Heroes, Magic and Monsters

On our way back we washed ourselves in a stream and finally reached the town walls. Our first visit to dungeon's second floor went just as bad as our first visit to upper floor. At least we survived, and no one was dying this time. Our clothes were torn and full of holes, but it wasn't such an uncommon sight for the adventures in Grimsburg.

We entered Adventurers guild, and after handing over our loot, occupied one of the tables. Usually I didn't drink, but this time we all ordered a cup of ale. We silently drank our ale, when the receptionist brought as our earnings.

- Congratulations, - she smiled at us It was Leone, the receptionist who registered me as adventurer. She was slowly becoming our exclusive receptionists: - Look likes you earned a lot today.

She left us three gold coins and a pile of copper ones. We sat for a while and looked at the money. This was the first time we earned a gold coin.

- Sings are going up, - I muttered, and everyone agreed.

- But we were too weak for second floor, unless you level up.

I sighed and agreed with Luara. At least few more times I needed to risk leveling up, or I will definitely die, before collecting enough money. Myne and Trevor agreed and we all asked receptionist to take as to the leveling crystal.

She smiled and took as to the room, that was similar to the one that church used. Leone unlocked the door and let us inside.

- I will wait for you here.

I nodded, and we entered the room. Luara was the first one who run towards the crystal. But she sighed in disappointment, soon afterwards. Only her name and race appeared in front of her:

Catgirl, LV 9

Name - Luara;

Job: Scout;

Even after our last battle she couldn't level up to level ten. She told us herself, that reaching level ten was really hard, but was clearly disappointed. I also heard that reaching levels 20 and 30 was just as hard, or even harder, comparing to previous levels. Probably why guild ranks were related to adventurers levels, to separate those who had more accomplishments.

Trevor was hesitant, but he straightened his shoulders and touched the crystal. He gasped in surprise:

Human, LV 3 - LV 8

Name - Trevor;

Job: Commoner;

Status:

Health: 1 - 2;

Mana: 10 - 30;

Strength: 0 - 2;

Defense: 0 - 2;

Spell power: 0;

Luck: 0 - 1;

Speed: 3;

Morale: Neutral

Skills:

Lumberjack (Novice);

Herb gathering (Novice)

Possible skill acquirement:

- Herb gathering (Basic);

- Increased strength (Novice);

Please choose one skill!

He was clearly surprised, but I was disappointed. His stats grew, but so little. Guess commoner stats are really the worse. At least he received Increased strength skill. At novice level it will increase his overall strength by 10 %, which was a lot for someone with his stats.

Trevor happily chose Increased strength skill, and stepped aside happily grinning.

I was next. I put my hands on the crystal and was just as surprised as Trevor.

Elf, LV 4 - LV 9

Name - Avone;

Job: Ranger;

Status:

Health: 9 - 13;

Mana: 40 - 80;

Strength: 3 - 8;

Defense: 2 - 4;

Spell power: 1 - 6;

Luck: 1;

Speed: 6;

Morale: Neutral

Skills:

Archery (Advanced);

Night vision (Novice)

Possible skill acquirement:

- Leadership (Novice);

- Night vision (Basic);

Please choose one skill!

I already was at level nine. Didn't expect that. My spell power improved by leaps. That will increase my spell effectiveness. Now using less mana I will be able to heal more serious injury. Leadership skill would increase my leadership abilities and party's or armies morale. But I decided against it. Night vision proved to be a great asset in the dungeon, and I wanted to improve it even higher. So I choose Night vision (basic), and let Myne go next.

Trevor was surprised by my stats, and probably felt disappointed by his own weakness. As far as I know weak human strength measured in stats would be six. That meant that I, with my increased strength stats, was at least two times stronger than peasants. Guess Evan never told Trevor the difference between commoner growth, and those who had battle or magic oriented job.

Myne's stats were just as impressive as mine:

Human, LV 7 - LV 9

Name - Myne;

Job: Mage;

Status:

Health: 19 - 23;

Mana: 80 - 100;

Strength: 8 - 10;

Defense: 6 - 7;

Spell power: 6 - 9;

Luck: 1;

Speed: 5;

Morale: Neutral

Skills:

Earth magic (Advanced)

Knitting (Novice)

Agriculture (Novice);

Possible skill acquirement:

- Knitting (Basic);

- Wisdom (Novice);

Please choose one skill!

- Wisdom, amazing! - Myne jumped from happiness. I would probably too. Wisdom will let her cast spells more easily and also learn more advanced spells. No surprise for someone with a mage job. Our party just became much stronger. Dungeons second floor shouldn't be as big of a problem from now on. We celebrated our successful mission and agreed to take two days of rest, to fix our gear and clothe. Luara kept one of the gold coins, to buy more potions for our party, She was also in charge of selling monster venom or trading it for potions. That left us all with five silver coins of profit.

