Dungeons Online

"Is everything ready?" Tom turned his face towards Marvin as soon as he entered the tunnel. 

"Not yet," the young man replied with a slight frown. "Gathering everything of use can take time, you know?" he threw before resting his back against the rough surface of the dugout. 

"I didn't ask to imply blaming you," Tom muttered before shaking his head. "Well, it doesn't matter if it will happen a few minutes later or earlier," he added, turning his eyes towards the depths of the hole.

'It was a pain to come this way,' Tom thought, recalling the events he had to go through once emerging from the dungeon. 

'Not only did I have to fight with that girl again, not only I had to somehow sneak out from the middle of the most important place of the entire damned online hub, but I even had to dig half of the tunnel away with my very hands,' he thought, allowing the anger caused by all those troubles to take over his thoughts for a moment. 

He allowed this negative feeling to persist only for a short moment, though. 'I guess they had their reasons to do that,' Tom thought, staring at the loosely uncovered path that led all the way to the insides of the dome.

"It's nice to see you again, son," Marvin's father entered the tunnel, meeting with Tom for the first time since the vengeance raid at the motorbike shop. 

"I'm glad to see you in good health too, sir," Tom replied as his lips formed a gentle smile. 

In the absence of a father of his own, this middle-aged man turned into the fatherly figure for him... for a short period of time before he was sent off to a big city in order to enroll in a good school.

'Back in the days, I blamed him for sending me off like that, but now...?' Tom thought before shaking his head. 'Yeah, I still blame him. I guess he just couldn't be bothered with me,' he added as he kept his fake smile up. 

Despite belonging to the same family, Tom wasn't an exact fan of every member of it. While he knew he could rely on every last one of his brothers, cousins, uncles, and whatever, that didn't mean he was willing to go grab a beer with all of them as well. 

"Anyway, I wanted to ask," the middle-aged man struck up the conversation after a few moments of awkward silence. "Are you really sure those are all the weapons you want us to bring?" he asked, pointing at a huge sports bag that he brought along.

"That's right," Tom replied without even casting a single look at the bag. 

According to the specification he gave, only three long firearms, five hand weapons, and a bunch of explosives along with explosive launchers were necessary. 

But what no one outside of Tom knew was that they wouldn't use those weapons in the dungeon itself. They were Tom's method of dealing with that damned magic-resistant castle of the feudal lord at the border!

"Is this really going to be enough?" Marvin asked, taking the role of the doubtful guy. "I mean, if the dungeon looks just like we could all see it while using the avatars, won't we die on the first floor when the monsters attack?" he asked. 

"You don't need to worry about the monsters whatsoever," Tom replied, shaking his head. "First thing first, there are two possibilities here. Either we get transported all together as I hope we will, or the dungeon will forcibly split us into groups," Tom announced, jumping down from the rock he was sitting at. 

"Wait, so you don't know how that works either?" Marvin asked, opening his eyes wide. "Why you didn't tell us that sooner?" he asked, clearly blaming his friend for withholding such crucial information. 

"Because it doesn't change anything," Tom replied calmly. "Also, I had no way of testing it out. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to get a huge amount of people you can trust on the other side," he said before shaking his head. 

"Anyway, the first scenario," Marvin quickly stopped Tom from going into a long retrospection. It was only a matter of time before the entire family would finish packing up and gathering at the tunnel, making the time for his inquiries pretty limited. "If we manage to get all as a single group into the dungeon. What will happen then?" he asked with a stiff expression on his face. 

"Then it will be easy," Tom replied, shaking his arms. "I will kill all the monsters and distribute the stones of each floor to those with the greatest skills. Once we reach the last ten floors, I will claim all the stones to myself and kill the boss that gave me so much trouble before," he finished his rough explanation without even batting an eye. 

"Wait a second, kill it? So you didn't kill it already?" Marvin's father caught on the detail that didn't fit the rest of the story. "Wait, if you didn't kill the boss of the lowest floor, how did you manage to go to the other side?" 

"I don't really know how it works myself," Tom lowered his eyes only to bite his lips a moment later. "It was my second time fighting with her. After clashing for a few moments... she just stops and freezes in place. Yet, when I tried to finish her off, a powerful barrier stopped me from doing so," Tom revealed the details of his second encounter with that small yet insanely powerful woman. 

"Anyway," Marvin interjected in the discussion. "We can talk about what lays at the end of the dungeon once we are inside. For now, Tom, tell me," he said, taking a step towards his friend. "If our family were to separate at the dungeon, what's the plan?"

"As weird as it might sound to you, that would be actually better," Tom muttered under his nose before shaking his head. "Listen, there is a set amount of stones that can appear on each floor. The more people we have in one party, the less of them we will be able to bring to a level high enough for them to be of any real use," he said, taking a step back from his friend. 

The look on Marvin's face was just that scary. 

"But in that scenario, I can only advise everyone to advance slowly and carefully. The monsters at the first ten floors are so weak one can easily just punch them to the death," Tom said, raising his head towards the ceiling and closing his eyes for a moment. "If we were to be split up, then each of the groups will have to make the decision who to promote as their fighter."

"That's it?" Marvin asked, raising his eyebrows and leaning his head to the side. "Do your best? Is that what you are sending our entire family with?" he asked, quickly turning pretty angry. "What about that last boss? You went through the dungeon twice already, yet you still can't really deal with her!" he pointed out a potential flaw in Tom's plan. 

"That you don't need to worry about," Tom smiled despite Marvin's sudden lash. "This dungeon works like a pyramid of sorts. There is a lot of alternate versions of the low floors, but as you go up, they start to merge into a smaller and smaller number," he said, drawing the picture of his words directly on the wall. "That's why I believe we should be able to all meet up once we reach the eighty floor," he added, pointing his finger at the very top of the pyramid. 

"So that you will be still the one to fight with the boss, hmm..." Marvin muttered as he raised his hand to his chin to caress it. Even though it was simple, Tom's explanation somehow managed to calm him down a little. 

"Wait, if you can deal with the monsters with your bare fists, then why bother bringing any weapons at all?" Marvin's father suddenly asked, gently shaking the sports bag in his hand. 

"Not for the dungeon itself, but for a problematic person on its other side," Tom muttered before a commotion from the opening of the tunnel forced him to look the other way and stop talking. 

Only a few people entered, each of them carrying more luggage than a human being should be rationally able to carry. 

"So that's all of us?" Tom asked, sending a quick look to his friend. 

"That's right, those were the last stragglers," he added as a massive frown appeared on his face. "The hell do you think you guys are taking all this stuff?!" he lashed out at the late arrivals with no hesitation. 

"Those are all the important works of culture!" one of the women that appeared didn't give Marvin any ground. "You ask us to migrate to another world? Sure, I can handle the ridiculousness of that. But don't ask us to abandon who we are for that weird mission of yours!"