Journey to Nowhere

They are as fast as they can, they take their equipment and some more supplies and go to tower seven, the dwarf is visibly angry and they can see it from afar, angrier than last time, it hasn't even been half hour, but the dwarf judges this to be a delay.

"Come on assholes, you guys are taking too long!" many other fort members nearby laugh sadistically at the scene, when Krastinaff's group reaches the dwarf, he doesn't forgive, kicks Amira's shin hard, and Amira's bone doesn't just break because she's in armor, but she feels a lot of pain, she holds it back sobbing.

"Next time you let me in waiting, it's going to be much worse!" the other fort members who see and hear it, keep laughing and mocking them, the dwarf mumbles a few more insults as he climbs the stairs, Ramon makes a move to attack the dwarf and is stopped by Amira.

"No Ramon, it's ok, let's be fine" Amira climbs the ladder last with difficulty, she gave everything she could for Ramon to carry for her, it still didn't improve her condition much, Krastinaff and Susano keep their wrath well hidden, but the flame in Krastinaff's eyes glows brightly, Krastinaff is hating this place more and more, more than any he's ever been to, even the first layer seemed a better place now, Krastinaff thought.

Amira misses the extra layer every day, she never stopped thinking of that place as her favorite, after a while thinking she understood the problem with that place, but she still has it as her favorite.

After moving a little away from the fort, Krastinaff knows this is the best opportunity he has to try to create some dialogue with the dwarf, as he did with his last fellow foreman, although he could rarely speak, but the dwarf even when he says something is always talking. to himself.

"Sir, where are we going?" Krastinaff asks fearfully, the dwarf turns around and lands a punch on Kratinaff's genitalia, luckily for Krastinaff the dwarf miscalculated the distance and the punch was gentle, but it's still a horrible pain.

"A lot of courage for your gangrenous junk in talking to me without being ordered" the dwarf is almost foaming at the mouth. "The next time you interrupt or disturb me it's going to be much worse!" the dwarf has to look up a little to look into Krastinaff's eyes, even though Krastinaff bent a little in pain.

Now Krastinaff joins Amira at her slowest pace from the rear, the dwarf always lands merciless blows, they have learned their lesson, few other members have hit them with such violence.

After many hours towards the end of the light period, they see that trees are a little greener, they walk almost uninterruptedly almost all the way, the dwarf simply ignored every possible break to eat.

"Right, break camp soon, a pretty big fire, a lot of dangerous creatures live nearby, I remember this part well, if we're attacked, you fight back with fire, they're very resistant to other things" Krastinaff's group quickly obeys, Ramon gathers the firewood while Susano guards the perimeter, Krastinaff and Amira prepare the place for the tents and the fire, so they don't have to walk so far, Ramon walks in his partial gray wolf form, his instincts are simmering.

The dwarf complains about his helpers, about their sloppy work, complains about not being able to take off his armor, complains about the vegetation, complains about everything he can think of, between one complaint and another he lets out disjointed thoughts about his mission, Krastinaff listens attentively from a safe distance, so as not to attract the dwarf's attention and his arbitrary punishment blows.

"Damn rough terrain, it's already getting rockier, it's all the fault of you worthless assholes, drop dead soon, so maybe stop getting in the way" the dwarf no longer has the strength to scream and curse loudly, it's still easy to hear him.

Krastinaff's group noticed a long time ago that there seems to be a competition to see who can offend and mistreat their group the most, they strive to offend and beat them in various ways, there is no reward or title award, besides the satisfaction of seeing Krastinaff's group suffering.

Krastinaff's group has even learned different insults over so many cycles, and how to cause more pain to a target, they have been trying to avoid contact, especially in the presence of several other fort members in the same place, however when they are alone, they try approaching the person, his greatest success was with his last fellow foreman.

It didn't turn out to be a wonderful relationship, but they already felt like people being alone with him, they try to replicate it with other members without success so far.

Krastinaff needs to try to get information from these people, there's no other option, he didn't see any inscriptions inside this layer other than the ones on the door to this layer, which were already nothing new.

Krastiaff's group so far has discovered that there's one more fort like this at least in this layer, maybe more, and that they fight each other for no apparent reason, if it exists it's something that isn't mentioned, or something that everyone seems to be born knowing it.

It was quite obvious that environment changes from time to time, people from oversky do not usually know the concept of seasons, dungeons usually have a predominant and almost static environment, it is very rare dungeons with multiple settings like this one.

And this dungeon is even more exotic, its first layer turned out to be the strongest so far, Krastinaff and his group already know that there must be at least one more layer, this layer is the biggest they've seen in any dungeon, and to make it worse, the zones are not delimited or signposted, by the terrain size they have already covered here, the first two layers would easily fit inside this one.

The dwarf falls asleep to the sound of his own mumbling, Krastinaff stealthily approaches to hear better, Susano and Amira shake their heads asking him not to do this from afar, Ramon observes all that with curiosity, but Ramon remains attentive to his surroundings, his big ears of partial transformation move frequently from side to side.

