Plant life had grown back even thicker around the entrance to the old silted-up dock district. What was once a burnt-over passage between two mighty oaks was now a narrow, hidden entrance just wide enough to squeeze through. New tree growth sprung back in barely a year. By the next pilgrimage season, the path would be blocked again, and aspirants would have to search the overgrown delta for another entrance to the dungeon.

  Calaf, Jelena, Zilara, and Enkidu squeezed through into a small plaza that was, in fact, a dried riverbed between two wharves and warehouses. Vines covered a ladder leading up into the dungeon proper.

  “There were bodies here when I checked in briefly upon discovering this place.” Calaf glanced around. “No trace of them now. It’s been a year, but…”

  “Predation likely disposed of them,” Enkidu said.

  That, or other dungeon divers possessed the good sense to bury the corpses after they'd retrieved the inventory contents off the fallen.

  “Never been in this one,” Jelena said. “Stop by the Battletower once a year to check out new inventions the scholars and Battlemages are cooking up. They keep all the good stuff in the basement or the upper floors. That’s where I got the firearm, yeah? Shall we?”

  The group made for the ladder, already wary of traps, and entered the dungeon proper.

  Dungeons. Carefully curated ruins from the age of the Ancient Heroes of Yore. There were four primary dungeons, corresponding to the four major classes of the old heroes.

  Paladins had Fort Duran, an ancient fortress from which Roland the martyred hero hailed from. A great castle amidst the ever-fall wonderland of Autumn’s Redoubt, the dungeon was an endurance test, fighting high-level dire-bears in the baileys and animated armor in the crypts and along the walls. The goal was to reach the tallest tower, where enchanted construction rubble would rank a Squire up to Paladin proper. Calaf had been to this peak once before, painfully under-leveled, but left the rubble behind; given the context, it just didn’t feel worth it.

  Clerics had the Shrine of Salmana, the ruins of a pre-demon age nunnery from which Priestess Mia’s bloodline hailed. Given the preeminence of Clerics in the church hierarchy and Mia’s status as mother of the church, this dungeon was closely guarded, its inner workings shrouded in mystery. Sisters escorted faithful deep into the under-capital crypts every pilgrimage season. This was but a sliver of the full shrine. For the rest of the site there was only rumors.

  The Battletower, home dungeon of Battlemages (hence the name). This was the one dungeon that was occupied, at least on the lower floors, by scholars pioneering the art of Battlemagery. The difficulty of the upper floors was mostly contained in the traps hidden within. Success was dependent on wits and knowledge befitting a mage’s tower.

  That left Ye Olde Docks, repurposed from the long-forgotten remnants of Port Town from back when the river delta flowed along a slightly different path. There were many traps here, though Calaf had spied some metal monstrosity patrolling the old, abandoned wharves.

  The good news regarding the more trap-based dungeons was that there was a limited number of traps seasonally. Oh, they reset themselves in time for the next pilgrimage – likely thanks to some church maintenance on the side. But a late-season run could be a relative breeze if you timed it right. This time of year was between seasons, and closer to the start of the next pilgrimage than the end of the last. Traps were likely fresh.

  Sure, you could have a barrow or bandit hideout in a cave and call that a dungeon if you wished. But ‘Dungeon’ brought to mind the official church-sanctioned experience, here. There was an expected level of quality to the Big Four. Not to mention the main dungeon’s close personal connections to the Ancient Heroes of Yore.

  “Hopefully the traps were all triggered last pilgrimage,” Zilara said.

  No sooner did they climb up to the proper wharf, however, did Calaf spy a tripwire – handily highlighted by the Menu thanks to his heightened Scout-adjacent senses.

  “Careful,” he said. “There are things other than traps guarding this place.”

  They carefully stepped over the tripwire. Burn marks up ahead indicated spots where the trap had been tripped not too long ago—but how, then, had it reset itself so soon?

  “What item do Scouts go for here?” Zilara asked.

  “I don’t know.” Calaf shrugged. “Some sort of box?”

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  A hefty set of double doors was the only route forward. The way was shut unless they had an experienced Scout to pick the lock.

  Enter Zilara, with the Lockpicks of the Scout.

  “Hmmm. So my class is custom. When you’re directly descended from the holy priestess, I guess you have leeway to build a class as you want.” Zilara talked as she worked. “My stats are balanced enough. In conjunction with this bonus from the relic and endless attempts courtesy of the lockpick…”

  There was a click and the hefty double doors swung open.

  “Heh. There we go.”

