The Runesmith

“So this is it?”

“We’ll have to make do with it, without a proper forge we won’t be able to create the parts that easily and it’s easier to modify this one than to make a new one from scratch.

“Aye, so Boss, have you decided on what we will be making?”

“Yeah, a very thick double door.”

“A double door huh? Does the City Lord need one for his home or something?”

“I guess that could be a good excuse for now but …”

Roland and Bernir had arrived at what looked to be a fully functional smithy. It did not belong to the dwarven union and was created for the city lord instead. Their location was in one of the guard towers' upper floors. This area was intended for Roland or another blacksmith that only performed tasks for Arthur. Now that he had officially taken up that spot this was kind of his working area. While the tools were inferior to the ones he had back home it was a proper workshop that they could use.

“There is more to it?”

“Yeah, listen up, this can’t be known by anyone, we could get into trouble if the union finds out."

Bernir wasn’t sure what this was all about as he only got asked to get his butt over here for some work. Working on a large gate or door wasn’t anything special after creating many working weapons and armor, this wouldn’t really be much of a workout for either of them. Nevertheless, his mouth opened wide after he realized that the true reason for them making the door was to bring it into the dungeon.

“There is another dungeon inside the dungeon?”

“Yes, but never speak about it to anyone, not even your wife, the fewer people know about this the better.”

“Uh… sure.”

Even though Roland was inclined to trust Dyana with things like this, there were ways of making people talk with the help of potions or magic. Even if she didn’t want to, she might have not had a choice in the matter. The only reason that Bernir was finding out about it was that he was needed for this short expedition. Both of them needed to discuss the thing between them and a dwarf's insight about dungeon walls would be much appreciated.

“I’ve already prepared the blueprint, I was thinking about something like this but first I need to tell you about the spot it has to go…”

It wasn’t really a problem to design a door for the dungeon. He had already seen several of them inside of it and just mimicked the design to be somewhat similar. It would be a simple thick double-sided door that opened to the inside of the mine. Normally he would have liked it to be the reverse as it was always harder to break down a door that opened outwardly.

However, there was a chance of the dungeon walls pushing in from the sides and blocking the way forward. If the door was aligned in such a way it could get easily blocked by the dungeon rocks. Roland continued to explain everything to Bernir without leaving out the fact that this door would be shoved between two dungeons.

“So this is what it’s all about…”

It didn’t take long for his assistant to put one and one together. He instantly knew what was happening here and his confused face started grinning.

“Hehe, I knew about the mining area but didn’t know there was a B-rank dungeon down there, no wonder the city lord is trying to keep everything under wraps!”

While Bernir never really asked about what Roland was doing down there in the dungeon, the increase in rare minerals and metals was obvious. Now that he knew about the secret dungeon entrance and that they would be creating a large door to go through it, he was ecstatic.

“Haha, those fools! They would never get to do something as exhilarating as this!”

Roland smiled faintly as he saw the passionate gaze in Bernir’s eyes. It was clear that he was a proper craftsman that saw this as a chance to further his craft. Not many people were fortunate enough to create projects like this. They needed to make the entrance look like something that belonged in a dungeon.

Luckily for them, it wasn’t strange for entrances that were made from new materials to appear in a dungeon. These magical underground locations were constantly expanding and created everything via a type of creation magic. It was quite random and even if it was obvious that the door was created recently it wouldn't give their ploy away.

“I’m glad that you are full of vigor but we have to complete this in less than three days.”

“L-less than three days?”

“Yeah, we need to get the dimensions right and make sure that we can assemble the parts inside of the dungeon as the whole door will never fit into our spatial bag, so don’t expect to sleep much.”

“Aye…”

Bernir’s drive was reduced slightly when he heard that they had to prepare everything within around seventy hours. While the parts in themselves didn’t need that much handling they all needed to be bulky and thick. They needed to cover the whole length of the dungeon walls which complicated things.

“Let’s get to work.”

All the materials that he could muster from his broken-down workshop had been carried over here. The rest had been procured by Arthur and his people which was hard as they didn’t really want the dwarven union dwarves to know what they were up to. It would be hard for them to figure out what they were doing after getting a list of required parts.

“I’ll tend to this smelter, haven’t used one of these in years… Think I’ve been spoiled by all the runic equipment, hehe.”

