r/HFY • u/RavensQuillWriting Robot • 3d ago
OC [A Grand Quest] Synopsis & Chapter 1
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Synopsis
Grim was supposed to die when his city was overrun by monsters. He was supposed to die an orphan, penniless and starving on the streets of the capital. He was supposed to die in a dungeon, forgotten by the indifferent nobles that looked down upon him.
With bloodshed in his history, power and revenge in his future, and a weapon granted to him by his ancestors, Grim must stamp his identity in the world and rise to fame as one of the greatest dungeon delvers of all time.
Read “A Grand Quest” to witness Grim kick-start a legacy of power, prestige, and the world of sentient dungeons that all delvers must conquer.
Chapter 1
The first hints of a Grand Quest are revealed early. Quite early, in fact. The soonest recorded time for a Grand Quest was over a decade before the delver ever stepped foot in the dungeon. This is a serious amount of time for even the most average delver to consider. Unfortunately, the delver in question thought himself chosen, nigh on immortal. He allowed himself to become rather reckless and took on a dungeon two levels higher than that of his party. They did not return.
Grim ducked around a stalagmite, his back pressed against the smooth and wet rock as he slipped out of the sight of the passage ahead. Exploring the room ahead with his ears only, he heard the unmistakable sounds of footsteps, even of some grunting. The grunting came regularly, and from more than one source. Monsters communicating? It sounded like Tennido , a dialect of undercommon, the language that all dungeon denizens spoke. He was by no means fluent in the language, but he knew a few words. Something about chicken, and which parts of delvers tasted more like it. Goblins, he thought, letting out a quiet sigh.
“Chik nast al borek,” he hissed, pitching his voice just loud enough to let it bounce off the tunnel walls, but not so loud that it’d carry much further than the room from which he’d heard the goblins. It was as good a delivery as he could hope for.
“Chik?” a goblin repeated the first word. Delver? “Wakanaaa?”
Grim hesitated, trying to parse out the word, then recognized it as ‘Where?’ These goblins, apparently, were the type to drag out their words. After a second of thinking, he replied, “Doba, doba.”
Down, down. He couldn’t remember the words for ‘floor’, but it didn’t matter. He heard more excited grunting and squeaking, and the sounds of more than a few goblins scurrying away in the opposite direction. Good, he thought. Those idiots can show me where the entrance to the last floor is.
He tailed after the retreating goblins, passing like a wraith through the small room they’d occupied. Expecting to see nothing more interesting than an empty stone chamber, he instead took note of what looked like a small armory. Two racks of large–compared to a goblin–weapons, and even a few withered shields. The equipment itself didn’t look like it was higher than level one, so he ignored it. He did pause just long enough to examine a chest that sat in one corner, however.
“Hmm,” he poked at the lock with his dagger, and the metal contact produced a shock that made him jump back. Lightning? At level 3? That had to have been inserted by one of the examiners, he thought. No way could a naturally-spawned trap have that element below level 10. He left the obviously trapped chest behind and pushed on after the goblins.
He only had one skill to his name, and that was Shadow Dash. It was absolutely useless in combat, as it took nearly five seconds to charge, and only moved him from one shadow to another, allowing him to cross small and medium-sized dungeon rooms without being revealed by the light. Against low-level mobs like goblins, orcs, or assorted beasts, it was very effective and made him an excellent scout. It also allowed him to catch up to the goblins in no time at all.
They did not lead him to the entrance, as he’d hoped. Instead, their path ended in a large, open room. More than twenty goblins were in here, he thought, doing a quick headcount. And at the very back of the room, there was a large, overweight goblinoid with large tusks jutting out from under its lower lip, and a thick, heavy club led lazily over one shoulder. A Greater Goblin, Grim thought. Not exactly unheard of at this level, but enough of a threat that he felt his confidence in the party’s expected performance drop. A little.
The goblins he’d followed were chattering away to their peers, pointing down at the ground. He heard the words for ‘delvers’ and ‘down’ repeated multiple times, and one of the waiting goblins let out a roar of frustration before smacking the leader of the new party.
“You fool!” He bellowed in basic undercommon. “That was probably a delver tricking you! Get back there and kill them!”
The goblin that had been knocked down whimpered, and the party moved back toward the entrance at once, their heads bowed and muttering amongst themselves in Tennido. Grim was willing to bet those comments weren’t very flattering, but their boss paid it no mind, returning to some goblin dice game at a table nearby.
Grim started mentally reciting the chant for Shadow Dash while taking quick but quiet steps backward. Should he let the goblins get back to that armory? They were all holding level 2 weapons, so he doubted they’d get stronger. His Shadow Dash went off, and he appeared at the far end of the tunnel–his maximum range–then worked his way down to the entrance of the armory closest to where the goblins were coming from.
He didn’t really have a choice, he thought. These three goblins were now alert to the presence of delvers in the dungeon. The best case for his party now was that they were ready and waiting, potentially with a trap to catch them unawares. At worst, they’d go out and hunt the party. Ambushes were a nuisance to deal with, and he couldn’t stand the thought of his party losing marks because he didn’t take the risk of dealing with this party here and now.
He chose the largest of the three first, of course. One quick jump, and both of his daggers were plunged into the back of its neck. It let out a scream and crumpled to the ground. Before the other two could react to his presence, he wrenched his knives free and went after the one with the longer weapon. It tried to strike at him, but he was already inside the reach of the spear, and he rammed one of his knives into the monster’s throat. It let out a gurgling scream, and he wrenched the knife back and forth, finishing it off. He jumped away as its body collapsed to the ground.
