Wraithvine is asked to set up a small training dungeon to help teach young, inexperienced, adventuring parties who are just starting out. -- Anon Guest
Adventurers were a kind of plague of their own. They tended to barge in, wreak havoc, forget what they went there for, and steal anything that wasn't nailed down. Most of the time, they could be aimed at dangerous places, but closer to civilised spaces? People had to hire Adventurers to get the Adventurers out of their village.
Which could cause recurring issues.
Something obviously had to be done to teach young Adventurers better manners. The Junior Couriers were a good start, but new Adventurers needed a better grounding.
The location for the first experiment in Trainer Dungeons was, ironically, once a great city. It had been effectively wiped out by a pack of Adventurers. But it did have good cellars and tunnels underneath it, and some remaining structures had interesting hollows that could hide secret treasures.
Wraithvine could not put intelligent creatures at risk, so the first problem was how to stock the area with monsters that were fecund, relatively low threat, and could be part of a self-sustaining Dungeon ecology. There had to be serious wards to protect any connections to the Everdark, and thus prevent the junior Adventurers from roaming too far out of containment.
Ze did enlist the Order of Couriers to install and run a Distro on one of the Everdark entrances. Even the most ignorant of surface folk could recognise a Courier as an agent of the greater good.
On another, a Kobold warren sharing their forge-space with a small tribe of D'varuv. Junior Adventurers should be able to tell that this was civilisation and behave themselves. And if they didn't, the D'varuv weapons and Kobold traps should discourage them from trying that mistake twice.
On a third, a Druid grove honouring the varied mycotta of the Everdark, replete with an aviary of Everdark Terror-soars and a dairy for the Dire Bats. Carefully selected for their telegenic natures.
The fourth was a Dragon's lair. A Dragon who hoarded stories and would gently prevent junior Adventurers from going into the Everdark. Possibly by boring them to within an inch of their lives.
As for the Trainee Dungeon, Wraithvine stocked it with interesting puzzles, non-lethal traps, and tasked the guardians with keeping the small treasures well salted throughout. It also became home to common Dungeon threats. Slimes, Dire Rats, Shambling Terrors and so on.
In a few weeks, the local leaders would start sending beginner Adventuring crews to this Dungeon as a test.
If this worked, Wraithvine would be scattering more of them all over Alfarell.
[Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash]
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