Chapter 29: Chapter 29: Dungeon Time

As they arrived at the dungeon, its entrance towered over them. The roof and walls appeared to be made of an old stone that exuded small amounts of mana. Mylon put his hand on the door and felt his mana be slowly absorbed, indicating it was made of magnecite. Mylon removed his hand and called Baz to the door, who cracked his knuckles as he approached. Mylon and Baz worked together to open the massive door. After a moderate amount of effort, the duo managed to force the door open. As all three of them peered inside they were met with a faint glow emanating from some weak fire runes engraved on either side of the wall.

There was a short section of floor before it gave way to a flight of stairs that descended down into the depths of the dungeon. Mylon drew his sword and the tip of it began to glow. “Woah, you can use light magic?” Zycor asked, “That’s pretty cool.”

Mylon chuckled, “Well, light magic is not the only magic I can use. I have the wind affinity. Although it is my only affinity, it allows me to utilize all elements at an equal level, including exclusive access to the wind element. Though, it also means I will always be average in any magic I use.”

As the trio made their way down the stairs, they reached the first floor of the dungeon. A musty and dank smell permeated through the halls, assaulting the group's nose’s. Mylon, wincing at the smell, asked for confirmation, “Hey Zycor, do you know what we are supposed to be doing here?”

Zycor, pinching his nose while dawning a confused expression, responded, “Yeah, we are here to exterminate the monsters inside of this dungeon, right?”

Mylon sighed, and began explaining as they began to walk through the first floor, “I see, you don’t know how dungeons work, do you? Each dungeon has a heart or core. As long as the heart is still active, the dungeon will continue to spawn monsters. Think of the dungeon's heart as one large, stand alone soul shard, constantly converting ambient mana into monsters. Because of this, all we can do is keep the monsters’ numbers down to prevent them from being able to break out of the dungeon.” 

“Why don’t we just destroy the dungeon's heart then?” Zycor asked in response. 

“Well,” Mylon began his answer, swiping some cobwebs out of the way,, “a dungeon's heart is very elusive. Even if you make it to the floor with the dungeon's heart, it is not in plain sight. Those who have managed to locate a dungeon's heart say they only found them by chance. They are located in an extraordinarily well hidden room. And even if you find the heart, unless you know how to deactivate it, you could cause a catastrophic explosion by trying to brute force it.” Mylon pointed at Baz, “So don’t let him anywhere near one.”

After they walked for a minute or so more, the group ran into four humanoid bat monsters. Baz and Zycor took up a fighting stance, but Mylon put his hand out stopping them. “Alright Zycor,” Mylon started, “time for you to see magic orders in action.” 

Mylon composed himself and uttered, “Converge. Chain.” 

With each order, the lightning in Mylon’s now outstretched hand appeared to fluctuate and change slightly. When he fired the attack, it pierced through the first bat monster and immediately changed course to strike the next one, and continued until all four were pierced and killed. Zycor ran over to the bodies and saw that the lightning strike left a hole at the sight of impact, just like with the tree. “Now,” Mylon started, “combining orders takes practice. It is also important to remember the order you give the, well, orders. There are some orders, like ‘chain’ that are a bit too advanced for you. So don’t try them.”

Baz kicked one of the corpses and said, “These are a couple of fugly bastards.”

“I am not certain that is appropriate to say around the guild masters kid,” Mylon began to argue.

“Eh, whatever. He’s a big boy, I am certain he can handle it, isn’t that right?” Baz replied as he asked Zycor for confirmation.

Zycor gave a thumbs up, and Baz continued, “See, it’s fine. You worry too much.”

Mylon let out a large sigh and the trio started on their way again. After they walked around the dungeon for an hour or so and dealt with the monsters that appeared, the party arrived at the entrance to the second floor. As they descended down the staircase, Mylon said to Zycor, “Something you should know about dungeons of any type: the monsters will get exponentially stronger the further down you go. They are strongest on the floor containing the dungeon's heart. The lower ranked the dungeon is, the lower the number of floors. You will see what I mean as we continue. D ranked dungeons have three floors, so we still have a ways to go.” 

The party arrived on floor two and immediately continued the expedition. They did not walk too far from the staircase before they encountered some monsters. These monsters were monkey-like creatures that had four arms and were covered in orange scales like those of a salamander. Zycor asked, “What are those?” 

“We call them Momander’s.” Mylon answered. 

As he readied his axe, Baz said, “I’m not stopping this time, Mylon. I need to let off some steam and no force in heaven or on earth will stop me.” 

