An Unbound Soul

"I think we're ready to move on to the next floor, anyway. We'll let your team continue clearing the first floor."

Once Xander was done berating Chris about proper procedures for when two parties interacted in a dungeon and me about being petty, he decided that we would move on to the next floor. Chris was together with Anton and a pair of other rank one newbies, and a rank two [Life Mage] who was serving as their instructor. Unlike me, the first floor was actually a challenge for them, so it would be unfair for me to clear the whole thing on my own.

My previous estimate had been that there were around a hundred delvers in Dawnhold. That would be twenty teams of five, or two teams per floor on average. Assuming that not everyone worked every single day, it wasn't a surprise that we hadn't bumped into another party before now, even ignoring the fact that this first floor wasn't a valuable hunting ground. Maybe lower floors would be busier.

"How long do monsters take to respawn?"

"In this dungeon, monsters and traps respawn only when there are no delvers on the floor. That's why it's only worked during the day; we leave it alone at night for it to reset itself."

So the upside of that was that monsters weren't going to spawn in an already cleared room. Although maybe some monster types moved between rooms? I couldn't assume that previously cleared rooms would be safe when I returned to them. So not really much of an upside, on reflection... The downside was that there were a finite number of targets to hunt each day. No wonder people tried to get here early and made an immediate beeline for the lower floors.

We backtracked to the path towards the boss chamber, and soon enough stood before a pair of open, heavy stone doors engraved with images of goblins doing... things. Unlike the statues outside, which were highly realistic if not the correct sickly shade of green, the artwork here was poor and I didn't have a clue what it was even supposed to be depicting.

While I was examining the carvings, Noah spoke up. "Forgive Xander for not mentioning, because he tends to skip over everything he thinks is obvious, but bosses are an exception to the respawn rule. The boss chamber admits only one party at a time, and after entering, defeating the boss is the only way to leave. So never, ever walk into a boss chamber if you aren't confident you can win. If there's already a party fighting the boss, the doors will be closed, so you need to wait for them to open."

Yeah, I was starting to get the impression that I'd been a bit hasty in my declaration of Xander's true vocation. Maybe he'd be a great teacher if you already knew the basics of a subject, but for me who knew nothing, he kept skipping information that I'd consider vital.

Xander sighed. "Yes, the boss will be present once we enter this room. It's a level three goblin with a couple of level two lesser goblin lackeys. You shouldn't struggle to handle it alone. Also of note is that boss battles never try to catch you by surprise. All opponents will start off out in the open, and won't attack until you enter their range. There will never be additional hidden enemies. Likewise, any traps will not be disguised."

We stepped through the open doors, which slowly closed themselves behind us. Sure enough, there were a trio of goblins standing before us, who just stood and watched without moving. The central goblin was holding a club and was very slightly bigger than any other I'd seen, albeit still shorter than me. The room itself was circular, with pillars arranged periodically around the outside. Given that they were so close to the wall, they appeared to be decorative rather than structural. In the centre of the room was an open circular patch that looked like a different material than the rest of the room, with a smoother texture and slightly brighter glow. [Appraisal] told me it was 'compressed dungeon stone'. I assumed that setting foot into that region would be the trigger for the boss battle to begin.

The central goblin was on the level of the giant slime who Kari had popped with a single spell, and the minions were on the level of the big slimes that I had popped with one swing years ago. I agreed with Xander that this shouldn't be difficult, especially without subterfuge to watch out for. As soon as I stepped into the central arena, all three goblins charged. I relaxed and let my staff proficiency skill direct my actions as I smashed the head of one minion, blocked a blow from the club, dodged a lunge from the second minion, smashed his head in with another swing, then spun my weapon and caught the boss full in the stomach. Unlike his minions, I hadn't managed a one hit kill, so I took the opportunity while he was doubled over to crack his head open with an overhead swing. That was all three down in less than ten seconds. For a boss battle, it was anticlimactic.

I reached for my knife to perform the usual core extraction, but before I could even draw it from its sheath, all three corpses began to sink into the floor. A circular glow a couple of metres across appeared in the very centre of the room, and a smaller door opened at the rear. In between, a chest rose up from the ground. Okay, so we didn't get to loot bosses, but got treasure chests instead. Something else Xander failed to mention, but thankfully not something that I particularly needed to know up front. Taking Xander's lessons to heart, I refrained from making a mad dash to loot the chest.

"Can the chest be trapped?"

Xander nodded in satisfaction. "Looks like you've finally grasped the correct attitude to take towards a dungeon. But no, boss chests are safe. Go ahead."

The chest contained a few copper coins and nothing else. Where was my epic sword of dragon slaying? Or non-kinky armour? But still, coins? So humans couldn't counterfeit, but dungeons did so with impunity? Didn't that cause problems with inflation? No wonder delvers seemed so rich. Not that a few copper coins would break the economy, but presumably the value went up with floor.

"Is it usual to get coins from dungeons?"

All five members of Zander's party looked at me like I'd just said something strange, presumably because I had just said something strange. Freya was the one who answered. "Where did you think coins came from?"

My mouth opened. No words came out. My mouth closed. I realised that I didn't know any words in the language for 'mint' or 'coin press' or anything related. Right, so all coins came from dungeons then. That still didn't answer the inflation question. "I've just never really thought about it before. Doesn't it mess up the economy to have a constant supply of coins?"

The language had a word for 'economy', so there must be someone thinking about this sort of thing, surely.

"Enchantment would be a bit hard without a constant supply of coins. It all evens out in the end."

