NOVEL WEB Chapter 4 – Travelling to the dungeon
I was at an ordinary tavern having a celebratory meal with my fellow party members, all of whom were my dear childhood friends, as we all had finally finished our training to become full adventurers and had formed a guild recognised party earlier that day. It had taken us a whole year to get to level five and receive our Jobs but our effort had finally paid off and now that we were officially allowed to go on quests and start helping.
The tavern was the most expensive place we could afford to go to, it wasn’t either a posh restaurant or a shithole dive bar. It had plain wooden tables with no cloth to cover it, the food had come on ceramic plates and the cups were made of glass that I was afraid of breaking. The food itself was delicious and definitely worth what we were paying for it, we had all decided to get something different but none of us were unhappy with what we had received.
I was about to take another bite out of my stew when a screen I would never have expected in a thousand years appeared before me, causing me to sputter in shock:
I couldn’t believe it! We were nobodies barely starting our journey and for some reason a Goddess had decided to give us a Quest. While it may be semi-common for gods to give out quests they were usually given to parties or people that have already proven worthy of their attention, not a bunch of noobs with no achievements to their name.
After reading it for the third time to make sure I wasn’t imagining things I had finally calmed down slightly as I realised this was really happening. I looked around the table and I could tell that I wasn’t the only one that received this quest as my 3 friends also had a look of surprise and bewilderment on their faces.
‘What do we do?’ Shizu asked quietly, a new druid and the main healer of our little group. They were a small, timid mousekin always afraid of fighting but never turned down someone that needed help, a trait that all of us shared. They usually wore a green cloak that went down to their ankle overtop a plain white blouse and brown trouser to not bring attention to themselves. They also had the typical markings of a mousekin, round ears on the top of their head, instead of the side, and a long, thin, pink tail.
‘Well, it is a quest from a goddess, we have to take it’ Moso loudly exclaimed, our main source of damage, and recently a barbarian. He was the antithesis of Shizu being a big, muscular man, who was always hot-headed and looking for a fight. He would pretty much never wear a shirt, preferring to leave his big, hairy chest out on display for everyone to see, he did however wear a pair of black trousers and brown leather shoes. His size was mostly due to him being a quarter giant but also partly from his regime of weightlifting and long distance running that he has never missed a day off since he started it 5 years ago.
‘That isn’t how it works; we can just not accept the quest and go on our way without worrying about any consequences.’ I said, as of today I was our party’s fighter and pseudo leader. Despite being dwarfed by Moso, no one else really wanted to be in charge of decision making so the job of leader defaulted to me, most of the time I didn’t need to do anything as we decided everything as a team but if we had a 50-50 split vote I would decide how we proceeded.
I was a typical wood elf, slim, tall and with the tell-tale long ears that all Fae had, the only thing that stood out about me was that I kept my hair short so that I could fight without it getting in my face. Elves were almost as protective of their hair as dwarves were of their beards but I never really understood that so I have cut my hair short ever since I was fourteen. I was a bit more muscular than the average elf as I was always practicing with my sword but I was nowhere near Moso’s level of muscle.
Like Shizu I usually wore chainmail armour but mine covered my whole body instead of just my chest and arms. Today however I was just wearing a dark green coat with a pin of a hydrangea flower, the symbol of unity according to my family, a blood red shirt, and a dark green pair of trousers.
‘Except that I doubt we would ever get another chance like this ever again’ Bill, our main scout and ranger from now on, said finally piping up. She was always calculating the risks and rewards of everything we did and never liked letting an opportunity slip by if it was worth the risk. She was also the one that I went to if I was ever unsure about what I wanted to do as she could look at everything objectively without letting her emotions cloud her judgement.
She was a medium build human with the build of an archer that has practiced for many years, while we were adventuring she would wear leather armour that gave her some protection while still giving her the flexibility she needed. At the moment though she was wearing a simple purple dress for the celebration meal, she liked wearing dresses and would always find an excuse to wear one.
‘Plus, the blessing of any deity is worth the risk, let alone the blessing of growth’ Shizu said. This was true, every deity had their own blessing with a unique and powerful effect, but the blessing of growth was universally coveted by adventurers as it would increase any experience gained by 25%. This meant that anyone that was lucky enough to receive it would be boosted far past their natural potential and would, nine times out of ten, end up being some of the best adventurers of their time.
‘Not to mention that 2 levels would be the equivalent of at least two weeks’ worth of questing at our level. I understand you don’t want to rush into things blindly but sometimes you worry too much Hugo.’ Bill said, agreeing with our druid. This was true, but I was worried about the [shunned by Shonu] trait, if you were shunned by any deity then every other deity would know you had failed and would be less likely to give you more quests.
