The Dungeon Without a System

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The Third Floor, The Dungeon, Medea Island

Three Days Later

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Litan clashed with the lizard monster, his sword impacting its hastily raised saber. This one seemed more prepared for a fight than the last. He attempted to overwhelm it, with slash after slash sparking off equally fast blocks. He squinted at the monster, who glared back with a look full of pure hatred.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of their other opponents. A lizard-mage clad in stolen robes, and one wielding dual axes. Litan smirked at the monster and after a final strike, quickly disengaged. The lizard was confused, up until it again had to desperately block blow after blow from Litan's remaining bodyguard.

He glanced to the left, observing his sister's fight. She was certainly enjoying herself, he noted. Matha threw fireballs with an almost reckless abandon. Her target, the lizard-mage, was blocking most of the attacks with a half-dome shield. It didn't have any free time to retaliate, and Matha didn't seem inclined to give it the opportunity.

The dual ax-wielding lizard was occupied with Matha's bodyguards, barely managing to keep up with their constant attacks.

The fight wouldn't last much longer.

With a quick movement, he slipped behind the lizard locked in a sword bind with his bodyguard. With a quick thrust his sword pierced the back of the lizard's stolen armor, right through its lungs. The bodyguard broke the bind and added a thrust of his own, cementing the lizard's loss.

With their opponent dead on the ground, they joined Matha and her bodyguards. The other three members of their parties, Matha and Litan's friends, cheered them on from the entrance. They'd fought the last two lizards the raid had found, so they got to sit this fight out.

Overwhelmed, the two lizard monsters provided little resistance. Like the six other lizard monsters they had killed that day, they fell.

After the final monster had been skewered the fighters searched the room for an exit, or anything that looked like one.

Over the last seven hours their parties had been traversing the jungle, on the most direct routes between the caves and ruins the lizard monsters occupied. Plenty of golds had scoured the jungle and today Litan and his sisters' parties had visited each discovered location in turn, killing all the monsters they found inside.

They left the arena frustrated. The ruins were quite impressive; the pyramid they exited was the centerpiece of a larger complex of ruined buildings. Likely it was once a town, before the dungeon slipped its chain.

"What are we missing?" Litan asked, rhetorically. "We completed all the trials, the last one being in the most impressive ruin in the jungle. If my theory was correct, there should have been a door or opening to the Guardian's room." He glared back at the ruined structure, as if his gaze could set alight the vines that covered a decent amount of the stonework. His sister hummed, drawing his attention.

"I'm sure you were correct, brother. Perhaps we need to find the exit, also?" She theorized. "Although that might end up quite the challenge. It could be anywhere on the floor, and with the imposed time limit..." She trailed off. Litan agreed with her unspoken words. The dungeon's night-phase was incredibly dangerous, even to them. Litan felt a cold chill rush up his spine at the fate of his old bodyguard.

They had not stayed past nightfall since. The large feline monsters and firebirds they fought now littered the floor but thankfully the insects seemed to only gather in such numbers at night, and likely at the dungeon's direction.

"So what?" Jessine, Matha's friend, asked. When the rest of them turned to look at the bubbly brunette she continued. "We just need to search as much as we can before nightfall, then try again tomorrow. Eventually we'll come across it." Litan shook his head, though he couldn't think of a better plan himself.

"Then that's what we'll do. We've got two hours till sunset. Get a move on."

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The Dungeon, Medea Island

Two Days Later

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Geeze, these Platinums are persistent. After gathering all the information on the Kobold mini-bosses locations they could over three days, they spent the next three exploring the jungle. Each day they killed every single kobold-miniboss I threw at them, despite them increasing in capability as I passed on more and more knowledge on how to fight.

No matter what preparations I made the Kobold mini-bosses just didn't have enough time to adjust to their power, nor to become powerful enough to put up meaningful resistance.

I know they will find the exit today. The search pattern they've established will cross paths with it a few hours before sunset. Over the last two days, when it became clear I wouldn't be able to power up my mini-bosses enough to hold them, I made sure to almost constantly increase the power of the Drake-Kin. With breaks for him to become accustomed to his own strength, of course.

He was an impressive specimen.

As I continued to pour mana into the boss, his features became more draconian. Horns emerged from his brows. His scales became increasingly metallic and incredibly dense. His strength and reflexes grew in leaps and bounds as his muscles grew denser, his tendons more flexible, his nerves more responsive and his bones further reinforced. With his scales having become more effective than the looted leather armor I had clad him in, he shed the leathers to revealed the gleaming copper beneath.

By my own observations, he should be more than a match for any of these Platinums in a fair fight. The problem came about from the fact it would definitely not be a fair fight. The tenacious guilders would surely overwhelm him with their superior numbers.

So, I would even the odds a bit.

I had a few small chambers carved off the boss arena, where six of the most powerful Kobolds I could create would lie in wait. When the Platinums committed to the fight, they would flank and distract them, hopefully allowing their more powerful brethren to exercise more of this abilities.

He took up his morningstar, which I had improved as much as I could. The handle was longer, to take advantage of his strength and grant him superior reach. The metal of the weapon had experienced a qualitive change after being flooded with mana, the tarnished steel became more silvery, yet exceeded its previous strength.

And so there he stood, the most powerful monster I could make.

Mushu, my Drake-Kin, enemies of the dungeon approach. I have provided every advantage I can to assure your victory. Do not falter, and know you are my finest creation. I informed him. His shoulders shifted and he stood taller, buoyed by my confidence in him.

