"That was another snow-themed chamber," Stormy said as we rested for the evening at the 5th layer.
No one said anything as a cloud of depression hung over our group. Most environments in the dungeon chambers were shifting than the standard rock and plant chambers, which was concerning.
It signaled that we were headed up towards a passage that we hadn't come down from. The answer was obvious, but no one wanted to say it. We were far off course, and it was because of the team of beastkin.
We had found their return path back up to the surface.
We were traveling to the beastkin continent, which was unfortunate.
"What do we do?" Sam asked.
"Dungeon navigation isn't simple," Harren muttered.
He knew, like I did, there was no good answer. The dungeon shifted about as it wanted. Even if we went back down to the 11th layer or deeper, that wouldn't fix anything.
Whatever the dungeon used to match up with people and their passages had shifted with us. There was no good way to shift back. That was why Judy's father couldn't easily return to his continent and people didn't use the dungeon for travel.
It was far more likely to end up in another city. Continent diversion was rare, but it occurred. Most likely, one of the beastkin had a rare skill of some kind that allowed them to find us. This shifted the layout of the dungeon enough to screw us over.
"There is no good answer Sam. It looks like we are on track to arrive on the beastkin continent," I said.
"That can't happen. The Indomitable is a classified technology. If it falls into the hands of the beastkin, it would be a disaster," April said.
"Can it be destroyed?" I asked her.
"Not easily. A self-destruct mechanism could be accidentally triggered. There are countless fail-safes built into the frame to prevent catastrophic failure," she said.
"What about the core? Could you disassemble it and carry the core?"
"Maybe? But it would be difficult. That would damage the living mech's soul, and the core is large and heavy. It would be very difficult to carry. Also, we can't put it in spatial storage."
"Do you know anything about the beastkin continent?" Harren asked Stormy.
"Just that humans, dwarves, and elves are all unwelcome in equal measure. While beastkin can make a life for themselves on our continent, on the beastkin continent we will probably be killed," Stormy said heavily.
I knew this as well.
"Could we fight?" Harren asked.
"They have legends and supreme legends. Even for my mother, it isn't something she would want to endure," I replied.
I had asked her about other continents, and she said it wasn't worth the hassle.
"There has to be something we can do?" April asked.
"We don't have the high-level skills to navigate the dungeon," I said.
"So, we are stuck in the dungeon," Sam replied, and I nodded.
"There is no way to cross the Great Ocean on the surface. That means we must stay in the dungeon until we can reach the 20th layer and the Last Bastion or another team and then exit with them," I replied.
"Reaching the 20th layer is impossible, so another team?" Sam asked, and I shook my head.
"Very unlikely. Teams never cross continents unless someone uses a skill, or the dungeon acts up. Even if we went back to the 11th layer, we would only run into other beastkin teams," I explained.
The situation had turned incredibly dire, and I cursed that beastkin team for attacking us again in my head. They hadn't reached Xanatos levels, but they were up there on my list of things that really pissed me off.
"How long can we remain in the dungeon?" Harren asked.
"A long time, since we all have more food and can find water. The issue is one of risk. We could run into a high-level beastkin team and get wiped out. We can't go to the surface and can't go below the 11th layer," I said.
We were all silent as we contemplated this disaster. The dungeon could be annoyed with us and the war mech. I hadn't mentioned this, but many considered the dungeon to be a living super-creature of some kind. I wasn't sure about this and didn't care to think about it, but now that we were being sent to the beastkin continent, I was afraid.
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Before things were dangerous, but that was on a tactical level. It was just a matter of winning fights. Unfortunately, we had a strategic problem with no solution. The war mech was anything but subtle.
"Have the elves run into this in the past?" Harren asked Stormy.
"Yes. But there is no agreeable solution. The initial depths skills are easy enough to get, but the later ones operate similarly to system skills. They are difficult to get and level. We could be down here for decades and never get the right skill."
"What about tracking Mana?" Sam asked.
"That just flows up and down. The dungeon creates silos for different entrances. It is rare for these silos to intersect unless you get deep enough. On a continent, the intersection happens around the 20th layer, which is why the Last Bastion is built there. For some kind of cross-continent intersections, it would be deeper than that," I said bitterly.
"Can we negotiate with the beastkin?" April asked.
Stormy scoffed. "They would sooner eat you than deal with us or even you, Dwarf. Even if you served the war mech up to them, they are quite belligerent. There are records of attempted contact and negotiations with them over the millennia, all ending in disappointment."
"I was just asking Elf," April replied with a sneer.
