Cayla saw me approaching and immediately rushed to hug me. “I heard what happened. A mind attack – that too, fear based. You poor thing”. Concern marred her face.

  How was this news already? She saw the look on my face and quickly filled in, “They came in earlier to update the party information”. They sure moved fast, didn’t they? Couldn’t wait to kick me out of the team – officially.

  “The woman left you something”. She meant Sera. Cayla went back to her desk to get a small pouch. “It’s your share of the loot, after the guild’s cut. Those magic crystals from the miasma-born beasts sell pretty well”, she said, as she withdrew three silver coins and twenty more in bronze from the pouch. “That woman was insistent that I tell you it was an even split and that they didn’t eat into your share. She also wanted to make it clear that there wasn’t anything left to salvage from the slimes”.

  I nodded in relief. The prospect of a roof over my head for the night eased some of the fears, but Cayla wasn’t done. She handed me another four and a half silver coins.”We had the alchemist appraise that strange rabbit’s corpse you left with us, and he was happy to pay you more on top of the base price”.

  We found some seats in the waiting area. I brought up the most pressing matter. “Cayla, is there some way to find a new party before the next event?” The event that matched adventurers to parties was held only once a month.

  She was deep in thought. “The guild doesn’t do much more than that, but you can take matters into your own hands. You can run into adventurers at the pub next door, though I fear they won’t make the best first impression once they’ve downed a few drinks. Then there are those chance meetings in front of the quest board. You both reach for the same quest notice – it’s a quest to thin the count of Bumpwendupedos. Your hands brush against his, but you both laugh it off. You offer to let him have the quest, but he insists you go after it. You both end up doing the quest together. It’s fated”, she replied, staring dreamily towards the questboard. I sighed. She had gone off-track again, setting up the perfect meet-cute.

  “Cayla, focus!” I shook her out of her daydreams.

  She brought her index finger to her chin to imitate a thinking pose. “Dungeons!” she jumped from her seat at the sudden epiphany.

  “The guild has a rule that insists on a minimum party size for most dungeons. It varies from dungeon to dungeon, but most parties usually do not meet the numbers requirement. People gather around outside the dungeon gates to form impromptu teams for dungeon diving”, she explained. A game of pick-up dungeoneering and I would be there just to make up the numbers.

  “Dungeons? Isn’t it a bit too soon for a novice adventurer? You do recall that I don’t have a lot of levels under my belt?” I was skeptical.

  She was about to say something, but reined in that thought. “I’m sure it’s nothing Lady Alysa can’t handle. More importantly, you are unlikely to run into any spectral monsters in any of the dungeons in this area. They are mostly populated by beast type monsters”.

  “Are mind attacks limited to spectral creatures?”

  “It’s not an ironclad rule, but the likelihood is higher”, she replied.

  I felt that some vital piece of information about dungeons was still kept from me, but not being subjected to a mind attack was tempting in itself. A weight lifted from my shoulders.

  “There are three dungeons in and around Palomp – one even within the town walls. In fact, the whole town was built around it”. She was suddenly very enthusiastic about the whole idea.

  “Can I purchase a dossier on these dungeons?”. Cayla chuckled when she heard my question. That probably meant there wasn’t one.

  I listened to Cayla ramble on for a little while longer, before I was allowed to leave. I was offered the same room in the inn that night, but the stain on the ceiling had blurred to unrecognizable shapes. I was up early the next morning for my first dungeon dive.

  I had stayed close to the south gate of the town in my previous outings, but I had to venture further north this time to find the building. The dungeon was in the basement of an old-looking building. There was a guard standing watch outside, but once he saw my guild badge, he let me through. The ground floor of the building had been turned into a marketplace – a place to pick up supplies for the dungeon run. After I paid for the room last night, I had six silver and sixty more in bronze. After a quick look around, I found a vendor that sold armors and weapons.

