Kiresula crawled forward until she left the hole and was in what seemed like a forest of some kind. Except, looking around, she realised that this was not a forest at all but it reminded her of a board game imitation of a forest. The ground was separated in hexagonal tiles and each contained one poplar tree. Kiresula understood that these trees had very deep roots, but those didn’t stretch out widely. It seemed to indicate that the dungeon planned to move these tiles around. Kiresula moved forward and stepped onto the next tile when she heard noises behind her. Fearing the worst, she turned around only to see Mayana and Kju crawling out of the hole in the wall.
Mayana saw the area and cussed. “Sheetrock! We’re in the Forbidden Dungeon!”
Kju asked: “What is that?”
Kiresula explained: “An infamous place. It’s quite the opposite to the Black Cat Dungeon: A dungeon that learned that it can kill adventurers for more advancement. It offers great loot, but greater danger. And it actually extends quite a bit into the area around it, which is why warning signs about it tend to disappear. I just never heard that it lured people in with synthic magic. I never heard about it using synthic magic.”
Mayana asked: “How do you know? Makit and his crew?”
Kiresula nodded: “They considered running it a while ago, researched and decided that they were not quite suicidal enough.”
Mayana made a grunt: “I see. Really not the best that we’re here at our level.”
Kiresula could only nod and grunt in agreement.
After a short discussion on what to do, the group moved forward, remaining vigilant for any approaching monsters. Suddenly, Kiresula almost stumbled. A hole opened directly in front of her Kiresula immediately cast [Freedom of Movement] on the group. A moment later, the hole started growling. The group didn’t need any other encouragement and ran as fast as their legs could carry them. Behind them, they heard roars. Kiresula did a short glimpse back and saw a snake. Except that it was not a snake that she knew. It was about as wide as a person, it had the roar of a lion, its scales were a fierce red and brown. It was scarily fast. The group ran, as fast as they could. The slithering beast followed and hissed. It was fast. Faster than the group was able to run. It came more and more close, its tongue trying to hit the group and the wind hitting their backs. Kiresula shouted at the group: “Scatter!”
They ran in different directions, Kju to the left, Kiresula to the right, Mayana to the centre. Kiresula cast [Spherical Vision] to see where the thing slithered to and her heart almost stopped. It slithered after Mayana and was gaining ground quickly. Kiresula acted quickly and ran back, caught up with the middle part of the snake and then [Fire Strike]d into the long monster’s scaly body. The scales seemed unaffected, but she heard a roar, a loud, angry one. The snake turned around and slithered towards her. It once again made a roaring sound that snakes in the wild never would do, but that scared Kiresula even more. Snakes in nature can be defeated, snakes in a dungeon can have various improvements that make it almost impossible to do so.
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Kiresula ran towards the tail, beating the snake with [Fire Strike]s, hoping to give Mayana enough time to escape. Hoping to get away before it reached her again. As she once again felt the breath of the snake on her back, she scaredly casted the one spell she had so far not dared to cast: [Wind Step].
There was a shift, and then a feeling of disorientation. Only then was she able to understand her position. She was near the tail of the snake. Just a few metres away. The snake looked like it was a hundred metre long beast. At that moment, she had no idea how to defeat the incredible monster. She was in awe of the monster and fully understood why the group around her brother didn’t want to delve this dungeon.
In a moment of inspiration, she jumped onto the thinner end of the snake and then ran towards its head. It would not have any way to bite her if she sat on its head. She was not very firm on her feet as she tried to get to the head of the snake. The texture of the scales was really smooth and her feet were always in risk of slipping. More than once, she cussed as she barely was able to keep her footing. The snake slithered onto itself ahead of Kiresula and presented her with a man-high wall of tiny, smooth scales. In her frustration, Kiresula delivered several [Fire Strike]s onto the monster. She tried to climb the monster, but ended up slipping and landed on her lower back onto the snake. She once again delivered a [Fire Strike] in anger. At exactly that moment, she saw the head approaching from the side. She had to do something, she had to think. There was a way to handle that. There had to be. Kiresula tried to think what to do. The creature could not be outrun or defeated. Not at her levels. Or could it? She suddenly had an idea: Levels, she had recently levelled up. She gained new spells.
She jumped off the snake body, ran, and then cast [Move Soil]. She had not expected the bout of pain that threw her to the ground. As her hands hit the soil, she realised that an instantaneous change had happened. Her hands had not physically changed, but were able to move soil as if they were much larger. She extended the magic that she put into the spell to increase that factor and in that moment, the snake’s head came close. She deposited a large glob of soil into its maw and nose holes. The snake moved its head up and down as if nodding, apparently in order to dislodge the dirt, and stopped closing in and Kiresula used that moment to shovel more soil into the snake’s breathing holes. Then, with all that her body could mobilise, she ran towards the direction where she had last seen Mayana.
The snake didn’t pursue. Kiresula ran, at a steady pace now, to Mayana. As she approached, she noticed the snake sliding backward in a kind of movement that snakes are not supposed to. She used very bad language as she realised what happened: The tiles were sinking!
“Mayana, Kju, run!” she shouted. “These tiles are going down!”
Mayana responded by screaming: “There! One tile is rising! We need to get onto it!”
They ran towards it, but hearing the noises from the back, they realised that they would not make it. The tiles sank faster than the group could run and they did so swiftly, first jiggling a bit and then dropping at an insane speed. Meanwhile, the tile in the middle rose and rose. Kiresula couldn’t even use Wind Step as the wind currently felt like it was blowing into her face. Kiresula noticed that Kju had run towards Mayana and her, not towards the towering tile. She shouted: “What the fuck are you doing?”
He shouted back: “Either this works and we are safe, or, well, we also won’t have any problems anymore.” He then cast a spell.