* * *

My head hurt from last night's celebration. We separated last night and I had hard time getting to the tavern. I already knew that Luara rented a room in a place that was located in the part of the town where most inhabitants were beast people. Myne lived in a tavern, that was close to the Mages guild, and Trevor rented a room in a house that was bordering the poor part of Grimsburg. He started living there, when he still earned only coppers as a payment for his adventurers work, and still stayed there, saving money for the future. So after celebration, we separated and went different ways.

I was in no shape to train, so I casted a Cure spell on myself. To my surprise it worked, and I was good to go. Fixing my close and boots costed me thirteen copper coins. I also bought myself some new close and sandals, which I could wear in the city. I spend first half of the day training in the Adventurers guild, and hired Gord for additional lessons in swordsmanship. Rest of the day I spend reading, and next morning I repeated my routine. The second part of the day I decided to spend shopping. I visited apothecary and bought me one more stamina potion. Afterwards I visited blacksmith quarter.

I went inside weapon shop and greeted the owner. It was a dwarf. He only reached as far as my shoulders, but had broader shoulders and much bigger muscles than any human. Dwarfs name was Ashurga, he was a weaponsmith and also a shop owner. I visited his shop several times, to buy more arrows and was a regular client by now. Dwarf liked me and always gave me a discount.

- Hi there laddy. Came to buy arrows again?

- Yes. I always seem to need them.

- I see, I see. When you will finally level up your gear. If you wish to fight stronger monsters like dragons, then you'll need an orichalcum or adamantium arrows.

- Orichalcum arrows? Sounds interesting. How much they cost?

- One gold piece for each, - chuckled dwarf.

I sighed: - That's a bit pricee for me. I'll take regular ones for now.

- Just a bit ha, - laughed Ashurga: - To be honest, I only sold them once. Still have one quiver of them lying around, but doubt that I will sell them soon. Maybe in ten years or so, if I get lucky. Not much orichalcum to work with in this town anyway. That's a bloody shame. Have myself an advanced Weaponsmith skill and Blacksmith job, but not much use for my skills here. Have to make kitchen knives, to put food on the table, if you believe it.

- Is orichalcum the best metal for swords?

- Almost. Orichalcum is crafted from magic ore, that you can find in the dungeon. One of the blacksmith secrets, how to make it. But adamantium is better. Can forge a sword that be as good as any artifact with adamantium, but you can only get adamantium in dungeon, and not on upper floors. Small fry adventurers here, no go deep enough to find it. Posted several quests for it in adventurers guild, but no one took the job.

- Can't you forge a magic sword without it?

- Sorry laddy. Can't forge a magic sword at all. Blacksmith need Runesmith or magic skill as well as Blacksmith or Weaponsmith job, or similar skill for that. Can only forge you a sword with glowing stone if you plan to go to the dungeon.

- What's a glowing stone?

- Never seen one, ha? Those are stonies that you can find in the dungeon. In the light they look like ordinary crystals, but glow in the dark. No need to carry a lantern if you have a sword with glowing stone in its hilt. Heard that adventurers who work alone, use them in dungeons. You can also use potions, that let you see in the dark, but potions work only short amount of time, while glowing stone always gives you light.

- Sounds useful, - maybe my Night vision skill wasn't so useful after all, but too late to regret it now.

- I'll take six arrows for now. But I'll bring you your magic ore or adamantium, if I ever found one. What's the difference between them?

- That sounds like a deal that will get you a discount cutie. Adamantium is found as pure metal. But orichalcum is forged by mixing several metals with magic ore that can be found in a dungeon. Magic ore is also used to make artifacts, alchemists are crazy for it. Good luck of finding it. Well six arrows it is.

I thanked the dwarf and went outside. Adamantium sword - that sounded like a dream. I spend the rest of the day shopping, but nothing cached my eye. Well not much I could buy with a single silver coin left. In the evening I went to pick up my close and boots. Next day we were supposed to go to the dungeon again. I hoped that I was as prepared as I could be.

* * *

We took familiar route and chose one of the shortest way to the second floor. By now first floor monsters weren't a problem for us. Luara had maps of the first five floors. Fifth floor was our goal, there we had a chance of finding the artifacts, and that was one of our goals, besides increasing our levels and making a lot of money.

My night vision let me see even better. It's not like I could see colors, but surroundings were clearer to me and I could see the ceiling. There were many stalactites hanging from upstairs. It made me worried. Fear that they will fall on my head, wasn't something that I needed.

