I thought the six members of my dungeon party would meet, grab some horses and supplies and head on out to the dungeon. One, two-day tops, would be spent preparing for our journey, then off we would ride. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  I should have known better. Apparently, everybody wanted to come. To be the first to see the new dungeon. More than one hundred people would be going on the trip. More than a hundred, and that meant logistics. Feeding the people. Arranging sleeping tents. Feed for the animals. Donkeys to carry supplies, horses to carry people. Replacement arrows, potions. All kinds of potions, mana, stamina, health, invisibility. Okay, I made that last one up, but you get the picture.

  Travelling with an Earl, meant travelling with an entourage. Not only Ruberm, but at least 20 more people not including guards. His personal cook, valet, secretary, 5 knights, and a lot of others with spurious jobs. There were another 20 guards, which with the number of people going, was understandable.

  Of course, Justinian and Majora brought their entourage also, but limited it to 10 or less people. Mostly, they both treated this a summer outing. Both brought their personal cooks, valets and knights. Brakford also brought his valet, his squire, and a knight.

  The adventurer guild was just as bad, except instead of bringing civilians, they brought more adventurers. It seemed every adventurer wanted to try the dungeon. I started to wonder if any adventurers would be left behind.

  Then there was the baggage. Wagonload after wagonload. The Earl had at least two wagonloads. Justinian and Majora had one each. Gorver brought one wagon for the adventurers to load their stuff into. The guards had their own wagon, as did the Earl’s staff. I wondered if they knew we were heading into the wilderness, not to Toverville. Who knows, maybe they have magic that can make these things fly.

  It was like we were moving a small town with all the people and equipment. Of course, that was exactly what we were doing. The Earl didn’t just want to clear the dungeon. He wanted to claim it. After we cleared it, he would set up a small outpost to service everyone that wanted to enter the dungeon. So, why not do both at once. I don’t know if this was his idea or Ruberm’s. But I have to admit, it was farsighted.

  Gorver had already established that there would be an Adventurer annex there. They would provide minimal services, but would keep the area clear of monsters. They were even negotiating setting up a road between the dungeon and Forest Glen. For a cut of the profits of course.

  For me, the only person I am bringing is Ramram. He was very excited about going on a trip. Gabriel assured me that one, I needed a ‘valet’ and that two, Ramram would be a good boy and no trouble at all. Not totally sure I bought that, but Ramram is good company because of his high spirits. I also think it will be good for him. Exposure to something new should open up his class selection. He will turn 12 on the trip. That is the earliest one can get a class. It is usually 14 or 15, but you can never be sure. So, after I agreed, I went to Eldro’s and bought an escape token. It might have been expensive, but Ramram is family. Hopefully, he will never need it.

  I needed to buy two horses for me and Ramram. I waffled on buying a donkey to hide my having a storage ring, but decided not to. I took Ramram with me so he could pick out his own horse. I did not know much about horses. I did a few rides in the national parks, but not many.

  When I went to look over the horses, I planned to use Diagnose to see if they had any illnesses. But as soon as we got there, Ramram started talking with the horseman, err, equine person. Hell, if I know, to me he became Horse Guy. Horse Guy brought out a horse for Ramram to look at, and Ramram told him that he wanted a ‘good’ horse, not some broken down farm horse. He pointed out the age of the horse, its slumped back, and the fact it walked with a limp. Ramram then took the Horse Guy with him to review the rest of the stock.

  When Ramram came back, he brought four horses with him. He wanted me to pick out the one I liked. He assured me they were the best Horse Guy had to offer. Horse Guy didn’t look all that happy about it either. To me they all looked the same. I told Ramram to pick one for me and himself. Ramram pointed out two horses. I discretely cast Diagnose on both. Both were in excellent health. Ramram haggled and haggled with Horse Guy, finally coming to an agreed price. Ramram told me this was a good deal, so I paid Horse Guy.

  Next Ramram dragged me to a riding gear store. It was separate from the stable. Another round of haggling and we were fully equipped. Saddles, reins, saddle bags, the works. But we weren’t quite done. Ramram dragged me to the feed store. There we bought enough food for the trip there and back three times over. I placed it into my storage ring.

  When I got home, I went to my private office and pulled out the spare storage ring I had acquired from the Death Merchants. Neither were bonded anymore. I leave it to you to guess why. I then went through my storage ring and pulled out all horse related items. It was a lot. I sent for Ramram.

