Karl led the group out of the dungeon, and immediately wished that he had put earplugs in.
There were now dozens of monsters surrounding the Orcish tribe, which had encircled the dungeon entrance. It was a good thing that they had parked the wagon well out of the way, as it was still intact, but the others were trying to force their way in, and Chieftain World Smasher wasn’t going to let them do that.
At least not before his team came back out, and perhaps not before his whole Clan had gone inside.
Chieftain World Smasher smiled at Karl when he saw the team come out.
“Was it worth it?”
Karl nodded and moved to whisper to the Orc. “It will activate a system interface for everyone who completes the dungeon, but you need at least one or two powerful Commanders and a healer to actually do it.”
The Chieftain nodded, then began shouting something in Orcish. Groups of ten began to back away from the defensive lines, running into the dungeon entrance, while the other forces howled in rage.
“Should I talk to them? I think we can arrange for everyone to get a shot.” Karl offered.
“After the Yellow Tusk Clan. We earned this place. If it is going to close, we will be the ones to use it.”
Karl nodded and took his place beside the Chieftain with the others who had finished their run, then stepped forward to be in between the Orcs and the leaders of the other factions.
“The Yellow Tusk Orcs received this anomaly as a Divine Blessing from the gods after an appeal for mercy. Once they have sent their warriors, the Dungeon will be free for anyone else to enter. Chieftain World Breaker gives his word that he won’t block access after all his people have entered.” Karl announced.
The three Demons and an Ogre that were standing closest to him gave Karl a skeptical look, but the Orcs were already pouring into the dungeon portal ten at a time, giving the portal only a short break between entries.
“That Anomaly won’t last forever, why should a tribe full of stupid Orcs get it. Let us in, or we will let ourselves in.” The Ogre demanded.
“If you could do that, you wouldn’t be here facing off with the Chieftain. One hour is all that it will take, and the Orcs will be back out.”
“Get out the way. We’re gonna kill anything between us and the dungeon.” One of the Demons insisted.
“Human, this is an Orc fight. If they want to try, let them try.” Chieftain World Breaker insisted.
“Alright. I will take my team back to our wagon, and we will be out of the way.”
That was perfect. Karl could retreat without it looking like he was abandoning the Orcs, and they had already sent most of their people inside, so it was only the Chieftain and a small group of warriors, including the ones that had just come out, that would be fighting.
The battle would be long finished, one way or the other, by the time the others completed the dungeon run.
The crowd parted to let Karl and his team out, and then began to form a circle around the Chieftain and his challengers.
Unfortunately for World Breaker, he had missed one vital detail. With his warriors in a circle around the contest, and most of his clan inside the Dungeon, there was no longer anyone guarding the portal, and sneaky groups of ten were beginning to make their way inside before the fight between champions had even started.
Soon, the others would realize that the dungeon was not collapsing, as the device appeared to have worked to stabilize its existence, and the entrance looked nearly identical to the one in the Golden Dragon Nation.
The only question was if there was some sort of limit on daily use or number of people inside, as this dungeon had no problem with multiple groups entering.
It was distracting enough that nobody tried to stop Karl as they went to the wagon, and nobody said a word as he hitched Thor back up and prepared to leave.
In fact, by the time that he was ready, there were so few people outside that Karl wasn’t sure that anyone had even noticed. The few that were still outside were watching the duel between Chieftain World Smasher and one of the Demons, which was still apparently in its early stages, as the two were close to evenly matched when fighting without weapons.
That couldn’t be a coincidence. If they had actually wanted to kill the Orcs and take over the Dungeon, they could have with the numbers they still had outside, but they were fighting an unarmed duel for the dungeon, while both of their forces were already inside it.
The whole thing was a bit ridiculous, Karl thought as he turned Thor south towards the city. Once they made it to Halsearing, it would be unlikely that anyone would associate them with whatever was going on with the anomaly, if anyone even cared to look now that it was stable.
They had a few hours of travel by wagon to make it back to the city limits, but already Hawk was seeing groups of monsters headed their way.
A group of trolls turned their way, led by a massive Mountain Troll, four metres tall, with skin that looked like cracked granite. They all looked like they were from the same clan, but some were much smaller, near human sized, and some were hardly larger than Cara, but didn’t seem to be children.
Perhaps they were, Karl wasn’t an expert on Troll biology, but the size didn’t scale with their strength. Some of the small ones were Commanders.
A roughly human sized troll with the granite skin of this tribe stopped in front of Thor as Karl brought the wagon to a stop.
Everyone was on edge, and they all had weapons out, but it was obvious that the trolls wanted to talk.
“Did you see a Dungeon?” The troll asked, struggling with the human words.
“No. But there is a big fight behind us. Follow our tracks and you will see it. That might be the dungeon, if there is one in the area.” Karl suggested.
The troll nodded once, then the whole group started running. They even picked up the little ones so they could make better time.
That was a signal for the groups behind them, who took off running after the trolls, and the ones behind them, who thought those groups had discovered something.
After an hour of follow the leader, another of the groups, made up of violet skinned demons, ran up to the wagon to talk to them.
“Did you pass by the dungeon?” The Demon asked.
“I assume so. There is a huge fight going on a couple of hours back. Everyone is going wild about whatever is there, and honestly, I want nothing to do with it. If it’s still there next week, I might come back and take a look.”
The Demon laughed. “If it’s still there next week, we can count ourselves fortunate, but I doubt that the situation will have gotten any better. Have you got anything to trade?”
Karl shook his head. “The last we had was a bunch of dried salmon that we traded to the Yellow Tusk Orcs. How much further to the city? With all this chaos, I don’t want to be out here tonight.”
“It’s a half hour away, but the sun has already set. The gates are locked for the night. There is a campground outside the city, but I would stay here. It’s safer.”