The boys headed through the giant doors, the room inside was exactly as the book described it. There were seat, bench and tables that had different parties of adventurers around them. The parties all had different team compositions some had archers, some had people specifically looking for traps as well as some people with swords, daggers, etc despite the variety of people they were all preparing for the dungeon. This made Thrain kind of nervous but he trusted the preparations they had made at home. Other than the adventurers the main focal point of the room was the huge circular stair case that seemed to lead into the abyss. Thrain gulped seeing this but headed inside anyway.
BANG
The giant doors slammed shut behind them, startling Thrain a bit. Before they decided to descend down the stairs the boys wanted to try to talk with some of the other adventurers to see if they had any more intel about the Dungeon. After around fifteen minutes or so they found out that it was the complete opposite, most of the other adventurers hadn't even read anything on Dungeon besides the stories of the adventures that took place. The plan of the other adventurers was to simply brute force there way through the Dungeon until they reached the boss room. "That was a bust" Thrain sighed, hoping he would've at least gotten some useful information out of them. "Do we need to prepare anything more or are we all set to head in" Thorin said in a bit of an impatient tone. "Nope, we're all set". The boys walked to the the stair case that descended deep into the abyss.
A shiver ran down Thrains spine "Here we go". They both went down the stairs making sure that they went down at the same time.
Going down the stairs felt weird and almost alien to Thrain, there wasn't even a gust of wind and the only sounds that could be heard at all was the sounds of the feet hitting the stair and there breath that was getting slightly weaker the more they went down. This continued on for a while, as they got increasingly deeper Thrain started to panic more and more.
"The air changed" Thrain stated as they went deeper, a little more deeper and the stone that surrounded them suddenly changed to a type of stone bricks. "I think we finally made it to the First floor" Thrain started to draw his sword and shield just in case. Thorin following his lead.
The stair case had opened up into a long corridor, Thrain felt relieved he could at least feel the air moving around him again. The corridor was long and lined with lanterns with some additional decorations all over. The boys proceeded cautiously down the corridor making sure not to accidently touch anything that could trigger a trap or alert an enemy to there position.
They eventually reached the end of the corridor without anything happening and let their guards down a little bit. The corridor was connected to a room that was about the size of small tavern. The room had a couple of seats an a huge ornate chandelier in the middle. Thrain assumed this had to be a waiting room, by now Thrain could also tell what the first floors structure was. He was certain it was based off an old castle.
The waiting room didn't seem to have anything of importance and was kind of boring, Thrain could see the excitement draining out of Thorin's face. Seeing this he pointed out that there was three different corridors that they could explore and let Thorin choose which path to head down.
Thorin without a hint of hesitation went to the right most path. Thrain laughed at how simple his brother was sometimes. Going down the right path, the corridor seemed almost identical to the pervious one except for one key difference. Along this corridor there was a side room. It seemed to be extremely old and untouched due to this the door was barely hanging on by its hinges. "Wait" Thrain whispered to Thorin as he walked carefully up to the door to look through some of the holes that were in it.
The room in contrast with the door was very run down. From what Thrain could see it was most likely a dinning room because of the massive table in the centre that had numerous holes and bit of damage on it with piles of wood surrounding it. Thrain looked closer at the pile of woods he could also see bones that were mixed in with the wood, what surprised him though was that there wasnt any smells that came off it meaning they must have been extremely old. Thorin peaked over Thrain shoulders "I wonder what could have done this?". ""I hope we don't find out" Thrain said back to him with a slight panic in his voice. Besides that there was one more intriguing thing in the room that was another door that was just as damaged as the first one. "Well there is still one more door, guess we should check it out".
The boys checked out the room. "Obviously it would have been a kitchen why didn't I think of that!" Thrain smacked his forehead groaning. The kitchen had no food or anything of importance in it. "Well that was a bust, no enemies no trap worst dungeon ever" Thorin stated with some annoyance in his tone. After checking out the two pointless room they continued down the hall way a little more cautiously again. At the end of a hall way, Thrain scratched his head in thought this was the exact same as the first room they were in. A waiting area with a couple of seats with the same amount of branching corridors as well.
Thrain pulled out a piece of paper and started drawing a map based on where they had been. It seems most likely that the corridor to his left and straight ahead of him would take them back to the first waiting room and the right room would lead to the next section or the next floor. Thrain explained this to Thorin and they both came to the agreement that they should fully explore this area first. Thorin started to walk to the left room this time but as he was walking Thrain said "You got to choose the last time, this time we are going to go straight". "Fine, Fine" Thorin retorted.
This time the corridor had around seven doors, the first six had the same broken down look as the doors connecting to the dinning room and kitchen. Except for the seventh, it wasn't as damaged, still fairly beaten up but not nearly as much as the other six doors. They decided to leave the best looking door for last.
Then once again Thrain looked through The first broken door. This time instead of a dinning room and kitchen it seemed to be a small bedroom enough to fit one maybe even two people in it. The rooms consisted of a bed or at least what used to be a bed, a wardrobe built into the wall, and a desk. Seemed harmless enough so they entered. Upon closer inspection there was a pile of bones mixed in with the broken bed scrapes.
Thrain started to form a theory, thinking that it must be a natural disaster or something that could kill countless people in a couple of seconds. Since most of the piles of bones so far felt as though they were just living there daily lives then suddenly poof they were just a pile of bones. At this point though it was just a theory.
"GOLD!" Thorin cheerfully yelled pulling Thrain away from his thoughts. He looked over "Where did you find it?". "In a pouch. It was just sitting in the desk" still with a cheerful tone. Thrain looked at the pouch there was no signs of wear and tear. It must be some type of really durable material to survive whatever happened in this place. Thrain pulled out his own sack and threw the pouch in it so that they could carry it with them. Then gave it to Thorin to do the heavy lifting. The other 5 broken down doors were about the same but they managed to get another 2 more pouches of gold.
Thrain and Thorin's hearts could be heard thumping in there chest. It was time for the well kept door. This time however Thrain couldn't look through the holes in the door since it had none. So instead he placed his hand on the doorknob slowly and gently signalling for Thorin to be ready to attack just encase. Thorin now prepared, Thrain opened the door trying not to make a sliver of sound. Peering through the slightly opened door it just seemed to be the same as the others but one key difference being nothing was decayed it was just a bit wore out.
So they entered the room and started searching it, there was no way that the room would be this well kept under these circumstances without a reason. "I found something!" both the boys exclaimed at the same time. They came together to show there findings. First was Thorin he had found a huge pouch of gold about 3 times the size of the previous pouches as well as some armour and weapons in the wardrobe. While Thrain had found a notebook? The note book was perfectly preserved.
Thrain looked at the cover it read Sir Kurgif's journal. Thrain trying to contain his excitement he went to open it.