The Outlands

The party traversed through the lush canyon carefully. They made extensive use of Tess’s tremorsense to watch for any monsters, and The Rumors didn’t mess around when they spotted one. Instead of involving the younger girls in the process, The Rumors elected to go full-force and eliminate the monsters as quickly and quietly as possible.

It was a stark change of pace from anything Tess had really seen from them. Even when they had been speeding through Slime Tower, or any of the other low leveled dungeons, The Rumors had maintained an air of relaxation, an ease that came from being so dramatically overleveled that they were, effectively, invincible.

And, while they were still easily handling the monsters in the area, Tess could see that they were starting to be at least somewhat challenged. One or two monsters were easy enough for them to handle, sure, but then the monsters started coming in packs of three or four, and then five or six.

Tess almost felt like she could watch their attitudes change in real time as they proceeded further into the canyon. Their stops became briefer, only enough time for a few terse words to be spoken regarding the direction they were going or asking if there were any monsters up ahead.

And, increasingly, there were. Just as the size of the groups of monsters got larger, the frequency with which the party encountered them likewise grew. It was almost baffling, in a way; Tess had imagined that monsters, devoid of the system’s pressure to stay in a small area without killing each other, would spread out more, instead of clustering densely around a dungeon.

She waited expectantly, but for once didn’t get an answer from the gods. They probably didn’t want to distract her in the increasingly tense situation she found herself in, so she decided it was time to follow suit and redoubled her efforts in looking for monsters or other things of interest using her tremorsense.

Things really started to get hairy when Tess discovered a group of eleven monsters around a bend. Or, rather, group of eleven was perhaps the wrong term; it was more akin to two groups of five and six. They were separated by ten or so feet, and were pacing around each other carefully.

“I think there’s some sort of fight about to break out ahead of us.” Tess whispered. “Six of those lizard-y things and five of the crab things.”

Ker frowned. “Are any of them injured?” He whispered back.

“None are obviously injured, like missing legs or anything, but I can’t tell if they’ve got minor injuries.” Tess replied.

“Are there any ways around it?” Alice asked.

“Not if we keep going the way we’re going. I mean, I guess we could go up and then come back down on the other side of them, but that puts us at risk of dropping down onto another group of monsters.”

“That’s a valid point.” Alice said. “What are they doing now?”

“They’re just sort of pacing around each other.” She paused, focusing on the monsters. “I think the lizards might be getting ready to make a move, though. They keep darting forward like they’re going to attack, so I think they’re testing the waters.”

Alice sighed, turning to Jin. “What do you think?” She asked.

“It’s a bit too chaotic, I don’t like it.” He replied. “I think we should wait it out and clean up whatever side remains afterwards. If it was just the three of us, I would say we could probably just rush through it, but…”

“Agreed.” Ker said. “Tess, keep us updated on the battle, let us know if it’s moving over here or if it’s almost over.”

“Should I try and pay attention to the rest of our surroundings, too?” Tess asked.

“No.” Alice said quickly. “Better to just focus on one thing, so you don’t miss something important. We’ll keep watch over here and make sure we don’t get ambushed.”

Tess nodded and turned her attention back to the monsters. It took less than a minute for the fight to begin in earnest; one of the lizards darted in, but instead of backing away like they always had before, the rest of the lizards joined in too, and things got hectic.

While tremorsense was superior to vision in many ways, it did not come without its drawbacks. Foremost among those was the fact that she only saw outlines and shapes. Without the ability to tell the material of an object, aside from whether or not it was a solid, she was left to extrapolate details for herself.

Bodies generally were composed of liquids and solids, so telling if something was living or had once been living was usually easy enough, but that was about as far as she got. When the lizards would go in to bite the crabs, and especially when the lizards would crawl on top of the crabs, the two shapes essentially merged into one big misshapen blob.

Even so, she was able to tease out a general picture of what was happening. The lizards’ main goal was to get on top of the crabs; the crabs were a fair bit larger than the lizards, so the lizards would use that to their advantage and get in places the crabs had a hard time reaching. Once there, they would do…something that she couldn’t quite make out, and, eventually, the crab would either manage to get the lizard off, or would stop moving, and the lizard would move on to another crab.

The whole fight took perhaps three minutes, ending in the eventual defeat of the crabs, though they did manage to take a lizard out with them. Tess presumed a few of the remaining lizards were injured, as she had seen multiple lizards take blows, but she couldn’t really check their condition with tremorsense, so that was mostly just an assumption.

