<~> Chapter 30Since we’re sharing camp with two others Bel and I haven’t been able to py with each other st night or this m. I wasn’t horny enough that it was affeg me too much yet but I’m already feeling an itch for it only one full day after the st time we had some fun. I don’t know if it’s because sexual appetite is only level 3 or if only having sex with each other is having diminishiurns but the two of us probably won’t be able to avoid fooling around while on this trip. We’ll have to find a way to sneak off somewhere and have a quickie if we want to be in ht mind for the erip. I wondered if it was only me at first but a g Bel showed she was a bit fidgety too. It seems like repg food with sex be kind of a pain.

  I checked my status again this m but predictably the only ge is that drawi up one level. So far this trip has beey peaceful, we haven’t run into any monsters during the day or during night watd there haven’t been many signs of animals either. Actually, e to think of it, isn't that a little weird? Even if there aren’t any monsters in the area wouldn’t there at least be some animals? I don’t even hear any birds right now.

  Man was sittio the embers of the dying fire to warm up a bit while waking up. Sihe two of us took first watch she was feeling a little groggy and the other two have already been up for several hours now.

  “Hey Man, isn’t it a little strahat we haven’t e across any monsters or animals in the area?”

  She just stared at me bnkly for a few moments before looking off to the side in thought. Seems like she’s not great with ms. “Hmm… Now that you mention it, it is a little odd we haven’t run across any monsters or wild animals. If we ’t find any, maybe we should look extra carefully for a dungeorance. Animals naturally avoid dungeons and any nearby monsters would either not spawn in this area at all or would move into the dungeon if it was close enough. It could be a ce but sidering we already know there’s at least one dungeoively nearby there’s probably a good ce of it.”

  Torien walked back from the stream and sat dowo her sister. “What are you two talking about.”

  I wave Bel over and quickly summarize the versation we were having to the two of them.

  “Now that you mention it I probably should have noticed it sooner. I haven’t been seeing anything arouher,” Torien said. “We’re supposed to survey this area anyway and if we found a duhe guild definitely would want to know about it. Rather than work on the accuracy of the map we should probably prioritize looking for anything that could be the entrao a dungeon first.”

  All of us nod in agreement to that. Bel speaks up, “I don’t really know much about this stuff but if you’re saying that the ck of animals and monsters is because of the dungeon, should we all go out separately to look for it?”

  I cut in, “I don’t like the idea of that. The onsters and animals is weird but there’s still a ce of it being a strange ce, if we decide to split up to search at all it should still be in at least in pairs.”

  “I agree, even if there is a duhat’s affeg the spawn of monsters in the area, whoever finds the entrance first could just be attacked by one of the monsters from the dungeon instead. Sihe dungeon could be higher level than the monsters in the region, I think we should all go as a group. I-If that’s okay with you Lilith,” Torien quickly added at the end.

  “I agree that it’s probably better to all stay as a group. We’ll cover less ground this way but we’re much less likely to get hurt as a group than if we were in pairs or alone. Any objes?” I asked looking at everyone in turn, everyone just shook their head in reply.

  I turn to our two magic users. “ either of you use search magic? We could cut down on time if we had a dire to look in.”

  Both of them shook their heads in reply to that as well.

  “In that case I use some ritual magic but it will take a little bit to set up. That fih everyone?”

  With no objes I took out my chalkboard, magic chalk, and my ritual magic book. I could probably do this one from memory but I figured it would be best if I don’t waste time here. I plete a simple but unfortunately fairly weak terra monsters ritual. I activated the magic circle, felt a pulse of magic flow through the ground and found… nothing. Well damn, looks like this didn’t work out this time.

  “Ah… looks like I didn’t find any monsters in range.”

  I was a little embarrassed by how the ritual turned out but no one else seemed to be that perturbed by it. It’s not as if the magic didn’t activate, it just didn’t find anything so everyone just shrugged and moved on. Instead we decided to head north-east diagonal from the road to get a idea of the area and hopefully e across some indication of the dungeon. While we’re at it we’ll look out for any ndmarks that we ter mark on our map.

  We spent about half the day walking around and taking note of ndmarks like distinct roations or anything else out of ptil we finally came across something. There was something that looked like a rge boulder from one angle and stone chiseled door from the other side. The door was fancy looking and looked like it was carved out of a rge solid piece of dark-grey sto stood out si was so much darker than the more tan colored stone in the area. The ornate door looked pletely out of p the forest, it looked like it would be more at home in a graveyard, or as the entrao a mausoleum.

  I spent some time properly marking it on the map as accurately as I could before we decided to discuss what to do .

