Chapter 006

Chapter 006: "Arrival in Ariddon"

Ariddon, "The City of the Stronghold" as the citizens call it, nicknamed after the massive stronghold that it is home to. While it may hold the largest stronghold in the entirety of Fabula, the colossal structure has been abandoned for nearly 200 years. It is now accessible to the general populous, but that's if anyone dares to enter it and slay the many monsters living inside.

Around both the children and adults living within the city, there lies a rumor about a beast with three heads and three heads, nicknamed the Triclops, although it's true name remains unknown and will most likely stay that way until the very end of time itself, as no one has even attempted to study such a dangerous creature being guarded by countless other horrid monsters.

The rumor stayed nothing but a rumor until one fateful day when a group of adventurers proved the theory to be true. Those adventurers went by the name of the Warriors of Fabula.

Upon entering the large, cramped city of Ariddon, the Warriors of Fabula were greeted by ginormous, tall structures made of mostly just stone bricks with an occasional wooden roof to differentiate itself from the surrounding buildings. The many various heights of the structures made it seem almost as though there was a competition of who could manage to make theirs the largest in the city. Although, most of the buildings were taller than the average expected size, none compared to the fortress built into the mountain bordering the side of the city; The Ariddon Stronghold.

The first sight that Brand's eyes laid upon were two almost identically looking guards wearing bulky armor that was a perfect match for their extremely bulky stature. Even though their extreme similarities signified that they were nothing more than NPCs, Brand guessed that if you tried to pick a fight with one of them, you would surely lose almost instantly.

As they made their way past the two guards and deeper into the depths of the stone-covered city, the width of the street started to gradually shrink more and more until the main street had turned into nothing but an alleyway between two buildings.

"Why's this place so cramped?" asked Brand.

"I honestly don't know." shrugged Violet, "I guess the developers of the game just wanted to save more space for the wilderness around the city. Or maybe there's some lore reason for it to be so crowded for seemingly no reason." At this point in time, no matter what theory Violet or Brand could think of, there was no meaningful reason for any of the buildings to be this close together. That was until Claude broke through the silence left behind from Brand's question.

"You said the Ariddon Stronghold once housed prisoners or something like that, right?" Violet nodded and smiled, as she didn't expect Claude, or Flint, to have actually payed attention to her when she went on random tangents about the lore of the game that she had learned about from online articles. "Well maybe the developers made the streets so small and secluded so that it would be easy for criminals to sneak around the city." This was a very plausible theory in the mind of the others walking behind and in front of Claude.

As they continued to walk in between buildings, the area area them started to slowly revert back to its previously wide and open state. After they had reached the easternmost edge of the city, it became very clear as to why the street had to open up again; they were standing in front of the colossal building known as the Ariddon Stronghold. Even though a majority of it was hidden underground, it still was around the same height, if not taller, than most buildings in Ariddon, which made everyone wonder how big the underground section of the dungeon was.

At the front door of the structure were two guards that were identical to the ones who they first saw when entering the city, along with a hooded boy who was tall as an average adult but had very youthful features, along with a large amount of white hair that was visible even over his hood. Although he resembled a typical mage, instead of wielding a magical wand or something of the likes, he was equipped with no weapon except for some sort of regular looking book. As the Warriors of Fabula approached him, they could see that there was nothing on the cover, so it could be assumed to be some kind of personal diary.

"Greetings and welcome to the gates of the Ariddon Stronghold." he said with a surprisingly deep and coarse voice, "What brings you here today?"

"Umm... to fight enemies and, uh, find treasure and stuff." muttered Brand, not sure what else they could have possibly came here for except maybe admiring the exterior of the structure, then leaving, but he doubted anyone would ever want to do that.

Behind the hood that hid a majority of the boy's face came a sly and suspicious grin, followed with the boy beginning to speak, this time in a fairly lighter and more cheerful tone. "Aha, I see. Many of travelers have entered, none have exited."