We carefully entered the dungeon's second floor, but this time there were no leeches falling on our heads. Like usually we left the decision of our route in Luara's hands. First we wanted to find out if we could handle monsters from the second floor. If we could, we would take the next step by going deeper - to the third floor. Receptionist Leone told as that centipede army that we encountered last time was something unusual. At least no one has ever reported it, or survived the encounter to report. It could also mean that monster numbers in the dungeon have increased, and could be the sign of monster stampede. Still we decided not to change our plans. Probably three gold coins and increase in our levels influenced our decision too much.

First we decided to explore cavern, where we fought the centipedes. We didn't collect all the magic stones, and it's not like the monsters needed them, so there was a good chance, that they still were there. We were approaching the cavern when Luara raised her hand and signaled us to stop.

- I hear something, - she whispered.

I peeked around the corner and saw something big eating the centipedes. Dungeon monsters rarely attacked each other, but they didn't hesitate to eat corpses. Monster looked like a bear, but with horns on his head.

- Looks like a big bear, - I informed my party members.

- Let's go with usual, - said Luara. Which meant that we let the monster attack, slow it down with Myne's spell, and then kill it, by attacking from all sides. I attracted monsters attention with my arrows. It roared in anger and run towards us on his four legs. I took a deep breath and aimed at him. My arrow pierced his eye and monster fell on the ground, without even reaching light circle from our magic lantern. Since Myne needed to see the monster to cast her spell, she didn't even had a chance to use it.

- It's over, - I told others and we approached the monster.

- Your skills can be such a cheat, - complained Luara, while she was cutting out bear's magic stone. We also collected its horns, since they could be use by the blacksmiths to create weapons. We searched the centipede corpses and found ten magic stones. Centipedes already started to decompose, so finding the magic stones turned out to be quite easy. Next we found the giant snakes body and collected its fangs. Just like with centipedes, we didn't have time to collect this monsters materials. I wanted to say that it was an easy start, but stopped myself. Didn't want to jinx it. We spent the night in the dungeon and returned to Grimsburd late evening. Thanks to our increased stats we were able to defeat second floor monster more easily. We encountered two giant snakes, but they weren't such a big problem this time. Thanks to her Wisdom skill and increased amount of mana, Myne was able to cast Slow spell on them without losing all of her mana. Snake scales also didn't look so tough to me as last time. I managed to kill a second snake by cutting of her head, while Luara killed first one by stabbing her in the eye. Even Trevor wasn't such a rookie anymore and started to resemble his teacher Evan.

Just like on the first floor, monsters resembled animals or gigantic insects. Giant snakes were the most dangerous monsters that we encountered there. We visited second floor two more times, and thanks to monster materials we increased our profits. Finally we were able to set aside some money, not just spend it all on basic necessities.

Luara finally managed to level up and reached level ten. She and Trevor updated their ranks. Now we had three rank E adventurers and one level D adventurer. We were sitting in the adventurers guild and discussing possibility to go to the third floor, when Leone approached our table.

- Hi, there. I see you spend a lot of time together and visit Grimsburg dungeon frequently. Why don't you register as a party? That way you could take a dungeon cleaning quest.

- What's a dungeon cleaning quest? - I asked. We all were so used to our dungeon diving routine, that we didn't even bother to check the quest board.

- Because of your report about large centipede monster colony, guild master and town lord decided to post it. Dungeon cleaning quests are posted when there are signs of possible monster stampede. Only adventurer party's can take them. Reward for the quest is a gold coin.

- What is required on such a quest? - asked Luara. Just like to the rest of us, words gold coin peaked her interest.

- You will need to visit the dungeon and hunt monsters. Quest will be accepted as completed if you bring two hundred level one monster magic stones or hundred level two monster stones. You can also bring fifty level three monster magic stones or twenty level four. You will of course receive a payment for magic stones as well.

- Can we take this quest more than one time? - I asked, thinking of a way to increase our profits.

- Of course. It is an open quest, that any party can take. You will receive a gold coin as soon as you accept the quest and have one week to complete it. Quest will be posted until guild master is satisfied that sufficient number of monsters is killed. If you fail to kill the specified number of monsters in one week you will need to return the reward, but there will be no penalty, if you can prove that you actually spent time hunting monsters. In other towns quest can be completed by killing small amount of stronger monsters, but in Grimsburg, even current strongest adventurer parties don't go lover than floor four.

We exchanged glances. That sounded interesting. In the beginning we wanted to register as a party, but decided against it, because of the twelve silver coins, that was the price for registering a party. But we could get that money back, after a couple dungeon visits. We already hunted monsters, so accepting this quest will increase our earnings.

