Chapter 174 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

Pov Caspian

"We need more speed or it’s going to get away!" I yelled at the top of my voice. Immediately, the 20-man crew started to adjust the sails and power outputs to make the ship go as fast as possible.

The other nearly 30 people who had already gone through a fight did their last preparations for the next one. We were all on the railing, watching the sands below and seeing the bloody trail a huge sand snake was leaving.

We weren't the only ones in the sky; there were five other ships, all allied with the runners. One was trailing behind as it got hit with a tail swipe, but they had done a remarkable job keeping the ship going at the speed it was. I looked towards our port side to see the broken ballista and wished Ziiipe was here, but currently only Sandy and I were here on this hunt.

The snake still had four bladder balloons attached to it so it couldn't dive, but I watched as another one got loose and a few moments later, one of them popped. If it got another one free, I was certain that it could dive deep, heal itself, and once again become that terror known as the ship consumer. This particular snake had single-handedly destroyed 12 ships and damaged many more in the storm passage.

There, the air currents are so strong that airships need to fly closer to the desert, and this particular individual has an incredibly narrow and long tail, which it uses to do real damage. For some reason, it particularly likes hunting airships. This ship was really fast, but Vinny didn’t really design it for that. This was our strongest vessel and the fifth one to be built of our six-vessel fleet.

Fortunately, our current attack fleet had a ship that was faster than others, and I watched it surge ahead, getting closer to the snake’s head. "Come on, surface, you bastard." It took another 10 minutes, and we were all once again ready to strike when the snake finally surfaced its head.

Its target was one of the air bladders keeping it from diving deeper. "Attack!" I yelled and could hear other ships giving the same command. The next moment, the sound of strong ballistas firing was heard by all.

We only had our starboard ballista left, but its aim was true, and it was able to hit the back of its head. "Lightning now!" I gave the command. We had three lightning mages on board who immediately used their skills to attack the snake through the chain that was connected to the ballista bolt. We weren't the only ones doing that, and we heard the snake scream in pain.

Everyone else started attacking, everyone who had ranged attacks, and then finally the limping ship made it here, and its aim was true as it hit one of the snake's eyes. Just a few moments more and it will be over.

"Tail swipe from aft!" I heard someone yell and immediately started rushing there. I layered defensive skills on myself and could feel the buffs Sandy was giving me. I just barely made it, held up my shield, and activated my take damage skill targeting the ship itself.

Everything went black the next moment I heard crashing and saw that the mast had fallen because I had been thrown against it so strongly. I fell to the ground and coughed up blood, but I was already getting healed by Sandy.

"Shit, that was close," someone said, then I heard the snake scream cut off. "It's dead!" was heard all around, followed by the celebration of our victory. My mind was still a bit hazy, but Sandy helped me up, and I couldn’t help but smile.

We had done it, but the celebration ended for a moment when the monster below didn't disappear. "Don't worry, we have prepared for this," I said in the strongest voice that I could gather at this moment.

The next four hours were a blur as we focused on pulling out the corpse and then using all six ships to lift it up and start to take it back to Arrival. We would need to process this monster before we could get the loot from it.

Our ships were under strain, but with the six of us, it was possible. We knew that in this desert, it was possible that we would need to process a kill. But most of the time, things still disappeared as soon as you killed them.

We now knew the purpose of this desert: it was a separation. One side was a more traditional dungeon we all knew, and the other a more realistic one, although not as real as the playrooms, which were basically like the outside world, only more dangerous.

The two sides of this huge room were named Departure and Arrival. One is where you depart the old dungeon and the other is where you arrive at the new one with new rules. So much time has gone by that the dungeon has already advanced to the next floor while we still haven't reached the end of this one.

That’s not to say that we couldn’t have reached it; it’s just that most of the larger organizations, especially the runners, were taking time to prepare for the changes that had happened.

Even we have taken time to adjust to this new reality, although we were lucky to get a head start thanks to our outpost in the playroom. Vinny is busy making our last ship, as a fleet of seven would be perfect for our business in this desert room. The rest of us all got training in processing the different monsters, while Ziiipe volunteered to be our party specialist, even focusing some of her skill slots on it.

The fact that you couldn’t get loot without being able to process the monsters you kill was a huge change, something that didn't go over well with many. But the only thing they could do was go back to the old dungeon or leave it entirely.

Some did, but they were back in a few months, complaining about how every other dungeon was too weak for them. Now, I have been to many dungeons, and I did have to agree that this particular one was in some ways quite a lot harder than others, but it was also a lot more forgiving in some other aspects.

Thanks to us having the first airship, we were able to establish a line of outposts from Departure to Arrival and are currently using ships as transport for anyone willing to pay. This business of ours required us to become a more official organization. After quite a long discussion, we concluded that a guild wasn't really us.

Carl accepted us like family, and currently, he was dealing with his own, now having thirteen children. It made me shiver just to think of it, but it's their business.

If we made a guild, there would be so many who wanted to join us, but we didn't want to take just anyone like every other guild did. No, most of our members joined like me and Sandy did, by accident, while others would start out as acquaintances or people we needed help from. These relationships slowly grew into something more until they were taken in.

That's why we decided to go with a clan structure instead of a guild one. That also made it possible to stay more connected with the runners as we didn't compete for members, and because of the different structure, there was less friction between us.

From the rumors I’ve heard, it seems that a few other larger groups associated with the runners might go the same way as we did. We’ve even heard of a few who have a similar home base as we do that no one else could use.

Thanks to us becoming an official organization inside this dungeon, our influence has spread a lot more, giving us access to a lot more opportunities. Us having pretty much a safe way across this desert room was also giving us a lot of income and favor with a lot of adventurers.

The number of raid rooms we have been able to enter has increased because of that, and this has continued to snowball us, making us even stronger. Currently, we already have about 300 members in our clan, and while we wouldn't be expanding fast...

While saying that, so many are having children that perhaps that would be the way our clan will start to expand without having to rely on happenstance to gain members. I will need to bring this up at the next meeting.

The Cliffs of Arrival were now coming into visual range. It would only be a few weeks more before we started to push into the second half of the 26th floor, or what was currently being called the new dungeon. What wonders and horrors will be waiting for us, I couldn’t even imagine, but I was still excited to see.