Earth
Algonquin Park Dungeon, Ontario
August 17, 2019
07:17 EDT

“Thanks, Zaszi.”

“No problem, boss. Good luck today, guys,” she replied, the portal winking out a second later.

“Alright, let’s go. I wanna kill the boss and then move on to the next dungeon,” I said, making my way towards the building and noting that the damage from the assault was gone. New picnic tables had been placed in the same spot, and it appeared that all the burnt trees were replaced with new saplings.

---

It turned out that I wasn’t woken by banging on the door, or Vixa licking me. Instead, she proceeded to teleport around the bed. Each time she disappeared, air would rush to fill the newly vacant area, creating the usual loud noise. When she saw that I was up she teleported a final time, appearing at her food dish, which had recently been filled.

After I showered and equipped my armor, Vixa and I made our way to the cafeteria. Ben was already there eating, but neither Mason nor the twins had arrived yet. When they did arrive, we ate breakfast while making plans. We didn’t want to stay in the Algonquin Park dungeon all day, so we decided we would head to the next closest dungeon suitable for our levels, while turning Insight off.

We were all level eighteen now, so delving without Insight active would allow those of us with Siphoning Strike or Siphoning Shot to level up the ability over the next two days, as we wouldn’t be out-leveling everything we were killing. The fact that it would be at least three weeks before we were able to head into dungeon is what prompted us to use the time to level up these two skills, specifically. With luck, Mason, Sonja and I would be able to increase the damage of our abilities by several hundred points.

---

As soon as we took the waygate down to the ninth floor, I began the process of shapeshifting into my newest form. Selalea had actually shown up in the cafeteria with her son and several guards in tow, so I managed to scan one of them. This was the first time I had been able to check out the form. I was at least a foot and a half taller than my hybrid form, though only had two arms. I really need to learn how to modify my own forms without having my mom do it for me.

“I’ll never get tired of seeing you do that,” Mason said. “How are the stats in that form?”

I reflexively opened my mouth to respond, but all that came out was a mix between a grunt and a roar. I also need to learn how to talk in my various forms.

I took my phone out of my storage and tossed it to Mason, not wanting to damage it with my sharp claws. [You tell me.]

He caught it, quickly navigating to my stat page and began reading off my current stats before handing it back. With some quick math I calculated that Strength was eight times higher, Agility was four times higher, Intellect was one-point-two times higher, Constitution was eight times higher and Endurance was six times higher. Those were substantial increases.

[Bria told me how high her Strength and Constitution was in her dragonkin form but it’s still surprising to see. The other stats are pretty high, too.]

[A twenty percent increase to Intellect is pretty damn good. I’d love to have that,] Ben said.

[I forgot about the Intellect buff, even after I talked about it yesterday,] I grumbled. [I really need to set a reminder or something.]

I finished getting ready, strapping shield to my left arm but leaving it inactive. I decided to use my sword and spear today so I could level up Quick Slash and Gash, while using Mana Shield to keep me safe. Not that that would really matter. My stats were so high in my dragonkin form that the chances of there being something in this dungeon that could hurt me were slim to none. After channeling my mana into my sword and spear, I began walking forward, leading everyone down the hall.

We didn’t get further than the first ninety-degree turn before Sonja called us to stop.

[Trap ahead. Do your thing, Ben,] she sent.

Ben immediately began summoning a Skeletal Warrior and sent it forward while Sonja was directing him on where to send it. As soon as the skeleton stepped on the trigger, dozens of foot-long metal spikes shot out of the floor. I winced at imagining what that trap would have done had we triggered it. I doubted that it would be able to pierce our armor, but I definitely wouldn’t want to chance it.

It was rare that one of Ben’s skeletons wasn’t destroyed by a trap, so after waiting for the spikes to recede back into the floor, he had it step on the trigger plate again, with nothing happening the second time. With the trap disarmed, we continued on with Ben’s Skeletal Warrior leading the way.

[Ben, how is it that we’ve been in dungeons for as long as we have and we haven’t seen another group of adventurers?] I asked.

[I was wondering about that the other day and could only come up with two conclusions. The first is that we’ve just been incredibly unlucky. I mean on Thursday we saw those other teams when we were teleported out of the dungeon. The second is that we’re being prevented from meeting other teams. I don’t think that’s as likely though, since again, we saw those other teams.]