  The cheapest armour he had was made out of strands of a natural fibre that was retrieved from the outer husk of a native fruit. The strands were twisted and interwoven together. It was hideous to look at, despite their best attempts to add some color. Why bother with plate armour or leather or chainmail, when I could be draped in a criss-cross pattern of ropes? It was the only armor that fit my budget. At two silver and eighty, it was as cheap as they came. I was told that the price was low because the material was easy to come by and didn’t require anyone to leave the safety of the town. It would absorb some of the shock and maybe the closely packed strands would keep a knife from piercing all the way through? It was preferable to having no armour at all.

  I briefly considered getting a weapon too. Perhaps it was prudent to carry a simple knife, if I ever ran into an especially magic-resistant enemy, not that I was sure it would help without weapon proficiency. Did such a thing as magic resistance even exist? I wasn’t an archer who needed to switch to a melee weapon when the enemy was in close range. A luminous blast at point-blank range could do a job. Also, a spare knife that didn’t cost a pretty penny was hard to find in this place. If only more of these rogues threw their knives at an enemy and forgot about them. No weapons for me then.

  I had enough fruits in my satchel to last a few days in the dungeon. For a silver and half, I procured some basic supplies that I thought I might need in a dungeon – a rope, a simple fire starter, a second waterskin et cetera.

  After putting on the armor, I found the stairs that went down. Standing at the bottom of the stairs were three men who had the air of hardened dungeon veterans . The first was dressed in full plate armor, with the hilt of a sword peeking from behind. The sunken eyes and the beard gave him a rough appearance. Next to him was an unusually large man in an armor made out of animal hide. With his enormous figure, protruding forehead and a mouth that couldn’t contain his lower canines, he certainly stood out from the rest. The last of the three men was a skinny dagger wielder. They all had at least a decade on me.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  The man with the sword introduced himself. “Here for a dungeon run? I’m the leader of the pack. You can call me Holt. That’s Elric with his daggers – never seen him cut anything more than a carrot. The big guy with an axe half as big as Elric – that’s Roth, a half-orc. Note the distinct lack of orc features? He is ugly enough as it is, so nature spared him further embarrassment. Simple canines instead of the hideous boar-tusks you expect to see in an orc. Together, we are called the Dragon claw and we haven’t had a pretty lass like you join our team for a quest in a long while”.

  ‘Oh. Splendid. Another banter-loving party’, I mentally cursed my bad luck. At least, they had a decent name? Wait, I never asked Sera what their party was called!

  “Alysa. I’m new to the guild, but I have a light primer”.

  Elric frowned. “I have heard of her. Just a noble brat who thinks she can play adventurer, before she even has a class”, he whispered to the leader, but I still managed to catch his words. Gossip went around fast in this town.

  “Hush! We are two members short without her”, the leader silenced him. We were off to a great start. I briefly considered leaving, but a well-mannered party was a rarity that my wallet couldn’t wait for.

  While we stood waiting for one more to join us, a full-strength party of five walked past without giving us a second look. Blades, shields, hammers, a lone archer for range. There were no mages or clerics.

  “Can multiple parties go into the dungeon at the same time?” I pointed to the group that passed by, as I asked Holt, “I hope we won’t have to wait for them to clear the place first”.

  The leader looked at me strangely, “Why would we? The dungeon will spawn a new instance of itself when we enter”.

  The trio looked like seasoned adventurers and perhaps they wouldn’t be opposed to handing out some valuable pointers to a newcomer? So, I queried, “What can I expect in the dungeon?”

  “You’ll know soon enough”. He chuckled and dismissed my question. So much for that.

  I swallowed my pride and decided to have another go. Afterall, it was my life on the line. “Any advice for a first time dungeon diver?”

  He put some serious thought into it this time and finally answered, “Just don’t get killed, lass”. That was it? I looked expectantly at him, hoping he would have something to add to that. He didn’t. I guess I would be going in blind then.

  “There is someone coming”, the half-orc turned his attention to the top of the stairs. A familiar bespectacled face came into view. Why did it have to be him?