Brand was tired of his pseudo-sophisticated and cryptic way of speaking so he just brushed him off and walked up to the door. "Yeah, yeah, whatever-- Wait... How do you open this thing!?"

"Very well, so you daring bunch have chosen to risk body and soul in the pursuit of fame and glory, aye? Then I shall open the gates for you. However, be warned, these same gates shall not be opened again until you either escape via the staircase hidden within the lowest of depths, or leave the plain of the living. Are you still willing to gamble your life away?"

This long rambling didn't phase Brand in the slightest. "Yeah, sure, just open the damn door already?" he groaned back to the boy who returned his answer with a nod of confirmation. Just then, the two guards moved for the first time since they had seen them. They each moved to a golden handle located on the center of the massive wooden doors and pulled with what seemed like all of their physical strength. After a few seconds of mild struggling, the two metal men managed to open the doors, revealing nothing but a black void and a staircase heading downwards.

Upon taking a single step into the dungeon, more of the area around them became visible, like pitch black fog clearing itself out. Brand looked up to where he expected to see a ceiling but he was greeted by nothing but more of the black abyss.

"This place is really big." exclaimed Christall with an amazed look on his face, saying what everyone around him were all thinking.

After at least a hundred steps, the group finally set foot on the floor of the dungeon, which happened to be made out of the same stone as the walls along with basically every other buildings made anywhere close to the stronghold.

"This place sure is bland." Brand said to himself, although his voice echoed off of the walls and could probably be heard all the way on the other side of the floor. As he started to move forward, he realized that they were currently in a hallway that resembled an oversized alleyway, like the road they went through when first entering the city. Then he finally reached the next area of the dungeon, which, although completely empty, except for a few torches and chains, seemed around half as big as the city itself. If it wasn't manually made inside of a virtual world, Brand would have started to doubt the laws of physics.

The silent atmosphere was broken when Brand set his right foot out of the hallway and into the open area. There was a girl who had the same ethereal white hair that the boy at the entrance had, but she looked far younger than they assumed the boy had been, most likely around the age of 15. Except she most likely didn't have an actual age because she was clearly yet another NPC.

"Ah, hello there travelers, my name is Aspro. I see that my brother Albus deemed you worthy to enter this accursed place." said the young girl in a surprisingly cheerful tone.

"Deemed us... worthy?" replied Brand.

"Yes, that is what Albus' job is to do; decide whether or not those who wish to enter are worthy of such or not."

"How can he determine that just by looking at us?" asked Soluna, suspicious of Aspro's profound claim.

"My brother and I are archmages-in-training, so we know very advanced magical spells, although we are certainly not the best at them, that's for sure." she giggled in a very high-pitched voice to herself. After she was done laughing, she continued, "He is also very good at simply observing the minds of people via their appearance and the way they speak. A very talented mage indeed." she nodded to herself, clearly proud of her older brother's feats.

"Wait, so if your brother, Albus or whatever, if the gatekeeper of this place, then why are you in here? Are you trapped or something?" Brand thought back to what the boy named Albus had said when they were entering the Ariddon Stronghold: '...these same gates shall not be opened again until you either escape via the staircase hidden within the lowest of depths, or leave the plain of the living.' Maybe he wouldn't make an exception, even for his own sister. It seemed like too cruel of a punishment just for what was most likely a simple sense of curiosity. But just then, Aspro showed that his theory was incorrect.

"No, I have entered here and chosen to stay in here on my own volition." she said as she shook her head back and forth. "My duty as archmage-in-training as of now is to guide and assist the daring adventurers who enter this place in an attempt to aid in the defeat of the monster the common folk call the 'Triclops.'" she began to giggle even louder than before, "Oh my, please excuse my laughter, it's just that a name like Triclops is so silly for such an infamous monster. To combine a simple prefix with the name of a mythical monster is just so humorous to me."

