Dungeon Delver - 1

So, this is something I started writing to get back on the habit, it progressed much slower than I wanted, but I still have 10 chapters of it on my PC and I'll be posting them as I make some corrections.

As I said, I'm finishing the next chapter of WIll right now, but I hope you guys find this one interesting in the meanwhile.

I'm not completely satisfied with the way I started the story, (I only wanted a single chapter of battle but that stretched for 2) but I think it works well enough to introduce the world.

It's an original somewhat inspired by Knight Run, the very first webcomic I ever read, and a post apocalyptic story that happens a century or so after the world was almost destroyed by the appearance of dimmensional rifts containing monsters.

The things aren't really Dungeons or have cores, and they weren't called that in the beginning, but the nerds kinda won that battle and now, everyone calls the rifts Dungeons and the monsters separated into Lesser - Normal - Elite - Boss, levels. 

Basically, it's a Dungeon Delving story where modern weapons aren't useless but Delvers still use armor and medieval weapons because, at higher levels, it's too expensive to create effective bullets unless it's for defense.

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The monster raid sirens shiriked in the guild base, an incredibly loud sound the likes of which Eric had only ever heard in movies. 

The deafening noise went on and on without stop, hurting his ears and almost making him unable to think, particularly when a second siren started blaring a few kilometers to his right, then a third further into the city.

“Well… fuck, that’s inconvenient,” he said in an annoyed voice, fork halfway to his mouth.

Trading a questioning glance with the recruit to his right, Eric was about to continue eating when he registered how the sirens refused to stop, the realization hitting him like a ton of bricks, his face going white.

Dropping a plate, an awakened Eric didn’t recognize cursed and ran out of the line on the buffet, quickly followed by another three that were moving as fast as olympic athletes of old, each one holding a bladed weapon, but also wearing firearms strapped to their backs indicating they were still tier 1 or 2

“Move recruit!” Someone screamed from behind him, finally snapping him out of his daze.

‘Holy shit he wasn’t ready! He so wasn’t ready!’ Eric thought as he got moving. Barely two months of training as support personnel for the Red Legion guild did not prepare him for dealing with a full on monster attack.

Fuck, he had never even seen a monster before last month, and that one had been a runt, a tier 1 lesser frog, it had been barely stronger than a dog all things considered, if far more intimidating.

Thankfully, Eric was already wearing his armor since his shift was about to start, so he just ran out of the guildhall and into the field, trying his best to follow what little training he had.

“Over here!” Drill Leader Keeton screamed at him. Standing beside an equipment shed, the man had one hand raised to gather attention from any recruits running out of the hall. 

“What’s going on,” Ariadne asked as she reached Eric’s side, his fellow recruit already in full gear and adjusting her helmet while managing to keep up with his running.

“Fuck if I know,” shouted Davis from slightly ahead of them. “I thought we were far from any frontier, that's the whole reason I even registered as support personnel.”

“Flying monsters can still reach the city,” Eric told them, having read about it from somewhere he couldn’t remember.

“Yeah, but why ever come here?” Davis shook his head. “It’s not like we have anything they want, we have so few awakened I doubt a monster would ever notice their mana.”

“No,” Ariadne said. “If it were only one, someone would have blown it out of the sky by now.”

“Migration?” Eric shrugged as they neared the Drill Leader. “I think 7th district had to deal with one when a Tier 3 evolved.”

Nodding towards Drill Leader Keaton’s location, Eric saw the man was busy trying to find out what happened so he just grabbed one of the available rifles, checking the safety and if it had ammo before another recruit came pushing a cart filled with boxes of ammo.

“Adler, what the hell are you bringing?” Leader Keaton shouted at the new arrival while reading information on his datapad.

“Sir, Boss Adams ordered me to bring the enhanced ammunition!” The recruit shouted in answer.

“Fuck!” The Leader shouted, rubbing a hand over his eyes while he thought.

