the horror of true Dungeon

Even as his mind was sinking, Alex didn't turn around, couldn't turn around. How could he, when the lives of hundreds were now resting on his shoulders? Every of his action from now on would be deciding the fate of those unknowing peoples.

Was he to wait for Orario to send another team or go on himself, a raid could burst out and sweep everything in its passage?

Where to turn around and warn them, only needlessly chaos would erupt, to the point of even trigger an ever-greater danger.

Alex knows that his strength wasn't holding a candle face to a level 1, let alone a level 2 or even a party of adventurers. Even then, he wouldn't give up nor flee.

~~~

Examining the room he found himself in, Alex closed his eyes and spread his craft magic on a scale he had never before. Exuding invisible treads from every pore of his skin, Alex 'tasted the air of the room, before its slowly draw in his mind. During this time, CS was frantically looking for Alex, ready to wake him at the sight of any threat.

When his treads of craft magic interacted with the buds, new networks lit up in his mind. Following it, he discovers veins of magic running the length of those roots. The higher Alex climbs back; the thicker and lesser they grow until a single vein remains at the root's base. Tracking it further back, Alex discovers a Monster gem buried in an innocent root. Opening his eyes, his gaze fixed on the gem, he sees that the root appears completely normal. Progressing stealthily at it, he ran a hand on the bark, discovering that it was easily friable.

PLucking the gem out of the root, all the buds in the room crumbled to dust.

'CS, the gem it is empty, but still exist.' Warned Alex while studying the gem. 'That means that even if we were to exhaust them, they would still exist! Now I don't need to fear that they would crumble after a single usage. That opened so many possibilities! With enough chance, the same will happen with the Dungeon core.'

-You would marvel at this latter, for now, quickly gather them, that would make less to fear of popping back.- Whispered CS, still focussing on the surrounding.

'Right, sorry.' Putting the gem in his storage, he carefully progressed from room to room, plucking gems destructing every bud simultaneously. 'I think I know why they're only a hundred of buds, each time, it must be the limit the gem could sustain per cycle, needing to recharge before birthing more goblins.'

-If that the case, then we would be safe, at least from here.-

~~~

As Alex advanced stealthily from space to space, CS was busy drawing a mental map for Alex's place to navigate. He rapidly became thankful for CS forethought as the dungeon was sneakily a treacherous place.

The more time passed, the more he took conscience of the area the dungeon seems to span on. After covering what must be a space similar to a tenth clearing the settlement stood, he discovered a staircase. With just this floor, Alex gathered fifteen gems, leaving the possibility for a hundred time more goblins to be born. Only the central room had been different. It was full of pits, with no roots, while the other had only one hole for ten roots.

Sole the fact that he passed in every space, and the lack of goblin on this floor made Alex confident enough to climb down. Walking them, he continued to follow the adventurers' sentiments, which led him to roam all the available spaces, sometimes more than one. He could have cut through some, but the fear of losing the chronological trail had made him kept his sight and nose on.

The development was rejoicing and dreading him at the same time. Still, he followed the trail. For the better or, the worse, it was Alex only chance to found them, even if he wasn't banking n their survival at this time.

~~~

After making sure that there weren't any goblin in sight, Alex crouched down. Slowly retrieving one quiver, he took out the arrows, as well as goblins cores. Carefully, he fused each of the thirty arrows head with a core on each side, before imbuing the same spell in all. After a few tests the previous days, he discovered that while adding a spell on an unstable core wasn't the sanest thing to do, a core could contain and hold a spell for a specific amount of time.

For a goblin stone, it was around an hour. The upside of this method was the fact that it took very little of Alex to imbued them. The downside was that the spell wouldn't be as powerful the incendio one had been. This, for a good reason. The magic of the stone and Alex magic had fought the last time, leading to an enormous explosion of magic on which the spell feed. The problem in that was that he also lost more than half of the overloaded stone potential.

This time, while the spell would be weaker, the effect would be more prolonged, until it drained the stone. This would allow Alex to re-use the arrow after, rather than destroying it. Was he in another situation, he wouldn't care much of the arrows, but here, any one of them could be the difference between life and death.

While the spell in itself wasn't as draining, casting it sixty times in a short timeframe left him gasping for air momently. Taking a break as he packed them back, Alex stood to exit the actual room.