“They’re done.” She whispered. “Lizards won. There are still five of them, and I think some are injured but I can’t be sure from here.”

“Good enough.” Jin said. “You three, these monsters are likely to be even more territorial than normal since they’re still at the site of their kill. We’re going to do our best to keep them from getting to you, but they outnumber the three of us, so it’s very possible one or two might slip through the cracks. If that happens, handle the stragglers yourself. I believe we determined that the lizards are probably safe for you if it’s only one or two of them, yes?”

“Yeah.” Tess said. “They’re nothing special, it’s just the level gap. Shouldn’t be too different from fighting a miniboss or something. They seemed to like testing out their opposition with feints if that last fight was any indicator, so we should probably be able to get the first hit.”

“Good.” Jin said. “We’re going, then.”

Alice cautiously led the group around the bend, where five lizards in varying states of injury were feasting on crab corpses, shells melted and dripping onto the floor below. As they came into view, the lizards whipped around form their meals and began scurrying towards the group, getting into the formation that Tess had seen them use against the crabs.

Unfortunately for the lizards, probing the space between them and their enemies was a lot less effective when said enemies had ranged attacks. Alice’s sword and a couple of spells slammed into one of the injured lizards, finishing it off rather soundly.

Realizing that their old plan wouldn’t work, the lizards rushed in and began their attack in earnest. Alice managed to intercept one with her shield, bashing it backwards before it was able to find any purchase to climb over. Jin and Ker each began to cast as quickly as possible, spells that would push the lizards back or freeze them in place while Alice delivered quick strikes of her sword.

Even so, one of the injured lizards was able to slip past them, skittering up the canyon wall and deftly dodging the spell that had been aimed at it. “You three!” Jin barked between spells. “Take care of it!”

Maven immediately began to cast a spell, while Ellie moved to place herself between the lizard and the open flank of The Rumors. For her part, Tess began activating her Skills, then prepared herself. When the lizard came down from the wall, she activated Mad Dash, feeling a strange rush as she suddenly was moving much faster than she had anticipated. She was barely able to get her claws in front of her to impale the monster, the force of her speed carrying the monster forward with her as she stopped barely before impacting the canyon wall.

Then, You Are Already Dead kicked in, and the monster took the damage.

Even with that, it was still alive, flailing wildly as it tried to get off of Tess’s claw. Tess quickly sheathed her claws, pulling away just barely too slow to avoid a blow to the stomach from the lizard’s limbs. The force of it threw her backwards, and even if her fall was cushioned by the lush canyon floor, it still knocked the wind out of her.

And then the Swords of Death and Maven’s spell impacted the creature, and it finally died. Tess shakily got to her feet, and only then remembered the other effect of Monstrous Strength, to dull her pain. She activated it and felt…better. She could still tell that the wound was there, but it was in the back of her mind, the kind of thing she would subconsciously tune out the moment she stopped paying attention to it.

The Swords of Death vanished as Ellie raised a hand and a pulsing green wave washed out from her open palm, traveling across the canyon. Immediately, all pain vanished, and Tess felt less tired than she did before as Breath of Life fully restored both her HP and Stamina.

Alice jumped as the wave impacted her, clearly not expecting the sudden rush of energy. For the briefest of moments she faltered, but was able to smoothly recover and deliver a blow to the lizard in front of her, neatly chopping off its head. The Rumors had dispatched another lizard while Tess’s party had been focused on their lizard, so that left only one.

It wasn’t long for this world, however; The Rumors focused in on it, and within a few seconds their combined attacks brought it down. The moment it was, Alice turned to the younger girls. “Is everything alright?” She asked worriedly. “I assume that was Ellie’s Blessing, right? Did someone get hurt?”

“Yeah, it was me.” Tess said, walking over to her. “I impaled the lizard, and it didn’t die, and it hit me while it was trying to get off my claw. I probably shoulda blinked away, but I thought I was going to be fast enough to dodge.”

“We should take a look at it.” Alice said. “Where’d it hit you?”

“It’s probably fine.” Tess protested. “I mean that was literally the best healing on offer, right?”

“Well, yeah, but it’s better safe than sorry.” Alice said. “Again, where’d you get hurt?”