The young girl's laughter proved to be very contagious, as after a matter of only a few seconds, everyone around her started to chuckle as well. Once the eruption of laughter had settled down, Aspro got back onto the main topic.

"Now, I must tell you something very important." exclaimed the girl, "While this stronghold resembles a labyrinth, we... um... do not have a map of the structure." This sudden warning caused the entire group to gasp.

"So you're telling us that we have no idea on how to navigate this place!?" screamed out Claude.

"Yes, that is correct. I am very sorry, but it's like Albus should have said before allowing you entry, nobody has ever made it out alive, therefore there is no way for any mapping intel to be collected."

Aspro's elaboration made an understandable amount of sense, but it was still upsetting that the game developers couldn't have implemented some kind of navigation system. The closest thing they had to one was Aspro herself, but as Brand thought of this, it managed to confuse him even more.

"Wait, Aspro?" he asked in a strange tone.

"Yes?"

"If nobody else has made it out alive and your job is to assist them on getting to the end... how are you still alive?"

This was a question that no one else had bothered to think of, but once he brought it up, the warriors were unable to ponder anything else. Perhaps she had sensed the monsters before the players had and decided to run off and left the others to die. After all, her and her brother seemed to possess some kind of supernatural detection power. Thankfully, Aspro quickly put Brand and the others' worries to rest via her reply.

"Well I actually have died... Many times in fact." she creepily giggled to herself. This left a face of disgust, fear, and confusion on everyone around here. She then decided to explain her weird statement after giving the group a few seconds to be terrified of the innocent looking girl. "Each time I die, I magically end up back here the same way that I started. I think it may be some kind of curse placed upon me by a divine power such as a witch or possibly even the Triclops, but I have a theory that getting to the end of the filthy place may break my curse."

While her explanation should have put the group's worries to rest, it only managed to confuse them even more than before. How could she just magically reappear at the beginning of a dungeon after dying if she was an NPC? At that moment, Brand realized it; it was nothing more than a lazy excuse to allow her to respawn for the next players who dared to challenge the dungeon known as the Ariddon Stronghold. A curse happened to be a common trope to explain plot holes in many other MMOs and games in general, so her explanation no longer seemed too taboo.

She quickly decided to move on from the topic of her strange reincarnation curse. "Like I said, this place is a labyrinth which is why we must divide and conquer until we find the way to the next floor. After that, we must do it again and again until we reach the bottom of the stronghold."

"So, what's the farthest down you've gotten?" randomly asked Clause.

"The farthest I've ever gotten was the fourth floor, where I, along with the other adventurers, ended up dying before we could find our way out. It was truly a horrifying experience."

Brand thought to himself. The entire concept of the Ariddon Stronghold dungeon made no sense in a game design standpoint; most players would easily grow bored after only a few floors of what was most likely the same assets as the one before. Sure, it was an optional dungeon, but there should be more to a dungeon then going down until you reach the bottom. He decided to shrug off the weird design choice as nothing but laziness. After all, nobody had ever beaten the dungeon, so maybe it was made specifically to be impossible.

Brand snapped out of his own thoughts and looked around the wide room he was in, noticing two pathways branching to the left and the right. This most likely meant that the Warriors of Fabula would have to be temporarily split in half. The others noticed this around the same time he did, which caused Violet to elect herself as a team captain of sorts.

"Claude, Christall. and I take the left side and Brand, Soluna, and Aspro take the right side." Nobody had any objections, so they all nodded and went their respective ways.

On Brand, Soluna, and Aspro's side of the dungeon, there was not much to see. That is, until they reached a room far more open than the hallway but very restricting compared to the central room that they had just came from. Upon entering the room, a gate appeared from the ceiling, causing them to be trapped in the room with no visible escape.

Brand had played many games that used this same system, so he knew to ready his sword and the others around him quickly followed suite. Right on time, monsters that resembled giant, stone humans fell from a hole in the ceiling that led up to more black fog.

