Kiresula started pacing. She needed to find a way to go into the dungeon. She tried to [Move Earth] to make a route between the two paths, and failed. The dungeon was rocky and thus her spell failed apart from moving any of the rock. She cussed: “That was not what I hoped would happen!” She slapped the wall and yowled.
Mayana immediately went over to her wife and asked what was wrong.
Kiresula looked at the wall: “I feel like there is something wrong with the rock here. It looks flat, but when I slapped it, it wasn’t.”
Mayana raised an eyebrow: “You mean, the wall…” she paused and grabbed a bit of gravel off the ground and threw it at the wall. The gravel ricocheted off at weird angles. “Yeah! That wall is an illusion and there is a wall just a bit behind it. Why would the dungeon do that?”
Kiresula motioned to the others: “Please. Fan out and examine the walls, the floors and, if possible the ceiling. This place is hiding something from us. And I want to figure out what it is!”
Kiresula herself reached for the wall, closed her eyes and tried to get a feeling for the texture. The texture felt like a regular rock wall, not like the smoother walls or the rest area. Kiresula knelt down to touch the areas of the wall near the ground. She realised that there was about a handspan of smooth stone before the stone turned rocky. She smiled. This was not an ambience thing. This was made for a purpose. She knew it. She could almost smell it. She continued to try to feel her way upwards. She was pretty certain that something in this wall was some kind of secret message, encoded in the seemingly random protrusions of stone.
As she worked her way upwards, she eventually reached the limit that her height allowed her, she eventually climbed upwards. The protrusions were rather shallow, but she was able to lift herself off the ground and feel for higher textures. She slowly had to realise that there was no hidden message in it, and announced that to the others. She eventually reached the ceiling. Experimenting again, she tried to feel if the ceiling as well had illusions. It did, she realised, as her hand reached through it. She called out to the rest of the group who subsequently reacted in confusion. It took her several moments of blind searching that allowed her to find handholds on the ceiling, these being actual rope loops to put an arm or a leg through. As Kiresula mentioned these, Mayana asked her to return to the ground. Kiresula was a bit confused but clambered down. Mayana pointed to the goblin side and quietly said: “The Shanastanis probably would not appreciate you doing anything that endangers their run! And they have high levels and good equipment.”
Kiresula understood: “Good point. We have an agreement and even if they were weaker, it would be a bad move to break it. Let’s wait until they are back!”
Haina looked at Kiresula, then at Kju and asked: “Can you climb up there and then climb on the ceiling?”
Kju smiled broadly: “I should be able to make it much lighter for myself!”
Kiresula looked much more in thought: “I am not certain. My Might is, like, low and I cannot enhance it.”
Kju pondered something before stating: “I might need to help you more in that case. That might put me out of commision for the fight, depending on how long the climb takes.”
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Kiresula asked: “Does your class have any spell points?”
Kju shook his head: “I am an elementalist, not a mage!”
Kiresula made a gesture as if wiping away the response: “Your other class!”
Kju once again responded in the negative: “It also is not a mage class. There are perk points, but I used these mostly for other things.”
Kiresula tilted her head: “Like what?”
Kju looked upwards as he listed: “A Fortitude enhancement, so I can keep up with a certain someone who never seems to run out of it. A healing improvement because of monsters, both animalistic and human,” he quickly glanced at Haina, “And another Fortitude enhancement, that one percentual rather than absolute.”
Kiresula nodded: “That sounds sensible…” she stopped: “I did tire you out that much on the journey?”
Kju nodded glumly.
Kiresula looked at the ground: “I am so very sorry.”
Kju looked at her: “It’s okay! We made it to Ilkshehir and I did have a lot of chances to assign classes on the way.” He turned to Haina who was looking at him with wide-open eyes, “Don’t ask! What you don’t know cannot be tortured out of you!”
Haina looked at the ground: “Yeah, sure. I won’t ask!”
There was a lot of silence until the group of adventurers returned. “We did a few runs, I hope you don’t mind!” was said by the native one with a sneer.
Kju looked at the group and shrugged: “We didn’t. We actually needed the time. Was it successful?”
The tallest guy responded: “Yeah! That place scales like nobody’s business! We all gained levels!”
Kju looked at them, then asked: “You look pretty tired, so I guess what I would like to ask would impose on you, but could you all maybe try to catch us in case we fall? If you are not too tired or weak, that is.”
The group looked at each other: “Catch you?”
Kiresula nodded and started climbing up the wall: “You can get up there, which is fine and then climb along the ceiling, which… might be a bit iffy!”
The native person looked at the glitchling who was seemingly halfway inside of a wall with unabashed curiosity and eagerly accepted: “Sure!”
Kiresula climbed up and then put her arms into the slings, holding her hands to the ceiling and trying to use magnetism to see if this would work. It not only didn’t but it cost her precious magic, she mouthed mild cuss words. Then, she felt for further loops and, upon finding them, put her arms into a series of them, shifting her balance away from the wall. Sometimes, she had to free one of her arms from all of the loops and reach for all but the one closest to her body again, all while slowly inching forward towards an unclear destination. It was difficult. She was scared that the ropes might break or her strength might fail her, she felt as if she was about to fall. Eventually, her legs were high enough that she could use the loops also for her own legs. She made sure that at any time, three of her appendages were in these rope slings. She strained herself for every single handspan of distance she crossed. She often swayed to and fro on the slings, muttering curse words as she tried to steady herself. Eventually, she reached the other side of the room and the other wall. Again, she reached through it. Kiresula realised that inside of that wall, there were more slings and clambered forward until she was able to move her head through it. The crawl ended in a small room with a ladder going upwards. There was a small circular entrance to crawl through. The floor was close enough that she would only be able to crawl around in the room until she reached the area with the ladder. She did and she reached the ladder. As she climbed, she saw a message:
You have entered the Battlefield while unaffiliated. This will be a solo mission. Both sides will be after you. Good luck!
Kiresula sucked in air and gulped. She didn’t expect that turn of events.