After an eventless night, the entire group gathered at the dungeon portal in the morning. Tension and anticipation were palpable.
The priest player Phoenix had mentioned joined them not long after they started getting ready. It was a mystery for Astaroth how he got here on his own, but he didn’t pry.
The man was a short skinny blond priest, dressed in clerical robes, that seemed to be draped over a chain-mail. He could easily pass as a priest from a templar order.
The man wasn’t much of a talker, and barely introduced himself. His name was Silent Light.
After getting the introductions out of the way, their stress levels rose again.
They were going to attempt a dungeon many levels over their own, and were trying to beat it quickly. Astaroth had gathered info on forums during his resting time, and apparently, a guild had found another level fifty dungeon.
They were attempting it the next day, and now, this meant the party had only one day to go through this one. Because a guild would be much better equipped to go through a dungeon of this difficulty.
Not only did they have more players, but they also had better equipment generally. There was also the constant nagging feeling that Phoenix and Astaroth had, that Khalor might be doing something similar on his end.
This built up pressure on everyone’s shoulders, as they were now competing against two very serious threats to their achievement. But Astaroth was confident they would succeed.
After a brief reminder of what they would see inside, Gulnur was the first one to step in. Following him was Astaroth, Phoenix, Violette, Silent, Athena, and finally, I’die.
Entering in this order ensured maximum efficiency of their respective roles, and also made sure Gulnur was always in front with Astaroth close behind, to take aggro if something jumped at them on entry.
Although nothing was upon them directly on entry, the environment itself was quite different inside than outside. The hot, humid air immediately assaulted Astaroth upon crossing the portal.
It was like he had just entered a sauna, but with no walls in sight. The surrounding jungle was thick, and it was hard to see much farther than a few dozen meters away.
When the last two players entered, Athena complained about the humidity.
“This is going to frazzle my hair. Also, it’s going to be terrible on my skin. Urgh…” she said, grimacing.
“Yeah, same for me,” I’die said, scrunching his nose.
His words elicited a giggle from Violette. She wasn’t used to hearing a boy complain about skin issues, and it lightened her mood.
I’die had mentioned to the group that he was Chinese, and that, as a respectable Asian man, his skincare was not to be trifled with.
Of course, Gulnur agreed, since he had grown up in a rich family, where appearances were of the utmost importance. But his medical condition meant he couldn’t use many products.
Astaroth was probably the only boy in the group that had never thought about taking care of his skin. It was a foreign concept to him, as he grew up surrounded by dirty boys and mud-throwing games.
If Silent Light agreed with him, he never worded it.
The most Astaroth did for his face was wash it with water daily. That’s what he called skincare.
The party kept advancing through the jungle, as they tried to explain to this caveman the benefits of exfoliating, until Astaroth’s head snapped in a direction, as he signalled everyone to stop and keep quiet.
Not a second later, he pulled out his shield as a projectile impacted it with a dull thud sound.
When Astaroth peeked at the front of his shield, two fangs were lodged in it. He looked back into the jungle, and two yellow eyes stared back at him.
Slowly, the eyes started getting closer to the tree line, where everyone could see them. A gigantic cobra slithered out of the jungle, brown with red spots adorning its long body.
It was at least twenty meters long, and its hood stretched out three meters wide from its head. The cobra’s massive tongue was whipping the air rapidly as it stared down at the party trespassing on its territory.
Giant Cobra:
Level: 50
Grade: Special
HP: 17’500
MP: 1’800
They had been waiting for the first monster to show up. Now that they were staring at it, their excitement reached its peak.
Gulnur looked at the snake with a manic grin and taunted it.
“Come and try to eat me, you oversized danger noodle!” he shouted, slamming his hammer onto his new stone shield.
ƥαṇdα- ηθνε|·ƈθm
He dashed at the monster, hellbent on teaching it a lesson. As the two of them clashed, Astaroth melded with White, and dashed into the fight, too.
The casters and Athena started attacking from afar, pelting the cobra with spells and arrows. I’die focusing on trying to restrict the snake’s movement, while Silent healed Gulnur.
The snake was taken down rapidly, as they had a very high damage output, and this was a single beast. But they knew they were only at the beginning of the dungeon.
The scouting party Gulnur had been part of, had found the few first rooms to be very easy, but that didn’t last long. So the party was already on high alert.
Gulnur, who had been here previously, was already starting to feel uneasy, though. There was something different about the path they were taking.
He wasn’t very good with directions, and the dungeons blurred out the map on re-entry, so he couldn’t tell for sure. But his gut was telling him something was wrong.
After a few more minutes of walking through the jungle, he realized what it was.
“Everyone stop!” he called out.
“I think the path is different from the last time I came. I don’t remember going this way when I scouted here.”
The party stopped advancing. If the path had changed, the level of danger they were in had just gone up drastically.