  “We should vote oher or not to check out the dungeon a little. It could be dangerous but we could make some extra money selling the information to the guild. For those reasons I vote that we should check it out at least a little. See what kind of things are inside,” I told the group.

  Everyone seemed to naturally look to Bel , maybe she was being looked at as the sed in and. She hesitated for a moment before speaking, “I don’t think we should go in. We don’t really know what we’re getting into and none of us have delved into a dungeon before.” Torien nodded in agreement to that.

  Man spoke , “I think we should go in, Torien has a lot of trap finding experience even if she hasn’t do in a dungeon before and I think our team is pretty well banced. We could also get really lucky and find something valuable in the dungeon as the first explorers. It’s high risk but possibly really high reward.”

  Last to speak was Torien. “I agree with Bel, this is an uncharted dungeon. We could walk into the first room and e up against a monster we ’t defeat. There’s a reason they usually send higher ranked adventurers into situations like these. I think we’re a good party but I think we should get more bat experience before we try to delve a dungeo alone an unexplored one.”

  I tap my finger against my arm for a moment. “We’re tied. Should we flip a for it?”

  Torien looked at me angrily. “We’re not going to flip a for it! We should e to a decision, not gamble with our fates.”

  I jumped a little from the sudden outburst, not at all what I was expeg. The pause lingered before Bel broke the silence, “We’re tied so maybe Lilith should make the final decision as the party leader?”

  Torien looks like she’s going to object for a moment but ends up deg to hold back. I lean bad look up at the clouds, Torien and Bel make a valid point, it could be very dangerous. At the same time the ce to find some good loot seems like it would be higher if we had first crack at it. Then again we were still on another job so we shouldn’t spend too much time in there even if we did decide to delve. We have some extra rations but if we decided to go in as deep as we could I would have liked to be more prepared…

  I sigh. “I think we should go in. We don’t really have the leeway to try and clear it or anything but a little bit of information could be worth a lot. And there’s also a good ce we could find some iing valuables in the first few rooms if we’re lucky. If it looks like the monsters are out of our league we just run.” Man looked excited and Torien looked a little anxious but didn’t say anything. I looked at Bel, her vote had been against mi she didn’t seem to mind the oute.

  Since we thought it might e to this when we went out looking for the dungeon in the first pce we had already packed s with things we would need in the dungeon a most of the less critical things at the campsite.

  We stepped up to the doors with myself in the lead. Now that I was looking closely I could see some writing on the door but I couldn’t read it. “Does anynize what kind of writing this is?” Everyone looked at it but just shook their heads.

  I took a deep breath before putting my hand on the handle. “Here goes nothing.” And I pull the heavy stone door open. I look around for a moment before deg to cast a spell. “[Light Orb]” The Ball of light magic slowly ehe room and reveals stoairs heading downward. There doesn’t seem to be anything in the first room though.

  “Keep a for traps Torien, I’m going to go first in case any monsters attack. I’ll be going slowly so grab my shoulder or say something if you see anything.”

  “Uood.”

  I kept one hand on the pommel of my sword in a familiar gesture as I slowly proceeded forward. I moved the orb of light ahead of us and down the passageway as roceeded forward oairs. The staircase seemed to go down for a quite a while and the architecture made it look like we were in a castle with hand id bricks rather than any kind of natural cave system.

  Eventually we reached the bottom of the stairs and it opened up into a what looked like a rge courtyard of some kind. Above us was a night sky with a rge singur white moon as if we were outside again and there was a rge castle with a portcullis past the tral fountain oher side of the open space. Looking back, the stairs were ected to a wall that had no signs of the rge stairway behind it despite being able to see up the tunnel we came through.

  There weren’t any monsters in this rge courtyard like we were expeg, it was just ay space before the entrao the castle. The courtyard felt eerie, the only sounds we could hear was the burbling of the fountain, there were no sounds of is or animals you would expect from seemingly being outside. Things just felt ingruent like we were standing in an illusion.

  Bel looked over to me nervously. “Lilith, this pce creeps me out. Are you sure we should keep going?”

  I took a deep breath. “We came this far, we should scout the pce out a little more before we go back. It would be odd if there were no monsters here sihis pce clearly has the trappings of a dungeon.”

  “This pce feels se. The only ambient mana I manipute in this area is water and ice but other than the fountain there really doesn’t look to be much of that around.” Man seemed to dense some of the mana in the air into a dozen half-foot icicles that orbited her staff.

  “For now, lets keep going.” I took a step forward into our first dungeon.

  Saine

  Hello! Is everyoed for a little bit of dungeon diving? Things are going to get a bit exg. I hope everyone had a good Christmas and have a good New Years ing up! See you ime!

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