Weesa explained that due to the reduction in recruitment as the war efforts ceased, most of the adventurers around clearing dungeons were mid-high level and focused on the big dungeons that gave the best rewards or recognition for clearing. Thus temporarily there was a vacancy of people to clear the low level dungeons. One low level dungeon was not that far away and was already showing signs of a dungeon break.

  “A dungeon’s purpose is to cleanse corrupted Mana. It does this by creating monsters out of this Mana, then when they're killed, it can cycle the Mana into making more monsters, over time improving the purity of Mana with each kill. When a dungeon hasn’t been cleared in a while the barriers of the dungeon wear down, leading to a break, where Monsters spill out into the surroundings.” Weesa explained.

  “One of the local dungeons hasn’t been cleared in a while, since it's so low level that it wasn’t worth the time for most parties. Yesterday, a Spore Frog wandered by and almost got close enough to destroy my kitchen gardens. Normally, I wouldn’t advise entering a dungeon with all new adventurers, but since you all have cards and experience dueling, you should have no issue dealing with it.The only things you need to know are that fields aren’t created inside a dungeon, and that the dungeon is only cleared by taking out a Boss monster.”

  A short walk later, the three of them were in front of their first dungeon entrance. The entrance wasn’t much to look at, just a small staircase made out of old brick that blended right into the surroundings. What stood out the most was a small board next to the staircase covered in glowing runes. As Max looked it over, a notification popped up translating them into English.

  Weesa had also explained the difference between being allies and a party. Allies were considered on the same side but treated as separate by the system. Parties on the other hand were treated as a group by the system. Which meant that it would raise or lower rewards due to the number of members and their levels. Parties were especially useful for dungeons where there were no fields so you couldn’t group as allies. Making a party was simple, just declare that you wanted to make one, who you wanted to include, and accept the system prompt. Creating a party, Max saw that for the dungeon they were on the lower side of levels and members, so the system was increasing the rewards for them.

  With a quick look around to make sure the party was ready, Max reached out to open the door. As his hand touched the old stone, it opened by itself, revealing a small chamber matching the outside stonework. The chamber was bare except for the far wall where there were some vines curling through an open door frame. Light was provided by glowing gems hovering over sconces protruding from the walls, giving everything a slight greenish tint.

  “Pull cards everyone” Uffda directed as her axe appeared in her hands.

  Dawn already had her pet at her feet, but two cards floated over her hands as she drew.

  Max drew his hand and received Forgotten Ruins, Fallen Tower, and the Ring of Starlight. He quickly communicated his cards to the others, while he threw down the Fallen Tower. It emerged from the stone floor of the chamber and grew until its crumbling top was brushing the ceiling. Dawn had received Multiply and Double Headed but no mana to play them. Uffda had received her Axe, Double Damage, and Fireball, but luckily she could still cast if she did damage thanks to her ability. Max chose to use the Mana generated by the Tower to cast his ring. Watching the count till the next turn slowly decrease, he turned to discuss plans with his party. He couldn’t stop himself from facepalming as he watched Uffda sprint through the open door.

  Max and Dawn shared a despairing look before following her. In the next room, Uffda was already bringing her ax down in an overhead chop onto a thick vine. Half expecting a golden wall and a notification to pop up, Max edged sideways so he could see around Uffda to look for enemies. In front of Uffda, the room changed from the old stonework into a weird jungle, only instead of greenery, everything was a dark blue highlighted with yellows, greens, and purples. Several vines, as wide as a manhole cover, draped around the nearest tree were writhing toward Uffda.

  “Sick em, Princess” Dawn called out and her pet raced forward to attack.

  Looking at the timer till the next draw, which still read 15 seconds, Max noticed a new notification. Fallen Tower is out of range, 4 min 45 sec till despawned. Well shit, you don’t have to worry about fields and turns, but you have to keep in range of your Mana. If only Uffda had a sliver of control, we could have worked the rules of dungeons out without being in combat at the same time.

