"Damn that lanky fucker" two young men stood in front of the dungeon entrance, one cursing Louis as he took a look inside.
This place was pitch black, only pure darkness laid beyond, while this was giving them the heebie-jeebies, the two guild workers with their asses screwed to their chairs had warned them about this.
What truly aggravated Zola and Saul was the fact that they had left out the fact that it reeked of death in there! They could smell it even from the outside, with a strong breeze blowing through, the stench of rot was assaulting their nostrils with extreme prejudice.
The hair inside of their noses was shrinking and moving back as if a flame had been brought before them.
The two brothers looked truly alike, despite not being twins, they could definitely be mistaken as so, only accentuating their physical similarities, was the fact that they both wore what was pretty much the same clothing.
A nasal helm resting on each of their heads and wearing the same grey thick gambeson, only difference in equipment beyond their weapon of choices.
Zola carried a longsword and Saul was armed with a shortsword and round, wooden shield.
Their arms were in a much better state than that of the majority of other adventurers.
There was nothing around Throdqdmond that they couldn't cut down, still, they felt apprehensive about entering a genuine dungeon, even if Frank and Louis seemed convinced that the unknown monster wasn't as fierce as Eppie had described, the two had never ventured in a dungeon.
Also, they trusted more in the words of a fellow adventurer than the two guys that had probably never swung a blade sharper than that of a butter knife.
"Let's go, I guess…" Saul sighed, unlike his brother, he was resigned to his fate of venturing into the dungeon of stink.
Zola followed quickly after, together, they entered inside, engulfed by the worst smell they had ever had to endure, they would have to take long baths to hope to be freed from its grasp after they were done in here.
It was so bad that even when keeping their mouths shut, they could still taste it through the smell, making them gag and feel their stomach constraining.
"Be careful, there might be more dangers than expected" Saul spoke with his hand over his mouth whilst Zola shuffled with a somewhat diamond shaped object, having a hard time injecting his mana inside of the item.
When he finally managed the basic manoeuvre, the small thing, no bigger than a pebble was suddenly illuminated and rose up in the air, shining a bright light that was so brilliant, the two men needed some time to adapt to it.
The inside was exactly as they had been described, not willing to stay in there any longer than needed, the brothers went on the move, Saul had a piece of paper stuck on the inside of his shield, he was going to draw a map as they moved.
Mapping was right up his alley, it wasn't going to be anything fancy, but considering the place they were in, it wouldn't have been even if he was a map making genius.
They might be feeling like hurrying, but now wasn't the time to be hasty, they had agreed to the job, even if against their will, they were going to do it properly since the two frickers at the guild had the merit of not being scrooges at least.
And also Louis had put a ring on their sister's finger.
They moved steadily, following the unbreakable rule of maze-running:
'Always follow the wall to your right'
Bizarre how widespread it was despite on one in the surrounding areas having ever encountered any form of labyrinth.
They moved for a few hours, making steady progress, taking a break to eat some dry food they had brought, with much difficulty considering the ambient stench was refusing to yield, no matter how long they were staying, it wasn't getting any better.
It was as if a bunch of corpses had begun rotting but had also all let their bowels fulfil their purposes one last time beforehand.
Truly vile, definitely something they wouldn't forget before a long while.
The two brothers were careful about the ceiling in particular, they had been made aware of the fact that the monster seemed to be moving through some sort of crawl space up above, each hole was a source of apprehension for them.
They didn't possess the same hearing acuity as the redhead, so they couldn't simply rely on sounds, there was no telling if the monster wasn't simply lying in wait, ready to pounce on unsuspecting victims at the slightest signs of inattention.
Nothing happened.
Saul and Zola were able to go around the entirety of the floor and loop right back toward the entrance by following the wall to their right, it took them quite a long time, but they were used to lengthy quests of this sort.
Saul had mapped everything, they had gone right past the flooded passage but had obviously not dared to step in.
They had failed to locate where the absurd reek was coming from, nothing showed any signs of rot, the water had been dark, but certainly not infested with filth.
Without any sightings or suspicious sounds, the monster was also left unfound.
Perhaps it had left the confines of the dungeon.
It was more likely that it had simply stayed silent, probably above the ceiling, or hidden under the water.
It also seemed likely that the terrible smell also came from it, or was hidden too.
No amount of money could convince either of them of sticking their heads up there however, it only took the monster to be right there and it would have full access to one of the most prominent weak points of the human body.
Also, it was probably impossibly cramped up there, impossible to move fluidly and even more so swinging a blade.
The two of them were just about to exit when the sound of something falling down in the hallway across the exit.
A figure garbed in a tattered cloak stumbled forward into the light casted by the floating diamond before collapsing head first onto the ground with a thud.