“What do you mean, 'something intelligent?'” Vin asked, his eyes flicking to the dimly lit tunnel, half expecting to see some man running out of it with his arms waving.
“It was large, about the same size as you, except covered from head to toe in thick hair. By sheer luck I happened to be nearby, collecting some tools from the abandoned portion of town when I heard the explosion. I rushed toward the source of the noise and found it standing there with its fist out, as if he’d blown down the sealed wall with a single punch.”
My height and covered in hair? Sounds like a capillan, Vin thought, remembering their run in with Forpurt and the man’s strange appearance. “What did it do?”
“That’s the strangest part,” Nohral admitted, turning and looking at the tunnel himself. “The moment it broke down the wall, it jumped and shouted something in an unknown language as if it had been attacked, before turning and fleeing back into the cave. By the time I made it to the entrance it was long gone. I can only assume it fled back down the tunnel.”
Realizing what must have happened, Vin couldn’t help but chuckle.
Forpurt said he came from an arctic fragment. I bet the capillan broke the wall, got slapped in the face with this extreme heat, and decided it wanted absolutely nothing to do with the dwarves’ hellhole of a town.
Still, that left one rather important question.
Where had it come from in the first place?
“So you wanted my help as an Explorer to see what’s down there?” Vin confirmed, raising his eyebrow at the dwarf. “Do I look like I’m lava proof to you?”
“Obviously not. But unlike us, you look quick on your feet,” Nohral admitted. “The dwarven fighting style is to imitate stone. To be overbearing and unbreakable. But that does little good against magma. The molten men and lavaskips aren’t very fast however, meaning you should be able to dodge past them. I can provide you with a minor relic that will give you some protection against fire as well. If you can figure out where the being came from, the relic is yours to keep.”
A lot of thoughts raced through Vin’s mind as he stared at the dimly lit tunnel. On the one hand, going inside a tunnel that he knew was filled with lava-based monsters was a pretty stupid thing to do. Yet on the other, knowing that a capillan of all races had wandered out of the tunnel drove his curiosity through the roof. Had the capillan somehow dug its way into the tunnel from outside the volcano? Or was the dwarves’ fragment actually connected to the capillan’s fragment? And if so, why? And how?
Not to mention there was the promise of a free magic item.
“Deal,” Vin grinned, already wondering what spell he might be able to lift off the relic. Fire protection sounded like fire affinity, which meant another big chunk of experience for him as well.
“Thank you,” Nohral said, letting out a pent up sigh of relief. Reaching into his pouch, he pulled out a small amulet made from what looked like simple bronze with a gleaming red gemstone inlaid in the center. “This will offer you some protection from fire, but it isn’t very strong. It won’t hold up under more than a second or two of direct contact with lava.”
New minor artifact discovered! 1,000 exp gained.
Slipping the amulet around his neck, Vin’s grin only widened as an unexpected side effect of the artifact made itself known. Immediately, the temperature around him seemed to drop by what felt like at least twenty degrees, offering him some much needed relief.
Definitely worth risking my life to make this place more bearable.
“So what will you two be doing while I’m in there?” Vin asked, cracking his neck and stretching his legs a bit. If he was preparing for a mad dash through the tunnel, no sense in not limbering up a bit.
“Myndra will go back to her duties, but I will stay here and wait for your return,” Nohral said. “Thank you for doing this for us Vin. I know I’m giving you a relic in exchange, but I still greatly appreciate your help. As leader of Valdora, I can’t just have a possible backdoor entrance to the city allowing anyone in whenever they want. I need to know where this tunnel leads.”
“Don’t worry about it, I’m just as curious as you,” Vin admitted, deciding he’d stretched enough. “You might want to be ready on that spell to remove the rock wall and get us out of here. There’s a good chance I’ll have monsters right on my heels when I return.”
“I will,” the dwarf promised.
Taking a deep breath and marveling at how the air no longer felt like it was burning his lungs, Vin steeled himself and headed into the tunnel.
He made it all of a dozen feet before an unexpected notification popped up, freezing him in his tracks.
New dungeon discovered! 5,000 exp gained.
Level up! Magical Explorer lvl 29!
+3 Attributes points
“What?!” He yelled, immediately jumping backwards and staring down the tunnel in a new light. “You didn’t say anything about this being a dungeon!”
“Dungeon?” Nohral asked, giving him a confused look. “What do you mean?”
“A dungeon, you didn’t know the tunnel led into a dungeon?” Vin demanded, looking angrily at the dwarf that had nearly tricked him into walking to his death with open arms.
“No, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Nohral frowned, taking a few steps forward into the tunnel until he stood beside him. Peering around, Nohral shrugged. “How can you tell this is a dungeon? And what is a dungeon dare I ask? Do you know what this tunnel is then?”
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I suppose without my class notification that I found it, I never would have known this was a dungeon either… Vin realized, carefully scanning the tunnel walls for some sort of magical sign that screamed ‘I’m a dungeon.’
“I don’t know what it is,” Vin admitted, still examining every inch of the tunnel entrance. “But I’ve been in one before, on a different fragment. It was filled with giant swarms of murderous insect monsters, and I nearly died. Dungeons are dangerous, and if you have one leading directly into your town, you need to seal this thing off immediately.”
“Even if I were to collapse the cave, that might not be enough to stop whatever wanders out of this tunnel next,” Nohral said, squinting down the tunnel as if he could still see the capillan running away. “That last being shattered my stone wall with his bare fist. I need to know what’s down there.”
“Well I’m sure as hell…” Vin paused, remembering there was actually something he could do to learn more about the dungeon from a distance. “Hold on.”