"What're those things!?" said Christall as he jumped backwards to put more of a distance between himself and the tough-looking monsters.

"They are known as Stone Golems. They are very tough but still not too difficult to slay." answered Aspro in a serious tone that was fit for a general of an army. Once realizing that Aspro most likely knew almost everything about the enemies held within this dungeon due to her previous experiences, Brand decided to turn to her for guidance.

"So, um, how're we going to kill these Golems?" he asked in a surprisingly casual tone, almost like he was doing his best to sound like the complete opposite of Aspro, which he succeeded greatly at. Aspro pulled out a sturdy looking wooden rod and pointed at some location on the Stone Golems who were slowly but surely approaching them.

"In order to kill the Stone Golems, one must get rid of the joints connecting each part of their bodies. If done incorrectly, then they will simply come back in perfect condition."

Brand wasn't entirely sure what the so-called 'correct' way to kill the Stone Golems was, but nonetheless, he rushed towards his opponents while improvising along the way. He decided to attack the middlemost Golem with a vertical slice, causing some stones to be cut in half, but by around 5 seconds, the stones were already back together and in their original placement. This meant that Brand would have to cut off each stone one-by-one until only the Golem's core was left, like he was taking off individual layers of an onion.

Soluna kept his distance and attempted to shoot mystical missiles the Stone Golem's rock-hard(quite literally) bodies, but they simply ricocheted off of the Golems, followed by them disappearing into a small cloud of light blue smoke. She then realized that the only way he could even have a chance at leaving a scratch on the Golems was to use an attack that she had yet to use up to this point; Charge Blast. In the span of all attacks in the game, or simply magical attacks in general, Charge Blast was a fairly weak and basic attack. However, this was only the third major area in the game, so the enemies were far weaker than the ones that they would be forced to fight near the end of the game. Soluna had no doubt that a max level player, or even one around level 40 or so, could obliterate the stone creatures in only a hit or two.

Aspro's artificial intelligence indicated that she should most likely focus her attacks on the leftmost Golem, the only one that was not being currently attacked by her allies. Due to her previous attempts at reaching the bottom of the goliath dungeon, she procedurally learned perfectly how to dispose of the Stone Golems. She quickly swiped her wooden rod left and right like a sideways seesaw, causing multiple stones to go flying into the wall in only a matter of seconds. By the time she had finished off her self-designated Golem, her two allies were only halfway through their respective fights. She determined that in order to avoid accidentally landing a hit on one of the players, she should keep her distance until they had done the same as her.

Once the others had finished fighting off the Stone Golems, the gate in front of them opened up to reveal a room that resembled a storage closet in the real world; it was fairly cramped and filled with boxes and bookshelves filled with unlabeled pieces of literature that no one felt like taking their time to read. Within the open space in the middle of the room were four plates that were big enough for one to stand on.

Recognizing the structure of the plates from an old game he had played as a little kid, he stood on one of the plates, which in return, lit up a candle set above the gate leading to the next room.

"If I'm guessing correctly, if four of us stand on these, then the door should open." said Brand as he thought to himself, calculating unknown equations within his head.

"But there isn't enough of us," stated Soluna, "Plus, even if there was, none of us would be able to make it through without the door closing again." Claude began to pace back and forth for a while, then turned his attention to Aspro.

"Aspro, you said you've gone through this floor several times, right?"

She nodded her head.

"Then why don't you just tell us how to do this thing?" This caused Aspro to start chuckling to herself.

"Well if I were to tell you the solution, then it wouldn't be as fun." This caused the rest of the adventurers to let out clearly audible sighs. Just then, Brand had finished calculating the mysterious information in his head and then began to move throughout the room, picking up small boxes along the way. Before anyone could ask him what in the world he was doing, he had already placed the four boxes on the floor plates, which lit up the candles, causing the gate in front of them to open.

