Chương 5: Signs of Reawakening

The next morning, Rayne gathered the party on the second floor of the Guild with the magic crystals in hand. The appraiser the Guild had brought in started out fairly indifferent, but the moment he picked up one of the hazy blue magic crystals, his eyes sharpened. The crystal looked cloudy at first glance, but the energy inside was remarkably stable. It had been a long time since he'd seen a low-grade magic crystal of this quality.

By the time the appraiser finished counting, the indifference was gone from his face.

"Ninety-six silver," he said at last. Rayne blinked. That was almost twenty percent above his own estimate. More than enough to replace the party's gear, with some left over. So they topped up the essentials before setting out. Everyone swapped in new gear and stocked up on emergency supplies: a few mana potions, bandages, that sort of thing. As for Tyren, on top of his bow, he bought a slender-bladed dagger that ran well over budget. Rayne started to stop him.

But Serin quietly mentioned that she didn't need to replace her oak staff. Tyren stared at her for a long moment, then just gave a goofy grin and said thanks. On the road to the dungeon, he kept sneaking the dagger out to admire it. The blade was narrow and keen, the grip wrapped in fresh leather, finished with a matte coating so it wouldn't catch the light. The third time he drew it, Serin finally shot him a look.

"Is that thing really so fascinating?" Tyren shoved the dagger back into the small of his back and coughed.

"I was just checking it for flaws."

"You said that the last time too."

"Something that pricey, obviously I've got to take good care of it." Serin looked at him, the tips of her ears tinged faintly red, and in the end only said, quietly:"Don't lose it." Tyren paused, then looked at her in silence.

"Don't worry." He patted the dagger at his back.

"Not this time." When they reached the dungeon entrance, everything looked no different from the day before. The portal on the side of the hill was still embedded in the grey rock, faint white light flowing slowly within the gate, looking quiet to the point of seeming almost harmless. Greer stopped in front of the gate for a long while, leaning on his cane.

"A dungeon, eh…" he said quietly.

"It really has been a long time since I laid eyes on one." His voice was low and rough, the last syllable trailing off almost like a sigh. The faint ease in his posture vanished.

"Let's go. Let me get a proper look." He stepped through the portal first. Rayne noticed that the faint sound Greer's prosthetic usually made as he walked had disappeared. His stride had turned lighter, his movements smoother. The stone chamber was the same as ever, not much changed. Greer looked around once, his gaze pausing for a second on the circular pattern set into the floor. He said nothing.

Rayne gave a brief rundown of the dungeon's terrain and monsters, and once Greer had confirmed everything, the group got ready to begin the run in earnest. Out of the passage, the space opened up. Greer stood at the mouth of the canyon, silently taking in the terrain before him.

"Ha. Crude and to the point, this layout." Greer couldn't help a small snort.

"The monster placement is anything but simple, though." Greer didn't reply. He only nodded to Rayne, gesturing for them to take the lead. He'd cover the rear. ◆ ◆ ◆ The Desiccated Corpses in the opening stretch were the same as before: slow, sneaky, and easily torn apart. But thanks to the previous day's experience, Rayne's party moved through them like they'd done it a hundred times. Barton held the front rock-steady. Tyren's arrows struck true.

Serin didn't let her guard down this time either, a blessing always primed and ready, and every corpse lying in ambush got marked early by Asar and picked apart one by one. Greer trailed at the back of the party, watching their performance, nodding quietly to himself. He wouldn't step in. Or rather, the moment for him to step in hadn't come yet. Rayne stayed at his side. He had faith in Barton and the others; they'd cleared this easily enough yesterday. Unless the dungeon had cooked up some new trick.

The thought had barely crossed his mind when something up ahead made him call the whole party to a halt.

"Stop." Barton and the rest pulled up at once, slowly backing up step by step. The opening stretch of the canyon was already cleared. But in the ruins ahead, the ones his memory said were nothing but rubble and broken walls, something was off. That thing wasn't one of the corpses they'd met earlier. It wasn't shambling aimlessly.

It was crouched low beside a section of broken wall, leather armor in tatters, a shortsword in its grip, pale white eyes scanning back and forth, nothing like the pathetically weak corpses from before.

"A new monster, already?" Rayne frowned and slowly drew the longsword at his hip.

"Is it common for a dungeon to produce new monsters overnight?" Asar asked under his breath.

"Not common." Rayne shook his head.

"Usually a dungeon takes a good while before it shows any obvious change." Greer came up from behind and stood beside Rayne, arms folded.

"The ones you ran into yesterday — different from this?"