Focusing on his inert skill, Vin directed his attention toward the tunnel in front of him. Just like the last time he’d tried this, he received a few quick notifications.
Dungeon Type: Tunnel
Primary Monster Type: Lava elemental
Dungeoneering increased to lvl 5! 500 exp gained.
The moment his Dungeoneering increased to lvl 5, he was surprised to see his previous notification regarding the monster type suddenly update, providing him with a bit more information.
Primary Monster Type: Lava elemental
Hazards: Lava, Fire
Grouping: Solitary
Movement: Slow
Why on Earth is this skill so different from all the rest of them? Vin wondered, staring at his updated notification. It was rare to see the System offer up more than the bare minimum of information, but this confirmed that strange feeling he’d had the first time he’d used Dungeoneering. It seemed the more he leveled the skill, the more information he’d be able to glean from dungeons without even setting foot inside.
“Huh. Okay, you were right about the monsters down there at least. I’m assuming magma men and lavaskips both fall under ‘lava elemental’ at least.”
“Yes, they would,” Nohral nodded. “As I mentioned, lava elementals are powerful but slow moving monsters that mainly fight alone. Dangerous, but only if they are able to touch you.”
Vin bit his lip, his eyes flicking back and forth between the long tunnel and the notifications confirming what Nohral was telling him.
Grouping: Solitary
Movement: Slow
Damn I hope I’m not about to get myself killed.
“Okay, I’ll at least check it out,” Vin sighed, ignoring the relieved grunt from the dwarf beside him. As much as dungeons terrified him, he couldn’t exactly stay away from them forever. Especially now that they knew Shia would be able to contact her master from within these strange places. Speaking of which…
Vin briefly contemplated going back and grabbing Shia for this before he thought better of it. For one, it sounded like the time she’d have with her master was limited once she entered the dungeon, so it would be best if he could map out at least part of the tunnel system beforehand and gather a bit more knowledge about what they were dealing with.
And for another, he had no doubt she had her hands full at the moment trying to hunt down Scule and feed him to Blossom.
Ideally her master would be able to reach her from the very edge of the tunnel anyway, saving them the danger of having to travel deep inside. But since when were they ever that lucky?
Before he could talk himself out of the idea, Vin strode forward into the dungeon, shivering at the strange sensation that he’d just stepped through some sort of faint soap bubble. That certainly hadn’t happened just a few minutes ago, so he could only assume it was another quirk from leveling up his Dungeoneering.
Seeing as survival hinged entirely upon being faster than whatever lived within this dungeon, Vin made the tough decision to toss his three new points from level 29 into dexterity rather than focus. With Alka’s bonus stats gone for good, it wouldn’t hurt for him to buff up his physical stats at least a tiny bit anyway.
The memories of his last dungeon experience still fresh in his mind, Vin took things slow at first. The tunnel stretched deeper and deeper underground, turning and twisting as it went, but always lit by those small trickles of lava that he was careful to avoid. After a few tense minutes of careful walking, he finally found his first monster.
Turning a bend, Vin froze as he spotted what looked like a ball of dripping lava slowly rolling along the ground. About the size of a large beach ball, the monster left behind it a thick trail of lava, with small flames burning all along the trail.
New monster discovered! 200 exp gained.
Despite its distinct lack of any sort of sensory organs, the monster that he could only assume was a lavaskip seemed to detect his presence the moment he appeared. Flattening its form down into the ground, it then launched itself in a large arc up and at him, flinging small droplets of lava all over the place as it did so.
A few weeks ago a living ball of lava leaping at him with the intention of melting him alive would have been the most terrifying thing Vin had ever seen in his life. Now?
It wasn’t even in the top ten.
Vin blinked at how slow the monster seemed to be moving and easily darted out of the way the moment it took to the air. By the time the lavaskip landed where he’d been standing, sending a fresh wave of lava all over the place, Vin was already twenty feet away, jogging leisurely down the tunnel.
Damn, these things are slow.
Grinning, Vin let himself relax just a tiny bit as he continued deeper into the tunnel. He ran into three more lavaskips, dodging each one just like the first and ignoring them completely before he finally encountered his first magma man.
New monster discovered! 200 exp gained.
Unlike the lavaskips, the magma men were slightly more unsettling. They were humanoid creatures made entirely of a flaming, bright yellow magma, and they appeared to be in a constant state of melting and reforming. The first one he encountered turned to look at him with a face free of any features except a gaping, dripping mouth, which it used to moan as it lumbered over to him. Every step it took melted partially into the rock beneath it, and Vin had no doubt if it managed to grab him with one of its outstretched arms he would be dead in seconds, new amulet or not.
Not giving it the chance, Vin quickly darted around the monster, hugging the tunnel wall and staying as far away from it as possible. While slightly faster than the lavaskips, the magma man was still rather slow for a monster, and Vin had no issues leaving it in the dust as he continued running.
Come on, where did you come from capillan? He wondered, dodging past another lava skip as he ventured even deeper into the strange dungeon. Even with his superior speed, he’d been tagged by a few of the lava droplets here and there during his many dodges, and it was only thanks to his new amulet that he wasn’t covered in horrific burns right now. Things were going well, but Vin didn’t want to push his luck.
This tunnel can’t just go on forever. Sooner or later-
Vin froze as he suddenly came upon a familiar sight, his heart pounding as he slowed to a stop and stared at the strange addition to the cave-like tunnel.
Without warning, a portion of the cave wall suddenly transformed to hewn stone.
Forming a distinctly man-made corridor stretching off far into the distance.
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