  When Ramram arrived, I asked him to go over all the equipment again to make sure it wasn’t damaged. Gabriel and I watched him carefully. He was very intent in his examinations and very thorough. When he was done, I handed him the spare storage ring.

  “This is your storage ring. Can you send mana into it?”

  Using my magic sight, I saw the ring glow. It was now bonded to Ramram.

  “Good, now place all the horse equipment and feed into your ring. The horses are your responsibility. During the trip, you will care and feed the horses. Your job is now Horse Steward for House Tierra. Are you willing to accept the duties and responsibilities of Horse Steward for House Tierra?”

  With a big smile on his face, he answered “Yes, Young Master. I will be the best Horse Steward.”

  Ramram started to tear up, but Gabriel quickly congratulated him and gave him a hug. I did the same. Ramram started putting things into his storage ring to clean up my office.

  “Gabriel, I think we will need a place to keep our horses when we get back. Please check with the Horse Steward to see what we need. I believe we will be leaving in just under three days.”

  With that I left them to it, and went in search of a snack.

  *---------------*

  Now you may find this hard to imagine, but travelling with a large group of people by horse and wagon is not a very fast way to travel. It takes over an hour to get ready in the morning. Lunch is an elaborate affair and takes at least two hours. Then we stop in the afternoon to set up camp for the night, even though there are at least three hours of light left. After a week’s travel, I can safely say it is going to take us over a month just to get to the dungeon.

  Every night the camp gets set up in a particular order. First, the Earl’s tent, which is more like a mobile house, is raised in the middle. It has a separate bedroom from the main room. There is a bathroom, which contains a magical toilet. It even has a bathtub. Justinian’s tent is next door, another mobile house. Majora and Brakford’s tent is next to the Earl’s also, but on the other side. It’s as fancy as the Earls, but with two bedrooms. The knights then set up their tents in a circle around those tents. The adventurers set up their tents in an area off to the side. Their tents sleep up to 5 people in a single room. No bathrooms or tubs, just enough to stop the rain from falling on you. The guards have little two person tents, like pup tents back on earth.

  My tent is like the adventurer’s tent, but since there are only two of us, it is a bit smaller, but it also had a canvas floor. Which many of the adventurers’ tents did not. Tall enough to stand up in, but not large enough to sleep five people. It is easy to set up and even easier to take down. While Ramram takes care of the horses, I set up the tent or take it down. My one vanity for my tent is that it has a pair of windows made of silk screens. You can see out of it, but bugs can’t get in. Most of the adventurer tents only have flaps that can be raised from the outside without screens to keep the bugs out.

  When Gorver saw my tent, he asked about the screen. I explained about how it keeps bugs out and allows air to flow through the tent. He put the idea into his notebook. Gorver carries that notebook everywhere. He says other Guild Masters do the same and will incorporate the lessons learned into the Adventurer’s Handbook. Not that I doubt him, but I’ve never seen an Adventurer’s Handbook.

  Anyway, after all the tent raising, fire pits are dugout and lit. Of course, the nobles have their own firepit, as do the adventurers and the guards. Since I pitched my tent with the adventurers, I eat with them also. Dinner seems to organically happen about an hour before sunset. The adventurers have a buffet style dining approach. After getting their food, they eat in small groups, mostly adventurers eating with their teammates. After dinner can be a variety of things. Apparently, we have a few budding musicians amongst us. They play a variety of instruments that I have never seen before. One of the female adventurers has a beautiful voice and gets many requests to sing. We also have a bard wannabe. However, he can’t seem to remember the ballads. He seems to get the start fine, but loses it in the middle. Rather than be mortified, he just starts another ballad. Nobody minds, because it’s just as entertaining.

  Other times, people try to reenact battles, spar, or show off their martial prowess. There were two adventurers that engaged in a mock sword fight. They were very good and must have practiced a lot. Lots of acrobatics were incorporated into their routine. Back flips, tuck and roll, diving over your opponent. It was very polished and everyone loved it.

  My favorite was when the mages displayed their spells. Not the killing kind, but others like exploding fireballs that looked like fireworks. An ice mage created an ice statue that looked just like another adventurer. One mage created an illusion of two small children running through our little tent city. They giggled and screamed for joy as they ran up and down the tents. It was wondrous to behold the variety of magic.

  On the tenth day after setting out, the group did not pack up their tents. The group did not move at all. Ramram explained that the animals needed a day of rest and so we had to wait until tomorrow before we would travel again.

