Dungeon Raider System

Uriel's eyes widened at his finding. Thanks to the diary he was certain there was a dungeon beneath the Alamo, but now he wasn't as eager to explore it as he was just a few minutes ago. Even if he knew how to enter the dungeon, it was probably a bad idea to ignore the ominous warnings at the last page.

"What's wrong? Did you find something useful or not?" Tina asked in hopes of being close to getting her hands into a new source of orichalcum.

"Not really, I don't think it's possible to enter the dungeon. It seems we need three different relics, and I don't even know what they are, let alone how to find them." Uriel replied with honesty as he just read the diary out loud and trying to lie about it would only bring him more trouble than it was worth.

"So, all of this was for nothing." Tina sighed as the sun appeared in the distance revealing her charming pouting face, though her eyes seemed cold and devoid of emotion.

All the hissing and growling slowly faded in the distance as the vampires retreated back into the city. Among the group Luna was the most relieved as she was finally able to catch a breath of fresh air now that the foul stench coming out from the vampires disappeared.

The group gathered outside the building as they were getting ready to return home.

Traveling across the lost city under the light of day was much safer than during nighttime, but Uriel insisted they still took the safety measures and go their separate ways. Though usually Uriel's party would have remained together, due to Medusa's harsh words against Luna she decided to join Tina on their way back.

In turn, Mark would join Uriel and the rest, as he was the sole survivor of his own party and also a heavenly rank. That would make both parties of roughly the same level, giving them the same chance of getting spotted by cryptids.

Obviously, Uriel wasn't a big fan of this arrangement, but he was the one who suggested to break the group into two parties in the first place. Besides, he couldn't force Medusa to go back with them if she didn't want to.

Before parting ways Uriel gave the silver cross he used to stab the skinwalker to Medusa in the off chance that she encountered a skinwalker on her way back.

Medusa was left confounded and she used the sacred symbol of the church to scratch the back of her head as she didn't know what happened while Uriel was in the tower. She didn't have a clue on why would Uriel give her something like that, but even she wasn't so naive as to think it was a romantic gesture, but that only served to leave her even more confused about the situation.

Tina Celes then pulled her sleeve, letting her know it was already time and they ran full speed across the streets of the lost city of San Antonio.

***

It took Uriel and his party less than five minutes to reach the Alamo. All they did was to cross the river and run a couple blocks. Contrary to Tina's party that was heading straight back to the city, Uriel wanted to check the location as it was an historical place and also, because he was certain he could obtain some new information about the dungeon.

Sam, Mark and Luna had no trouble keeping up with his speed, in fact, they were faster than him and had to match his speed to not surpass him.

"Wow!" Sam gasped at the sight of the Alamo fort. "It looks like crap. I think it was destroyed by cryptids."

"Uh... Are you sure this is the right place?" Luna asked.

"I don't know what you guys expected, even if it holds great historical value, this place had been in ruins way before the arrival."

"Yeah, I know that but, it looks... smaller than I expected." Sam sighed and Uriel had to agree. He didn't know much about the Alamo either, but he too expected such an important location to be more imposing.

The Alamo, or better said, what was left of it was a square building made of adobe and it didn't have any roof. It was smaller than the average corner shop and there weren't any decorations on the outside. In short, it didn't look like a fort at all.

The party stepped inside the building with confidence and the first one to react was Luna who quickly covered her nose with the sleeve of her oversized hoodie.

"Ack! This smell again..." She complained.

"Vampires!?" Uriel, who assumed her trait was related to her olfactory sense, asked worriedly.

"Uhm... no. Corpses." She replied and it didn't take them long to confirm her statement.

The place was filled with corpses, most of them drained of blood up to the last drop to the point where they looked mummified. On a closer inspection, though, Uriel noticed there were corpses in all stages of decomposition.

"Do you think it's their nest?" Sam asked, to which Luna replied by shaking her head. The smell was so intense she didn't want to speak, just to avoid breathing the foul stench in. Sam couldn't understand her reasoning until she pointed towards the sky.

"I see... without a roof they wouldn't have a cover from the sunlight." Sam nodded knowingly.

In the end, everyone went outside the building as it was too small and the awful smell was enclosed, making it seem twice as nasty. Uriel, instead, lingered for a minute or two before going out.

In that short time he was able to inspect the whole building, but he couldn't find anything. Something like that was to be expected as even walking inside was made more difficult by the many corpses and to properly examine the place Uriel would have needed to get rid of them first.

"So this is why they always secure archaeological sites." Uriel sighed.