The Dramatic Dungeon - A Dungeon Core Story

Magic Items and Artifacts are a core part of being an Adventurer. Skills define how a person fights, yes, but some Items are powerful enough to entirely redefine even the goddess-given Skills of the most seasoned Adventurers. Typically, however, you are going to want to itemize in ways that enhance your style, since coming by treasures like that cannot even be called rare, more like impossible. Artificers, Smiths, Enchanters and so on are all classes that can fabricate amazing items, especially in the upper tiers, and for most adventurers, affording a high class item or even commissioning one with rare materials they obtained is the threshold between amateur and professional. But the truly weird and scary items that dungeons produce as loot sometimes… leaning on those are how adventurers can go from run-of-the-mill to true powerhouses. - Gerolt, Master Smith, “Items and You: An Introduction to Itemization”

The silence hanging in the air on the way back was thick enough that Astrid might have had problems cutting it with her axe. That Delve was just plain weird, and no one seemed to want to talk about it.

Despite granting enough experience to push me, the lowest level member of the party, over level 10, and even dropping loot, the surreal experience somehow kept the elation the others must feel contained as well, and weighed upon us heavily.

It did not help that instead of speaking up to disturb the weird atmosphere, our leader was preoccupied with staring at the mask that we obtained.

He was trying to hold himself back, even I could tell, but he was absolutely enamored with the thing.

If I didn’t know better, I might have suspected the Item to be cursed, but the church teaches that loot obtained after a successful dungeon delve is guaranteed to be beneficial. Something about the goddess rewarding hard labor, or some such.

I was not a big fan of the church, but their knowledge of the system was accurate, if nothing else.

My thoughts are interrupted by the cave exit finally coming up ahead. As we stepped into the cold night air, it was as if some invisible pressure finally dissipated.

I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with fresh air for what felt like the first time in years, the stale atmosphere of the cavern finally left behind.

"We should make camp nearby." Alea speaks up, indicating a direction she thought serviceable.

I eagerly agreed, happy the metaphorical spell of silence around us had been finally dispelled.

With minimum fuzz, we set up camp and organized a watch.

Simon seemed to finally get a hold of himself as well, going so far as volunteering for third watch, which is the most annoying one by far.

We then went on to discuss our experience down in that hole.

Now that everyone is finally back to normal, I hesitantly broach the topic.

"So… about the mask we got… what do we do with it?"

"I want it." Simon immediately says.

"But we don't even know what it does!" I continue, exasperated.

"Right, but we know it spawned for me." Simon responds. "It has to be at least useful to me in some capacity. Of course, I will remunerate you appropriately as per our agreement. I might have to default to offering a cut out of my future loot allotment, depending on its appraised value, if that is agreeable?"

I shake my head in exasperation, but no one objects, and so the item's user is decided before we even know its use.

"We should also talk about our specialist skills…" Alea mentions.

"All of us hit level 10 then?"

Our leader turns a questioning gaze my way.

I just nod and open my status. It's finally time!

Status

Name: Kallion Frost

Class: Mage

Level: 10

Creature Type: Human

Skills:

Active:

Passive:

Ice Weaving - Level 9

Essence Manipulation - Level 7

Specialist Skill Selection available!

Specialist Skill Selection:

Essence Font

Elemental Affinity (Ice)

Heart of Frost

The Options were altogether expected. The basic option of Essence Font, that the Mage class provided, was there. It would allow a mage to essentially turn into a smaller scale essence well, fueling their own spells longer and recharging faster.

Elemental Affinity was a common option for Mage classers like me that received elemental related skills early. It improved handling of essence for elemental skills, making it easier to complete bigger workings and to keep going as long as one's essence allowed.

The final and rare option was a welcome sight. The skill was a middle ground between the first two, providing slightly increased essence regeneration and improved ice skill handling, at the cost of cutting off any and all skills that diversify one's elemental portfolio in the future.

It was also the skill that got my master his family name, and when I was adopted into the Frost family, he had hoped I would receive it as well, so without any further consideration, I picked it. It would likely allow me to become a “Frost Wizard” when my class finally evolves at Level 20 and follow in his footsteps.

Looking around, everyone still seemed to be in the middle of choosing their skills, but after a short while, we all finished our selections. Being the earliest pivotal choice offered by the goddess, a lot of thought has already gone into our selections, long before we even knew the options.

“I got [Commanding Voice].” Simon announced.

“I picked [Heart of Frost].” I declared.

Allea spoke up “My choice was [Natural Awareness].”.

And finally Astrid offered up “[Wild Swings]”.

“Right, all as we discussed then, more or less. Excellent.” Simon summarized, before continuing.

“Get some sleep, we start the trek home in the morning. If all goes well, we will be back in Aresmouth in three days.”