  A whimper refocused him on the fight at hand, as Princess was slammed against the wall, the small dog still valiantly holding to the huge vine. Uffda had both of her legs grasped by vines, but was still swinging away with her ax. With a flash of light, her Fireball activated, flashing forward to explode against the tangle of vines at the edge of the tree. The vines immediately shrank away from the flames, withdrawing around the tree, except for the one still being savaged by Princess.

  Glancing back down, Max watched the counter run out. “Draw” he called out, while doing so himself. Seeing his Hellhound, Max felt a flash of relief, finally he could do something other than stand around. Using the Mana granted from his ring, Max threw down his Hellhound and directed it to attack the vine Princess was dangling from. Uffda also switched to it and the vine quickly died, rapidly turning brown and shriveling up. Uffda leaned down and pressed her hand to it, then looked up with a smile. “Loot.”

  “Now,” Max started to say, “Let’s make sure we’re ready before -”

  “Charge” Yelled Uffda as she sprinted after the vines.

  “Well, you tried sweetie, but nobody’s holding that girl down.” Dawn said sweetly.

  “You would think she would learn at some point, but she never does.” Max sighed.

  Moving after her, Max and Dawn rounded the tree to see Uffda facing four more vines and an odd creature. At first glance, it appeared to be a pile of thorny briars, but then it moved in odd, jerky movements that revealed the small, red glowing eyes and sharp teeth in their depths. As Uffda swung out at the nearest vine, Max and Dawn commanded the Hellhound and Princess to attack. The Hellhound sprinted forward, growling as it launched itself toward the briar creature. Princess bit down on the end of the vine Uffda had attacked, allowing her to trigger her Inspire Ally card. With the extra attack, the vine shriveled away, opening space for Uffda to reach the other vines.

  With a glance at the draw clock which was getting close to turning again, Max threw down his Forgotten Ruins so he could have Mana to play whatever he drew. The crumbling walls came up giving Dawn a place to hide behind. Drawing his next card Max was pleased to see his new creature, Gargoyle. The ground started to tremble as a tree burst forth from the stone, growing up out of the ruins and pressing against the roof of the dungeon. With her Yggdrasil granting her Mana, Dawn threw down cards left and right, Multiply and Double Headed turned Princess into a small pack of five, three headed dogs now capable of attacking 15 times each turn. As Uffda slammed her Ax into the next vine, her Fire Hatchling appeared hovering over her shoulder.

  The briar creature, recovering from the Hellhound’s attack, flung out its hand, sending thorn darts at the dogs, forcing them to scatter. A shadow rapidly grew, as from a tree above, a snake came crashing down to wrap around the gargoyle, bringing it slamming down to the jungle floor. Dear gods, now we have falling snakes, can this get any worse? Before Max could even regret that thought, which to be clear was the worst form of baiting the universe, several more briar creatures moved out of the underbrush to surround Uffda.

  “Quick Dawn, have the dogs attack the briar creatures,” Max shouted, “Uffda handle the vines, and my creatures will handle the snake.” He directed his Hellhound to help the Gargoyle against the snake, which seemed to have turned into a standoff that was slowly going in his creature’s favor, the snake not able to crush the stone skin of its opponent. For the next couple minutes, Max watched as the pack took down the briar creatures together, Dawn replenishing any the briar’s took out with the next surge of Multiply. The vines hated fire, so when Uffda got her Heart’s Flames the next turn she and her Hatchling made short work of them. Together, the Gargoyle and Hellhound made short work of the snake, leaving the clearing covered in bodies and scattered thorns.

  Before Uffda could run off again, Max called out that he needed to give his cards time to refresh. Uffda shrugged and said she’d collect loot while he did. All together, they each received 70 silver coins from the vines, briars, and snake. Letting five minutes pass meant that all their cards were available again, but only Dawn had a card out, her loyal pet.