The team was fracturing, but there was nothing I could do. Harren and I looked at each other. If the team split, we would team up. April and her war mech would be dead weight and attract too much trouble.
Sam and Stormy were casters, and Sam was only useful in a large team. As for Stormy, she was capable, but she would struggle in fights. Protecting her would annoy us, and her spell skills would not compensate.
"Why can't we just pick one direction and travel?" Sam asked, showing his ignorance of the dungeon.
This was why bringing new people onto a team was annoying, since they understood nothing. I now knew how my mother's squires felt when I asked so many questions.
"The dungeon is infinite and doesn't have directions besides the passages on each layer. What we think of as straight could just be a big circle. The dungeon constantly moves chambers about, builds them, destroys them, and sometimes reuses them. Depth Sense helps us find the nearest passage up and down, but we can't find one to another continent," I explained.
I was already trying to think about how we would get out of this situation. There was no confirmation that we were going to exit onto the beastkin continent, but it was highly likely. There were stories about how the general environment shifted when one's exit passage changed.
It wasn't one or two chambers, but a larger collection. That was why we had become increasingly worried until this point, where it was all but basically confirmed.
Heading off with Harren was only a delay in the inevitable. We could be stuck down here for years or even decades, surviving on what the beastkin adventurers brought down and killing them.
Getting to the Last Bastion was hopeless as well. It was on the 20th layer below the Eldarin continent. Trying to get to it without some kind of locator item or skill would be the same as trying to get back to our continent. The chances of finding a team from the Eldarin continent might go up by a hundredth of a percent each layer. It was highly unlikely that we would encounter other humans, elves, or dwarves.
There was a lot of debate about whether the dungeon was infinite. It created discrete sections for each group, but even the College with all its mathematical prowess couldn't model how the dungeon handled its chambers. If someone knew that information, it would be incredibly dangerous.
They could slip over to the beastkin continent, kill people or raid a city out of the dungeon, then retreat into another area in the dungeon, making it impossible to follow them.
Even my mother was hesitant about such things, which was all the confirmation I needed to know that trying to navigate the dungeon was a nightmare.
Sure, the legends who had been to the Last Bastion had some kind of item to locate it again, but that was part of the challenge and charm of the place. They had to find it first.
We were all in trouble now.
"What about disguises?" Sam asked.
I wanted to sigh at that. The beastkin weren't idiots, and they had a reason to watch dungeon entrances beyond dungeon breaks.
Judy's father got through because the Eldarin continent was a bit more welcoming after the fall of the Eldarin Empire. But the beastkin continent was death for everyone else. No one really cared, since this situation was quite rare. While we might not know the number of human teams lost to the beastkin, there was a good understanding of the number of beastkin who showed up.
Getting five to ten a year was the estimated amount. That was five to ten out of however many adventurers they had going into the dungeon. Tens of thousands at the very minimum, which meant the percentage and chance of crossing over to another area of the dungeon were impossibly remote.
It was just our bad luck to run into a beastkin team and take their passage back up, putting us in line with another continent.
Bad luck or the dungeon messing with us.
Regardless, there was nothing we could do to get back now. We were trapped here.
"Disguises won't work. They have good sensory skills," Stormy said.
If Sam were a legend, then he might have been able to get away with it. But as he was, it would be impossible to sneak out through a passage to the surface. And once there, what would he even do? It wasn't like he could build a boat and cross the Great Ocean, which was death.
The team was absolutely and totally finished.
"I am voting to dissolve this team formally and for each of us to go our own way peacefully. If people want to group up after that, it will be their choice," I said with a heavy sigh.
"What are you planning to do?" April asked me.
"Try to survive and hope I get lucky. Leaving the dungeon is a death sentence. You can try your luck if you want to, but the beastkin hate other races on their continent. The reason is unclear, but it is cultural."
Even Judy and her father didn't know why. If other races emerged from the dungeon, they quickly killed them.
"That's it?" Sam asked.
"There is nothing else," I replied.
There was no other option.
"What about making our own exit, somehow?" April asked.
"We lack spatial skills, and they would hunt us down again if we emerged on the beastkin continent. In the dungeon, we are hiding to survive. But up there, a legend or supreme legend would spot us in an instant," I said.
No idea how many they had, but it was likely they had similar numbers to the Eldarin continent. They weren't as revered or as well-known over there, so Judy and her father didn't know any supreme legends on the beastkin continent.
Probably because of their specialty in stealth skills, wanting to keep their accomplishments hidden.
I could understand that, but even just a legend could wreck our team.
We might beat one, but it was the swarm of beastkin after that that would be a problem.