On Claude, Violet, and Christall's side of the dungeon, things were not going nearly as smoothly; instead of having to fend off only a few Stone Golems, they were forced to fend off against dozens of small but agile skeletons. Due to Claude's ranged weaponry, it was nearly impossible to land a hit without feeling the sting of a skeleton's small, dull dagger slashing through his leg. Because of that, Violet had to do most of the fighting. Christall spend 99% of his time healing the wounds that were left from the attacks on Claude.

While it was by far easier for Violet to hack her way through the horde of undead, it was still far from easy. Her daggers limited her range too much to safely attack the skeletons. It seemed that they had designated the worst duo to go into this room.

After what felt like forever, the two managed to eliminate all of their enemies, causing the gate in front of them to open into another empty room. It would most likely end up spawning more enemies once they set foot into the suspicious room. Knowing what they were getting into, the three of them set foot into the room, causing the gate to shut directly behind them.

The room they had entered was a fairly large dome. What was weird about the structure was what was in the very center of the dome: a giant egg, most likely three times the warriors height. The sight of such a large egg stunned the trio so long that they failed to notice the cracks that were now appearing on the shell of the egg. By the time they had come to their senses, the egg had already been shattered and a baby dragon was flying straight at them.

"Get out of the way!" screamed out Violet as she attempted to jump to the right as far as possible. While she was able to avoid the dragon's oncoming attack, Christall was not so lucky; he was hit directly by the dragon and sent flying into the wall until he ended up sprawled out on the hard floor. Without a healer on their side, Violet and Claude would be forced to be extremely careful and to plan out every single little movement in advance.

Violet decided to primarily dodge until Christall had recovered from the powerful ambush, while Claude simply made sure there was a great distance between him and the newborn dragon.

By the time that Christall had recovered, the dragon had finally landed a hit on Violet, resulting in her losing quite a lot of health in the process. Thankfully, Christall was able to heal Violet's wounds in ample time before the dragon was able to attack her yet again.

As Christall and Violet were attempting to recover health, Claude had been doing his best at both avoiding and attacking the dragon. Most of the time, his position was either too far away or too close to hit the dragon, but every once in a while, he was able to land a shot that lead to a decent amount of damage dealt, although it would still be nearly impossible for him to kill the dragon without the help of Violet's daggers.

Claude continued to shoot sloppily aimed arrows at the dragon, even after Violet had recovered enough health to fend for herself. This time, his attacks acted as nothing more than a diversion. Unbeknownst to the dragon, Violet was attempting to climb its tail in order to mount upon it, like she had previously done with the river serpent. For the time being, Christall had no other choice but to stand around idly.

"Where would be the best place to attack from?" Violet thought to herself, looking at the large body of the dragon. Just then, she realized the perfect spot to hit, a spot that Claude would most likely never be able to hit; the eyes. If she were to climb onto the dragon's head, it would almost certainly notice the suspicious amount of weight on top of it, so she knew she would have to work extremely fast.

She managed to gouge one eye before the dragon had noticed her and began to smash itself into the walls of the dome, hoping to throw Violet off of it in the process, which it succeeded in. Christall had seen what had happened and attempted to catch Violet in his arms, but her weight was too much to bare for his relatively scrawny body, so they both ended up falling to the ground together. At least Violet now had something to cushion her fall, but Christall was not nearly as lucky.

"What was that for!?" screamed out Violet. Christall wanted to ask her the same question, but the impact onto his torso made it so the only sound he could muster up was a cough, which he figured would make Violet more mad at him than she already was.

Violet quickly got off of Christall's stomach and was now attempting to get behind the dragon in order to execute the same maneuver she had previously done, which, if the artificial intelligence was programmed realistically, should make the dragon completely blind. However, the dragon had learned from earlier and was now focusing entirely on preventing her from replicating it, leaving only Claude to attack with his bow and arrow.

That was when a strange thought struck into the mind of Claude. In order to pull off an attack that, at least in his head, should work, he attempted to climb onto the back of the dragon, just as Violet had done.

