The Outlands

In no time at all, the group had reached the edge of the canyon. “Alright, first things first, we need to find a path down.” Alice said.

“Why?” Ellie asked. “Everyone here is capable of somehow flying down there or otherwise climbing down easily, so why not just…go?”

“If this was a normal request, you’d be right.” Ker said. “It would be more efficient to just head down. However, this is not a normal request; we’re exploring the area, and paving the way for other freelancers to explore. Not everyone is going to be able to fly down, so we’ll receive a better evaluation if we find a relatively safe route down into the canyon instead of just exploring the bottom of the canyon.”

“Oh, right.” Ellie said. “Makes sense.”

“Tess, we’ll be somewhat relying on you for that.” Jin said. “You have the easiest time seeing the condition of the walls of the canyon without going down too far, so let us know if you see anything promising.”

“I can also fly out and scan the canyon from the air.” Maven volunteered.

“I would advise against that.” Jin said. “While it would help us find a path down the canyon faster, it’s also far too risky. There’s no telling what’s lurking inside of the canyon, and you’ll be a fair bit out of our reach. Were we in a safer area, that would be a good idea, but as things are now, it’s not something we can afford to try.”

“I…understood.” Maven said.

“Is there anything in particular I should keep an eye out for?” Tess asked. “Like, obviously a trail down, yeah, but how…well-defined of a trail does it need to be?”

“Well-defined?” Alice asked, frowning. “We’re not going to find anything more than a game trail, and that’s the best case scenario.”

“No, not like that.” Tess said quickly. “Uh…how do I say this…like…does it need to be a clear path down, without many breaks or drops or anything, or is it fine of there are drops of a couple feet or something?”

“Oh, I think I see what you’re getting at.” Alice said. “It doesn’t need to be an easy path down, though that’s obviously preferable. We’re just looking for something that could be traversed without equipment by the average freelancer.”

“If possible, try to look for a route that has spaces with a little bit of fighting room.” Ker added. “Just in case.”

Tess nodded. “Got it. I, um, probably won’t be able to see down the entirety of the canyon wall, depending on how deep it is, but I’ll give what direction I can.”

“Don’t sweat it too much.” Ker said. “The fact that we have you at all to check the walls is more than almost anyone else can get without expending some sort of resource, so you’re doing more than enough.”

“Thanks.” Tess said. “Um, no other questions, I’m ready to go, I think.”

And so, they began to carefully move along the edge of the canyon, looking for any relatively easy way down they could find. There were several false starts and paths that ultimately led to nowhere, but after a few hours of searching, they were eventually able to find a good enough way down.

The bottom of the canyon was…not quite what Tess had expected. Instead of dry scrub or barren rock, it was lush and moist. And it wasn’t a gradual thing, either; upon stepping past a certain point, the environment changed, like a switch had been flipped.

“Woah.” Ellie said. “Weird.”

“What’s weird?” Ker asked.

“The humidity change.” Ellie said. “You can feel that, right?”

“Yeah.” Ker confirmed. “Stuff like this is fairly normal here in the Outlands. Environments with lots of Mana in them tend to do things like this. I’m guessing that’s not something that happens on Mael?”

Ellie shook her head. “Never. Not without a non-magical reason, anyway.”

“Huh. Well, it’s nothing to worry about, we’ll just need to make a note in our report.” Ker said.

“It stinks down here.” Maven said, wrinkling her nose. “Or…not stinks? I don’t know, something feels wrong here, and I can’t quite put my finger on what it is or why I feel it.”

“I don’t smell anything.” Tess said. “Well, anything out of what I would expect, anyway.”

“It would seem that I am sensing dungeon Mana.” Maven said. “Specifically, that of an out of control dungeon.”

Jin nodded. “Thought it might be something like that.” He said. “Any idea which direction we should be heading?”

Maven paused, then shook her head. “No. We’ll need to walk around a bit more so I can feel out which direction the Mana seems thicker in.”

“We’ll just head to our right, then.” Jin said. “Tess, I need you to keep a very careful eye out for monsters. Now that we know for sure there’s an out of control dungeon in here, we’re going to have to be extra cautious.”

“Understood.” Tess said. “Will we be using the same formation we were up above?”