  The weather was sunny and warm for the first fifteen days, but on the sixteenth, it started to rain. At first just a little drizzle, then a soft steady rain, before building into a heavy downpour. I discovered that riding in the rain is not fun, not fun at all. As a matter of fact, it is miserable. Everyone just hunkered down and plodded on until it was time to stop for the night.

  Amazingly, the tents were raised in record time. Everyone wanted to get out of the rain. This included Ramram and myself. We even had dinner in our tent that night. Chef had made us many sandwiches, and they stayed fresh in my storage ring. I am sure that Chef loaded down Ramram’s ring with sandwiches also. We went to sleep early that night listening to the sound of rain hitting out tent.

  The next morning, the sky was cloud free. A blessing to all of us. Breakfast was communal, and allowed us to get an early start.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

  We continued to move at this leisurely pace for another two weeks. During this time, Ramram was gathering quite the following. Ramram was always a joy to be around with his cheerful personality, but now also show a remarkable skill with our horses. Other horse minders noticed and would often go to him if their horses had difficulty. Ramram was always ready to help. Some even started to call him Young Master Ramram.

  For the most part, I left the management of the adventurers’ camp to Gorver or his deputy. I did step in one time though. Since the Guild in not a military, they didn’t really know about latrines for large groups. After the first night, I insisted that latrines were dug 20 yards from camp and downwind. Gorver and his deputy tried to argue, but I pulled the healer card and insisted on it.

  It was a good thing because when I visited the guards’ camp, they hadn’t done that and dysentery was rampant. I had to use Cure All on many of the guards. I then scolded their leadership and instructed them on how to build latrines. They may not have been happy about it, but they knew better than to argue with the man that just cured them of dysentery.

  Because we were a large group, the animals and monsters mostly left us alone. One day, I saw a pack of wolves watching us go by. It looked very much like the wolves that chased me when I first started out, but I tend to think all wolves look alike at this point.

  We did suffer one attack during our travels. It wasn’t wolves, it was a big ass boar, the size of an elephant with razor sharp tusks 6 feet long. Apparently, it was very territorial and we wandered in. It took this as a challenge and charged into the middle of camp as we were setting up our tents. It trashed tents and threw guards around like confetti. Unfortunately for it, Justinian happened to be outside close to where the boar attacked. He immediately attacked and kill the boar. I help with the aftermath by healing the injured. Dinner was fresh boar meat that night.

  Finally, after more than a month of travel we arrived.

  It was somewhat anticlimactic. One minute we were moving, the next someone yell out “We’re here” and the caravan slowly came to a stop. Not much difference in where we were an hour ago as far as I could see. We were in a fair-sized clearing, but had passed many of those on our way here. I kept looking around for some sign of the dungeon, but didn’t really see anything.

  Whether I saw anything of note, it was time to set up camp, which we did. And since we were going to be here awhile, I had the latrines moved 50 yards away and definitely downwind.

  The tents went up, the horses were settled, and firepits dug. Everything was just like any other day on the road, except we all knew we were here. This was where the dungeon was and that knowledge excited the group.

  As soon as the Earl’s tent was set up, he sent for the dungeon team. Justinian, Brakford, Tayla, Yuri, Gorver and I arrived at about the same time and gathered inside of the Earls tent. It was time to discuss how we would clear the dungeon.

  It turns out that Gorver, the Earl, and Justinian had already been in dungeon runs, so each one described their dungeon run.

  Gorver had run a level 30 dungeon when he was level 29. He was the lowest level member of a team of 8 adventurers. The highest was level 32. It was the Morning Myst dungeon in the midlands. It was well known and have been run hundreds of times. Gorver’s team had requested to run the dungeon a year earlier. When their turn finally came up, they were at the top of their game, having spent their time clearing the area of monsters to improve their teamwork. The dungeon itself presented very few unknown challenges. It was a five-floor dungeon with lots of mobs, a mini-boss on each floor, and the dungeon boss on the final floor. All were well documented.

  Justinian ran the same dungeon as Gorver. The big difference was that Justinian soloed it. He also hadn’t done much prep work. He had been requested to kill or drive off a dragon. A young dragon sure, but a dragon nonetheless. He said he managed to talk to the dragon and convince him to leave human inhabited lands because the humans wouldn’t leave him alone. While we might get lucky and kill him, the real problem was that we would keep coming and that would just be an annoyance for him. After a day long discussion, the dragon agreed and flew off toward monster lands. When he informed the local lord, the lord offered to allow his team the dungeon. Justinian accepted and did his solo run. He didn’t think there was anything remarkable about it, except for the concentration of monsters. It was like a contained monster wave. Unfortunately, as he put it, the monsters were all in the 25 -30 range, so very disappointing.

