Unlikely Encounter

Dungeons tend to give away their size based on their external appearances. Larger dungeons usually have bombastic features oftentimes appearing as large castles, villages, towns and even other landmasses noticeable from miles away. These dungeons are sometimes used as landmarks on maps whenever they pop up in an area.

As a result of this, larger dungeons are usually over saturated with adventurers, mostly new ones, whenever they pop up because of how easy they are to find. These adventurers sometimes never run into each other until they make it to the end because of how huge the dungeons are with many different entryways. At the end, these adventurers usually work together to take down the dragon and sharing the wonderful loot the beast sometimes guards.

More experienced adventurers sometimes seek out smaller, more hidden dungeons usually by having a tracker like Shanel in their party who can snuff out hidden dungeons. This makes adventurers with tracker-like skill sets really high value with them sometimes getting the biggest cut of the loot.

These smaller dungeons are usually much easier to conquer and though they have smaller loot pools, it oftentimes shares easier among a single party than if they were to work together with multiple others to conquer a larger dungeon.

It was that same accumulated experience that had brought them here. They stood almost unified against the malformed entrance.

It looked more like a poorly formed cavern entrance than that of a dungeon with a portico composed of mainly blocks covered by vegetation that grew indiscriminately. It looked discreetly “lost” by design.

“Well? Shall we?”

“Wings before the wind I say.”

“Yeah whatever. Ym, could you?”

“Oh sure, of course. Sal Yamen. All you.”

The brief exchange resulted in Ymel creating a makeshift torch for Myor after Shanel egged him on using a piece of board they got from the destroyed carriage and a quick flame cast.

Myor had begun slowly descending the entry stairway using the torch to navigate the seemingly endless darkness that stood before him.

This was of course until-

“ Ah, just great.”

“Huh? What’s the mat- for fuck’s sake! Do you know much I paid for these new boots!”

They had been submerged in water just above their ankles as soon as they left the stairs. Myor falling in first with Shanel being unusually slow to react behind him.

“Guessing it’s not goblin acid but the next best thing? Why didn’t you use the torch to check as you stepped down?” said Mystia as she soaked up the information behind the two.

“It’s just moss water and because I like my head more than my legs, thank you very much. Remember that night at Hugh’s?” Myor clarified as he brought up an instance where he was almost beheaded by a trap while exploring another dungeon because he failed to properly watch his headspace.

“You still hung up about that huh? Either way, how’s the depth?”

“I think this is as deep as it gets.”

“Exactly so you all can come right in. I’m not the only one getting new boots after this.”

“I could recommend you to my all terrain guy. These boys have never failed me and I’ve had them since forever.”

“Ugh, I don’t think so. I’d sever my legs from the ankle before I sink them into those.”

After closing off the exchange with Shanel berating Tnel’s less than stylish but travel friendly boots, the party continued to progress down the slightly submerged hallway.

They continued down the narrow hall. It was composed of a single indoor lazy river complete with a narrowly tiled walkway for them to progress. This was until Myor had become face to face with a door shaped opening, with even more darkness in its wake.

“Still nothing with the torchlight, huh? Uh.. Chama?”

“Destined Darkness huh? Make way. Blessed Light of the True Dawn, grace us.”

Mystia had confirmed Myor’s suspicions. It was indeed destined darkness.

When an area has been unexplored for an extended period of time, it can fall under the Lord of Shadow’s curse to be trapped in eternal darkness. They usually require a holy person to break the curse before light can prosper in this space once more.

Mystia had decided to go the extra mile and shine holy light into the area after lifting the curse despite this possibly alerting any sleeping monsters nearby.

“Mystia, I hope you’re not over exerting yourself.”

The one to show concern was also the only one to regularly address her as Mystia.

Tnel. The one who was always kind of annoying but had gotten even more irritating since her pregnancy.

“Shut up.”

She mumbled underneath her breath. Her downturned lips shaking. Only he had the power to rile her up to this extent.

She quickly wiped the blood from her nose before anyone could even notice.

Myor’s own nose twitched as he unwillingly picked up the scent.