  Max turned to the others and proposed they set a strategy before entering the next room. “Let’s cycle our starting hands until we have a good hand first. Then when we enter, Uffda will attack anything that looks ready to attack, while Dawn will focus on stragglers or prepare to attack a strong monster, and I’ll focus on our defense. Any issues with this?”

  “I don’t have to worry about being attacked due to my Title, but I’m happy to help out” Dawn pointed out.

  Uffda just nodded her head, hands tightening on her Ax, already raring to go.

  “Remember the monsters could be hiding or above us.” Max added, sure that he had already lost her attention.

  Drawing his hand, Max got Deakron’s Hymn, Fallen Tower, and Hellhound. While not the most optimal hand, it was still a good playable hand and Max didn’t have faith that Uffda would wait long enough for him to cycle if the next one sucked. Looking at Dawn, Max asked “Did you get a playable hand? Mine works for me.”

  At her nod, Max gestured to Uffda that she could go ahead. To her credit, Uffda didn’t rush through this one recklessly, but grabbed the door, threw it open and announced “ Incoming, ya little varmints.”

  Entering the room, the three looked around and overhead for sudden ambushers. Instead, the next room held a tranquil peace, long blue-green grass swaying gently in a soft breeze around a small pond of clear water. At the other end, the same trees from the previous room rose to touch the top of the dungeon, but carried ripe fruit instead of snakes.

  Uffda let out a despairing moan and complained, “What is this? Where are the Monsters?”

  Max looked around cautiously, “Sometimes there’s a room in dungeons, in video games ,where you can take a break and prepare for a boss monster.”

  “Uh kids, Dawn broke in, “I think we’ve got trouble.”

  Uffda and Max spun to her, she was looking off to their right where Princess was bristling at the forest. Trying to see what she was looking at Max peered at the trunks. After a moment, he was able to finally spot a couple of creatures blending into the dark blue of the tree trunks. With the whole group staring at them, they stalked forward emerging from the ferns around the base of the trees and flaring out their feathers so that bright orange and purple feathers on their ruffs were uncovered. They were about waist high covered in blue feathers with long limbs ending in huge, razor sharp claws. Their bodies were thin and streamlined for running, with long tails to balance out their jumps. As they emerged, small boxes appeared over them.

  Looking at them, one of the raptors threw back its head and released a long honk sound. Immediately, honks sounded out from the jungle around them followed by more raptors hopping out of the foliage. There were now 7 raptors around them, and a much larger version emerged looking like a small t-rex.

  Seeing the red dot next to the Matriarch’s Name, Max knew that this had to be the boss monster for this floor. Immediately, he threw down his Fallen Tower and summoned his hellhound to prepare for the battle. Dawn sent Princess to attack one of the Raptors, while Uffda launched herself at the Matriarch, a volcano emerging from where she had been standing. As Uffda brought her Ax down, it burst into flames from Heart’s flames, a red 9 flashed as the Matriarch’s health dropped. Luckily, only the one Princess had bit attacked her, with the rest running to surround Uffda. It still dropped Princess’s health to 4, one more attack would kill her. The Matriarch’s return swipe at Uffda slammed into Yggdrasil’s trunk as Dawn brought it up between them. The red 15 turned into a notification.

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  Shit, these creatures' attacks could kill us all fast. I’ll hope that Deakron’s Hymn will work for everyone since we’re in a party, or this won’t help that much.

  As soon as the counter ran out, Max played Deakron’s Hymn without even looking to see what his new card was. The harp appeared at his feet, its strings playing on their own while blue mist spread out covering the floor of the clearing. Taking a moment, Max glanced at his new card seeing he had got his Ring of Starlight. Well, that doesn’t do a lot here, so guess it's just my hellhound. Urging it on, he directed it to attack one of the undamaged raptors, reducing it to half health.

