"Are you the one that's been making all that noise?"
Merrick stopped to look. Within the cell, a being that looked half-human and half-dragon leered at him. Without even giving Merrick a chance to answer, the dragon-like prisoner continued, "Better keep it down or the Warden will send some reform our way. I'm only a few weeks from the end of my sentence, you better not ruin this for me."
"The Warden?" Merrick asked, "Do you mean the Lightning Elemental that runs this prison?"
The dragon-like prisoner let out a hearty laugh, "That's right. He must have been busy during your incarceration. If you think he's just a normal Elemental, I suggest you keep that noise up so you get a chance to meet him, but when you do… make it clear I was not involved."
"Look, I'm sorry for the disturbance. I'll keep it down from now on. I'm not here to cause any trouble, I'm looking for a dungeon actually."
"Oh, great. Another adventuring soul. I thought you all gave up. This place has nothing for you, I suggest you magic your way back out however you can before someone notices you."
Looking into the cell, Merrick noticed that it had a few more amenities than his. There was a small shelf with a few books on it, as well as some kind of desk with writing instruments. It made him curious, "How long have you been here?"
"Almost sixteen years."
"When was the last time one of my kind came through here?"
"Do you mean an Adventurer or a damned inquisitive Mage?"
"Adventurer."
The dragon-like prisoner scratched their scaled chin with a claw before answering, "It has been seven years since the last one, the first was a year before that. They stopped coming after the Warden assigned an emissary to this floor to monitor their arrivals. That emissary had one job: to kill any adventurer as soon as they arrived."
"What were they like before the emissary came for them?"
"Useless, idiotic, annoying. They wandered around, poking their heads in every cell and questioning all the prisoners. Eventually, they left this floor and headed down to prisoner floor fifteen."
"Why that floor?"
"It's a special floor, only privileged prisoners are allowed there."
"How do you know that?"
"I was one, until I ran afoul of one of the guards. Now I'm serving out the rest of my sentence with these meager amenities." The dragon-like prisoner finished his sentence with a gesture at his shelf and his desk.
The conversation made Merrick increasingly curious, "Why do you think they went there?"
"I know they went there because I asked one of them. They did not seem to care much for sharing information with an old prisoner like me, but they told me at least that much."
"Why would they want to go there?"
"Like I said… It's special. Unlike our floor, they get to wander around. They have a commissary of sorts, some of them even have jobs that they do for the prison, and there is a library if memory serves me right."
That sounded more like a modern prison than something archaic like his current surroundings. It also sounded like the kind of place he could find more information about his dungeon. If others had gone there in the past, there must be something worth finding.
While Merrick was nearly lost in thought, the prisoner spoke up again, "Quick, get out of here. One of the guards will be coming by any minute to check on that golem you shattered."
"What if I could get you out of here? Could you help me find the dungeon?"
This drew another hearty laugh from the dragon-like prisoner, "Why? Like I told you, I'm almost out of here. If we get caught, they'd add another decade onto my sentence just because they could. You are on your own, Adventurer."
"What is your name?"
"Why? So you can give them my name when they torture you for information about your attempted escape? No thank you."
Merrick shrugged his shoulders and headed off toward the staircase. If a guard was on their way, he did not want to be there when they arrived. Unfortunately, he misinterpreted where the guard would be coming from. As he reached the entrance to the top of the staircase, so did a Riot Guard that had been ordered to come up from the next floor down to investigate the disturbance.
The only saving grace was that the staircase itself was a spiral staircase. The guard was still coming up the last few steps, mostly staring blankly at the curved wall in front of them, so Merrick had the advantage this time.
He gave Crudle the order to attack and at the same time released a bolt of lightning at the guard. Now that he had cast it a few times, Merrick understood what went wrong with his first blast of electricity.
Like all of the magic that he could muster, it relied on him to draw on the ambient energy of his surroundings, however that first time he cast it, he had pulled as much energy as possible. Due to the simplicity of the lightning bolt spell itself, all of that energy was translated into the power of the bolt.
For this bolt, he simply called on enough power to stagger the Riot Guard. As if sensing the oncoming attack, the Riot Guard had started to raise their shield to block but when the lightning bolt struck the shield, it passed along the metal and hit the guard regardless.
