The Forgotten Legacy

It didn’t take long to get to the dungeons, it was easy to follow the signs from the shops, down a hallway and after only a few minutes they had made it. The area around the stores had been decently busy, maybe a few hundred people were there, either browsing, eating or just walking around with people they knew. The dungeon area was different through, there were still a few hundred people around but it felt much higher given they were in a smaller space. Their entrance to the dungeon area did not go unnoticed, several groups of people caught sight of him and started turning his way, he paid them no notice though and walked up to the dungeon entrances.

“Hi there, it took you long enough to show up!” Turning around to the person who had just spoken, he saw a woman walk up to him, she was just shorter than he was, had blonde hair that had been dyed red on the ends and had a bow on her back. “I’m Louisa, number 5. And you are Shaun, the current number 1! I have been hoping to find you around.”

“Ummmm, hi?” How the hell does someone reply to that! Louisa had a lot of energy and came across as nice enough, although maybe a little pushy, but he wasn’t going to be rude, she hadn’t done anything to deserve a cold response, yet.

“Hehe, Your cute! I didn’t expect that.” Shaun felt himself start to go red, he tried to stop it but there was no way to hold it back. Behind him both Gabe and Eric were giggling like schoolgirls, watching the train wreck of a situation that he had found himself in.

“Thanks? I think?” How do I get out of here? Dungeon! Run into a dungeon! “I am going to check out the dungeons now.”

“What a great idea! Let me show you around!” Louisa wrapped her arm around his and started guiding him towards the three dungeons, he looked back at Eric and Gabe who were holding back their laughter, they would be pointless in helping him get out of this situation.

As they walked closer, people seemed to clear the way for them, anyone who was in between them and the dungeons quickly found somewhere else to move to, creating an unimpeded path forward. When he looked closer at the people present he found that they had a tinge of fear in their eyes, that or they looked at him with open distaste. Quickly checking everyone’s levels they varied from people being in the low twenties up into the high twenties, with Louisa being the only person at level 29. That meant that between first place, being him, and fifth place, being Louisa, there was a 3 level gap, and although that didn’t sound like much, the gap between Louisa, and Gabe and Eric who were in the 300’s, was only 5 levels.

It didn’t take long until they were standing in front of the first dungeon, and as expected he received the welcome message.

*Welcome to the Peak F grade Wave Dungeon*

The dungeon will send continuous waves of monsters, not stopping until the participants have declared ‘I give up’. The monsters will start at mid F grade with the strongest reaching to the E grade.

Reward dependant on waves completed and adjusted according to number of participants within dungeon.

Four participant located, would you like to enter the dungeon?

“You got the message?” Louisa asked him. He just nodded back after reading it, this dungeon would be near pointless for him, given that the monsters only went up to level 25, being the start of E grade. “Good, but that’s not really why I brought you to this dungeon first, you see over on that wall?” She pointed at the wall behind all of the dungeons, on it was three boards, the first two having names on them while the last was oddly blank. Beside each name was a number, starting at 1 and going down to 100, while next to that was another number, this time with the amount of waves cleared. “Each of those boards show the ranking of the best performers in each dungeon, the higher you rank the better the reward.”

The amount of waves cleared on the first board was pretty low in his opinion, it only reached about 30, if he was to do the dungeon he imagined that he would be able to complete more, but the idea of fighting weak monsters was rather unappealing, the higher levelled people probably thought the same thing. On the second board there was a lot less names and the waves cleared was also much smaller, the number one spot was held by Rodger Jacobs, the number three if he remembered correctly, and he had only completed 7 waves. The last board was blank, either no one had gone in or they hadn’t managed to complete a wave before giving up.

“Now moving on to the second dungeon, is exactly the same as the first but instead of peak F grade it is Low E grade. We aren’t sure how high the level goes but Rodger went in and said that they start at level 25 and by the 7th wave they were in the low 30’s. He went in with his team as well, and they were all strong.” Louisa stopped then and looked at Eric and Gabe. “Stronger than your team at least.”

Gabe laughed at this, loud enough for everyone to hear, which caused a stir among those present, even causing Louisa to drop her usual joyful and happy expression and give him a bit of a dirty look.

“What’s so funny? It wasn’t a joke.” She directed at Gabe.

“Oh, we aren’t part of his team!” Gabe replied, “Haven’t been for a while, but we are friends.”

That caused Louisa to turn back to Shaun, “Where is your team then?” This caused more laughter from Gabe, even Eric let out a little chuckle.

“No team.” He told her, and everyone listening for that matter. “I fight alone.” That caused everyone to break out in whispers, some saying that he was lying and his team just didn’t make it to this stage, others saying he had killed them. Louisa though just looked at him, dumbfounded at the statement he just made.

“That explains the high level. How did you manage to get all of this way alone though?” She has curious, and as she said this, she had also moved her hand onto his arm, rubbing it up and down, making him want to run into the dungeon at that very moment. “You must have been so lonely, but not anymore, because I’m here now.”

“Yeah, uh no.” He backed away a few steps. “I like fighting alone. Sorry but it’s just easier, I don’t have to look after others when I fight and don’t have to take into consideration protecting others.”

“So you think you too good for a team? You think you can do better than Rodger, who had 4 others helping him, in the dungeon?” She hadn’t moved closer to him, in fact she was no longer giving him a lustful look at all, instead she seemed almost angry at him, like he had said something that had offended her.

“I don’t know. Won’t know until I try I guess.” Why is this turning into some weird competition between me and a guy who isn’t even here?

