Gamble

Elroy was now faced with a conundrum: there was an unconscious adventurer in his dungeon. As he didn't know how to exactly handle this situation, he thought it best to have her be transported in one of the side-rooms on the first floor. It would serve as a holding cell of sorts until he figured things out. He additionally positioned Orkan to stand guard at the entrance of the room, since he wasn't sure how the adventurer would react when she would awaken.

It didn't long for her eyes to flutter open. As they set upon the imposing frame of Orkan and his great blade, she proceeded to rapidly back away before hitting the back wall of the room. Realizing there was nowhere else to run to, she sat there unmoving, her eyes fixated on Orkan and his drawn claymore.

Elroy tried to do something he had attempted with goblins before to no success, sending out a command to Orkan to speak on his behalf. To his pleasant surprise, a low and somewhat raspy voice echoed out in the quiet room.

"Do not be afraid, you will not be hurt."

Hearing this statement, the adventurer was visibly shocked before turning suspicious. After-all, how could the words of a monster be trustworthy in her opinion?

"If we wanted to kill you, you wouldn't have woken up."

Some of her suspicion fading away, she could only begrudgingly accept this truth.

"What is your name?"

Slightly taken aback, she took some time before muttering a response.

"I- Irene…"

"Good. Why did you come to this place?"

"The Guild had said it was approved for us rookies to explore. And so, we had decided to try our luck here… If we could get a few Essence crystals from kil-, from this trip it would have been worth it."

"Are you talking about these?" responded Orkan, holding a crystal Elroy created, "Are they valuable to you humans?"

"Yes, quite so", she said, "They sell quite easily on the marketplace, since they can be used to absorb Essence."

She seemed to have relaxed quite a bit, the conversation giving her something to focus on.

"I see. Might you tell me where is this place?"

"This is the Western Mountains of the Kingdom of Erydiana. Ma- May I know why you want to know?"

"Simple curiosity. What of this 'Guild' you speak of?"

"It's the organization that handles all the registered adventurers and the dungeons within the Kingdom."

'Lead her back to the Entrance Orkan, we're done here.'

A flash of acknowledgement passed through his eyes. "Come, I'll be letting you go."

Suspicion and fear quickly returned as the end of the short conversation reminded her that her current situation was less than ideal. However, she couldn't help but ask with a bit of hope. "Really?"

"Yes, come now."

They quickly walked back through the deserted tunnel, as Elroy had made his minions hide in the other rooms, and when the entrance came into view, Irene started to run for it as fast as she could. In the end, she was still afraid that the monster would go back on his word.

As she kept running, she would at times look over her shoulder. Seeing the figure of the monster by the dungeon entrance growing smaller and smaller until it was finally out of view, she heaved a sigh of relief. She had made it through this ordeal and only needed to return to town now.

Elroy was quite satisfied with the way things turned out, the adventurer being more cooperative than he had expected, although he had taken a gamble by releasing her like this. He was betting that the Guild would try to enter into contact with whatever leader of the dungeon they could identify. His gamble wasn't baseless either as, to put it into the words of the first adventurers that he had seen, the Guild saw dungeons as a natural resource and wouldn't allow their destruction for no reason. Furthermore, how could there be a dungeon in the capital otherwise?

Irene had now been traversing the forests non-stop for quite a few hours already. Feeling the journey starting to take its toll on her body, she would have to rest soon. Finding a rock on her path to be quite appropriate, she went over to sit on it. Conjuring a small amount of water in her hands to satiate her thirst, she wore a contended smile. She had survived, and she was unharmed at that. Although, remembering what landed her in that situation quickly made her smile wane. She would have her revenge on that bastard, Maxwell!

As she was lost in her train of thought, she didn't notice that a disheveled Arthur had arrived, leading a small group of people which included Reid and Lloyd, the two sliver-ranks.

"Irene!", he exclaimed before rushing forth to embrace her, "Thank the Gods that you're safe! I wouldn't have known what to do otherwise-"

Puzzled at the sudden events, Reid interjected. "Arthur, you mean to say that this is the lady you wanted us to help with rescuing? How come she's here now?"

Arthur paused, noticing the discrepancy. "Yes, how did you end up here? Weren't you caught by the goblins?"