It was just enough to force the guard back a step, but their shield lowered just enough that Crudle was able to get one of its dust claws close enough to land a lethal strike. As the Riot Guard fell backward, Merrick ordered Crudle to pull it up to the top of the stairs.
Once the dust mephit was done with the order, Merrick sent it halfway down the stairs to the next floor, to keep an eye out for any more Riot Guards headed this way. Even without ordering it to, Crudle had avoided cutting through the guard's armor and instead went straight for the exposed gap between the helmet and chest armor.
Fortunately for Merrick, that meant that he had finally gotten his hands on some decent loot. While it might not suit his current class, the Riot Guard's armor would give him the opportunity to blend in with the other guards. At least until they discovered the body in one of the empty cells right next to the staircase.
The armor felt heavy compared to the clothes that he started out in. The outfit was similar to that of the Golem Operators but with more armored portions. The first few Riot Guards that Merrick had seen took him out so quickly that he could not even inspect their appearance. Now that he had downed and looted one, Merrick understood the amount of armor they were wearing and had a new appreciation for how fast they moved.
The operator had only been wearing a chestplate and helmet over their gray uniform. Once Merrick had changed into the uniform and started to pile on the armor, it took almost thirty minutes to finish the task.
There was a heavy chest guard that stretched down into skirt-like plates that covered his thighs. The vambraces went up past his elbow to cover the majority of his arm. The last piece Merrick put on were the armored boots and once he had those on, he felt like he could barely move. It took every bit of focus he had as a gamer to not leave the Riot Guard's sword and shield behind.
Now that he was somewhat disguised, Merrick bundled all of his Starter Gear up in his other clothes and tucked them under his shield arm. With each step he grew more comfortable in the disguise but also more aware of the fact that if the disguise failed, he was dead. There was no way he could fight back like this.
To make matters worse, according to the notes in his journal, this staircase didn't even go directly to his destination. He would need to stop at prisoner floor 14, go to a special staircase that probably had its own guards, and then descend directly to prisoner floor 15. All that meant that Crudle could not be with him.
He knew that he could summon Crudle back quickly, but as Merrick dispelled his minion, he felt like he was throwing his last usable weapon down a bottomless well. It was a good idea to get rid of the minor earth elemental for the time being, though, because as Merrick moved slowly through the fourteenth prisoner floor, he found that it was not as empty as his own floor.
Each cell on this floor was inhabited by an angry prisoner that hurled insults and sometimes garbage at Merrick as he slowly walked by. He tried to make the slow pace look intimidating, or at least natural, but it was honestly the fastest he could move while weighed down.
At first, it felt like the prisoners were attacking him personally, but as he continued on and they continued their assault, Merrick realized that it was the uniform itself that prompted their words. That gave him some solace, enough to reach the guarded entrance to the next set of stairs.
The disguise had to work, Merrick realized as he reached the point of no return. The stairs were guarded heavier than anything Merrick had run into at this point. On the left side of the archway, a Golem Operator stood with three Sentry Golems hovering in a protective triangle around them. To the right, a Riot Guard stood as well.
Merrick was comfortable taking out a Sentry Golem, or maybe even three, but he knew that this was too much for him to handle. The Golem Operator had a magical wand that could take him out of the fight. The Riot Guard was extraordinarily fast. Merrick himself was weighed down and practically unarmed.
The disguise had to work.
"Heading down?" The Golem Operator asked as Merrick drew closer.
A simple nod was all that he could manage as a reply.
"Mind taking a message with you?"
Another nod.
"Tell Gustav to send our replacements. We've been up here for hours. At the very least, my golems need to recharge. As is, they would barely be of any help in subduing a prisoner."
The Riot Guard jumped in, "When was the last time a prisoner tried to escape?"
"Just the other day, someone up a few floors managed to get out of their cell twice. Gustav said that no one is sure how it happened."
They both turned to Merrick as if they could see the sweat dripping down the back of his neck. After a tense second, the Golem Operator added, "Just tell Gustav, alright? I'm tired."
Merrick nodded again and started to walk through the archway between the guards. One of the Sentry Golems chirped before announcing:
Ano- ly- det- ted- fore- items