[The previous dungeon also had that disorienting effect on the fourth floor. They could have been held up by that. Remember how long it took us to figure it out?] Sonja asked.

[Ugh, don’t remind me,] Ben replied. [We should have figured that out a lot sooner.]

We came up to the first room a few minutes later, only having to pause for one more trap. There was no door that needed to be opened, giving us a good look at the room. There were four entrances, including the one we were looking through, but not much else to note besides the carvings in the tiled floor. Sonja also couldn’t detect any traps, so we stepped inside.

As soon as the last of us stepped inside, four metal prison-like doors fell into place at each of the doorways. Everyone channeled their mana into their weapons, but no attacks came, making us wonder what was going on. After a minute passed and nothing happened, I stopped channeling mana into my weapons and went over to the door. Gripping onto the bars of the door, I lifted with all my dragonkin strength, but they wouldn’t budge an inch.

We spread out pressing against the wall trying to find some kind of switch or something to open the doors, but it was Ben who figured it out.

[Ooh, I’ve been waiting for a floor like this!] he sent, drawing our attention over to him. [It’s a sliding puzzle! You see the tile missing here? With this empty space, we’ll be able to move all the tiles around. When in the right positions, they should form an image and the doors should immediately open. Let’s examine the tiles and see if we recognize anything.]

We did as he asked, spreading out to take a look at the individual tiles. It was hard to tell what most of them were, with them just being lines, or in some cases, just blank, being dyed a darker color than the rest. The only one that actually stood out to me was the one in the center of the room. Wanting to see if he saw what I saw, I called Ben over.

[What do you see?] I asked, gesturing down to the tile that was the same gray as the rest of the room, besides a distinctive part that was dyed black in the middle.

[What do you see?] he returned the question while looking down at the tile.

[I asked you first.]

[Well, I see what looks like a nose. Or a lack of a nose? I’m not sure of the terminology for a skeleton’s nose.]

I nodded, looking around the room. [Anyone see anything that might be part of a skull?]

[I have some teeth over here, I think,] Mason answered.

[Me, too,] Sonja sent.

Ben and I split up to look at the apparent teeth before looking back at each other and nodding.

[Alright, it appears as the image we need to make is that of a skull. Ben, how about summoning a skeleton for us so we’ll have a reference.]

[Good idea, gimme a minute.]

I walked back to the center of the room where the nose was, and saw that it was, indeed, in the center of the room. The room was five tiles wide by five tiles long, except for the single missing tile in the bottom right corner of the room.

Ben walked over when he resummoned his Skeletal Warrior. [Alright, let’s get started. This isn’t going to be easy so the sooner we get started, the sooner we’ll be able to get out of this room. You wanna move the tiles around, Jonathan?]

I nodded and walked over to the corner with the only open space. [Which one do you want me to start with?]

[This one,] he said, tapping the one to the left of the open space.

It was easier to slide than I was expecting it to be, though that may have been my increased strength. Once the tile was in the corner, he had me working on moving the tile that could only fit in the top left as it was just a curved line. Once it was in place, we continued with another slightly curved line that lined up nicely with the first one. Ben’s strategy was to work from the top down, as it would quickly allow us to complete around sixty percent of the puzzle, saving the most time-consuming part for last.

That sixty percent took me around twenty minutes or so to complete, making me glad that I had chosen to use this form. The part that was complete definitely looked like a skull, leaving nothing but the upper jaw and mandible remaining. This is where it got tedious, and it involved moving a set of pieces in circles until they were in the right position. That took another twenty-five minutes to get everything in place, and then all it required was sliding all nine remaining pieces counter-clockwise until they formed a complete skull, while leaving the right corner empty.

Mason and the twins just sat on the complete part of the puzzle while doing this, just chatting amongst themselves while Ben and I worked. I was glad for that, as there was no room for them to help, and I was annoyed with the puzzle by the time we’d finished. It was just so tedious. As soon as I slid the right part of the mandible into place, the outline of the skeleton glowed and the doors started retracting, allowing us to leave the room.

I heard another noise and looked up to see something falling from the ceiling right above me. I knew I would be able to get out of the way in time, so I activated Mana Shield. I was surprised when the object wasn’t as solid as I figured it would be, which made sense a few seconds later. The object happened to be a mimic, it’s large jaw opening revealing its razor sharp teeth and long tongue.

