Gralvan cursed his own weakness. If he had been stronger than they might have been deemed worthy enough to survive. As the leader of the party it had been up to him to power through all challenges placed before them. He had filled his role well until this latest dungeon.

After entering the third tier, his group had encountered one of the opposing groups. Gralvan had challenged their strongest member, as was only right, and had crushed the man. Literally. Not too long after that they encountered a second group. These dishonorable bugs had ignored his challenge and instead swarmed his team.

While the bugs had ambushed them like cowards, they had at least fought okay. He was rather enjoying the exertion until one of their number managed to kill Zehk. It was mostly a fair fight, although they used a lot of this 'magic' that had appeared with the arrival of the Network. Taking it as a personal failure, the loss of one of his own enraged Gralvan, and he used that anger to fuel his berserker class.

It took only moments for him to kill one of the bugs in return and they once again showed what miserable cowards they were by freezing up. Dhonn had used that moment to cut another's head off and then the bugs had committed the ultimate act of dishonor and ran away. It was one thing to fall back in the face of an overwhelming opponent, but to simply turn and run was unforgivable.

They had known there was a fourth group out there somewhere, but if they were anything like the first two then he wasn't worried. Still, it was their duty to measure their strength and so they wandered the area looking for their final challenge. Instead they had found their doom.

Compared to their bodies back on their homeworld, the Network had made them gods. The various dungeons they had entered had given them strength that they could never have imagined before. These dungeons had become almost holy in their culture. When they had discovered a new one in tier three, they had quickly decided to test it out, eager for the improvements it would soon provide them.

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The first floor was a challenge, but nothing they couldn't handle. They moved from room to room, past traps and foes, confident in their dominance. Upon reaching the final room after fighting off several swarms of enemies, they had been surprised to find a portal but no reward. Feeling betrayed, they stepped through, expecting to arrive back on the grasslands of tier three.

Instead, they found themselves on another floor of the dungeon. There was a portal behind them, and upon testing it out they saw that it could take them out of the dungeon if they wanted, or they could continue on. It wasn't in them to back down from a challenge, and while they had received some minor injuries on the first level, they eagerly advanced through the second.

That floor had proven to be much more difficult, with them all receiving some serious injuries, but when the portal at the end had taken them to a third level, they hadn't hesitated to continue. It was shortly after that when Dhonn had been impaled on a trap, a spear almost as big as his neck had punched through the warrior's chest, killing him instantly.

Before reaching the final portal of the floor, Elakiva, their healer, had also fallen. In despair, Gralven and Amitai had killed the floor boss and stepped through the exit to find another floor. Gralven had wanted to return to the surface, unwilling to lose the final member of his team, but she had argued against it. She felt that if only they could finish the dungeon, then their comrades' deaths would not have been in vain.

This current floor was populated by solitary monsters who towered over even his own large frame. Amitai now lay broken on the ground below him, bleeding out the last of her lifeblood. The ridiculously giant greatsword of the immense woman before him moved with a speed that belied its great weight.

The Bodarians prided themselves on being the strongest, but this troll warrior he faced was the true embodiment of strength and power. He owed it to his lost team to overcome, but he was barely able to deflect the enormous blade with his hammer. Each blow cut into the wooden haft of his weapon. He tried his best to keep the sword from hitting the same place twice, but it was only a matter of time until his weapon broke, just like Amitai. If only Gralven could have been as strong as this image of martial perfection before him, then maybe he wouldn't have failed his people so thoroughly.

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