going to be annoyingly popular if it gives out a storage item. That and a whole city to loot,' Alicia said as she chewed her lip.
'What about the curse?' Kai asked.
'Its part of the dungeon scenario, it's listed as a dungeon curse, so it won't exist outside. Probably meant as a reward for getting this far. I expect the item to change on each run. Here, Mira, this will be much better for carrying those Automata cores than your satchel. Just don't use it until we exit.'
Mira took a step back when Syl held it out to her.
There were no tendrils coming from it, but still she didn't trust it.
The pendent disappeared and then reappeared. 'See, a quick dip into our domain storage and the dungeon curse is gone.'
Greater spatial storage pendent. ( soulbound upon use ) Despite its size, this pendent will hold up to 8 cubic meters or around 28 cubic feet worth of items. Items in the pack will weigh one quarter of what they normally do and will experience 1/6 the normal passage of time.
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