"I will drive these enemies from your hallowed land, Creator. They spit on your creations with every foul breath, with every noble Kobold they slaughter. I will not fail you." He fell to one knee, the mixed group of Shamans and Hunters following suit.

Ah. I may have made him too intelligent. He spoke the same primitive language the Kobolds spoke, but a more refined and expanded version. It didn't sound designed, but to my mind seemed more like the evolution of the English language.

Rise, and prepare. Your opponents draw close. They stood and the Kobolds hid in their rooms while Mushu stood tall and proud before the exit door.

In the jungle above, Litan's gaze was drawn to the gaping hole in the side of a boulder half-consumed by a towering tree. I had carved the boulder with many largely meaningless symbols and ruins, to mess with them. The raid group clustered around the hole.

"One of my guards can go first," Matha volunteered. "Since you are still down one, brother, it's the least I can do.

"You are too kind, sister," he drawled back. Matha's two guards shared a look and the slightly smaller one stepped forwards to the hole in the boulder.

Awkwardly, the large armored man clambered through the slightly-too small door in the rock and began to descend. There was no convenient staircase, just a muddy slope. Inevitably, he slipped and slid the rest of the way down. The tunnel abruptly ended just below the roof of the boss's arena, where the man was dropped to the floor. He landed on his feet, straightened, and stared down my boss monster.

"It's the Guardian!" he shouted back up the pipe, half-turning his head but not taking his eyes off the monster that stood taller than he did. "Larger and meaner looking than the smaller ones!"

At his first shouted word, Mushu advanced from the exit door. He had barely finished his last sentence when the boss was upon him, heavily spiked morningstar already descending with great speed towards his helm.

The mace impacted the guilder's kite shield, leaving a large circular indentation with holes where the spikes had torn right through. I think I heard him gulp.

The human heaved, pushing with his shield to dislodge the mace and throw the monster off-balance. It partially worked; the boss was indeed pushed back, his mace freed from the shield. He was not off-balance, however. A follow-up swing had the guilder throwing himself to the left. The mace impacted the dirt-covered stone with force, forming a small crater. The morningstar's spikes remained as pointy and straight as they had before the fight began.

Man, that metal is awesome. I'm going to call it mithril.

Four seconds now into the fight, the second muddy guilder emerged from the slide. In the second he was airborne, Matha's other bodyguard assessed the situation and brought his sword down on the boss, who stood directly below the slides' exit hole.

Mushu reached up and seized the longsword by the blade, the enchanted metal biting into his scaled palm, but not too deeply. He wrenched sideways, tearing the sword from the humans grip and throwing him into his fellow party member. The second man was caught by the first, rather than crashing into him, and the two soon stood side-by-side against my boss monster. Muscles bulging beneath his scaled skin, Mushu broke the sword in two halfway up the blade, the enchantments on the blade failing in a flash of pink light.

Deprived of his primary weapon the second man pulled a short sword from a sheath at his side and raised it, his fellow raising his own short sword and heavily dented kite shield.

The stood like that for another second, assessing. The cut to Mushu's palm started healing, though the dripping red blood covered that fact. He hefted his morningstar and swung. Not at the two already in his arena, but at the next guilder to drop from the entrance. Jessine's eyes opened wide in panic as her brief flight changed direction, the spiked mace heavily denting and slightly piercing the side of her armor. She crashed to the ground at Mushu's right, where the other two humans stood to his left.

As Mushu took a step towards Jessine, the bodyguards sprung into action, forcing him to turn and block their attacks while the woman scrambled to her feet, picking up her fallen weapon, and mastered her panic. She took a stance, brandishing her rapier at the monster. She was bruised and bleeding from the wound in her side, but her eyes showed a resolve her previously bubbly behavior masked.

Then it was one on three. In two seconds it would be one on four as Litan finally joined the fight.

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Litan landed nimbly on the dirt ground, his eyes tracking the large lizard monster as Matha's friend and two bodyguards drew it away from the entrance. He quickly stepped aside as Matha dropped down, likewise landing lightly. They moved forwards together as the final members of their raid dropped in. His final bodyguard, the dedicated tank of his party, quickly joined the three harassing the monster. His friends Polit, the Healer and Stema, the Water Mage followed, with Matha's other crossbow-wielding friend dropping in last.

There was no bodies of water for Stema to manipulate, but the many water-skins that were strapped to his body provided enough to form several floating blades of water that gently spun in his mental grasp.

With Litan's bodyguard joining the melee, Jessine disengaged and retreated to allow Polit to heal her.

Matha's friend Kataren wasted no time lining up a shot. Her bolt skimmed off the monster's scaled head with a spray of sparks, after a quick jerk shifted its head enough that the bolt missed its eye completely.

Jessine re-engaged, along with Litan himself. The five Melee fighters kept equidistant from each other, just out of the monster's reach. Kataren, Matha and Stema kept back, using crossbow and magic where the opportunity showed itself.

Polit stood even further back, though at the ready to move in to heal at any moment.

The Guardian was wounded, blood poured from more than a dozen cuts in its scaled hide. Yet, its eyes were not desperate. It was Polits' scream of "More of them!" that alerted the rest of them to the jaws of the trap closing in around them.

As he had shouted, six of the lizard monsters they had fought on the third floor emerged from newly-opened holes in the walls. His brief distraction was punished by the guardian, who struck his shoulder heavily. Luckily Litan noticed early enough to turn with the blow, making it glancing more than a direct hit.

He trusted the other four to deal with the new opponents. They had been fighting these monsters for days, after all.

The flash of lightning and scream of pain in Polits' voice, therefore, worried him greatly.

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