  Princess attacked again, doing another 1 damage to her opponent, but this at least let Max know that he had been right about the party getting the benefit of his Blessing. Dawn played her Realm card, making all beasts cost less, and doubling their defense. This was especially important for Princess as it quadrupled her defense bringing her to 8. Uffda played her Fire Hatchling, the little dragonling hovering over her shoulder, then Uffda attacked an undamaged raptor killing it.

  Next turn my Hellhound will kill one raptor, leaving 5. Princess and the dragonling can attack but won't do much damage. Uffda can either kill another Raptor or hurt the Matriarch, but not kill it. We all have creatures out so hopefully they won’t be able to attack us directly. We need some better cards next round. As the counter clicked down, Max prayed that the Heart of the Cards didn’t desert them.

  Max drew his Cloak of Shadows and almost despaired until he watched Princess become five dogs as Dawn played Multiply. Uffda thrust out her hand sending her Fireball to explode against the pack of raptors in front of her, dealing a -3 to defense to three raptors and the Matriarch. The pack of dogs took out the raptor Princess had been attacking and bit one other. The hellhound took out its damaged opponent leaving four raptors, three of them untouched. Uffda attacked the Matriarch again, dropping its health to 12.

  Watching the raptors prepare to attack, Max knew that they needed to make the most of the advantage they had. Once the raptors killed their creatures, their health would drop rapidly. Running forward, he played his Cloak while making his best soccer kick at the damaged Raptor. Thanks to the fireball reducing defense it was enough to kill the raptor.

  The raptors attacked back, but thanks to the Realm Card boosting defense none of their attacks made it through. Just as Max started to sigh in relief, the Matriarch started glowing a deep purple and let out a long roar. Large blue vines burst forth from the ground grabbing onto the party members.

  Shit, we got rid of half the raptors, but with our defense not refreshing we’re back to where we were. Hopefully, we can take enough of them out before they attack to keep the momentum going.

  Looking over at Dawn, Max hoped she got a good draw as she had the strongest combination on their team. Her face lit up as she drew her card, then she played Growth causing Princess to double in size and double her attack. Then Multiply activated causing 4 copies of the bigger Princess to join the 4 smaller copies. Fireball erupted from Uffda’s hand again reducing the raptors defense.

  Princess and her copies attacked, wiping out the raptors in a wave of wagging tails and flashing fangs. Uffda swung her Ax, taking down the last of the Matriarch’s health. Above them, confetti drifted down from the roof as a new rust colored notification popped up, followed by the standard grey system notification.

  Cards formed outlined in that strange rust colored glow, each party member had two floating in front of them.

  On the other side of the pond, a section of earth melted away, revealing a staircase down to the next floor. After a couple of minutes to let everyone’s health heal, Max gestured for everyone to draw their first hand. Uffda and Dawn indicated that they were good, but Max drew his ring, hellhound, and cloak. Without Mana, he couldn’t cast any of them. Luckily, after waiting 30 seconds, his next draw was the forgotten ruins, so he gestured for everybody to advance.

  The second floor was lit similarly to the first floor by gems floating over sconces, however instead of green gems this floor was lit by red gems. The reddish light glinted off tall bamboo stalks that formed the boundaries of the passage instead of stone walls. Plants grew everywhere, their blue vines and wide purple fronds creating trip hazards and potential places for ambushes to spring from.

  The party drew together, forming a triangle with Uffda in the lead, as they slowly progressed down the path. This floor seemed bigger than the first as after two minutes of travel they still hadn’t seen a room or monster. The plants on the other hand had grown bigger, now standing as tall as Uffda, each one bearing a heavy canopy of small pink fruits. They looked as if pink Starbursts had been hung from the branches, but they emitted a sickly sweet smell like crushed raisins.

  It was these fruits that clued Max into the next enemy. The plants went from being overloaded with fruits to suddenly picked clean. Looking into an empty plant, Max saw a large yellow frog perched on a branch, three long tongues whipped out raking fruit off a nearby plant. Quickly, Max scanned the nearby plants and saw two more frogs. “Frogs, up in the trees.” he whispered to the party.

