The Runesmith

A group of annoyed adventurers was standing outside the Albrook Dungeon. They had to stop as a large group of knights forced them to remain behind. They surrounded the whole entrance and were keeping people from going in or even from coming out.

The thought of going over and pushing through never crossed their mind. The noble crests were a clear indication of trouble. No person with an inkling of intelligence would ever involve themselves with nobles unless it was work-related. Without much to do, some decided to wait while others listened in, curious about the meaning of them being here.

“Lord Percival, you may start.”

“Thank you Sir Bertold, I will do my best to finish this mission with haste.”

They could see two men in full body armor talk to each other. One was old while the other quite handsome and young. After the little talk that the two had with each other it seemed that something was happening.

“Everyone get in formation, we will be descending into the dungeon. Follow after the adventurer scouting party!”

With that order given the people could see a party of adventurers entering into the dungeon. There were some unknown members in this party but some people recognised Armand and the crimson armor of a certain person that was gaining notoriety.

“Interesting… that guy is also part of this…”

A shadowy figure whose face was mostly covered commented from the side. He and a few of his party members were sitting in some shade while examining the situation.

“Is something wrong?”

“Don’t know… it might be a gig… I’ll have go ask my contacts to be sure…”

“Oh?”

The robed man started rubbing his chin while grinning. His eyes followed the large armored man in red and how not far from him the noble knights descended into the dungeon as well.

Back in the dungeon Roland and everyone had taken up their positions with their porter hanging out in the middle. Whenever the fighting started he was tasked to search for cover and hide.

All of the party members here were silver grade so the dungeon monsters that were below the 50th level didn’t prove much of a challenge. They were more annoying than anything and mostly fell to Lobelia’s arrows. Roland let the fighting up to their two warriors in the front without wasting any runic spells.

Armand and Korgak were actually quite proficient at taking out any monsters that they came across. The half-orc’s weapon of choice was something that looked like a very large cleaver. It only took one swing of his weapon to kill a monster that came his way. Armand on the other hand used his hands, the monsters were either smacked away into a pulp or thrown to the side where they were finished off by Silvio or Lobelia.

‘Don’t really have anything to do here…’

Roland was somewhat relaxed while not having anything to do. Agni on the other hand was gaining some experience from finishing some lower-level creatures. His level had risen to 32 but he had a long way to go till his tier 2 evolution.

He knew that if he showed the shortcuts they would be able to cut the travel time dramatically. However, he decided to keep this secret for himself. It was better to have an escape route for himself that no one else could follow in case of unforeseen circumstances. Even though there was a low chance of betrayal, it was better to be safe than sorry.

“Damn those knights are slow… what’s taking them so long?”

Lobelia commented from the side while pulling out her arrow from a less evolved salamander-type monster’s head. They all were seasoned adventurers that had gone through dungeons since a young age. The knights on the other hand were rarely forced to travel through tight corridors like this maze.

Roland attributed their slow-moving speed to a few things. One was their choice of armor that in a volcanic region like this was mostly a liability. Without something to lower the temperature someone with heavy armor would become fatigued quite fast. Due to this they had to make some stops and have their frost mage cast a cooling spell from time to time.

The second problem were those lady mages. They were clearly not used to long expeditions into unknown regions. Roland was sure that their physical stats were not much better than a tier 1 warrior. With low endurance they would need constant stops and the heat would only get worse with time.

“It’s fine, Sister Kassia can use a break as well.”

“Oh, I’m quite fine thanks to Mr. Wayland here.”

Silvio called out to the nun that replied. Roland was just standing there while waving that large magical rod of his. From time to time he would produce a chilling effect to make it more comfortable for the party. Thanks to it being a runic spell there was no waiting time and he could do it easily while walking.

“Wayland, want to come party with us after we are done with this mission?”

Lobelia nodded, Roland could see that she was serious. He only started doing it after he noticed some of his party members sweating. This section of the dungeon wasn’t that hot but when some salamanders showed up the temperature always increased. The dungeon wasn’t that well ventilated so fighting a fire-based creature always made it uncomfortable to be in.

