Chapter 19- Dungeon Delver

Walking in the forest, Garbhan explains the situation.

"Dungeons first appeared centuries ago, years after each continent first wiped monsters.

The goddess of chaos, who abhors all the races, created dungeons for monsters to once again be a threat to the continents.

At first dungeons devasted the lands, until the continents fought back, clearing them one by one, giving us proper time to research them.

We found that monsters will always respawn so long as the dungeon boss remains, who keeps the dungeon active.

There were various dungeons differing in difficultly, while others were easier.

Monsters who killed adventurers in dungeons gained intelligence, if left unchecked those monsters could learn to break out of their dungeon.

"Our nation has many dangerous high-level dungeons, but the one we're going to has been sealed due to circumstances I have no idea about.

People tend to stay away from dungeons which is why I stay near one, letting me have some peace.

Although it's sealed, there are many ways into a dungeon."

After an hour of walking, the forest abruptly ends where a hill with a giant stone door that had arcane words floating around to form a lock.

"This is the dungeon, always move with caution while you're in here, I'll help when needed, otherwise you're by yourself. Come this way."

We walk back towards the forest for about 15 minutes until we come to a huge decaying tree.

He pulls up a root, revealing a flight of stairs descending to the abyss.

I step past him, feeling a cold chill giving me goosebumps, as I proceeded down the stairs, Garbhan behind me.

I have no idea how long we were going down, but I finally saw a faint beam of light in the distance.

The stairs end to a hole in the wall where a beam of light is the only thing that illuminates on our side.

I push on the wall for it to reveal that it's a rock, coming into a room with the giant stone door behind us

Torches line the wall burning a dim green-blue color with two different pathways. I wait for Garbhan to climb out the stairway before I proceed.

"The torches run on mana found within the dungeon, they help disrupt the monsters perception so they can't sense you until you're directly on them.

You'll do fine here, but in case things get out of hand I'll be here to assist you."

I choose the right path, since right is always right, and carefully step with my hand near my daggers to use at any moment.

I decide to keep my Mana Glimpse up as it doesn't take mana to maintain, where I notice three mana signatures 15 meters from my current location.

3x Goblin LVL 6

Health: 150

Mana: 90

Of course, it's goblins on the first dungeon encounter, it's always either goblins or zombies.

It's fine by me as I watched a certain goblin slaying fanatic who taught me not to underestimate these things.

I peek around the corner to see three green skinned goblins as tall as my waist holding spears and wearing loincloth.

Even though they have numbers over me, this matchup is in my favor so long as I don't let them overwhelm me because spears are easy to deflect. Especially these spears as they were just a sharp rock tied to a long stick.

I reach into the corridor and grab a nearby rock. I activate Blessing of the Elk on myself and toss the rock close to me.

The goblins hear the rock hitting the floor and send one to investigate, which the chosen one dashes to.

Running up to the rock, the goblin bends to pick it up.

I take that moment to dart around the corner, drawing my daggers and slash at the throat of the goblin, who is caught off guard.

As he falls to the ground dead, I waste no time casting Curse of the Tortoise on the remaining two goblins.

They run at me sluggish and sloppy.

Seeing that at their current rate, they would reach me at the same time, I run to the left so now they'll reach me at different times.

The first one approaches and jabs at my head with the spear, which I use my left dagger to knock the spear too away from my face and stab the goblins exposed stomach with my right.

I quickly disengage from the now dead goblin and prepare for the last goblin, who charges at me.

He goes to stab at my chest with the spear, which I side step to the right, and use my right dagger to deflect the spear away from me.

Using the same dagger I bring it back slashing the throat of the goblin, who falls to the floor clutching his throat.

Sensing no more enemies I de-cast Blessing of the Elk and take a moment to calm my breathing.

Knowing that Garbhan is watching, I try to maintain a calm demeanor, but my hands won't stop shaking.

Garbhan places his hand on my shoulder, "You did great for your first time. Take a moment to recuperate before we continue, but don't take too long as we won't be returning till you have hunted at least 50 today."

Having said that he needs towards the nearest goblin and starts cutting off it's ears.

His words of " at least 50" echo through my head.

I struggle to remember if I've ever killed anything before and know that I haven't in either life.

I fall to the dungeon floor in a heap as the image of me being too slow and the second goblin piercing my head with the spear playing through my mind.

The first one was easy to take down, but it was unnerving seeing them run at you.

Taking deep breaths, I question myself. What is causing me to be like this?

If I hadn't killed them, they would have definitely killed me.

Pondering I realize it wasn't their deaths that bothered me.

In fact, I'm sure they've killed before and this is just me putting an end to them.

No, it was something else bothering me, an uneasy feeling too small for me to truly identify.

I've played games before where I had to clear dungeons with creatures lacking intelligence.

Standing up putting any other emotions to the back of my mind, I decide to treat this as such.

This is just like a Virtual Reality version of those games. Standing with a newfound confidence, I walk over to assist Garbhan.

"Oh you're already fine, that was quick. Should have expected you to get over it fast though.

I'm just collecting their ears for potions later. Don't stress yourself with this, I don't need many."

I merely nod as I don't have anything to add to the conversation.

I'm actually ready to just get this whole dungeon experience over with.

I still wasn't sure what had me worked up originally but that feeling has passed. With Garbhan finished we continue further into the dungeon.

Now with a different mindset, hunting goblins was easier, as I had all the tools and skills to outclass the goblins. I had Mana Glimpse, which could always sense them well before they could me, so I couldnt be caught off guard or ambushed. In fights, I was too fast for them with Blessing of the Elk, even if I didn't cast Curse of the Tortoise on them. Pretty soon I was on a 30 goblin kill streak.

Walking down the corridor, I don't sense anymore goblins nearby, but see a fancy wooden blue door. Coming up to it, I realize I actually can't sense anything past it. As I curiously go to reach for the door handle, Garbhan grabs my hand, stopping me from opening the door.

"This is what we call a spawn room, going in there you can expect to fight numerous goblins and we won't be able to leave until we kill them all. You can also expect a few higher level enemies but we'll get good rewards for succeeding. If you choose to continue, I'll support you, but you're going to be doing most of the work. The choice is yours."

I take a second to consider my options. I don't know how long it'll take me to find and kill the remaining 20 goblins, but I can assume there's at least that many in here.

I'll have Garbhan assisting me, so I was pretty sure we could handle whatever the dungeon threw at us. Plus, if I backed out of this challenge, what about future challenges that were sure to be tougher than this.

With the path and decisions I've made so far, there's little I can run from as I can expect to have to fight the Elven Queen or her subordinates eventually. With my mind made up I reach for the door handle and open it.