  Uffda played her Mount Doom card, reducing the defense of the frogs to zero. Racing forward, she swung her ax at eye level and tore into one of the frogs, immediately her double damage card flashed and the frog died. Meanwhile Dawn played Yggdrasil, Double Headed, and Growth, causing Princess to double in size and grow two extra heads. She raced forward and launched herself off the trunk, flying upwards and ripping into the frog. Instead of an explosion of gore, there was an explosion of red numbers and the poor frog died.

  Max played forgotten ruins and hellhound, directing it to the last frog. Sadly, his hellhound didn’t have the overwhelming power of Uffda and Princess and only dropped it to half life. The frog glowed and a cloud of yellow dust rose off of it and floated to Max’s Hellhound.

  “Watch out for that Magic Attack,” Max yelled. “It reduces both health and defense by half.”

  The last frog was easily taken out by Princess, but now they had a tricky decision to make. Run forward to the next fight and hope they had enough time left in play for their creatures or dismiss everything and draw new at the next fight. Since Dawn already had Princess buffed they chose to make the most of it and rushed forward, winding through the plants towards the next fight.

  As they ran, Max watched the counter for the next draw, planning on drawing as soon as it ran out in hopes of playing his new card, before he ran out of range of his Forgotten Ruins. When the time ran out he played his Ring of Starlight and drew his next card. He drew one of his new cards, Ancient Tome, which when played caused a book to appear, floating open in the air above his shoulder. Luckily, it didn’t require him to hold it or appear on the ground where it would have been left behind.

  Ahead the path ran into a small pond, its water barely above ankle height. Huge lilypads spread across its surface, with Yellow Spore Frogs resting upon them. In the middle of the pond was a small rocky mound where three bunnies were playing. The bunnies were pure white, with little red eyes and a single spiraling horn in the center of their foreheads.

  Uffda led the charge striking out at the nearest frog, reducing it to 2 health. At a gesture from her, her newest card Conflagration lit the mound on fire, catching all three bunnies in the flames. Princess raced across the lilypad, her light weight barely making it ripple, and took out another frog. Max directed his hellhound to take out the frog Uffda had damaged, while he cast his latest draw, Black Banshee. As she entered she screamed sending black ripples through the air into a frog, then she floated over and ripped into it with her claw, reducing its health to 7.

  On the mound, the bunnies tried to escape the fire, but the blaze was too wide for them and they all perished. The frogs attempted a counterattack, with both of them using the magic attack that reduced defense and health on Uffda and Princess respectively. However, this was too little, too late as with the next turn the party was easily able to take them out.

  Left in the sudden quiet, Max tried to get his breath back, looking around the slowly sinking lilypad. Uffda was busy looting the corpses, refusing to let any shines escape her. They had received coins from both sets of frogs, but not from the raptors. Boss monsters must give out cards instead of coins. Dawn was busy petting Princess, telling her what a good girl she was. Noticeably missing were any enemies, so Max could only conclude that the boss must not be in this room. Sure enough, on the other side of lilypads, he saw the entrance to a cave.

  After splashing their way from the lilypad to the grassy shore, they settled in to wait for their health and defense to heal before heading into the cave. While they waited, Max went over the fights so far in his mind, looking for any improvements they could make before entering the boss. So far it had been a toss up of either overpowering everything or being overwhelmed. The only sure plays he could think of were to make sure everyone had a creature before they entered, and maybe wait till Dawn had drawn multiply. That way if there was a swarm of creatures, they would be able to fight them off. The only sticking points were the randomness of the draws and Uffda’s unwillingness to sit around while they drew.

  Talking it over with the others, Uffda made a startling good point, “no point in making plans until we see what the first draw is.” Agreeing with that they decided to move closer to the cave and see what intel they could gain from the outside.