"Yes. Yesterday we only encountered the earlier kind."

"Then you'd best be careful," Greer said, lowering his voice and slowing his words.

"Dungeons that change this fast are usually the most dangerous kind there is."

"Don't worry. We'll be careful." ◆ ◆ ◆ The first exchange was enough to tell Barton one thing: yesterday's habits were going to get someone hurt. These leather-clad corpses weren't like the earlier ones: no swarming forward all at once, no sluggish movement, no monotonous attack patterns. When they noticed Barton and the others, they didn't charge in. They rose to their feet, settled into a stance, and closed in step by step. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

On reflex, Barton moved forward the way he had yesterday, shield braced at his chest, body low, ready to test the rhythm of its attacks. The next instant, a spear thrust in from beneath his shield. The point grazed the side of his knee, opening a gash along the edge of his leather armor. Barton's expression shifted and he immediately gave half a step of ground. Any slower, and that wouldn't have been a graze. It would have driven straight into his thigh.

"It goes for the weak points!" Barton shouted. Rayne's face darkened.

"Don't fight it like yesterday." The corpse in its ragged leather armor didn't press the attack. It dropped low again, short spear held crosswise in front of it, as if waiting for the next opening. That alone made Barton's skin crawl. The earlier corpses had been like mindless puppets, attacking strictly by the book. Once you got used to them, you could clear them without even having to think. But this thing in front of him gave him the unsettling impression of facing a slow-witted living person.

Asar moved in from the side, longsword slashing at the arm holding the spear. The corpse suddenly recoiled, slipping clear of the blade, then whipped the butt of its spear at Asar's shin. Asar frowned, checked his movement, and pulled back.

"Much faster reactions, too."

"Not just that." Greer narrowed his eyes slightly, his voice growing rougher still.

"It's studying us." Tyren's arrow flew at that moment. It punched into the corpse's shoulder, knocking it slightly to the right. Barton seized the opening and rushed in, slamming his shield hard into its skull while his sword hacked off the arm holding the spear. Asar cut in from Barton's flank, his blade sweeping across the corpse's neck. The withered head went flying. The remaining torso swayed, then dropped to its knees and slowly crumbled into a heap of pale grey bone dust.

A hazy blue magic crystal tumbled out, noticeably larger than yesterday's. But the group's attention clearly wasn't on that. Tyren stared at the heap of bone dust, pressing his lips together.

"This thing… was just a grunt too?"

"Looks like it," Asar said. Rayne noticed that the moment they heard the answer, every face in the party went stiff. If monsters at this level were nothing but ordinary grunts, what was waiting deeper in? Could there be something even stronger than that knight? Greer walked past Rayne, leaning on his cane, and nudged the bone dust aside with the brass head to glance at the crystal.

"Noticeably bigger than yesterday's." Rayne looked down and didn't know what to say. Stronger monsters. Better crystals. If this were an ordinary dungeon, that would be good news. The problem was that none of this had existed in the dungeon yesterday. If it kept evolving at this pace, what would it become? Rayne didn't dare follow the thought any further.

"Keep going," Greer said.

"Advance slowly. Barton, don't push out too far. Tyren, you take the high ground and anything behind the broken walls." Tyren paused.

"The high ground?" The words had barely left his mouth when a faint twang came from behind the broken wall to the right. Rayne shouted almost on pure instinct.

"Shield!" Barton threw his shield up at once. A crossbow bolt came in at an angle, scraping the edge of the shield and burying itself in the ground. The bolt-head sank into the sand, its fletching still quivering faintly. Tyren drew and loosed in an instant, an arrow sent back in answer. The arrow sank dead-center into the corpse's brow, and it toppled straight backward. Only then did Tyren get a clear look at the weapon in its hands.

"Watch out for crossbow bolts!" A second bolt answered him. This one was wildly off, landing right beside Asar's foot with no accuracy whatsoever. But everyone's nerves snapped taut all the same. No one could promise the next bolt wouldn't end up buried in them.

"Find it!" Rayne said. Tyren nocked an arrow at once, sweeping his gaze toward the higher ground. He quickly spotted a withered figure half-crouched on a platform, also holding a battered single-shot crossbow. Just as he was about to loose, a snarl came from beside him. A corpse had circled around at some point. All Tyren could do was pin his arrow in its shoulder instead. Catching the corpse as it staggered, Asar moved in, knocked its weapon aside with one stroke and took its head with the next.

