Aaron blinked his eyes rapidly as he adjusted to his surroundings. Red carpet lining, with large stone walls, spread across him. There were medieval paintings of several scholars, wooden bookshelves, and a fireplace sat at the centre of the room, with a large rectangular dining hall in the middle. It was like he was in a royal estate or a medieval mansion.

"Split up," Yoona replied, "Cover as much ground as possible."

Aaron nodded as the team moved nonchalantly across several corridors. They were narrow but contained torches to light the way. The place was boring, which was apparent when he saw the rooms empty and filled with remnants of bones and skeletons. Of course, Aaron knew it was an intentional design, but the silence gave him peace of mind. Not a bad start.

"Looks pretty cool, doesn't it?" Yoona replied, "They got a good design."

"Eh, I would've wanted more mobs."

"This is a hard dungeon, so there must be a hard boss."

"Or, it could be because it's a puzzle dungeon."

"That could be the case," She shrugged, "Definitely looks like a maze dungeon."

"Yeah, that's true."

"I think I know who made this dungeon," Kuro replied.

"Like, lore-wise?"

"No, I think I know the developer," She chuckled, "He has a knack for these types of dungeons."

"That's right!" Aaron replied, "You used to work in game development, right?"

"Yeah, I know some people around," She replied, "They don't exactly keep their employees secret."

"Ah, I see," Aaron replied, "Well, anything important you want to tell us?"

"Well, if it's the person who I think it is, there are always secrets in his dungeons."

"Good to know."

As they walked in a group, there was really only one corridor. Eventually, they came across a double wooden door. Aaron stepped up and slowly opened it, and what awaited them was another larger room. It was an extensive library. One that was grand, containing a fair number of books. There were skeletons ranging from knights to soldiers that littered the area, but they weren't menacing, to say the least.

They had plenty of time to prepare since the skeletons were slow and inaccurate. They tumbled at each step, and their clacking bones didn't provide good support for them to dash forward.

"Nose goes," Yoona put her hand on her nose.

"Ah, piss off," Kuro waved her hand, springing into action. She didn't like playing games like those, so she moved around the room at a breakneck pace. Bouncing around the bookshelves and spinning and throwing her daggers, she took care of the mobs at a breakneck pace. There were no wasted movements in her steps, and her reaction speed was top notch. She moved in a blur.

"Start looking around," Yoona replied, "Big rooms like these contain puzzle pieces." 

"Already on it," Ace replied, "I go and look now."

As Kuro was taking care of the mobs, each of them situated themselves at the corners of the room and opened each book one by one. There were the usual blank pages and worthless skill books, but Aaron found a key inside one of the books. Something that was redeemable in all of the junk he had just found.

"I found the puzzle piece," He held up the key, "Does this mean anything to you?"

They grouped up once again. Kuro finished with the last of the mobs, but she was a bit exhausted, even with her high Swiftness, "Looks like a regular key."

Yoona inspected it closely, putting up to the light, making sure there were no marks, "Hey, look at the ceiling."

"Runes of some sort?" Kuro replied, shielding her eyes with her hand from the lights, "Probably another puzzle piece."

"Want to throw something at it?" 

"Sure," Ace replied as he chucked the nearest book towards the top of the room. The rune glowed blue for a few seconds but dissipated soon after.

"Try throwing the key," Yoona replied.

Same effect.

"Where did you find the key?" 

"Inside a book," Aaron replied, "Why?"

"You know which bookshelf?"

"That one," Aaron pointed to his side.

After Yoona inspected the bookshelf, she found out two interesting things. The bookshelf had a symbol of a rune inscribed at the side, and the rune was situated directly on the shelf where the key was found. Aaron hadn't noticed, but this was most likely a hint for them to discover to make finding the book easier. After experimenting with the inscription found on the bookshelf, nothing of note was happening.

"Alright, let's move on," Yoona replied, "We'll backtrack later since it could be a gimmick to throw us off."

Kuro frowned but nodded soon after, "Sure."

Usually, a dungeon design wouldn't have conflicting puzzles. He knew that the runes did mean something, but it wasn't clear as to what. In these types of situations, it was better to continue forward and backtrack later. Understanding the core mechanic of the dungeon would provide a better thought process on how the creator intended it to be designed.