  Inside the cave, the everpresent red gem lights were much paler casting a pastel pink glow over the rocks. The cave entrance went about 10 feet in then started widening into what they were pretty sure would be the boss room. With a last check of everyone’s health, they drew their first hands.

  “Fallen Tower, Ancient Tome, and Gargoyle” Max said.

  “Battle Axe, Mount Doom, and Heart’s Flames” said Uffda excitedly.

  “Double Headed, Flower Crown, and Princess of course” replied Dawn.

  “I got a creature and the land for it, but it’ll take me two turns to play it and get the tome out to power it up.

  “What if you played your creature now?” Uffda asked, “Would it still have summoning sickness when it faces the boss?”

  “Hmm, I don’t know,” Max answered, “According to the rules as I understand them, summoning sickness prevents creatures from attacking the first turn they enter. I haven’t heard anything requiring there to be a monster for that turn to count. However, there’s a lot of this that we are still figuring out.”

  “Well,” Dawn mused, “that room looks much closer than we were last time when we got out of range of our lands. We could play them here, and wait a turn, giving us another draw and potentially removing the…um.. “Summoning sickness?” Am I saying that right?”

  “Sounds good” Uffda decided and played her volcano.

  Max was quick to play both his tower and gargoyle. When the timer ran out, they received Ring of Starlight, Inspire Ally, and Yggdrasil. Dawn played her tree and double headed, turning Princess into a tiny cerberus. Max played his ring and then his tome granting a +2 to attack for his gargoyle.

  “Let’s charge” hollered Uffda as she sprinted into the cave, her axe lighting up with flames.

  With a disturbing sense of Deja Vu, Max and Dawn followed her in. Inside the cave, the room was a small cavern. The roof was only maybe 10ft tall with two and three feet stalactites hanging down, making Uffda have to weave between them. Oddly, there were no stalagmites sticking up from the floor, instead the floor was covered in vines and fronds, emitting a deep leafy smell reminiscent of the jungle they had just left behind. Against the back wall, were seven giant red and yellow blossoms looking like a Venus flytrap had hulked out. Weirdly the right wall had glowing blue patches on it, looking almost like a video game with glitching pixels.

  As Uffda came to a stop, looking around for any targets, the blossoms began lifting into the air. As they spun forward, they revealed a giant green eye nestled in the center of the blooms.

  Shit, weird name and in a different color, I bet that’s a named creature. In video games those were always more challenging fights, even over other boss monsters, and this one is a boss too. We are so screwed.

  Without hesitation, Uffda threw herself into a lunge sweeping out with her axe blade in a horizontal strike. Instead of the 12 Max expected to flash, a red 20 flashed. It must be weak to fire, alright we got a good chance at this. Before Max could send in his gargoyle, Princess dashed in to bite into a vine leg, causing Uffda’s Inspire Ally to flash. Amazingly, the +5 to attack counted as base damage so each head dealt 8 damage, knocking the plant down to 26 life. With a screech Max’s gargoyle came down causing 9 damage to it, which seemed a little anticlimactic.

  With an enraged hiss, the plant turned a glowing ruby red as all the vines in the chamber retracted. Before Max could even yell out a warning, the vines exploded out slapping the party into the wall. As Dawn and Uffda got shakily to their feet, they were surprised to see a notification pop up.

  Spinning around, they watched the gargoyle and tome vanish. With an anguished yell, Uffda hurled her axe, slicing off another 12 points of damage, allowing Princess to take down the boss.

  “What happened to Max?” Uffda asked, ignoring the notification announcing they had cleared the second floor.

  “When that plant smacked us, he went through that blue….thing.” Dawn replied, trying and failing to hide her own concern.

  “Is he dead?”

  “No, it says the party is split. Doesn’t that just mean he’s somewhere else? The only question is where is he?”

  Do you want a chapter from Dawn's viewpoint of the 3rd floor of the Briarthorn Dungeon?