  The most interesting one was from the Earl. Earl Donnert was the lead in a level 30 dungeon. He was level 29 at the time, and all this team members were the same. He had a team of 5 people besides himself. All were specialized. They had a tank, like Brakford, an off tank/melee fighter, two straight ranged damage dealers, and a rogue. They had researched the dungeon a week prior to going in, but since the mods changed weekly, they were unsure of what they would face. Turns out, it was a combination of puzzles and monsters. The one fight that stood out was the boss. It was a chimera. A chimera that changed during the fight. It started as a huge lion. They managed to beat it down fairly easily to 25% of hits its health then shifted into a gigantic wolf. They beat the wolf down, and again at 25% health it shifted. The next shift was a griffin. At this point, the party began to worry, because each time it changed it healed completely. They beat down the griffin, and it changed to a combination of the three. lion, wolf, and griffin. They were pretty beat up and this point and were thinking of retreating, but the Earl rallied everyone for one last try. Turned out the combination was the last transformation and they were able to kill it.

  After much discussion, we arranged the party as follows:

  Brakford – Tank

  Justinian – Off-tank and melee damage dealer

  Tayla – Damage dealer –Ranged

  Yuri – Damage dealer – Melee

  Earl Donnert – Damage dealer – Melee and Ranged

  myself – Healer

  I wasn’t expected to be a damage dealer. My job would be the ensure no one died. If worst came to worst, I could act as a damage dealer. I had already realized that I was overpowered as it stood. My stats were higher than anyone else’s in this room. Probably less than 1000 people in the kingdom were at or over level 40. I just hadn’t let anyone know my exact level. I always activated the masking skill. The masking skill showed my level as 25. High enough to explain my abilities, while low enough to not attract attention.

  Overpowered or not, I did not have a lot of attack spells. That was a big drawback, when compared to someone like Tayla, who had at least a dozen attack spells. I had not made it a priority to learn any advanced attack spells. I had Mana Dart, Wind Blade, Fireball, Chained Lightening, and Meteor. The last two were rewards from the monster wave. Meteor would be unavailable in the dungeon, as one had to be outside to use it. I had thought that was enough for any situation I might find myself in. Now. Now, I am thinking I should have been a bit more aggressive in learning more attack spells.

  I listened as the group discussed various tactics for dealing with mobs and bosses. Since I was unfamiliar with dungeon crawling and monster fighting in general, I didn’t offer much input. I will say that their tactics revolved around Brakford taunting the highest-level monster (boss), the damage dealers killing any mobs around it, and then everybody piling on the boss. Flying creatures were to be grounded, or left to Tayla and the Earl, since they were the two ranged fighters. If the boss monster was a flyer, then we had to find some way to bring it to the ground. Tayla had a web spell, but not all monsters needed wings to fly.

  The truth was that our knowledge was limited and any tactics beyond the basics would be worthless. This team was put together with the intent of giving us the highest chance of success in an unknown environment. This team would be flexible and adaptable. It also had something no other dungeon dwelling team had. A magical healer. With this in mind, we headed to get our first look at the Dungeon.

  The entrance to the Dungeon was a camouflaged trap door. Even knowing the general area of the dungeon, I am surprised the rangers found it. It was covered by a layer of grass to blend in with the surrounding. I barely saw it from 10 feet away and it was already open.

  Under the door was a stairway leading down. There were magic lights showing the way down. It was obvious that someone had recently placed them, allowing us to travel easily down to the landing platform at the bottom of the stairs. It was a good 20’ by 20’, giving us all plenty of room. At the other end was an ornate double door. It was made of a black stone, with carvings of different monsters surrounding it. A brass ring was in the middle. It rested against a brass plate.

  The rangers had already determined that you would need to use the ring to ‘knock’ three times against the plate to open the door. Not sure how they knew that, but I assume it’s true because, you now, magic. What they didn’t know was what would happen when you ‘knocked’ on the door. Would the doors open, would everyone on the platform be transported into the dungeon? Noone knew and that was kind of scary.

  Luckily, we weren’t here to enter the dungeon just to get any impressions that we could. I personally felt nothing. No evil emanating from the door, no induced feelings of fear, nothing. To me it was just an ordinary door.

