You are about to enter a dungeon.

  Ben and team were back where they had left things off.

  They had added another bag of holding and filled it with supplies for an extended trip into a cold environment. They all wore white leather armor made from the skinned Tundra Prowlers. It did not have any special abilities except for the self-repair functionality that they had come to rely on. The important thing was that it was Tier 2.

  It had helped Carter actually make it to Tier 2 – that was a fantastic milestone for Ben, as it proved without a doubt that there was a path to growth even for those not being fighters.

  Hercules had not shown himself but the emotions Ben had sensed indicated that he was still digesting the Tier 2 core and that it might take a while to do so.

  Ben took a deep breath and stepped through the portal.

  He stood on a marble platform about ten meters across on all sides that was empty except for the portal behind him.

  Two words described what he found around him: huge and gray.

  There was barren tundra ahead of him, sparse forests to the left and right and mountains in the distance behind him and the portal.

  Everything looked washed out, like a faded photograph. The trees in the forest were either leaf-less or covered in frost. The mountains were barren, gray and sparsely covered in snow, and the tundra was covered in thin vegetation that lacked color, rocks were randomly spread across the plains as if a giant toddler had thrown a temper tantrum.

  Even in his very first dungeon, the environment had looked endless, but even then he had sensed that anything except the path toward the dungeon’s end was just for show.

  He did not have that feeling here. Quite the opposite.

  It felt like a small world that could be explored.

  It was also cold. Not threatening, at least on the platform and for someone with a Body attribute of 25, but noticeably.

  The others joined him on the platform when he noticed a notification waiting for him.

  Welcome to The Frozen Wasteland. Points will be awarded based on the difficulty of the creatures defeated. There are six nodes spread throughout the dungeon, clearing each one will gain you 100 points. There are several sub-missions available, if you can uncover them.

  Please enter the name of your party for the leaderboard.

  Ben turned to the others. “Any suggestions for our team name?”

  Michael did not even bother to grunt as a reply, instead focused on scanning the environment around them.

  Akira apparently did not feel empowered to contribute given that he had just joined them.

  “Let me suggest something creative, boss.”

  “Sure, Jamal, go ahead.”

  “The Protectors.”

  “You really are a creative genius. Thank you,” Ben said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  Anne shrugged. “It won’t win a prize for creativity, but it makes sense and there are probably more important things to worry about.”

  Ben sighed in exaggerated suffering and added the name to the prompt provided by the system.

  The next thing he noticed was a small counter in one corner of his vision, currently showing a zero.

  “Any preferences on where to go?” he asked the others.

  Michael pointed towards the tundra with a surprisingly determined expression.

  “Why?”

  “Tundra Prowlers. Common challenge.”

  Ben thought about it. As tough as the fight had been, they likely would not find easier opponents, though the idea of fighting packs of the beasts in the tundra without any natural barriers to provide protection from being flanked did not sound pleasant.

  What were the alternatives? Going into the forest provided more opportunities for cover, but the ambush by the Ice Howlers had shown that the Energy-born creatures could play that game as well.

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  That left the mountains. As much as he felt at home in the Blue Mountain Forest, he sensed—without any direct evidence—that that area would be difficult.

  He looked at the others, who slowly nodded. Ben shrugged and stepped off the platform.

  ***

  They had been hiking through the tundra for the last fifteen minutes or so. At no point had the scenery changed in the least. The world around them seemed truly enormous.

  And cold. Really cold. The wind blasting over the tundra chilled them to the core. Even Ben, with all his Constitution, did not enjoy the climate.

  Michael had stayed largely with them as the tundra was so flat that it was not apparent to them where enemies would hide.

  They had been wrong.

  Anne, who was covering their rear, shouted in alarm.

  Ben turned around, seeing five Tundra Prowlers emerge from a burrow behind them.

  He ran to Anne’s side, just like Jamal did, a lightning bolt streaked past him.

  Wanting to end the confrontation as quickly as possible, Ben used [Unyielding Retribution] at the first opportunity.

  When the Tundra Prowler died, the counter in his vision increased to one.

  Anne took another wolf out and two things happened. First, the counter ticked up, second, more Tundra Prowlers emerged from a nearby burrow.

  Ben sighed internally. If they needed to take out a thousand of these overgrown wolves to get to the dungeon core, this would be a very, very long run.

  ***

  Ten minutes later Ben took a deep breath. Twenty-five Tundra Prowler bodies lay all around them. Five each from five burrows had attacked them. Fortunately, it had been staggered so that never more than half a dozen had been going after them at the same time.

