While the newly formed party waded through the tall grass of the first floor, a very different kind of battle began back in the village of Ruvka.
The morning frost was just beginning to melt beneath the rising sun, turning the Hemlock farm driveway into a slick, muddy path. Arthur stood still at the edge of his property line overlooking the road.
He rested his large, calloused hands on the top rail of the wooden perimeter fence, wearing his best spun tunic, freshly clean from dirt, and his posture was as rigid as the oak beams holding up his barn.
Ellis stood beside him, pitchfork in hand, looking like he was ready to get back to work with an expression of slight annoyance. As if the entire inspection was just a farce designed to waste their time.
The rhythmic thud of heavy hooves echoed down the dirt road, making slightly squelchy sounds as they clomped through the thin layer of mud created from the early morning dew frost.
Three riders approached the farm. They wore thick, padded doublets dyed in the deep crimson and silver colors of Baron Talbot. The lead rider, a thin man with a pinched face and a tightly trimmed beard, pulled his dark gelding to a halt just a few feet from the wooden gate.
He looked down his long nose at the farmer.
"Arthur Hemlock, I presume," the lead inspector declared loudly. His voice carried a nasal, arrogant twang.
He unrolled a thick sheet of official parchment bearing a heavy wax seal. "By the authority of Baron Talbot, concerning the land of his barony, we are here to conduct a full audit of your lands, including your ledgers and your grain stores. Open the gate, as dictated by the law of the Sinclair Kingdom."
Arthur didn't move a single muscle. He looked calmly at the mounted men.
"Good morning to you as well, Inspector," Arthur replied, his voice a low rumble. "I'm afraid I must deny you entry to my property today, at least for now."
The inspector lowered the parchment. A look of genuine, baffled outrage twisted his haughty features. The two armed guards flanking him shifted their hands toward the hilts of their steel swords.
"Deny entry?" the inspector scoffed, leaning aggressively forward in his leather saddle.
"You're a simple peasant farmer, Hemlock. You don't possess the authority to deny a baronial audit. Refusal to comply is a crime against the crown. I'll have you clapped in irons and dragged to Spring City after a severe whipping in the village square."
"I'm entirely aware of the law," Arthur stated smoothly.
He maintained an unflinching eye contact with the lead rider, letting the calmness of his posture and the evenness in his voice press back against the threat. "Which is exactly why I am invoking the sovereign statutes regarding overlapping jurisdictions. I'm formally citing a Royal Injunction."
The inspector froze. The smug arrogance immediately vanished from his face, replaced by a sudden, nervous pale shade.
"A Royal Injunction?" the inspector stammered slightly before recovering his scowl. "Don't speak nonsense, farmer. You hold no such decree."
"A formal petition was submitted directly to the Count and recorded by the crown," Arthur explained, his tone leaving no room for debate. "His official representatives are already en route to this farm to oversee the baronial inspection as it concerns this property and my family. Under the kingdom's legal code, a pending comital or royal inspection places a freeze on all lower baronial audits until the higher authority is present with their witnesses."
Arthur let the significance of his words hang in the cold morning air. He knew the inspector understood the precise legal trap Arthur had employed. If a baron's man interfered with an active operation sanctioned by a count under the authority of the crown, the political fallout would be severe.
The inspector would be the one to hang for the overreach, not the farmer.
"You're stalling, Hemlock," the inspector hissed. His knuckles turned white as he gripped his leather reins tightly. "If this is a lie, the Baron will strip this farm down to the topsoil and redistribute the lands. Wasting the time of the Baron is a simple matter of a fine and a possible seizure of owed dues, but pulling the count into this situation without due cause might just cause you to lose everything you have. The count and the crown aren't very amenable to liars."
"It's no lie," Arthur stated confidently.
He crossed his thick, muscular arms over his chest. "If you wish to verify my claim, you're welcome to set up a camp on the public road and wait for the Count's men to arrive. However, if any of your men cross my fence line before then, I'll consider it a hostile trespass against an actively protected royal site."
A tense silence fell over both sides of the gate. The guards flanking the baronial inspector glanced nervously at Ellis, feeling as if the unassuming farmhand could easily pull them off their horses for some reason.
The inspector just stared at Arthur with a dumbfounded expression, unable to tell if the farmer was bluffing or not.
He doubted the peasant farmer because he knew that the Baron would normally have sent word of a royal injunction, but if he was wrong, then he knew the consequences would be dire.
The horses stamped their hooves restlessly in the mud while the inspector considered his next actions carefully.
He looked past the fence at the sturdy farmhouse and the smaller, unassuming house next to it before eying the tightly closed barn doors, and finally back to the unyielding farmer.
