At the lizardman's village, it was deathly quiet; the straw and mud huts that formed the village were empty. Their simple structure and layout formed a circle, with a podium at its centre, and a large red crystal sat atop it.
A powerful Magic started to well up inside the crystal, before it flashed outwards and blanketed the village with its light.
The Dungeon Core had activated.
The red Magical light that blanketed the simple huts refreshed their structure and repaired any damage.
All at once, the inhabitants of the village, the twenty lizardmen who were mercilessly killed by the new Adventurers, started to reappear.
Materialising from thin air around the Dungeon Core, it was as if the monsters were being uploaded into a game.
In a matter of seconds, the lizardmen were all back and in good spirits, waving and greeting one another.
Bob and Ted appeared beside each other and immediately fell into conversation, with Ted taking the lead.
“Bob, Bob, did you get three?”
With a smug look on his face, Bob placed a hand on his brother's shoulder and replied.
“Ted, who do you think you're talking to? Of course I got three!......But, how many did you get, Ted? Ey, ey?”
Ted unceremoniously removed his brother's hand and turned away, mumbling under his breath.
“You already saw how many I got, Bob- only one.”
Before Bob could mock or console his brother, another lizardman joined them.
Roughly the same height as the brothers, this lizardman was more slender and had scales that were a dull pink in colour. She stood next to Bob and spoke in a comforting tone to Ted, all the while her tail gently sought to intertwine with Bob's.
“Don't worry, Ted, I only managed zero.”
Ted turned around and forced out a smile, desperately trying to hide the fact that he had begun to cry.
“Thank you, Suzy.”
Just as Bob was about to ask Suzy why she was getting so close to him, a rhythmic noise came from a lizardman on the other side of the Dungeon Core.
Wielding a club and small wooden shield, he beat it like a drum to gain everyone's attention. Now, with all eyes on him, he raised his voice.
“Now then, ratings out of ten.....SIX!”
Each lizardman began shouting out their ratings, with no number higher than seven appearing.
Bob was the last one to speak; his position as the strongest and also having the longest tail by a scale's length gave his words more weight.
“SIX also! I would have given them a better rating, but their assassin wasn't stealthy enough and lacked confidence.”
Everyone spoke between themselves and then left to go about their business, either retreating to their homes or leisurely relaxing and conversing with one another.
Bob went to walk off, but found he could not when Suzy still had her tail wrapped around his.
“Suzy, are you going to let go?”
“No, Bob, you always leave me out. I'm coming with you and Ted.”
Bob immediately looked to his brother for help, but was instead met with a mischievous grin.
“Bob, don't be mean to Suzy. Of course, she can come with us.”
With a snarl appearing on Bob's face, even his forked tongue made a slight appearance, a fact that Suzy noticed and made her blush, her pink scales masking it perfectly.
Accepting his loss, the trio made their way to their usual spot.
Bob and Suzy were sitting next to one another, with the former looking uncomfortable and the latter looking happy.
Ted stared at Bob, a serious look on his face as he spoke.
“Bob, so what's the plan this time? I know you have one.”
With a hearty laugh, Bob rubbed at his chin as if he were a wise old grandmaster stroking his lengthy beard. His eyes were set on the portal that led to the human world, but his mind was set beyond the physical structure and had settled on the vast world they could not touch.
“Communication, Ted! We're going to write to them!”
Bob stood up proudly, his tail finally being released by a bewildered Suzy. The two other lizardmen were unsure if Bob was joking or being serious, and as such, Ted spoke questioningly.
“Bob, we don't even know their language!”
Snapping his head around to face his brother, Bob replied with a serious tone.
“I do, Ted! I learnt a word; it's a greeting, I'm sure of it! I kept hearing the humans say it!”
Bob started to clear his throat and prepare to utter a word in the human's language, but Ted interjected.
“Bob, you learnt a human word, a greeting no less, while you were lying on the floor dying, as they killed you?”
