He looks a little bemused. "I'm not really a teacher. You'd be better off trying the Academy. Uh, it's south of the city so let's get back to the road and then turn right. You sure you don't want to get another party member or two? Big groups split the loot more ways, but can handle more too."

"That depends. How dangerous is the dungeon?"

"That's like asking, how dangerous is jumping off a building? First level, not so much, really. Fifth level..."

"Is there not much of a buffer between the monsters an unskilled beginner can kill and the ones that can kill you even if you know what you're doing?"

Eefina shakes her head.

"Time constraints. Under other circumstance I'd want to play it safe, but... unless you know of someone who'd offer a lot of coin very quickly for dhar clean-up? I'm gonna have to throw myself on the mercy of fate and either come out of it suitably improved and affluent, or very maimed." Nervous shiver.

"Nnno, I can't think of anyone who'd pay out immediately. Dhar cleanup could reclaim some land from the Red Waste, but that'd take time to realize... And no, it's a pretty consistent increase. But it's easy to get overconfident and overextended. I don't really want to see you get yourself killed, buuuut I'd feel better about accompanying you if we recruited a foreguard. Someone with heavy armor and a big shield. Foregoard in front as a melee fighter, me in the middle watching for unexpected stuff, you blasting from the back. More would be better. People party up for good reason!"

"I don't doubt it." A wrist-flick produces Cupil in bo-staff form. "Okay. I can handle melee. But it can't hurt to ask! If we don't find someone quickly, I going to have to go ahead, though."

To the Adventurer's Guild, then.

The Guild contains all the things it previously did! Maybe a few less adventurers, but there are still a few at the tables along the left side. Tret walks over and asks the lady at the front desk something after gesturing Eefina towards them.

She goes to the left side tables.

"Hi!" Eefina greets. "I'm Eefina. Are any of you hoping to party up for a dungeon run? My new friend over there thinks I need someone to help me not die while I kill things."

This gets a few laughs. One guy snorts and says, "I don't have time for an E-ranker."

Someone else - an androdynous mouse-person wearing robes, asks, "I might want to join you, I need to do runs in groups to train my aura, but I'm not really a frontline fighter either. So you're a damage caster? What's he?"

A wrist flick makes Cupil appear in bo-staff form. "I'm a generalist. I've trained a lot with Cupil here, and I've got some esoteric attack and curative magic. I meant what I said about only needing to not die while I kill things. He's a scout, he said."

"Scout? Not an adventurer?" Mouse-person tilts their head. "Eh. I wouldn't want to face down any tanky bosses without a meat shield, but two evasion-focused fighters and one blaster should work if we stay on upper levels and bring potions along just in case."

Tret heads for the tables, apparently finished with his conversation.

"Okay."

Eefina gives Tret a curious, prompting stare. "?"

"I was checking to make sure I'm actually allowed to dive with you, thought it might be different since you're just E-rank. I'm not actually a guild member. But I can, it's fine. Found anyone?"

"Yeah. Me. What dungeon are you doing?"

"Rocky Shore."

"We'll have to stay above five, we can't fight the Doom Crab with two evasive melee fighters and one caster. Er, generalist."

"I'll take your word for it. She's never been in Rocky Shore and I haven't for over a year, so you'll be our guide."

"Sure. Even loot split?" Tret shrugs and looks at Eefina.

"Even split is only fair, right? Unless you're both underestimating me way more than I think you are."

"I don't care that much about the loot, I just don't want 'Fina to run off and die," Tret says.

"I'm not estimating you at all," mouse person says. "Never seen you cast a thing. But your friend thinks you need me, we don't know each other, for the first run let's just do even split and if we party up again we can do something more merit-based next time. I go by Whisper, by the way. Not whisker. Whisper."

"Sounds fine to me. Tret Moonwind."

"Eminently sensible. Nice to meet you, Whisper."

Eefina follows their lead on what preparations they think are necessary, and tries not to be impatient about it.

Once they're finally ready, they set out as a party, Eefina filled with an eager energy.

One healing potion each, picking up a spare knife, getting big backpacks for storing loot in, and having Whisper lecture them on the enemies found in the dungeon - lots of snails, crabs, animate seaweed, and similar sorts of things. No totally submurged levels, thankfully.

It's a relatively short walk, and then they come to a set of stairs carved into a cliffside, overlooking a beach. Down on the beach set into the cliff is an enormous stone door decorated with images of seashells and other ocean imagery. They have to sign in and list the stuff they're bringing in with them before they're allowed to enter.

Whisper takes the lead, saying, "Let's head straight to level two. Nothing worth killing up here, really."

"Okay."

She holds Cupil in the shape of a short spear as they advance.

Whisper does... Something, as soon as they're inside. As long as the other two stay within about twenty feet of them, they find themselves moving just a bit quicker, cooperating better as if they know exactly what the others are about to do.

All three of them could tear through the monsters on the first floor at a dead run without even slowing down. They're simply not much of a threat. The first floor boss fares little better.

Tret has some kind of magic themed around raw animal power - glowing amber outlines of wolves and tigers surging forward to take bites out of the monsters demonstrates that quite clearly. He pushes Eefina forward to take point at least once, just to get a gauge on her combat skills.

The monsters on levels three and four are a good bit tougher and take some actual strategy to fight. Tret seems tense and bored and is kind of reckless about it despite the tougher foes, while Whisper favors a defensive, balanced stance, pushing for sticking close to Eefina and letting her blast the monsters from a distance as the safest option.

While on point, Eefina reveals that she is a terror with a bo staff. The whirling chrome a blur as Eefina smashes multiple monsters to bits without taking a single hit herself. She holds back on the casting, using Cupil as a ranged weapon on the weaker monsters instead. Casting Eterni seems like it might do more collateral damage than she's used to it doing, especially in a dungeon.

When they get down to the more dangerous monsters, that changes, and they get to see what happens when spikes of anti-magical causality nullification hit dungeon monsters.

They explode messily, even tough ones, and don't even cause any dhar! Whisper whistles, impressed.

They also fail to drop any loot, though this might not be obvious until she does a couple dozen and it gets statistically unlikely that nothing dropped by then.

Yeah, that gets noticeable pretty quick.

"Okay, we're not imagining it. Nothing I kill with Eterni is dropping loot! Whyyyy?!"

Tret twirls a sword idly as he thinks.

"It kinda just... Disappeared all the ghyran in the tree you shot? Maybe you're disappearing monsters instead of killing them, so to speak."

"That sounds like the kind of thing that makes dungeons angry," Whisper notes, ears twitching. "Stop using it, I think."

"Yeah, I should save it for if we're ever more concerned with escaping the dungeon than getting drops. At least that means that we're really unlikely to get overwhelmed? I know an area-effect version of the technique, its just not the sort of thing one ever uses anywhere near allies at my current skill level."

"Where'd you get all these powerful skills?" Wonders Whisper. "Should I be running away, asking why you're not C-rank or better, or both?"