Chapter 150 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

Pov Carl

I was still nervous about these giant orcs. It was hard for me to understand why they were called that because they looked nothing like the few orcs I've seen who are adventurers. Their skin was a lot darker, and only in the light can you see that it's actually dark green; otherwise, you would think they were black. They are on average larger than humans, but not like these huge beings walking beside us.

We all entered the forest early in the morning. The orcs were carrying a lot of weight thanks to their huge backpacks, but they were still navigating the forest floor as stealthily as we did. What was stranger than that was that we had not run into any monsters that we needed to fight. It seems that I wasn’t the only one to notice this, as Caspian decided to start asking questions. "Is this area normally this quiet and safe?"

One of the orcs immediately started to shake his head. "Not normally, but the beast we were chasing was part of a larger pack that had been decimating the local area. We could not stand for a beast kingdom to be so close to one of our settlements. The battle was glorious, but many of them tried to escape. This one made it quite far, and I wonder how the rest of the parties did?"

"What’s a beast kingdom?" Ziiipe asked. I was also quite curious about what that could be. All of the orcs, however, looked at us like we were crazy.

"You do not know what beast kingdoms are? What a strange world you must live in. Currently, we are in what we call free territories. They are where the normal rules of nature are in effect. Beast kingdoms are territories where a group or a particular species takes control of an area and starts making up their own rules about how things should work."

"A perfect example is what almost happened here. Almost all the predators have been killed off, and only animals useful for the giant boars were left alive. Some are smarter than that and are able to take advantage of the territory's resources better; it all depends on how intelligent they are. There are some that we have even gotten treaties with, but that’s rare. Beasts who are so strong usually like to dominate everything around them."

I suspect beasts were just a different way to call animals who were stronger and smarter. I guess calling them monsters would be a bit wrong if it was possible to actually communicate with them. This was all getting a bit too complicated for me. Why couldn't there be a large monster ahead of me that I needed to kill? Everything was so much simpler then.

"What is this place?" Ziiipe asked. There was a longer than usual pause before one of the orcs answered. "That is a difficult question to answer. It is many things. For us, this place is an opportunity. Here we can grow, but it's not easy. This is a difficult room, only meant for the truly strong."

Another of the orcs spoke up. "This place is a forge. You either get strong enough or you are broken, yet even this is not the end of the journey. I do not know what lies ahead of me, but I will keep climbing until I’m able to see Father for myself."

"Honor to your journey," the three other orcs echoed almost in unison. This scene reminded me of a few priests I saw who were on a pilgrimage. It seemed to be like a religious saying.

Yesterday, we found out that 'Father' was the core or the very dungeon itself. When we asked if they had spoken to it, all of them said that they had not yet had that honor. Also, it seems like the other three don’t have such grand plans as their leader does.

The more we talk and find out, the more it feels like there's true history and culture down here. How big is this place if even the people who came to this room, as they called it, don’t know how large the dungeon actually is.

Wait a second, every room has a designation, and we usually find them through the quest system, but perhaps because these people are connected to the core, they would know the actual designation of this place.

It would not help if it was named like most of the recent rooms, a series of 10 numbers and letters, but hub stations and way stations usually had a more special designation. "Do you perhaps know the actual designation of this room?" I asked one of the orcs, who immediately nodded his head.

"Yes, this is called Playroom 19." I missed a step and almost face-planted. "Wait, there are 19 places like this?" Caspian asked, and even I could hear the slight wobble in his voice indicating his nervousness.

"Like this, no. This is a special room meant only for the truly strong. There is one place stronger where we could go if we get strong enough, but only one orc has qualified for that. We don't know much about the other rooms besides our original one, but the few other intelligence species have talked about their original room."

There was a pause when another orc spoke up. "I met a snake once; it was huge and looking for sand. It described the place of endless sand where it came from. I think it would be nice to see such a different world."

We didn’t talk much after that, as all of us were in shock. Nothing made sense. Was this dungeon actually a lot deeper than we originally thought, or was there something else going on?

Finally, we were broken out of our musings when Ziiipe announced that we were here. All of us looked around in confusion as this place didn't look any different than the rest of the forest. "Spread out and start looking for something that stands out," Caspian ordered.

The orcs didn’t do anything, but we didn’t expect them to. For them, the quest seemed a lot more special, so they didn't want to interfere with ours. Since I was the best climber here, I volunteered to climb down the cliff and see if there was anything down there.

When I reached the bottom, it was impossible to miss the huge structure carved into the cliff. From up above, it would go unnoticed, and only if you decided to climb down could you see it. "Everyone, get down here! I found it!" I yelled up.

It didn't take long for everyone else to get down here as well. It was a strange structure. It kind of looked like a tower carved straight into the cliff. However, it was a lot thicker in the middle than on top or at ground level. The ground floor was also open, with only a few pillars supporting it. The strange thing was that the rest of the tower was only carved from the outside, leaving the inside to be simply stone.

When we entered this structure, on the opposite wall there was a huge stone carving depicting a land area with five different locations clearly marked. There was also a lot of text that looked like one of the languages that Tristan learned.

“Ziiipe, can you read what’s written here,” Caspian asked. She let out a tired sigh. “I know a little bit but Tristan is the expert. Let me see. This place is called the Lone Tower. Then a lot of words that I don’t understand. Something about safe zones.”

"Safe zones?" one of the orcs whispered. Immediately afterwards, all of our necklaces pinged, but that wasn't the noise I was worried about. The entire structure was shaking, and we heard stones cracking. I quickly checked the quest.

Survive the guardians of the lone tower – one of the locations displayed on the tower's map holds a way back to your home.

"Ziiipe, quickly copy the map and the text. Everyone else, prepare for battle!" Caspian yelled, but I was already ready.