With a mighty swing the iron sword cut through the last few remaining pieces of foliage that hung in her way and the young woman emerged into the forest clearing, only to immediately let herself fall to the ground while panting heavily.
“That was absolutely awful.” She wiped the sweat alongside some loose strands of her golden blonde hair off her brow as the other party members spread out in the clearing, all of them equally exhausted.
These people were here on a mission. Recently many cases of mysterious disappearances had been popping up around the Wald Forest close to the capital of the magical kingdom of Alterria. With the unrest of the civilians reaching its peak it was decided that the youngest princess, Bernadetta Alterria, would conduct an investigation of the area alongside a party consisting of her closest companions.
Being quite the capable fighter, Bernadetta expected it to be an easy task. What she didn't expect was for whatever caused the disappearances to seemingly also have made the forest’s usually peaceful residents very agitated and prone to attack. They already had to fight their way past two arachnes, three nymphs, a dryad, four goblins, a dozen slimes and one very angry pomeranian among other things.
With the party’s exhaustion at the high point and their enthusiasm at an all-time low some were already starting to make a vote on whether they should return home and suffer through the humiliation of this defeat.
That was when the beastkin rogue Nika with her heightened senses made out a strange noise. Soon after they discovered a mysterious hatch in the middle of the forest with a metallic ladder leading down into the darkness. None of them ever saw something that looked this suspiciously out of place.
“This has to be related to the disappearances, it has to!” Bernadetta proudly declared. “I’ll take point and go down. When it's safe I’ll call out to you to follow me.”
As she placed her feet on the top steps of the ladder, the elven mage Alvina placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Be careful, Bern,” she said.
With a reassuring nod Bern lowered herself into the darkness. Not much later she called for the rest of the party to follow. When they did their collective jaws dropped. Walls of metal, blinking lights, translucent pipes with multicolored fluids flowing through them, parts that seemingly moved on their own (Alvina could tell it wasn't because of magic). Whatever this place was, it was entirely foreign to all of them.
Bern pointed to an important discovery. A piece of paper sticking to the wall with what seemed to be a fairly detailed map on it. According to it, this place was called “Doctor Lehre’s Laboratory”. Whatever kind of lab this was, it didn't seem to dabble in any kind of alchemy they were familiar with.
“Standing around here and staring at the wall won't help us. We have to find the missing people. Come on, everyone, just follow my lead and we’ll be safe,” the overconfident princess announced and began to walk deeper into the complex, her party not far behind.
They walked straight towards the area marked on the map as...