It turned and started bouncing towards me before leaping when it thought it was close enough. Rather than sinking its teeth into my flesh, it was instead met by my spear piercing through the back of its mouth and exiting behind it. It didn’t really do a lot of damage to the mimic, but it did stop its advance.

While holding it in place, I channeled mana into my sword and began hacking at it, alternating between Gash and Quick Slash. It took one use of Gash and two uses of Quick Slash before it finally died, my friends watching the entire time. When it died, its body started disintegrating, and I was annoyed to see that it didn’t drop a Skill Gem for us. I bent down and picked up the Mana Gem before walking over to join my friends.

[Three hits, not counting your initial spear thrust, not bad,] Mason said.

Nodding I handed him the Mana Gem which he put in the sack.

[So, which way?]

[I don’t think it really matters. I think this is a puzzle floor, which will have multiple rooms like this one. There will probably be as many as three paths to the final room with the stairs leading down to the tenth floor. The good news is that we won’t have to fight anything but the odd mimic, but the bad news is that this floor will be more time consuming than if we could just fight our way through.]

[So we just choose at random?]

[Yup!]

[Alright, let’s go this way,] I said walking over to the doorway that had been on our left when we entered the room. [Mind summoning another skeleton before we continue?]

[Sure,] he nodded, starting the cast right away.

A minute later, we were on our way down the next passageway, the skeleton taking the lead. We didn’t come across any traps this time before coming up to another much larger room. The only exit was on the opposite end of the room, and there were a large number of tiles between us and the door. The tiles alternated between black and white making it look similar to a chessboard but was way too big. There were no chess pieces, either.

[Ugh, I was hoping we wouldn’t come across one of these,] Ben said.

[What do you mean?] Sonja asked.

[It’s a trap room. Each tile will activate a trap, and you need to activate traps to get across. They can be anything from poisoned darts to flamethrowers to pitfalls and many others. See those pillars on either side of the room? Those are probably where poisoned darts or other projectiles will be fired from.]

[I thought you said this was a puzzle floor. How is a room like this a puzzle?]

[Because there is always a way through that is free of traps, but it’s really hard to find. Most people just end up choosing the most direct route, which is what we’ll probably doing as well,] he explained, turning back towards us. [The traps in rooms like these reset pretty quickly, so you’ll need to lead the way, Jonathan.]

[How quickly are we talking? And can’t we just teleport to the other side?]

[It tends to vary. It can be ten seconds or it can be a minute, which means we’ll need to move fast. I already tried teleporting to the other side, but there is an energy field preventing that. There wouldn’t be much point in a trap room if people could just use abilities that allow them to teleport across the room. I bet Sonja’s Ride the Lightning wouldn’t even work.]

I looked over to Sonja and saw the look of concentration on her face as she looked across the room, before looking back. [You’re right about that. It won’t even activate.]

[Alright, three of us have Mana Shield, so I want Anja to follow behind me with Ben in the middle and Sonja behind him. You’ll follow behind us, Mace.]

[Got it.]

[Okay, let’s go,] I said with a nod, walking past everyone and stopping at the edge of the tiled floor and turning to look at my friends. When I saw that we were all in a line, I activated Mana Shield and stepped forward and stopped on the first tile. I was immediately buffeted by a large amount of darts from multiple directions, and stayed in place until the barrage ended a few seconds later. Stepping forward onto the second tile, nothing happened.

[Above you, Jonathan!] Anja sent, causing me to look up.

My eyes widened when I saw a large boulder falling from the ceiling. Normally I would be crushed under a boulder as big as the one above me, but I was in my dragonkin form, which gave me an advantage. Stepping back, I lowered Mana Shield and braced myself to catch it. It was heavier than I thought it would be, but I was able to handle it with a little bit of difficulty.

With it in my hands, I had an idea. Turning sideways, I swung it back as much as I could, and then launched it across the room. It didn’t get much air, soon falling to the ground, but it did continue rolling across most of the room, activating traps as it went. I was surprised that there weren’t any pitfalls, but maybe we just got lucky. There were a host of other traps like flamethrowers and swinging axes from the ceiling, among others.

