A thirty minute drive turned into an hour long expedition to get back home. Dustin was woken up by the bus driver at the end of the route, which put him no closer to where he needed to go then where he started.
When he pushed open the door to his home and face planted on the bed, he was ignorant to the breaking news playing around him.
Over ten thousand kilometers away, police surrounded a public toilet block, denying access to anyone. Despite the small facility, seventeen people had walked in, and none had come out. The phenomenon known as dungeons were still unknown, but it was highly suspected that the small concrete block was housing one.
It was difficult to deny its existence when a person had disappeared in front of their eyes. The dungeons influence covered a small area around the toilets, so even approaching them was enough to get sucked in.
There was little danger provided one did not approach the building, but that did not stop the police force from being anxious. The tension was broken when a military truck came thundering down the road, slamming on the brakes as they stopped just short of hitting a police car.
The back of the truck opened, and heavily armed soldiers stepped out, carrying assault rifles, shotguns, handguns. One of them even had a shoulder mounted missile launcher on their back.
The soldiers had already 'partied up', and were forming up in front of the toilet block. They were all level 1, as none of them had killed anything since the introduction of Dos. The information they had to go off was that which was gathered from an Australian investigative journalist.
There are monsters roaming around the dungeon, which will provide experience and Dos when killed. They are unlike anything found on earth, though some may be familiar.
A particularly large monster, known as a 'Boss', will be located somewhere inside the dungeon. To escape the dungeon, this boss must be eliminated. Once this is done, a blue shimmer in the air will act as a portal back out.
The soldiers had grim expressions as they stood in a straight line, stroking the guns in their hands. The captain of the squad came up to the front and whistled, leading the solemn walk into the unknown.
When the front of the line faded out of existence, those following up stopped abruptly. It was one thing to be told what was going to happen, but another to experience it.
An angry shout came from behind, forcing the men to push forward again, until all of them were gone. The captain at the front of the line tried to maintain his composure as the world fell away. He was still standing on solid ground, despite the lack of anything beneath him.
Since they were all in a party together, they could see each other as the dungeon formed. When the sky turned from grey to blue, and the world lit up around them, they could see the location they were placed in.
[Welcome to the Flitting Fields dungeon. Uploading current information to mini map.]
Massive fields of wheat sprawled out around them, with a central clearing in the middle that they were standing. What separated this from any normal farmlands, was the fact that the wheat fields suddenly dropped straight down. At a certain point they could no longer see land.
Captain Clint wasn't sure if the farms were placed on the edges of cliffs, or if their was an ocean beyond them. He immediately had his men cover all possible angles, watching the silent fields wave in the wind.
There was no sign of the civilians that had entered before them. Clint couldn't even find any of the monsters Sarah had warned about. If they hadn't been aware of what a dungeon was, Clint would have just assumed they had somehow been transported to a nearby wheat field.
Looking at the ground, they could see multiple human footprints that they had not left, and managed to track which direction they were heading in. The footprints led into the wheat fields south of them.
They took a dangerous stroll through the tall grains, watching their surroundings carefully. Something could be hiding in the field easily enough, and the Captain wanted to return without a single casualty.
He held his hand up suddenly and the group stopped. Clint squinted his eyes as he looked around, unable to knock the sound in his ear.
There was a quiet buzz, like a distant mosquito flying around. He stood perfectly still to listen closer, and realized that the sound was growing. His eyes shot to the sky as he watched the clouds rolling in.
Only, some of them weren't clouds.
"Incoming at 4 o'clock, in the air!"
The men swiveled around to look at the cloud, weapons raised. They didn't fire, but watched as the cloud rolled in. By now, they could all hear the buzzing, and the nature of the supposedly fluffy marshmellow in the sky was revealed.
The cloud was not made from moisture, but thousands of tightly packed insects. The collective buzzing made a droning sound that was alarmingly loud the closer it drew. Clint motioned for the soldier with the missile launcher to fire.
A sound rivalling that of the insects burst out, and a dangerous explosive was launched into the air. Clint had been expecting a wave of fire to consume the sky, but his plan completely failed. The cloud seemed to absorb the missile, without it exploding, and it popped out the other side harmlessly.
The insects had managed to move around the missile perfectly, and it sailed through without impact. Clint swore under his breath as the moving cloud was angered, dive bombing towards them.
"Fire!"
The soldiers knelt down and fired into the swarm, hitting plenty of bugs, but ultimately doing nothing to the thousand strong swarm bearing down on them. Guns were useless against insects. They were precision weapons, and against a thousand insects, it wasn't hard to miss.
Clint ducked down as the swarm swerved over their heads, actually managing to take chunks off of the soldiers helmets. He gulped down his saliva and pulled a hand grenade from his waist.
He pulled the pin, but did not throw it immediately. The swarm came back around to swoop them, and when he threw the grenade, they absorbed it again as they had the missile.
This time, however, it exploded in their mists, scattering the swarm as a torrent of bugs fell from the sky. He didn't celebrate the victory as the remaining bugs formed a smaller cloud, still deadly in their amount. The bullets were becoming increasingly useless as soldiers fought off the bugs with their hands.
The monstrous insects abandoned their form to attack the soldiers directly, stinging and biting. Clint was faced off by hundreds of locusts and wasps trying to attack any open area of his body. His body ached all over as he crouched down to cover his face.
The soldiers were too busy fighting off the insects to notice a person approaching them. The temperature suddenly dropped as the person blew out an impressive amount of air.
