We rested for six hours because none of us were in any shape to travel. We were all exhausted, but I was also starving. It was to the point that my stomach hurt and once the ‘Sanctuary’ spell was in place, I began to eat ravenously. I kept my eyes on the teens as I gobbled up my food and they eventually stopped whispering back and forth and moved a little closer to me. They eyed my food with hungry looks, as I ate. I knew it wasn’t that they didn’t have food because I could see some condensed ration packs strapped to their belts. No, it was simply that the food I was eating was cooked by Marge. I couldn’t help storing any leftovers into my storage ring and the smell of those dishes was enough to entice anybody. She was simply that good of a cook.

I didn’t share any of it and a wave of drowsiness washed over me after gorging myself. Instead of properly resting, I cast ‘Invigorate’ because I didn’t trust them enough to actually sleep unguarded. My body buzzed. I felt wide awake, full of vigor, and the thought of sleep vanished from my mind. With my hunger sated, I began looking over the changes in my display tabs while playing with my illusion ring. I put it on and took it off to keep my jittery fingers busy. As I looked over the changes, I saw them falling asleep.

My summoning display had surprised me because it had a tab for demons but not divine beings. In every game I ever played, they were natural enemies and once one showed up, so did the other. It seemed odd not to see them listed. I finally clicked on the demonic tab and looked over the list. The names seem to indicate variable power levels in what I could summon. Some names I had seen in games, like ‘Imps’ and ‘Winged Fiends’, and they were always low-ranking demons. I just wasn’t sure if that still held true. I mean did a succubus really outrank them? Or was it just a game designer that randomly decided it and the true powerhouses were the imps?

The only reassuring thing about that tab was that the Chittering Devils had also moved onto it. The fact that they were demons never crossed my mind and, since nobody seemed to notice or care, made me feel a little better. I knew I didn’t summon them a lot but still, I had. I just wasn’t sure if I would be as lucky with the other demons. Most were ones I never even heard of, like ‘Demonic Swarm’, ‘The Hollow One’ or ‘Calamity Stalker’ and that didn’t give me much to work with. And without knowing what they looked like, I didn’t dare to field test around people I didn’t know.

I took my time, letting them rest but eventually I came to an impasse. My current charisma was boosted to forty-two without the ring but when I put it on, I felt my face shifting. With the new negatives, my display now showed my charisma was six. It had dropped by thirty-six points. I didn’t feel different. I didn’t hunch over and become an old hag. At least I didn’t think I did, so I wasn’t sure what was going on. I also wasn’t too certain how that translated to my spells. I needed to see what the new boost did before I assigned my remaining twenty-eight stat points. I didn't want to rush into it.

I took off the ring and stood up to start testing. It felt odd, as if I switched bodies again. My hair was longer, my hips had widened a little and I wobbled on my new longer legs like a newborn calf. It took me a minute to get use to the changes. My awkward movements woke up the sleeping teens. They looked over at me and started talking. All the while, their eyes never leaving my body. I didn’t blame them, I’d stare too. When I first appeared, I had looked like a fifteen- to sixteen-year-old girl. Then after the fight, I aged and now looked closer to eighteen. It would be strange no matter how you looked at it.

They would look at me, glance away, and then sneak another look. Their scrutinizing gazes made me uncomfortable, so I took out a dress and cloak from my space ring. I slipped the dress over my head. It was a simple yellow sun dress that Amy thought was nice. It normally hung around my knees but after my growth spurt, it didn’t make it pass mid-thigh, causing the black armor to protrude out. It looked as if a was wearing leggings and a long-sleeved shirt beneath the dress. I thought my current look was more in line of a woman out picking flowers, so I tied the cloak around my shoulders to appear more serious.

I looked at the young men and began to speak, “I am going…” and trailed off because I realized that my voice had changed. It sounded the same yet different. I couldn’t put it into words other than to say it now held something… more. Nathan lowered his eyes when I began to speak, while Bret continued to look at me with wide eyes. The fact that I stopped talking didn’t seem to have affected them, but I still continued, “I am going to cast a few spells and summon up some help. Don’t be alarmed.”

I figured I would give them a heads up. I knew that most of my summons looked evil and didn’t want them freaking out when I summoned a monster. Nathan looked back when I finished speaking. His eyebrows raised up, his eyes widened and his reply was a bit hurried, “Ah, O..Of course, whatever you think is best. Yoo… you saved us after all.” He stuttered and seemed more nervous now than during the fight. Bret didn’t say anything while I was looking at him. He just stared at me, and I was glad that he was wearing armor, so I couldn’t see any changes to his body.

I looked away. A few seconds later Bret’s voice began to rise, and I could hear him saying, “She changed, right?” there was a pause and then, “What do you mean, she’s taller and umm… bigger. She obviously changed.” He cupped his hands in front of his chest to emphasize my bigger boobs and I saw Nathan’s lips moving as he replied but he kept his voice too low for me to hear. “Ok, fine maybe she is using illusions. If so, which was her real form? Or is she an ugly monster that likes playing as a beauty to entice young men?” … “Do you think the monsters she gives birth to depends on who she sleeps with? I wonder… I’m not being loud.” Was Bret’s rambling the reason that Nathan was nervous? I wondered what other weird things he came up with, other than me birthing monsters.