He knew he was legally outmaneuvered, or this farmer had some sort of death wish.
"Mark my words," the inspector spat, aggressively pulling his horse's head around. "This is a temporary reprieve. When the Count's men arrive, we'll return. And we'll check every single grain of wheat."
"Have a safe ride back to the square, Inspector," Arthur offered politely.
The three men kicked their horses into a heavy trot, turning back down the muddy road toward the village center. Arthur watched them until they completely disappeared around the distant bend. He didn't relax his rigid posture until the sound of their hooves faded entirely.
Ellis clapped his boss's shoulder as he moved to the nearby field to finish his work. Arthur hadn't actually asked the large man to stand by him, but Ellis felt it was the right thing to do.
The heavy oak front door of the farmhouse creaked open, and May stepped out onto the porch, wiping her hands nervously on her apron. She let out a long, shaky breath and walked down the drying road to join her husband at the fence.
"They're gone?" May asked, looking down the empty road, which was clear all the way to the bend.
"For now," Arthur nodded, wrapping a comforting, solid arm around her shoulders. "The injunction bought us the time we needed. Now, we just have to wait for the Count's men to arrive to get the actual inspection over with. I'm not sure if having Jacob and his friends back on the farm would be a good thing or not."
Meanwhile, back in the dungeon, the tall grass rippled violently.
"Hold the line!" Oren shouted.
Three heavily scaled boar-lizards surged through the dense vegetation, keeping low to the ground to hide their bulk. Their frontrunner was already down by a knife in the middle of the skull that Mira had thrown as soon as she had noticed it break the vegetation line.
They moved incredibly fast for their size, but they parted the dry grass when they ran by, which gave their position away easily.
Thomas planted his boots firmly into the dirt. The lead boar-lizard slammed into his enchanted gauntlets with its full weight. It caused him to slide back, causing him to grit his teeth, but he held the snarling creature in place.
Oren pivoted smoothly beside him, driving his steel blade through the thick neck scales of the second monster before it could circle behind the brawler.
In the center of the formation, Jacob reached for the dense magic within his core as he cast a field of pure force to slow the third lizard-boar down. He raised his hands, itching to blast the monster into pieces with a single explosion of power.
He forced his hands back down.
This was party training, not a solo carry. He needed to trust them to do their jobs while supporting them so they didn't have to push too hard.
Bran noticed the monster slowing down and moved to intercept it as the mid-line physical combatant. Once he rammed his steel mace into the side of the lizard-boar, Jacob dropped his field as the damage from the mace would slow it down plenty, and drew his sword.
He was comfortable enough with their formation to practice his sword skills in close combat.
Bran acted as the makeshift shouter, keeping the attention of the monster on himself as he confused it with erratic movements and wide swings from his mace. Jacob was on the side of it, stabbing and slicing it by leveraging his footwork and sword forms to deliver some optimal strikes.
Oren and Thomas stood by after cleaning up their kills and collecting the dungeon drops from them. Mira, as well, was somewhere in the brush keeping an eye out for any more ambushing monsters.
It took Bran and Jacob a while to kill the lizard-boar, longer than they would like to admit, though Bran had held back to allow Jacob to get some real strikes in.
His strength and skill with the sword were commendable, but he was having a hard time getting through the tough hide of the monster. Even with the sharpness enchanted into the sword, the hide was almost magical in how it resisted cutting.
Once he finally felled it, with a stab between the ribs which incorporated both a strike from the flowing sword forms and the footwork of the forms, a chime rang out in his mind.
Besides the experience drops from the group kills, he was awarded with a pleasant surprise.
System Notice: Flowing Swords Form Leveled Up!
Flowing Swords Form: 1 -> 2
Sword Mastery: 1 -> 2
"Not bad," Thomas said, wiping sweat from his brow. "The first floor is usually manageable, like this, as long as you respect the terrain."
Oren flicked his blade clean with a sharp jerk of his wrist. "The formation held, but I feel like there was a bit of wasted motion on the flank. We need to tighten the gap between the vanguard and the center."
Jacob knelt by his downed monster, using his mana to confirm the core's location.
He breathed a sigh of relief as he located an earth core and pulled it out with his Gentle Hand spell. The sheer speed and defense of the boar-lizards proved to be a highly lethal combination.
The grass rustled softly, and Mira appeared near the edge of the clearing. She seemed a bit panicked, but Jacob noted that she still managed to move silently through the dungeon brush.
Her chest heaved with rapid, shallow breaths. A fresh streak of blood stained her left sleeve, though Jacob could tell that it wasn't hers.
