Worthy Core

DAY 760

When Beatrice sighs for the third time, she finally attracts the attention of her two companions. Ever the more sociable type, it falls to Janey to be the one to ask. "Something bothering you, Beatie?"

The question makes the warrior wince. "Ugh, am I 'Beatie' now? I think I liked 'Beatle' that one time better - not that I liked it, either." Beatrice shakes her head before gesturing at the gathering of Challenger parties in the small clearing, partway up the small mountain they've been climbing. "I'm just still not used to having to wait outdoors for our turn to get into the dungeon. We really couldn't have waited back at the inn and set out from there?"

Tassa, Beatrice's other minotaur companion, handles this complaint. "There'd be too many arguments about parties skipping the queue. When everyone's out in front of the dungeon and in plain view of everyone else, there's no question of who got here first. What's the matter, though? We've all run plenty of dungeons by this point, you know how it works."

She's answered with sigh number four. "Just...spoiled by Worthy Inn, I suppose, and having the inn built right into the dungeon itself. I get that most can't do that, but you think there'd at least be something out by the dungeon gate, you know? A...snack vendor, or something!"

Janey raises an eyebrow as she surveys the mountain around her. It's late summer so there's not much snow at the current altitude, but it's hardly a tourist destination. "Beatrice, we are on the side of a mountain. Do you have any idea how hard it'd be to get supplies up here? Plus the staff would have a hell of a commute, eh? Though I gotta say, we really need to visit this special dungeon of yours, going by how you keep going on about it so much."

The monster slayer eyes Tassa before deciding to change the topic a bit. "I'm sure we will...sometime. Anyways, we should focus on the one we're at, right? Highlight Mountain - what's its deal? Any, uh...highlights?"

Although it's a topic that's been at least briefly covered a few times before, Tassa doesn't mind discussing it one more time. After all, it's not as if there's much else going on at the moment. "Aside from the climb, it's generally considered a low-difficulty dungeon until you get to the very deep floors. It's one of the most popular training dungeons for the Valleyland Army, though I haven't been to this one myself. It's old enough to have been active for a brief period back when the Dragonlord controlled the Valleylands, and at some point it got a specialization into reptiles and draconics. The name comes from the architecture, though - there's apparently small tunnel shafts dug into the mountain that let it use natural lighting in places. It's used as puzzles for some parts, although we don't want to get that deep today."

Janey nods in agreement. "Yup, today's our 'checking it out' day. Once we've tried a floor or two we can see about picking up a spare party member or two and going deeper - and don't give me that look! I don't care how many magic tattoos you got, three people isn't enough to be alert for everything a dungeon might throw at us."

"Sure, sure." Beatrice rolls her eyes, although she doesn't disagree. "How many floors does the place have, anyhow?"

"About seven 'easy' ones, sixteen 'mid' level ones, and then four 'hard' floors. I bet we could handle most of them, at least once we get some extra support, but we'll have to see if we actually want to spend that long working on this one."

"Especially if we have to wait in damn line like this every morning!" Beatrice kicks a particularly offensive rock off the side of the mountain. "Are all of these really newbies starting on the first floor?"

"Like I said, the army uses the beginner floors to train new recruits. It's possible we just had the bad timing to come around after a recruitment drive..." Tassa's eyes narrow as she turns her face to look up the mountain, where the dungeon's entrance is hidden by a number of turns and rocky outcrops. "Do you hear something?"

Beatrice considers putting on her enchanted helmet, but gives up on it. "My helmet can block sonic attacks but I don't actually have anything for improving my hearing. You two have bigger ears than I do - what is it? Shit, not an avalanche or something, is it?"

Tassa closes her eyes and lets her other senses take hold - perhaps including a sense for vibrations in the stone from her dwarven heritage. "The mountain feels stable, but...something's wrong. I hear yelling."

Janey peers upward with her hands shielding her eyes from the morning sun, putting her few extra feet in height to her advantage. "It looks like there's some sort of bird flying over the mountain? Oh, no, wait - I think it's swooping down at us!"

The trio, along with the other more observant Challengers in the waiting area, all duck back from the quickly-approaching shadow...only to realize that Janey's initial identification was quite a bit off. Instead of a bird, what swoops down on them is a screaming orc, and rather than 'swooping' the motion could be more accurately described as 'smashing face-first into the solid stone and turning into a pile of broken meat'. Even Janey's healing skills are far outclassed by the damage done to the man's body, and everyone in the clearing quickly starts yelling and backing up.

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"Shit! Was that - did someone slip off the side of the mountain?" Beatrice looks upward once again, but Tassa shakes her head.

"That was no slip - he must have been thrown to get that much distance. Perhaps...perhaps some parties up by the dungeon entrance got into a fight? We...may be dealing with a murder situation here."

That situation gets somewhat more complicated when two more bodies follow the first. The second is that of an elvish archer, probably female, while the third is far more difficult to identify given his complete lack of a head. Upon noticing the last, Beatrice's eyes grow wide and she quickly moves to pull on her helmet. "This is no brawl over dungeon delving rights - something is seriously wrong! Make sure your equipment is ready for a fight!"