“Nah, I’ll grab the front, and Jin and Ker will take the back.” Alice replied. “It’s a lot easier to keep guard now that we don’t have to worry as much about attacks from all sides. Sure, something can and likely will come crawling down the ravine walls, but those monsters are gonna be a lot rarer than monsters that just walk the canyon like we are now. Tess, you stay right behind me, since you’re the least likely of you three to get targeted, and that’s technically the weakest spot of this formation. Maven and Ellie, you just stick close to Ker and Jin, they’ll make sure you don’t get hurt.”

“You two make sure to keep an eye above us as well.” Ker said. “If something does come crawling down the canyon walls, then it would be good to have your eyes on it.”

“Got it.” Ellie said confidently. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Don’t get too comfortable.” Maven said quietly. “I don’t think you’ve seen how bad an out of control dungeon can get.”

“It’s just a few monsters, right?” Ellie asked. “Is it really that bad?”

“It’s really that bad.” Ker confirmed. “There’s a reason we make sure to never let dungeons get out of control if we can help it.”

Ignoring Fortune, Maven turned to Jin. “Are you absolutely sure we should be doing this?” She asked. “Surely it would be prudent to inform the Guildm –”

“To inform Gramps of the situation, and have a larger expedition sent out?”

Jin frowned. “To be honest, no, I’m not totally sure we should be doing this. However, we don’t exactly have proof that isn’t strictly confidential. If we bring a report like that back, people will want to know what kind of monsters to expect and a rough location of the dungeon. Right now, we don’t have any information on the monsters, and people are going to ask questions.”

“Yes, but surely Gramps could come up with some pretense.” Maven argued. “People don’t have to know there’s a dungeon here.”

“If we were a normal party, we wouldn’t have this knowledge, and didn’t you want to act like a normal party?” Alice asked. “A normal party would proceed cautiously, and only report back once they caught wind of something weird going on. If things get bad, we’ll just leg it out of here, no sweat. I mean, what, worst-case scenario you three go into Descent and run away, the three of us die, and you go get the Guildmaster to send a rescue mission? Yeah, dying’s unpleasant, but it’s not like the three of us haven’t died before. We’ll live.”

Tess snorted. “I don’t think you will. Dying kind of by definition means you’re not living.”

“You know what I mean.” Alice said, giving Tess a playful swat to the arm. “It’s an unpleasant situation, yes, but not one that we won’t come back from.”

“I…suppose.” Maven said. “Let us proceed, then.”

“It’ll be fine.” Ker assured her. “Freelancing is never without risk, and as far as risks go this is pretty safe. If we thought we were likely to die in this venture, we wouldn’t be trying it.”

“We really should be going, though.” Jin said. “It isn’t good to linger. Maven, let us know if you think we’re going the right direction, okay?”

They got themselves into formation and began to carefully pick their way through the canyon. There was an air of…tension that wasn’t really present in their walk through the hills, a sense that something could go wrong at any moment. So it was that, when Maven spoke up roughly five minutes later, Tess jumped, the sudden noise alarming her.

“I am pretty sure we are getting further away from the dungeon.” Maven said. “I think we should turn around.”

Jin nodded. “Thank you.” He said. “We’ll do that. Everyone, swap positions.”

There was a somewhat awkward shuffle as everyone rearranged themselves, and then began to go back the way they had come. This time, however, it wasn’t as uneventful; after just a few minutes of walking, Tess picked something up on the edge of her tremorsense.

“There’s something around the bend.” She reported. “It feels like…a boulder of some sort? But it’s moving, so I don’t think it is?” She frowned, focusing more on the object. “That’s very strange. Its bottom sort of…merges with the ground, and there’s something weird under the ground but it’s like…superimposed over the ground that’s already there so I can’t get a good grip on what it actually is.”

“How fast is it?” Alice asked, drawing her sword.

“Not very.” Tess replied. “If we sit here, it’ll come into view in maybe three minutes?”

“Plenty of time to prepare, then.” Alice mused. “If it’s lugging a boulder around with it, then it likely has high Defense and HP, Magic Defense is iffy, and it probably relies more on surprise than anything for dealing damage. That, or it’s not a predator and is using the boulder as…cover? I can’t imagine what it would gain from having that boulder in the first place, though, rather than just staying underground. Either way, it’s probably best to try and shatter the boulder with magic and see if we can’t force it out of the ground.”

