Before we left the level, I did make sure to check out the mural. There were only four in this dungeon. That meant there were only four chances to understand the nature of this dungeon and why it was formed. This mural didn’t mention the war but involved a battle between two of the blue people. One of them died, and the other was proclaimed king. It seemed like the passing of power went to whoever was strongest.

As for the miniboss of level 15, it was another T-rex, but even larger. It had a lot of vitality, and killing it took quite a bit of time. I was beginning to see a pattern in this dungeon. The monsters she picked weren’t powerful, but they were troublesome. They took a lot to kill, even at a low level. Although I had fought other high-HP monsters, these were often slow.

I would guess that the Kraken and T-rex were two of the monsters that had the highest HP and were in a state where you couldn’t avoid them or fight a prolonged battle. They required swift attacks and massive use of energy. Then, you had the inaccessible safe rooms, keeping anyone from resting comfortably. On top of that, the hot, humid environment with the relentless sun seemed designed to wear you down. This entire dungeon felt like a massive endurance run, designed to grind someone’s will down.

Given our situation, I felt we had no choice but to continue. The difficulty of the monsters increased once again as we reached level 16. Most of my hopes that we’d get some rest on the 19th floor before having to face Calypso were all but dashed. I’m sure there was going to be something off about the next safe room too. Currently, my best hope was that we could catch her off guard. That depended on the deception holding. If not, we could always flee in my Portal now.

The girls had already voiced to me their opinions that we should leave and regroup, but if that happened, we’d be falling into a battle of attrition. Calypso’s power came from this dungeon. Even if we needed to flee the dungeon shortly after, I could always Portal right back for a surprise attack. That meant we needed to make it to the final floor as quickly as possible.

I had a skill from Dungeon Builder called Dungeon Sense. It was a difficult to understand skill, but it seemed to give me a feeling of the status of the dungeon. I could tell the dungeon’s mood. At the moment, that sense was telling me that this dungeon was close to going into a growth period. If that happened, it’d become a level 25 dungeon. Although this might seem like just five more levels, it also meant that all the mobs would become more powerful, and she’d be able to summon more. In other words, if we didn’t finish this in the next few days, the Bandit army we were already struggling with would grow exponentially more powerful.

This was ultimately why we couldn’t just break. We had to plunge forward, and we had to win!