"Get away! You turd!" the dwarf's hand passes by the side of Krastinaff's face, the dwarf falls asleep then, the dwarf's voice this last time has been muffled by his own sleep, Krastinaff sees the dwarf drop a canteen that smells of very strong alcohol.

So far, they mostly saw the dwarf's back almost the entire march they hadn't noticed how much that dwarf was drinking, the dwarf's breath offends Krastinaff's nostrils more than his insults, his distant friends can smell it.

Growls, howls and squeaks make the melody of the night around Krastinaff's group camp, the dwarf sleeps like a rock, Krastinaff even nudges him with his foot once but only disturbs the dwarf's rhythmic snore, Susano and Amira almost tear off by seeing the boldness of Krastinaff.

They can barely sleep with all that equipment and intimidating noises, this is the farthest camp they have ever made from the fort, not even Ramon could identify some of the noises they heard during the night, it seems there are still guardian monsters in this layer that they unaware, now they worry about what lies ahead.

The dwarf as soon as he wakes up, he starts giving orders, his breakfast was already waiting for him, Susano did the best he could with what he had, but the chicken was still tasteless and he received a slap in the right cheek, Susano doesn't know what to do in the next day, the best he can hope for, it is to next slap won't be so painful.

They hear yet another bell warning of yet another cycle, and they begin to break camp. They start walking before it's completely light and are now more tired than when they started this mission in the previous cycle, due to the sleepless night and even less comfortable accommodation than usual.

Amira's shins and Krastinaf's genitals barely hurt anymore, but now Susano joins them at the slower pace. Ramon remains steady, better than the dwarf himself, so Ramon get ordered to go forward, the dwarf is unimpressed by Ramon's partial gray wolf transformation.

"You mangy mutt, how do you keep that shape of yours for so long?" Ramon just turns his head to the side and looks at the dwarf from the corner of his eye snarling, spittle drips from Ramon's more prominent teeth, the dwarf laughs back.

"Hahaha, very funny this trick of yours, I think it's true that you got stuck to get strong like this" the dwarf picks up a stone from the ground and hits Ramon's head, Susano runs to push Ramon to go forward.

"That's right itchy mutts, keep walking, I'll tell you when to stop and where to turn" in this cycle the dwarf is more reasoning than grumbling, he still curses his helpers.

"Yeah…Yeah…I think just two more hills, mutts turn left on the third hill, no mistake!" the dwarf's orders sometimes get mixed up with his daydreams.

It's been a long time since Krastinaff's group, after much get beaten they learned these strange place names, for places they only knew in this layer, like hills, rivers, woods, forests, and even that thing that in the distance looked like some kind of monster beyond imagination, it was called a mountain, they only knew about its appearance from afar and its name.

Krastinaff's group only knows two things about that mountain listening to the dwarf, it's the most dangerous place in the layer and it's made of stone or something similar, besides its huge size of course.

What Krastnaff's group still doesn't understand are these things that they only saw as parts of traps, like wind currents, large water flows and lightning that occur in a disorderly way, they were always activated by some trigger, here they occur erratically, it also has the temperature action that changes during the cycle, and these environments that change around without them leaving their place.

The dwarf plays by throwing small stones he picks up along the way at the heads of Ramon and Susano. Once again the dwarf doesn't respect the break to eat during the bright period of the cycle, they feel their stomachs hurt, and only Susano feels their head hurt more than his stomach.

This time they are attacked by some small guardian monsters, it is strange that such a small number have attacked them, they realize that those monsters are thin and hungry, the dwarf laughs as he hits the monsters, they are very easy opponents even for Susano in a melee fight.

"Despair has already taken them, the demons must be getting close by now, we have another five days to go back or we'll die if we stay behind" the dwarf speaks harshly, Krastinaff and his group note that there is no direct or indirect insult this time.

"Then make sure you do it fast!" the dwarf screams as in his first order since taking charge of Krastinaff's group, but Krastinaff notes that a similar thing happened to his last fellow foreman, it just took many more cycles.

Krastinaff feels a pang of hope and lets a smile show on his face without him noticing, to his misfortune the dwarf sees it and responds to the smile by jumping to slapping Krastinaff's forehead.

"Are you laughing at what you shit?" the dwarf returns to his nerved voice, Krastinaff is angry with the dwarf, more angry at this layer and angry at himself for exposing himself in this way.

When the light period is ending they hear the sounds they heard last night, it's just more and more scary sounds at the same time, the sounds don't come from very far maybe an hour's walk.

"Prepare a better camp this time! Tonight is going to be a night when I can finally get rid of you worthless people!" the dwarf's voice mixes excitement, fear, anger and anxiety.

Krastinaff and his group are stunned for a moment and get to work before they get hit by the dwarf, the dwarf has explained almost nothing by saying that, only Ramon and the dwarf don't seem disturbed by those sounds.

In addition to the howls, growls and squeaks they now hear hissing, creaking and sounds like breaking stones, their fear increasing as the light fades.