[10:32 | May 03, 2035]
Shin stood in the main room of the monument. Before him was a massive door accompanied by two obsidian pillars. The room was huge but mostly empty. Around Shin and his allies were other groups of adventurers. All the other teams had at least fifteen people. However, Shin's team only had eight.
His new teammates hadn't arrived yet. Shin's first thought was that they must be hungover or overslept.
"Do you think they forgot about us?" Fuyumi asked.
"Hopefully not. I mean, we're still in their party." Shin replied.
"I think it wouldn't be too unlikely for them to have forgotten about us due to the alcohol." Nightingale said while scratching his chin.
As he said that, they heard a booming voice over the crowd of adventurers.
They turned around to find Geoff waving at them. Behind him were the others in his group. Malady stared at the ground as she walked forward. Prezzo walked casually with his hands behind his head. Scottie had one hand on his sword and the other in his pocket.
For some reason, Ghast was once again missing. Shin didn't see him the other day but his name was still in the party. No one questioned it out loud but they all thought that it was strange.
"So, where's this Ghast guy?" Nightingale questioned Geoff.
Geoff seemed to be the leader of their group, judging by his posture and positioning at the front.
"He was a little skeptical of you guys so he decided to sit out this time. Don't worry though, I'm sure he'll warm up to you guys once we tell him how it went." Geoff laughed heartily.
"Looking forward to working with you all." Fuyumi added.
"Likewise." Geoff stuck out his hand in response.
Shin, Fuyumi, and Nightingale took turns shaking hands with Geoff. The rest of his party was mostly unresponsive. Malady continued to stare at the ground while Scottie and Prezzo just nodded their heads in agreement.
"Let's go in, shall we?"
Shin led the newly formed group toward the entrance of the labyrinth. They passed by swaths of adventurers. Some of them stared in interest at Shin's group while others were gossiping.
Shin was able to pick up on some of their words through his [Perception] skill.
"Really? They actually found some people to form a party?"
"I can't wait to claim that bounty the moment they're out of the city."
"Hopefully the labyrinth isn't too kind to them…"
Their reputation was already down in the gutter since the incident with Syros. Shin just hoped to not drag Nightingale and everyone else down with him and Fuyumi. However, it couldn't be helped. So long as there were people around him, they would be seen as bad just by association.
The door seemed even larger up close. By Shin's estimates, it was at least 30 meters tall. No normal person would be able to open a door of this size.
In front of the door was a demi-human. He was at least two meters tall and had scaly skin but human-like hair. He also wielded a massive trident in his right hand and wore spiked armor. His name was Toffins.
"Looking to enter Urumel?" Toffins asked.
"Yes."
"Please give me a moment to inspect your party. If you do not meet the requirements, I'm afraid I cannot let you enter."
Toffins paced around Shin. He occasionally peeked his head closer to get a better look. His neck stretched and retracted like a turtle as he inspected Shin.
---------
[Character Page]
[Nickname: [Shin] | Level: 35 | Specialization: Savant | Profession: Manufacturing]
[Attributes]
Strength: 52 | Agility: 52 | Intelligence: 52
---------
The players hunting him down and the various dungeons that he and Fuyumi entered to avoid the bounty allowed him to level up multiple times. Fending off bounty hunters was exhausting. Strangely, Shin and Fuyumi found solace in conquering dungeons.
Toffins turned to Fuyumi and Nightingale and inspected them in the same manner.
---------
[Character Page]
[Nickname: [Fuyumi] | Level: 39 | Specialization: Bandit - Assassin | Profession: NONE]
[Attributes]
Strength: 15 | Agility: 75 | Intelligence: 12
---------
[Character Page]
[Nickname: [Nightingale] | Level: 34 | Specialization: Artificer - Elementalist | Profession: Processing]
[Attributes]
Strength: 12 | Agility: 11 | Intelligence: 68
---------
Toffins inspected each person down the adhoc line they formed. He walked back to the door and stood guard once more. Behind Shin's group was two other teams of adventurers. They waited anxiously for their turn.
"You all pass the inspection. You're free to enter Urumel."
Toffins slammed the head of his trident into the floor of the hall, rumbling the ground around him. The massive door behind him began to slowly swing open. On the other side was a set of stairs descending into darkness.
Shin and Geoff stepped forward as the leaders of the group and began walking down the stairs. Everyone's vision went out. Not even the slightest bit of light could be seen. After five seconds, they heard the door slam shut behind them and blue torches lit up along the right wall. All of their surroundings were tinted blue by the flames. They walked down the stairs slowly. Not knowing what to expect, Shin asked his new teammates.
