12 Chapter 12 Rookie Dungeon!

With the three people now dealt with, two unconscious and one dead, Lily began to bandage Thomas's torso as he sat there without his jacket or a shirt on. While bandaging him, Lily said, "When you fell over it really scared me, I thought you were dead." Thomas glanced back at her as he said, "I've almost died half a dozen times, though, isn't it something you should be used to by now?" Lily glared at him as she angrily shouted, "Stop making jokes! I really thought he killed you!" Lily stared at his dead body as she said, "I didn't expect him to have an ability like that, maybe he's one of the strong adventurers." Once Thomas was completely bandaged up, Lily walked over to the body and pulled his metal plate out, upon inspecting it, however, Lily discovered that he was also a rookie adventurer. Lily flinched as she saw this and said, "Maybe we'll get powers like this eventually." However, as Lily turned to Thomas, she saw him putting on his jacket as she said, "Never mind… you already have a cool ability." Lily watched as Thomas picked up his weapon and just stared for a moment or two before asking, "Why don't you just store your sword, wouldn't it be easier to move if you just pulled it from the storage when it's needed." Thomas stared at the sword for a moment and then put it in his storage, after doing this he glanced at the sheath and asked "Than, what should I do about this?" Lily stared at it for a moment and then said, "Just store it away to." After storing the sheath, Lily excitedly said, "Now let's go into the dungeon." After saying this, however, Lily paused for a moment and then stared at Thomas and asked "You are still able to do it right?" Thomas nodded as he smiled and said, "You've been looking forward to this, so let's do it."

Upon entering the dungeon, Lily relit her torch using some flint as she said, "You've been smiling a lot more lately." Thomas shrugged as he said, "Well, it sure beats being locked up in that cage while being tortured." Lily nodded as she said, "I guess you're right." As the two of them walked the ground began to shake and soon after some strange pink creature poked through the wall, it was roughly a foot tall and its claws seemed rather sharp. Upon seeing, it, Lily shouted, "That must be the mole scout Grace told me about, she said that it'll warn the others, and then they'll swarm us." Thomas stared at her for a moment as she asked, "And what exactly are they?" Lily pointed at it as she said "They're scout moles, there are also worker moles and guard moles, if we get spotted we'll be swarmed by them, guard moles have much sharper claws and worker moles have much higher numbers, we also have to watch out for the boss… I think Grace called it a mega mole." As Thomas began to walk towards the scout mole, he said, "It's hard to believe that these little things made these giant tunnels." Lily nodded as she said, "It is a bit hard to believe, but Grace did say there were thousands of them." Upon reaching the scout mole, Thomas stood behind it and lifted it off the ground by gripping its head and then asked, "Should we just kill it or have him bring the rest of them to us." However, instead of answering him, Lily stared at the scout mole he was holding with a terrified look and then said, "I thought you were gonna kill it!" As Thomas glanced back at the mole, as it began to screech and signal the other moles. While the mole screeched, Thomas immediately dropped the mole and held his ears as he asked, "W-what is this horrible sound?" As the scout mole ran off, Lily shouted, "I don't know! I don't hear anything, but hurry up and kill that mole!" However, the mole was long gone and finally stopped screeching. Thomas continued to hold his ears as he said, "I thought my head was gonna explode."

Lily stared at him with a face of disappointment as she nervously said, "We're… probably gonna die." Thomas stared at her for a moment and then asked, "From what?" As he said this, the ground began to shake and dozens upon dozens of moles began to jump out and back into the ground like a dolphin in the ocean as Lily shouted, "They're gonna swarm us!" Thomas stared at the fast approaching moles as he pointed at them and said, "That's a lot more than I was expecting." Lily began to run as she shouted, "Let's retreat back to the surface!" As the two of them ran, Thomas said, "I thought you said this was the easiest? Lily nodded as she said, "It is if you deal with the scout moles before they can spot you, if the guard moles get us we'll be torn to shreds by their sharp claws, although there aren't many of them, there are a few thousand worker moles!" While running, Thomas fell over a small mound of dirt, landing on his face as he muttered "Crap." Upon landing on his face, he raised his head and said, "I think my nose might be bleeding." Thomas sat there for a moment on the ground, glanced at the moles and then back at Lily as he said, "They're not very fast." Thomas rolled over and sat there as he watched the moles move closer as he said, "I think I understand why this is the easiest dungeon now." Thomas stood up and pulled his short sword from his storage as he smiled and said, "I'm pretty sure if I use everything Toby taught me, I'll be able to do just fine against them all." By the time all the moles reached him, Lily was already long gone and out of sight. Thomas stood there holding the short sword as moles hopped in and out of the ground all around him. Thomas stared at them, not giving any sign of movement as he smiled and said, "Any moment now." After another two or three seconds the moles began to jump at him randomly, occasionally one or two or even three or four would jump at him, but they would never jump at him with numbers greater than that for some odd reason. Thomas avoided them when there were three or four jumping at him, but whenever only one or two came after him, he sliced them up with little to no problem. However, after doing this for a few minutes he began to get tired and the moles didn't seem to be losing any numbers.

