Lisa leaned against an old pine tree in the forest’s heart, her red robe with golden accents fluttering in the breeze. Designed with a little too much attention to aesthetic detail, her robe showcased her slender figure—a “gift” from the developers to male players, no doubt. She didn’t mind the design itself, but sighed for an entirely different reason. Rob was late again. Rob was always late.
“Should we just move on?” asked her cousin, Peter, his tone mildly impatient. A supportive priest, Peter was here to help her reach the pinnacle of the game. “Natasha’s gonna get in trouble at school if we keep staying out this late.”
Natasha’s cheeks flushed red, and she ducked her head further into the folds of her oversized cloak. Just as Lisa was about to call it a day, a large summoning circle formed nearby. She clenched her fists. Finally.
Rob—a fifteen-year-old warrior who never seemed to know the meaning of punctuality—emerged from the glowing circle. He didn’t even have a chance to blink before Lisa’s fist connected with his face, sending him sprawling backward.
“You’re late again! Next time we’re going without you!” she snapped, adding a well-placed kick for emphasis.
“Jeez, Lis, it was only half an hour.”
“Only half an hour? The Fire Tamer title is at stake here! I will be the Fire Goddess—do you get how big this is?”
Peter stepped in gently, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Lis, try not to get all worked up again. Dmitry beat you in every other game…”
Her fiery glare cut him off mid-sentence, making him backpedal. That only added fuel to her resolve, and her eyes practically burned with determination. “Let’s go!” She led the group toward the dungeon entrance.
As they reached the edge of the forest, the scenery shifted into an ominous, dying land. Gray ash blanketed the ground, and fire elementals roamed across the barren landscape, casting flickering shadows that danced across the scorched earth.
The elementals’ bodies were made of pure flame, and their semi-transparent forms left them unfazed by physical attacks. Varying in size and shape, they each had distinct, almost humanoid features, yet each was as unique as any player character.
“Isn’t the forest line shorter than last time?” Rob mumbled, casting wary glances back at Lisa.
“Yeah, some old NPC said that until we clear the Scorching Dungeon, it’ll keep spreading,” Lisa said with unshakable confidence. Her steps were full of purpose as they marched onward, the fiery elementals becoming part of their routine.
Rob braced himself, charging into the fray, tanking the elementals’ flames with his shield and sizable health pool. Peter and Natasha worked in tandem, casting healing spells that kept him topped off.
Their progress was steady, and after an hour of fighting, they reached the dungeon’s entrance—a jagged rift in the mountainside that exhaled waves of oppressive heat. The air was thick with the stench of sulfur.
“I don’t want to die again,” Rob muttered, though his words echoed what they all felt.
“Chin up!” Lisa said, giving him a reassuring hug and flashing a grin. “There’s no penalty for dying here!” The heat and sulfur gave her goosebumps, but she brushed it off and laughed to rally the others.
“Natasha, you’re up,” she ordered. The quiet redhead nodded, stepping forward and activating her Thief’s skill, [Detect Trap].
With closed eyes, she scanned the entrance corridor, her movements cautious and deliberate. The red glow from molten stones along the walls illuminated a maze of deadly traps. Though she couldn’t see them directly, an instinctive dread seemed to guide her steps as she inched forward, setting a path for the others. They followed, tiptoeing after her and mirroring each careful movement.
Suddenly, a massive explosion reverberated through the corridor, filling the air with firelight and jolting the group. They barely flinched.
Just another Rob’s day in the Scorching Dungeon.
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“Rob! You stupid piece of fish! I will—aargh! Not again! Everyone, stop!” Lisa shrieked. In this dungeon, every time someone triggered a trap, the remaining traps would rearrange themselves, resetting the entire corridor’s layout. Peter hurriedly flailed his staff, casting a quick heal on clumsy Rob, while Natasha cautiously started forging their path forward once more. It took them two grueling hours to finally make it through the endless, shifting trap corridor.
“I hate this; it’s so dumb! So annoying!” Rob grumbled, always the first to complain without much thought. Lisa’s own grumbles were a close second, her irritation mounting with each step. Peter, however, stayed focused, a little worried as he considered their future. He needed Lisa to succeed, but he also genuinely cared about her well-being.
The corridor finally widened, marking the end of the trap zone. Just ahead, Fire Elementals appeared once more, accompanied by enormous flaming spheres known as [Fire Tails]—suicidal fireballs that hurled themselves at anyone nearby. There was no going around it; they had to push through.
Rob braced himself, tanking two Fire Elementals at once, but his eyes widened as he saw a clump of ten Fire Tails rolling around the corner.
“Incoming! Forget Rob—focus on the Tails!” Lisa’s commanding voice cut through the chaos. “From left to right, fast, or they’ll wipe us out! Natasha! That’s not left!”
