While Akira oversaw the repairing of the damage to the city walls and buildings Klyn and several others made the trip out of the city to inspect the altars that had been left behind in a three-pointed formation. When their investigation was finished they destroyed them and returned to the city.
Akira made sure to pay extra attention to shoring up the walls’ defenses and further reinforcing the materials used to close off the secret routes into the city including the few new ones that had been burst open when the enemy had charged deep into the center of the city.
During this time of busy work Spearia, with the help of the [Full Moon] guild members cleaned the city of troublesome people who did not want to listen to reason or follow simple rules. It was a huge pain in the butt trying to bring the lawless Thief city around to a more civilized city now that the Oni and demigods were no longer in control.
The [Full Moon] guild members had also set the thief city as their current return hub. If they lost this city it could cause them major problems.
But a week had already passed with no sight of any retaliation from either the Oni forces, demigods, or the black-robed Cult of Science.
Akira considered all this and decided it was time to head out to scout the surrounding areas. Since he was still on a secret mission that required him to travel to and search the entire new island for clues he could not stay here forever.
“Spearia, I’ll leave the defenses to you and the other allied warriors. I still have other things I need to do in the area. I won’t be going far or be away for all that long so you should be fine. The reinforcements should be here soon enough,” said Akira.
Their previous messengers had been killed on the way to warn of the coming attack but the second group of messengers had managed to deliver the news and came back only the day before.
“Oos,” said Spearia, agreeing with his words.
With a wave goodbye Akira and the gathered [Full Moon] members walked through the city streets out the front city gate and across the drawbridge that was lowered. There was light traffic of people that were coming to the city for riches or adventure while others were leaving to some place farther away wanting to get away to someplace safer.
As Akira was walking across the bridge Fluffball jumped in front of him and let out a loud growl with his hackles standing straight up as he snarled at a short figure that now stood in front of them.
Akira’s attention had been distracted as he was checking his gear one last time but with the sudden snarling from Fluffball, he looked up to see the short man that was blocking their path.
The short man was bent over and was breathing hard. His entire body was a dark purple, similar to the color of an old bruise. Both his shaggy hair and unkempt beard were white as snow. While the iris of his eyes were a deep red.
“Good sir, can I ask for your help?” asked the Dark Dwarf between gasps. “You seem like a strong knight that can deal with this pressing matter.”
“…and what might that be?” asked Zundar, stepping forward to stand next to Akira.
Akira did not say anything as he inspected the man in front of him.[Dark dwarf Knarl lvl 50].
Seeing this information, past memories of the ancient underground temple that had been created by the extinct ancient Dark Dwarves came back to his mind.
‘So there are still some alive here?’ Akira thought to himself.
“A nearby dungeon has been discovered and from everything I have heard and read about in the scrolls of old, I think the creatures inside want to come out!” shouted Knarl.
“A dungeon overflow?” asked Akira.
“I’m sorry I don’t know what language he is speaking but is that what he calls it? Where is he from?” asked Knarl after hearing Zundar’s translation.
“Something like that,” said Zundar vaguely, not answering his question directly. “Akira what are we going to do?”
“If there really is a dungeon ready to burst….we can’t let it happen. If we do then it will make the surrounding area and even this city unsafe and could lead to problems for the AAF villages as well,” said Akira.
The red eyes of the dark dwarf squinted as he tried to listen to and understand Akira but he only shook his head and gave up as he was unable to understand a single word that was said.
“We’ll help. But you have to lead us to this dungeon,” said Zundar.
“That’s great! We aren’t safe with the current monsters already roaming the lands and now another dungeon wants to cause more problems. With your help there should be no issue!” said Knarl as he turned and began walking in a direction toward the Dungeon.
The march to the potential overflow dungeon was less than a day away from the Thief City.
When they arrived at their destination Akira walked over to the edge of the large pit and looked into the darkness that swallowed all light. There was a set of weathered stone stairs that led deep into the pit but nothing else of note could be seen.
As they stood there silently listening they could hear many low and odd sounds coming from below.
“YAP!” said Fluffball confirming what Akira had heard as well.
“Somethings down there for sure,” said Zundar.
“No point in us standing here all day,” said Crowbahr.
“We should quickly clean out the dungeon and see what goodies we can find,” said Beater.
“Don’t get too excited, we need to do this properly,” said Akira as he and Fluffball stepped onto the stone steps and led the others into the darkness towards the odd sounds.
Akira looked behind him to see that everyone was following him before once again taking another few steps…
Thunk!
The worn stone steps all tilted at the same time creating a steep incline ramp causing everyone to lose their footing and begin to slide down into the darkness.
Akira tried to grab onto the wall but his armored hand just slid off of the slick stone. He even tried to use his sword to try and jam it into a crack in the ramp that he was speeding down but he only managed to create bright sparks that lit up the long circular slide that they were all shooting down.
“YAP!” shouted Fluffball as he moved past Akira, his four paws trying to find footing but were continuously slipping and spinning out of control.
