-Chapter 23- The Unnamed Dungeon I

***Dragonspine Inn***

Kagul Rofle P.O.V.

"Have you all heard about the rumor?" I ask as a put down my drink

The burly man next to me says, "If you're talking about those famous masked adventurers, I say it's bullshit, Kagul." He was obviously drunk from drinking too much.

"No no, apparently it's true!" said a skinny lad with his hair tied in a bun, he dragged over a chair to sit down with us. "An acquaintance of mine supposedly once teamed with them, They travel with members of the Twin Horns, they are both pretty short so it would be hard to miss them."

"So? What did your so-called 'acquaintance' say about them?" Turman asked with a slur in his voice.

"They went together to explore a minor dungeon that had been cleared before. I think they must be royalty or nobles at the very least. Their items are very expensive and their skill with magic is unprecedented." the thin man shook his head in wonder.

"Bah, it's all bullshit!' Turman yells out.

"Have you heard they recently moved up rankings, the girl is now A-class? And that masked swordsman is AA-class!" The thin man continues ranting about them.

Suddenly the front door opens and there walk in the two exact people we were just talking about. The masked swordsman and the masked conjurer walk in with Note walking in front. He walks to the counter and asks for the rations that were left there for him. When the bartender leaves to the back to look for them I see Turman get up and start walking over.

"Come on Turman don't do it," I say.

"Do what?" He says in a snarky tone.

He walks up to the duo and purposely bumps into them, "so you're the one everyone is talking about."

The masked swordsman doesn't respond and just waits for the bartender to return.

"Are ya ignoring me?" Turman yells.

Turman raises his greatsword and swings it down at Note. 'That drunk fool, he's gonna kill him.' But when Note dodges the swing of the greatsword letting it hit the counter cleaving it in two.

"What the hell?"

Turman repeatedly swings his greatsword to try hitting Note, but each time Note dodges the swipe using small movements.

"Damnit!" Turman yells while he swings once more using mana this time.

But suddenly a wave of bloodlust fills the room, it was like I was trapped under tar. The best I could do was barely stay seated. I had heard that strong adventurers could emit an aura but is this strong?"

The bartender returns with the bag of rations and he withdrawals the bloodlust. The bartender seeing the damage begins to yell at Turman while Note and Flow take their leave.

Arthur Leywin P.O.V.

Walking out of the inn with the rations we meet up with Jasmine and Adam. ¨We heard a pretty big ruckus in there, did you two cause problems?¨ Adam asks.

¨No nothing much, some people were just surprised to see us that's all.¨ It wasn't surprising to hear rumors being spread about me and Lilia, there aren't too many masked adventurers that end up being ranked as high as us. Lilia just got to A-class and I recently achieved AA class. My adventurer's card was now a shiny golden color.

We all head down to the guildhall to look for any quests or upcoming dungeon excursions. We had recently finished a raid on a B-class dungeon by ourselves. We arrive at the guildhall and walk over to the area where other adventurers advertise their upcoming excursion wanting others to come. You can hear people chanting out their requirements to participate in the raid.

¨B-class dungeon, Looking for Wind attribute conjurers of at least solid orange stage!¨" Some old-looking adventurer yells out holding up a small poster stating the name of the dungeon.

Another guy yells, ¨Paying a good price of gold and beast cores for an A-class elemental augmenter! Need help with escorting to a nearby city for transporting goods!¨

We quickly pass on by the large board with the posters of dungeon excursion advertisements pinned all over.

Looking around we spot a few interesting ones but nothing that we are willing to do.

¨We could try this one, the Dire tombs. The leader is willing to pay a lot of money.¨ Lilia points out.

¨No, that one probably has too many people by now. We need to look for something newer.¨

We continue looking but to the right of us a young man walks up and is fumbling around trying to carry around a stack of papers. He attempts to pin one up on the board but in the process of doing so drops the entire stack. Since I was right next to him I decided to help so I don't look like a complete jack-ass.

¨Oh, thank you for the help.¨ He says kindly.

I didn't respond and looked at the posters he was carrying around. They were advertisements for some unnamed dungeon he had recently discovered. It had no rank since it was not explored yet so it may be risky. But the pay listed at the bottom of the page was ridiculous. Several hundred gold coins just to help identify the ranking of the dungeon.

