Dungeon Raider System
Chapter 704 - 704: Death Valley dungeon Part 2

The study group returned to the caravan at full speed waving their arms in the air like they were drowning. In their rush attempt to get help they had completely forgotten that in order to call for help all they needed to do was to shoot a flare, though no one could have blamed them considering how they just saw their mentor being swallowed by the desert itself.

"Help! We need help!" Ashanti shouted, her eyes filled with tears just thinking about the possibility that Uriel who had been kind to her may be already dead.

"What's up?" Asked Nika who was stretched on a beach chair wearing a daring bikini and drinking a cocktail.

"The teaching assistant, he's in trouble." Alice explained after noticing everybody else was too shaken.

"And?" Nika lowered her shades to look Alice in the eye.

"You're not going to help him?" Hathaway asked in disbelief.

"He's a big guy, he can take care of himself. Besides, it's not that unusual for him to stumble up on trouble wherever he goes." Nika replied then took a sip of her cocktail to continue enjoying the sun.

Some of the students watched that interaction as they were peeping on Nika while pretending to work nearby. Among them was Simon, though he didn't even make the effort to pretend to work on his assignment and instead spent his time scheming of a way to get the most with the least effort, while also enjoying the view.

Up until then the best he had come with was to either bribe or blackmail some of the students to let him turn in the artifacts they found as his'. However, the new turn of events gave him an idea. Without Uriel to disprove his 'findings' no one would dare to speak up even if he cheated and all he needed was a valid reason to leave him behind.

"Miss Nika, this is terrible!" Simon showed up with feigned concern.

"What is it now?" She fumbled without even looking at him.

"We ran out of water." Simon explained, omitting the fact that he just emptied the water tanks in the desert.

"How!? It was supposed to last us the entire trip," Nika exclaimed, then she realized maybe taking jacuzzi baths in the desert wasn't the best idea after all. Thinking she only had herself to blame, she didn't even question Simon's intentions and just focused on a way to resolve the issue. "nevermind, it doesn't matter. We need to head back now. No water, means we can't stay here for long."

"But the teaching assistant!" Scoundrel managed to say without even taking a quick peek at Nika's shapely buttocks despite being more tempted than anybody else.

"He's on his own, my duty is to keep students safe even if that means losing one or two." Nika replied with a cold expression that brought chills to those around her despite the searing sun.

"If you're not going to help us, then we will rescue him. Right?" Scoundrel said without thinking, though after hearing his own words he doubted himself. He looked back expecting to find his friends cowering in fear. What he found instead was a group of determined hunters nodding in approval.

"I can't stop you all, but when and if you find him give him this." Nika handed them her own tier 3 battery from the small pile of her belongings she had left right beside her beach chair.

The caravan packed up and left in less than five minutes and by then, the members of Uriel's study group had already found the sinkhole. They attempted to tie a rope, but there was nothing to tether it to which meant at least one of them had to remain outside to pull up those who entered.

"I'll stay behind. This heat is nothing to me and since I'm the strongest I'll be able to pull you three at the same time." Hathaway proposed

"You're the strongest? What a joke." Alice scoffed. They sparred only once, but it was a demolishing victory for Alice who could anticipate Hathaway's movements before he even thought of them thanks to her trait that allowed her to see the future.

"I'm physically stronger." Hathaway corrected himself. Staying behind meant standing up in the sun for hours, then staying alone in an open area where cryptids could easily find him. It was dangerous, yet he didn't envy Scoundrel in the least once he volunteered to go first because his trait allowed him to become invisible.

Although there were at least a few hours of sun left, the interior of the sinkhole was so dark Scoundrel had to lit up his gas lantern halfway down there. The modest light emitted by the old school lantern was merely enough to allow Alice to activate her trait, but that was sufficient to reassure her nothing like what happened to Uriel would happen to Scoundrel.

Upon touching ground, Scoundrel was startled by the presence of a huge humanoid statue with a deformed face and a hole in its chest. "That's a scary statue." He blurted out.

"It's not a statue. Look over there, there's a pickaxe on the ground. I think it was a cryptid and the teaching assistant used the pickaxe to bore a hole on its corpse to fetch the flux orb." Alice explained her reasoning.

"But that would mean he's strong enough to kill that creature and I don't think that's the case." Ashanti rebutted.

"If you didn't think there was a chance to find him alive, then why did we bother coming here?" Scoundrel asked.

"Because you don't need to be stronger than a cryptid to survive encountering it. You can just run away." The group moved around the sinkhole amazed by the perfection of its round shape and it soon became evident they had made a mistake by jumping inside since Uriel was nowhere to be found which in turn meant there was nothing they could do for him, but then Scoundrel stumbled upon something.

"Over here." Scoundrel beckoned at the two girls to show what seemed like a door frame carved in the wall. There were several glyphs around it, their shape and form vaguely resembling the many glyphs they studied in their all nighters.

"What does it say?" Alice asked.

"No clue." Scoundrel shrugged as he walked inside followed closely by his friends.

Little did they know the door they just crossed wasn't just a hole in the wall with pretty symbols on the side. It was actually the dungeon entrance, the same which Uriel crossed not too long before they arrived after killing the dreadful creature that pulled him inside the sinkhole.

The entrance to the Death Valley dungeon had been long forgotten as the tribe in charge of taking care of it disappeared in time, but it would nevertheless open on its own whenever rain poured on the place.

Someone like Luna would have probably guessed it was on those rare occasions that the dungeon was briefly open that the sailing stones made their way to the outside world and that entering the dungeon wasn't safe, but the archaeology students remained unaware of the dangers that lied ahead and before sunset one of them would end up paying the ultimate price for their ignorance.