As both Damian and Alfaera looked at the fully armored Valyr standing in front of them, exchanging a few words as they let out a chuckle soon after, the latter was naturally surprised to see the two of them in front of him. After all, he had never called for the two, nor let his presence known after he had returned from Clossbay City.
Of course, it did not take long for him to figure out how the current situation unfolded, shifting his gaze towards Tristan, who only laughed at him in response as he shrugged his shoulders. “I had a feeling you were going to delve the dungeon without letting the two of them know.”
Hearing that, Valyr could not help but let out a light sigh inside his helmet, shaking his head. “It would’ve been a good surprise, you know? Imagine the greatest of their worries just disappearing one day without them knowing?”
“Well, you would’ve still had to go to me if you wanted the quest to be truly complete, but that does seem like a compelling reason,” said Alfaera in response to his words, letting out a bit of laughter after that.
“In my case, I would’ve found that more suspicious than reassuring.” After Alfaera, Damian decided to give the others a piece of his mind as well. “After all, wouldn’t you think more about who or what removed the problem in the first place than feeling relief at the fact the problem went away on its own?”
Though their conversation continued with that topic, the four of them decided to make their way to where the dungeon was while talking. Of course, with Alfaera and Damian speaking out their thoughts regarding the topic, Valyr and Tristan went ahead and shared their thoughts as well, with the four of them eventually coming to terms with what each other had said.
After that, the topic of their conversation shifted towards the dungeon, with Damian and Tristan doing most of the talking since they were the ones who had truly delved the dungeon. Alfaera also sneaked in a couple statements here and there regarding some aspects of the dungeon, due to the fact that most of the people who came to accept her quest informed her regarding the reason for their failures. Then again, she had also delved the dungeon once in the past.
Nevertheless, even though the three of them went into great detail regarding the various parts of the dungeon, there was one part of it Valyr noticed that all of them avoided mentioning.
The final boss of the dungeon.
“Now that I think about it, you three still haven’t told me what’s up with the final boss of the dungeon,” Valyr could not help but interrupt the conversation, prompting the three to go silent. “Other than the fact it’s an incredibly strong goblin, what else is there? Surely you three can tell me now that I’m about to enter the dungeon, right?”𝑜𝒱𝓵xt.𝒞𝑶𝓜
Hearing Valyr’s words, Tristan and the others looked at each other before wearing bitter smiles on their faces, making Valyr slightly frown inside his helmet as he let out a slightly exasperated sigh. “Even now?”
“It’s not that we don’t want to, Valyr,” Damian said in response, a bitter smile still on his face. “It’s the fact that we can’t.”
Seeing the other two nod in agreement with Damian’s words, Valyr stopped in his tracks, pondering over the former’s words in silence for a bit. As the gears continued to turn in his mind, a couple ideas eventually popped up in Valyr’s mind regarding the reason why they weren’t allowed to tell him about the final boss.
“Hmm…” Discarding some of the ideas in his mind as he started to walk again, Valyr looked at the others for a bit before opening his mouth. “Is there something within the dungeon that’s not allowing you three to talk about the final boss of the dungeon?”
In response to the question, the three looked at each other for a bit with slightly widened eyes. However, silence was their only response to Valyr’s question.
Of course, Valyr did not mind that, feeling that their reactions from his words earlier were more than enough for him to find out that he was correct. Seeing that his train of thought was on the right track, he decided to think out loud, muttering out the couple possibilities that could exist within the dungeon that exactly did what he mentioned earlier.
“For a dungeon at that level, there’s only two possibilities that come to mind when talking about being barred from sharing information,” Valyr said sometime later. “There’s either the possibility that there’s binding prompts that pop up before the final boss, or perhaps the dungeon has a binding oath.”
Noticing that the eyes of the three widened at the latter possibility, Valyr could not help but inwardly hiss.
Comparing the two, binding prompts were quite a common occurrence in dungeons, being used by the game as a way to make sure that the players couldn’t obtain information from NPCs beforehand regarding a certain dungeon boss or a secret that existed in the dungeon. In fact, due to it being so common, most players had become naturally inclined to think that every dungeon they entered would have a binding prompt somewhere.
On the other hand, binding oaths, though similar in appearance to binding prompts, were a whole different story. Unlike binding prompts, which were done through the system to add a layer of secrecy to dungeons, the existence of a binding oath meant that the dungeon was not a naturally occurring dungeon, but instead an artificially built dungeon with a purpose in mind.
‘It seems there’s more to the dungeon than I initially thought… and it might have to do with something regarding the village itself,’ Valyr inwardly muttered. ‘After all, knowledge regarding binding oaths could only be found in core cities and above, yet the three of them were surprised to hear those words come out of my mouth.’
‘In any case, I’ll save that for later. For now, I should focus on the task at hand.’ With that, Valyr hastened his pace, utilizing the entirety of his AGI to get to where the dungeon was quicker. Unsurprisingly, the three followed suit, deciding that one of them should go on ahead to make sure that Valyr wouldn’t get lost.
Eventually, the four of them arrived in front of a cave, which stuck out like a sore thumb due to the fact that vast plains surrounded it. Then again, if one’s attention weren’t focused on the cave, one would think that the sight before them was only made up of vast plains.
Taking note of the faint swirling light somewhat deep within the cave, Valyr went ahead and told the three that he was going to go on ahead and enter the dungeon, telling them that they could either wait here or wait back at the village for good news.
In response to that, the three asked him a couple of questions regarding his preparedness. Naturally, being someone who had delved multiple dungeons in his past life, Valyr knew what kind of items to pack, patting on the bag slung around his chest as he reassured them that everything would be fine.
After saying another round of temporary farewells to the three, Valyr then went ahead and entered the cave, stopping in front of the faint swirling light as he extended his hand towards it.
Ding!
[Would you like to enter the dungeon ‘Astarto Goblin Den’?]
[Note: Only those at Level 11 to 15 may enter this dungeon. Those above this level range, as well as those below this level range are prohibited to enter.]
Looking at the prompt that had appeared before him, Valyr took in a deep breath before confirming that he wanted to enter. Soon after, his entire presence disappeared from where he previously stood, being teleported to someplace else not long after.