Thomas stared at the moles with an intense concentration, not saying a word or even thinking of anything besides his next move. As he stood there, Lily came back holding the torch as she called out "Thomas. Where are you?" Upon noticing her, Thomas shouted, "I'm fine, just don't come any closer for a while!" Lily peered into the darkness as she asked, "Are you able to see?" Thomas ignored this question however and continued to focus on the fight. Lily stared at the dark in disappointment as she said, "You could at least answer me." After about a half an hour of absolute silence apart from the occasional stab sound and mole body hitting the ground, Thomas said, "It should be safer now." Lily peered into the darkness once more as she asked, "Can I come over to you now?" Thomas began to walk towards her, breathing heavily as he said, "It's fine… I'll come to you." After a moment or two, Thomas was visible in the torch's light, his clothes were tattered, and he was bleeding all over. Thomas stared at her for a moment before faintly smiling and said, "I got most of them." Lily flinched at the sight of him as she asked, "H-how many times did you get hit?" Thomas held his head as he mumbled, "Don't know." Lily stared at his injuries as she worriedly said, "We need to hurry up and treat those wounds!" Thomas stuck his hand out towards her and sat down while he said, "No, thanks… I'm fine… we'll take care of all of this once we get back to the inn." Lily glared at him as she said, "No, you're injured!" Thomas glanced at her while smiling as he said, "It's fine… it's nothing too serious anyway." Lily stared at all the wounds as she said, "They do only look like light grazes, but we should still treat them." After listening to her nah him for a short while, he agreed to allow her to wrap his injuries.

Once his injuries were wrapped, he stood up and said, "Alright… let's look for some treasure and beat that boss." Lily stared at him for a moment as she said, "Okay… but you should stop fighting and sit out if you notice something wrong with yourself." Thomas nodded as he began to walk forward into the dark as he said, "Sure." Lily stared at him with a worried look for a moment as she mumbled, "I hope he's taking this seriously." As Lily followed him into the dark, she saw hundreds upon hundreds of dead moles scattered across the floor and stacked on top of each other, with blood all over. Lily stared at them all for a moment in shock as she asked, "Did you really fight these all?" Thomas walked back into the light as he nodded and said, "Yeah… I thought I'd be able to take them on pretty easily." Lily stared at his bandaged body as she said, "I'm gonna guess you didn't think it through?" Thomas stood there silently for a moment and then ignored her as he said, "We should keep moving." Lily seemed displeased with this as she said, "Ever since you've gotten the ability to talk, you've been pretty rude." Thomas glanced away, ignoring her as she continued to talk. After a few minutes of her talking they eventually found a big open room and as they walked further in to it, Lily kept talking to him about him being rude. As they reached the center of the room, Thomas took a deep breath and said, "I've already nearly died twice today, I'd just much rather not make it a third, and talking about it doesn't exactly make me feel better about it." Lily thought for a moment as she said, "Oh, so you're not being rude because you've learned how to talk." Thomas flinched as he said, "Of course not, I'm just not in the best of moods right now, I mean, I think I lost half of my blood already, and we're still not even done yet." Lily stared at him as she said, "If you'd like, you can just watch from the sidelines, and I'll try my best to beat the boss."

Thomas stared at her for a moment and then said, "Alright… but I'll jump in if anything goes wrong." Lily nodded as she excitedly said, "You can count on me!" However after she said this the floor began to shake and soon after a massive mole about nine feet tall climbed out of the ground screeching even louder than the previous one causing Thomas to hold his ears once again as he shouted, "This… noise is awful!" Once the mole stopped its terrible screeching sound, Lily glanced at Thomas and said, "You can go rest for a bit, I should be able to handle this." Thomas stared at her for a moment, still holding his ears as he glanced at the mega mole and said, "Alright… but be careful." The mega mole stood there staring at them for a moment as Thomas walked over to the edge of the room and sat down. After he had sat down, the mole creature turned its attention to Lily who was standing there with a short sword as she nervously said "Alright… there's nothing to worry about… Thomas is over there if I need him, so I should be fine even if I start to lose." The mole stood there for a short while before getting down on all fours, looking like a huge pink bear with sharp claws that looked as though they could tear through metal with ease. The mole creature stared at Lily intently for another moment before charging towards her and preparing its left claw for an attack as it reaches her. Upon seeing this, Lily panicked for a moment and then swung her sword with her eyes closed as she shouted, "It's fast!" After swinging her sword at the mega mole, she heard a metal clanking sound and then slowly opened her eyes only to see that the mole had broken her sword and with a single slash. Lily glanced at the broken sword and then at the piece that had flung off into the roof as she nervously asked, "Am… am I gonna die?" As she looked back down she saw the mole preparing to slash at her once again, but she was unable to move, she was petrified and completely unable to move. However, just as the mole swung, Thomas jumped out in front of its claw. The claw went straight through his stomach, however as he hung there on its claw he raised his short sword and shoved it straight through its head as he coughed up blood and mumbled "Damn it… third time really is the charm."