When Max woke up, he was sore. His body had bruises all over, and he was lying atop droves of treasure. He looked around, trying to remember where he was, when the events of last night hit him.
He had fought a dragon. Alright, sure, it was little more than a wyrmling. But he had taken it down. He had killed it! He had been sure that he would have died. And yet, he had come out on top.
He checked his body, and saw that he was bruised all over from his old wounds. The water couldn't heal everything, and he was almost out of it.
But Max's attention wandered again. He had finally become a [Swashbuckler]! And he had also gained the [Monster Hunter] class. He had barely played the Monster Hunter games, but he had some sort of idea for how he could level in it.
What worried Max a little bit was the fact that both of the classes that he had gained were a lower level than the ones that he had lost. Maybe it worked like Fire Emblem, where advanced classes began anew at lower levels? That was the only explanation that he could think of that didn't mean that he had lost levels overall.
But he had new skills now too! [Rapier Training] had replaced [Sword Proficiency], which probably meant that he was stuck with using a rapier if he wanted the best effect for fighting.
And [Monstrous Auto Parry]. That was a weird name for a skill to have, but considering what happened yesterday… It probably meant that he could parry an attack that would deal heavy damage to him. That could be useful, especially if he was going to be fighting monsters for his other class.
[Monster Appraisal] sounded self explanatory enough. There were a few classes and skills in D&D that allowed you to watch an enemy's style and strategy for fighting, and made fighting them easier. This skill probably did something similar.
And finally, [Hunter's Blade]. Max wasn't certain what that skill would give him, but it obviously had to do with hunting in some capacity. What did hunters do? They skinned animals, but Max already had [Animal Skinning] from earlier. Maybe it just made it easier for Max to hurt animals and monsters? He wasn't sure.
Max turned his attention to the dragonling that lay dead near him. Maybe he should test it out, he was a little hungry, and eating dragon meat could be fun… He took his rapier, since he had left his Bowie knife at the fountain, and sat down and worked on the dragon. His rapier cleanly sliced through the dragonling's scales, and it took him significantly less time to cut off the scales from the beast than it had for him to skin the leonir.
After an hour and a half, the dragon's hide was cleared off of its body, and he had a pile of scaly hide that was slightly bigger than him. Maybe he could make this into some armor, or if he got out of here, he could have someone else make it into armor.
He set about cutting meat off of the dragon, set up a fireplace, and began to cook himself some dragon meat. His eyes widened when he tasted the dragon, and began to cook even more. This was delicious! Not to mention that it had been two days since he'd eaten meat last, but this was clearly quality meat for eating.
Once Max was done, he carefully fit the dragon scales into his bag of holding. It didn't overfill, and Max once again wondered at how much this bag of holding could carry. If memory served, in D&D and Pathfinder, bags of holding could carry in increments of 250, 500, 1000 and 1500 lbs of weight. Although, this was it's own world, so maybe it had varying magics and whatnot.
Max looked around at the piles of gemstones and gold pieces. It would be a waste to just leave this here, especially if he was going to be leaving. He began gathering as many gems as he could, since they would obviously sell for more than a single gold coin, and also put them into his bag of holding.
Eventually, the bag weighed about 50 lbs, and it wouldn't accept anything else put into it. Max decided that he could always return for the rest of the hoard at a later date, and made a mental note of where he was. The queen ant's chamber. That should help him find his way back, especially if he had a trustworthy party to help him carry all of this.
Max took another look around the place, and saw a couple of weapons and armor pieces littering the area. The only thing that looked particularly of use was a weapon rack that held a shining greatsword. Max decided to clear some space in his bag of holding to make room for the greatsword, dumping the remainder of the leonir pelt and a bunch of gemstones in the process. He didn't want to carry the greatsword around with him, as that would weigh him down way more than a [Swashbuckler] wanted.
But if the greatsword was enchanted, it could hypothetically cost a lot of money too. So obviously Max was going to take it with him, he'd be stupid not to.
With another cursory glance about the chamber, Max decided that he had gathered the most important and expensive treasures. There were a couple of statuettes of dragons and ivory pieces, but Max wasn't interested in weighing the worth of gems and miscellaneous things. He'd come back for those again.
Max was still sore, so he decided that he was going to take it slow from here on out. He didn't have any better armor from the dragon's stockpile, which was a shame, but he figured with all of this gold he could probably buy something or get his scales tailored into a light weight scale mail. That would probably be for the best. He could also hypothetically sell the dragon scales if there was a market for it, so there was that.
Max glanced about the chamber again, before making his way into the ant hive again. He had journeyed for a couple of hours before he had found the queen's chamber, which was probably far below the surface of the earth anyways. He sighed, before setting out on his journey again.
It was taking a while, hiding from certain monsters that Max was certain would be just as dangerous as the dragonling that he had faced earlier, dispatching others, before he came across something actually dangerous that he couldn't avoid.
The beast had a large beak, and had small spikes that lined it's back and arms. It's arms were chitinous claws, both of which ended in scythe-like appendages. The creature didn't have eyes, but it made soft clicking sounds, and the instant that Max got too close, its head swivelled towards him.
Echolocation. Something that Max had always been fascinated by, but now it meant that he'd have to fight this beast. It reminded him of a mix between a crab, a praying mantis, and an eagle.
It took a slow step towards him, and Max decided that those arms were much too dangerous to allow to stay. He swung with his rapier, but the beast dodged out of the way, before attempting to swipe at him with both of it's arms.