Bernir chuckled while getting ready to melt some materials. Of course, Roland would speed things up with all of his magic and perhaps this would destroy some of the tools that were here. Thus the two got to work, the sounds of hammers hitting metal echoed through the tower but no one was able to go see what was happening. News of soldiers guarding the new runesmith workshop reached the ears of the competition but they would not find out what had happened even when they tried later.

…

“You are late.”

“No, we are not.”

Roland gave out a sigh while looking at the group of five adventurers that he was supposed to accompany into the dungeon. They had arrived about five minutes late which was already a demerit in his mind. However, he couldn’t pinpoint the reason for them being late but it probably had something to do with the stench of alcohol the two dwarves were giving out.

The two reminded him of the meeting with Arthur three days ago. There he was ‘informed’ about the three-day deadline he needed to prepare all the tools for this new expedition. This already put him in a bad mood but then he was also reminded of the union dwarves that knew about the mine. Just as he expected they wanted immediate access to it but were denied by Arthur.

For the time being, they were forced to wait but there was no way of telling what they would do. It was not probable that they would follow them into the dungeon at the moment and the Guild Master gave out an order to close down the dungeon until the Platinum Party goes through it. This gave him some time to erase his tracks but luckily the dungeon mostly did that for him.

The only potential thing that could give him away was the sensors he left in the walls to further his mapping device. Even if those were discovered, there would not be any repercussions. With Arthur’s backing and even the guild master on his side, even if someone found the runic devices he would have a good excuse. Everything that he did was ordered by his new partners in crime, having the magical tools in the walls to create a map was not against the law, it was actually a good way to earn money that he would get to after the entrance was created.

“You have to forgive my friends, they always take their time to tour a new city.”

Hermond the shield dwarf and Delmond the one with a large polearm yawned while producing fumes that even reached his nose. It was clear that the two were partying in the red-light district. Myrtle was the one that apologized for her comrades which was quite surprising. Normally it was hard to see people at this high level acting like regular people usually, they liked to throw their weight around.

“But I thought we would be going with six people, who is that young man behind you.”

“This is Bernir, he is part of my business, I need his help with a few things during the trip, don’t worry he can take care of himself, and don’t worry, we can trust him.”

The five adventurers looked at the half-dwarf with mild interest. Myrtle was more interested in the strange weapon that was strapped to his side. It was covered in some hidden runes and radiating a faint mana signature. On his back, he was wearing a large spatial backpack and was the replacement for Roland’s golem that had been blown up in the dungeon. There was just not enough to create a new one instead, Bernir would get to be a porter like in the good old days that he wished to forget.

“Don’t worry, my lips are sealed.”

Bernir moved both his thumb and index finger to his mouth to perform a zipper-locking motion. While he sounded chipper his eyes were telling a different story. Due to Roland’s pace, he did not get much sleep for the past two days and now they all needed to get through the dungeon and then assemble the heavy-duty door.

“Well then, shall we?”

The group of adventurers and two craftsmen gathered outside of the dungeon. There they met with another small group of people. Some of them Roland knew well while others were ones he only knew from a distance. The one that he was most familiar with moved over to greet him almost instantly with as always a shit-eating grin plastered all over his face.

“You’re here Wayland! You sure took your time but I’ve also heard that you’ve been having trouble with the missus.”

“I don’t know what you're talking about.”

“Common, you can’t hide it from me.”

Roland felt an elbow lodge itself into his side. The moment it did he wanted to do nothing more than smack the person that it belonged to.

“Armand, leave him alone and focus on the dungeon, we might be just the extra party but you never know what could happen there.

The duo of Lobelia and Armand had arrived a bit before them and had spent some time clearing out the easy monsters at the entrance. They weren’t allowed to get too far as they were acting more as a scouting party. Their job was to make this trip faster by defeating any trash monsters that got in their way. The platinum party on the other hand would conserve their strength for when a powerful tier 3 monster appeared.

This way of doing things wasn’t anything special, it was one of the bonuses of being a tier 3 adventurer. Sometimes they would have nothing to do and be hired just to act if a high-level monster appeared. Considering that Roland wasn’t expecting any of them to appear they would probably not have much to do until they reached the secret chamber.