"What should we expect to see first?"
"Well, our team has only reached the tenth floor. These first few floors leading up to the tenth are just hordes of skeletons and goblins. The skeletons reanimate after a while if you don't kill their master. There should be a shaman-like goblin that revives the skeletons. He's a little slippery since he likes to teleport around." Prezzo responded.
"I hate those bastards." Scottie added.
Malady stood at the back of the group. Her hands were already in a combat-ready position with an arrow nocked. She shook and jittered with each step she took. Prezzo, with his codex drawn, blew a small draft of wind at Malady's neck.
"Eeeek! Please don't do that! It's not funny, really."
"Haha! Your reactions never cease to disappoint me."
After walking down the stairs for what seemed like five minutes, a solid stone wall stood in their path. There was a square indent in the wall about the size of a hand.
"You lot ready for the first floor?" Geoff asked.
"I guess. Although we don't really have a strategy." Nightingale responded.
"No worries, we'll figure it out in the early floors. These first ones are really easy." Geoff reassured him.
"If you say so." Fuyumi added.
Geoff placed his hand on the wall and pushed it in. A dim light began to shine between the crack of the indent and the wall. The stone rumbled as it slid down into the floor revealing a doorway in the wall.
The wall opened up to a large cave with a dome-like roof. They stood on an elevated platform looking down at the entirety of the cave. To their right was a winding slope downwards to ground level. Bones and goblins were scattered throughout the floor of the cave alongside fire pits and tents. A raised platform similar to where they were standing was on the other side of the cave as well.
A goblin clad in robes and metal armor and a staff stood on the raised platform. It pointed its staff at the new invaders and yelled out unintelligibly. The bones on the floor assembled themselves into humanoid skeletons. Some of them picked up the remaining bones on the floor and turned them into makeshift clubs and bats. The remaining skeletons were handed bows by the goblins.
Hordes of skeletons and goblins began to rush toward the party.
"Ranged attackers stay on the platform. Scottie lead the charge with me! Fuyumi, assassinate their leader." Geoff gave orders as he leapt off the platform.
He slammed his hammer into the floor, creating cracks of holy light. Scottie followed after him, plunging his massive greatsword into the remaining horde of skeletons.
"Natural born leader, huh?" Fuyumi said as she jumped off after them.
She landed on a goblin, sinking her dagger into it. She snapped her fingers, creating a shadow clone before disappearing into black smoke.
Shin and Malady began firing arrows at the skeletons, thinning out the crowd. Nightingale and Prezzo began slinging various elemental spells at large groups of skeleton bowmen. Scottie and Geoff slowly advanced forward as they demolished the skeletons in their path.
Bones from the skeletons burst into pieces from the impact of hammers, swords, magic, and arrows. They started to reform into whole skeletons again behind the path that Geoff and Scottie cleared, surrounding them.
"Behind you! Stay back!" Shin yelled out.
Scottie turned around.
Shin clenched his hand into a fist.
"[Collapse]!"
The huge group of skeletons behind them collided into one another, turning into a mass of bones.
"[Surging Flame]!"
Shin looked to his side and saw a huge burst of fire erupting from Prezzo's codex.
The flames completely engulfed the skeletons, burning them into ash.
"Nice one!" Scottie yelled back with a thumbs up.
Meanwhile, Fuyumi and her clone rushed each goblin shaman, disposing of them quickly. The ashes from the burnt bones began to reform into a skeleton. However, they scattered into the winds of the battlefield as Fuyumi took out their respective shaman masters.
Shin hopped off the platform and began rapidly firing off arrows at the skeletons and goblins rushing toward him.
The remaining people on the platform were too distracted by the battle in front of them to see the reformed skeletons running up the slope toward them.
"Shit, look out!" Shin called out to them.
Malady noticed and shot a wind-charged arrow down the slope. The arrow pierced straight through the crowd, seemingly doing nothing. After a brief delay, a powerful gust of green-colored wind sent the charging group of skeletons flying off the slope.
Geoff and Scottie were about halfway through the room when the shaman on the platform slammed the end of his staff into the floor out of frustration. Its body suddenly went limp. Behind him was a cloud of icy mist. Fuyumi had impaled the shaman. She kicked the shaman's body to separate its body from her blade. The corpse fell off the platform and created a pool of purple blood on impact with the floor.