Sam and Chloe arrived at the Classroom for their Dungeon Diving class. They had run a little overtime in their previous class and having to travel to the other side of the campus were worried they would be late. Luckily they made it with plenty of time to spare. When they entered into the classroom they noticed that Albert and Alice were already waiting for them and had reserved some seats for them.
Sam took a seat next to Albert and waited for the class to start. Before it did Sam noticed Albert waving someone over to him. As Sam looked over towards the classroom door he noticed a boy with short ginger hair and a bulky build walk over towards them. “Darren, how are you?” Albert greeted him. “Good, nice to meet you, the names Darren” he said sticking his hand out towards Sam. Sam shook his hand and introduced himself. “My names Sam, nice to meet you Darren.” He replied. “Darren is the 5th member of our party” Albert explained as he addressed the four of them.
“He’s a family friend and has a defensive ability that will suit our party well. We will all talk about our abilities later but since we didn’t really have anyone for defense I thought Darren might want to join our party and luckily he hadn’t agreed to join anyone else yet” Albert said. “That’s right, I’ve got a defensive blood skill and use a shield as my primary piece of equipment. I will explain it further later in class. I heard that we would get a chance to form our parties and get to know one another’s abilities, so I’ll give you the full run down then.” Darren said. “Well, it’s good to have you aboard” Alice said as the teacher finally joined them in the classroom.
The teacher walked up to the centre of the room and address the classroom. “Good afternoon everyone. My name is Elira Voss, A rank adventurer and your Dungeon Diving professor for this year. Welcome to Dungeon Diving 101” she announced spinning around and putting her arms out in a dramatic manner. “Now the first thing we’re going to do is to create our parties. What is a party you ask? Well, a party is a group of adventurers who band together to take on quests and delve into dungeons. How many people are normally in a party you say? Well, that depends but it is generally between five and seven depending on the party composition. Now based on the number in the class today we will be grouping into parties of five for most of you and two parties of six as we have slightly odd numbers” she said dramatically emphasizing the word odd for some reason.
“Once you have your parties sorted out please send your party leader up to me to fill out one of these forms and then wait for further instructions” she said waving one of the forms around in front of her. After a brief pause in the room, she spoke again “What are you all waiting for? Get to it”. Sam and his party got up from their desk and stood in a group to discuss whose to be the party leader. “Obviously it should be Alice” Chloe said immediately putting her nomination forward. “Do you have any dungeon diving experience Alice?” Darren asked. “No, I never got a chance to due to my duties after turning 13 and then the preparations for joining the academy” she answered. “I think Albert should be the party leader then” Sam said. “He has experience diving his family’s dungeon and has a fair bit of combat experience. I think that even though he dived only a couple of times the experience he has again from it would fit well as party leader” Sam explained. “I agree with Sam” Darren said. “Okay, raise your hand if you vote Alice for party leader” Albert said. Chloe was the only one to raise her hand. “Raise your hand for me to be party leader” Albert said which was followed by Sam, Alice and Darren raising their hands. “Looks like it’s decided then” Alice said as she motioned for Albert to head down to the teacher’s desk to complete the party form.
Sam looked around as parties formed around them. Some had clearly agreed to form parties before the class whereas others very clearly hadn’t as they wondered around the room either not knowing what to do with themselves or energetically attempting to convince others to join their party. In total there were 7 parties created by the time the teacher spoke to them again.
“Alright so we have our parties. Now please raise your hands if any of you already have Adventurer’s Guild and Diver’s Guild memberships?” Professor Voss asked. Sam looked around the room to see if there would be anyone else who hadn’t yet done so but to his surprise no one in the classroom had raised their hands. “Good, that means you will all be starting at the same place. Alright, your next dungeon diving 101 class is a quad class which is a once-a-week class where we have four lessons back-to-back. This will allow us time to travel into the city to sign up for the guilds among other things. Now because of this we will be doing a basic run down on the adventurer’s and divers guilds as well as some basic information on what dungeons are. It will be a while before we delve into an actual dungeon as there are quite a few topics we have to cover before you have the necessary knowledge to go into a dungeon. This also allows those of you who aren’t experienced in combat to gain some experience in your combat classes before we head into the dungeons. Now does anyone have any questions before we start?” Profess Voss asked the class. One again no one raised their hand as their focus was on the professor, eager to learn everything they would need before diving into the dungeons.