You could opt to hide it from other mortals so I wasn’t worried about the social aspect of it. But if we failed this mission then we might not receive another quest from a deity that we would have gotten had we declined this Quest. ‘Ok, ok, it seems like you three are all in favour of doing this quest and I am not that opposed to doing it. But just to make sure that this is something we all want, everyone who wants to take this quest say aye’ I said, seeing how this was going. Four ayes went around the table as we unanimously accepted the quest and set about eating our dinner with renewed vigour.
The next morning we all met up outside our tavern as the sun was rising over the horizon to head to the guild, the quest didn’t mention where this dungeon was exactly so we would have to go to the local guildhouse to ask if they knew where it was. Whenever a new dungeon created a portal into our realm it would release a wave of mana that any mage with [Mana Sight] would be able to track the origin of.
The guild made sure to hire at least one mage capable of doing this at every guildhouse that was in a location big enough to need one. They weren’t able to pinpoint it so we would have to still search for it but it would be much easier than just blindly wandering around hoping to stumble on it.
A bell jingled as we walked into the guildhouse to announce our arrival, it looked like any other guildhouse, the entrance went straight into the reception room, where you would go if you had any business with the guild. The whole building was made entirely of hardened wood apart from the floor as that was made of stone. The reception had three counters, each with a very bored receptionist on the other side of them, next to the counters was a set of stairs that went up to the second and third floors.
The second floor had rooms where you would go to discuss anything that needed a bit of privacy from prying eyes and the third floor had rooms where any party could go to rest if they couldn’t afford an inn. Just before the stairs there was a door that went to the bar, a ruckus place where most adventurers would go to wait for the rest of their party to arrive, to generally mingle or to party after they had completed a particularly hard or lucrative quest.
On the wall next to the entrance was a quest board that had any jobs the locals needed done on it and a few important missions from faraway places that might not have the right party nearby. We weren’t interested in those today though as we had already been given a quest to do but they usually ranged from small, local, quests for newbies like us such as collecting herbs for a potion maker to dealing with a rat infestation. All the way to quests that were only for the best adventurers, such as killing an ancient dragon that was on a rampage.
While walking over to the closest receptionist that was free, a gruff looking orc that had received one too many injuries and could no longer adventure but still wanted to be of help, I called out ‘Ho, you wouldn’t happen to have any news about a new dungeon that opened up would you.’
The orc looked up slightly surprised ‘aye, we do. Apparently a new dungeon just opened up about 90 kilometers north of here just yesterday. How do you know about it? We only got informed about it 5 minutes ago and last I checked your party didn’t have any mages with [Mana Sight]’ he asked in a deep voice that was exactly like I thought it would be.
‘Well, we got a Quest last night to go and beat its first floor, it's actually our first quest’ I said with a mischievous smile, while I wanted to say that a goddess sent the quest, I was still unsure that we would be able to succeed and if we failed and everyone knew then we would become laughingstock. ‘Could you show us on a map its approximate location please?’ moving along the conversation before the Orc receptionist started to wonder who gave us the quest.
‘Oh! Congratulations on receiving your first quest. Just give me a minute while I get the map out.’ The orc said, a bit less interested now that the mystery had been explained away, getting up to go find the right map. He returned a minute later with it and rolled it out before pointing at one of the red circles about 15 cm north of the town we had grown up in. ‘It’s here, should take you three days to get there. Just follow the path to the nearest village and then after the third night if you search around for it then you should find it. Good luck on your quest.’
We thanked him while walking back out of the guildhall now that our task there was done and started to make our way north. All of us were filled with excitement and gratitude at being given this opportunity, if we succeeded here then our path to becoming true heroes would be set in stone, all we would have to do is walk it.
After being told where to go we walked all day, only stopping every hour or so to have a snack and to refill our waterskins. Once the sun had started setting we decided to set up camp. We had two tents big enough for two people to sleep in each, I shared one with Moso while Shizu and Bill shared the other one. When we had finished setting them up, Shizu and Moso scouted the area to make sure nothing that would interrupt our rest was in the general vicinity while I cooked our dinner.
It was just some dried ration powder that when added to water and heated up would turn into a soup that, while not particularly tasty, would fill us up for the night. It didn’t require a lot of attention so I was lost in thought just stirring the soup when Bill sat next to me, putting an arm around me to comfort me. We sat like that for a bit when she broke the comfortable silence by saying, ‘Hey Hugo, care to explain what you are thinking about so much? You have hardly said a word all day.’ with a bit of worry in her voice.
I was more surprised that she had noticed than I should have been. ‘I could never hide anything from you, could I?’ I said, chuckling a little bit before I let how anxious I was show on my face ‘Well, no point in denying it, I am still worrying about this whole thing. I mean, we just finished our training and now we are going on a quest given to us by a goddess. It’s ridiculous, what if we fail and end up never getting another chance like this?’