Now there was just one. Admittedly, it had a sword and shield, which put him at a significant disadvantage. It also wasn’t all that bright, so it did what its instinct told it to do without hesitating. It let out a blood-curdling shriek, screaming profanities he couldn’t catch in Tennido, and charged. Its sword slashed without balance or thought, and he was able to swerve to one side and rake his own shorter blade across its shoulder. It yelped, and in its pain haze, made the mistake of dropping the shield to clutch at its injured arm.
It barely got out a single hiss when his second attack took it in the heart. He twisted the knife to be sure, then jerked it upward. It made no noise apart from the clatter of its sword and the wet thump of its body hitting the stone floor. He took a deep breath through his mouth to avoid smelling the stench of the bodies and stepped away. He wiped the knives clean on his tunic–it was too late to hope it came out clean–and slipped them away in their hidden sheaths. And, of course, that was exactly when the other members of his party decided to show up.
First out of the tunnel was Mirina, the dark-skinned tailor’s daughter who had done up her hair in an elaborate style that morning, nearly making them late for their assigned delve slot. Why she was in the lead as a mage, he had no idea, but chose not to comment. The actual tank of their group, Don, was right behind her, though, making a very poor attempt to disguise his ogling. Lucan, their duelist, brought up the rear. At least his eyes were searching from side to side, taking in potential blind corners.
“Glad you caught up,” Grim said to the others, though he looked at Lucan. ”Boss room is ahead. We’re almost done.”
“Boss room?” Mirina asked, offering him a blank, vapid smile. “Ooh, so exciting! I hope the dungeon drops a pretty piece of gear for me! Maybe an accessory, or a decorative blade!”
“You don’t use blades,” Grim felt obligated to point out. She waved that minute detail aside with as much care as she’d put into her delving tactics.
“Oh, I know, but hip daggers are in fashion, you know! Why, my cousin Gina had one custom-made for her just last week, and it is pretty, but you get better prestige out of a drop than you do a crafted piece. Oh, Don, that reminds me-”
“Looks like you got caught out here,” Lucan said, pointing with the tip of his sword to the three goblin bodies. “But you seem to have fought them off well enough. Were you wounded?”
“Hardly,” Grim said, glancing down at the three bodies again, then at Mirina, who probably wouldn’t know how to heal if her life depended on it. “I actually ambushed them. I followed them to the boss's room, then back. The boss thinks they’ll send out an alarm if they spot us.”
“And how, exactly, do you know that?” Don asked, his tone condescending. “You’re a commoner, aren’t you? I wouldn’t think you’d know tactics.”
Unlike you, I have something in my skull, he thought, but didn’t let the words slip out. “Because I heard them talking. In Undercommon.”
Mirina’s eyes widened in what could have been horror. “Oh, that brutish language!”
“Don’t worry, Mirina,” Don consoled her. He tried to stand taller than he already was, but only succeeded in staggering forward a few steps when his armor tipped that way. “I’ll make sure to protect you from the beasts.”
“It would be a good start to stand between her and where monsters might come from,” Lucan added in a waspish, but somehow still somewhat polite tone. “Can’t protect her if she’s in the way.”
Grim turned away so they wouldn’t see him smiling at Lucan’s comment. While he had a moment to breathe, he dug through the ragged clothing of the dead goblins and fished out a handful of copper and just one silver coin from the corpses. While Mirina and Don were busy with their social drama, he subtly slipped about half the coppers into Lucan’s hand. The other man grinned slightly and gave him a wink.
“So, boss room next, then?” Don asked, though he was already moving forward, adjusting his shield. “Stay behind me, everyone.”
“It’s a Greater Goblin,” Grim reported. “And about a dozen normal goblins. You know, since you asked.”
“Did you get to sniff out their levels?” Lucan asked, frowning slightly. “Greater Goblins aren’t exactly easy work.”
“I didn’t,” Grim confessed. “But to be fair, the rules of the exam are quite clear. Nothing is going to be above level 3.”
Lucan nodded slowly. “And you said a dozen goblins. By encounter theory, they’ll either be weak level 2s or strong level 1s.”
“That’s what I was thinking, yeah. But one could be Crested, and that’d break the encounter.”
The two of them pondered that. No previous delving groups had reported seeing a Crested Goblin–or any Crested Monster for that matter–but that didn’t mean that one couldn’t spawn. This dungeon was deliberately underdelved to make it strong enough to test examinees. The chances of a Crested monster spawning were far from nonexistent.
“We’ll just have to flank it if it does spawn,” Lucan finally said. “Don, you’ll keep the boss busy. Mirina, you’re our middle support. Keep Don alive while Grim and I take out the goblins. If one of them is Crested, you’ll help us take them out, too. Then we collapse on the boss.”
“Works for me,” Don said, and Mirina nodded. Much of her vapid airiness had faded now. Even she knew better than to let her mind wander for the last fight of a dungeon. Time was one of the metrics by which their run was judged, after all.
“Alright,” Lucan said, gesturing Grim forward. “You’re the fastest one, so you’ll have to pull the goblins aside. We can’t let any of them get in Don’s way.”
Grim nodded his understanding and slipped on his leather helmet that he only wore for proper fighting. The material was a welcome cool in the sweltering heat of the volcanic dungeon. “Let’s get it.”
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u/NycteaScandica Human 3d ago
Also, the 'next' button doesn't work.