Risen World 192 Chapter 138: The Dungeon That Is A Puzzle In Itself Part 7

Everyone gathered around the hunched over man that was finding it incredibly hard to breath after Joshua punched him so hard in the gut that he was starting to dry heave to get his lungs to work properly. Before the guy could recover Henry casted some kind of spells that created these vines that grew out of the ground and started to wrap around the man's body. He wasn't able to budge a muscle after that and the only thing he was able to do was talk. Even with his daggers on his waist he was completely helpless and unable to reach for them. Apparently he wasn't going to attack them after he had seen how well they had taken care of the scorpions and decided to hide away instead. Unluckily for him Joshua was able to sense him anyways.

Now that Joshua was certain the man was trapped and unable to do anything he started to observe the person that was in front of him. The guy didn't look very intimidating and instead was rather ragged looking. From that alone Joshua could tell he and the rest of his group had been stuck inside this dungeon for a long time. If he had to guess it must have been at least a couple of weeks based off of how ragged his hair was and the growing out of place beard that didn't seem to fit the thief's usual look. He also stunk slightly as if he hadn't showered recently which could have gave away his position if he wasn't using some sort of potion from the system that was made to clean the body of filth from time to time. All in all it was clear that this group that was ahead of them and leaving people around the place to cause trouble had been in here for a long time.

The man was about the same size as Marcus making him on the shorter side which seemed common place for a lot of thief explorers that Joshua had seen up to this point. Maybe their size was beneficial for the job in the end. When Joshua observed the man he couldn't see anything which meant he was hiding his information which was probably smart for someone that was busy doing the things that he had been up to. After having figured everything out that he could from simply observing the fool it was time to start asking some questions. Joshua waited for the man to finally catch his breath and realize his situation. At first the thief looked towards them all in shock, but his face seemed to flash with anger for a moment before he once again calmed down.

"Why were you waiting here to ambush us?" Henry plainly asked as the man turned to look at him for a moment before continuing to ignore him. "I asked you a question why were you here waiting to ambush people. I'm guessing it was either you or one of your group members that did the same to Martin's group after they faced the sub-boss." The thief just glared at them before turning to look away.

"Doesn't seem like he's the talking type and we don't really have time to be wasting around with him anyways." Aito said as he looked over the man. He had been involved in some interrogations when it came to the military and he could tell it would take some time to make this man break without torture or a plausible threat.

"Yeah we might as well just leave him behind and continue making our way to the boss room. This is just a waste of time." Adrian said as he punched the man across the face for ignoring them. He then stood up to look over to Joshua to see what he wanted to do in the situation. Joshua noticed that the thief seemed to glare angrily at Adrian when he mentioned taking down the boss in a similar way to how he had glared at them early on as if he had recognized them. That got Joshua's thoughts whirling, but he didn't have the time to play a guessing game with this back stabber.

Everyone was surprised when Joshua started to flare his aura into the surroundings which told them he was up to something. They realized right away what that was when the thief started to react to the pressure that Joshua was giving off. Will could be used as a defensive measure when fighting creatures that were stronger, it was the main reason Joshua was able to tank against beast that were so many levels ahead of him. When tanking the pressure that the enemy gives off into the surroundings is almost always focused on you. Sure the beast can gives off a pressure to everyone, but it is always stronger on the one that it is focusing on. Amy and Lilly had enough will to handle the regular pressure creatures gave off into the surroundings, but Amy would struggle against a boss that was focusing on her with the large level difference and Lilly might freeze up if she wasn't synchronized to one of her stronger willed pets.

In this situation Joshua was able to use his will in an offensive way as he poured the pressure on to the trapped thief in front of him. With Joshua's high will stats and enormous amount of aura he was easily able to pressure a thief even if the thief was of a higher level. After all thieves and healers probably had the lowest will stats at the moment outside of unique jobs like Lilly's who focused on synchronization instead of their own stats. Joshua marched forward to the man as his pressure cowed him into looking at him wide eyed. Even if the thief couldn't move do to being bound in place they all doubted he would have budged an inch under the circ.u.mstances.

Joshua squatted down in front of the much shorter man that was still stuck on his knees then he grabbed him by the throat and easily lifted him into the air as if he was as light as a feather. The pressure around his throat seemed to make the thief wake up from his frightened state and start to glare back at Joshua in surprise at what he was doing. Joshua ignored the look completely and walked towards the next platform on the other side of the room that they would need to take to continue their venture towards the boss room. Everyone else followed along wondering how Joshua was going to handle the situation, but trusted him to know what he was doing.

