Jack turned towards the group of players, his eyes traveling over each one of them.
"Did any of you find a map whilst scavenging?" He crossed his arms over his chest, wondering if any of them found anything on the corpses from earlier.
Runa, Nakajima and Kokei all looked to one another before turning their gaze to him.
"No," Nakajima shook his head slightly before looking over towards the Princess, taking a gander at her hips, which were exposed by the skirting on either side.
Runa would take out a leather bound journal from her inventory, holding it up slightly, "This might hold some information in it, but I don't think there's a map."
Jack stared at the item for a few seconds before reaching out for it, tugging it free from her fingers before flipping it open. His eyes scanning over the first blood stained page of parchment, it appeared to be a dated Journal, likely belonging to one of the younger members of the band of thugs that tried to rob them in their sleep.
"Hm..." However when he made it down to the written language, it differed from Japanese and English. The written language seemed to be made mostly glyphs, the kind seen in ancient ruins of the game which hadn't ever been translated.
Whatever, wherever this place was, it appeared to have a lot in common with the game world, but also a lot of different things. From what he could tell, they couldn't use the same class magic system as Players.
They seemed to be chanting whenever they use magic, so this definitely made it easier for Jack to fight and destroy their magic users before they even get their first fireball out.
Jack's eyes drifted over towards the girl, "You any good at linguistics?"
Runa shook her head and ran her hand through her white hair, "I doubt I'll even be able to read Elvish, let alone whatever that mess is."
"Tch, Great, you're as 'useful' as the other Elf." Jack let out a sigh as he flickered his gaze on over to Nakajima who was now staring at the Princess.
"Other Elf?" Vivi turned blue in the face after being essentially called useless.
"Keep your eyes up, Nakajima," Jack warned as he seem to like how the swordsman was eying the elf he had just pretty much put into his household. Not that he had a residence.
He turned his head and looked towards the Dungeon Altar's Statue.
Kokei walked up to Jack, a partially ruined piece of rolled up parchment in his hand.
Jack looked over it before nodding to the skeleton, lightly taking the item off of his hands before opening it and looking over what appeared to be a map.
The Elder member of the native Catfolk Tribe, stared at the skeleton, watching as it made its way over to the opposite side of the Lobby. "This Winged one has an Undead in one's service?"
Jack looked over at the Elder for a few seconds before looking down at the map he had spread between his hands. What he was seeing appeared to be reminiscent of a severely upscaled version of Central America and the Southern United States. However that was the only thing that resembled the game at all, as the South was uniquely shaped and above the Southern US, also deviated from known geological maps of planet Earth.
Based on the map, The Kingdom of Greyhorn which they were currently within the territory of, took up the territory equivalent of Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
They were in the High North, well above the equator based on the map itself. Which explained why it was colder here than it would be in the actual Central America of Earth.
Directly to the North was the Fae Imperium and to the South was the Holy Vulpine Empire.
Marked above the Fae Imperium was 'Wilderness' as it was uncharted or unexplored. It was the same below the Empire. Which struck Jack as strange, or perhaps this map was misleading.
Had the Elves and the Foxes lead the human nation astray and kept their intelligence of the outside world suppressed? He could definitely understand why, considering how the humans of that village treated the Princess of the Imperium.
Speaking of that Village, Jack looked over Vivi. She may be useless now, but if one is given a stick, it is best to sharpen it into a tool. The best thing about this, was that she was in the best location to be sharpened into a useful tool. Even though she may be of use politically, it would be best if she could fight, right? For now she was just a liability.
Vivi eyed him right back as she noticed his eyes on her. She was still holding her nose slightly as sometime after he had flicked it.
"We'll be going into the Dungeon while your people Guard the entrance," Jack informed the Elder who simply nodded lightly. They didn't seem to mind being told what to do by someone with wings it seemed.
He took a quick mental note of this, even though the Elder didn't want to be subjugated.
The three members of the party hurried on over to the platform and stood on it.
Jack would reach over and grasp the Princess's arm as she was just standing there, leading her over to the altar of the platform.
"So what level voucher are you going to use?" Nakajima asked as he toyed with the hilt of his sword, pushing on it every now and then as it hung in a scabbard at his side.
"Level Sixty," Jack yawned as the two words that left his mouth, caused pretty much everyone in the party except for the Princess to turn blue in the face.
"We're only level Twenty!"
Jack looked over at them and raised a brow slightly, "I can still feel that we're still connected as a party. This will be a grind. Just stay within range."
"Bu-but..." Kokei was chattering again, his bones were shuttering in fear.
Sighing, he shook his head and dug into his inventory, taking out a red and gold slip of high quality.