"What the hell is he thinking!?" Violet thought to herself. If he were to shoot arrows at the dragon while simultaneously riding it, it would do practically no damage, especially because of the extra hard scales found only on the top half. If this were a full-grown dragon, the scales would most likely cover all of the dragon's skin, resulting in an immunity to any form of bow attacks.

After Claude had made it onto the back and the raging beast, he took an arrow out of his quiver and held it like it was a small dagger. He ran up to its head and stabbed its second eye, causing it to go completely blind.

The dragon did the best it could to attack the trio of warriors but was unable to land a single hit on any of them. The only damage it ended up causing was to the wall and to itself from ramming into the walls blindly. Due to the immense amount of damage it had inflicted upon itself, it froze in place as the pain caused by simply walking was far too much for it to handle. This was the perfect chance for the two offensive warriors to get rid of a massive portion of the dragon's health.

Just like the dragon had, the two attacked the dragon's stationary body seemingly blindingly, although they had the advantage of eyes to see what in particular they were attacking. After get tired of all the pain the humans had been inflicting it with, the dragon let out a vibrating roar, sending Violet, Claude, and Christall all flying back, however they managed to stand on both feet, learning from their many previous mistakes.

Violet gazed at the dragon's health bar which now showed a sliver of red indicating that the monster was barely holding onto life. All that they would have to do is land a few more hits on the dragon before it would end up dying, but that was easier said than done. The dragon was now slashing its claws around all over the place, which prevented anyone from hitting its torso, which was now its most vital weak point. Now they would be forced to attack the creature from its back.

Violet and Claude agreed on a plan: Claude would stay in front of the dragon to draw its attention while Violet secretly ran to its backside, slashing away at its hit points. Due to her proficiency in stealth, it was highly unlikely that the dragon would notice its oncoming attacker before it was too late.

Like they had expected, the dragon was now focused on attacking Claude and Christall, even though if it hadn't been blind, it would have been able to see Violet running away towards its side. She then managed to get directly behind it and diagonally slashed it about a dozen times before the dragon collapsed for a second time. This time, instead of coming back up with an ear piercing screech, it simply groaned out of its immense pain and then disintegrated into polygons representing its former life as a dragon, but now it ceased to exist entirely except for the menu left behind showing the items that it had dropped, one of which being very powerful; the Tunic of the Ariddon Dragon Queen. While it appeared to be a weak, light-weight piece of armor, it was actually far better than any piece of armor they had seen before. Violet had equipped it and all she could notice at first was the breeze she was now experiencing, but she was sure that it would come in handy in the near future.

After the gate to the next, and final room had opened, the three went inside and were greeted by an unnaturally large key. They decided to bring it to the central room to wait until the other had managed to defeat whatever monsters happened to be behind the door that they had gone through. But when they got there, they realized that the others had finished before then.

While Violet was fuming from rage that they hadn't been faster than Brand, Soluna, and Christall, Claude noticed something strange in the hands of Brand; a giant key that looked almost identical to the one that Violet was currently holding. The only difference was Violet's possessed a large, blue crystal, while Brand's possessed a large, red crystal.

"So you guys got a key too?" asked Christall, to which the others nodded. This question randomly caused Aspro to start giggling to herself.

"Oh my, I suppose I forgot to tell you beforehand," she laughed before pointing at a humungous door on the wall, "These two keys were needed to open that door. My dearest apologies for not telling you why we had to split up ahead of time, but it purely slipped out of my memory."

After Aspro had finished laughing, she told the Warriors of Fabula who were wielding the keys where exactly to input them in order to unlock the door. After that, it automatically began to open up, revealing nothing more than another dark abyss accompanied my downwards-facing stairs. "This has to be the the way to get the the second floor." Brand thought to himself, guessing correctly.

The group decided to take the risk and continue downwards. Even if it meant having to die, the only way to escape this labyrinthian prison was to progress forward.