Tess sighed and lifted her shirt, poking at her stomach. “Right here.” She said. “Feels perfectly fine now.”

Alice bent down, inspecting the area and gently squishing it with her hand. “Doesn’t seem to be any bruising. This doesn’t hurt, right?”

“Nope, perfectly fine.” Tess said. “We good?”

“Yeah, we’re good.” Alice confirmed. “Let’s get those bodies into our bags and keep going.”

“Already done.” Jin said. “We took the crabs, too. Maven, we’re still going the right direction, right?”

“I believe so.” Maven replied. “I think we are fairly close, too, but I won’t be able to know for sure until I get a feel for how out of control dungeons normally…feel.”

“That’s fine, we can’t expect you to be perfect on your first try.” Ker said comfortingly.

And so, they carried on, navigating through the twisty mess that was the canyon. Incidents like the one with the lizards became more and more common, until it reached the point where it became common for Tess’s party to pitch in with fights, just to help close the numerical gap between them and the enemies.

There was a growing sense that they should just call it quits and head back up when they finally found something. Tess was, of course, the first to notice, her tremorsense allowing her to take note of the object before it came into visual range.

“There’s something ahead, just around the corner.” Tess whispered. “Lots of living matter around a hole in the canyon wall. Judging by how stationary it is, I assume it’s plants, and seeing as how there’s a bit of…oddness near the hole, I’m pretty sure it’s the dungeon.”

“Jackpot!” Alice whispered excitedly. “Any monsters near it?”

“None that I can sense.” Tess replied. “Do we need to be worried about being attacked when entering the lobby, or is it safe?”

“No, it’s safe.” Alice whispered back. “The out of control part really only means that we can’t access the lodgings or other amenities. The lobbies still function as normal, so once we’re in we should be safe. We can sit pretty while we contact the guild. Heck, we could even set up the hoverer in the lobby and have access to all its facilities while we wait.”

“Better get in fast.” Ker said. “We can talk more inside.” At that, the group hushed up and hurried around the corner to see, as Tess had assumed, a hole in the canyon wall surrounded by vines.

“That’s definitely it.” Maven said. “I can feel it.”

“Should we make a break for it?” Tess asked. “Or should we move cautiously?”

Jin frowned, and then chanted a quick spell. As he finished, a spear of fire flew out from his palm and impacted the vines surrounding the dungeon entrance. They smoldered for a moment, and then the embers went out, the green of the vines rapidly returning to the blackened area where the spell had hit.

“Good, just vines.” Jin said. “You three make a break for it. I’m going to set up a beacon that’ll allow the guild to home in on our position, and Alice and Ker will cover me as I do. You three will be safer inside. It shouldn’t take long, so if we’re not inside after ten minutes, confer with the gods about how you’re going to get out.”

“Will do.” Tess said. She turned to the cave, prepared herself briefly, and then activated Mad Dash, immediately running full sprint towards the dungeon entrance. She crossed the hundred or so yards between it and herself in only about five seconds, slowing herself just in time to cross the threshold into the dungeon, emerging into a lobby like any other she had seen in dungeons, though it was more…bare.

“You got that from the savage dungeon’s boss, right?” Ellie asked, running in a few seconds later. “How does that feel, speeding up and slowing down so fast? Seems like it’d give you whiplash or throw you off balance or something.”

“Magic, I guess?” Tess said, shrugging, then giving a little wave as Maven came in. “Feels normal to me. I imagine the gods didn’t want that boss hurting itself each time it stopped and started moving, so that effect transferred to me, too?”

“We’re done.” Alice said, walking inside. “Nothing chanced upon us. We’ve contacted the guild, The Titans should be here within an hour.”

“Dungeons says she can give us the information if we want to attempt it early.” Maven said.

“I’m good for now.” Alice replied. “I think I speak for the three of us when I say I need some time to recover before diving into an unknown dungeon.”

“Agreed.” Ker said. “Let’s see how we’re doing in a couple of hours.”

Alice nodded, reached into her bag and pulled out the miniaturized hoverer, then set it up a little ways away from the main group. She opened the door nearest her, and motioned for everyone to get in. “After you.”

Everyone climbed into the hoverer, and Tess breathed an involuntary sigh of relief. Now that she was back in a familiar place, the tension that had filled her in the canyon finally started to fade.

“See? Told you.” Alice said, smirking. “Nothing beats a bit of relaxation after a job well done.”