- Can we think about it? - asked Luara.

- Of course, - answered Leone, but she already saw, that we won't say no.

That day we finally registered as an adventurers party. We voted for Luara to be the party leader. We didn't register our party's name since we couldn't decide on it, but it wasn't necessary for party registration. We were rank D party, since Luara already had that rank, and took our first quest - dungeon cleaning.

* * *

I used my sword to cut off centipedes head and looked around. That was the last one of the monsters. This centipede colony had only twenty monsters in it and we successfully killed them. This was our second dungeon visit after accepting the quest. Turned out that all monsters on first floor were classified as level one monsters, even spiders. On level two all monsters who hunted in packs were also only level one monsters. Horned bears were level two, and only giant snakes were level three monsters. After our first visit we only managed to turn in sixty level one magic stones. This quest turned out to be harder than I imagined. Because of our raids, and several more adventurers parties, who accepted the quest, monster population on first two floors, was quite low. We had to explore the second floor for three hours, until we run into these centipedes. That was the beginning of our second day in the dungeon, and we managed to collect only fifty stones. In my mind gold coins were flying away from us.

- Don't think we will find anything on the second floor, - voiced my thoughts Luara: - Guess we'll need to go to the third floor after all.

Trevor and Myne were little hesitant to do that in the beginning, but now Myne had to agreed.

- We will spend too much time walking around and risk to go back with empty pockets, if we don't do that.

- Third floor it is, - sighed Trevor. Even after reaching level nine, he still was the weakest member of our party. Even our mage Myne was physically stronger than Trevor, even with his Increased strength skill. He got wounded more frequently that rest of us and took it quite hard. Well, at least I could practice my Cure spell on him.

We finished gathering magic stones from centipedes and Luara guided us to the third floor.

Just like second, third floor was separated by stairs. We entered it for the first time, and to my surprise it wasn't as dark as the upper floors. On its walls grew glowing moss, that gave enough light for us to see. Luara finally could hide her lantern inside magic bag, which allowed her to move more freely.

We scouted our new hunting grounds, but didn't find anything so close to entrance.

- Maybe some adventurer party already cleared this area? - asked Trevor.

- No corpses, - I answered him. Trevor looking at me with question in his eyes, but then he understood.

- Oh.

- We have to go deeper, - Luara took out the map and studied possible routes: - That looks good, - she commented and pointed forwards. We entered huge cavern, we needed to cross at least two hundred meters to get to the other side. We were approaching the exit when Luara stopped us. At first I didn't see anything, but then adventurer run into cavern. He was covered in cuts and clearly running from something.

- Run! - he screamed: - Ru-un!!!

He tripped and fell on the ground. He didn't had a chance to get up when rat jumped on his back and bitted him. It was huge, at least as big as a wolf. Adventurer screamed in pain trying to shook it off. My party members couldn't see anything. Glowing moss allowed them to see in the dungeons third floor, but not as far as I could. They only heard adventurer's voice. I wanted to help him, but more rats appeared from the corridor. They attacked adventurer and bitted him from all sides.

- Run! - I turned around, and run away. This time my party members immediately followed my example, starting to run as soon as I did.

- What's happening?

- Rats, - I answered Luara, and looked back. Dozens of rodents swarmed adventurer and dozens more appeared out of the corridor. Soon they were finished with adventurer and followed us. I bet they didn't leave behind a single piece of him. I turned pale: - Hundreds of them.

- What do we do? - asked Trevor squeezing the handle of his sword.

- Stairs, - I answered: - That's our only chance.

Luara immediately understood and increased her speed. She started running in front of us showing us the way, and took out her magic lantern. None of the glowing moss grew on the stairs, and she quickly realized that we will need lanterns light in them.

We needed to reach the stairs that led to the second floor. That was the only position that we could protect. Rats were approaching us. We were lucky, that they took their time eating the adventurer before following us. We barely made it. Myne was falling behind, and I threw her upstairs. I turned around, but didn't have a chance to use my bow. I threw it behind me and took my sword. First rat already jumped at me and I narrowly avoided death. Didn't even had a chance to use a sword, instead I punched the monster with my left fist. Rat flew back and crushed into monsters behind it. That gave me chance to take a stance and prepare my sword. Luara had to drop the lantern on the stairs, but luckily for us it didn't break. Stairs were around two meters width. That meant that all three of us had to protect it, but we were close enough to each other, to stop rats from getting to Myne. We already spilled first blood, when Myne casted Slow spell. Front row rats became slower and our chances of survival increased. No one needed orders or discussion about our strategy. We already experienced such battle with centipedes. We created a first line, that protected Myne, and our mage casted as many Slow spells as she could.