[Well, that’s one way to do it!] Mason laughed. [Let’s get going before the traps reset.]

Nodding, I reactivated Mana Shield and walked onto one of the tiles the boulder missed, and immediately felt myself falling. Luckily my hands were empty and the tiles weren’t too big, so I was able to catch myself. Unfortunately that also activated another tile, but it was just a flamethrower being directed at me. Nothing Mana Shield couldn’t handle. I waited a few seconds for my mana to replenish before stepping onto the fifth and final tile before we were clear to the end of the room.

I was expecting anything else than what actually happened. I was teleported to another tile. I looked back to see where my friends were, and saw that we were about five tiles away, with me slightly ahead of them.

[We might want to skip the fifth tile,] Ben said. [Teleport tiles tend to reset immediately, so we’ll all be teleported over there. I’m going to take the lead. Let’s hurry before they reset!]

I watched as my friends quickly made their way across the room, jumping over the third and fifth tiles before running across the rest of the already triggered traps. A few activated again when Mason ran over them, but since he was last, they didn’t slow them down at all. When they were all safely across the room, I turned to deal with my own predicament. There are ten tiles between me and my friends, so I can either trigger them one by one, or…

An idea popped into my head, and I immediately began shapeshifting into a new form. When the process was finished, my perspective was a lot closer to the floor. Jumping into the air, I began flapping my wings and covered the ten meter distance in only a few seconds before landing beside my friends and shapeshifting once more.

[That’s so not fair!] Mason grumbled.

[Gotta work with what you’re given,] I replied with what I imagine is a pretty terrifying grin when I was back in my dragonkin form. Looking around the room, I didn’t spot any treasure chests or mimics, so I turned back to Ben. [Hey, what gives? No treasure chest for getting through this room?]

He shrugged after glancing around. [Guess not.]

[Alright, let’s keep moving,] I said, heading to the exit of this room. [Hopefully there aren’t too many rooms we have to go through, this is taking way too long.]

[Give me a minute to summon another Skeletal Warrior. I’m betting we’ll run into a few more traps between here and the next room.]

We all stopped and turned while we waited, and then let Ben’s skeleton lead the way as soon as it was summoned. He ended up being right about there being traps along the way, and for a change they were particularly deadly ones if someone wasn’t careful. The first one was a pitfall with sharpened spikes sticking upwards, while the third was another of the crushers we had experienced a few days ago.

The second was the deadliest one as far as I was concerned. It was another pitfall, though this one had a spinning blade in the bottom, which quickly chopped the skeleton into little bits before it reset and we could safely cross it. It made me very appreciative of the fact that Sonja could detect traps and Ben could trigger them.

We soon arrived at the third room and there was another groan from Ben when he saw what we had to deal with. There was actually a staircase leading down to the apparent puzzle, which gave all of us a good vantage point. The floor seemed to be entirely made out of glass and there were square blocks that seemed to be strategically placed.

He turned back to us, and seemed none too happy. [This puzzle is probably very easy for a smaller group, but it’s a pain in the ass for one as big as ours. You can see that the floor is entirely glass, with those blocks placed to limit where we can walk. When you step on a piece of glass, it will crack, and the next person that steps on it will fall through. Puzzles like this aren’t lethal, and will instead teleport all of us back to the beginning, while resetting the puzzle. We need to make it through without crossing each other’s path.]

[I can help with this one,] I said, before beginning to shapeshift once more. When it was done, I wasn’t standing there as a dragonkin or a dragon, but as a gryphon.

[Ooh, good idea! Me first!] Anja said before walking over. I lowered myself so she could climb on and waited until she got a good grip before jumping in the air and flying across the room. She hopped off and I turned to fly back. It only took a few minutes to transport everyone across, and as soon as I landed with Mason on my back, there was a thumping sound which drew our attention over to a chest which had fallen in a corner of the room.

Mason hopped off and walked over to investigate the chest while I began shapeshifting back into my dragonkin form again.

[Being a team comprised entirely of Scyftans must be like having a cheat code,] Ben said. [I’ll take it, though. Puzzles like this one really suck.]

[It is very nice, I will admit,] I replied as Mason walked back over. He held out his hands to show me the Mana Gem in one hand, and, surprisingly, a Tier C Skill Gem in the other. I took the pouch we were using for skill gems out of my storage and handed it to Mason, my hands being too big to handle it’s small size. After dropping the Skill Gem into it, he handed it back.