Thus the expedition was officially started. On the outside, it looked to be there to make sure that the dungeon was safe but a few people knew what it was really about. Just as Roland expected, the monsters from the first all the way to the tenth floor had managed to respawn. They didn’t pose much of a problem for the group of high-level tier 2 adventurers. While Armand and his group took care of them the platinum party followed behind him at a slow pace. For them, this part was nothing more than a boring walk with nothing to do even the boss at the last level went down in a matter of moments.

“I don’t see any skeletons, do you?”

“No, I can’t feel any strong monsters either.”

Lobelia and another tracker he wasn’t that familiar with asked each other about the situation in the lower area. There was nothing of substance there, the skeletal monsters had all died when their master was defeated and the ones that they met on the upper levels were just the flaming skeleton variant that could be defeated by a tier 1 class holder.

“I guess that’s it, our job is done Wayland, have fun.”

“Nice, I like easy jobs like this, more time to have fun, see you later Wayland!”

Armand smirked while walking back into the boss's chamber. This group was only there to take care of the trash mobs. They were not there to look at the secret entrance to the mine, Arthur still wanted to keep that location secret. The fewer people knew about the way to enter it, the better it was for them.

This also brought another problem to the forefront as no one besides a runesmith or a rune mage would be able to open the hidden entrance without forcing their way through it. As it stood now there wasn’t really another way to get to the mine than through the passage in the lake of lava. The alternative entrance would require quite the steep climb down into a gorge and inserting steps into it wouldn’t be possible with how monster worms could be triggered at any time and destroy it.

“So this is it? Doesn’t look like anything special, the monsters are really weak.”Aubron commented while looking around the open space covered with lava. In the distance, he spotted the usual monsters like tier 2 salamanders and volcanic golems. The man looked bored and everyone in his party looked like they were above places like this. Considering that they were probably all around forty years of age and had been in the business for twenty years or so, it wasn’t strange.

Places like this were a giant waste of time, the experience they could gain was nonexistent and time was precious. Monsters were usually stronger than their human counterparts. One of the reasons was that it was a lot harder to gain a proper battle class at tier 3. Monsters were also exempt from having to take class change trials that sometimes could set someone back months or even years.

“In what direction is that secret passage?”

“We need to go in that direction, past those lava geysers in the distance.”

Roland answered the sun elf that was for some reason taking out his bow. There was some ground to cover but if they continued at this pace then they should arrive at the mining area within a day's time.

“What is that golden-haired elf doing, Boss?”

“I’m not sure?”

Bernir caught up to the party as he was the slowest of the group. When he got there he could see a very serious-looking Aubron glancing into the distance while holding his bow. He had one silver arrow notched in which drew in both his and Roland’s eyes. However before the two craftsmen could identify what materials it was made from, the arrow flew out.

At first, it was a confusing sight, the projectile made a nice arc while going for the head of a salamander monster. Why would the archer decide to shoot at one of these trash mobs instead of just walking past them? However, after the arrow connected with the creature’s head, it all started. Instead of colliding with the ground after the kill the arrow somehow bent upwards and continued to its next target.

‘This isn’t magic… is it a skill or ability?’

There were magical archer classes but the man here didn’t have one of them. This made it clear that this was either due to some kind of skill or perhaps the weapon he was using. Without feeling any unique mana pattern during the release of that shot Roland had to assume it was some kind of class ability.

The arrow continued to zoom around the whole area hitting monsters on their weak spots. When against a salamander it went for the head but when a volcanic golem appeared it moved toward the core instead. Then the most surprising effect of them all was that it was somehow gaining momentum with each kill as if it was absorbing the energy of its victims to fuel the carnage.

“That should be all, let’s go.”

The blood-covered arrow returned to its master that caught it with his hand. Aubron nonchalantly placed it back into his quiver before walking forward as if nothing happened. The rest of the group just ignored the spectacle as if it was something that they saw every day. The only one with his jaw wide open was Bernir who was left speechless.

‘It would be good to not anger these people..’

Roland tapped Bernir on the shoulder to bring him back to reality. It would be better to get this mission done and then go home. It made him uncomfortable to spend time around five people that were probably on the same level as the Lich he barely defeated by exposing its only weak point.