Arlo didn't want to join the party after he saw the barbarian, but he had agreed to join anyways since he needed to join a party to enter the dungeon. He was suspicious about why they would invite him though. Did the barbarian want some kind of revenge and try to kill him in the dungeon? Arlo decided to betray them before they betray him, he also didn't want to split the treasure and keep all of it.
"I'll join your party, but would you tell me why you chose to invite me" said Arlo with some suspicion.
"Because you look strong, simple" said the girl holding a proud posture.
The girl introduced herself and her party to Arlo and Arlo introduced himself in response. "I'm Octavia Armstrong, an expert magic swordsman with expertise in earth magic, the kid next to me is Henry Allendale, he's a decent healer from the famous Liquid Platinum magic school. And the guy behind me is Bjorn Stoneshield, he's our tank" explained the girl. It looked like they were a big deals, so Arlo became more suspicious about their true motive.
"WHAT THE HELL IS A WOLFCOW AHAHAHA" shouted Bjorn with joy while laughing.
Then Octavia smacked the back of Bjorn's head and apologized to Arlo. They accepted the quest from the receptionist soon after and made their way outside of the city, they went south to the direction of where the pyramid dungeon was. The party was on their way walking for days, and camping in the nights, but they hadn't found any monsters until the 12th day.
There were hundreds of mutant giant scorpions with mummies Riding them. Everyone went in formation, but Arlo was just standing at the back.
"Hey Carlos! Go in formation!" Shouted Octavia with some anger.
Arlo was preparing a stance behind everyone, with his body side ways and his sword pointing forward, he focused his whole mind on one point and suddenly his vision disappeared for a short moment, he had never seen anything like it. He was staring into the abyss.
"ABYSS THRUST" shouted Arlo while thrusting his sword forward.
His attack wiped out more than half of the monsters, leaving everyone speechless, until Bjorn broke the silence.
"HAHAHAHA I TOLD YOU HE WAS STRONG, YOU ALL OWE ME 10 GOLD" shouted Bjorn with a big smile.
The rest of the monsters were wiped out easily by the party an they made their way onward again. On their way to the dungeon, Octavia had a chat with Arlo while walking beside him.
"Abyss Thrust huh? I've never seen an attack like that before. Half of the monsters just disappeared" said Octavia with the look of being interested learning about it.
"Me neither, I must have just focused too hard" replied Arlo while forcefully letting out a few laughs
Octavia didn't want to let it go, but moved on to another subject after seeing Arlo wouldn't budge. It had turned night soon after, so they set up camp again and the atmosphere was different. Everyone was more open and chatting with Arlo this time. They were all telling stories about their previous adventures to Arlo while sitting by the campfire and eating soup. Arlo felt a warmness inside his heart? Ribcage maybe? After they were done eating, they went to sleep, but Arlo stayed outside and looked up at the stars while talking holding up Krause and talking to him.
"Hey buddy it's me again. A lot has happened since the last time we had spoken" said Arlo with a slightly sad voice.
Arlo explained everything that had happened after he had gotten his id plate. He told Krause about his party with joy in his face and about how he thinks that they might become his friends (He wanted to betray them earlier).
"You must really love that book. I can imagine the story behind so I won't ask you" said Octavia with a concerned expression while getting out of her tent
"Is it perhaps made from the skin of your dead lover" said Octavia jokingly
"Go back to sleep" yelled Arlo while being a bit mad and embarrassed.
"Are you suffering from a sun burn perhaps? Your face is as red as lava" replied Octavia with a smug face.
"We're heading out before the sun rises to this time, because we're running low on water" said Octavia while starting to pack up.
They both woke up the rest of the party and started packing up in preparation to continue the journey. While on their way, Henry tugged on Arlo's clothing and thanked him for keeping watch of monsters last night. Over the next 2 days, they hadn't found any signs of the pyramid, but they found a few giant snakes and sand cats. Arlo was in charge of killing the sand cats, while the rest of the party was taking down the giant snakes. The sand cats are actually a lot more trouble because they were evolved to run fastly on sand. They began running in circles around Arlo to create a tornado. Arlo had no idea what they were doing, so he just swung his sword forward and decapitated all of them.
Bjorn was tanking the giant snakes with his iron hard skin, while Henry was healing him whenever he got wounded. Octavia was attacking the snakes with her sword while incapacitating them with her earth magic to stop them from slithering around. At the end they were Victorious.
The party went on the move again and saw something in the distance. It was small since it was still far, but they knew instantly what it was.
"HEY EVERYONE, IT'S THE PYRAMID HAHAHAHA!!" Shouted Bjorn with high morale.