Eric swallowed, that couldn’t be good, he had never seen Keaton so nervous. Making sure his sidearm was in place, he hurried to grab a few grenades just in case. Technically, he wasn’t supposed to touch them yet, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

“Fuck,” Keaton repeated while looking around. “Alright, Davis, Larsen, Anderson, Alves you’re the best shots in this batch, drop the rifles and grab a railgun each, the rest of you, reload your weapons with the new ammo and make sure to grab four extra magazines each.

Obeying his Drill Leader, Eric grabbed one of the railguns, the larger weapon was heavy in his hand, black painting making it feel even more dangerous than it already was. Making sure to grab two extra energy cells, he started filling his pockets with magazines.

The Sergeant continued to check his datapad, a nervous hand taping against his own railgun to his left, his face becoming uglier by the second.

Slowly, all twenty of the recruits from his class arrived and equipped themselves, everyone eerily quiet as they waited for more information or new orders. Eric did his best to try and calm himself, but nothing was really working and, as he thought of his mother and sister still inside the city, he found it harder and harder to stay in place.

Eric wasn’t a complete idiot, he knew he was a half trained recruit with a weapon he had only shot twice in his life, still, he had to keep reminding himself of that fact before he ran out into the city towards his family.

The Red Legion was a small guild with only six teams of awakened, two of which were away on dungeon delves, but they still had a little over a hundred support personnel on the base, had a lot of military equipment and were much better prepared to deal with anything threatening their small city.

So, he’d do the smart thing, stay in place, defend the Guild, avoid fucking up his chance as a support and pray to god his family was safe. His mother should be at work and his sister in school anyway, both places had safe rooms for just this kind of situation.

“Listen up,” the Leader said when every recruit arrived. “Nobody really knows exactly what’s going on right now but there’s been an attack on the district, several monsters started appearing close to the city center and they’re targeting anything with a pulse. Considering how aggressive they are, the Guild believes there’s been a dungeon break.

“Now, good news is, they’re deploying support teams for monster extermination, so they believe the break can be dealt with, as for the bad news, with how many monsters there are, it’s likely that even you guys will have to be deployed, worse, since the cheapskates up top allowed the use of enhanced ammo, we’re probably dealing with Tier 2 monsters and our tier 3 awakened are all on a delve.”

Eric gripped his railgun tighter, finger tapping a little above the trigger as he fought to stay still. Holy shit, tier 1 monsters were little better than animals but Tier 2 were on a whole new level and, if a dungeon broke it meant there was a Tier 3 evolved somewhere in the city!

“If we’re deployed remember, keep in formation, work in teams of four, do not approach a monster even if it’s been killed and no heroics, only the awakened get to be stupid like that, am I understood?”

“Yes sir!” They all shouted at the same time.

Soon, Eric saw a few armored personnel carriers arriving, each one with a heavy machine gun on top and deploying squads of 8 to 15 soldiers, some of which were followed by cannons or cars carrying more heavy weapons. 

Only a couple of minutes later, Arthur Dalton, the leader of Red Legion’s second strongest team arrived at their tent. At 6’4’’ the man was taller than Eric by 3 inches, with a swimmer build and brown hair.

He also wore an enhanced armor set, reminiscent of medieval armor, it was made of sleek black metal and fit his entire body like a glove, making him look like a knight of old.

At his back, he had a much larger Railgun, almost a cannon, but he held a large poleaxe, a glint of red on the metal indicating it was heavily enhanced, likely more expensive than his entire armor.

As a tier 2, Arthur’s railgun would still be far more effective at killing monsters, but each bullet could cost more than a creature was worth, particularly if it was a lesser monster.

“Are those the Trainees?” Arthur asked as the rest of his team moved on towards their own vehicle.

“Yes sir,” Keaton answered. “We’re ready to deploy.”

“Good!” Arthur said, then took a moment to look over the trainees, all of them doing their best to seem professional. He nodded. “I had to contact someone, so my team is already late for the battle, but I’ll try to clear up a path towards the center of the city. I need your APC nearby, hunt down any stragglers and keep the roads clear, I’ll send you the details on your datapad.”

