“The Angband dungeon is procedurally generated,” explained Rina to the crowd of about two thousand players. During large gatherings like this bad players had a habit of attacking NPCs but after seeing what happens to anyone who did that to Rina this quickly stopped. “No two runs of the dungeon are the same. In fact even within the dungeon if you climb back up a level that will not be the same floor you left. However the last floor will be the same because there is only one Morgoth.”
“What you will be judged by will be two attributes, how quickly it took for you to clear the dungeon and how much damage you were able to deal in total. As you enter the dungeon you will also be assigned unique goals to achieve. Feel free to buy any materials you feel you need from the shops here and enter the dungeon with your group when you are ready. The deadline to enter the dungeon is 12:30pm or in other words in one hour. The system will display the amount of land you are rewarded at the end.”
There was a queue to the dungeon and to the shops in the town. In between the town there was a river which could be crossed by a bridge with two arches. Incidentally
“Do you want to buy anything before we go in?” I asked Nanashi.
“No, I already came here prepared.”
The entrance to the dungeon was through a tomb inside an abandoned gothic chapel. We climbed down a spiraling staircase for about five minutes before reaching the first level.
Needless to say there was no way that his Frame would make it through the entrance of the dungeon so he was forced to leave his frame at the entrance.
“Are you going to be fine without the knight frame?”
“Yes, as soon as we get somewhere wider it should be fine.”
Bing.
“There’s a system notification. It must be that quest Rina mentioned.”
“Rina?”
“That’s the name of the maid NPC.”
“Oh? I see.”
I opened the quest notification:
“Rare Reagents. Procure the rare flower which can only be found in this dungeon’s secret underground floor. The Black Lotus, it is whispered, only grows in subterranean swamps where the Eyes of Azathoth behold and reign.”
When we arrived at the bottom of the floor there was no door but a shining mirror, clearly a portal to somewhere else if I had ever seen one. Something was clearly off. There should just have been a door here but before I could contact Rina, Nanashi had already passed through the mirror. I had more or less promised to look after him to Eilis, so I followed after him. Whatever happened, I was an admin, so maybe that had lulled me into a sense of false security.