  The warehouse was ill-lit and muggy, with a few shrouded rows of years-rotted storage equipment sitting on shelves. Calaf held up the spear and cast Flaming Sword of Faith. The group entered the warehouse.

  The doors closed on a swivel. Then, with another click, they locked.

  “We’re committed now,” Jelena said. “C’mon, there should be another door on the far side of the warehouse.”

  The group walked carefully through a middle row. Calaf’s flaming spear cast long shadows over the warehouse. Flickering light caught in a lens.

  A whirling of gears announced the arrival of the first dungeon sentry. A cylindrical figure twice the size of your average man slid along a far pathway, just out of range of the flames.

  “Well, that was quicker than expected,” Jelena said at a whisper. “Just move slowly. There could still be traps.”

  The group passed by a group of shelves that had been knocked over, perhaps in a previous altercation with these new enemies. The grinding of gears was ever-present now, somewhere near the far corner.

  Calaf hazarded a look into some of the boxes. The contents had rotted away long ago.

  “Huh, no Menu designation,” he whispered. “It’s not Interface-compatible.”

  There was another whirring of gears and the moving cylindrical figure appeared at the end of the hall and turned at once.

  The flames of the spear-torch were reflected in three concave lenses on the automaton’s ‘face’.

  “Level eighty-three!” Zilara said, ducking behind Calaf.

  The automaton advanced. Calaf held his shield out. The creature – to the extent that a collection of clockwork and tempered metal counted as a ‘creature’ – rolled forward, aiming directly for Calaf’s torch.

  Spinning blades met the until-now pristine kite shield in a flurry of sparks. Calaf’s was forced back slowly, but his footing held. Still, no level fifty tank could hold out against such a foe for long.

  “I see the other door!” Zilara announced, already diving past the automaton. “Keep it busy. Imma go pick the lock.”

  “Hey!” Jelena said, firearm in hand. She fired off a shot that broke the automaton’s largest lens.

  The automaton swiveled back, staggered but taking only paltry health damage. It seemed to lose track of Calaf entirely, and its two remaining ‘eyes’ moved about to try and form some kind of binocular target acquisition.

  Further into the warehouse, another hunter-killer whirred to life. This one moved at a quieter clip, swiftly going in search of the latest noise.

  Enkidu leapt over the automaton and stabbed it from behind. Again, there was little damage earned from this maneuver.

  “These things do not die when you stab them,” Enkidu said with characteristic annoyance.

  “Eeek!” Zilara came running back down the hall. Flame wicked at her feet. “Another one!”

  The second automaton appeared at level seventy-seven. Instead of saw-arms it had another pair of flame-belchers.

  Enkidu moved to put himself between Zilara and the flame-automaton.

  “Hold him there, Calaf,” Jelena said. “I’ll try to shoot its other two eyes out.”

  That would require blocking these buzzsaws for longer than Calaf conceivably could endure. Instead, Zilara ran up from behind.

  “Clear!” she shouted.

  The bolt hit Gustavo’s Automaton in the back. Sensors scrambled, accompanied by a foul whiff of ozone. The lightning arced through the automaton and through Calaf’s shield into the Squire himself.

  Calaf dropped to his knees. Metal armor offered little protection against lightning, particularly since it was not mitigated by his shield. But the robotic creature was still shaking. Its central cylinder opened up involuntarily, and a clockwork core revealed itself. Calaf waited until the electricity stopped, but before the automaton recovered, and thrust his spear into the core. That thousand hit points collapsed all at once like a house of cards.

  “Lightning – electricity is their weakness,” Zilara said triumphantly.

  Wasting no time, Enkidu stabbed his blade into the tough metal shell of the flamer-automaton. He raised a hand up. Zilara cast her Improved Lightning again, hitting Enkidu’s enclosed fist. Electricity flowed through Enkidu, eliciting a grimace but no lasting damage, and into the automaton, where damage proved disabling. One more sword thrust into the exposed core destroyed this second sentry.

  The first encounter was done. The warehouse was theirs.

  “Whew.” Jelena stowed her pistol. “Okay, nice and quiet, back to that door and we’ll get out of here before we summon anything else.

  A great crash came as Enkidu swiped his sword, toppling the remaining stockpile shelves. Soon the warehouse was bare from wall to wall, and no further automaton was activated.

  “Every previous party snuck through here, running into traps and aggroing the automated security,” Enkidu said. “Now any future parties will have a full arena to fight through. They’ll be able to see the far door right away.”

  Jelena shot her longtime partner in crime a piteous look.

  “It’s more efficient,” Enkidu said, deadpan.

  “Fair enough.” Jelena shrugged, then turned to Zilara. “Get the door, kiddo.”