Limitless Path Chapter Six Hundred Eighty-Four (Patreon)

The problem, even with good information, was that other teams were also sloppy. Very rarely did she find reports of places that were detailed, well-organized, and thorough about investigating everything involved in a situation. This dungeon was a great example of such a case, as the group that had found it had done a rather superficial investigating, noting the location, rough level, and some of the mana types. They had not even bothered sending anyone inside or taking the whole team in and doing a full clear; a lot of teams were not nearly as…adventurous as Beth’s team, especially when it came to high-level, newly discovered dungeons or special instances. Most people steered clear and just reported the basic details, not wanting to assume the massive amount of risk of pioneering.

That was perfectly fine for Beth and her team; they were well-used to pioneering and encountering novel situations at this point. It was true, to a certain point, a certain very far point, that Beth’s team did a lot more exploring than other teams. That was both in general, in terms of things like their jaunts underground, and in specific in relation to first runs of things like new dungeons. An awful lot of teams and individuals tended to stick to the safer routes, and that wasn’t just talking about any regular person on the street walking around. That was discussing teams at around their level and rebirth stage, so late-stage Enlightened now, who would take the safer route. It wasn’t a lack of ambition on the part of other teams, nor was it reckless on Beth’s part; leveling was already dangerous and time-consuming enough for most. The added stress and danger of exploring didn’t really appeal to as many teams as one might think, putting Beth’s team in a bit more of an outlier group.

The are they were at was a section of mountains that didn’t appear wholly natural, at least judging by what Beth could remember about plate tectonics, though she was no expert. They were in a terrain that was a group of eight or nine very tall, broad-sloped mountains all clustered together, and then flat plain all around them. It made the place look unnatural and a little otherworldly, especially when the light of dawn dusted the snowy peaks in pinks and oranges. A beautiful sight that Beth still found captivating, but it was what was in the mountains that they were here to deal with, despite the oddities and beauty.

The dungeon was a massive metal and steel structure in the middle of the mountains, in a broad valley at the heart of the miniature mountain range. It was about two hundred feet high and more than three hundred feet wide, a strange amalgam of shapes and designs. Much of the structure was thin beams and wires, or pieces of something resembling filigree, and the portal into the instance was a glowing orb in the center of the strange structure. The whole thing was also part of the dungeon and not just some structure constructed around it or by it; trying to damage the structure produced basically no result and it read to eye powers as a dungeon, no matter what part of the metal was examined. It was a shame, too, as strange metals made or modified by dungeons were both hugely valuable and quite interesting to see when isolated from the dungeon, but Beth doubted they were getting any of this without shutting the dungeon itself.

Such a thing was possible, but it wasn’t an easy feat, and it became harder at higher levels. It was also easier punching down, in a sense, as shutting a dungeon at a level that was still challenging for a person or team to clear was no mean feat at all. Conversely, Beth’s team, near the top of Enlightened and quite strong even for that bracket, would have no trouble shutting a level one hundred dungeon, something early Wayfarers, even ones with a rebirth or two under their belt, would still consider pretty dangerous territory. In the same way, this level five hundred dungeon would be a struggle for their team to fully close, even using spikes, but someone like Mortaine or Baelvyr could shut it, especially if they had additional help. Someone much stronger, like Zane or Fallon, likely had even greater means to deal with or manipulate such things, but that was still a ways above Beth’s pay grade.

The dungeon they were here to run started at level five hundred and twenty five, which was already at the top end of their range, considering when they got back to max level they would be at five hundred forty, and the final boss of this dungeon would be at least level five hundred fifty. That was all just on a supposedly normal run, assuming nothing crazy happened, which wasn’t outside the realm of possibility, but the dungeon would be all the stronger and tougher with a spike. From mana levels, to elites, to mini bosses, to overall level, a spike just ratcheted everything up by several degrees, though that did come with abundant rewards for their struggles. Hell, it came with abundant rewards when talking about a level one hundred or one hundred fifty dungeon, let alone something that started over level five hundred and climbed from there.

The first order of business, despite Beth wanting to dive in headfirst, was to set up camp. The second order of business, despite Beth still wanting to dive in headfirst, was to carefully explore the dungeon without using a spike or any other altering mechanic to change the place drastically. Spikes and such could do weird things to dungeons, but a spiked run typically stayed within a certain framework based on the standard parameters and layout of the dungeon that was being modified. The time they spent helping with Mortaine’s latest request was good proof of that; an underground dungeon with plenty of caves and tunnels and lava spread throughout transformed, with the use of just a spike, to a massive mountain range with rivers of lava and plenty of caves still dotted around. The terrain and layout might have changed to a moderate degree, but the theming was still quite recognizable and the beasts also followed similar patterns.

The first run of this dungeon would be an establishing one, with them slowly working through the place to make sure there weren’t any other hidden surprises. Just by scanning the dungeon, reading the information about it, and doing a few basic tests, that didn’t guarantee that there wasn’t anything hidden there that was more than would meet the eye. Some dungeons had hidden clear requirements, some locked people in until certain conditions were met, some had bonus hidden areas or secrets, some transformed under certain conditions, and so on down the line. Looking at the description, looking at the mana, studying what kinds of beasts popped out or were produced in the area, and analyzing how the mana in the area changed over time could all tell certain things about the dungeon, but that was just establishing the baseline. The very basics of the basics, if one were to describe it in simple terms, and there was a whole mountain of advanced things that one would never figure out from the basics, just from the actual effort of fighting through the thing.