My mouth opened. I convinced my brain to do a bit of work for once. My mouth closed. She wasn't saying that we needed to pay for enchantment; she must have meant that enchanting things consumed coins as some sort of reagent. Wow. But again, it was no surprise delvers were so rich if the entire currency circulation passed through their hands. No wonder so many took up the profession despite the risks... I was definitely the mad one, given that I originally wanted to do it purely because I thought it sounded cool. I'd picked up a few better reasons since, but the job did still sound more interesting than farming.

The glowing circle was the teleporter back to the surface, so we ignored it and headed through the rear door instead. It led down another staircase, very similar to the one down from the surface, if not a little narrower. The door swung closed behind us, and I had noticed that at no point had the entrance to the boss chamber opened.

"How do you get out of the dungeon without using the teleports? Can you go backwards through the boss chamber?"

"No. That's one of the things that makes this dungeon so dangerous. Aside from the first floor, once you enter a floor, there is no way to leave it without beating the boss."

What? I thought the teleports made this dungeon a better place for beginners. Not only had I not realised that you needed to beat a boss to access one, but you couldn't backtrack to earlier floors, either. That was nasty... Or was it? What was the difference between not entering a boss chamber without being sure you could beat the boss and not entering the floor if you weren't sure? It just moved the cut off point slightly. If you got injured before reaching the boss, it would be a problem, but the paths to the boss chambers quickly got cleared each morning, and everyone had emergency potions. On reflection, I wasn't really sure what to think about that design. I'd have to wait to see other dungeons for comparison, but it wasn't obvious to me that it did make this dungeon more dangerous. Also, Xander had just said 'one of the things'.

"What else is there that makes this dungeon dangerous?"

"From floor six onwards, the goblins use poisoned weapons. Same for the traps, which start to spit poisoned darts, and on the lower floors they're well hidden. The poison isn't fatal, but it causes weakness and stamina drain and is hard to purge. Not the conditions under which you want to fight a boss to access the teleporter."

Oh. Nasty. I did consider receiving injuries on the floor as something that would make the teleporter design dangerous, and a poison that synergized that well with the layout sounded evil. Once again, I was reminded that dungeons were not safe places.

The second floor looked identical to the first. The only thing setting the entrance chamber apart was the narrower staircase and that only two corridors branched off it.

"On this floor, you'll encounter lesser goblins. They're slightly stronger than the weak goblins, but they won't have any new weapons or strategies. Beware the pitfalls; from now on they may be lined with spikes, and you do not want to fall into one."

I couldn't say I particularly wanted to fall into one on the first floor either, but I agreed that the addition of spikes did nothing to sway that opinion. I led the way around the second floor, where the lesser goblins were just a little faster and stronger, but still posed no threat as long as I was sensible. Xander's commentary became sparser, which I assumed meant I was doing a decent job. The cores I collected on this floor appraised as 'monster core, level 2' compared to the 'monster core, level 1' from earlier, but to my eyes looked identical. To [Mana Sense] they were a little denser, but it wasn't a huge difference.

Soon enough we drew near to Xander's five hour time limit. In that time, I'd managed to clear out a large swathe of the second floor single handedly, without my protection detail needing to step in once, but now we needed to face the boss to get out. Thus we ended up standing once again beyond the heavy engraved doors, which were grinding closed behind us. The boss chamber was identical to the first floor, a circular arena placed in the centre of the room. Again, there were three goblins, but this time I could immediately see that all were armed.

Goblin Fighter, level 4

Lesser Goblin Scout, level 3

Lesser Goblin Scout, level 3

The scouts had bows, and the fighter a short sword. The fighter also had random bits of scrap metal strapped to its body as well as the obligatory loincloth. Thus far, Xander hadn't said anything, but I already knew he treated everything as a test. I needed to speak up first.

"Can I use [Far Step] in this fight?"

"Oh? You want to drop the restriction against magic? How come?"

"Given the room layout, I can't hide around a corner and lure the ranged users into melee range. Given the size of the arena, they are likely to be able to get a shot off before I reach them if I charge in straight. [Far Step] is the safest option."

"I agree. Begin."

Great. I accelerated towards the arena, but just before crossing over the edge I activated [Far Step], stepping right behind one of the scouts. Catching him completely by surprise, I scored a perfect hit on the back of his head, sending him down immediately. The fighter spun around and the remaining scout drew an arrow. I went for the second scout first, again using [Far Step] to flank him. This time, I didn't have quite the same level of surprise on my side, and he was able to turn and parry with his bow. The bow cracked, which was good enough for me; the enemy no longer had ranged support.

The goblin fighter was a significant step up from any goblin I'd faced so far. Unlike the first floor boss, he was wielding his weapon with some amount of skill, but he was still considerably weaker than me. The scout was no longer an effective support; he'd committed the same error that I'd accused Anton of, by not carrying any sort of backup melee weapon. Not that I could blame the goblin at all; that was just how the dungeon had made him. Having a bow alone was already better than the other goblins on this floor. The ranged support removed, I made short work of the remaining pair of goblins.

ding

Skill [Far Step] advanced to level 11

I watched the dungeon consume them, before the expected teleporter and chest appeared and the rear doors swung open. The chest this time contained half a dozen copper coins, double the first floor, but still a disappointment. With that, we'd completed our dungeon run for the day. We stepped into the teleport and the light started to build up around us.

ding

Woo, another ding! Hopefully, it was a class level up so I can get my last spell.

Make your choice, child of another world.

... What?

New quest added: Conquer the Dawnhold Dungeon Solo. Time limit: 974 days.