The rest of the night passed, with Zoe trying her best to ignore the carnage in the hallway above. She turned her focus to every imperfection in the room she’d carved deep in the ground, every scrape and every pebble that stuck out from the walls.
Halfway through, an explosion rattled the ground as whatever James had prepared threatened to collapse their hideaway, but Zoe pushed back against it with her Earth skill and repaired the damage before anything could break through.
Not long after morning came, Brick teleported up to the surface and then back into the hole, and then back out to the surface once more with all of their passengers.
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Zoe shook her head. “No, never saw it to be honest. I was surprised to hear about it, guess I got out at the right time then. Where are you all from?"
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Brick laughed. “Twelve years, then. Life was alright back there, but people always remember who you used to be.”
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The next few days flew by in a peaceful flash as they ran through the day and chatted about their lives, then settled down into much less luxurious hovels than the first one Zoe had made for the night to pass.
Brick and Blue both grew up in Trin as hunters while Spark was a forager and butcher. Over the years of working together, they developed a friendly relationship with each other, and eventually decided to leave Trin behind for reasons they seemed to not want to talk about. Which Zoe accepted, it would be odd for her to press so hard for other people’s stories when she wasn’t willing to trust them with all of hers, either.
They left when they were around thirty, and have been travelling through the forests ever since. Stopping off at villages and grabbing whatever jobs caught their interest. Escorting people from place to place was one of their preferred choices, when available. They enjoyed meeting new people, learning about their experiences and having a nice excuse to move on to the next place to meet more new people.
The dragon meant nothing to them, no underlying motive, no ruined town they wanted to avenge. They just heard about it a few villages back and thought it would be fun to chase after it. Apparently, they weren’t even sure if they did want to kill it even if they found it.
Spark wanted to, or at least Spark wanted to try fighting it when they found it. To test their skills against the myth and see how they fared. But even Spark didn’t seem all that interested in actually killing the dragon, bringing its head back for the bounty.
It was just a journey, an excuse to travel and see new places. A reason to go to ruined villages and deep into the woods they’d never go. It was just fun, and Zoe found she appreciated that.
On the fifth night, Zoe dug another large hole for the four to sleep in — one single room with four separate beds and a nearly sealed entrance with a small air hole near the top of the room, poking through the lush grass above. She’d learned from her mistakes, and wasn’t making nice slopes for fire to drip down. In the worst case, she could seal them in even without needing to use more mana than she should have in moments.
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Zoe smiled. “I do enjoy having them. Maybe we’ll find some dungeons to clear and get lucky.”
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Blue nodded. “Sounds fine to me.”
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“The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
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Zoe shrugged, and found herself drifting off to sleep for the first time in months. Brick woke her up as light poked through the small crack she left in the ceiling.
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Days more flew by, until several weeks later they were running through an open field and Zoe noticed something deep below them. An open cavern, with an abundance of mana floating around within it.
Zoe stopped, and then clicked her tongue when she realized what she’d done. How would she justify stopping suddenly? How could she convince them to stop here and investigate whatever she’d found? Would they care? Should she ditch them and explore the cave she found? The mana seemed to indicate that it would be a dungeon, but with how strange the valleys seemed that might not be true. Maybe it was full of enchanted objects, accumulating a mass of mana.
But would that be more interesting than continuing with them to the dragon? Zoe looked around, her eyes darting through the distant trees that surrounded the clearing for anything of interest. Rocks that seemed out of place, trees that had fallen where it didn’t make sense. Patches of grass that looked different, or markings that might indicate whatever was below them. Nothing stood out.
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Zoe smiled. “I say we check it out.”
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Blue pulled out a coin from their pocket and tossed it in the air. “Dark,” they said as it flipped over and over itself. They caught it on the back of their hand, an image of the sun displayed with prominence on the top of the coin.
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Zoe pushed mana into her skill, lifting the dirt away to carve their way into the ground. After about fifteen feet, she broke into the cavern, revealing the massive hole below them. It stretched another thirty feet down, and about fifty feet across with their hole digging down on the opposite side from a tunnel that made a sharp turn off to the right and another tunnel off to their left that seemed to slope upwards.
As Zoe broke into the cavern, mana rushed in to the falling dirt, pulling the bits that fell off back up into place and creating more to fill in the hole. Zoe smiled as she saw the telltale sign of a dungeon working its strange magic.
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Brick nodded. “You cleared a dungeon before?”
Zoe nodded back. “Yeah, I have.”
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Brick nodded. “Okay, so we can’t split up.” They paused and scratched their chin for a minute. “Blue, Spark. You two go investigate the forest around us, see if you can’t find that entrance. Mara, come with me. We’re going to set up camp and I’ll think of what we’ll do.”
Blue and Spark both nodded then split off and ran into the forests, dashing through the trees and rummaging through the bushes for any sign of an entrance. Brick teleported Zoe off to the edge of the clearing and sat down on the ground.
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Zoe nodded and got to work, digging out their home for the night. The large, cavernous dungeon below wasn’t visible even as she dropped down enough for them to stand with comfort under the dirt. It either went deeper than she expected, or was smaller than she expected. She shrugged, either way would be fun.
Blue and Spark arrived back just before dark, and Brick got up from where they were sitting. “Did you find anything?” Brick asked.
Blue nodded. “We found a small opening under a bush.”
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Spark shook their head. “Not much. Just made sure it opened up inside, and it does.”
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Brick looked at the sky and then vanished, appearing a minute later. “The earth was repairing itself. Would it do that if it wasn’t the dungeon entrance?” They turned to Zoe.
She shrugged. “It might. I’m really not a dungeon expert, all bets are off when it comes to dungeons, really. Do you have mana sight?"
Brick shook their head. “I don’t, and neither do these two. We’ll just have to check it out tomorrow, then.”
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Spark grinned. “Even more, now.”
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Brick sighed. “Then we rest up for tonight, and you two lead us to the entrance at light. For the time being, we will bring lights down with us and when the shadows come to life we retreat to here immediately. We’ll think of a new plan tomorrow when we have more information. Tomorrow is just to gather more information. Understood?”
Everybody nodded in response.
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