~~~

Engaging in the second level of the dungeon turned into an immediately different experience. Alex barely crossed the threshold of the floor, that he unleashes his arrow, claiming the life of a passing goblin. His left hand immediatly darted to his leg, retrieving and throwing a knife a second later. Before any had the chance to warn the other around that they had visitors, Alex silenced the goblins.

Taking back the core-less arrow and knife, he left the corpse behind, Knowing that he would either seek them on his return or not need them anymore. Walking silently through the short corridor, he peeks at the room.

Alex barely held a sigh of relief at seeing most of the buds closed, if not disturbed by the clearly developing goblins inside, whose shadows cast off by the surrounding light. Looking past them, he spotted eleven goblins inside.

Dropping the bow for a second, he shot the nearest goblins. As both crumples, their sound attracting others' attention, knives were already flying, embedding either in their head or deeply bitting in their neck.

Entering the burrow, he didn't have time to stop as the opening buds' sound alerted him that something else was happening. Unwilling to wait for them, he started to rain down knives on the nearest, before shooting the rest. Only, that wasn't sufficient. With only eighteen equipped blades and forty-two others in his storage, his five released arrows weren't enough to take care of remaining 'birthed' goblins.

Left with not much choice, he took out his knives, slashing and dashing around the thirty-five critters.

~~~

'I'm starting to see how much dangerous is it to adventure alone in a Dungeon.' Say, Alex, performing all kinds of acrobatics his body allowed him, dodging the goblin trying to slash at him. 'And what is it with those?! It' more like the dungeon, I know that the thing we saw until then!' Still dancing while dealing with killing and crippling blows. 'Also, why did some turned to ashes and the other didn't!'

Looking around, Alex expression flattens for a second when he sees even more goblins coming running from the surrounding rooms and further. The goblins were naturally attracted by the large amount of noise he produced. Thankfully for him, only the goblin roaming in those rooms came, not those developing in the buds. Even then, this was at least two hundreds of goblins swarming from all sides.

Each falling goblin was leaving its place to two arriving from the side rooms. Trapped in the middle of the room and the large number of goblins packing the chamber, Alex had very little room to move.

Only the fact that he possesses a tail able to cut them down saved him from being overwhelmed. After the goblins stopped to afflux from the surroundings, Alex quickened the pace, gaining a little space with each death. Five minutes after they stop swarming and simply gang on him, Alex had enough place to exploit his natural range, hastening the process altogether.

~~~

Alex kneels on the ground, winded, his head directed at the roof while panting slightly. The numbers of goblins may have been lesser than during the horde' raid, founding oneself trapped in an extricate space taught him that the situation was far more draining, by it physically and mentally.

The idea of founding oneself trapped in an enclosed area had weighed heavily on his mind. He could now understand why some adventurer may break under pressure. If one weren't mentally strong enough, the situation could be far more dangerous than the enemy you were facing.

Looking down, Alex wasn't shocked to be barely able to see the ground. He could feel his pant soaking in the thick layer of blood slowly draining in the pit of the room. Opening a link to his storage, he extracted a skin, swallowing avidly, nearly moaning at the feeling of the cool water flooding his parched throat.

~~~

'How can there be so many goblins here without anyone discovering them? There is an outpost not even a kilometre away! This place should never have been able to be created.'

-I think they stay in there long enough to turn it into a Dungeon. Once they did, the number would skyrocket, with this Mother Dungeon and the nest, it couldn't not. If you remember correctly, the first lair we visited, its core was weak and waned after you killed all the goblin. The second, while diminished, still pulsed. I think the second was mature enough to produce goblin on its own. Perhaps the pit is even a trap. It wouldn't be too far-fetched. While you take care of the goblin and decimate the population, the Dungeon absorbs them, sneaking off it DNA to produce its own. That way, even if you take care of them, the Dungeon would spam others later.

With the number here and the nests around, they could form literal armies before exiting the underground, and nobody would be any wiser. That would explain why Orario is still infested with Dungeons, that or they are unwilling to shut the business and thing they can control it. If something happens to the adventurer population, it would be a disaster of the highest order. You imagine the swarm a place like Orario would spat off?-

Alex could and couldn't help but shudder at the thoughts.

Turning his mind to something else, Alex took something to eat, forcing himself to swallow, even after his protesting stomach. He knows he would need this apport really soon and as long as he didn't puke his guts out from the odour, he would be fine. Taking a moment to take a break, he immediatly retrieves the gem, before starting to look for his weapons.

He didn't have the time to gather a third that the goblins had vanished underground, grossing him out when the corpse' chest burst and eject the core as they melt in the ground.

Finally ready to continues, Alex bolted from room to room, searching rapidly for the gems and retrieving them after raining arrows and knives on the unsuspecting buds. The methods were long and exhausting, but he was unwilling to affront waves of hundreds of goblins at every room.