“I’ll think about it…”

He replied while not really thinking that it would be such a good idea. Bernir and Agni were enough as he was able to maximize on his experience gain. The other problem was the person he was looking at, he certainly didn't want to work with a certain punch crazy brute. The only reason he took this mission were the costly crafting schematics he wanted.

“I’ll take that as a yes, oh they caught up!”

Lobelia answered while notching an arrow into her bow once more. Roland glanced at this arrow for a moment and started wondering if he could add a runic effect to it. Regretfully without the proper wood, it would be impossible. The only other option would be a fully metallic arrow which costs outweigh its uses.

‘Maybe if we find one of those ash trees in the lower levels I could actually make some…’

They descended down while Roland thought about what he would do for the weeks they were there. At the moment they had some work to do but after getting to the second level they would be nothing more than lookouts.

What would normally take a couple of hours turned to eight as they finally arrived at the 10th level of the dungeon and were now right before the boss chamber. A group of angry adventurer’s greeted Silvio that could only apologize for taking so long.

The adventurers here were task to block the dungeon chamber from being cleared out. This of course led to some pushback from the other adventurers but they could do nothing more than wait. ‘They must have paid quite a bit for this offer… the longer this chamber isn’t cleared the more money the guild loses.’

While Roland contemplated on the noble’s deep pockets the battalion of knights arrived soon after. He moved himself to the side as one of the first people here was Robert. Their first task was over now, the ones going inside would be the nobles first and they would remain in the back. This would be their first test, to beat the 10th level boss monster.

The knights looked slightly tired but they were still tier 2 class holders. Their high physical stats would allow them to somehow recover in a short amount of time. On the other hand, the two mage ladies were not looking that well.

Roland could tell with the help of his mana sense skill that they were using some cooling effects even at this very moment. Even when not affected by the heat that much they still looked tired. There was no way to fit the carriage into this dungeon which forced everyone to walk.

The constant usage of mana to run magical trinkets was also probably taking a toll on them. The two more than likely had lower amounts of mana than him and not many classes had skills that lowered the mana usage when using magical items as his did.

“Heh, are those two okay? Maybe they need to take a cold bath.”

Lobelia and Armand were to the side smirking a bit. Roland noticed that these two didn’t seem to like these nobles that much. They constantly commented on their slow pace. It seemed like there was some bad blood here but that was quite the common occurrence.

Most commoners either feared or disliked their noble overlords for one reason or another. Finding a common person that favored a noble was like finding a rainbow unicorn. Which was a creature that actually existed in this world.

“Lady Charlene, Lady Lucille how do you fare?”

“It's so stuffy in here, someone give me some water!”

The blond lady called out to one of the knights that quickly brought over a water bottle.

“You expect me to drink from this?”

She glared at the poor knight that shrunk back, luckily for him, the blue-haired lady was quick to take the bottle of water and pour it into a proper glass container.

“Lucille, you’re too lenient with these knights!”

Charlene took the glass and started to slowly sip from it which put the whole expedition on hold. Though the moment the commander walked over the haughty look disappeared from this young woman’s face.

“We need to continue, please get ready we will be entering the boss chamber. I need both of you to be prepared for battle, I’ll be counting on your support.”

“Lord Percival, I’ll do my best!”

Roland rolled his eyes while looking from the side. The person called Charlene was quick to act like a little puppy when the correct person was in the picture. He could see Armand and Lobelia scoffing from the side as well.

“Get ready, we will be going in after the knights.”

Silvio walked over to give some orders. Roland took this time to ask a question.

“Will we need to get involved in the boss fight?”

“We are to standby and watch, only when the knight formation crumbles will we act, prioritize the mages and that blond noble over the others.”

Roland and the others nodded. They were aware of the power dynamics in that noble party. The only important people that they were actually contracted to bring out alive were the two women and the noble called Percival. The rest were expendable knights that were in a situation similar to Robert’s.

This was the harsh reality of the boundaries between status. Robert and the others were placed very low on the pecking order. They were either bastard sons with no way of getting the rights to their estate, regular knights, or one of the many sons from a baron’s estate. If he was there, he too would be quite expandable.

“Get ready, they are going in.”