Gently shoving him back, Irene answered their questions. "Well thank you for leaving me there!" she said, sparking an embarrassed smile from Arthur, before continuing "I- I was released by a weird monster."

Sensing the somewhat dubious look Arthur was giving her after her response, she expanded further. "I was really let go from there! I swear! There was a weird monster there, it looked like a goblin but at the same time not… And-" pausing for a bit, she seemed to hesitate, "It talked to me."

"What do you mean it talked to you? You know as well as I do that this is ridiculous!", catching a knowing look between Reid and Lloyd, Arthur called them out. "Hey! Do you know something we don't?"

Lloyd glanced at Reid, and with the latter giving a small nod after some reflection, he sighed and started to speak. "Although this is something you would have come to know much later when you climbed the ranks, I guess there isn't much harm in telling you since you seem to have been confronted with one of them. Lady, what you have encountered is not exactly unheard of. In fact, there have been a few examples throughout history."

He seemed to struggle to find the words. "I guess the best way to describe it is the following. Some monsters seem to gain enough awareness to give themselves a name, an identity. Those monsters also get tied to the Core of their dungeon, becoming their sole Lord of sorts and being able to manipulate it. Some are bloodthirsty and soon get annihilated by the Guild while others are of a more peaceful nature. With the latter the Guild tries to come to an arrangement, but overall, these monsters are considered much more dangerous due to their intellect."

Irene and Arthur seemed stunned by the revelation. "You mean to say it's possible to converse with the creatures?" said Arthur, "The Guild negotiates with monsters?"

Reid spoke up, "Well look no further than your lady-friend, she herself said it talked to her. And how do you think the Skypierce tower is still standing in the capital, ask yourself why the royals would allow such a liability. We should go call this in, if you would please come with us."

He motioned for Irene to come with them, and soon after the group left in the direction from which they came. They were heading back to Heimdell's Guild Branch. When they arrived, Reid and Lloyd requested a meeting with the branch leader who immediately went to interrogate Irene for himself.

Seemingly satisfied with his interrogation, he wrote inside a small booklet before going back to his office. He was smiling as he thought about the reward for the discovery being made in the territory he was supervising. Maybe he would receive a promotion.

A few days had passed since Elroy had released the adventurer and he was getting a bit worried.

'Did she keep it a secret or did she not even make it back to town? I didn't think they would be taking this long to respond.'

Of course, another possibility was starting to cross his mind more frequently. 'Are they perhaps preparing to raze this place to the ground.'

Although he didn't regret taking the gamble, he had been slowly preparing for the worst, summoning more hobgoblins as each day passed.

Otherwise, everything had been working smoothly. The goblins were still working on expanding the dungeon further into the Western Mountains, while the hobgoblins would go on a hunt about every other day to stockpile smoked meat for later consumption.

Orkan had been continuing to train in order to harness the full capability of his wind-blades and claymore, he had also processed the unusually resilient bones of the bear into some armor. On the other hand, Vakt had been continuing to overlook the pass leading to the valley, leaving his post only to hunt.

Elroy could tell that Vakt had taken a great interest in the mysterious white eagle that had been snatching prey in the area. He would now look to the sky in attempts to observe it and how it hunted. Surprisingly it seemed to never fail to catch prey should it even slightly graze it. As long as this light graze occurred, the prey seemed almost paralyzed in place and waiting to be killed which gave Elroy signs it possessed some similar powers to the bear Orkan had killed.

The only time Vakt had left his station but not go hunting had been two days prior. On that day, Vakt had tried following the eagle after it made a kill, and had managed to track it down to its nest. Unlike the nest of regular birds, this one seemed purely made out of bone. The tree it sat upon also seemed unusual, as it looked like it had been struck by lightning and yet deep purple leaves were still growing from it.

On this day, Vakt was watching over the pass as usual when he spotted a new group of people. They seemed to be protecting someone while a person was walking at the front, holding a banner in hand. On this banner, he could distinguish a white flower from the blue background. Underneath it, he could also see a golden sword and shield overlapping each other.

Sensing a pulse from Vakt, Elroy arrived shortly after. Seeing the group as well, Elroy could tell his gamble had paid off.

'They've finally arrived.'