“As I suspected, the destined darkness prevented any water from flowing down here so exploring should only get more fun going forward.”

With a hint of sarcasm in her strong but all the while tender voice, Mystia now in the lead confirmed her suspicion.

She was surprisingly able to get her thoughts out before something reached out of the seemingly empty hallway to grab her.

It was a rotted hand aimed straight for her face.

“A doorway illusion?” Myor mumbled before quickly drawing his blade; slicing the hand before it even grazed Mystia’s face.

“Chama, fall back!” He continued as he pushed her back before diving into the onslaught by lounging into the air, sword in hand and his crest shaped iron shield drawn from his back.

“ Al Illuma Nos.” Ymel followed his lead. She broke the curved tip of her fairy wood staff releasing little sparks of dust as she chanted.

As she did so, the doorway opening and the brick walls surrounding it vanished, revealing an open space much wider than the previous hallway they were in.

It was filled moss water and a hoard of undead ready for battle.

Myor, still in the air, began contorting his body twisting his right hand holding his sword towards his left shoulder all while tightening his grip on the blade.

He released his grip in sync with him untwisting himself. This caused the boomerang shaped cleaver he wielded to spin out of his hands at a remarkable velocity, bouncing off the walls slicing the undead before him into half with some of them being beheaded.

Realizing this was Myor’s attempt to hold the creatures off until they could all get into battle formation, Tnel was the first to act.

He leapt before the pushed back Mystia as well as Ymel before taking the rectangular great shield from his back and firmly anchoring it into the stone floors.

He then struck the circular center of the shield that stood on the same height as him with a punch of tremendous might. This caused the contraption to expand creating a fence like barricade surrounding the three of them.

He showcased his surprising agility by leaping over the barricade, grabbing on to the stone hammer that rested significantly shorter than him releasing it from his back.

He had successfully set up the rear guard so that they could fall back and possibly escape if things got too dicey. This also served to protect their holy woman healer and their spell-caster.

“Mella, if you could be a darling and just-“

“You got it! Ul Anima! Ul Anima! Sal Stoken!”

Shanel realizing this, didn’t hesitate to call out to Ymel with her responding immediately with enchantments as if she read his mind.

After a brief delay, at Ymel’s command, wings befitting a bird but sized to lift a human sprouted from Shanel’s back. Expecting this, he hoisted himself into the air with a jump,his wings carrying him a fair distance into the air for a good vantage.

He didn’t dare waste this view as he reached into his quiver with his left hand while reading his recurve bow styled from fairy wood with his right hand.

He then rested of the arrows he received on his bowstring made from a mermaid’s vocal tonsils. Before anyone in the room could blink, the arrow coated in lighting by Ymel’s third enchantment flew from his release to hit its mark.

The water the undead stood in. As soon as the arrow hit its mark, a powerful current ran through the moss water electrocuting the zombies.

As well as Myor who fell in the water after throwing his sword.

“Did you two plan this????” He blurted out as he was hit by the current.

“Karma has a funny way of working itself out.” Shanel responded holding back a giggle.

He was protected from fatal electrocution by Ymel’s second enchantment that gave his skin the property of an Eel’s. The shocks still hurt all the same.

The sound of several large objects crashing into a body of water echoed through the dungeon.

“I…have so many questions.”

The first to speak after observing the end of the chaos was Shanel. His tone was filled with utter bewilderment.

Before the group could collectively have a sigh of relief, the electric water beneath Myor’s feet morphed into electric icicles.

In their spearhead shape, they launched intending to impale anyone surrounding it. Myor was able to deflect some of it with his shield and the blade that had spun back into his hands but some of the ice spears still scraped his armor in passing.

One of the ice spears impaled Shanel by the left wing causing him to fall back to the ground.

The one who launched this attack was an undead. Though undead usually are corpses that have rotted to the point of their previous form being unrecognizable, this one was an exception.

It wielded a a staff and resembled a woman; a sorceress.

“Yeah, the questions keep…compounding.”

Myor commented as he watched 4 other undead surround this sorceress.

They all had forms that reflected something familiar. Roles that mirrored their very own party.