"There's something at the gate," Mira reported, her voice just louder than a whisper.
"What kind of something?" Oren asked, shifting his grip on his sword as he stepped toward the scout.
"It's too big to be a lizard-boar," Mira answered flatly. "It looks, and feels, wrong. Like it doesn't belong to this place."
Jacob and Thomas both perked up at the initial assessment from Mira. Both of them had seen the beast that could randomly spawn on the first floor.
"Give us the details," Jacob said quickly. "What does it look like?"
If it was the beast he was thinking of, it might prove to be a great final challenge for their first delve. Then, they would just need to fight their way out of the dungeon.
Mira closed her eyes for a split second, visualizing the threat she had seen while slitting the throat of a stray Jackal, "It has the body of a massive lion, but a heavy, armored boar head with huge tusks. It's just pacing near the transition stones that Thomas described on the way here."
Jacob felt his blood start to pump a bit more violently as excitement started to take hold of his heart. He remembered the challenge it posed to his party the first time he had visited this dungeon.
"It is a Random Gatekeeper," Thomas said quietly. "I've seen a group take it down before, and I think this group could manage as long as we hit it with enough debuffs and injure it right away."
Everyone turned to Jacob to see what he would decide.
"I also participated in slaying this particular gatekeeper," Jacob began, "It hits hard, but I agree that if we injure it with our opening strike, then it shouldn't be too hard to fight. I can also restrain it with my magic, so that should make it much less agile."
Oren analyzed the tactical problem immediately and decided to take the side of reason. "We're not here to fight an abnormal Gatekeeper. Our goal was formation practice and safe progress. If it's a random spawn, it's likely much stronger than the standard first-floor monsters. We can always head back to the entrance now and leave the fight to another party."
Jacob saw the larger strategic trap. "If we retreat, the next party could actually be too weak, or a solo delver might run right into it. If we fight, though, we risk the entire group before we're fully tested. But I bet if we kill it, the active dungeon break will be ever so slightly diminished. It's not our job to prevent the dungeon break, but we could still help prevent it, delay it so that the adventurers on the lower floors can stop the break. Who knows if someone is going to kill the dungeon boss today?"
The team looked at each other. The decision had to be mutual.
"I can hold it for a few breaths as long as it's slowed," Thomas stated, cracking his knuckles. "I won't be able to hold it forever, but if we go all out here, then it should be long enough. We might even gain a few stat points!"
"I can control one flank, but not both," Oren added, calculating the angles of attack, as if the battle were already agreed upon despite his earlier warning. If anyone was paying attention, they might have thought that Oren was actually excited to fight the monster.
"I can keep you all standing and provide extra strengthening tunes," Sera promised gently, "as long as nobody gets crushed outright, we should be safe."
Bran patted a heavy pouch on his toolbelt. "I have something that might prevent its charge, but only once."
Mira simply twirled a dagger. "Give me an opening, and I'll hamstring it. I can also make sure the other mobs stay clear of our fight."
Jacob looked at his party. While he figured he could just pin the oversized pig-lion down and melt it with lava, he knew his job was to keep the fight just hard enough for everyone else so they could grow.
Ever since they had started killing goblins, he realized that his tier-1 magic was a bit too powerful for monsters at this level, but he also knew that Thomas and Oren were right about trying to solo these dungeons.
Even if he could solo an F-rank gate, it wouldn't be too long before he stalled and failed to progress further without a proper party. He figured it was best to do it with friends rather than strangers.
"Alright," Jacob said, his voice resolute. "We'll hit it as a team."
They moved through the tall grass in silence, following Mira, who had taken point. As they neared the end of the floor, the dense vegetation finally thinned out.
The cleared, rocky rise appeared ahead of them. Two massive runic stones framed the shimmering portal leading to the second floor.
The Random Gatekeeper was there, pacing a dozen yards from the shimmering portal. A chimeric beast at the peak of F-class for a monster, and a combat level of 4.
Jacob utilized his inspect skill, which rewarded him with a bit of information.
System Notice: Inspect Skill used on Chimeric Gate Keeper (Rare).
Monster, Combat Level: 5, F+ Rank
Inspect: 4 -> 5
The monster paced heavily back and forth, its massive paws gouging deep tracks into the dirt. The chimera was terrifying, a hulking mass of muscle, fur, and thick scales.
As Jacob stepped to the edge of the clearing, the beast stopped pacing.
Its yellow eyes turned slowly, locking directly onto Jacob.
And this time, Carlos was not there to stand in front of him. But this time, Jacob didn't need Carlos to stand in front of him.