‘I understand how you feel but deities aren’t known to just give out quests to people that have no chance of succeeding them.’ Bill said, trying to help me with my anxiety ‘Also we are going to a new dungeon, sure it is probably awakened already since it has the attention of a goddess on it, but we are going to be its first divers so as long as we are careful and don’t rush into things even we should be able to beat a single floor.’
‘Thanks, I know you are right, I just have to keep on telling myself that’ I said, feeling a lot better as I went back to tending to our meal for tonight. ‘What do you think of this whole thing?’
‘I think it’s a great opportunity for us’ Bill said, getting very energetic all of a sudden. ‘I trust that you will be able to guide us to beating this dungeon. And even if we don’t all that’ll happen is we won’t be able to adventure for a week or two and we won’t get some quest that we might not have gotten in the first place. We don’t need quests to reach greatness, we can do it all on our own.’
Hearing this caused me to blush a little so I looked at the fire to try to hide it. ‘You are too trusting in me; we are all new to this.’ I said quietly, Bill didn’t reply instead just looking at the fire, keeping her hand on my shoulder. We stayed next to each other in quiet contentment like that for the rest of the night, just enjoying each other's company until it was time for us to rest for the night.
The path we were taking went deeper into the woods than I have ever been, all I knew was that it went on for miles in every direction and housed a wide variety of fauna and flora. I was looking at a particularly interesting flower that I had never seen before when Shizu suddenly called out, just barely loud enough for everyone to hear them ‘There is a pack of six wolves surrounding us, 3 on each side.’
One of the abilities they got when they chose their Job was [Minor Sense life] which attuned them to the nature around us so that they could instinctively tell what was around us. As this ability was at its weakest level it didn’t have a wide range and could be easily fooled, but it was good enough to sense a bunch of low-level wolves, so none of us questioned Shizu.
‘We should be able to handle them, especially if they are hungry enough to go after adventurers.’ I said quietly, not wanting the wolves to know we had noticed them and were planning something. One of the first things we learnt as adventurers was that non-monster wildlife would only attack sapients when they are desperate as they knew that we tended to be more powerful than we appeared to be and weren’t worth hunting. ‘I’ll protect the left side, Moso you get the right side. Bill, Shizu, you know what to do.’
I didn’t hesitate to take charge of the situation as, even though I didn’t like taking charge, our best chances of survival would be if we could act as one so instead of arguing about who did what I chose for us and no one complained. No one needed to say anything so we just moved slowly and carefully into position while outwardly not making any discernible difference. This was done in a way that was only achievable because we had known each other for all of our lives.
We walked for about another minute before the wolves pounced on us, half of them going for Shizu and the other half going for Bill as those two were the smallest, and so looked the quickest to take down if they got a chance. Unfortunately for them they never got that chance as we were expecting it, before they could even make a second step Shizu used a vine to quickly wrap one of the wolves on the left in vines as Bill pulled back an arrow and let it fly into a wolf on the right.
The whole thing had been so smooth and fast that if you blinked you would have missed it. Now it was the frontline's turn to do their jobs, I charged the two remaining wolves on the left, raising my shield as Moso charged the wolves on the right while shouting, using his [Taunt] skill to make the two wolves he had targeted completely forget about everyone else and just attack him instead.
I wasn’t worried about him as even though he used very little armour and no shield his skin had been made very resilient by his training and job; I had no doubt he would be able to take on two wolves by himself. The vine trick that Shizu did earlier wouldn’t work anymore so instead they cast a healing-over-time spell on Moso using [Minor Nature Magic], causing a green glow to envelope him and any scratches the wolves caused to slowly stitch back up.
As I was keeping an eye on the situation I felt an arrow go past me that brought me back to my part of the fight. I turned around to see that the arrow had hit a wolf through the eye and into its brain and instantly killed it. Luckily part of my training was getting desensitised to gore or I would have thrown up right there. There was now only one wolf left for me, it leapt at me and tried to scratch at my throat, but I quickly put my shield between us.
As soon as I felt its claws rake off my shield I lowered it and let my blade cut through the air and into the wolf’s exposed face. The wolf was still in midair and so could only watch helplessly as its life was ended, the sword giving it a deep cut in its throat, causing it to quickly bleed out. With my side finished I looked back just in time to see our barbarian swing his massive greatsword, faster than you would think possible, through both of the remaining wolves, cleaving both of them in half.
I went to finish off the wolf that Shizu had snared but I saw that the vines had already squeezed the life out of it so instead I started going about butchering these animals as the adrenaline left my body and I calmed down. I was taught that I shouldn’t let anything I kill go to waste, that only applied to non-sapient creatures though, some tribes took it all the way but I wasn’t from one of those tribes. As soon as everyone else had double checked our surroundings were clear they started to help me butcher the animals.