Dungeon Raider System

The old card moved across the remains of an asphalt road with difficulty as it was to be expected from a vehicle meant for use only within the boundaries of a city. The road showed signs of several attempts to fix it, though the amount of potholes increased as they advanced further until eventually Uriel had to make the difficult decision to let the funerary car rest in peace by the side of the road.

Once outside, Uriel took a look at his surroundings to make sure there were no prying eyes before taking a dagger from his trait and putting right in front of Kristina's face with an expectant gaze. The huntress remained confused for a couple seconds before Uriel spoke.

"Go on, sniff it and take us to the person this used to belong to." Uriel demanded more than asked.

"It doesn't work that way."

"Then how does it work?"

"The easiest way for me to locate someone is to hold on to an object that either belonged or meant a lot to that person. This is because the more people interacted with an object, the more signals I'll pick up and I won't be able to know which one to follow, especially if you're looking for someone in particular. If I don't know that person's energy signature, then I won't be able to tell who is it that I'm following. This means, the more people have touched an object, interacted with it or..."

"Alright, cut the long explanation. Just tell me what you get from this." Uriel decided to cut the already long winded explanation short in the name of saving time.

Kristina grabbed the hilt of the crystal dagger and closed her eyes, feeling drawn to Uriel in front of her, but she also felt a foreign energy signature that came from somewhere up north.

"This is weird, only two different people have ever touched this blade." Kristina blurted out.

"Not really, there's a third, but he or she is dead now." Uriel said, thinking of the craftman that gave up his life to make such a powerful artifact. It was the ultimate price, but considering how it was a single use instant kill item it was still a bargain.

"Well, apart from you, the other person who touched this item has moved above ground level for long periods of time and I can somewhat tell their general direction." Kristina said as she pointed somewhere northeast.

"Hey, why don't you ask her to check your other artifacts? We should be able to tell where our companions are." Nika asked Uriel who seemed reluctant.

"I'm curious too." Luna muttered, putting an end to Uriel's brief doubt.

Kristina did as she was asked and tried the different artifacts and provided as much information as she could, despite knowing it would likely be useless to gather any real data. After all, her trait was as vague as it was rare, and as far as she knew she was the only one with the Tracker trait.

But neither Luna nor Uriel seemed bothered about her vague statements and gut feelings. The first jotted down all the information that came out of Kristina's mouth and the latter made diagrams as soon as the data came in until they made a general idea of their locations.

"Don't look so shocked, this is nothing." Nika said with both hands on her waist and her chest puffed out.

"Don't look so proud, it's not like you're being helpful in anyway," Uriel grunted before sharing what he now knew thanks to Kristina's trait. "Saint Germain is somewhere north east, we should avoid him at all costs. That guy is dangerous and is just a troublesome person in general, if you ever feel his energy signature you need to run."

"Like we care about that guy, what about our friends?" Nika impatiently asked.

"They're up north. As long as we stay on track we should be fine." Uriel nodded and started walking off road to the north.

Uriel had complained several times about the lack of beast level cryptids in the wilderness in Europe, but although they were hard to spot, they were still present. Luna explained that apart from the Spanish Tercio hunting them constantly, it was also likely that they had learned to stay away from groups of hunters that emitted a strong flux energy signature which made sense.

Both Nika and Kristina were of the heavenly rank and while Luna was still an ascended, her flux signature was rather on the strong side. Uriel was the only one who could hide his flux signature, a skill so helpful that he attempted to teach his companions on several occasions but although they easily grasped the concept, the practice of such skill was impossible without the threat of a titan level cryptid nearby.

The scenery shifted before dusk and they entered a forest, though Uriel made sure to climb on top of the tallest tree to make sure it wasn't one of those wandering forests that were actually giant spiders. It sounded paranoid to Kristina, but after Luna informed it was a reasonable safeguard based on their own experience she not only felt it was justified but also begged him to double check.

"Rats I can handle, bugs too... but spiders! I hate spiders!" Kristina shivered as she ventured further into the woods, only after being reassured they were just regular trees. She was accustomed to moving across the wilderness, though her group was much bigger than Uriel's party and she felt unease being a new hire.

After a few minutes, Kristina stopped in her tracks and announced the presence of a cryptid nearby leaving everyone else amazed by how useful her trait was, but that only lasted until she informed them it wasn't actually her trait what alerted her of the presence of a cryptid but her earbuds. The moment the music stopped playing she knew there had to be a cryptid nearby.

They scanned their surroundings looking for big creatures at first, then they looked for camouflaged ones and they finally started searching their perimeter for cryptids in hiding with the intention of not leaving a single stone unturned until they found it.

"Got it, it's this little fellow." Nika said as she lifted up a lizard that had what seemed like a tortoise shell covered in green hairs that resembled the quills of a porcupine. The small cryptid croaked a roar and spat fire, prompting the same reaction from both Luna and Uriel.

"A dragon!" They said in unison, their eyes seemingly sparkling in excitement.

"Huh? No, I've seen a dragon before and this ain't it." Nika shook her head.

"It's actually a Paluda, which is considered a dragon in french mythology. They can be as small as for someone to hide it inside their clothes or as big as a house." Luna then started reciting the lore which eventually turned into a background mumbling.

"You guys... are you sure picking up a cryptid like that is a good idea?" Kristina stuttered.

"Don't worry, it's not like it can harm anybody..." Before Nika even finished speaking, the paluda launched its quills all over the place with such luck that Uriel received one of the quills directly on the eye, though it bounced right off.

"It looks worse than it is, but I guess eyes are usually a weakspot for all creatures." Uriel said as he attempted to return the favor by stabbing the cryptid in the eye, finding that despite the Red thread of fate being made of orichalcum it didn't cause any damage whatsoever.

What's even worse, the cryptid managed to wiggle its way out of Nika's steely grasp and scurried away into the darkness of the forest hurling quills behind to cover its retreat.

"We need to find it and kill it, now," Luna said, then continued when no one moved to pursuit the creature. "that was likely a youngling. If your dagger can't harm it being so small, picture the same cryptid but bigger." After a brief but meaningful pause, the hunters realized letting that small creature escape was out of the question and they rushed in to follow after it despite the quills raining down on them.

Uriel thought of activating Dash, but dodging that many projectiles was bound to be impossible and stretching his perception of time was bound to be painful and he decided to simply chase after it like the rest of them.

As soon as the cryptid was in shooting range they started firing their weapons at them, except for Luna who kept her notepad ready for a new entry on her research.

"Heavily armored, even magnum rounds won't hurt it," She noted as the bullets bounced off the lizard, until a shot landed casually in its tail causing the cryptid to drop dead on the spot. "weak spot is in its tail."

Because of how focused they were on stopping the cryptid from summoning help from an older kin and how they closed their eyes at times to prevent the annoying quills to get into their eyes like it happened to Uriel moments before, they didn't notice they were now stepping in a strange plant that looked alien. It resembled a fern, but at the same time it looked like nothing they had ever seen in their lives.

It wasn't until Nika picked up the flux orb and Luna put her notepad down that they realized they were no longer in a forest, but a field of the same strange fern that went as far as they eye could see.

"Uh-oh...," Luna swallowed a gulp of saliva, then continued. "this is bad news, it's the eragomo herb."