“First we will start off with the Adventurer’s guild. The adventurer’s guild was founded sometime in the first millennium and has continued to exist until this day. It was originally founded to manage people’s access to dungeons and to be a neutral party over the continent to prevent countries from monopolizing the dungeons within their borders allowing people from other countries to visit and dive into the dungeons. The adventurer’s guild later expanded, and the dungeon diving guild was formed as a subbranch of the adventurer’s guild to solely focus on the management of the dungeons. Today one must possess both an adventurer’s guild membership and diver’s guild membership before they can enter into any public dungeons” the professor paused to look the students over to ensure they were listening before she continued.
“Adventurers are ranked from G the lowest rank, up to S+ the highest rank. There is a similar correlation between the rank of an adventurer and the rank of the dungeons they’re able to dive in. To get your divers membership rank increased you must first level up your adventurer’s guild membership by completing quests posted on guild notice boards of your rank or one rank higher when in a party of 5 or more of the same rank. Once you have fulfilled the requirements you then must take an examination to get promoted to the next rank. This can include both a written and practical examination with the former normally only taking place for rank F through to C. Once your adventurer guild rank has been increased you may then go through the diver’s guild promotion examination. The diver’s guild examination will normally involve a variety of tasks to be completed within a dungeon in a set time and normally concludes with the conquest of the dungeon. This means that you should always make sure you can conquer a dungeon before you take the examination for your diver’s guild promotion. Now does anyone have any questions so far?” Professor Voss asked.
A girl sitting at the back of the room raised her hand. “So, to level up our dungeon divers rank we need to level up our adventurer rank before, but do we need to have ranked up our divers rank before we can go to the next adventurer rank?” she asked. “Good question Synthia” Professor Voss said as she took a step forward to answer. “You do not need to rank up your diver’s rank to continue ranking up your adventurer’s rank. It is quite common for adventurers when they’re first starting out to rank themselves up to D rank before ranking up their diver’s rank. We won’t be doing this as the course would run into some problems come the second year but it’s a valid strategy for those going solo or in smaller parties. Now does anyone else have any more questions before we move on?” Professor Voss asked the class again. No one raised their hands and the professor took a step back behind her desk to continue onto the next subject.
“Alright, now that you know a bit about the adventurer’s and diver’s guilds we will now move onto dungeons themselves. Dungeons are most commonly system generated pocket dimensions with monsters and treasure within. There are a few examples of non-system generated dungeons, but we won’t get into that any time soon as it’s not going to be relevant to any of you” the professor explained. “Dungeons can be found throughout the world with there being thousands of dungeons just on this continent alone. Current theory’s for why the system generates these dungeons suggest that they’re purpose is to provide a way for people to gain strength and make progress with their True Skills”.
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Sam thought about it for a moment. He supposed it made sense if the system was conscious in some way and that it had a reason for wanting the people of the world to get stronger.
The professor’s explanation continued on. “Dungeons come in many sizes and are categorized as such. Twenty-five to fifty floors are considered small; fifty to one hundred and twenty-five floors are considered a medium sized dungeon. Large dungeons are from one hundred and twenty-five floors to five hundred floors, and it’s considered a Great dungeon if it is anything above five hundred. Now there are, however, a couple of exceptions to this rule. There are two dungeons with less than 25 floors that have been discovered so far. And one of these dungeons is within this city” The professor paused again for dramatic effect before continuing.
“Both of these dungeons have 10 floors each however their rankings are very different. The dungeon in this city is called the Small Cave of The Undead and is a G ranked dungeon perfect for beginners. The other however is a S ranked dungeon called Hell’s Run which is located in the Holy Kingdom of Marthias”. Sam felt himself leaning in to try to listen closer to what the professor was saying fascination shining in his eyes. Despite being able to hear the professor clearly with her voice being magically enhanced to have an even tone throughout the room Sam couldn’t help but want more.
“Now, you may be wondering G rank and S rank dungeon’s well how do they determine that? Well, I will explain that later as it requires us to go a bit more in depth than we will be doing so today. Now each floor of a dungeon is almost as if its own world. The first floor of a dungeon could be a tight cave while the second could be an open plain. There are 7 common environments within dungeons. There are many more than this, but these are the most common among currently explored dungeons on our continent. These common floor types are caves or underground, Jungle, Labyrinth, Elemental Plains, Fortress, City Ruins and Demon realm. With these being the most common floor types there is a lot of information on what you can expect from them and how best to prepare. This is something we will also cover before we begin diving into an actual dungeon. Knowing what can be found is not only to keep you safe but also to enlighten you so that you know what resources to harvest and bring back with you during your dive. You can then sell these to the many shops often located outside of dungeons to help fund the equipment you need for dives into more dungeons” the professor explained.