[Well, that would’ve made it worth going through this room, even if we did have to do it the normal way. I think it’s only something like a seven percent chance at a Tier C Skill Gem in rank II dungeons,] Ben said.

[What’s the chance of us getting a Tier A Skill Gem from this dungeon?]

[I’m not sure off the top of my head, but it’s under one percent.]

[So not great odds, then.]

[Nope,] Ben replied. [There won’t be a great chance of getting a Tier A Skill Gem until we start delving into rank twenty dungeons. Even then, the chances are under ten percent, but it does start to increase pretty quickly after that. Anyways, let me summon another Skeletal Warrior so we can be on our way.]

Ben’s skeleton wasn’t needed as we walked down the next corridor. It only took a minute or so to get to the next room, and when we arrived we were surprised to see another team already in the room. They were a group of four, and looked to be in the middle of a fight. We could see piles of dead skeletons all over the room, and they were fighting what a Skeletal Priest and a Skeletal Warrior.

[Jonathan, move back and change into your human form!] Anja sent. [I don’t think we would want to explain why there is a giant dragon-looking thing in our group.]

[Oh, right,] I said as I realized I was standing out in the open, watching them. Turning around, I ran around the corner and began shapeshifting back. As soon as I was back in my human form, I returned and looked at Ben. “Should we help them?”

“Nah, we wouldn’t be allowed to,” he said. “This is the clearly the floor boss room for this floor. As soon as they started fighting, a forcefield was likely activated, preventing anyone from interfering in the match. If they win, the forcefield will drop and then the room will reset so we can try. It should only take them a few minutes to deal with them and then we’ll be able to fight the floor boss and head down to the tenth floor.”

“Are you sure there is a forcefield up?” Mason asked, stepping forward. “Why can’t we see--”

We all laughed when Mason walked into the forcefield and was knocked back a few feet, falling on his ass. While the forcefield wasn’t visible, it did flare up when he walked into it, showing us that it covered the entirety of the fighting area.

“Forcefields are invisible, got it,” he said as he got back to his feet.

The other team of adventurers seemed to focus a bit more on casting spells than our group did, having a tank, an archer and then two mages. One was a fire mage, while the other seemed to be a frost mage, and each was focused on a different target. The frost mage was doing her best to keep the warrior frozen while the rest of her team dealt with the priest.

It seemed like a decent strategy, though the priest was giving them some trouble. It was protected by a shield, and also seemed to be able to periodically dispel the ice holding the warrior in place. Still, the warrior was kept out of the fight for the most part, which probably made the fight easier than it otherwise would have been, if they didn’t have a frost mage.

We didn’t know how long they were fighting when we arrived, but it took them five minutes or so to finish off the priest before moving on to the warrior. It took substantially less time to take him down, and soon the forcefield shimmered before dropping completely.

The frost mage seemed to notice us while the rest of her team picked up their spoils, and called out to them to alert them to our presence. They all looked our way before going back to picking everything up, while the frost mage walked towards us.

“Good morning!” she greeted as she got close. “Sorry it took us so long to deal with them. Were you waiting long?”

“Nah, only seven or eight minutes or so. Nice strategy keeping the warrior frozen,” I said.

“Thanks! Our fifth got called into work this morning, otherwise it would’ve been pretty easy, I think. We’re not used to fighting as a group of four, so we had to adapt. It took us a long time to finally exhaust the priest allowing us to finish it off. Oh, where are my manners… my name is Kaya, and the women behind me are Kendyll, Astrid and Hailey,” she said pointing to each as she said their names. “Our fifth is Vivienne, but she had to work. Together, we form Victorious Secret.”

“Victoria’s Secret? Like the lingerie?” Mason asked.

Anja slapped his arm. “No, you dummy. Victorious. That’s V-i-c-t-o-r-i-o-u-s. It’s a play on words,” she said before turning back to Kaya. “Nice to meet you. My name is Anja and the woman standing behind me is my twin Sonja. Standing up front is Jonathan, and over here are Ben and Mason. We’re The Wolves.”

“Nice to meet you all,” she said. “Do you mind if we watch your fight? We’re pretty new at this, only being able to delve on the weekends since work keeps us busy. We might be able to pick something up by watching you guys work together.”