  Still, their new armor had to take the first blows. It had stood up to the task reasonably well. Without metal, it was not very good at protecting from blunt force, but it did do very well against claws and piercing bites.

  “I guess Adam will be quite happy when we return,” he muttered as he started the harvesting of cores. He was quickly disappointed, though, as the creatures did not have cores. Given that they would leave the hides as there was just no way to transport that many, especially at the very beginning of their adventure in the dungeon, it was not a satisfying reward.

  After they were done with the grisly task, they looked around.

  The environment had not changed at all, there were no major landmarks that they could go for, except for the large rocks strewn across the otherwise plain space around them.

  “I don’t think it’s normal for wolves to live in burrows like this,” Akira said with a questioning undertone.

  “Haven’t seen much that is normal in a long time…” Jamal replied.

  “Moving on?” Anne asked.

  Ben nodded slowly. He didn’t see an alternative. “Let’s go for now. I don’t want to try to kill a thousand overgrown wolves, though. But let’s give it another hour or so.”

  They had one more encounter with a similar pattern before they reached the first major rock.

  It rose about 15 meters into the air and was roughly twice as broad.

  On a whim, Ben decided to climb the rock to the top. It had been a while since he had tried to climb extensively and it was exhilarating to see that he could basically just pull himself up the rock without having to worry about footholds. The rock was sufficiently weathered to have plenty of hand- and footholds, though.

  As he stood on the top he saw… not much. At least nothing that seemed interesting. It was impossible to tell how much further the tundra reached, but it was definitely longer than he had any interest to explore.

  He wondered whether there were any patterns to be discerned in the placement of the rocks, but it did not appear to be the case, at least none that he could identify.

  With a shrug he started his descent.

  When he reached the ground, Michael waved him over and pointed to a dark space below the rock.

  Ben stepped closer and knelt only to discover that the dark space was a hole in the ground, an entrance.

  Retreating from the hole he waved the others over. “Given that we had Prowlers in the small burrows I assume there will be more of them down there…”

  “Not sure it is wise to jump down there, boss.”

  Before Ben could respond, Akira spoke up. “It might make sense to clarify what we want to get out of this dungeon, now that we know a bit better what it is.”

  Ben raised an eyebrow. That was the first time Akira had pushed for something like that – and it was a good thing. He too often just stumbled along and the others would rarely push back hard. Thinking about how to go about the dungeon made a lot of sense.

  He nodded. “Good point. So objective number one is to stop this dungeon from breaking further, that way the path up here should remain reasonably safe. Objective number two is to acquire the core so that we have a chance of completing the mission from the systems. Objective number three is to get as much wealth as possible out of this place so that we can build all the fascinating things we can in the settlement as well as equip ourselves and fund our future growth. Did I miss anything?”

  “As objectives those make sense, but the question is what is the context for them. If I am not mistaken, we could probably stay here without taking unduly risks and farm Tundra Prowlers. It would take a long time and would be quite exhausting to hike across all of these lands,” he waved around them, “but it could be possible. It would just take a long time.”

  Ben scratched his head. It would likely take quite a few days to achieve their objective with the Prowlers alone – assuming there actually were that many of them.

  Did they have the time? Probably.

  If he was being honest with himself, he was not sure he had the patience.

  But was his growing impatience a justification to jump into dark holes – figuratively and literally?

  He took a moment to think it through and then, instead of making a decision, he explained his thinking to the others. “We should vote on this, I am open to anything. The smart choice is likely to stay here, hope that the Prowlers will respawn and get it done, even if it takes a week. It would of course be frustrating if we learn that there are not enough Prowlers or the respawning takes a long time. On the other hand we could try to explore what this dungeon has to offer, which likely provides greater rewards but comes with risk.”

  Ben saw Michael and Jamal exchange a glance that seemed to convey a lot of information, but he could not tell what it was.

  “I have faith,” Anne said.

  Ben looked at her curiously. “Faith in what?”

  “You. This,” she circled with her finger encompassing them all. “So far you have not led us astray and we have grown a lot stronger. If you want to jump down there, I am fine with it.”

  Ben looked to Akira. “I have defended my grandparent’s village mostly alone for months. That does not work without taking risks. I just want it to be a conscious decision.”

  “We will go where you go, boss.” Michael nodded briefly to Jamal’s statement.

  “Thank you, all. I promise to not take unreasonable risks. Let’s go explore dark holes.”