What the dungeon wanted was widely accepted to be nothing short of killing all the gods and people on the surface and this meant that any adventurer who delved was a target. Most of the time the dungeon followed a tried and true methodology and ruleset when dealing with adventurers but for select few scenarios it was understood that the dungeon might even go out of it's way to bend some of these rules. One such rule that was broken was if the dungeon determined that a monster was too helpful for an adventurer and thus prevented them from meeting them.-
This could be overcome of course if you were stubborn enough about what you were after since the dungeon still had to deal with other adventurers likely on the same floor but for casual delving like mine that wasn't something I was after. Last time i had harvested close to a hundred or so ants so the dungeon had decided that I shouldn't get that oppurtunity again. I didn't have any issue at all with that since just by going deeper I could go for quality rather than quantity of smoke.-
The eight to ninth floor had another décor change as the size of the rooms began to get bigger and the ceilings taller while moss grew along the walls. There were no new monsters on these floors but the ones from the previous floors appeared stronger here. Everything got faster and hit harder while also getting slightly smarter in how they fought. My stats were almost equal to a weak level two at the moment except in magic but since I wasn't using that at the moment it didn't matter. These were still level one monsters though so I had little issue smashing through them.-
Floor ten was were things got tricky for me as Needle rabbits, Orcs, Imps and Bad bats all start appearing and were all classified as high level one monsters that a normal level one needed at least B rank across the board to even attempt to fight. Needle rabbits were as the name implied rabbits with sharp horns on their head. They are fast and hard to spot in the misty terrain of the floor as they are white in color. Orcs were the first large class monster to appear in the dungeon standing over ten feet tall and being fat green skinned humanoid creatures with pig snouts, tusks and ears. -
They also used uprooted trees as weapons so obviously you don't need to be told what getting hit straight on by them might do to you. Imps were small thin red skinned humanoid demon creatures with small bat wings and a single sharp horn of their perpetually grinning heads. They were also known as dungeon thieves since they had a habit of trying to snatch bags or loosely held weapons while the adventurers were distracted. Finally there were the Bad bats that were just really annoying bats that swooped down randomly to cause problems since they stayed on the ceiling otherwise.-
None of these were a problem individually but the issue was that monsters never spawned alone on this and the next floors but rather in groups. Each group was also never smaller than three monsters so I had to stay on my toes on this floor. Orcs proved the most troublesome as their tall heights and long reaching weapons meant that I couldn't easily smash their skulls and be done with it. Those swung trees moved alarmingly fast and when there was more than one coming at you it was hard to do anything beyond dodge constantly.-
I eventually got used to the way things operated on this floor and got my first kills on these Orcs when they over extended their swings and left their knee caps open briefly.
"CRACK!"
The sound of my blunt end snapping the bones in the left leg of my target was music to my ears as I dodged the falling monster and his friends swings. Quickly dashing behind it I brought my weapon down on it's head that was now within reach and left that Orc dead.-
Monsters were ruthless though and the two remaining Orcs swung their weapon into the corpse trying to get me in the process but i had already move out of the way having expected it. The corpse exploded into smoke that got sucked into my tattoos as the heavy strikes crushed the magic stone. Using that brief window i dashed to the next Orc and swung the sharp end of my weapon across the right knee of the second orc, cutting through it like butter. My new weapon was badass and these monsters didn't stand a chance against it.-
Blood sprayed out of the wound and the Orc roared in pain for a moment before it's friend struck it with it's tree trying to hit me and only completely crippling the orc instead. Movement is key in the dungeon, a fact I had learned and made sure I implemented constantly. If you stand still for more than a moment you become vulnerable to attacks. The final Orc was dispatched shortly after that and I got to harvesting my spoils while maintaining my vigilance. This floor and the two after it were well known as the place that most robberies happened and I preferred not getting taken by surprise.-
Reason being that these floors were deep enough that adventurers were now worth robbing and that the constant mist made it easy to set up ambushes. Add these things together and well you can figure out why it's not recommended to come here alone. To be fair though it's not recommended to delve alone either but people still do that so it is what it is. I myself was a poor target for robbing as I didn't wear armor and was constantly vigilant. Not to mention after watching me dismantle Orcs without getting even a little winded showed I wasn't some soft target that wouldn't fight back.-
So while I wasn't concerned about getting robbed i was still paranoid enough not to take that for granted. I hunted down another set of Orcs and some needle rabbits that decided today was a good day to die as well before calling it for the day. I earned Thirteen thousand valis from my loot which showed that the deeper you went the more valuable loot was. Rose was a little upset at me for going that deep alone but after I showed her that I was without anything more than a few cuts and bruises from near misses and dodges she left it at scolding me for my recklessness.-
I loved how walking through the dungeon square no longer smelled of blood, sweat and other unpleasantness thanks to the new potions that had taken the city by storm. The potions worked so well and were so popular that even Ishtar had commissioned perfumed and airborne versions that she used in her brothels to remove that particular stench from them without burning an ungodly amount of stupidly strong incense. I only know this because Naaza complained to me about it when I went to drop off my vials and get more potions.