Summoning Altar
"Come all! Come all!" A man standing on top of a wooden crate projected his voice over the booming city center. "Come join this mass raid! The more hands the better!" He called for more and more people to take on the new raid that was approaching.
Above the clouds, in the middle of the sky, a giant white portal unleashed a heavenly glow onto the summoning altar.
[Location: Summoning Alter]
[Description: Legend tells of a tale once where the gods lived in unison. Each deity roamed the earth freely, marking pieces of stones under their command and control. Summons Alters are places cursed with excess divine energy, bridging the realm of reality and dungeon.]
Haewon stood at the edge of the altar, reading the description of the raid.
[Rank: E+ Raid <The Black Knight's Raid> ]
"Why are you so worried?" A male voice approached Haewon from behind. "Baby's first dungeon?" He placed his hand on Haewon's shoulder.
"Yeah." Haewon turns his head slightly back, the wind blowing against his hair. Even though they were in the middle of the town, the sea breeze pushed through the buildings like a calm tornado. "You always get nervous when it's your first time," Haewon says in a monotonous tone.
"You bet!" The man reveals himself as the friendly type, extending a hand out to Haewon. "My name is Hacchi." He wore an eyepatch with a scraggly beard and grey long hair. His clothes were tattered, and covered in battle scars. Around his hilt was a strap with a hammer attached to it.
"Tank or warrior?" Haewon accepts the man's handshake, greeting him graciously.
"Neither. I'm a Mage!" Hacchi proudly proclaims as he grabs his hammer with all his might, a physical shift in the air around him makes his hair stand up.
"You're pretty cool." Haewon scoffs. "I'm a healer."
"A healer boy?" Hacchi raised his eyebrows through his eyepatch. "Sounds like we make the perfect duo!" Hacchi laughs proudly as he lets go of his hammer, the air pressure returning to its original form.
"Come all!" The man continued gathering more Crawlers, by the time the dungeon was about the stars, about fifty different people from varying parties and factions had all gathered.
Haewon looked around, scanning the summoning altar as he saw all types of faces and body shapes. A couple of prominent ones were a giant lizard-like creature wearing a green hoodie with a metal mask. A lady holding a wand that was nearly the size of a tree with an orb in the apex. The most intriguing was a literal rat on the ground that wore a top hat.
"Don't mind them." Hacchi shrugged his shoulders. "Everyone is weird, if you're not weird then you're the weird one." He laughed out loud as if no one else was there to hear him.
[Dungeon Raid Commencing in 5...]
"Prepare yourself." Everyone looks up to the sky as the giant chains around the gain slowly start to decay and disintegrate.
[4...]
The clouds split in half, creating ample space for the gateway.
[3...]
The doors start to open slightly, allowing for piercing pitch-black darkness to seep through the cracks.
[2...]
All the chains disappeared, revealing the true gate's size. It dwarfed even the sun in size, showing off the truly magnificent hieroglyphics inscribed on the wooden doors.
[1...]
The gates slam wide open, allowing a veil of darkness to slam down onto the summoning altar, showering it in a cascade of darkness that swallows them whole.
[0...]
[<The Black Knight's Raid> Commences!]
An eerie feeling creeps up on every crawler's back as they spawn in the middle of a mid-1800s cathedral, the large glistening chandeliers hanging over their heads. "Woah!" Haewon had done this exact raid hundreds of times before, only he'd never done it with his own two eyes. "Sick!" He has a childishly large smile on his face.
[Objective: Survive 'till Daylight]
[Side Quests]
[Kill 100 Dark Knights]
[Save 50 Civilians]
[Steal The Dark Knight's Crown]
A list of quests and objectives appears on each crawler's panel. In the giant cathedral, lightning strikes the roof, rattling the entire building as the piercing light penetrates through the tinted-colored windows, shedding light on a giant electronic clock that stands out like a sore thumb.
[Time until Midnight: 0:02:32]
[Time until sunrise: 6:49:40]
Both clocks ticked down simultaneously. "A survival dungeon, how fun!" The rat exclaimed as he spoke in a British accent.
"Tch." A hooded figure sat on a wooden antique chair that croaked with each sudden action. They wore a black sleeve that covered his hands like gloves, and a pointed hood that covered his face. "Everyone freeze!" He raised both of his hands into the air, stretching his exposed fingertips into the air.
Everyone stopped their conversations to turn to the man. "Close up the doors and hunker down, you've all got a long night ahead of us." He said calmly as he walked towards the entrance of the door. "I'll do all the killing."
"Who the hell do you think you are?" A boisterous woman chewing on bubble gum cuts off the man, a giant hammer in her hands as her bubblegum pink ponytail flows down to her waist. "You're not some bigshot kid. This is a raid, we're meant to work together." She towered over the man, standing at nearly 7 feet tall.
The man stops in front of the woman, lifting his hood back just enough for him to catch a glimpse of the woman's face. As the shadows revealed his iris, a bright blue dagger embedded itself deep into the woman's eyes, penetrating her soul with his gaze. "You've only got two minutes left. Get to work." He walks out of her way, continuing to walk towards the door.
"There's 34 of us here in total, you think you can take on all 33 of us at once?" The woman clutched her giant pink hammer tightly, her veins popping from her hands and neck.
"Yeah." The looks up from the shadows and shot everyone a quick look. "[Midnight Whisper]" Both of his eyes shot wide open as two blue daggers materialized in the air, twisting and projecting themselves straight toward the woman.
"[Bubblegum Bubble]!" The woman drew her hammer out and smashed the ground with the head, generating a jolt of electricity as an elastic forcefield props itself upwards.
The blades made contact with the bubble shield as fragments of the tip of the blade chipped off. The shield bent backward, like a toothpick through plastic. However, unlike plastic, upon any object breaking through the initial layer of protection, the entire forcefield shatters into a million pieces, disintegrating into the air.
"Shit!" The woman leaped backward as the two blades whizzed past her head, narrowly missing her. "Wha-" The woman caught herself midair and landed on her hammer on the ground.
"I told you. It's not safe." The man raised his hand and pointed towards the general direction of the woman.
The woman turns around and sees two blue daggers emitting an ominous glow as the dust slowly settles.
[Congratulations!]
A menu popped up in front of everyone.
[You have managed to kill the <Messenger >!]
Pinned against the wall was a black skeleton dressed in rags and cloths, a dagger through its head, and another pinning a piece of paper to the wall.
The piece of paper unraveled, revealing a scroll with an ancient text that no one could read. "[Translate]." The hooded man cast.
[Translation: Let The Feast Begin]