Akira reached out and grabbed for Fluffball before he shot out of his range and managed to catch him.
“Yap,” said Fluffball, grateful to no longer be spinning wildly.
They continued to gain speed for some time as they shot down the large stone slide going further into the depths of the underground dungeon where the air was growing cooler and contained more moisture.
“Hold on!” shouted Akira as he held Fluffball closer to his chest. The reason for this was he saw a bright opening at the end of the stone slide that was now arching up into the air.
“What the heck!” shouted someone from behind him as they saw the end of the stone slide in front of them.
Fwosh!
One by one they were launched out of the stone stairwell and sent high up into the air where they stayed for several seconds as they arced through the air only to crash land into…
… something soft?
Splat!
Whatever Akira had landed had burst and let out a putrid smell.
Wiggle! Wiggle!
Akira looked underneath his body and saw a glowing green goop along with a large pile of bones.
Near him were several large square Slimes that were glowing green. They had fallen into a slime pit!
The slimes were still for several seconds as they registered the new objects that had fallen from the sky and destroyed a few of them.
“Damn it! Why did it have to be slimes!” shouted Sweety.
“Hey, these are different from the ones you fought before. They were ice slime’s but these slimes look like they could warm you up,” said Akira.
“Yap!” Fluffball as he transformed.
“More like melt my skin off first,” said Galena.
Ding!
-
You have entered the Ancient Experimental Labs Dungeon!
Akira looked up at the stone slide they just came out of and saw that it was well out of reach of anyone even if they tried to stand on each other’s shoulders or use a rope and hook.
Even if they managed to climb back up, the slide was too slippery…
“Quit complaining,” said Beater. “If we don’t kill these slimes then they will melt off everyone’s skin!”
“There’s too many of them surrounding us. We need to clear a path to the exit over there!” said Akira pointing to the only reachable exit that he could see.
The exit was raised up off the ground with a few stone ladder rungs carved into the wall that led down into the pit. It was also directly across from the ramp slide that they had just been spat out of.
The cube slimes seemed to have decided what to do with the intruders and all started wiggling their way towards the new source of sustenance.
With so many cube slimes moving as one, they started to form a small green wiggling wave that was slowly picking up speed and size.
“Everyone ready?” asked Akira.
“Ready!” Everyone shouted without hesitation.
“Rawr!” growled Fluffball as he gathered power for an ice shard attack.
Akira’s leg muscles tensed before he activated his skill [Shield Slam] and charged forward just as Fluffball shot the glowing blue Ice shard that pierced through several cube slimes and froze large portions of the slimes in its path as they tried to recover from the hole that had pierced through them.
They did not get any such chance to recover as they were smashed to bits by Akira’s shield slamming into them clearing a path for everyone to follow him.
Galena with her water attacks and Minion with his wind skill attacks helped pierce through and thin out the wave of slimes in front of them as much as they could.
With the combined attacks of Fluffball, the [Full Moon] members, and Akira rocketing forward they were able to reach the stone ladder relatively unharmed.
“The rest of you get up the ladder first. If you can, help support our escape when you get up there. You should have a better view of what is going on from up there anyways,” growled Akira as he turned around with Fluffball joining him to focus on the wave of slimes that had halted and were hesitating after sensing several other slime’s death.
This hesitation only lasted a few seconds as they once again bunched up and started gathering momentum as they wiggled forward.
Akira launched several [Sword Slash] skill attacks joining Fluffballs Ice attacks slamming into the growing green wave.
They were able to hold them off, killing several dozens of the green cube slimes allowing everyone else to make their way up the stone ladder.
The slimes pulled back for a moment… and started absorbing the green liquid acids of the dead cube slimes. Those that did this all grew several sizes bigger than the average green slime cube.
After a third wave of slimes was stopped, skills from the [Full Moon] members started to rain down on the slimes from above.
“Akira hurry up! It’s not looking good down there!” shouted Zundar.
“RAWR!” said Fluffball as he shot one last ice attack and then reverted into his mini form and jumped into Akira’s arms.
Akira put Fluffball onto his shoulders and began climbing the stone ladder as fast as he could. Colorful skills from the [Full Moon] members continued to rain down behind them slamming into the slimes below.
As he reached the last few rungs of the stone ladder Fluffball jumped off of his shoulders and landed in the tunnel where Zundar was bending over and grabbed onto one of Akira’s arms.
With a full-force yank, he pulled Akira up the rest of the way and tossed him into the tunnel.
BAM!
The stone floor of the tunnel underneath everyone shuddered violently.
As Akira sat up and looked out into the pit below he was speechless at what he saw.
BAM!
BAM!
The entire pit full of green cubes had formed into a large tidal wave which was now repeatedly slamming into the stone wall just short of the tunnel they were in.
Large portions of the pit below was now empty of slimes that had massed together allowing everyone to see mountains of humanoid skeletons numbering in the thousands as well as skeletons of other monsters and animals.
If not for Zundar’s help Akira would have been caught in the first tidal wave attack!
BAM!