  “That’s my cue to leave”, I said, as I gathered my satchel from the floor.

  “Wait, you are leaving? Do you two know each other?” The leader stopped me.

  I shrugged. “Dust won’t work with me. The last time I talked with Dust, he threw a tantrum and stormed out”. Dust stared at his feet awkwardly.

  The leader groaned. “Just when we finally managed to get enough numbers for the dungeon!”

  He approached Dust. “Lad, do you agree to temporarily put your differences aside to get through the dungeon? Do you agree not to let your petty feud come between me and the riches of the dungeon?”

  “I do”, Dust replied. He did? That caught me by surprise. I stared into his eyes for signs of deceit.

  The leader turned to me. “Lass?”.

  “I do”, I replied, with a sigh.

  “Team mates”, he pronounced, as he patted us both on the shoulder.

  Till death do us part? That’s probably an hour or two in a dungeon.

  We walked till the end of the hallway, where a raised circular platform stood. As I got closer, I saw the faint glow coming out of a magic circle that was engraved on it. Two bored guards stood on either side of the platform.

  “You can let us through. We’ve got the right numbers and everything”, Elric shouted to the guards.

  “That lad and the pretty lass? They look very green to me, Elric. You are taking them to their graves”, the guard replied with a laugh, finding amusement in our impending deaths.

  We hopped on to the circular platform. A few seconds later, the magic circle beneath my shoes flickered to life and we were transported inside.

  Our new surroundings resembled a throne hall, but instead of a king on a throne, a large bronze double door sat at the end of the hall. The walls of the hall went up as far as the eye could see, the ceiling or the night sky a dark blur in the distance. We were standing in the middle – stone figures cut in the shape of valiant knights in heavy armor surrounded us on either side. The red carpet beneath our feet ended right before the large door, further confirming our destination. Tall murals depicting scenes of great battles or grotesque beasts hung on the walls, but they blended with the darkness that was slowly encroaching the hall from its periphery. The contents of the murals became a distant memory, just as the eyes drifted away from them.

  I was so engrossed, taking in everything, that I hardly noticed Roth push open the large double door. I couldn’t see through to the other side of the door. A shimmering wall of light blocked my view. The members of Dragon claw stepped through without hesitation.

  I took a deep breath and followed them. I had to adjust my eyes to the change of light. Bright light reflected off the white walls of the pristine room we stepped into. At the far side of the room, stood three more doors, each of a different color with unique symbols engraved on them. There was music playing in the background, which was somehow strangely familiar.

  A human figure draped in strange clothes shimmered into existence. Two purple-black hounds with flaming red eyes materialized on either side. I could almost sense the undiluted miasma fuelling their bloodlust. Holt unsheathed his sword and readied himself, while Elric and the half-orc followed his lead.

  “Put that away, human. I am the dungeon master”, the visitor announced, much to the shock of everyone.

  Holt raised an eyebrow and looked at his teammates. “The dungeon master himself making an appearance – what have we stumbled onto, Elric?”

  “Whatever it is, I bet the loot will make it worth it”, Elric replied, fully embracing the stereotype of the sneaky, coin-loving rogue.

  Dust, who was following their conversation keenly, interrupted them, “Is this unexpected?”

  “This is a supervised dungeon. So, it stands to reason that a dungeon master exists and controls everything behind the scenes, but that’s usually the end of it. They pull the strings from the shadows, they don’t come to greet you personally at the front gate”, the leader explained. Dust nodded in understanding.

  Perhaps the dungeon master had taken a keen interest in someone from our group, and I had a sneaking suspicion who. The dungeon master was dressed in a suede jacket and bell-bottoms. Pompadours and heavy eye-liners and thick sideburns completed his look that certainly didn’t come out of a medieval fashion magazine. The music in the background could as well have been called ‘Earth’s greatest hits’. This was a welcome party specifically intended for me.