Chapter 268 – News spreads.

“Ugh…Damn, my head is killing me, I should have not gone with that girl…”

“Did you do it again? Didn’t I tell you to stay away from those flowery district girls, there are nothing but trouble.“

“Don’t be like that, I couldn’t refuse to get those drinks when she asked so nicely… speaking of which…”

“Don’t tell me… you want to borrow more money.”

“Just a tiny bit.”

“We just got our wages a few days ago, how are you already broke?”

“Well, you know how it is…”

“No, I really don’t!”

Two guards at the entrance of the Albrook city dungeon started arguing over some petty issues. It was early in the morning and their work day had only begun. One of the two was quite chatty and continued retelling his escapades from last night. The men were tasked to guard this dungeon entrance but nothing ever happened that warranted their attention.

Their only real task was to look at everyone’s adventurer card before letting them pass inside. While sometimes some young men tried to sneak in without one it wouldn’t really affect them. If someone died to the monsters on the inside then it was their fault they were only there to minimize the damage if they spotted something.

Just like any other day this one was turning out to be a snooze fest. Both of them didn’t even look at the cards correctly while continuing to chat. Suddenly however they heard someone shouting from within the entrance.

“Make way!”

It was an elven woman that was running quite fast. The two guards had a knack for spotting beauties and this gold rank elf was quickly becoming one of the fan favorites. The first thing that they spotted was that she was quite sweaty, it dawned on them that she had to have been running for a while. What could have caused a gold rank adventurer to be like this? Even in the lower levels, there weren’t that many monsters that reached over level one hundred, something had to be wrong.

“Hey, watch it!”

A few of the Steel rank adventurers quickly ducked to the side while some almost tumbled down the stairs as the golden-haired woman ran past them. She did not say anything as she just zig-zagged between people that were trying to clock in for their morning grind. Everyone was left annoyed and some even said a few chosen words at the runaway woman.

The two guards wanted to ask what was wrong but it wasn’t really in their job description. Probably someone had died down in the dungeon and a rescue party needed to be formed. Something like this happened on a weekly basis, there were large numbers of Bronze and Steel rank adventurers never returning.

People sometimes forgot that the monsters inside could easily overwhelm them if they didn’t pay attention. The upper levels weren’t as vast as the lower ones but it was also easy to get lost. After maps were made the death toll decreased but some newbies continued to die without seeing worth in spending money on pricey help items.

“What’s up with her?”

“Beats me, you know those gold ranks, they really want to reach that next rank.”

“That’s true.”

The guards laughed as in most cases the in-between ranks were the most dangerous. Many adventurers would put themselves in danger while trying to gain those higher-tier rewards. A lot of Steel and Gold ranks had fallen due to pushing themselves too hard and too soon.

Yet after the young woman vanished into the horizon a peculiar thing happened. Around thirty minutes later another adventurer arrived, one of the silver grade variety. Just as the half-elven woman before the man was quick to run up the stairs to dash into the distance. Soon after more and more adventurers came pouring out which indicated that something was afoot.

“What’s happening?”

“Hey! Why are you running, what happened?”

Finally, after several people had gone through the entrance one of the guards grabbed a man by the shoulder. The person recoiled in fright as if there was something wrong that spooked the guard. What could have happened to garner this type of reaction, was some kind of strong monster loose in the dungeon? If it was, it shouldn’t be able to get to these higher levels and the safe zone that was at the entrance.

“A… a Lich has appeared! Now leave me be.”

The man wrestled out of the grip and quickly took off with all the other adventurers that started to flood out from the inside. Some of them were screaming, telling the tales of strange skeletal monsters appearing in the lower regions. But the scariest bit wasn’t that they were undead, no it was that they could enter the upper levels of the dungeon.

“A Lich? Hey, aren’t those things considered really dangerous?”

“Yeah, don’t you need a high-level priest to kill one of them? Didn’t they need a battalion of knights to kill the one that appeared on the mainland?”

“I think so…but that one was a free Lich and it took over a whole village, this one is in a dungeon so it shouldn’t be that bad… right?”

The two guards looked at each other with fear in their eyes. Why was everyone running away, could the Lich get out here and get to them? That should not be possible, monsters from a dungeon should not be able to escape. There was only one instance where that could occur and it was not something anyone had an answer for yet, a dungeon break…

…

“Huh, so you’re telling me that it was a tier 3 Lich all along?”

“Yes, you need to contact platinum adventurers or get that Valerian asshole to penny up some knights! Time is running out, Armand and Wayland are still in there.”

“Hey calm down, you can’t just go insulting the nobles if they catch you doing it they’ll flog you in public.”

“I don’t care, we have to do something how about we get those guys from the golden order, aren’t they around here somewhere fighting with that cult? Aren’t Liches something they swore to eradicate?”

A rather angry-looking Lobelia was shouting at a grumpy-looking bald man. To the side stood a beautiful-looking elf lady that had just closed the door behind Lobelia that had rushed in during the morning meeting. It was clear that there was a problem but the two guild members here didn’t truly believe that it was as dire as the half-elf painted it to be.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Lassie, you can’t expect me to call the Solarian church for unconfirmed news.”

“But I’m confirming it now!”

Lobelia stomped her foot down on the ground while almost kicking the large desk behind which the guild master was sitting. While he didn’t want to jump to conclusions he could not just ignore the claim that a tier 3 Lich was loose in the dungeon. Apparently, the person that delivered the news already caused some havoc and would cause monetary losses if the claim was faulty.

“Solana.”