  My teammates however, felt all kinds of different things. Yuri and Justinian said they felt barely controlled power emanating from the door. Gorver could feel the monsters being agitated. Tayla had a sense of powerful magics. While the Earl and Brakford said the dungeon was challenging them to enter. A challenge it knew it would win.

  I even cast Magic Sight. The door blazed with magic. Instead of orderly magic, it was a chaotic flow that surged and bubbled. I described this to Tayla, who surprisingly did not have Magic Sight. She said that she had heard of chaos magic, but never ran into it. Because the door’s magic was so concentrated, I decided to try and see if I could get Tayla to learn the skill.

  “Tayla, let’s try a little experiment. I want to describe what I see with my Magic Sight on the door. I would like you to try and see the same thing. Maybe you can learn Magic Sight.”

  “I am not sure it will work, but let’s try it anyway. Magic Sight would be a wonderful skill to have.”

  “Okay, look at the door. Around the ring the magic moves like water, flowing around and around. It is golden in color…” I then went into more detail and then even deeper detail, until I hear a gasp from behind me. I turned to see Tayla with one hand over her mouth, and her eyes wide open, the other hand was reaching for the door.

  I caught her hand and said “That’s probably not a good idea.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right.” She said lowering her hand. “You were right. I’ve got the skill now. It is beautiful. The way magic flows is amazing.”

  “You should probably turn it off for now. I know how entrancing it can be. You can get lost in it very easily.” I said, and turned mine off also.

  “This alone makes the trip worth it” Tayla said.

  While we were doing our little experiment, Gorver and Yuri were examining the physical features of the door. They noticed that there were no hinges on the door. If the door opened, it would have to open inward, but the prevailing thought was the knocker activated magic to transport anyone near the door to the dungeon. Both were conjecture because we wouldn’t know until we use the knocker.

  Justinian and Earl Donnert search the walls for hidden compartments, doors, and traps. The rangers had already been over the room, but a second look wasn’t unwarranted. Seeing them do this, I suggest to Tayla that she use her magic sight on one side of the room, and I would do the same on the other. Like Justinian and the Earl, I didn’t expect to find anything, but an overburden of caution was warranted. I was correct. I didn’t find anything, but Tayla, on the other hand, did.

  It was a little thing, barely the size of my hand. The magic was weak. Even with Magic Sight, it was barely visible, but Tayla had been diligent in her search. We informed Earl Donnert and everyone else about our discovery. The rangers were embarrassed they had missed it, but Tayla assured them that without Magic Sight, everyone would have missed it.

  Tayla and I, using Magic Sight, began to discuss the magic flows and eddies, trying to determine what the magic actually did. As we talked to each other, my Magic Research title activated giving me an intuitive understanding.

  “It is a simple magic lock. One simply had to turn the magic 90 degrees to unlock… something. What that something is, I don’t know” I said aloud to everyone.”

  The Earl quickly replied “Don’t turn it yet. This is an exploratory mission today. We won’t do anything until we are actually ready to enter the dungeon.”

  I am totally okay with that. I think everyone else is too, by the relieved sighing I hear all around me. Engaging with unknown magic can be disastrous. Let’s not push our luck before we even enter the dungeon.

  Nothing else of note was found in our look about. When we got ready to go, one of the rangers asked me to stay. He then asked if I could teach him the skill Magic Sight, like I did with Tayla. I said I didn’t know, but would give it a try. Everyone, except Tayla, went back upstairs to the camp.

  The ranger, named Epakit, came with me to the door. He knew some low level magic spells, like Cleanse and Repair. Both useful in his line of work. Tayla just wanted to observe so she could understand the process I went through to train someone.

  Once again, I started to describe the magic I saw around the ring. The ebb and flow of it, then I got into greater and greater detail. It took longer than it did with Tayla, but finally while I was describing in intricate detail the magic around a small node in the door, Tayla called out “He’s got it.” I guess I was a little too wrapped up in my description to notice. I turned around and Epakit was staring at the door with a look of complete wonder on his face. Almost as if he was in a trance. I stood up, immediately covered his eyes with my hand, and let him away from the door. Wow, that was two for two using to door to teach the skill Magic Sight.

  I cautioned Epakit to not look at the door with Magic Sight, because it might have a spell that entrances people. He should use it outside, but not too often. It uses mana and will give you a blistering headache if used too much to start. With that, Tayla and I left to rejoin our teammates.