“Understood sir!”

While they were talking, another transport parked in front of Eric’s training class and Arthur nodded before jogging away towards his delver team, then the Leader motioned everyone inside.

Entering the back of the transport, Eric sat on the bench and put his head against the 12 mm thick armor, railgun held in front of him while the others found their place, then they started moving.

“Fuck, why couldn’t this have happened in two days,” Davis mumbled while caressing his own railgun.

“Why two days?” Eric couldn’t help but ask.

“That’s my leave day, was gonna visit my girlfriend in Jonesport. Fuck, at least I get to shoot this beauty.”

“Coward,” Ariadne cursed, but with more amusement than anger. “Stop being a baby and concentrate on killing monsters.”

The vehicle suddenly hit something on the road causing them all to jump on their seats, Eric desperately pulled the railgun to his chest but someone dropped their rifle, the weapon hitting the floor and making him wince.

With trembling hands, Adam grabbed his rifle back, a bead of sweat running down his white face. His fellow recruit was the youngest on the squad, having only just completed 18 before volunteering.

Looking down, Eric noticed his own hands weren’t doing much better, they held on to the railgun with a dead grip, fingers gripping the metal as if his life depended on it

“On that account,” Eric said, trying to distract himself. “Any idea what kind of monsters we’re dealing with?”

“Insects,” Leader Keaton answered from the front. “It’s possible there are some other monsters, but the majority are some kind of giant armored larva, with a few grown bugs, no flyers yet.”

Not even a minute later, some giant cannon started barking a few streets away, the shots being fired one after another, then the rifles started shooting and something large screamed. 

Eric too started sweating.

“They’re here!” The guy manning the heavy machine gun on top of the vehicle screamed, then opened fire, a deafening noise even with the ear protectors on his helmet.

“Out! Out now!” Keaton screamed, kicking the APC’s door’s open as soon as it stopped moving.

Eric’s muscles tensed, his heart seeming to skip a beat as fear filled him, then he squeezed his eyes shut for a second, took a deep breath and ran out, Davis and Ariadne quickly following him.

Before he even touched the ground, his railgun traced a movement to his right and he barely managed to stop himself from pulling the trigger as he noticed an adult man in a suit running by him.

Lowering the weapon, Eric looked around. The city was in a much better state than he thought it would be, he expected fire and debris everywhere but the buildings were mostly intact, metal doors barring most entrances and windows.

There were a few parked cars around the wide street, but they didn’t show any signs of damage, then he saw the two dead monsters.

It was a huge creature, an insect larva half the size of their armored vehicle, segmented, dark green carapace coved its head and back , but he could see large pincers poking from under its body and three thin, spiked legs bent at odd angles.

Despite being Tier 2, the heavy machine gun had made short work of the creatures, the bullets piercing their carapace with ease and messing up their insides, but Eric knew they were probably lesser monsters, more dangerous by their numbers than their power.

“Railguns!” Keaton yelled. “Put a bullet through their heads and let’s move on, we’ll follow the vehicle on foot from now on.”

Eric lifted the weapon to his shoulder and took aim, finding a small gap where the carapace didn’t protect the creature’s small head, then he pressed the trigger, the railgun charging for a full second before releasing a sharp crack, stock hitting his armored shoulder with the force of an angry horse, one of the five lights on the side of the weapon winking out.

The large projectile hit the closest larva at 8000 km/h, its head disappearing into a shower of green ichor that splashed on the asphalt for quite a few meters around the dead creature. Pieces of its body were mostly contained by its covering armor, but a few still fell around the beast.

To his side, Davis’ own railgun barked, the second larva exploding into a shower of gore, pieces of chitinous carapace and insect meat raining around the monster, his teammate either missing or not bothering to aim for a gap in the armor.

Ariadne glared at Davis, then had to step back as a piece of carapace fell on the flower where she had been standing with a wet ‘thunk’.

