Group Dungeon I

After a long uneventful journey the carriage finally came to a halt, practically jumping out of the carriage Sven took immense pleasure in finally being able to stretch his cramped limbs, being 6 ft 6 inches or roughly 200 centimeters he found it hard making room for his limbs inside such a small room, not that Ignis or Alice minded being squished so close to him that is.

'Freeeeedooom!' Sven thought to himself as he began to do various stretching exercises to keep his blood flowing round his body healthily. As Ignis and Alice were enjoying the view, the aging minister stepped out of the nearby carriage along with two high leveled institution staff members, most likely there to make sure that no body died while in the dungeon. One of them was a female high elf like Ignis, however she wore a rather modest dark green gown and clutched a gnarled black staff in one hand and a green/black grimoire in the other, her hair was a deep brown and she looked like the shy and sensible type to Sven's eyes at least. The other was a tank, he was a huge looking human, even bigger than he was at 7 ft tall and double Sven's weight class, and if that wasn't enough of a size difference the guy was suited up head to toe in a menacing black armor that covered almost every inch of his skin save for his visor that showed what little features Sven needed to classify him as a human.

"Well students we've arrived at our guilds stomping grounds - as you would have no doubt learnt from your third year studies." Sven snickered, he'd learnt that during his year ONE studies, nay, his TWO MONTH worth of studying. "Our guild has claimed unilateral ownership of this dungeon, it is a special place and it's existence is one of the main reasons for our guilds hefty renown and exclusive prestige. This dungeon contains dozens of confirmed class shrines littered through its many branching passages, the amount and diversity along with the relative ease of the dungeon itself all combines to making this place an unrivaled asset to PikanVale's success as a guild." The minister spoke airily, Sven practically cringed when he watched the human tank pull out a portable podium from the carriages trunk, placing it at the ministers feet for him to steadily rise up as he spoke.

'What, he needs to talk down to us even in this situation?!' Sven practicality heard his subconscious yell through his skull, looking around he could tell he wasn't the only one thinking this if he could deduce by the raised brows and disbelieving stares of his fellow students.

"Before you begin spelunking through the cave as carelessly as a fair maiden prances through a flowered meadow, you should take a dungeon map and a silver whistle with you from this crate here." The minister motioned with his hand to a recently set up stand with two crates, one for whistles and the other full of parchments presumably being the maps in question. "The dungeons passages are drawn on the maps, follow these passages to the outlined shrines and you should have little to no difficulty obtaining your class and returning to those of us waiting on the outside, however if you are to lose your way or if you come across an opponent that you simply can't match, don't be afraid to blow the silver whistle. My teaching aids here will come to collect you from the dungeon." Sven now noticed there was more high level institution staff members pouring out of other carriages. "Just know that once the whistle has been blown and you have not yet obtained a class, you forfeit your right to venture back inside the dungeon this time round and must apply again for the next trip we organize." When he had finished, a lot of eager students began to crowd around the crates, some of them were rushing inside carelessly thinking this was some kind of race or competition to see who would be the first to get a class.

Sven waited on the outskirts patiently along with Ignis and Alice who knew the deal. The first ones inside were also the first to deal with the mobs, the mobs would tire the first students out and cause them to blow the whistle, then subsequent groups of students would get to fight against weakened mobs. Or at least, that was the tactic Sven had thought to use. Back in the game world, guilds would hire 'potato' players to soak up the aggro of trash mobs so the guild could progress faster through the dungeon and get a better clear time with bonus loot for a speedy clear, 'potato' being a derogatory term for low level inexperienced players who the guild harvested from low level hub cities by enticing them to join a high level guild, only to throw them to the trash mobs for them to feast on while the high leveled players reaped all the rewards. It was one of the many reasons why Sven never joined a guild back in the game world, he never liked the corruptness and selfish culture that arose from group dungeoning.

Surveying the crowd Sven could see other students utilizing the same tactics as him, smarter students, or perhaps students who had done this dungeon run a few times over now before coming up with this strategy from trial and error. As he scanned the cliques that had formed in waiting he was annoyed to find SunBane and Markus among them, looking at him with scowling faces and foul intentions. Sven frowned, this would not bode well for him, there's no way these two idiots were waiting for the mobs inside to be weakened, it was more likely they were waiting for him to go inside first so that they could follow him inside and then run up behind him when he least expected it. Inside a dungeon anything can happen, a student could fall down a pit and break his neck, accidents are bound to happen, like say an adventurer falling down on his own sword - maybe even falling on its edge several times, no doubt that is what they would tell the minister when he would confront the two like-minded whelps after their gruesome deed is done.