Rats were faster than centipedes, and there were more of them. I couldn't even see the end of the rodent army. But we were also stronger than last time and in better position. Rats were so numerous, that they would definitely surround us, if they had a smallest chance. Even now, those who were further behind tried to claim the walls to get to us faster. Luckily for us, rodents weren't meant to claim on the walls, and they fell on their brethren heads, getting in the way of other rats. We killed closest rats and slowly claimed up the stairs. Stairs were long enough for us not to run out on them. Rat bodies created defensive wall in front of us and other rats had to slow down, even more to crawl over them. Some of the rats started eating their dead. That was disgusting.

We killed more than fifty of them, but there still was no end of them. Myne was slowly retreating behind us. In one hand she had a lantern, holding it as high as she could. In other hand she had her staff, that helped her to increase the strength of her spell.

- Stamina potions, - ordered Luara. Myne understood and the moment anyone of us had time, passed us opened vials. I drunk the potion in one gulp and threw empty bottle at rats. That allowed us to restore some of our strength and continue to fight. We were at least half way up the stairs, when the endless sea of ​​rats got smaller. Less than two dozen rats were still pursuing us, when Myne run out of mana. Things got more dangerous, but we managed to hold our position. Finally Trevor killed last monster, and I sat down on the stairs. My sword was covered with rats blood. I could barely hold it, for even the hilt of the sword was covered with blood. Again we were covered in scratches, this time from rat fangs. My clothe were in worst state ever. Wonder if I will be able to fix them.

- I hate this place, - sighed Luara. Myne nodded and handed each of us one more stamina potion. I winced, I really hated its taste. We sighed, but drank the potion. We still needed to collect the magic stones, and fast. At least we had enough stones to collect to keep the quest reward. Stone collection took us more time than the battle. But since stairs were kind of safe space, we risked and finished collecting all of them. Myne managed to restore some of her mana during our stone collection, and could cast her Slow spell again.

On our way back we were attacked several times. Probably the smell of blood attracted all nearby monsters. But there were no huge monster packs, and we already could handle bears even without Myne's help. We encountered even a snake, and Myne collapsed after using last of her mana on it. Trevor had to carry her till the first floor, where she finally was able to move herself. First floor was mostly cleared by adventurers and we exited it without a single encounter with the monsters.

* * *

Leone gasped and run towards us as soon as we entered the guild. Luara gave her short explanation about our adventure, and gave her our latest loot from the dungeon. She left us to count the stones, and needed more time than usually to do that.

We were drinking juice and waiting for news, when Leone returned.

- Excuse me for taking so long, - she apologized and put three gold coins and four silver ones on the table. Luara asked her to change two gold coins for silver ones. We each will keep five silver coins, but the rest she needed to replenish party's potions.

- I have a favor to ask of you, - told us Leone, after coming back with silver coins.

- What kind of favor? - carefully asked Luara.

- Could you all come tomorrow morning to talk to the guild master? He will have some questions about your encounter with rats. There were huge rat monster signings before, but never more than fifty rats were seen in one place. Such huge numbers of the rats is unusual.

Luara looked at us, and I shrugged.

- Its fine by us. We would take few days to rest anyway.

- Thank you. Is there anything else I can help you with?

- Yes. I want to use leveling crystal.

- Of course, please follow me.

The rest of us also decided to increase our levels, and we followed Leone to the leveling room.

We used leveling crystal, but still couldn't reach level ten. To my surprise Luara was the only one who leveled up and reached level eleven. Must be true that getting to levels ten, twenty and thirty is much harder than other levels. But to my surprise her stats turned out to be not that impressive.

Catgirl, LV 10 - LV 11

Name - Luara;

Job: Scout;

Status:

Health: 10 - 11;

Mana: 10 - 20;

Strength: 3;

Defense: 3;

Spell power: 0 - 1;

Luck: 1;

Speed: 5;

Morale: Neutral

Skills:

Foresight (Novice);

Scouting (Novice);

Martial arts (Basic); Hunting (Novice);Tracking (Novice);Butchery (Novice);

Possible skill acquirement:

- Trap Detection (Novice);

- Tracking (Basic);

Please choose one skill!

- Oh, Trap Detection, that sound useful, - carelessly said Luara and chose Trap Detection skill.

Geez, seven skills out of ten already. Well it did sounded useful especially in the dungeon, but beastmen really didn't care about skills as much as humans did.

We congratulated her on leveling up and agreed to meet tomorrow, for our meeting with guild master.