16 Survivors

Galahad wasn't sure what had happened. All he could feel was an absence of feeling across his entire body, making the only way to describe his state as weightless. But the lack of feeling didn't last forever. Slowly but surely, all his senses were coming back to him.

He could hear the murmuring of voices that were too far away to comprehend. He could smell a lot of strong, foreign odors and distinguish a bit of plant somewhere mixed between the scents. Soon the sensation of his back laying down on a bed emerged.

Galahad then opened his eyes, he didn't understand where he was laying or what time it was in the day. The room was almost pitch black and he could barely make out the ceiling structure above him. The ceiling he was staring at was made of stone he had never seen before.

'I'm definitely not in bed at home, unless someone redecorated and swapped out my bed linens. So what is this?'

Before he could sit up, his whole left side erupted into a state of pain that was so intense, it felt worse than molten metal being poured along his arm and neck. He just fully regained his sense of touch.

Galahad tried to scream out in pain and went to clutch at his side, but he couldn't move his arms and something was forcibly keeping his mouth pried open and it kept trailing down through his esophagus. He could only shake the bed and let out muffled shrieks.

The murmuring stopped and the sources came running over at the shrieks Galahad was trying to make. They finally came into his view, though it didn't matter; the pain was blinding him and it was the only thing ripping across his mind.

One female voice was assessing his condition in a very quick and professional tone. While the other male voice was clashing with the clacking of glass bottles loudly beside the bed.

"He woke up sooner than expected," She said while bringing a small light crystal up to Galahad's eyes. "add two more drops of sedative to the stem. I have no idea how he woke up so early, his wounds and the potions should have been keeping him unconscious for another couple of days."

Galahad felt the tubing that reached through his throat grow cold and introduce a substance into stomach. His whole body grew warm and the pain lessen to a tolerable point. Soon he was only heaving and moaning.

The male healer popped into Galahad's vision and was staring down at him.

"Incredible, don't you think?" He asked the blonde female across from him. "Most of the damage wrapped around his skin and muscles, yet the bones and ligaments seemed almost untouched. Do you think it was an explosion? Or something that wields fire magic?" His tone made it seem like this was nothing truly serious to him.

"Be quiet." She scolded him. "Let the sedatives take affect and once the healing process stops him from hurting himself any further, you can ask him yourself."

The female walked away with Galahad's chart to update the status of his medication. The male didn't step away, he watched Galahad's eyelids droop down and his breathing was becoming rhythmic.

"Too bad he was the only one to return to the surface, otherwise we could have figure it out much sooner."

That was the last thing Galahad heard before falling back asleep.

*****

The night before.

Thirty minutes before the dungeon shift, light went off on the return crystal platform in the gate spire. Frederick had appeared on the crystal and was shouting for a medical team.

The groups that already returned were drawn to the commotion and were taken back by the gruesome sight that was sprawled across the crystal. There laid the daughter of the count with near fatal injuries stretching across her stomach, causing blood to quickly puddle around all her.

The medical team arrived with bags filled with an assortment of potions and equipment they began using. Within two minutes, they did the best they could to stabilize her condition and took her to the medical center for better treatment. They carried her out on a stretcher and silence soon died away.

Everyone was just too shocked at the sight, some were still staring at the bloody mess across the platform. It shined a blend of orange as the bright yellow was tainted by the red blood smeared along it.

"Clear the return platform, my team is coming now." Shouted Frederick angrily at the curious adventurers that drew closer to the crystal.

"What happened?" asked a tall and muscular, red headed man who had a great sword draped across his shoulder. He figured is large figure would somewhat intimidate the facilitator into telling him the details. His looming figure only irritates Frederick as he was busy

"Not your problem, what needs to happen is everyone still below must come up to surface. Go tell Jehnson, the man in the blue suit, NOW!"

The redhead made an ugly face and walked off, he was not used to being commanded by someone who looked to be dozens of levels below him. The large man's team walked off as the events were of no interest to them.

Shortly after, someone grabbed Jehnson who hurried over in his flashy blue suit, he was giving off an atmosphere of stress and lots of sweat.

"What's happening down there? Where is your team?" Asked Jehnson. His voice was not as smooth and audience gathering as before.

"They'll be back up in about a minute." Said Frederick. You need to make sure every team gets back up here. We can't have anymore casualties." His tone went dark at what he had just seen.

"You lost adventurers down there?" Jehnson was shocked. He knew that only the best adventurer class fighters and magicians were allowed to work at such guild events. The fact that Frederick had a single casualty meant that something really dangerous was lurking in the dungeon.

"No, My team is fine but the it's so much worse. Team C is gone, the facilitator as well."

"Gone? What do you mean gone?" His face went pale as the blood drained from his face.

"I mean they are splattered across the walls of the dungeon and Miss Venora was the luckiest one we found."

"Oh gods." Jehnson grew even more pale and looked like he was about to passed out. Frederick shook him out of it by grabbing him by the collar.

"Call up all the teams to surface, otherwise this is going to get so much worse." His tone proved how bad the situation might have been.

Time slowly passed and only ten minutes remained before the shift happened, almost every team had returned. They came up disappointed and assumed a team must have surfaced earlier with a monster drop too valuable to beat. They found themselves mistaken and quickly corrected when some of the teams that witnessed Frederick and Venora explained what they saw before.

The new was spreading throughout the town of Teramore and everyone quickly learned of the Count's daughter resurfacing with near fatal injuries. The city districts' populations were waking up and starting to make noise on the tragedy that happened on this night. Five adventurers were killed in the dungeon crawl event, something this bad hadn't occurred in this city in years.

Now it was Frederick's turn to sweat profusely. He paced over and over around the room. Galahad's group of friends had not yet returned to the surface like they had promised him.

