New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Chapter 540 Urgency

Her eyes went wide, as did her smile.

"I found us something to do!" she exclaimed as they left their room.

The guards saluted them, a bit surprised by their combat attire. They knew the monarchs were combat-capable, but they weren't at war, or anything.

It was rare that sovereigns would willingly go place themselves in danger if there was no need to. But they would come to know, over time, that their monarchs were all but regular king and queens.

Astaroth looked at Phoenix, his eyebrow rising.

"Hmm? What is that?"

She grinned widely.

"A group of our players have found a new dungeon in our territory. By the coordinates, it's not far, too. If this dungeon doesn't collapse after one completion, we should have an additional source of power-levelling for our recruits, and our officers."

Astaroth frowned at the mention of collapsing dungeons.

"Collapse? Is that a thing now?"

Phoenix looked at him with a frown.

"I forget you've been too busy to keep up with the forums lately. Yes. Players have found dungeons across both continents, that collapse once someone has completed them once. Although the rewards for those are much more plentiful than normal ones, their collapse after one clear is annoying for the guilds."

Astaroth scratched his chin. He could imagine how such dungeons would annoy guilds.

A possible enormous source of income on items, gold, and experience, suddenly vanishing from your grasp, was indeed quite troublesome.

"I imagine guildless parties completed a few of these, too," he said out loud, as they walked toward the palace entrance.

"Actually, it's surprising how little often that happens. Those collapsing dungeons are also much harder, so unprepared parties struggle to get through them. It has happened, though. And the guilds who claimed them were very angered and disappointed."

Again, he could imagine. A guild claiming a dungeon, while the first party was still clearing it, wasn't a rare occurrence.

But having the dungeon disappear, ejecting your players as it did, while they hadn't even reached the last boss, could be quite angering. He imagined the players who did this were most likely bullied into surrendering their loot before they could leave the area.

He had no intention of doing the same if it ever happened to him. He understood that luck was also a part of a person's skills and that clearing a dungeon, even by luck, was something to be respected by others.

After reaching the palace entrance, Astaroth got ready to meld with Morpheus and fly off, but Phoenix stopped and frowned.

"What's up?" Astaroth asked her, stopping as well.

"A new message came in. The lieutenant, SharpTusk, is asking for backup in the dungeon. He insists it's urgent, but doesn't say why."

Astaroth frowned.

"The only reason he wouldn't say why would be if he's too busy to think clearly, and can't send the message properly. I would understand the urgency then. But how long ago did they go into the dungeon?"

Phoenix looked at the time stamp on the previous messages.

"It's barely been half an hour. They would have reached no further than the first boss room by now."

Astaroth's frown deepened.

"You say it's SharpTusk's group?"

Phoenix nodded.

"I had a glimpse at their combat ability. They shouldn't be in trouble so early in a dungeon. Unless it is a very high-level one."

Phoenix shook her head.

"Even then. I assigned them a recruit to test. The man looked like he had a lot of potential. His application mentioned he had a special class, called Chronomancer. He shouldn't be weak by any measure if he got a special class."

Astaroth looked worried, suddenly.

"I can only think of one other reason they would need backup so urgently… But it wouldn't make sense…"

Phoenix tilted her head at him.

He looked at her, his forehead still creased.

"I'm not sure if it has happened yet, but what if it's a corrupted dungeon? The levels in it would be a complete mess, as the uncorrupted monsters would be significantly weaker than the corrupted ones. And a dungeon boss, corrupted, would be a terrible opponent."

Phoenix frowned as well.

"I guess we will only know when we get there," she stated.

Astaroth nodded his head, melding with Morpheus. There was no time to lose.

Corruption was bad if it affected players. And a corrupted dungeon was bound to affect at least one player.

As he blasted off from the palace stairs, Phoenix combusted and lifted off behind him, leaving a large streak of flames behind her.

The guards patrolling the sky around the palace wondered why the queen was leaving in such a hurry, but their duty to patrol kept them from going along. They also noticed the king, in one of his strange forms, and their curiosity level rose.

"Have you any idea why they are in such a hurry?" one patroller, a large birdman, asked another.

"No clue. Maybe they are excited to go fight something. I heard from another guard that the monarchs were quite the warriors," the other man, a mage flying on a broom, answered.

Astaroth and Phoenix reached the coordinates in a few minutes, landing before the large tree where the dungeon entrance lay. Astaroth looked at it, and with his Perfect Mana Sense active, he saw what he had feared, confirm itself.

Around the shimmering portal, a large amount of demonic mana particles floated around. For someone who couldn't distinguish the mana essences, this would seem normal.

But he could tell.

"This dungeon reeks of demonic mana. Either it's corrupted, or it leads straight to their plane. We need to get in, and fast."

Phoenix already had her interface open. She was messaging SharpTusk to invite them to their party.

They would only enter a new instance if they entered now. They needed to be part of the same party to help them.

An invitation came soon after, for both Phoenix and Astaroth, and when they accepted it, they could see the party status. Seeing it, their faces dropped, and they both lunged into the dungeon portal.