After resting and removing their fatigue, they trekked deeper into the dungeon. The scenery did change in the slightest. There were only small groups of mobs in the later rooms that they had encountered. Aaron wasn't too excited, as it took no effort to clear the mobs.

There weren't any signs of hidden mechanics, so he breezed through them without a hitch. Eventually, however, they reached a long and large corridor, much more refined-looking with more royal themes. There stood a large double metal door, with one of the room inscriptions matching the ones that they had seen in the library.

There was a deadbolt with three keys in a triangle formation.

"I get it," Yoona replied.

"Yeah, me too," Aaron nodded, "Simple design, but there seems to be a sequence of three runes."

"Guess we're backtracking." 

"Nah, just sit here," Kuro intervened, "I'll figure it out."

"You sure?" Aaron asked.

"I'm the fastest, and I'm the only one with an invisibility ability."

"Tongue twister!" Ace pointed, "She has point, though."

Since they had already understood the gimmick, clearing the other rooms and finding the book would take longer than Kuro just sneaking in with stealth and checking the books herself. It would also give them enough time to rest up and prepare themselves for the boss. Aaron had a simple plan, but he needed to talk to the other people about it.

"Got them," Kuro replied, opening her hand to reveal two keys.

"Sweet," Aaron replied, "We were just talking about our game plan."

"Which is?" She raised her eyebrows.

"You're focusing on the boss," Aaron said, drawing up a plan with the game's built-in pad, "Ace will be situated at the front since he's the main tank. I and Yoona will just be clearing the adds and providing support on his phase changes. Since someone leaked the boss's three health bars, we should save our best consumables for his last phase."

"Hey!" Yoona exclaimed, "How was I supposed to know you would get mad?"

"Anyways," Aaron replied, "This shouldn't be too challenging, it's only a hard difficulty dungeon." 

"Sounds simple enough," Kuro replied, "Any potions we should be focusing on?"

"Light bombs," He replied, "Healing Essence Potions, maybe All-cures?"

"Makes sense."

"Send me your profile too; I want to know what everyone's guiding skill trees are."

"I can do that," Kuro flicked her finger. A notification popped up on Aaron's screen, along with several others. He accepted them all, and Aaron safely stored the information about his teammate's abilities and stats in his friend section.

"Everyone ready?" Aaron asked.

Everyone nodded. Kuro received all three of the keys and turned them inside the lock one by one. After all the keys were inserted, the door opened with a loud creak, and there stood a throne in the middle of a circular room. The circular room had plenty of space to move around. It was a simple boss room, the standard for most dungeons. Nothing too special.

The runes that they had seen before were situated at the edges of the circular room in a triangle formation. Three lines jutted out from the centre of the room towards the runes. Aaron inspected each of the runes, which corresponded to the keys. Yoona walked around the room, making sure there weren't any traps.

"Throne activates the boss," Yoona replied, as she called the rest of the group towards her. When Aaron looked at the dead king that was completely bone, with a crown on his head and a small staff held firmly in his hand, he almost wanted to steal the staff instead of the crown. 

"Yeah, I'm sure that once we take the crown, he's going to flip out," Kuro replied.

"Alright, just set up some light bombs," Yoona replied, carefully placing two of the bombs on the ground near the boss. Since the max amount of battle items a person could carry in a specific dungeon was limited to five, using two was a good number for each of them. They could save two in case the light bombs did not work.

After placing a total of eight light bombs near the proximity of the boss, all one would have to do was detonate one to cause a chain reaction. Kuro stepped a few feet back, whilst Ace and Aaron carefully positioned themselves. The plan was to steal both the crown and the staff at the same time since the activation method was quite clear.

"You ready?" Ace asked, "On three."

"Three." 

"Yoink!" Aaron shouted mischievously as he stole the staff off the dead king. Ace successfully removed the crown almost simultaneously, and as predicted, the whole room started rumbling. The runes started glowing a heavy dark blue. The dead skeleton started floating into mid-air, like a ghost and turned towards the group. The king's eye sockets, which were originally black and hollow suddenly had two crimson red dots in the middle.