66. Morning After and the Dungeon (Part I)

"I'm headed to the northern swamps with builders, and Raven's coming with me. The rest of you will need to defend the city from any demonic attacks." Aman declared.

"Why?" The girls asked collectively. Aman swiftly explained how Wynn and Nysta were still needed in the city, and how both Hannah and Kiara was needed. Without the hero, the defensive power of the city would drop drastically. Raven paused and nodded. This was her chance after Wynn's stunt last night.

"Pack up, we're heading off soon. The builders will join us in a few days, so that's our room to kill the trolls and defeat whatever swamp monsters that live near the bridges to Northengard."

Raven nodded. "On it."

"The rest of you, please help protect the city." Aman repeated. "I'll return as soon as possible."

***

"There's something I can have all of you do, if you're interested." Riley, receptionist of the adventurer's guild, then suggested to the party of four. "According to old records there may be some old magical equipment stored in the old sewers of the city. Errama was a fortress city and was rebuilt many times. In the game itself, there was an optional dungeon where the hero party could explore the old sewers to get some old magical equipment, and a lot of money.

What they didn't know, of course, was Edmund had already ventured into the dungeon himself, and took the money. The dungeon itself had mimics, and with a bit of his demon lord powers, he easily took control of some of the dungeon's mimics. He also captured some of the demonic vines from outside the city, and replanted them in the dungeon, as traps.

Why wouldn't he? He played the game and knew it like the back of his hand. Money was useful to him. Tools and equipment, less so. Unless some of them did more- exotic things.

"Why didn't you tell us about it earlier?" Kiara was suspicious.

Riley shrugged, unaware of what's actually planned in the dungeon. Edmund figured the less she knew, the better it was. "I only found out about it from Lord Peter Errama, when he passed me one of those old scrolls. Apparently they had something like that. If I knew about it, I'd tell you. Anyway, it's not like there's much of a time limit. You can wait for the hero to return before attempting this dungeon."

The four looked at each other. Wynn immediately snatched the scroll to look at it.

"There's an old magic defense formation? And possibly a set of powerful mana stones?" She frowned, quickly imagining how it could be used.

Edmund, in the form of a rat, had snuck into the sewers and confirmed that they were present. There was a small boss also, a gigantic magic-warped rat-monster that fed off the energies of the mana stones and guarded the loot eagerly.

"Is that important?" Kiara asked, uncertain.

"Of course! I'm manually restoring some of the formations because their mana stones are older than my parents!" Wynn complained. "A strong mana stone would significantly improve how much maintenance I need to do to the formations!"

Hannah paused and then asked the remaining team to vote. "Alright, do we wait for the hero to return, or do we go do this ourselves, or we ignore it?"

Wynn wanted to save her time, naturally. "I vote we go for it."

Nysta frowned. "I don't like dungeons. We wait for the hero."

Kiara shrugged. "I'll do it if you do, but we'll back out if things get dangerous." Kiara turned to face Riley. "Do you have more information on these old sewers?"

Riley nodded. "Oh yes. Here's some maps and stuff. If you want, I can ask some of the soldiers to accompany you too, as additional backup."

It wouldn't be too difficult for Edmund to enthrall some of the soldiers and accompany them into the dangerous dungeons. Kiara looked at Hannah.

"What do you think?"

Hannah frowned. "I think we should. The hero asked us to make ourselves useful. We can't wait for him to do everything, right?"

"That's true." Kiara answered. "Well, three of us will go."

Nysta immediately interjected. "Fine, I'll go too."

"It looks like a fairly simple set of sewers. Just three floors down, but it's just infested with- what- old rats?"

The receptionist corrected her. "There may be monsters down there. The presence of mana stones usually cause monsters to spawn. And it's not used, so please be careful."

"Alright. How much backup can you give me?"

***

The party of four waited at the entrance to the old sewers, located in a quiet old part of Errama. Three soldiers stood with them.

"Heroes. We are sent by the captain to assist you with the mission to recover the old magical stones."

One of them was enthralled by Edmund, while Edmund, in the form of a small rat, walked nearby. Hidden.

"Alright. Let's go."

The old sewers was a set of old tunnels, some really narrow and tight, some wider. Two of the soldiers went first. One of them, the one that Edmund enthralled, was named Blink. Blink, a regular soldier, had somehow surveyed the sewers before, and so he took the lead.

"There are parts that get narrow ahead. I'll go first."

The girls nodded. The first floor was just filled with slightly magical and aggressive rats. Nothing much of a threat, though, under Edmund's magical influence, they had a propensity to chew clothes. Especially female clothing.

"These rats normally ignore us." Blink explained as he went ahead, waltzing pass the rats as if they weren't there. The other soldiers did the same, but when the girls tried to walk past the rats, the rats pounced on the girls.

"-what!" Wynn shouted as one of rats started to bite her robe and pull it apart. She blasted the rat to smithereens, but there was a small tear along the hem of her robe. Nysta smacked a few of the rats with her magical staff, but also after a few small bites to her robe. Hannah and Kiara, both in armor, were unhurt, but they defeated them easily.

The soldiers couldn't believe it. "-I'm sorry ma'am. They normally just ignore us. I'm not sure why they attacked you." Blink explained.

"They like clothes?" They watched one of the rats scurried away with a torn segment of Nysta's long dress. It then stopped and chewed on the dress. Wynn frowned and blasted them to bits.

"I'm not letting cloth-eating rats live." Wynn declared.

***

The second floor was where they faced actual threats. Blink held up his hand. "Be careful. There are giant-battle ready rats here. I heard them the last time I was here."

"Why are you here, anyway?" One of the other soldiers asked Blink.

"It's a nice place to get away from my family. Somewhere they won't find me."

"Could've just gone to the bar." The soldier replied.

"Its fucking expensive at the bar. Can't afford to go there every day."

"Hah. I guess that's true." The soldiers laughed. Just then, two giant rats leapt from the ceiling, and immediately on two of the soldiers that were not enthralled. They screamed, but the rats were magical.

Wynn blasted bolts of magic that smashed the two rats. But the two soldiers were already injured. Their face was filled with cuts. Nysta immediately ran over and used her healing magic. She prayed, as her healing ability mended the wounds. "This is poisonous. You'll need to get antidotes."

The two soldiers looked at each other. "I don't have antidotes." Blink nodded. "I have one. The other one will have to get out."

"Okay. Don't get bitten, then." Nysta said, and then frowned. "I should've casted [Protection from Poison]." Unfortunately, protection spells don't work after the fact.

"Well, cast it now." Wynn said. Nysta did so. One of the soldiers ate the antidote, while the other bailed on the party.

"Alright- let's keep going." Blink offered, then more giant magical rats appeared. The party immediately defeated them. The rats were relatively weak. There were more rats, and the party killed more. Thankfully, with the protection from poison, none of them were poisoned after the bites.

They went further, and deeper.  Then came a fork. Three paths.

"Forks. Which way?"

Blink shrugged. "I don't know. According to the maps, they are all the same."

"Then let's pick one and we go together?" Nysta suggested. "There's six of us. If it's an ambush, it's better if we stuck together."

Kiara nodded. "That's a good idea." Deeper. It also got a lot darker, and Wynn had to cast a magical spell to keep the lights on. But the lights didn't pierce very far.

They were all on the lookout, but Raven was their main scout. Then the pathways got really, really narrow. Just wide enough for one person to go through. Some parts have fallen or collapsed many years ago. Nysta looked very uncomfortable.

Blink volunteered to go first. The next section was where Edmund's traps were laid. It was a room laced with aphrodisiacs.