The words that Ted said had a profound effect on Bob; his throat ceased working, and he nearly choked on his own saliva.
An embarrassed look washed over his face, his red scales glowing slightly.
Traipsing off into the nearby tree line, Bob bent down and retrieved an object before returning to Ted and Suzy.
In his hands was a pre-made strip of wood that was ripe to be written on. Holding the piece of wood to his chest, Bob finally spoke and answered his brother's question.
“The.....Well...The demon taught me, kind of.......It said the word each time it took me. When I lost consciousness and woke up again, it said the same word....So it has to be a greeting!”
Ted and Suzy were dumbstruck, listening to what Bob said; it became apparent he was being influenced by the demon. The very same demon that slaughters them all and tortures Bob, warping his mind.
Trying again, Bob did not wait for a reply and instead tried his hardest to say a word in the human tongue.
“Ha-uro!......Ha-ro!.....He-ro!.....Hel-ro!.....HELRO!”
Suzy leapt up and began bouncing on the spot, her eyes sparkling as she looked at Bob in amazement.
Ted was equally impressed, wiping away a non-existent tear from his face; he spoke to his brother.
“Bob, that was amazing.....So how do you write it?”
It was as if Bob's world fell apart at that very moment. The effort he had secretly been putting into trying to communicate with the humans, even to the point of listening intently as they murdered him, was all for nought.
A solitary word left his lips.
“Shit!”
Dropping his shoulders, the dejected lizardman thrust the piece of wood into Suzy's hands.
“Suzy, draw a pretty picture, please.”
Both Ted and Suzy realised that Bob had overlooked the crucial part of his plan and did not want to embarrass him further.
Crouching down on the ground, Suzy got to work with the piece of wood, using her razor-sharp claws to engrave into the wood and create the first known lizardman art.
Later that very same day, a fresh group of Adventurers made their way through the portal that led to the level 1 Dungeon.
Consisting of one of the common compositions for parties, a swordsman took the lead, accompanied by two shield users and, at the rear, two Mages.
Immediately upon entering the Dungeon, they stopped in their tracks as they were confronted by a most unusual sight.
On the grass in front of them, a piece of wood had been placed and surrounded by small stones forming a ring.
The swordsman crouched down in front of the strange spectacle and began to examine it. From behind, his fellow party members joined him, with a burly man beside him speaking up.
“What is it, Laurence?”
Laurence extended his arm and prodded at the wood with his sword, checking it to see if it was a trap. Now satisfied about its safety, Laurence replied.
“I have no idea; it looks like a drawing, I think?.....Hmm, Joseph and Josie, what do you make of it?”
From behind, the two Mages peered over Laurence's shoulders.
The twin siblings, Joseph and Josie, were the Mages of the party and, as such, had the highest intellect and were the brains of the party.
The pair began to speak to one another, with Josie taking the lead.
“A drawing of a flower, I believe?”
“I agree, and also a house, maybe?”
“A house? I thought that was a robot?”
“A robot eating a flower?”
“Makes more sense than a house eating a flower?”
The twins stopped talking and looked around quizzically; their sudden movements made the rest of the party follow suit, even though they did not know why.
Stopping their actions, the twins started conversing again.
“But why is it here, Joseph?”
“I'm not sure. This Dungeon should have reset, and we're the first people in here since then.”
“So someone sneaked in before us?”
“Perhaps, or maybe the lizardmen did?”
““HA HA HA.””
The twins let out a hearty laugh, and so did the rest of the party; the notion that the savage monsters had done such a thing was utterly ludicrous.
The second shield bearer of their party noticed something off in the tree line, making everyone aware of it as he spoke up.
“The monsters are here. We will tell the Guild about the robot eating a flower later. It may be a sign from God!”
Laurence shook his head and spoke while preparing to battle.
“Tsch......Sure, sure. You keep telling yourself that, Gorgo. You could probably hear someone fart and think it's a sign from God.”