The insects starting dropping dead, giving some relief to the men under siege. Clint looked up to see one of the missing civilians beckoning him over. He could feel the cold air surrounding them, but thought nothing of it, not realizing it had been the cause of the insects dying.
"You're supposed to be here to save me, not the other way around." The person hissed, waving the soldiers over. Clint approached cautiously, and was shocked to find a hidden entrance leading underground.
The person didn't bother waiting for them and ducked down, shortly followed by the train of soldiers. Unlike the cob-web ridden tunnels that Clint had been expecting, they were quite clean. The system was held up by strong wooden beams, stopping it from collapsing.
They even had working lights that brightly illuminated the long descent into the ground. Just to be sure, the group put their flashlights on and continued down in an orderly fashion. Their saviour had already disappeared, and Clint didn't entirely trust them.
When the tunnel reached about 30 feet underground, it opened up into a wide room, made from metal, where several people were lounging around. The man from earlier was ignoring them as he fiddled with a device on the wall. After a couple of seconds, it released a light, and a jug of water popped into existence.
Unlike the arrogant man, some of the people in the shelter ran over to the soldiers and threw themselves at their mercy, hoping for an escape. From what Clint could gather, they had all come in separately, but were dragged into the shelter by the man, who killed the bugs for them.
Of course, they were free to leave, or roam around, but with giant killer clouds in the sky, who in their right mind was going to make themselves a target?
Clint got the details of the civilians, which matched up with the data given to him. Only, a couple were missing.
"Some of 'em died before I could help."
The man in the corner snorted, and chugged the entire jug, caring not for the water that splashed over his face and clothes. Clint frowned at his antics and opened his mouth to ask a question, but was interrupted as a soldier they had left to watch the entrance reported a deafening buzzing outside.
The empty jug fell to the floor as the mans eyes flashed dangerously.
"That's the boss. A big fuck-off wasp that flies around. Don't get near it or it'll swoop you like a horny bird."
Clint ignored the mans words and went to take a look. He returned to the hole they entered through, hearing the buzzing sound that grew louder and louder. When he stood under the hatch it sounded like an insect was inside his ear.
He pushed the uncomfortable feeling aside and climbed up, peering outside into the sunlight. The sky was filled bugs, swarming around a large shape hidden inside them. Like they had to dodge the bullets, the bugs split apart to reveal the monster inside.
Clint caught the flash of yellow and black before he ducked out of sight. A second later, a sharp stinger slipped down the hatch, stopping just short of Clints head as he fell to the ground. The tunnel shook as the giant wasp rest atop of them, its tail stuck in the hatch.
"Back up!" Clint barked, and slid away from the twitching black spike. When the soldiers were far enough, the wasp lost interest, and freed itself, pulling half the hatch up with it as it rejoined the roaming death ball.
Clint wiped the sweat from his forehead after surviving such a close encounter. The man who had warned them was laughing when they returned to the metal room, seeing the look of terror on Clint's face.
According to his data, the man was likely Anthony, a troublemaker through and through. He had dropped out of school, didn't have a job, and lived with his parents. Spent his parents money on video games, with nothing to show for it.
Putting aside his grievances, Clint asked Anthony for information about the dungeon.
"Big-ass island, filled to the brim with wheat and these hidden underground tunnels. Only monsters I could find were the insects, always travelling in packs. Boring to kill, amazing exp though."
Despite his vulgar language, Anthony seemed to know quite a bit about the dungeon. He was apparently the first person to enter, and had learned the best way to deal with the bug swarms.
The icey mist that Clint had felt earlier was a spell known as 'Frozen Cloud'. Anthony demonstrated it again, lowering the temperature of the room as he exhaled. He roughly explained how it easily killed the 'shitty' bugs.
He mentioned experience again, which further confused Clint.
"What is this experience you keep talking about? Are you doing this just to learn how exterminate them better?"
Anthony grinned and showed his status to the captain.
Pioneer: Thiccboi
Race: Human
Designation: XQB51
Level: 3
"You level up by collecting exp. Which in turn increases your stats."
Clint nodded, slowly connecting the dots between what Anthony was telling him, and the information gathered from Sarah. Her tests on the 'agility' increase had blown the minds of scientists and soldiers alike. It was like creating a super soldier.
Sure enough, Anthony seemed to be much stronger, and faster, then what Clint would have expected him to be. He was even able to beat one of the soldiers in an arm wrestling match whose arm was twice the size of his.
The buzzing from outside died down slowly, the insects swarming above paying no attention to the underground humans. The boss had destroyed the initial hatch, leaving a gaping hole in the ground, but none of the monsters bothered infiltrating.
The speed of the wasp made Clint's face pale. How was anyone supposed to dodge that? He had been lucky enough to duck after seeing the cloud split. He looked at the prized weapon in his hands, not with pride, but with despair.
The guns had proved utterly useless against the monsters, having to rely on a civilian to take care of the insects. Perhaps if they had faced off against the 'zombies' that Sarah had told them about, they might have proved useful.
Clint opened up the shop and looked through the list of weapons available. Their were several weapons that the military used, like assault rifles and handguns, but they featured 'attribute' bonuses and listed how much damage they did.
One particular gun caught his interest, a grenade launcher that shot two grenades at once. He looked over at the rest of the squad which were cleaning up the blood that had oozed from several bites or scratches.
Maybe it was time to see how the new system worked.