[NR] Keep It A Secret - Chapter 453 (Patreon)

Early in the morning; Jason, Rosha, and Courtney are gathered in the Adventurers Guild, standing in line. While they aren’t required to report their plans to delve the dungeon since they are all travellers, there aren’t any downsides to it and the guild does prefer to know. Not that technically locals are required to report in either, they just get kicked out of the guild if caught. Still get to go into dungeons though.

As they wait in line, Courtney makes sure the other two understand exactly what they’re getting into. “There is no greenery on the first five floors. Below that, though, we will have to deal with the strange space born plants that will pop up. None are hostile or even capable of dealing damage, but that doesn’t stop them from screening out view. Now Rosha, how many floors does the dungeon have?”

Rosha slow blinks as her brain catches up with the conversation. She wasn’t expecting this to be a quiz as well as a data dump. “Uh, ten?”

Courtney nods, “Yes, though we all know that was more of a lucky guess than anything else. Though if you come across a dungeon that is no longer growing, the number of floors will be a multiple of ten. Now Jason, which floors have bosses on them?”

Jason shrugs, “Tenth floor.”

Courtney nods again, “That is correct for this dungeon. In fact, most dungeons the Guild has been in charge of for long enough will end up with a boss every ten floors and then one on the last floor if that isn’t a power of ten. Important to note though, that is not how all dungeons work.

“The Guild has methods of guiding the dungeons that I’m willing to straight out say, no one irl knows. While these methods don’t make a dungeon any more or less dangerous. It does make things more streamlined and predictable.

“Those methods do not work on every dungeon and so always check in with the local Guild when you’re going to be exploring a maintained dungeon. As for a dungeon out in the wild, even a known dungeon? Assume nothing. Sure, the last guy might have reported there being only a single boss on the 20th floor, but that doesn’t mean the dungeon doesn’t now have a boss every five floors.

“There are even so-called boss rush dungeons. Most people even somewhat close in level to the threat will fall to an onslaught of a boss every floor. This is especially true since it seems those types of dungeons are focused entirely on killing intruders. Though even without Guild guidance, those are stupid rare and general only found far from civilization.”

After saying that, Courtney stops and focuses on the line as the group is only a couple spots from the front. Of course, without the chatter, those last few people feel like they take forever, but soon enough they’ve reported their group’s intent to delve the dungeon and they were on their way. Not that they have to go far.

While the dungeon, Invasion from the Deep Sky, wasn’t right next to the guild, that was only because of the various security measures. Dungeon breaks are a thing and they happen a lot more often for dungeons that are in towns which don’t have the appropriate defenses in place.

Out in the wild? Maybe yearly, though generally less often. In a town with the proper defenses? Once a decade at the earliest. But if the dungeon is in or near a town that doesn’t put up the right defense? The dungeon will pump out monsters like it is going out of style.

Though going by how contextual the breaks are, most people assume they’re controlled by the System. Hell, as far as Jason knows, these aren’t “real” dungeons as he understands the word. Rather, they seem to be purely a System construct so NeoRealm can feel even more like a game. Which would explain why the Guild is capable of causing them to change.

Whatever the case, Jason and his team are now waiting in another line. This one however is astonishingly quick. Since the dungeon is fully instanced, the only holdup is the moment the dungeon needs between groups to spin up a new entrance portal. There likely wouldn’t have even been a line here if it wasn’t so early in the morning.

Soon enough, though and the team is through the portal and has entered the dungeon. Of course, calling it a portal might bring images of swirling magic holes suspended in midair. Not to say those types of dungeon entrances don’t exist, but this dungeon’s entrance is a lot more boring. When active, it looks like a normal cave entrance and when taking a moment to spin up for the next group; it reveals a sheer cliff wall where the opening was.

Not that Jason is complaining about it. The first room of a dungeon isn’t a safe room, so being able to see what is coming can be quite handy. That doesn’t mean you’re safe from an ambush. After all, if something is above the entrance or out of sight in general, it can still surprise you.

A very real possibility as the first room, corridor, cave? Whatever you want to call the first section of the dungeon’s floor, is somewhat randomized and about one in a hundred layouts will include exactly that kind of surprise.

Not that it would have caught Jason, despite the group not being informed of this feature. Too many people fail to look up when in a situation like this, but he isn’t one of them. Before even fully entering the place, he made sure to give the ceiling a quick check.

As for why they didn’t know about the possible ambush? That’s entirely on the guild. While Courtney could have probably found this info out if given enough time, it wasn’t made public as a relatively low risk method of training people.

There is the potential for the ambush to be deadly. However, by being so close to entrance means that nearly all groups who suffer from it can escape alive.