The first arm Max dodged with ease, and the second one he parried to the side. With the temporary advantage, Max riposted, but the beast dodged once more out of the way of his attacks. This thing was nimble for something without eyes!
Max grit his teeth and stabbed at the creature, finally able to cut a bit at the creature's leg as it tried to dodge again. A cry of pain came from the beast, and it once more tried to attack him with it's arms. Its first attack missed, and Max once again tried to parry the second attack, but he missed with his rapier and it's scythe arm cut into his shoulder, drawing a bit of blood in the process.
Max was frustrated at his inability to parry the creature's attack, and struck out at it again, but the beast dodged his attack for a third time.
The beast clicked its beak and charged him, this time swinging not only its claws, but also trying to bite him. He dodged the bite attempt with ease, as well as one of the claws, but the other one caught him across the stomach. It didn't go as deep as the wound on his shoulder, but that scythe arm was dangerous!
Max backed off and decided that if the beast was this hard to hit, then he needed to actually use his skills. He wasn't sure how to actually activate his abilities, so he called out, "[Monster Appraisal]!"
His eyes suddenly zoomed in on the beast, and time seemed to slow down for a moment. Those claws were definitely the most dangerous part of the beast. It had a long blade meant to draw blood and weaken opponents. The beast had a long tail, which Max actually hadn't noticed at first glance. Tails typically existed to maintain balance, and it wouldn't be able to move as nimbly if he were able to cut it off.
That beak was dangerous too, but it wasn't going to use it all the time. It seemed to rely on the arms more than its mouth. Its legs also didn't seem the most stable, as they ended in hoof-like appendages. Horse legs were incredibly weak, and any damage to them and they'd just die, not being able to run anymore.
So the beast had some weak spots. Max smiled, despite bleeding a bit from his wounds. He had already cut the beast's leg once, he thought that it was time to try and go for it again.
The creature came at him, as he had used the skill to check it out instead of taking time to attack it, and cut at him once again with its claws. Both of the attacks were easy to dodge with his newfound knowledge of the creature, and he cut at the beast's leg once more.
His rapier stabbed through the beast's leg, and with Max's small understanding of physiology, he knew that he had cut a couple of muscles.
The monster let out a bigger cry than the one earlier, and began to move with a limp. It clicked, and after sensing where he was, came at him, albeit much slower this time.
With the beast moving so slowly, he easily dodged both of the attacks, and slashed at the creature's tail. He caught the tail right near the stump, and his weapon flashed crimson as it cut the tail off on one swing.
The creature tripped from the momentum of it's lunge, without the counterbalance of its tail to keep it up. With the beast on the ground, Max jabbed his weapon into the shoulder of the beast, crippling it further, before jumping back as the other arm came swiping up at him.
He took a last look at the beast on the ground, and stabbed it through with his weapon one last time. The cry that came from the creature slowly faded, and Max wiped his rapier off with an oiled rag that he kept in his pocket. It wouldn't do to let the blood stay on the blade.
Max used what remained of his water to barely heal his wounds, but at least they weren't bleeding out anymore. He could always find more water once he reached above ground.
He looked at the creature again, and made his way further up in the hive, leaving the monstrosity behind him.
He was doing more damage to beasts, that was for certain. Maybe it had to do with his [Hunter's Blade] ability? That made sense. If his sword was able to cut through monster hides, then of course it would bypass damage reduction and natural armor. His rapier was wickedly sharp, and he was taking care of it too. The skill that he had probably meant that he was able to cut deep into a beast with little to no resistance, which certainly helped him fight them.
Not just that, but the [Monster Appraisal] had really come in handy. Max wondered if, like in D&D and Pathfinder, there was a limit to how many times you could use the ability a day. If that was the case, then he'd need to test the limits of it once he wasn't in as dangerous a location.
Finally, after another couple of hours of fighting monsters and climbing his way through the large hive, he saw a pinprick of sunlight. He knew that he should reserve his strength, since he was out of water, and kept his walking pace rather than running.
By his rough estimate, given his walking speed and how long it had taken him to make his way to the surface, Max gauged the size of the ant hive to be just over five miles big. And that wasn't accounting for all of the side passages that he had encountered and not gone down, instead just going up whenever the opportunity presented itself.
Whatever these ants were, there had been thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of them. And the dungeon had wiped them out.
Max was glad that he had been able to avoid most of the more dangerous monsters that walked through the hive. If he didn't, he wasn't certain that even with five camelbaks of healing water he'd be able to stay alive. If he had had to fight two dragons at the same time? Dead. If he'd had to fight two of those scythe arm beasts? Dead. He was lucky that he'd been able to make it this far.
He finally reached the entrance to the cave, and felt the warm sunlight on his face. Ah, how refreshing.
"What the hell?" Came a voice from in front of him, and Max blinked, allowing his eyes to adjust to the sunlight.
There were a bunch of humans that had set up camp outside of the cave entrance, and were all holding some form of weaponry. Bows were aimed at him, and what looked like magic users were aiming spells at him.
Clearly they weren't expecting a human to come out of the ant hive. This looked like a group meant to fight off any monsters that came from the hive. That made sense. So Max did what any sane person who just spent days below ground would do. He licked his lips and said, "Hey, do any of you have some water? I've run out, and honestly it is really hard to get water down there."
The looks of astonishment on the soldier's faces was totally worth it.