Telonio descends downwards towards the tunnel of the Rat Eater dungeon, not a single monster in sight. He walks, and walks, and walks some more. "This is quite a weird dungeon." Telonio wondered to himself. He sees nothing but long rocky tunnels, at most a few meters in radius. No torches hung on the walls, and no rats anywhere. Soon, the tunnels began stretching into multiple directions, but he solves this by simply carving small holes on the right side to not get lost. At least 20 minutes has passed, yet he sees nothing but tunnels and tunnels, but he remains calm, sketching the map as he goes. It was so quiet…too quiet for even abandoned tunnels. No sounds of bats or even insects… But soon he spots a small faint of light: a torch. Rat monsters or just rats in general cannot see in complete darkness, as they require generations of development. Blowing out his own torch, Telonio slowly crotches his way to the torch, scanning for nearby monsters. Two rats, both wearing an assortment of iron and chain armor, spears in their hands. "Those bastards are taller than I thought." He thinks to himself. Even as an abnormal goblin Telonio is already well over 2 meters, so it was strange seeing monsters of the same height as him. Now for any regular adventurer, this is where they draw the line, but Telonio didn't reach diamond rank by those standards. He opens his backpack, taking out a small crossbow. Loading it with an arrow, he aims… and pulls the trigger. Swish! The arrow hits one of the rat monster's neck, instantly killing him. "Kaa! Uother-'' The other rat tries screaming, but his life soon flashes before his eyes just like his friend. Telonio has thrown his greatsword like a spear, striking both the rat's neck and the door to what looks like a storage room. "My accuracy is as accurate as always…" Telonio said with pride as he pulls out the greatsword. "I'll dig out the manastone later." He said, pushing the rat monster aside; it's blood splattering everywhere. Why is Telonio so insistent on going inside? Goblin's are known for being extremely greedy, as if it's been permanently imbued into their blood. This includes Telonio, especially back during his bronze and iron rank days.
The set of double doors couldn't really be called doors, as they are more of just a tree trunk cut in halves of each other. Pushing one aside, I entered the small room, and there, I was blinded by riches. Low rank manaflowers stacked so high they almost see eye to eye with me, a way smaller pile of high rank manaflowers next to it. "Jackpot…" I whipped to myself. Just in case of situations like these, I always carry a few spare empty burlap bags and sacks. I must have stopped resisting my instincts for a moment, because I didn't stop till I gotten every last ore and manaflower. "Hey! Hellooo?!" A voice echoes within the small cave. I turned up from the ground and there I saw it, a dwarf? "Oh thank Giai! I thought you were gonna leave me for dead!" The dwarf said with a heavy sign. "What? What are you talking about?" I ask in confusion, walking up to him. This dwarf can't be taller than 1.4 meters, my body towering over him. "Just get me out of here…" He said, too tired to talk more. For some strange reason, this dwarf was left in the storage room, tied up with so many metal chains nailed to the wall he looks like a cocoon. Believing him to not be a possible threat to me, I cut off the chains with my greatsword, catching him as he almost toppled to the ground. "I can't afford to protect you right now." I said, handing him some of the iron-wolf meat. The dwarf quickly takes the drumstick and seeing that it's raw, applies some fire magic. The heat around his hand soon cooks the drumstick to a tender brown shade. "So, care to explain to me how you got here?" I ask, taking a seat on the cold rock floor. "Oh yes, introductions." The dwarf said, taking a bite. "Name's Thurium Strongback, gold rank adventurer." "Telonio, diamond rank adventurer. Now, why and how were you…captured here?" Thurium thinks to himself before speaking: "As a dwarf most of us tend to have instincts to mine precious ores to turn them to armor and weapons, and I was none the wiser. During times I wasn't taking quests, I mine mostly iron, mithril, crystal you know it. So just yesterday I found a small patch of precious adamantite! But it seems like It was too close to this dungeon, as these rat bastards found me before I could finish mining!" He then went on to explain how he fought and killed a decent amount of them with his fire magic and weapon, but was overwhelmed by their numbers and the cramped tunnels. "I was then captured by these rats, and these bastards were probably gonna use me as a slave had you not come!" He says as he takes another bite. "Thank Giai it's only been a few hours and not weeks." "Where's your equipment?" "Over here." "Thurium said standing up and walking over to a corner, piles of ores of iron and gold stacked across the rocky wall. Reaching his hand inside, he pulls out a brown leather backpack almost his size. "I doubt you came to this dungeon to solo raid it, so what sort of quest is it?" Thurium asks as he pulls out some glittering iron armor, along with an adamantite axe.
"Hang on a moment, you have enhanced iron armor?" I asked, slightly surprised. Armors can only be enhanced by professional enchanters from well known guilds or kingdoms, just enhancing leather can make them as strong as iron! "Why yes!" Thurium said in a sarcastic tone. "I had to suck up a lot to that god damn dragonborn for him to give me a slight discount! It was way too expensive I tell you that! Those damn enhancers are nothing but born scammers!" Thurium states as the adamantite axe within his hand starts shaking a little. "Now, what quest are you currently doing? Perhaps I can help." "Exploration quest, it's asking for a full map of this dungeon." "Well you're lucky today friend, give me it." Handing him the map, Thurium starts sketching all round it, talking as he draws. "When I first got captured they let the newbies handle me, so I ended up being dragged everywhere until here. "Every room?" "Almost every room, even the new ones didn't go into a strange set of double iron doors, probably the boss room." I stood there, waiting for him to finish sketching as I checked my watch; 1:43. "I'll take your word for it, so let's get out of here before the rats wake up in a few hours." "Alright friend, here." Thurium hands me the map, now fully drawn in details of the floors within the dungeon. My eyes opened slightly more in surprise. Even with my armor covering my entire body from head to toe, the dwarf is good at reading moods. "I've been blessed with what you human's call "Perfect Memory", so it makes learning things easier. Now shall we go?" "...yes, let's go." We walked out of the small cellar, the heavy sacks of manaflowers and such tied onto my backpack. And no I didn't forget to extract the manastones from the two rats.
Thurium led the way, as his memory cannot lie to him. It was a smooth run, with no double take backs and such like it would have been with me. But it seems like Lady Luck is not on our side…