"Thanks. Big help." As soon as Tyren said it, he turned back to deal with the corpse on the platform, only to find it gone. And up front, Barton was already tangled up with two more corpses. One with a shortsword. One with a spear. Luckily Rayne stepped in to block one in time, or Barton would have been caught in a pincer. Once the two of them had dealt with the corpses in front of them, Tyren finally managed to find the crossbow corpse again. Three arrows in quick succession.

One missed, but one landed squarely on the crossbow itself, wrecking the entire firing mechanism.

"Nice work, Tyren." Rayne vaulted over the broken wall, planted a foot against a snapped stone pillar and used it to spring up onto the platform, finishing off the corpse Tyren had hit. The scene finally fell quiet, but Barton kept his shield up and Tyren kept his bowstring drawn, until Asar and Rayne had each made a sweep of the area and confirmed there were no enemies left for the moment. The party regrouped toward Barton, where Serin had already begun working healing magic to close the wounds on his body.

Tyren jogged over.

"Barton okay?"

"Minor cut. Nothing serious." Under the blue-green light in Serin's hands, the cuts across his body slowly knitted shut. Barton flexed his arm, then looked down at the cut on the side of his knee, his expression less than reassured. The injuries weren't severe. Which was exactly the troubling part. Yesterday they'd pushed all the way up to the knight essentially without a scratch. Yet after just one day, even the lesser monsters already had the ability to threaten them. And that was with their numbers limited.

If they ever came in force, they'd grind the whole party down by degrees. Tyren looked at the handful of hazy blue magic crystals on the ground and couldn't help twisting his mouth.

"It's pretty generous, isn't it." Nobody could bring themselves to laugh. Because everyone understood exactly where these crystals came from. Greer stood at the edge of the broken wall, leaning on his cane, his gaze sweeping over the platform where the crossbow corpse had been, then on to the deeper reaches of the canyon ahead. His expression grew darker and darker.

"The evolution's a little too fast." Rayne looked up.

"Guildmaster?"

"Yesterday you told me that aside from that last knight, the entire dungeon was full of weak monsters." Greer spoke slowly.

"And yet today, stronger monsters have appeared right away." Asar was quiet for a moment, then said in a low voice:"Guildmaster, have you ever encountered something like this before?"

"No." Greer shook his head.

"Even the most dangerous dungeons might take several months to produce any change. There's no possible way it could happen in a span this short —" Greer stopped short. He strode quickly forward and lifted his head toward the empty, featureless sky.

"Guildmaster, have you noticed something?" Rayne asked urgently.

"No." He lowered his head and looked back at Rayne.

"This may not be a Newborn Dungeon at all. I think it might be reawakening…"

"Reawakening!" The whole party cried out in unison.

"Yes. And if that's truly the case, then its changes will only come faster and faster." No one spoke after that. Rayne looked toward the deeper canyon and felt the weight of the question settle in his gut. If this was only the second day, then how long before this place outgrew them entirely? Rayne swallowed and asked, his voice low.

"Guildmaster, do we keep going?" Greer was silent for a moment.

"We keep going." Then his voice lowered.

"But if we run into danger later on, we suspend the investigation. Remember, today we're not here to clear it." Everyone nodded. Barton moved to the front once more, and the group fell in behind him in order, pressing on toward the depths of the canyon. After they finished off the last few corpses, they reached the place where the broken archway should have been. It was gone. What met their eyes instead was a crude wooden encampment.

From the outside, it looked almost harmless: a few worn tents, a lopsided wooden table, a campfire, a cauldron, and several hammocks swaying faintly in the still air. Almost harmless. Except for the towering corpse standing at its center. It wore a suit of battered armor, an iron-bound round shield with chipped edges in its left hand, a rusted longsword in its right. Rayne and the others stopped almost in the same breath. Tyren's smile died on his face.

"…You've got to be kidding." In that instant, the memory of that two-and-a-half-meter knight came crashing back. Tyren's hands began to tremble without his meaning them to. Serin nearly stumbled two steps backward. Barton looked calm enough, but the veins on his arms had long since stood out hard against the skin. Rayne and Asar moved to the front without a word. Asar was quiet a moment.

"Rayne. Do we keep going?" Rayne closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, gripping the pendant at his chest.

"This time I go first. The rest of you —" Before he could finish, Greer's laughter cut him off.

"These old bones of mine haven't stretched in a long while. Let me take this one."

"Guildmaster! It's too dangerous — if you were to —""Heh. Let me see for myself what this dungeon is really made of." The brass-headed cane came down hard against the ground. Thud. The dry earth beneath its tip split apart all at once, shards of stone flicking outward. For the first time, a smile surfaced on Greer's deeply lined face.

"Come on, then," Greer said.

"Show me what woke you up."