“Damn, I love this thing,” Davis said, caressing the railgun while it cooled down.

“Good,” leader Keaton nodded and checked his datapad one last time. “Now, our goal is to keep this street clear and advance towards the city center while eliminating all monsters, form teams of four, a railgun to each team, the remaining recruits will follow the APC!”

“... Ah, love may have been too strong a word,” Davis said, “Sir, may I exchange the railgun with someone and stay with the APC too?”

Eric sighed and slapped the back of his friend’s head while Ariadne took a few steps away from the idiot, pretending she didn’t know him. Thankfully, the group Leader decided to ignore them.

“The noise we’re making should start attracting monsters soon, spread through the side streets and eliminate every one you find,” Keaton ordered, closing the doors of the armored personnel carrier with a bang. “Remember, don’t enter the buildings, don’t approach a monster and, for fuck’s sake, don’t save ammo, the idiots’s on top may grumble about the cost but fuck them, they’re not here! If anything happens, fall back to the APC.”

“Yes sir!”

Eric traded a nod with Davis as the man stepped away from him, finding three others to form his own team while Ariadne stayed back, quickly motioning for another two recruits to join them.

James Taylor was a runt, barely 5’4’’ the man was also the fifth best shooter in their group and could outlast them all in a marathon despite his size, Gabriel Sanches wasn’t as good a shoot, in fact, he was in the lower end of their group, but he had nerves of steel, Eric hadn’t seen him lose his composure even once despite the stress of their training.

Together, they started walking, Ariadne taking the lead while Eric guarded the rear, making sure nothing snuck up on them from behind.

With barely 70 thousand habitants, Weller’s Retreat was far from a big city but walking through the deserted streets still gave Eric an eerie feeling, the atmosphere far too quiet despite the constant shooting sounding from all around them.

Then Ariadne reached an intersection, her weapon rising to her shoulder before she pressed trigger, the rifle barking into short, controlled bursts. Making sure there was nothing threatening the read, Eric joined them.

The new giant monster larvae were swarming, probably attracted by all the shooting. Most of them were rushing towards his position from three blocks away, but a small group was rushing out of a building, squeezing through the damaged metal door in pairs before being pelted by bullets by his squad.

Unlike the ones killed by the APC’s gun, those larvae were smaller, about as long as a person was tall, they had orange and black leathery skin and spiked jaws the size of swords, they were also incredibly fast.

The closest monsters died as they left the building, ichor, spiked limbs and flesh flying off as the bullets pierced their mana barrier and leathery skin, the creatures releasing shrieks of anger and pain.

 “Shit, there’s a lot of them!” Going down on one knee, Eric sighed one of the larvae further away, took a breath and pressed the trigger, a second later, the gun barked, recoil smashing into his shoulder.

The monster exploded in pieces, green ichor flying three meters into the air and bits of flesh no larger than a finger smashing into its companions with such strength their mana barriers flashed white, straining under the impact

The sound of weapons firing seemed to fill the world as all three of Eric’s team released a wave of death towards the incoming monsters, but he did his best to tune it out.

‘One, two, three, four…’ he slowly counted in his mind, letting the railgun recharge before pressing the trigger again.

Nine larvae had died coming out of the building, none getting more than a couple of meters closer to his team before being reduced to so much meat.

So, their mana barrier could only block a single bullet and they weren’t that resistant anyway…

Letting his railgun drop and hang by its bandolier, Eric got up, pulled out his sidearm and started shooting, the large handgun shooting much faster than he could with his main weapon.

Eric’s first shot smashed into a charging larva and bounced off, mana barrier flashing white around the affected area, the second broke right through, gouging off a huge hole on the front of the creature.

He continued shooting, hitting the same creature another two times before changing targets and killing another four before his weapon clicked empty.

Ejecting the spent magazine, Eric took a second to look behind himself while reloading, then he tapped Ariadne on the shoulder and screamed. “Start falling back!”