~~~

'I think it would be better to take the core with us if we're able to finish off the goblins here. That way, I wouldn't have to worry about hundreds of goblins popping out of the earth next week and raid another settlement.'

After roaming the surrounding area for the next three hours, it became clear that the second floor was larger than the first. While every room had the same amounts of buds in, Alex had already crossed twenty rooms and barely attained the stairs. Alex had left more than two thousand cores behind with just this floor, enough to form two horde. Other than that, he noticed that the room always had a tenth of the number of buds, in goblins. For him, it looked more like they were in charge of rearing and attend to the buds, rather than anything else.

After walking through the last room of the floor, sure that he didn't miss one, Alex consults CS on the second floor's size.

-Around a third more extensive than the first one. The number of room barely growth but they are wider, the number of goblins inside kept at around a hundred and ten, so you might be right on the gems. With just those two floors, that a capacity of three thousand and five hundred. If this Dungeon had variants, and I don't doubt there is. At its actual full capacity, it could launch three or four hordes in a single go.-

'Thankfully, the dungeon seems to need time before respawning them on the first floor. Without the gems, we should have bought enough time to breathe, if we can't complete it today.' Said him, an undertone of apprehension in his voice.

Going down the stair, he didn't cross goblins at the end. Walking another, longer pathways, Alex resigned himself to face an even more tremendous amount of goblins than the room up-stair. Stealing a glance inside, he has effectively seen an even number. Only the fact that the buds were less developed than the one above gives him hope that they wouldn't open.

-If thing stays the same, you can expect between twenty-five to forty rooms.-

'It doesn't mean I need to like it, but it better than doubling each last floor, at least.' Grunted Alex, while he fires two arrows, before finishing the rest with throwing knives.

Not making the same error than previously, he immediatly retreats in the corridor, when the surrounding goblins swarmed the place. With the passage only able to let two goblins side to side, Alex had much more ease to deal with them than in an open space. Like his previous action, getting rid of them took time, but he relaxed and focused all his attention on them with only a single way in. AS the minutes and the goblins trickles, the ones beneath stated to sink, leaving only cores and weapons behind.

Alex needed to wait for the last group to vanish, before he started to gather everything, repairing snapped shafts when required.

~~~

Not quitting his buds' eyes, he entered the room, breathing in relief as they didn't open.

-Seems not mature enough.-

'Doesn't means I would let them growth, still!' Rather than go for each of them one at a time, Alex retrieved the gem first, sighing in relief when he saw all bud opening, pouring unmatured babes on the ground. After making sure that they would die on their own, he rushed to each room, taking gems and leaving the babes dies.

Founding the way to the fourth floor, Alex counted thirty room, a twice the number of the first floor, half more than the second. He barely stepped down that he was immediatly hit with the strong smell of many goblins gathered. Hardening his face, he blanched a little when he smelled the equivalent of the pack he followed, only four more times stronger.

'If they are in open space, I'm not sure I would be able to face them off altogether, CS. Even running back to the higher floor could be difficult, even suicidal, they would surround me from all side!' Frantically said Alex, fighting against the gripping fear creeping on him.

The horde had been nothing more than a hard fight, had they swarmed in one go, he knows that the result would have been vastly different. Now about to face near half on himself, on an unknown ground? Alex was barely keeping his act, and needs to wrestle the fear and anguish resurfacing.

-It's your call. You have already stumped any possible second raid by killing off around five thousand plus goblins today. If you haven't, the Dungeon would have several times the force when they launched the invasion.- CS said, trying to keep calm too and offer Alex a global view in the hope of lowering his worries.

Hearing CS words and actually analysing them did help him calm down a little. Breathing in before slowly breathing out, as if wanting to blow away the accumulated stress, Alex stopped to shake but was still white. Crouching down, he renewed the spells on each arrow, using the time to calm his nerve and steel his mind.