“Well go on in, lets see if you can live up to all of the hype of being number 1. We are all dying to find out what the big bad Shaun was to offer.” This got the crowd going, many egging him on or cheering for him to go in. “I will even do you a deal cutie.” God now we are back to the flirting. “If you beat Rodger on the leader board for the dungeon you get to spend the entire night with me.” She said with a wink. “Something to keep you motivated in there.”

He gave one last look at Gabe and Eric, but they were not going to be any help, they just smiled at him and gave him a thumbs up. I came here to do a dungeon anyway. May as well get it over with.

Turning back to Louisa he asked “How long did it take Rodger to get to the 7th wave?”

“That’s the cool thing about these dungeons, it doesn’t matter how long you spend inside, you will always appear back 30 minutes after you enter the dungeon, doesn’t matter if you do 1 wave for 20, it will always be 30 minutes.”

That would be very, very helpful. He expected that he would be spending hours, if not full days in the dungeons, but if it would only be 30 minutes, even if it felt like much longer, it would mean he could get a lot more done with both his crafting and research.

Turning to Gabe and Eric he decided to give them an offer. “If you guys are going to do a dungeon, want to go in first and I will wait a few minutes then enter? Means you will be out before me.”

They exchanged a look with each other and agreed, deciding they would go into the peak F grade dungeon first so that they could get enough experience and hit level 25. They both entered the dungeon with little fan fair, which he couldn’t deny he was jealous of, he hated the crowds and the attention, yet it seemed he wasn’t able to avoid it. After a few minutes, where Louisa was thankfully silent, he stepped forward to the dungeon entrance.

*Welcome to the Low E grade Wave Dungeon*

The dungeon will send continuous waves of monsters, not stopping until the participants have declared ‘I give up’. The monsters will start at Level 25 with the strongest reaching to the middle of E grade.

Reward dependant on waves completed and adjusted according to number of participants within dungeon.

One participant located, would you like to enter the dungeon?

Yes! Anything to get me out of here! As soon as he accepted he was immediately pulled through space and into the dungeon, appearing a an open barren field with nothing around him but dirt and sky. There was no trace of anything living in the area but he assumed that that would change pretty quickly.

*Wave 1 Commencing*

And with that he was ready to begin. Out of nowhere he felt five monsters appear, all in front of him, only about 50 metres from where he was standing.

*Soldier Ant – Level 25*

As expected they were level 25, the monsters were the same height as him though but didn’t seem overly threatening. There were three things he wanted to accomplish in this dungeon run, the first and most important was getting used to the gauntlet. The second, beating Rodger on the leader board, third was getting loot to sell.

He had a number of spells that he wanted to try using through his gauntlet, the first being unleashing an elemental strike using each of the five elements. Then he wanted to test how the shield would work as well as the healing spell he had enchanted into it. Lastly, he wanted to use his normal elemental affinities through the gauntlet, standard things he would usually do without it, like a fireball.

He hadn’t been able to fill the gem up fully with mana, really he had only put about 1000 mana into it so far, so he didn’t want to rely on it for the dungeon, instead he channelled his mana into the gauntlet through the gem, powering up a fire strike. He also extended out his claws, acting as blades for any attacks he wanted to use that needed to start from bladed weapons. When he had put enough mana into the fire strike he sliced the gauntlet through the air, letting the attack move through the air at the lead ant.

This wasn’t his first time fighting a level 25 monster, in fact he had done so a few times before, but if he was to base his strength against the last monster at this level he would say he was over powered in comparison, and that was reflected in the end result of his attack. When his fire strike hit the ant, the resulting blast was enough to not only fully engulf it in flames but also hit the two monsters closest to it. The attack had been stronger than expected, especially considering he hadn’t put that much mana into the attack. The first attack with the gauntlet had been a success, the orb he had merged into it effectively reduced mana cost and increased the power of the attack to the point that it had the same effect as a normal elemental strike of twice the mana use.

The ant he had hit was dead, there was no denying that, and the two others who had been close to the blast were also considerably hurt. The fire strike was a success, moving on to element number two, air. Shaun powered up his second attack for an air strike, using exactly the same amount of mana as he had with fire so he could get a good comparison. When he launched this attack the ants were considerably closer, choosing one that was unharmed for his next strike, when it hit the ant was completely ripped into pieces, as if the air had condensed down into a physical blade. Damn, that’s two down, only three to go.

As the ants were now close enough to attack him, he decided that he would take to the air, forming solid air platforms under his feet he ran up and out of reach, at the same time powering his third attack, an earthen strike. The results were as expected, the ant he had aimed at was completely crushed under the power of the strike, crushing its outer shell and flattening it into the ground. Not wanting to delay he followed up with a water strike which ended up splitting the ant in half due to the amount of pressure from the water, and finally finished the last monster with a nature strike. The nature strike did the least amount of damage of all the elements, but still it had killed the already weakened ant, although barely.

*You have defeated a (Soldier Ant – Lvl 25). Experience gained. 1000 TE awarded*

………………………………………………………………………………………………

*You have defeated a (Soldier Ant – Lvl 25). Experience gained. 1000 TE awarded*

He hadn’t gotten any levels, but he hadn’t expected to. He was level 32 and these ants were only level 25. He knew they would get stronger though, and he may be able to get a level or two out of this dungeon run.

*Wave 1 Completed – Wave 2 starting in 1 minute*

He didn’t waste any time running to all of the ants and looting them, he got ant chitin, which was really just the hard shell pieces, nothing exciting but better than nothing.

He had used about 10% of his entire mana supply in the fight, not too bad but also kind of wasteful considering the strength of the monsters, but it was worth it to see just how strong the attacks with the gauntlet were.

*Wave 2 Commencing*

I really only need to do 7 more waves to beat Rodger, but what a waste of a dungeon run if I don’t try aiming higher. With that he took the sword from its sheath and got ready to fight.