WELCOME TO THE CRAWLER’S WELL DUNGEON

  THE OBJECTIVE OF THE CRAWLER’S WELL DUNGEON IS TO FIND THE IRONBACK CRAWLER AND PREVENT IT FROM DESTROYING THE EMBER CRYSTAL CAVERN. THE IRONBACK CRAWLER EATS THE EMBER CRYSTALS AND AS IT CHEWS THROUGH THE ROCK TO FIND MORE IT WEAKENS THE STRUCTURAL STABILITY OF THE CAVERN. YOU MUST FIND AND DESTROY THE IRONBACK CRAWLER BEFORE IT CAN DESTROY THE EMBER CRYSTAL CAVERN.

  OBJECTIVES:

  DESTROY THE IRONBACK CRAWLER 0/1

  DESTROY COPPER CRAWLERS 0/30

  FIND EMBER COPPER CRYSTALS 0/50

  TIME LIMIT:

  13 HOURS

  12:59:15

  I dismissed the notification and would read it later as I was dangling off a rope and the only thing stopping me from falling was my grip on said rope.

  As I hung there, I studied the room. I didn’t have much time because Sunie would be coming behind. The cavern was a large dome. Almost a hundred feet high, a hundred or so in diameter. The sides were pretty smooth. Some cracks but nothing major.

  What I could see of the floor was smooth as well, but it was hard to tell as there were a lot of pedestals growing out of the floor. I wouldn’t call them stalagmites because they were almost perfectly cylindrical with flat tops. Each was at a different height. They kind of looked like stepping stones.

  It was pretty obvious we were meant to use those pedestals to get down from hanging as it was too far to drop. I probably could have managed the fall with my Essences. A Tank build would be okay. Someone with a Weight or Flight Essence. But most people would get pretty hurt with that fall. They’d survive but chances were good that as soon as someone stepped on the ground, monsters would swarm.

  Just like it was a good bet that as soon as I touched down on one of the pedestals, some kind of flying critter would come out and want to eat me.

  There was only one way to find out.

  I moved my body back and forth, starting to swing on the rope. Hopefully Sunie would see the motion and get an idea of what was happening. The first pedestal wasn’t that far so it didn’t take much to get swinging and get to the end of the arc where I could easily jump.

  The pedestals were only about five feet round. Just big enough for one person to be on it easily. It’ll start getting crowded with two. Good sign that there would be multiple attackers.

  I let go of the rope and landed on the top. I didn’t even need to sap the inertia from my landing to stick it. Crouching low, I started looking around for the attack.

  And there it was, coming in from the side.

  I could barely make out the dark shape in the meager lighting from the moss. As it flew, it blocked some of the glow, which is how I was able to see it. I braced myself. It was about the size of a dog, with long wings spread out to the side.

  It flew at me, wide mouth open, full of teeth. I ducked under it, twisting and punching up with a fully Force empowered hit. Right in the thing’s stomach. It buckled, the impact and force of the blow knocking it higher and twisting it around.

  With a smack, it landed on top of the pillar, right at the edge. I was tempted to just kick it off, but I wanted a better look first. It was basically a giant bat, all dark black and gray. Wider mouth and head, large ears, huge wings. Satisfied that it was nothing special, I kicked it. The thing flew off the pedestal, smacking into the next pedestal before sliding down to the ground far below. I barely heard it thudding.

  “What was that?” Sunie asked.

  He was hanging from the rope, watching me. I hadn’t even heard him enter.

  “Probably not a Crawler.” I looked off into space, waiting for the Notification but none came. “It’s either still alive or I won’t get credit until loot the body.”

  “And it attacked when you stopped on a pedestal?”

  “Yep.”

  “So how about you move to the next one and kill that thing so I can jump onto the one you’re on and then kill my flying not-a-crawler.”

  I thought about giving Sunie the bird, the one finger salute, but wasn’t sure how that would translate. Maybe that was ‘i love you’ on Cryim or maybe something even worse than the Earth meaning. I didn’t know Sunie that well yet.

  Instead I took his suggestion and jumped onto the next pedestal. It was three feet or so lower than the one I’d been on. With the size difference and the way the others were aligned, I had a feeling we’d be jumping on most of them as we worked our way down. That was going to mean a lot of the giant bats. Hopefully they were part of a quest.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  My feet touched the stone of the pedestal and the giant bat flew out at me. I didn’t wait for it to get close, launching a Force Lance at it. The lance struck the thing, piercing a wing. It lost its stability and fell, crashing into another pedestal.