I looked at my friends who shrugged with indifference. “Sure, it’s fine with us. Just know that we are stronger than the average person at our level, so what works for us may not work for you.”

“I understand. You guys look pretty strong, especially in that armor. What’s it made of?”

“Leather and kevlar for the most part,” Ben said before I could reply, which was a good thing because I had no idea how to answer that. “It’s durable while allowing us to be pretty mobile.”

“Huh, maybe I’ll have a look around for something similar,” she said as the rest of her team walked up behind her, the tank in the group, who was identified as Astrid, stopped right next to her. She easily had a foot in height over the rest of her party, and seemed to be of Scandinavian descent.”

“Everything is gathered, Kaya,” Astrid said. “We got a Tier D Skill Gem in addition to the regular stuff.”

“Nice! Ladies, these are The Wolves; Anja, Sonja, Jonathan, Ben and Mason,” Kaya said. “They’re going to take on those skeletons next, and they’re kind enough to let us watch.”

“Cool! Speaking of which, it looks like they’re respawning,” the woman identified by Kaya as Kendyll said.

“That they are,” I replied as I saw the skeletons clawing their way out of the stone floor. They seemed to be the exact same size and makeup as the groups on the eighth floor, each being five warriors, four archers, four mages and three priests. There was one difference between these ones and the other ones though, and that was that all the skeletons on this floor were one level higher. It would make it slightly more difficult, but easily dealt with. If we weren’t being observed, I could probably take on an entire group by myself, but I figured we would tackle it the same way we did on the eighth floor.

“Ladies, if you’ll excuse us,” I said, walking past them while activating my sword and shield.

There wasn’t any point in using my spear as skeletons can’t bleed, but my sword would allow me to do more damage by using Gash and Quick Slash, in addition to Siphoning Strike. I stopped just along the edge of the fighting area, with my friends filing in and stopping beside me.

“Alright, we take care of it like we did last time. I’ll use Blink to close the distance and keep them in one area. Ben, Sonja, use your area of effect abilities, and Mace, you leap in and deal with the priests as soon as the meteors start falling. Anja, you deal with anything that gets passed me, and then help me deal with the warriors, alright?”

“You got it,” Ben said. “I’ve got a surprise, but I’ll be saving it for the floor bosses. Also keep in mind that I can’t use Meteor Shower on all three groups, I can only use it on the first and third.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

We all stepped forward, the forcefield activating when we were inside. Both the Skeletal Warrior and the Skeletal Priest standing on the raised platform tapped their weapons on the stone floor, and the first group of skeletons started running towards us. It was the group on the left as always, so I ran forward and used Blink when I was in range.

As soon as I appeared in front of the group I activated Mana Shield, making sure I was ready for the barrage I knew was coming. Three of the warriors encircled me, while two ran past. That was fine though, as the rest of the group was entirely focused on me. I was peppered by spells and arrows until that stopped completely when the first meteor fell, dealing a lot of damage to the backline and knocking them down.

Like clockwork, Mason jumped in with Whirling Leap, dealing a massive amount of damage to the knocked-down priests, and then finishing them off with Cleave and Sweeping Strike. He also threw in a Seismic Shove to knock them down for good measure. I kept hacking and slashing at one of the warriors in front of me, taking it down a lot quicker thanks to my additional abilities before switching to the next one. Arrows were falling all around me, while also flying passed me to hit the archers and mages.

I had finished with the second warrior and was turning to deal with the third one when a shadow appeared behind it and Anja stepped out of it. She immediately struck the warrior with Backstab before moving back a short distance and firing off Ice Shards as fast as she could. When the skeleton fell, I looked to see the status of the mages and archers to see that Mason and Sonja had dealt with them.

We all immediately turned and started running, heading towards the right side of the room where the next group of skeletons were ‘waking up’. I used Blink once again, cutting off their advance as best I could while Mason went flying overhead, landing in the middle of the group and unleashing another Whirling Leap.

Arrows started falling from overhead, and he used Dash to get behind the priests, finishing them off before they could raise any of their allies. All of our weapons were flaming for this group, signifying that Ben had Aura of Flame active for this fight. It did seem to be adding quite a bit of damage now, especially since it worked with two of our group’s best area of effect abilities, Mason’s Whirling Leap and Sonja’s Volley. It actually only took slightly longer to deal with the second group, as Aura of Flame seemed to have helped a lot.