“Alongside monsters and resources there is also loot which appears in these dungeons. Loot spawns within loot containers and contain system generated items which can range from a simple rock up to legendary weapons. These loot containers can be anything from a clay pot to a gilded chest hidden behind monsters and traps. And yes, dungeons also contain traps which is why most parties have someone who specializes in finding traps and figuring out how to navigate past them or disable them. There are magic items and magic abilities that can assist with finding traps, but they can be expensive and take a lot of time to learn how to properly use them, which is why they are normally specialists. A lot of parties without their own dedicated specialist will normally hire one to accompany them into a dungeon for a percentage share of the rewards. I, however, will be teaching you all the skills required for finding and disabling traps as leaving it down to a specialist can be risky especially when first starting out” she said.
“The final thing we’ll talk about today is the monsters found in dungeons. Part of the ranking for dungeons is based on the strength of the monsters and boss monsters that spawn there. For example, the small cave of undead is a G ranked dungeon with G ranked Monsters with an F Rank final boss monster. The dungeons are ranked based on a 5-person party with all members at the same rank so if you’re diving solo or with a smaller party you have to be extra cautious as the dungeon rank might be too much for you to handle. There are a large variety of monsters that can be found in dungeons ranging from skeletons and zombies through to powerful demons. It is important that you study what monsters will spawn within a specific dungeon to ensure you have everything you need to be able to fight them. Some monsters are immune to physical damage while others can be immune to magical attacks, so you have to ensure your party is prepared to face these challenges. This is why having storage skills is so important. It is so that you can carry differing sets of equipment designed to face multiple types of monsters. You will all be taught a storage skill early on in your skill-up classes so don’t worry about having to try to learn it on your own” Professor Voss said with a slight chuckle as a few of the student faces in front of her turned a little paler.
She paused momentarily to answer a question a student who had put his hand up wanted to ask. “Can you not just purchase a storage bag to take down into the dungeon instead of learning the skill?” the student asked. Professor Voss didn’t hesitate in her answer “There are two main reasons one being more important that the other. The first is that large storage bags are very expensive and to carry all the equipment you might need across the country and down into various dungeons you would need to spend a fortune on one. The second and most important reason is that you can get separated from your storage bag during a fight and if you need to pull out a potion or item from it during a battle and you don’t have it on you, you’ll be as good as dead. This is why storage skills are essential as you will need to be able to pull items out at a moment’s notice during fights against powerful boss monsters” she explained. “Does that answer your question?” she asked the student who nodded in acknowledgement.
“The final thing we will touch on today before I provide you with some homework and dismiss you for your break is Dungeon Breaks. See what I did there?” She paused waiting for the class to laugh but there was no response. The professor cleared her throat and continued. “Anyway, dungeon breaks occur when dungeons spawn more monsters than they can handle which leads to the dimensional gateway breaking down and the monsters leaking out into our world. This phenomenon can occur both naturally and be induced. When the dungeon spawn’s monsters’ people within the dungeon can kite them around outside of their standard spawn areas. This causes the dungeon to think that they have been defeated and therefore it spawns some more to replace them. Then one thing leads to another, and you have a dungeon break. This is, however, very hard and time consuming to do and requires a lot of skill. There have only ever been 3 known manmade dungeon breaks in the past, so it isn’t something we have to worry about.
Wow, Sam thought as the professor finished her explanation. There were a lot more to dungeons than he had originally thought. “Now, for homework I want you to read through the summary on dungeons on page four of your Dungeon Diving 101 textbooks. You’ve got until class on Thursday to get it done. There will be a quiz on it before we head out to the adventurer’s guild so make sure you’ve read it and are familiar enough to answer some questions about it. And no, the questions weren’t answered during class today. Now does anyone have any more questions?” the professor asked the students. No one raised their hands and they were soon after dismissed.
As they were walking towards the dining hall Sam and his party discussed their plans for after classes had finished. “I can’t hang around as I’m still being escorted back to the palace until the renovation of my dorm room is completed. It’s likely not going to be until week three that I will be able to hang out after classes” Alice said. “Can’t you just tell your escorts to wait?” Sam asked. “They’re not my escorts; they’re my brothers so his orders overrule mine” Alice explained. “I see, that’s a shame” Sam said dejectedly.
“Well, even though the two of you have to go the three of us can get together and make some plans. Sound like a plan?” Albert said. “Sound like a plan” both Darren and Sam replied at the same time before breaking out into laughter. Once their laughter had calmed down they entered the dining hall and found a free table to sit at and have lunch. Sam had a chicken sandwich which he thought was a bit dry while they continued to talk about upcoming classes. Before they knew it the magic chime went off in the dining hall alerting them that they had five minutes until their next classes started. The group split up heading towards their respective classes. Sam and Alice went off towards the Magical Arts building while Albert, Darren and Chloe headed for the combat arena.