Walking backwards, all four of them continued shooting, the wave of larvae crawling through the corpses of the frontline and advancing on them at alarming speed, running more than twice as fast as a human.

When his weapon clicked empty again, Eric pulled out a grenade from his chest and flung the thing at the approaching creatures, a bead of sweat running down his face.

The explosion rocked the street, breaking the glass on every parked vehicle around the place and blowing a hole through the approaching horde. Even better, the sheer noise seemed to disorient the beasts, some of them stumbling and releasing shrieks of pain.

From further behind the horde, something much larger answered their cries with a short, high pitch scream that hurt his ears despite the helmet’s protection.

At his side, Gabriel pulled the pin on his own grenade, throwing the explosive at a denser part of the horde. Reloading his own gun, Eric chose a flashbang and threw it towards the middle of the creatures despite it being nearly empty.

The first grenade bounced off the back of a larva and exploded above the horde, the fragments wounding, disabling and throwing around half a dozen of the monsters.

The flashbang was less visually impressive, its burst of light and noise blocked by the helmet’s safety features, but the effect was even better, the noise seeming to leave every surviving larvae dazed, the creatures smashing into each other or tripping over their own clawed feet.

At this point, the horde had been thinned enough that Eric could see the street behind it, floor covered in green ichor and amputated insect pieces, he also saw the second monster.

A mixture of rhinoceros beetle and a bull, the black behemoth easily matched the size of a tank, with three horns on its head and six clawed legs as thick as a tree trunk, it must have weighed at least 10 tons, the beast was also charging them at 40km/h 

 Not bothering to holster his handgun, Eric let it drop to the floor as he grabbed his main weapon and cursed when he saw only two lights at its side.

Trusting Ariadne to deal with any remaining larvae, he fell to one knee and dialed the restriction on the railgun up to level 2, then aimed at the creature’s head and pressed the trigger.

The railgun activated, barrel heating up for two entire seconds before exploding with a deafening noise, the air itself heating up as it launched the bullet at nearly 12 000 km/h.

The monster’s mana barrier flashed and broke with the sound of broken glass, its mana core unable to block such powerful projectiles, but it still managed to deflect it a little.

With a crack, one of the creature’s upper horns snapped off, the entire left part of its back imploding from the impact, 20mm thick shards of carapace flying off with enough speed to pierce the buildings around the monster.

The impact threw the beast to the side, aborting its charge, but it just shook its head, gave an utterly enraged screech, and started charging again, the bleeding wound healing at a visible rate and seeming to only irritate it more.

“Oh crap!” James screamed as he saw the beast.

Gabriel gave him a worried glance, but wisely decided not to distract him. Still, he too switched his aim towards the charging beast, his bullets bouncing off the creature’s thick carapace without much effect.

“To the side!” Screamed Ariadne, her rifle firing on full auto as she turned towards their left.

Ignoring everything, Eric fully unlocked the restriction on the railgun, aimed at the behemoth’s head, pulled the trigger and started counting even as the monster came closer and closer, trampling over the corpses of larvae as if they were paper. 

‘One, two, three, fou…’  Eric released the trigger, the kickback almost throwing him into the ground as the bullet flew towards its target, the weapon’s barrel so hot the air around it started to distort.

The projectile hit the behemoth right above its jaws, the creature’s head simply ceasing to exist as the bullet turned it into a cloud of insect ichor when it was less than half a block away from him.

Headless, the behemoth lost its footing, the entire body flipping on its head as sheer momentum kept it thumbling forward despite being dead.

Eyes wide, Eric threw himself to the side, then desperately rolled away as the creature’s heavy corpse smashed through where he had just been, almost clipping his legs, damaging the street and crushing a signpost before finally smashing into a building, walls collapsing around its mass.

For a moment, Eric just stared at the beast buried under the rubble but, when it didn’t move, his muscles relaxed and he laid his head back on the floor despite the fact his team was still shooting monsters, tension leaving him as he released a deep breath.