The third group was finished off just as quickly as the first, and we immediately moved to deal with the floor bosses.

“I’ll keep the warrior busy! You four deal with the priest!” I yelled, running over and blocking the warrior’s overhead strike. The Skeletal Warrior was bigger than any of the other skeletons, being at least eight and a half or nine feet tall, and carried a massive spiked mace. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do much damage to him in my human form, so I didn’t even try. I threw in the occasional Shield Bash to stun it, but otherwise dodged as many of its attacks as I could.

Soon, there was a deafening noise coming behind me, sounding as if there was a furious blaze right behind me. Keeping my attention on the warrior, I moved around him until I could see the source of the noise, and was astonished to see a Fire Elemental beating on the Skeletal Priest’s shields. I wasn’t aware that he had reached the one hundred Intellect requirement to cast the spell, but apparently he had.

With the Fire Elemental’s help, it only took a couple of minutes to drop the shield, allowing them to quickly finish off the vulnerable priest. The warrior didn’t last nearly as long, falling within twenty seconds when my friends turned their attention to it. Ben immediately dispersed his elemental, probably wanting to regain his mana.

“Nicely done, guys, and nice surprise, Ben. I wasn’t aware you hit one hundred Intellect.”

He nodded, “One hundred five, actually, thanks to that Minor Jack of All Trades Skill Gem I got the other day.”

“Well, I’ll definitely be getting my Intellect up to one hundred next, that Fire Elemental was awesome!” Mason exclaimed.

“I had Mana Shield up so I didn’t feel the heat. How were you able to stand so close to it without getting cooked?”

“There was no heat,” Anja replied. “I reflexively backed up when I saw it appear near the boss, but the area didn’t get hotter as well.”

“That’s normal,” Ben interjected. “It wouldn’t be worth using with allies all around you if they got hurt as well, would it? That was only a rank one Fire Elemental, too. As the ability ranks up, they get bigger and the color changes to signify the heat they put off. It goes from red until rank twenty, orange to rank forty, yellow to rank sixty, white to rank eighty, and finally blue at rank one hundred. People will typically give a blue Fire Elemental a wide berth on a battlefield.”

“Well, let’s get everything gathered up before we talk to Victorious Secret. They seem excited,” I said, looking over Ben’s shoulder and seeing the women standing just on the outside of the fighting area.

We split up and gathered all the items dropped, picking up a Tier E Skill Gem, two Mana Gems, and a number of crystal shards. When we had everything gathered, we walked over to the women who were patiently waiting.

“That was awesome! What level are you guys? Thirty? Fourty?” Kaya asked, firing off questions one after another.”

“Nah, not that high,” I said with a chuckle. “We just hit level nineteen off that boss fight, actually.”

“Level nineteen with that many Tier S abilities?” Hailey asked, the suspicion clearly audible in her voice. “I saw at least nine Tier S abilities in that fight. How does a group of level nineteen adventurers have that many?”

Once again Ben came to the rescue. “I’ve seen a few of you eyeing my staff since the fight ended, so I imagine you know what it’s made out of. My family is quite well off thanks to our Magewood tree, and that allowed me to acquire a few Tier S Skill Gems for my friends and I.”

“I’ve heard that Magewood is very expensive,” Kaya. “That staff has to be worth like five-hundred thousand credits, right?”

“More than that, actually. Magewood takes such a long time to grow that a staff such as this is worth millions of credits. If members of my family express interest in adventuring, they are allowed to cut off a small section of our Magewood tree, either to use, or to sell to outfit themselves with good equipment. My older sister wasn’t interested, so I was able to cut off double the amount. I didn’t need two staves, so I sold a little under half of it, and used it to outfit us with armor, weapons and a few Skill Gems, each.”

“I was wondering how your weapons collapsed and extended. They’re dimensional weapons, right? You channel your mana into them and they extend, and when you stop channeling mana they collapse?”

Ben nodded. “They’re quite handy, and means that stuff like sheaths or scabbards aren’t in the way.”

“I can imagine,” Kaya said. “Well, I’m sure we’re all running against the clock. Do you mind if we join you, at least until we get to the boss room on the next floor? It might make things go quicker.”