It wasn’t a real surprise that this dungeon was ice themed, being in a strange mountain range that was rather cold even down in the valleys, one that had plenty of snow covering the slopes. What was a surprise was that there was also plenty of electric mana, or maybe lightning mana, wrapped up in the instance. Such things weren’t all that rare, overall, having two or more strong mana types, but the combination of ice and electricity was a bit odd. It was something that gave them a little hope they might find some nice things for Kris; after all, it only took a little transformation or change here or there for it to be water which, yes, was a separate mana type from ice. The same with lightning mana; just a little twist of the rewards, something that could happen even easier when a spike was involved, as they had experienced quite a bit in that lava dungeon, and, presto!, it was void lightning.

Even if they didn’t get lucky with anything for Kris specifically, she could still use a lot of what they found after modifying. One of the great things about alchemy was it was transformative, taking one thing and making it into another, and then taking that other thing and further refining it before it was used for one of a dozen purposes. Having a base that was very close to what Kris would need, i.e. lightning but not void lightning, would make the transformation and remolding far easier, especially if it was high level material. The excess energy from the level of the item could go a long way, too, letting someone take an item from something at level five-fifty and make it into a material at level five hundred that was perfectly aligned with the desired mana type and perfectly refined, though still only useful as an ingredient. It was a lot of work, being a skilled alchemist, and often required dozens of steps to create a high level and/or high rarity item, all of those steps very precise in their demands.

That was for a little later, however, especially after they saw how the dungeon reacted to being spiked. First, they were doing this first time exploration, looking through everything in the dungeon and making sure to leave no stone unturned, which made the clear take far longer and be a lot more tedious. They got a lot out of it, however, and not just resources; they had only spent a little bit of time leveling after doing their rebirth, just an objective day or so, which was ten days in Beth’s gate, and now they were at level one hundred and thirty while fighting against level five hundred and thirty beasts. Such a level difference would have been a big no-go even for other teams with Enlightened or even early Ascended in the ranks, but Beth’s team wasn’t other teams. Besides, she like that they could do one dungeon run, albeit a very long one, and come out a hundred levels or more higher than when they went in.

It turned out the metal outside the dungeon wasn’t for show, either, which was part of what made this first clear so damn tedious. The whole place was a labyrinth, which was not any of their favorite type of dungeon or instance, and this one was especially long and complex, which made it especially annoying. It reminded Beth a bit of an Escher work, as parts of the dungeon looped back on itself or seemed to invert or twist with little rhyme or reason. It was pretty easy for her to keep track of what was happening, but it did sometimes fuck with the others’ heads in a major way, and it was only through having her warp the space, or maybe unwarp the space would be a better way of saying it, that the rest of the team could fully focus again.

The whole maze was made of odd metal, and again, it was hard to take. Unlike the outside structure, which was considered part of the dungeon entrance and difficult to mess with without closing the dungeon entirely, the inside structure was both filled with mana and had certain runes carved into it. It wasn’t all that unusual to see, though Beth did still find it fascinating how much work the Path would sometimes put in to create an instance or to make a certain effect. It wasn’t like some being had come through and carved all this by hand, though there were dungeons and special instances where there were enemies that would set up formations and enchantments, but this wasn’t that. This was just the Path making the experience both more realistic and more complex, like exploring the hidden home of some Manumitted gone off the rails, one that didn’t like up being up and down being down, not all the time.

Fortunately, the reality twisting that was happening seemed to take away from some of the complexity of the layout of the maze. Well, if they didn’t have Beth their to keep things straight and sometimes just walk through twisted areas of reality entirely unaffected, it would have been much, much harder for the team to navigate and figure out what was what and where was where. With Beth trivializing all of the mind-bending parts of the labyrinth, it was just down to the navigating a multi-story maze part, which was slightly annoying but not terrible. Given that the mind-bending parts were likely supposed to replace some of the difficulty of having the whole thing be more twisting and with more traps and hidden doors and such, it made exploring the place a lot easier.

Not that it was easy overall, but it was a lot better than other teams might have it. Another reason why teams were hesitant to pioneer dungeons, especially high-level ones, but the rewards were certainly worth it. Just in exploring this maze, they had encountered beasts that none of the group had ever seen in person. Not that they were new or even novel variants, but they were rare, and rare meant money when talking about harvesting them, something Beth did with her loot power. Anything they got out of here was going to be coin, but it was the clear rewards, after using a spike, of course, that Beth was hoping would give them a fighting chance in the upcoming auction.

Then again, while she had a rough idea of what they would need, she didn’t know just how crazy it was going to be. They could show up with fifteen neutronium worth of goods and coins and only need one, or they could show up with eight neutronium worth and need fifty. It was really going to be a roll of the dice, especially given it was an auction setting, but she was solely focused on the property, which was going to be a key item at the event. However much they needed to save up to get that house, they would do it, and if they didn’t have enough time, as it had been rather short notice, they would work on their professions to the point they could start making some serious money from them and save up, working to be able to throw an obscene amount of wealth at the problem to solve it. During that time, they might or might not make it to Ascended, but that would also help solve their problem all the quicker, opening up even better routes of earning wealth and connections.

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