Eric let himself rest for a full five seconds before pushing his body into a sitting position and ejecting the large, square magazine from his railgun with a ‘hiss’, then he took the chance to look around while pulling out a second magazine.

The swarm of black larvae was dead, about 100 of the creatures littered the street in varying states, most were at least filled with holes but some were completely blown apart.

To his left side, Gabriel and James were focusing their fire on one of those green armored larva, piercing bullets breaking through its carapace with some effort while two others had already died.

“Come on, enough resting,” Ariadne said, shouldering her own gun and offering him a hand.

Taking the hand, Eric got to his feet and reloaded his railgun, seeing all five lights turning green before dialing the charge back to 1 second. Pointing to the dying larva, he asked. “Hmm, you think those turn into that behemoth when they grow?”

“Probably not,” the woman said while reloading her own weapon. “That thing was at least an elite and the larva are just lesser monsters.”

“Makes sense,” Eric shrugged.

“Nice shoot, by the way,” Ariadne said, giving him a smile through her helmet before turning around and starting to double tap the larvae, blowing up the heads of any whose bodies were too intact, there must be more than a hundred of the things.

Turning his railgun sideways, Eric saw the battery was at less than 10%, the unrestricted charge having taken a lot out of its reserves, there was also a warning about the weapon’s integrity.

A railgun was an expensive weapon, every shot taking its toll on the barrel but, at restriction level 1 it could fire up to 500 bullets before needing maintenance.

Unfortunately, that number was drastically lowered with every restriction level; a fully charged shot still wouldn’t cause the weapon to explode or anything, but it would render it useless almost immediately.

Judging by the warning Eric was seeing, he had another 30 shots, or 7 at restriction level 2, before the barrel was too far damaged to continue using. 

Ugh, he hoped Keaton wouldn’t blame him. 

Finally, Eric started looking around for his discarded sidearm, it had probably been sent scattering when the behemoth’s corpse almost hit him, but it couldn’t be too far away.

With a deafening screech, a house version of the behemoth flew a hundred meters overhead, the giant bug had six transparent wings twice the size of its own body, but it must also be using mana to fly, a green sheen covering its whole body.

From the left, a rocket hit the creature in the unprotected rear, but its mana barrier held, the explosion only sending it smashing into the roof of a nearby building and causing it to briefly recall its wings.

Eric aimed at the giant beast, his heart beating hard against his chest, but he didn’t dare press the trigger, this must be  the damn evolved boss, a tier 3 creature., he doubted it would notice anything less than a fully charged shoot and, even then, it was just too large to die in a single hit.

Adjusting its footing, the beast caused large chunks of the building to fall to the street as it looked around for the source of the attack, a military helicopter circled their location, shooting another rocket.

Without making a noise, the Boss looked at the projectile and released a shockwave, causing the missile to explode midair almost 200 meters away from it. The helicopter flew backwards, retreating from the attack.

Opening its wings again, the beetle followed after it, but it was far from a graceful flier, allowing the helicopter to easily keep its distance while harassing the beast, keeping it from damaging the city too much.

“Shit, I thought you were gonna shoot that thing,” Gabriel said.

“Do I look like an idiot?” Eric asked

“Trust me, you don’t want the answer to that question,” Ariadne joked.

“Fuck you.”

“In your dreams.”

James found his handgun somewhere in the sidewalk, handing him back the weapon while saying. “Come on, the boss, the APC is driving towards Cross Avenue and attracting a lot of the beasts. We’re to stop at 4th street and block anything going their way.”

“Shit, when was this?” Eric asked.

“While you were rolling away from the beetle,” Gabriel answered.

“Alright,” Eric shook his head and refocused, he had an urge to wipe his face with a hand but the helmet got in the way. “Alright… Someone warn Keaton about those behemoths, please, I think I saw it regenerate when I hit its back, so that’s probably a skill, then we’re moving, those bugs won’t kill themselves.”

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jPuvDRrsNZikQKJ5n7f61O4nisUuLGIo4tyY814PuAg/edit?usp=sharing