“Sure, though I’ll warn you now that we’re leaving after we kill the boss. We’re not getting much experience from this dungeon, so we’ll be going to a higher level dungeon after we get a few more pieces of equipment.”

“That’s fine with us, we’ll even let you go first so you can leave when you’re done. We know how long it takes to get to a dungeon, we had to drive for two hours this morning to get here.”

I nodded. “Alright, let’s get moving.”

The nine of us made our way down the stairs to the tenth floor, pausing for a minute to allow Ben to summon a Skeletal Warrior before continuing.

“That’s kinda creepy,” Abigail said from behind us.

“You get used to it,” Anja said as Ben led us with his skeleton out in front. “It has been able to trigger every trap we’ve come across so far, and if it dies Ben can just summon a new one.”

“Huh. I never thought about using something like that to trigger traps. Astrid is able to detect them, so she usually activates them from a distance. We ended up getting Raise Skeletal Archer earlier, so maybe one of us will learn it so we can trigger traps more easily.”

“It could also help you in boss fights,” Ben said. “It probably would’ve been a bit easier to deal with the Skeletal Priest if you had it firing arrows.”

“It wouldn’t have helped that much, would it? Even the skeletons we’ve been going up against are pretty weak,” Hailey said.

“True, but you’ve gotta start somewhere, right? Spells like this one require a skeleton to be summoned to rank up. Eventually it will get strong enough that enemies won’t be able to ignore it, and you could have a small army of them. I’ve seen a few clips of teams that delve into dungeons using an undead army with anything from skeletons to ghouls to flesh golems. A max rank flesh golem can be incredibly strong.”

“Just the name makes me shudder. I definitely wouldn’t want to be around a large group of undead all the time.”

“To each their own,” Ben replied.

“Stop!” Sonja shouted, causing some of us to bump into each other. “Trap just ahead, Ben. Move it a little over to the left and then forward, and it will step right on it.”

“Got it,” he said, concentrating and commanding the skeleton to change its angle and walk forward.

Five seconds later, it triggered the trap, falling into another of the blade pits, as I began calling them. I activated Mana Shield, as there were a few bone shards that went flying in all directions. Ben started summoning another Skeletal Warrior while we waited for the trap to reset.

“Yup, I’ll definitely be learning Raise Skeletal Archer. That is one nasty trap,” Kaya said.

“It’s the second time we’ve seen one like it. It’s probably the deadliest trap we’ve come across so far.”

“The worst we’ve come across is one that dropped a large stone when activated.”

“There will be many more dangerous traps as we delve into higher level dungeons,” Ben said as he continued once his skeleton had clawed its way out of the stone floor. “Stuff that makes these ones look like nothing. Meat grinders, snake pits, acid pits, even ones that literally explode. The most successful teams are those that always make sure they’re able to detect any traps there might be, and they never rush through as fast as possible.”

The tenth floor ended up being a maze, like the fifth floor in the Gatineau Park dungeon was. There were lots of traps and very few enemies, the only ones we’d seen were two Mimics. We made our way through five rooms while navigating the maze, each one containing a chest or a Mimic. We split the spoils between the two groups, each team taking turns looting a chest or a Mimic. We let Victorious Secret loot the first chest, so they ended up getting three Skill Gems while we only got two. We were lucky than they were, however, and ended up getting one Tier D Skill Gem and one Tier E Skill Gem, while Victorious Secret only got three Tier E Skill Gems.

It still took a while to find the boss room, but we soon found the usual embossed door approximately forty-five minutes after first entering the floor. Ben informed us that only one group would be able to enter the room at a time, so we took a few moments to exchange contact information with one another. The two groups got to know each other while we walked, and we found out that all of us were from Ottawa.

Vowing to grab dinner at some point, we entered the boss room which was bathed in darkness. I was about to grab a light globe out of my storage when the doors closed with a thud and torches lit up the entirety of the room. The room was larger than any other boss room we had been in so far, and was largely featureless. Standing at the back of the room were four skeletons, a Skeletal Warrior, Skeletal Archer, Skeletal Mage and Skeletal Priest. The difference between these ones and the ones we had face previously? They were all mounted on Skeletal Horses.

“Really?” I asked. “The Four Horsemen?”