The team sprang into action, targeting the Fire Tails one by one as they raced toward them. But they were barely keeping up with the onslaught; one ball was still hurtling toward Rob, who was fending off the elementals.
Peter, sensing disaster, summoned all his focus and broke his own record, creating a healing rune in a fraction of a second. The rune activated just as the last Fire Tail struck Rob, healing him in the nick of time.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
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“Man, these balls! I was the farthest of y’all!” Rob whined as the elementals continued to burn him alive, but healers didn’t allow him to die.
After two grueling hours and countless battles, they finally reached the Boss room. Lisa’s heart pounded in her chest. They’d already failed to conquer this Boss five times, and just that morning, she’d heard Dmitry had defeated the first Boss in the Hell Dungeon. The thought gnawed at her; other guilds were getting closer to surpassing her and stealing her title as the “Fire Goddess.”
The cavernous boss room stretched out before them, the rock walls roasted and scorched from the intense heat radiating from molten lava streams snaking across the ground. Lisa glanced warily at a jagged rock in the center of the room; its surface was searing to the touch, a painful lesson Natasha had learned the hard way. Falling into the lava streams, as Rob had done before, meant game over.
The room suddenly darkened as the Boss emerged from an opening on the far side, a towering figure cloaked in molten red. With a casual wave of his staff, the torches around the room blazed to life, illuminating his intimidating form.
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Type: 5-epic Dungeon Boss | HP: 1800/1800</td>
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“Here we meet once again, immortals! Hail to you, Lisa, self-proclaimed Goddess of Fire—you shall die again by my hand!” taunted the Boss, his voice rumbling through the cavern with a dark laugh that nearly made Lisa lose her focus.
“You overgrew, ugly excuse for a demon! I am the true Queen of Fire—I am fire itself!” Lisa shrieked, her body trembling with fury. Her words only seemed to amuse him, his laughter echoing through the room, mocking her fiery passion.
Not this time, Lisa. You’ve messed up three times already. She took a deep breath to steady herself.
“Everyone, get into the positions we discussed! Rob, for the love of god, stay out of the lava this time. I’d rather you die by his hand than melt in that pit again!” The group moved with purpose—mages and priests took their places in the back, close-range fighters positioned themselves near the Boss, and Natasha disappeared into the shadows with [Vanish].
“Let’s make this interesting, shall we? What kind of leader would I be if I used the same tactic every time?” the Boss sneered, summoning a new set of enemies. “Fire Elementals! Answer my call!”
One by one, Fire Elementals crawled from the streams of molten lava, some of them mimicking the group’s own members. Lisa could see familiar, fiery copies of Rob and Peter among them, which only fueled her rage.
“Switch to Tactic Four!” she commanded, her voice sharp. “Everyone, three o’clock! Focus fire at the front! Natasha, stay hidden!” The group repositioned swiftly, close-range fighters shielding the mages and priests at the back. Lisa gripped her staff, maneuvering it expertly through the air as glowing rune patterns appeared with each flick of her wrist.
As she finished drawing the first rune and shouted the spell’s name, she was already halfway through the second. Her control was flawless, even mesmerizing. If Charlie had been watching, she probably would have jumped into the lava out of sheer awe.
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[Critical hit! Target lost 15HP]</td>
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The battle had been raging for twenty minutes. Each spell Lisa cast was faster, more powerful, and deadlier than the last. Her focus was razor sharp, her stern gaze unwavering. She was the fire; she felt its heat flowing through her veins. With a fierce yell, she hurled a perfect fireball straight at the Boss’s head. “Take that, you ugly, winged freak!”
“You puny girl! Fire against fire! As you wish, Doom Tails!” The Boss, enraged, summoned sixty [Fire Tails]. This was the dreaded attack that had wiped them out every time before. But to his astonishment, they charged toward him without a hint of fear.
“You really thought fire would kill me?” Lisa laughed, her voice booming through the cavern. “You poor, na?ve demon! You’ll be gone before it even touches me!” The fiery balls hurtled forward, closing in fast.
At the last possible moment, Lisa shouted, “Now! Natasha, get ready!”
“God’s will!” their paladin chanted. His spell cast a warm, divine light around them all, forming a protective barrier for just half a second. A hair’s breadth too late or too early, and they would have been lost. But the timing was flawless.
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[Exed entered the weakened state]</td>
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At that moment, Natasha struck from behind. The timid girl was gone, replaced by a steely, focused assassin, her expression fierce. Lisa couldn’t help but grin at the transformation. Natasha aimed directly for the Boss’s head, and the sickening sound of her dagger slicing through flesh and bone was both brutal and satisfying.
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[Exed has been defeated. +50XP (400/8)]
[You found an unknown staff.]
[You found an unknown rune.]
[You found an unknown armor.]
[You have defeated the first Boss of the dungeon, your progress has been saved]</td>
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