"Don't look now but SunBane and Markus are eyeing us, I think they intend to attack me inside, just keep an eye out behind us when we're exploring." Sven said as he faced the caves entrance so as to not directly look at the two plotting individuals in question and let them know he was speaking about them. The girls nodded, angry that those two hadn't given up even after 2 whole months of studying and sparring together.

Right on time and as Sven expected, a whistle went off from inside the cave and in a flash, a portion of the institutes aids ran inside to save the students. In no less than a couple of seconds, students were being dragged out of the cave on stretchers, being lowered to the ground near the medical tents where healers shone their beams if green light down at the injured students, some of them had deep cuts where as other were more fortunate but perhaps more cowardly, having blown their whistles because they knew they weren't ready yet, maybe it wasn't cowardice but simply knowing their limits Sven considered thoughtfully.

One after another whistles were blown and students were carried out, after a short while the frequency of whistle blowing began to slow down, deciding the time was right Sven and his party stepped towards the crate and grabbed a map and a silver whistle each before they headed towards the mouth of the cave, looking back one final time before the caves darkness enveloped him Sven eyed SunBane and Markus, who had began to stir from their positions, they would be the next group to follow him inside, just as Sven had anticipated.

Now inside the cave it was pitch black, other students had brought in their own torches or magical charms to be used as a light source, however Sven didn't need any of that as Ignis wreathed her hands in flames and cast a low level fire orb to follow them around. Who needs a troublesome torch taking up a valuable hand slot when you have a flame enchanter on your team? Looking to the map Sven dotted out a path they could take to suit all of their needs.

"Ignis doesn't need a class because she already has one, but she was allowed to travel with me as a sort of 'special favor' from the minister, so all we really need is to go to this shrine here." Sven tapped the charcoal etched map with his finger. "To get Alice her nature healer class, and then here." Sven traced the pathway to another shrine with the same finger. "To get me a tank class, and then we can follow our tracks backwards to get out of here." Sven had decided upon the tank class this time around, at this point he was willing to settle on just about any kind of class to help him progress faster, being a classless level 25 was really bad for efficiency and was certainly bottlenecking him from entering higher leveled zoned. Game experience had taken him this far, but unfortunately without the stats, this was about as far as he could reach as a classless adventurer.

Plus he could always switch classes later once he found a Gate Keeper shrine. However their leisurely stroll through the cave was abruptly cut to a close as a pack of sonic bats fluttered through the darkness and were heading straight towards Sven and his party.

"Sonic bats, Make sure to dodge their screeches!" Sven unsheathed his Slyvian blade and engaged the pack, the group of 3 bats sent a concentrated wave of sound towards Sven who masterfully dodged the radius of their attack while simultaneously slashing one of the bats wings off, it dropped to the floor like a sack of flour only to be snuffed out of existence by a swift stab through its surprisingly tiny throat. Meahwhile Ignis had sent a fire ball that hit one bat square in its body splashing fire damage to the other, the bat that was hit fell to the floor dead in a plume of flames but the other kept on flapping its burning wings, or at least it did so until ignis clubbed it out of the sky with her gnarled healers staff that Sven had purchased for her. She wasn't a healer yet so the best it could be used for was a beating stick, a rather useful beating stick at any rate if you consider she'd just finished off the injured bat with such a useless melee weapon.

Collecting the drops, the party moved on until they found a kind of central room linking up many different branching paths. Looking at the map Sven identified which route would lead him to the healers shrine fastest, however through the darkness he heard the sounds of battle, a group of students were struggling against whatever it is they were fighting. Frowning Sven decided to go and check the disturbance out and see if he could help, after all isn't that what Elise would have wanted? Thinking about her briefly made him wonder where she was right now and how she was doing, however a cry for help focused him back into matters at hand. Rushing to the students aid Ignis's fire orb soon lights up the darkened cave to reveal...