As the team gets to drawing their weapons and fixing on any gear they weren't wearing properly, another adventurer shouts out a warning. "The Caverndile! It's climbing down the mountain!"

Tassa's head snaps up, and sure enough the woman identifies a massive reptilian creature crawling directly down the side of the mountain, ignoring the longer but smoother winding path off to the side. The beast seems to be at least twenty feet long from head to tail, and its skin is so gray and crag-filled that it could almost be mistaken for the stone that it's climbing on. At least it doesn't seem to be able to actually swim through the rock, but it does manage to nearly defy gravity with how it's able to move so quickly and confidently without falling down. "That's - that's the dungeon's third floor boss, if I remember right! How in the hells is it attacking people outside of the dungeon!?"

"Questions later, fight first!" Beatrice charges in the direction of the beast, and as she does so the crowd clearly splits into two camps. One of them seems to be mostly Initiates - or at least, the more cautious set of Initiates - who quickly back away, clearly not ready to fight a dungeon guardian without warning. Perhaps two thirds of the crowd however follows after Beatrice, voices raised in shouts as weapons are drawn and spells are prepared. The first few blasts of magic are near misses, sending shards of stone flying in every direction, but one bolt of lightning does strike the beast just in time for it to reach the clearing.

It doesn't do much more than anger the monster, given its thick hide, the but the moment it takes to growl out its displeasure does give Beatrice and the other melee fighters time to surround it and begin their attacks. The braver Initiates in the group aren't particularly effective given their poor weapons and worse aim, but Beatrice is far from the only one present with both skills and high-quality equipment. As the Caverndile's massive jaws swipe left and right, trying to catch onto its prey, blades and hammers ruin its limbs one by one. As Tassa begins working on its neck with her axes an arrow takes out one of its eyes, and before she's even halfway through an elf with a ridiculously long lance has leapt onto its back, driving her weapon into its heart in the process.

It's less than half a minute from start to finish, but Beatrice can still feel her pace beginning to quicken as she looks around the clearing. "It's down! Is - no one else is hurt? Everyone's good?" Beneath her helmet, the human smiles. "Well! Guess it must have been some newbies up by the dungeon entrance, that wasn't so hard, really. Probably could've taken it on by myself!"

"Beatrice..." As Janey approaches she has a warning tone in her voice, but instead of continuing the woman instead just points upwards. As Beatrice follows her line of sight, the warrior realizes she may have been a little premature with her good mood.

"...Fuck." Another giant reptilian, this one more along the lines of a gecko-type creature, seems to be following after the trail of the first, and on top of that this time there does seem to be the shadow of a massive flying creature soaring around the mountain as well. In addition to that, inhuman noises coming from the mountain above indicate that other monsters may be following the longer path on their way down. "Anyone know what those two are!?"

Tassa takes a breath. "I don't know about the flying one, but the lizard spits fireballs! It's floor...five? Six? Hells if I know! Just be ready!"

Again, spells and arrows begin flying towards the reptilian before it can get too close, but this time the monster fires back with magic of its own in a literal manner. A few quick spits of flame send hailstone-sized fireballs towards a group of mages, making them scatter, and as soon as it has a moment of calm the monster gathers itself up for a larger attack. The next one becomes a ball of flame as tall as Tassa is - and this one aims for the group of Initiates who were crowding up at the rear of the gathering. As the others watch on, three young orcs are immediately lit on fire, their screams cut short as their bodies drop to the ground.

The fiery gecko is still out of Beatrice's reach, perched on the side of the mountain, but the monster slayer's no longer interested in waiting for it to make another move. Taking a deep breath, Beatrice pumps herself up. "Okay...never tried this going upwards, but...it'll work, yeah? It'll work!" With that said the warrior sprints towards the rock face, and just before reaching it she nearly flickers out of view. Her attempt to magically dash her way up the side of the mountain...mostly works, but she actually ends up tripping over one of the legs of the monster before stumbling and practically falling on top of it.

Fortunately the gecko is just as surprised by the maneuver as she is, and by time it thinks to turn its snout in her direction she's already latched on to its back. Her blade stabs into the creature over and over, awkwardly looking for a vital organ, and to Beatrice's relief Tassa manages to buy her a few extra moments with a throwing axe that nearly takes off one of its feet. The reptile does manage to get off one blast of flame, but the searing heat passes over Beatrice's shoulder without making contact, and before it gets time for a second her sword has finally found its way into the monster's lungs.

It takes a little time for the beast to die, and longer for Beatrice to safely make her way back down towards the others, but when she does there's little time to recover. "These are floor guardians, Tassa? Are you sure?"

"Mostly?" Tassa again eyes the flying monster above, still out of reach. "I...think that might be from one of the floors in the teens? I didn't investigate that far, since we weren't planning to go that deep today!"

"Right. But..." Beatrice sucks in a breath. "How many floors did you say this dungeon has? How many guardians?"

Janey's voice is quiet, as she watches several more oversized monsters begin to appear on the path ahead. "Twenty-seven floors...but...factor in wandering bosses, and...and floors with multi-boss fights...maybe...three dozen guardians?"

"...Right, then." Beatrice hefts her sword once again, and feels the mana as it begins to flow through her tattooed ink. "...Two down, thirty-plus to go, then."