I gritted my teeth and wondered if he had the taunt skill like Bill because I found him annoying. “I finally tuned them out and began to cast. I chose ‘Aid’. It was a Holy spell that normally boosted a person’s hit points, allowing them to take phantom damage. When I started, the boost from it was at twenty-seven percent, but by the time my charisma got to thirty-eight it gave people an additional hundred percent of their normal hit points. Because I already knew the boost amount, it would be easy to judge any changes.

I sensed my golden aura gradually become more solid as I cast and while it looked the same, it had an almost palpable feel to it by the time I finished. It faded and I noticed the spell was different. Normally, ‘Aid’ gave a person a “healthy” glow, but now I had a visible nimbus surrounding me. Golden hazy beams emanated a little above my bare skin, as if a hidden sun was shining behind me. It was pretty, but like most pretty things it might prove to be deadly, to anybody under the spell that is. A lit-up target is going to draw people’s attention especially at night and if others could see it, they may become the primary target.

I looked at my display and saw ‘Health: 203 (629)’. I quickly did the math and realized that it had given me an additional four hundred and twenty-six hit points or an extra 210% above my normal health. That percent was amazingly high. Don’t take my health as an indication. True fighters would be hard to bring down, if it applied to everybody. People like Bill and Lucas had health points in the thousands. Being able to give them three to six thousand phantom hits would be truly impressive. It made this simple spell extremely powerful, as long as people don’t mind looking like a holy being descending to the mortal realm.

Excited and a bit hopeful, I let go of that spell and began to summon a ‘Frost Basilisk’. Because basilisks had thick scales, tough hide, and high hit points, I had summoned a few of them since I came into this dungeon. It was a safe summons because regular basilisks had been domesticated and a lot of people used them to pull wagons so it wouldn’t seem too odd to be able to summon one. There were differences. The thin brown scales and fatter bodies were common characteristics for them. The wild basilisks were sleeker and came in a variety of vibrant colors. The frost version I could summon had cobalt blue scales and a white mist swirled around their snouts as they exhaled.

The one that appeared was different. It was the same size, but its whitish blue scales glimmered like diamonds and there were six patches of frost slowly growing outward from where its claws rested on the ground. I felt a greater pressure in my mind, as it materialized, indicating just how much stronger it was. If all my summons were upgraded like this, it would restrict how much I could summon and I could only hope that they were powerful enough to make up for the lower numbers I would be able to command.

I debated on summoning another to test how many I could get when I saw Bret and Nathan take a step away from it, then another. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the coldness coming off it or its hungry eyes that followed their movements, but I knew that they were afraid of it. Summoning more would only cause chaos.

Since they were up, it was better to get moving. We needed to decide on whether to escape or go deeper into this dungeon, so I began telling them what I noticed while they slept, “The dungeon had fortified the exit with traps and critters. I think we can break through by using my summons, but I can’t see traps. So unless you can, there will be risks that I miss. And if the numbers are greater than my summons can kill that may cause issues. Going deeper might be easier since the dungeon moved a lot of monsters out of its lower depths to attack us, but I don’t know how many remain or if there are more traps. Both have risks so I will let your group decide.”

I was hoping they wanted to go deeper. I figured the risks were about the same from the dungeon messages and honestly, I could use the extra money to escape this country with Amy and find us a place to live. Collecting the fragments from destroyed cores was very profitable. I just didn’t want the guilt of forcing my opinion on them. I’d feel guilty if they died because I couldn’t save them. I already knew Bret wanted to destroy this core from his argument with the girl but after the fight and the death of that woman, I wasn’t confident that his opinion hadn’t changed.

I didn’t have to wait long to know I was overthinking it. Bret immediately voices his opinion, “We should continue. Look she said it has less monsters. We should strike it while we can!” He didn’t sound excited to continue. His face was flushed and while he tried to hide it with anger, I could hear the heartbreaking sadness in his voice.

Nathan hesitated but finally sighed and said, “Ok, if...” he looked at me and continued, “sorry, I don’t remember your name.”

I quickly chimed in, “I’m Alice.”

“Alice… if Alice is willing to go with us, I believe we can destroy this dungeon’s core and let our friends rest in peace.” His voice seemed uncertain and trembled when he first said my name.

I nodded. What could I say? We prepared. I cast a few more buff spells and decided to wait on assigning the rest of my stat points. We set out once we were all ready. I would like to think we were powerful, and we bulldozed our way through the dungeon, but we never had the chance. In every glen, on every path we entered, traps would trigger killing any monsters that attacked us. The areas were littered with corpses before we even had to fight. Dungeon messages kept appearing as it summoned new monsters and I could feel its anger growing while other messages that armed new traps seemed... giddy? The lower we went, the stronger I could feel the emotions. It was extremely strange, but it allowed us to make it through the root maze and onto the final fourth floor.

When we appeared on the final floor, we were in a field that butted up against a wall with a cavernous mouth near the right edge. The field was in the shape of a half-circle. Patches of flowers ran along its edge. Pansies, violets, and daisies seemed to make up the majority but there were a lot of other varieties mixed in. Inside the half-circle it was natural paradise. Outside of it and inside the cavernous mouth, darkness shifted and moved as if it was alive. I took it all in, but that wasn’t what caught my eye. Nope, it was the basketball sized, green crystal that was growing out of the wall, the dungeon core! Only half of it was exposed but with one shot, with one arrow, we could destroy it and leave.