After the meal was finished and the supplies were packed away, Karl sat down next to Prince Corbin, but facing the opposite door, so they could start their watch, which Karl honestly didn’t expect to be anything but dull.
They were inside what appeared to be an enchanted tunnel system, and the only other room down the hall was sealed. If anything happened, it would be this one resetting, and if it happened on his watch, it would be a real pain, as they were still exhausted and mentally drained.
At first, neither of them said anything, they just silently watched their doors while everyone fell asleep. They had all zipped their backpacks into the sleeping bags with them, in case the trial activated, so they didn’t end up leaving anything they might need on the outside.
This one had been a three-hour-long nightmare, and they had nearly depleted their water and snacks before the clerics had restocked everyone at dinner.
Once the others were asleep, Corbin turned his attention to Karl.
“You know, you’re getting incredibly close to the Commander Rank, and I’m certain after that last instance that your spider is already there. Are you sure that you want to report that to the Church? They’re the masters of guilt-tripping people into doing their bidding.” The Prince whispered, knowing that Karl’s hearing was extremely sensitive.
“Do you actually think that they won’t know? There are two clerics with us that are moving through the Ascended Rank at breakneck pace, and last I heard the High Priests were considering having an Oracle look in on us.” Karl whispered back.
“Good point. Just saying, there are other factions to consider other than the Church.”
Karl smiled. “Like the Bureau of Elite Development? Who do you think Alice works for?”
Corbin sighed and shook his head. “You grew too fast, and you likely haven’t even learned the polite and effective ways to say no to them yet. Commander is a big change, and if you don’t stand up and demand the respect that goes with the rank when you get it, you’ll find yourself in the suck, on terrible borderline suicide missions until one of them really is a suicide mission.”
Karl nodded. “I’m bad at saying no to people when I get the puppy eyes from them. I will have to work on it, I guess. I just didn’t expect everything to come at me so fast, you know? I’m still in my freshman year, it’s only been a few months since the Divine Injection.”
Corbin did a double take. “You’re a freshman? I thought you were a baby-faced Junior, a Third Year student.”
Karl shook his head. “No, both me and Dana started school at the same time.”
The Royal Rank mage looked between the two and nodded. “Her I could see being the prodigy of the first year. She’s at that mid to late Awakened Rank point that comes with a load of resources at the start of the freshman year.
I will talk to her later as well, make sure she doesn’t fall for the big push that burns potential for speed. She’s got it in her to go far if she just keeps grinding at it.
You two are good friends, so you might be able to look out for her after you advance again.”
Karl nodded. “I will do what I can.”
The two fell into comfortable silence, and when Corbin’s watch blinked a few hours later, he went to wake up the next team.
Karl was awoken some time in the early morning by a gust of warm air on his face that had him instantly opening his eyes and preparing for battle. But it was just a gust of hot air from the morning meal being prepared, and he relaxed again, then summoned his armour to instantly get dressed.
The morning meal was oatmeal and diced fruit, which was absently devoured while everyone discussed the plan for the day.
“It seems likely that every major room we come across is going to have a challenge in it, so if one of them takes an inordinate amount of time, we will call it a day, no matter where we are.
We got through three rooms yesterday, and ideally, we would be able to do that again today, but I’m not willing to have anyone overextend themselves and end up dead.” Corbin announced.
His team, himself included, had taken multiple beatings yesterday, so his cautions made sense, even if it meant that they would be exploring the area at a crawl.
“Aren’t we going to try the first fight over again and get out of here?” Darryl asked, somewhat sullenly.
“With the rewards we got from that last battle? I don’t think so. We will search this place, fight as much as we must, and perhaps you can go home Ascended. This isn’t the sort of resource that comes along often, with multiple challenges all giving rewards.
It’s somewhat like gaining access to a dozen challenges at the same time, we just have to fight our way through.
There is also a major source of magical energy somewhere in this mountain, and after what we have seen, I have reason to think that it might be one of the lost Divine Dungeons, the original repeatable challenges that the World Dragon set up for the first people to train.”
Tessa and Lotus looked shocked, while the younger members just looked confused, other than Karl, who knew the history already.
“Aren’t those a myth?” Rose asked.
Corbin shrugged. “Maybe, but I can say for certain that they exist. It’s just not clear where they came from.”
A trial dungeon more intense than what they had found? That last fight yesterday had been intense enough. Or perhaps it just gave better rewards. That would be nice.
Karl led the group out of the room this time, and everyone was a bit more relaxed with Thor covering them all in Refreshing Lightning. Not only for the defensive benefits, but for the fact that it kept their stamina refreshed and their minds relaxed.
The hallway wound down through the mountain for some time, with no sign of other rooms, until Karl heard an echo below them.
“There is a cavern beneath us. We’re nearly underneath where we started. Somewhere between the first and second trial rooms. If we keep following this tunnel down, we should end up in the cavern soon.” He quietly informed the others.
“Alright. Are you certain about the positioning?” Alice asked.
“I grew up in the mines. I have an excellent sense of direction underground. With the curve in the tunnel and the slope, I say two hundred more metres.” Karl replied.
The echo and the sound of something banging became audible to everyone over the next hundred metres, then the faint blue bioluminescence lit up the mouth of the tunnel as it reached the cave.
Karl dropped to the ground and crawled to the last corner, with Rae hovering above him. The tunnel opened fifteen metres up the wall of a massive cavern, complete with its own biome full of fungi, grasses, and some sort of bipedal creature.
Karl focused on them, and did his best to get perfect details.
They looked like elves, but with ashy black skin, white hair, and glowing violet eyes. They had a whole city down there, made of the black stones of the cavern, and on the far side from where the tunnel ended, there was a massive glowing portal twenty metres tall.
Karl went back and relayed the information to the others, who were even more concerned than he was. They sounded like elves, and the species was known to be temperamental at the best of times, but if they were some sort of mutated monster version of the Elves, like the Red Goblins were to regular Goblins, they could be in real trouble.
Their group certainly wouldn’t be able to take on a whole village, and they didn’t want to leave that portal behind.
“So, what do we do? Is there a chance we can sneak through the less populated areas?” Karl asked.
“They’re Elves, they will know right away if someone touches their plants. I doubt it will be possible to sneak past them.” Lotus sighed.
“Then what do we do?” Alice sighed, looking toward the end of the tunnel. If that really was a dungeon portal, she wanted to go in.