The knights took up an arrow formation with their shields raised and pushed through the boss chamber door. Following behind them were a smaller group of knights that surrounded the two mages along with their commanding officer. Behind them was Roland's party and the man named Sir Bertold.

This was quite the number of people going in. It shouldn’t be that hard to clear up the boss chamber with so many tier 2 class holders here. Even a Ruby Golem that he faced would be unable to combat so many knights and two mages that gave them fire support.

The only problem that Roland had in this composition was the lack of scout-like classes. They only had heavy warriors and two mages. They lacked the fire support a class like an archer could give them and had to rely on the mage's large spells. These spells packed more destructive power than an arrow but were also less accurate. Accidents did sometimes happen, so the knights would receive residual damage from the mage spells.

“A pack of volcanic wolves?”

The platform was the same as before and on it was a small group of monster wolves. There were four regular volcanic wolves at level 50 with a slightly larger one in the middle that was level 60.

“Woof!”

“Calm down Agni, this isn’t your fight.”

The wolves were somewhat similar to Agni but instead of rubies, they were covered in hard volcanic rock. Their paws were mostly covered in this volcanic rock with some fissures. These cracks were glowing with some kind of red energy that looked like hot magma. They were also adults and a bit larger than Agni’s adolescent form.

They were all waiting for their opponents to arrive. For the time being the group of knights was slowly moving forward on one of the pathways that connected to the center platform. His party and the others had just entered the boss chamber and the door behind them slammed shut.

With this also the pathway they were all standing on started sliding towards the platform the monsters were on. There was no turning back as behind them only molten lava awaited.

There was enough time for them to move forward but the party of Knights was moving sluggishly. They seemed a bit unorganized, some of them probably surprised after seeing the molten rocks below.

“Are those guys okay?”

Lobelia asked after seeing the group of knights clash against the tier 2 monsters. To someone not versed in monster fighting, it would be hard to spot a problem but a seasoned adventurer could see it.

“They are hesitating too much…”

Silvio added from the side while preparing his own bow.

‘They do feel a bit sluggish, this heat takes a bit to get used to.’

Roland had to agree with Silvio on this one. The knights were successfully defending against the five Volcanic Wolves with their shields but were slow to counterattack. Then there were the two mages that had a hard time delivering a finishing blow.

These wolves were fast on their feet, the long casting times were the biggest downside to the mages battle tactic. After performing the spell they needed to guide the attack not to where the enemy was but to where they thought it would move to. For a short while this was also a problem for Roland when he was training with his own spell casting.

‘Oh?’

It seemed that finally, the mages thought out some kind of strategy. The blond girl finished up a spell that didn’t target the monsters but instead softened the ground under them which caused their legs to slide in. After this effect subsided the ground hardened up which left two of the wolves stationary.

‘I guess they did teach them something at the academy.’

Following this, a spear of ice pierced through one of the monsters before it could free itself. Then the second wolf received a stab from Robert that was close by. With one monster down and another one injured the battle continued.

The battle was quite boring to watch, the knights were efficient and their commander used his troops to slowly encircle the remaining wolves. There were far too many enemies for these five monsters to come out on top and soon they found themselves with many stab wounds.

“Is it over? I almost fell asleep…”

Armand was down on the ground just sitting with his finger up his nose. Korgak next to him doing exactly the same thing.

The battle was won with the last monster succumbing to their wounds after a long battle. After it was all over the usual chest appeared but before they could peek inside it a little commotion came to light.

“What is the meaning of this, why did you leave your position?”

Robert stood with a red cheek that was smacked by his commander. Apparently, he had broken formation during the time he stabbed one of the wolves. To Roland, it looked like the right thing to do as the monsters weren’t much of a challenge for these knights. The person called Percival didn’t see it this way, he was probably the one who thought this defensive tactic was the best way to proceed.

“What if one of them made it through and one of the ladies got hurt!”

“I…”

Robert was seen slumping his shoulders forward while dropping his head. After some more scolding, he could see his half-brother walking away with his fist clenched. He had earned guard duty for the first night due to not following orders.

The chest was holding some kind of low-quality magical dagger that one of the knights took away. Soon the path towards the lower level was open and the expedition continued....