"Ooo, pretty!" Vivi reached out to touch it, only for the item to be snatched from Jack's hand by the Statue's own hand. Everyone turned their head towards it as the voucher would dissentigrate.
Suddenly the platform would begin to open, sliding to the side.
Stumbling and kneeling down, the group would watch as warmly lit stairs revealed to them below. Leading into the darkness of the unknown.
"So… You have plenty of Phoenix Feathers, right?"
"Yup, we were planning on going into the Dungeon, so I came prepared…" Jack simply looked over at Runa who was asking him about the instant resurrection items. "But… Don't forget to pray to the Altar."
In the game in order to be automatically resurrected outside of the Dungeon should one die within it, they had to 'pray' to the statue at the Altar.
All dropping onto their knees, all of the players prayed to the statue, Vivi also seemed to imitate them, doing as Jack had advised Runa to do.
All five of them were sudden engulfed in a brief flash of blue light.
The Elder could only stare at what had just happened. The platform had moved aside, after they talked of levels, and when they prayed to the Statue… They glowed with Resurrection Magic.
No where in history did the Elder ever remember someone doing such a thing in a Dungeon, as no one had ever thought of praying to a stone that didn't represent a known deity.
"...What did you just do…?"
Jack looked back at the Cat man and shook his head, "I'll tell you when we get back."
"Yes, Winged One..." The Elder watched as the group of five descended into the darkness ahead of them. When they vanished from sight, even with his low-light vision, he couldn't make out what was at the end of the stairwell as his sight was set askew by its magic.
…
Jack and Vivi were the first to place their step down at the bottom of the stone stairs. Unlike the upstairs, this entire area was covered in a blue hue. The source of the light seeming to be tiny blue wisps that seemed to flutter about in the passage ways and rooms of the Dungeon.
Vivi stared up at Jack as he was holding her arm, as if forcefully escorting her somewhere. Yet at the same time, his hands were so gentle and soft.
It was hard to imagine what he had done while she was still in the sack. Killing all those people. Though the moment she could see his eyes again, she understood how capable he was.
Her eyes moved to the other members of the 'party' as he described it.
The three of them seemed to keep five paces behind Jack, not anymore or any less. She watched as they drew their weapons.
Runa the fellow Moon Elf pulled a weapon out of her inventory, after reequipping her own light plate armor. A dark wood staff with a silver crescent moon ornament on top of it. The medium also seemed to be wrapped in a silvery-blue fabric, and various other charms hanging off of it.
The Skeleton had this pair of black marbles in his palm, shifting them in a circular motion, and a wooden staff in the other hand.
When her eyes wandered on over to the last tone, the Swordsman, it seemed Nakajma didn't draw his weapon yet. Instead he had his hand on his hilt in a readied manner, ready to draw at any given moment.
Vivi then looked around. The strange draft that came from deeper within made her want to shiver, it was colder than it was outside. She could easily see her breath unlike when they were in the lobby.
As they entered the first room, after reaching the bottom of the stairs and physically walking down a corridor, there was a statue in the center. It was identical to the one outside, at the top of the steps.
Jack let go of her arm and she almost immediately became startled as she watched him pray to this statue as well. Suddenly he was engulfed in the same magical light as before.
The others followed and did the same.
Vivi went on to follow their example and prayed to the statue. Just as they did so, there was a soft poof sound coming from the next room on the other side of the statue. A mere doorway away.
Walking around the statue, she blinked a few times when she saw a room filled with wooden chests. There were at least a dozen of them, along with three looking monstrous wolves that had two heads and six tails each. They were at least twice her size, being ten feet tall in size.
Essentially they'd be similar to a level forty's Dungeon Boss, but these were all level sixties.
Her eyes narrowed on the chests however, curious of them.
"Those Chests aren't usually chests..." Jack assured as he walked passed Vivi, pretty much knowing what she was thinking about. She could probably outrun the wolves, open the chests, snatch what was inside. Sadly, if she were to get anywhere near to opening a chest, it would be the chest that snatches her. "They're mimics."
"Mimics?" Vivi questioned watching as the three people followed after Jack. She stuck right behind them, her hands holding onto her shoulders tightly.
Jack with his spear known as Benevolent Death, walked into the room by a few feet.
The moment the four others entered the room and stood directly behind him, flanking him on either side, there was a large stone door which came down behind them. Another large door came down and closed them off from moving forward as well.
Gasping at this Vivi jumped and turned around, looking at the massively thick stone. She pressed her hands against it, "We're trapped!"
"No, once we kill the monsters in here, it'll release us." Even as Jack gave her this information, he watched her as she was beating at the stone door with her two fists.
Shaking his head, he would turn and look towards the three wolves which were turning their attention towards him and the party. Anxiously, he let the tip of his tongue briefly poke out of his mouth.