'I shouldn't have left them alone. Galahad could have taken up Venora, why did I think I could trust them to return. Those absolute idiots.' The same set of thoughts were running through Federick's mind while he waited not so idly by the base of the crystal.

Jehnson walked over to Frederick and projected a small light from his palm, small lines morphed into small letters and drew up a list with almost all the teams checked off but Frederick's team, Jeahna's team, and Team P. "We can't send anyone down far enough without risking an encounter with the potential team slayer."

Team slayer was a term for a kind of demon powerful enough to wipe out a whole assortment of adventurers, rarely used in such region. The Count made sure to stop such casualties from ever happening after the incident long before.

"I don't know if it was a team slayer or not. Whatever it was, it had a group of Seropods running away. Did you tell the technicians at the resonant towers to boost the magic communication waves?"

If one of the departments that worked in the nearest crystal resonance towers increased the usage of mana orbs on the giant crystals that sat atop the towers in the city, they could possibly nullify the interference Frederick was getting every time he tried to contact Galahad. He needed them to juice up a tower so he could scream at the team to return.

That's one of the many reasons for the guild's interaction and promotions for dungeon events. Mana orbs acted like a fuel for almost every machine and enchanted products the world of Endora runs on. The guild's dungeon system was a form of acting management about the flow of mana orbs to cities and kingdoms; so they can keep lights, towers, and other items running without exhausting the mana produced internally from a magician.

"I did, but they can't get it ready for another few hours, this city doesn't have enough spare mana orbs to send out even just a pulse. It's hard to get any donations too because it's only two teams left."

"It's twelve fucking people!" Shouted Frederick. His loud outburst drew the eyes of the crowd for a second time that night. "We've already lost six, you want to just up and leave them to die down there?"

"No- no, of course not. I'll keep talking with the others." Jehnson scurried off before he would become the bane of Frederick's existence.

Frederick turned back to the crystal platform just as it activated. The whole area was flooded briefly with light and a team stood on atop it with a few collapsing from exhaustion.

It was all five members of team P and their facilitator, Quebar. He was a somewhat scrawny man with brown skin and blue eyes that seemed to disappear in the shadows of his rather large brow. He stood there in a dazed state with dents in his lightweight armor and a deep gash across the side of his calf.

The still somewhat conscious members pulled their fallen teammates off the crystal and hurried them over to the medical staff now waiting on hand to treat anyone that comes through the return platform. Meanwhile, Quebar limped off the platform and moved straight over to Frederick once he recognized someone he worked with. He pulled off the assassin chest armor that attached his tunic and grabbed onto his coworker's shoulder for support.

"What the fuck is happening down there?" Quebar asked with unfocused eyes. His tone seemed too calm for the status he was in. The blood trickling down his temple indicated he had some kind of concussion.

'That should be my question.' Frederick thought.

"I don't know, I truly don't." Frederick said honestly. "Something down in the dungeon has been scaring away monsters and they have been kill- "

"No." Quebar interrupted.

"What?"

"Not scaring away, its calling out to them."

"I don't get it, what is calling them?"

"A demon- No... it was the Devil. The Devil is down there calling them to kill us." His gripped tightened on Frederick's shoulder. "It yelled through the tunnels and brought so many of them through the tunnel."

"What came at you exactly?"

"...Blemmyaes. Dozens of small blemmyaes were rushing the tunnels. We tried leaving, but the K-Karmic Plates..."

"They stopped working."

Quebar nodded, he was reliving the moments of the stampede in his head. It was clear now to Frederick about what was going on. Team P had an unfortunate encounter and needed to run away from monsters until the interference was no longer strong enough to stop the crystal plates from returning them.

'They were probably exploring through an area closer than we were to the cause of the interference. Its good that they all made it out alive. I just don't think they'll forget such an awful experience, and will probably be scarred for a long while.'

Frederick took a look at the others that surfaced with Quebar and noticed a few had large impact bruises and cuts from blunt hits all across their bodies. Frederick had seen them enter through the gate countless times, they were all at least level forty or higher.

'Blemmyaes are much higher levels, they are lucky they weren't cornered.'

"You should go talk to the med team, I need to wait for my team to return."

"Okay." Quebar said very quietly. He let go of Frederick's shoulder and hobbled over to meet with Team P.

Frederick checked the time and saw only two minutes remained now until the shift reset the dungeon.

He was tapping his foot rapidly and clenching his fists until his knuckles turned white. He was about ready to throw his crystal in frustration, but the light flooded the room once more.

"Goddamnit you guys, you can't stay down there when an unknown threat is present. Do you have any idea how worried I've been?" Frederick was yelling into the blinding light, not realizing his words fell on deaf ears.

"Oh shit." Frederick lost all color in his face and ran to the body laying across the fading light.

Galahad looked like his whole side was doused in a molten rockslide. His extremities were sprawled at an odd angles, one hand was black and charred with burns that reach up across his face and mouth. His cut up and burned head was facing the ceiling while his eyes were rolled up into his skull. It seemed he was lucky enough to fall unconscious because the pain would have certainly put him into shock.

Some of the medical aids that wasn't concerned with Team P came over to help Galahad, but stopped at the sight of him. Some even flinched and grabbed at their left hands just because of how bad Galahad's looked.

Frederick shouted at them to help him and they quickly snapped out of their daze. Some started putting magic equipment on him to treat his wounds and others cut away at his leather armor to fully assess the damage. Someone pulled a Karmic plate out of his right hand and set it aside.

Not a single person took notice of the shattered crystal in the arm brace was the second crystal on his body. The one in his hand didn't belong to him. The Karmic plate in his hand belong to Tista, the last one to stand against the onslaught in the dungeon.