Once they all got on the platform it started to move and Joshua looked off into the distance to see where it was going before turning back to look at the man he was holding. "From what I can see I'd say you have about ten minutes to answer our questions honestly or when we reach the room up ahead that has three of those large scorpions you just watched us kill I'll toss you in first. I'll make sure to break one of your arms beforehand just to make it fair, after all that's what you do to the people you ambush in this dungeon right? Make things fair." Joshua said with a cold tone making the man look at him with a scared expression at the thought. "Do we have an understanding?"

The thief nodded his head slowly at first until Joshua tightened his grip on his neck more in annoyance at his response. "Yes we have an agreement!" The man rushed out the words as quickly as he could before he could be chocked any further.

"Good, now the first thing I want you to do is unblock your information so we can see who you are and who you're affiliated with." Joshua calmly stated as the platform continued to move them slowly closer to the scorpion death trap up ahead. When the thief seemed to think about it for a second to long Joshua moved him to where he could see the group of scorpions up ahead. "I'd say you've got about eight minutes now that you've wasted time thinking."

"Alright, alright!" The man shouted in fear. A few seconds later his information was public for them all to see and Joshua found out that he was a level fifty-seven thief which was fairly good when you considered it. It made sense that he was able to play around with others in the dungeon as long as he kept himself in stealth and avoided any direct confrontation. His name was Kalvin, but that didn't really matter to Joshua. What did matter in the end was his guild affiliation and they could clearly see that he was affiliated to some guild called the Storm Dogs Guild. It wasn't something that Joshua had ever heard of so he turned to Henry to figure it out.

"Any idea who these storm dogs are?" Joshua simply asked keeping up the cold appearance in front of the thief.

"If I recall they're the guild that Laura's guild destroyed for attacking one of her territories. Last time I heard about them Laura had taken away all three of their towns, kept one and let other guilds fight it out for the other two." Henry said after thinking about it for a moment.

"Yeah that snake destroyed us, we've been in shambles ever since." The thief said with an angered look as he glared at all of them. "You lot are in alliance with that snake so you can't be much better than she is in our eyes."

"What does that have to do with you all attacking other groups that make it anywhere in this dungeon?" Adrian asked with a snarl.

"This was our chance to get some of what we had back. People won't even look at our guild anymore as a place to join. There are only so many of us left and we're going to need something to get us going again." The thief said with a sigh before looking away with a dejected frown.

"So the raw materials from this place would give you guys an edge in the system market since you'd be getting a bonus of the stuff after every time you cleared the place from now on. Makes sense why you would be so dead set on it, but it doesn't mean you can just go around attacking other groups left and right. We've got enough trouble with beast and haze creatures, we don't need people fighting each other all the time as well." Henry simply said before looking back towards Joshua to see what else he wanted to get out of the man.

"Are all of your guild members up ahead in the dungeon? Are there anymore traps you've guys have set up for people?" Joshua simply asked now that he had a good picture of what was going on and the reason for the man's unusual amount of enmity with Adrian, Aito, Henry, and Amy. It was known that they were all a part of the alliance unlike Joshua and Lilly. The man once again went quiet, but Joshua didn't give the man so much as a chance to act high and mighty. "Aito, Lilly, go ahead and start attacking the scorpions now. I want them all riled up by the time we get there."

The two of them nodded as Lilly brought Cinder out freaking the poor thief out as she bombarded the scorpions from afar with large empowered fireb.a.l.l.s. On the other hand Aito was busy blasting the creature's eyes out with a stoic look on his face. They were only a couple of minutes away and the scorpions looked p.i.s.sed, Even if they were injured there was no way a lone thief could put them down. "Man they look feisty, wonder what they'll attack with first. The claws or the stinger?" Adrian said with a smirk causing the thief to sweat even more.

"Alright fine, there aren't any more major traps outside of the ones the dungeon does on its own. The rest of the group should be taking on the boss now as we speak. Are you happy now…" The man was about to continue ranting when his eyes widened in surprise at something. Joshua could tell the man was reading some sort of message in front of him, but couldn't see it for himself. "Oh no!"

"What happened?" Joshua simply asked with a puzzled look.

"We have to go now! My guild…my guild is getting slaughtered!"