He spots my staring at the poster and asks, ¨Are you perhaps interested in joining the raiding squad? It would be greatly appreciated since we would like to get this dungeon properly ranked as soon as possible.¨

I look over to my teammates to get their impression of it and they seem to agree, that the chances of it being over A-class are drastically low so there isn't much risk involved. ¨Sure, when is the excursion?¨

***

We are walking to the site of where this unexplored dungeon was meant to be. We soon approach the area and find a small campsite set up near a large cave tunnel descending what looks to be hundreds of feet. Inside are these beautiful purple crystals that shine with the kind of light that is soothing to look at.

At the campsite were the other party members that were supposed to partake in the raid as well. A well-dressed man walked toward us. He looked rather charismatic and approachable. He had black hair with purple eyes. The mana around him immediately told me his skill level, but I waited to hear it from him.

¨Hello, you guys must be the last of the group to arrive. I am Aaron, an AA-class augmenter in the solid yellow stage. With a specialty in Fire and Earth along with a slight deviant in Lightning. As you can see on my sides are dual daggers. I will be leading this excursion.¨ He says.

Looking behind him are three other people, Aaron says, ¨Since there are so many of us, let's just speed up the introductions.¨ He says to all of us.

First, the girl that had been waiting here already stood up from her seat. Her appearance was rather bland but she carried herself like a princess. She had brown curly hair with emerald green eyes. ¨Hello my name is Diana, I am a Light Orange stage conjurer in the A-class. I specialize in wind.

The next one who introduced themselves was an older-looking man, he had slicked-back blonde hair which looked greasy as if he bathed in a tub of fat, along with brown eyes that seemed to be drifting their attention to Diane's skirt rather often. ¨I am Lorenzo, a solid orange stage emitter at the A-class.¨

Finally, the last one walked up, he looked familiar. I just couldn't place where he was from. I finally recognized him when I saw his elf-like ears. He was that adventurer who nearly harmed Kaspians niece at the adventuring exams.

¨My name is Lucas Wykes, I am a Light Orange Stage conjurer with a specialty in Fire magic. I am an A-class adventurer.¨ He says, the way he spoke he looked down on us, probably not expecting much from what we will have to say.

I was going to be the first in my group to introduce myself but Lilia cut ahead, looking at her you can't tell from the mask but she was obviously pissed at Lucas's attitude. She dislikes how other nobles can be so snobby and look down on others.

¨I am Flow, an A-class conjurer with a specialty in water magic, I achieved the light orange stage not too long ago.¨

Hearing that the girl that he had seen only rank C-class back when he first saw her not only rise two ranks but achieve the same rank as him in the same amount of time very clearly ticked at his nerves.

I was next with the introductions, ¨Note, AA-class, Light Yellow, Fire.¨ I kept my introductions bland and short. It put some people on edge and others were just disappointed they couldn't learn more about my skill set.

After me Jasmine and Adam introduced themselves as AA-class augmenters, bringing the group together with everyone now introduced. The group on its whole had three A-class mages and four AA-class mages. There's no way this could go wrong. (JuSt HaD tO sAy It!)

We begin our excursion into the dungeon slowly descending the steep and narrow paths. We got lucky there were some paths, it was strange though that there were paths into an unexplored dungeon but they looked very, very old.

It didn't take long before the sunlight couldn't help us and the only light we could see was the dim purple glow from the crystals in the wall. The light radiated off of the crystals as if they were alive. The path grew more unstable as we descended and soon it led straight to a wall. The stone wall standing blocking the path was not a dead end since the path continued underneath it so Aaron used earth magic to tear down the wall. The wall crumbling down opened up the path letting us pass, beyond the wall was complete darkness for a long while. Anyone that could use fire magic conjured a small ball of flame to allow us to see, although doing so broke one of the major rules of survival in unknown territory. Letting any enemies or threats see our location perhaps could ignite some gas leaking out in the caverns.

We find our way to a larger room much brighter than the previous tunnels. We put out our flames and look around. The large room was illuminated once again by those purple crystals, we looked around trying to identify anything. It was strange we haven't encountered any mana beasts or in fact any kind of living creature. Not even bugs living in the dirt nearby.

We spot a door made of stone, we approach it and find it is inscribed with runes all over it. It reminded me of a seal seen in fictional book series in my old world. We open it being cautious about what may lay on the other side of the door.

On the other side of the door, we see it resembled nothing like the previous room appeared. The ceiling was covered in icicles and the temperature dropped noticeably.

What the hell? How could the environment change this drastically? The temperature was below freezing in this room yet the other room was normal room temperature, there isn't anything but dirt separating the two.

After enhancing ourselves with mana to protect our bodies from the cold we slowly search the new colder area, using mana to enhance my hearing I could hear some kind of scratching behind the corner. I look around the corner with my sword drawn prepared on the defensive for some kind of mana beast.