“Are you sure the boulder is normal?” Jin asked. “There might be something to do with it that would give us a clue.”

Tess shrugged. “To be honest, I can’t really tell from here. Tremorsense is a bit weird that way; it really only lets me know if something is a solid, a liquid, or a gas, and that’s about it. The boulder doesn’t seem to be a shell or anything, if that’s what you’re wondering, it’s solid all the way through. If there was meat in there, I’d probably be able to see some sort of liquid for the blood, but that’s not the case.”

Alice opened her mouth to say something, then shook her head, apparently thinking better of it. “Well, any of you that have spells, get them ready, and Tess, let us know when it’s about to come into view. We’ll hit it all at once.”

“Us too?” Maven asked nervously.

“You too.” Alice confirmed. “No reason for you not to take part in this, if it’s just spellslinging from afar.”

“Um…should I?” Tess ventured. “My spells are kind of…lackluster right now.”

“Nah, no use wasting your Mana. You just focus on it and let us know if it does anything strange. To be honest, having Ellie and Maven help is probably overkill, but…well, might as well, I guess.” Alice replied.

“Okay.” Tess said. “I can do that.”

So, they waited. Ellie, Maven, Ker, and Jin all readied spells, while Tess watched the monster limp ever closer to the bend. A couple minutes later, it was about to enter line of sight, so Tess warned the others and watched as it finally rounded the bend.

Maven let her spell fly first, a lance of fire spearing out and barely hitting the edge of the boulder as it inched into view. There was a brief pause, and then the boulder sped up, its ponderous passage turning into something more akin to a person’s walking pace as it accelerated towards the group.

Ker, Jin, and Ellie released their spells the moment the monster was in full view. Ellie’s bolt of lightning hit first, followed closely by Ker’s arrow of light and Jin’s spear of ice. There was a resounding boom, and the boulder cracked, then split along the middle.

The earth beneath them trembled ever so slightly as some sort of birdlike monster popped out of the ground, the remnants of the boulder trembling as they attempted to flow onto the creature’s wings. Only one of the halves of the boulder was able to attach itself to the monster, but even that was enough to fully coat the creature’s wings. It moved to cross its wings in front of its head, but Alice was faster, having thrown her sword the moment the thing had popped out of the earth.

It struck the monster dead in the eyes, the monster’s wings coming together a fraction too late to stop the sword. It wobbled in place for a moment, and then was struck by a pillar of light descending from above. It screeched in pain and then, finally, keeled over, dead.

“I’m going to go fetch the corpse.” Jin said. “The rest of you, get ready to move. We’re hightailing it out of here.”

“What?” Ellie said, taken aback. “But we just killed it, and we’re nowhere near our limit!”

“I said move.” Jin replied calmly. “Ker will explain on the way.” He chanted a brief spell, then blinked out of existence, reappearing next to the monster’s corpse.

“Are we taking the normal path out of here or are we flying up?” Tess asked.

“Flying.” Alice said, reaching into her bag and pulling out a large metallic box with straps on, taking a moment to shrug the straps over her shoulder. “Anti-gravity device.” She explained. “Runs on cores, so it can be expensive to use for extended periods of time. Ellie, stop gawking and make your platform thing. As soon as you’re ready, we’re leaving.”

The Swords of Death made themselves into that platform Ellie used for flight, and she stepped on. “Fine, ready. So, what’s going on?”

“We made too much noise.” Ker explained, pushing a button on his anti-gravity device and beginning to float upwards. “Given how little we know about the area, it’s entirely possible that every predator and scavenger within miles is on its way to our location. We don’t want to stick around.”

Tess enabled the Attribute that gave her wings, flexed them briefly, then took off into the sky, followed closely by Maven. After a moment Tess slowed, realizing that she and Maven were ascending much faster than the other four. She briefly considered stopping her flight and instead walking up the wall of the canyon with Spiderclimb, but decided against it; Maven wasn’t going to have that luxury, and if something was waiting for them up top, Tess would prefer someone was there to help Maven.

Fortunately, that wasn’t the case, and everyone was able to safely ascend. “Everyone, let’s head back towards base camp.” Jin said. “We’ll report our discovery, and rest the night in safety. We’ll talk more about this incident once we’re safe, alright?”

Everyone nodded, and began their trek back towards the expedition’s encampment. It was not the outcome they had hoped for, but at least they had found something.