  Pillar? Pedestal? What was the right word for the things?

  The bat fell out of sight. I heard a thud and then another as Sunie landed on the first pillar. Pillar sounded better. Another silent giant bat streaked out toward him. He raised a hand and blasted an ice lance into the creature. His landed on his pillar.

  Bending down, Sunie looted it.

  “Yep, gotta loot them,” he said. “Got 10 Credits and Points. They’re called Giant Trapper Bats and no credit for the quests. At least got a bat wing, some hide and an ear.”

  “What is the ear for?”

  “No clue. I’m sure someone somewhere will want it.”

  I got ready to jump to the next pillar but stopped when Sunie called out.

  “Hold on, did yours not land on your pillar?”

  “It did,” I said, hoping he’d drop it.

  “So how did you not loot it?”

  “I was annoyed and kicked it off.”

  Sunie just looked at me, like he was thinking about this partnership and if it was too late to cancel it. I just jumped to the next pillar and shot that bat out of the air.

  ***

  10:19:35

  “This Dungeon is either very short or it’s made to push us,” Sunie said as we ran around the cavern looting the bats that had dropped.

  And there were a lot of them.

  YOU HAVE DEFEATED A GIANT TRAPPER BAT. YOU HAVE GAINED +10 MULTIVERSAL CREDITS AND +10 TUTORIAL POINTS.

  YOU HAVE GAINED +1 GIANT TRAPPER BAT EAR, +1 GIANT TRAPPER BAT HIDE, +1 GIANT TRAPPER BAT WING.

  There were a lot of Notifications like that. I quickly dismissed each one that popped up.

  We’d killed a lot of the things as we made our way down to the floor. They were stupidly named. It was pretty on point though. They were giant bats and they came out when the traps were activated. Each pillar got us two bats. One for me and one for Sunie.

  We got quite a pile of ears, wings and hides.

  They were pretty easy for us to kill. I could see how some parties might have trouble with the amount. The pillars were only big enough to support one or two people at a time. So a normal five man group would be spread out over three pillars. That was three bats each time they moved. And maybe more if two people jumped onto a pillar, one after another. That could end up being a ton of bats.

  It would take a normal party a long time to make their way down, even with how easy the things were to kill. It wasn’t that bad for us, since it was only the two.

  Another plus for having less than the recommended members for a Dungeon run.

  “That’s the last,” I said, walking out from behind a pillar.

  I’d expected there to be Crawlers on the ground, whatever those were. But there was nothing.

  “You sure?”

  “No, but I don’t care anymore.”

  Sunie laughed.

  We’d found the tunnel as soon as we’d touched down on the ground. The pillars kind of led us right to it. A dark opening in the side of the cavern. Maybe ten feet round.

  And it was round, almost perfectly round.

  Walking over, I ran my hand over the walls of the tunnel. They were smooth.

  “How much you want to bet that a crawler dug this?”

  “Zero,” Sunie said, walking into the tunnel. He held out one of his lamps. It didn’t show very much. The tunnel was long and the same dimensions the entire length. “This was definitely made by some kind of tunneler.”

  When I had said it was round, I’d meant it. Even the bottom was rounded, not flat. That made walking a little difficult. I led the way down the tunnel.

  There was moss on the ceiling, which was odd, but it was Dungeon logic and I’d learned a long time ago to not question it. The System wanted to Challenge us, but it wasn’t going to throw needless challenges at us.

  For the most part, it provided light in the underground Dungeons so we didn’t need to bother with that. Bringing a light source into a Dungeon really wasn’t a challenge, it was just preparation. That wasn’t what the System wanted us focusing on. The puzzles, monsters and objectives was where the challenge was.

  I really wished the System had called them quests instead of objectives. It just sounded cooler.

  I’d been in some Dungeons that had no light source, but in those it was that way on purpose. Part of the puzzle of the Dungeon.

  And thankfully there weren’t many of those.

  We reached the other end of the tunnel, which opened into another larger cavern. No pillars, just wide open, and filled with a couple of big worms.

  “I bet those are Crawlers,” I said, pointing at one of the ugly things.

  “They look fun.”