Mylon threw his hands up while he stepped back. A grin grew across Baz’s face as he began his charge. The Momanders screeched as Baz drew closer, to which Baz yelled back at them. The Momanders began to charge Baz as he continued to storm forward. Baz brought his axe down on one of them, but before making contact both Momanders dashed in opposite directions towards the walls. As Baz’s axe collided with the ground, the floor cracked around the impact zone. The Momanders, now on either side of him, began to emanate visible heat waves. They then both shot fireballs at Baz. Baz kicked the handle of his massive axe to knock the axe into the air above him, and used the momentum from that action to help him quickly step back. As the two fireballs collided, smoke was generated from the subsequent explosion. Cutting through the smoke, Baz swung his axe horizontally at the Momander on the right wall, cleaving its head clean off and his axe lodging into the wall, cracking it like the floor. The dying screech of the monster was heard by its counterpart, which caused it to screech itself which cleared the smoke with a wave of scalding air.

“Oh shit,” Mylon began as he growed increasingly panicked, “that’s not good.” 

Mylon shouted to Baz, “Hey you big oaf, watch out!” 

Zycor, completely unaware of the cause of Mylons worry, asked, “What’s going on now?” 

Mylon, with a mildly worried look on his face, replied, “Momanders are usually not that large of a threat. However, when cornered they begin to super heat their body temperatures to the level of a true salamander. Doing that ends up killing them, but allows them to output a final attack on par with a true salamander.” 

Swinging his head around to look at the Momander heating up, Baz began to frantically attempt to dislodge his axe. “Son of a bitch,” Baz muttered. 

With one final motion, he tore the axe out of the wall. He took a heavy step forward as all of his muscles tensed up. He swung the axe over his head and threw it at the Momander with everything he had. At the same moment, the Momander finished super heating itself, the stone around it beginning to melt slowly, and launched a super heated breath attack. The axe thrown with such ferocity collided with the massive breath of fire and began to split it. However, the intensity of the breath managed to throw the axe off course. The wildly spinning axe caused the fire to be thrown wildly around the hallway.  Having a feeling something like this may have happened, Mylon had already taken up a position to cast defensive water magic. Mylon shouted, “Veil. Prison. Maximize.” 

A veil of water formed in front of Baz, then encircled him in a prison made of water before the water began to flow violently. The same happened around Mylon and Zycor as well. The flame breath collided with the prison, creating a huge amount of smoke. Mylon was visibly struggling as he continued to pour mana into the water shields until the fire finally dissipated. The Momander, now a shriveled husk, Fell over, dead. Mylon released the spell and took a knee, heavily worn out. As the water prison collapsed, Baz ended up soaked. “I appreciate the assistance,” Baz began, “But could you have done literally anything else? I am now soaked, and therefore upset.” 

Mylon, taking heavy breaths, responded “Oh… put a sock in it. You… you know water magic is… far faster to cast than earth magic.”

Feeling rather useless, Zycor decided to go retrieve Baz’s axe to try and help. As Zycor got to the axe, he found it lodged deep into the wall. He tried with all his might to remove it from the wall, with no luck. Baz walked over as he chuckled, “Haha, good luck kid! You're way too scrawny to even attempt to lift this thing, let alone try and dislodge it!” 

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Baz grabbed the axe and dislodged it himself, Zycor now dangling from the shaft of the axe. “You can let go now,” Baz told Zycor. 

Zycor let go, upset he couldn’t help, but even more so about not being able to budge the axe.

After a short rest, the trio pushed onwards, dealing with a few more Momanders along the way, working together to dispatch them quickly. Mylon and Baz both stopped dead in their tracks, which surprised Zycor. “What’s going on?” Zycor began to inquire, “Why did we stop?” 

Mylon shushed Zycor as he scanned the room intently along with Baz. Zycor heard a deep growl behind him. He whipped around and was met with a panther-like creature covered in skin like a chameleon that appeared to come out of nowhere. Zycor was able to jump off to his left as Baz slammed one of the blunt sides of his axe into the creature like a bat and baseball and sent it flying into the right wall. “Zycor, Back up!” Baz shouted. 

Mylon plunged his sword into the neck of the creature to finish it off. “We’re not out of this yet!” Mylon shouted, “Pantheleons travel in packs!” 

“What’s a Pantheleon?” Zycor asked as he got up. 

“They are monsters that look like and hunt like panthers, but have the skin of a chameleon. They are able to use magic to almost instantly activate the skins camouflage ability and cloak themselves,” Mylon explained quickly.

Barely able to finish his sentence, Mylon was attacked by another Pantheleon that uncloaked and launched at him from his right. He was able to get his shield between them in time to block the strike. “Damnit!” Mylon yelled, “How long has it been since someone came to clean this dungeon!? We shouldn’t have encountered these things yet! If they are here, the final level must be at capacity!” 

Zycor heard another unsettlingly deep, rumbly growl on the other side of Mylon. As he turned to face the source of the noise, two Pantheleons uncloaked in front of him. A small grin began to take shape on Zycor’s face as he extended the blades from his gauntlets. Baz, who noticed, shouted, “Hang on a second Zy! These things are smarter than normal monsters! Wait for-.” 

Baz was cut off by another pair that decloaked and attacked him. Zycor took a lower stance, his gauntlets and legs beginning to crackle with electricity. The Pantheleons launched their attack and Zycor blitzed past them, landing on the wall. Using the wall as a foot hold, he blitzed one of the Pantheleons, decapitating it in an instant. As the body collapsed, Zycor was on the opposite wall, poised to strike the remaining beast. Both Baz and Mylon, having dealt with their Pantheleons, watched as Zycor blitzed the remaining Pantheleon and impaled it. Zycor then yelled as he ran the creature into the wall behind it. As he collided with the wall, the lightning generated a large impact and threw dust around Zycors immediate vicinity.

As the dust began to settle, small streaks of electricity continued to crackle from his gauntlets as Zycor breathed heavily. Mylon and Baz began to walk over to Zycor, at a loss for words. “Wow, Zycor,” Mylon started, “I-I don’t know what-.” 

“Holy shit Zycor!” Baz interjected, cutting Mylon off, “Where the hell were you hiding that?!” 

Mylon and Baz stopped as the dust fully dissipated. Zycor was fast, but not fast enough to dodge the strikes of a creature he had no prior experience with. There were lacerations on the left side of his torso and a gash on his right leg. 

Baz, stunned at the fact that Zycor managed to continue his assault considering the shape he was in, remarked, “Good goddess, are you ok?!” 

“Y-yeah,” Zycor stuttered as he removed his blades from the monster's corpse, “I-I’ll be fine…” 

Zycor leaned against the wall and slid down to sit. He was bleeding moderately, and Mylon rushed over to help. “Hang in there buddy,” he began, “you are going to be fine. I am going to use fire magic to cauterize the wound. This is going to hurt… probably a lot.” 

Mylon began to cauterize the wound as Zycor let out a quiet whimper and winced, but did his best to hold back his voice and tears. “Alright,” Mylon said, “that should do it. Now, for the bandages.” 

As he grabbed the bandages out of his pack, Zycor stopped him before he got close. Zycor stammered, “S-stop. P-please let me do it.” 

Mylon reluctantly agreed, handing the bandages over to Zycor. Zycor then made his way around the corner while he let Mylon and Baz know he was not going to go much further. Zycor enlarged the chainmail and removed it followed by him removing the left side of his shirt to expose the fresh wound, along with his burn scars. He did the same procedure for the wound on his leg.

Zycor finished patching himself up, re-clothed, and re-joined Mylon and Baz. Mylon asked, “Hey, you doing alright?” 

“Yeah, I’ll be ok,” Zycor responded, still woozy from the blood loss. While the trio made their way through the dungeon, Mylon and Baz did most of the fighting due to the shape Zycor was in. Luckily, it appeared there were no more Pantheleons around on the current floor. As they made their way through the rest of the second floor the trio stumbled across the entrance to the third and final floor. “Alright,” Mylon began, “Here we are. We only need to take care of some of the monsters down on the third floor. After that, we get the hell out of here. But first, let’s take a break. Zycor, rest up as much as you can.” 

Baz and Zycor both agreed with the proposed plan, and Zycor limped over to a wall. Zycor took a seat as he leaned up against a wall. He closed his eyes to rest for a bit. As he rested, he thought he heard a loud thumping. Temporarily waking, he looked around, but the thumping appeared to have ceased. Assuming it was nothing, he returned to his rest but heard it again as he closed his eyes. Zycor kept his eyes closed to see if he could make out what may be making the thumps. He opened his eyes as he stood up and put his ear to the wall he had leaned against. Although slightly fainter, he could still hear it. He knocked on the wall with his knuckle, and one of the bricks got pushed in slightly. After he saw that, Zycor continued knocking on the brick until it fell out behind the wall. As the brick fully dislodged, the wall his head was leaned upon to listen, collapsed. 

Zycor began to fall into the abyss below, but Baz managed to catch his hand before he fell fully. “Hah,” Baz chuckled, “you are lucky I am so relia-.” 

His gloating was cut off by a brick that fell from above him and slammed onto his thumb, causing him to release his grip. “BAZ, WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL?” Mylon screamed. 

Baz yelled back, “WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME? A BRICK FELL AND BROKE MY GRIP!” 

Mylon, calling Baz out, exclaimed, “YOU ARE A LITERAL ORC! YOU TRAIN BY PUNCHING GIANT BOULDERS AND TREES! THE HELL IS A BRICK GOING TO DO?!” 

Baz, not about to admit Mylon had a point, muttered as he corrected Mylon, “Half orc...”

Deciding he did not have time to indulge Baz's stupidity any longer, Mylon quickly turned his attention to the hole in the wall and the dark abyss that swallowed Zycor. Mylon, his attitude now changed to fear, looked at Baz and said, "We have to go get him. Now. These monsters may be a pain to deal with, but I fear what the guild master will do to us if we return without her kid will be far worse."

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