The rats squealed in excitement as Kju opened the hatch using the shelf beam that he again liberated from the wall. As soon as there was an opening, the rat jumped out of the Bubble, climbed the wall, and rushed through the opening. Kiresula gasped. There was a pause in which only the ambient noises of the dungeon were heard. Then, Kiresula grinned and spoke: "Looks like we need to bring the rats here as that prevented a rush of newly spawned monsters."

Mayana smiled and enveloped her wife into a hug, only to stop, notice the bleeding and then she cleaned as well as bandaged her wound. "I am so glad that you had that idea!" she said, "You really noticed something wrong here! I didn't believe you! I thought you were confused or just running into one of your research binges! Even without a library."

Kiresula tried to use her elemental awareness into the area but it felt like that area didn't exist. "I don't think this is climbable for us. I see nothing inside of it."

Kju asked: "Shall we try to lure rats here?"

Kiresula nodded as she poked her head into the earthen tunnel. She then walked in, knocked on the small passages rats likely were to use and when singular rats jumped towards her, she ran to the storage room. Upon the sight of the open hatch, the rats were drawn to it and ran, jumped and climbed into it. Without a fight, the group was able to lead all the rats out of the area. All except for the boss. With only that one remaining, she looked at Kju. "Do you mind luring the boss here? You can keep it off off you without hurting it. And I can enhance your agility to get here without taking hits."

Kju looked more than a bit unhappy about this. "I would prefer not to. I don't have the Fortitude to get through this. I don't feel like running through these tunnels is something I can do, even with enhanced Agility. Enhanced Fortitude, maybe. But even then…" he looked to the floor: "Sorry to disappoint you!"

Mayana said: "You can have my blades. I have a minor Agility enchantment in it. Then, Kiresula can enhance your Fortitude, would that work?"

Kju smiled a bit: "I understand what you mean. We would need to try this out. Can you, like, try this twice? Do you have the magic for that?"

Kiresula nodded: "I have the magic to try that."

As it turned out, the first run from just outside of the boss's chamber to the inside was a total and utter disaster. Kju fell several times from the uneven ground and had to get back to his feet. His body not used to the higher agility made the run more difficult. She realised that she needed to keep [Freedom of Movement] on Kju as well as the [Enhance Ability] spell.

The next run had her cast both spells and in addition [Illuminate]d the areas which seemed questionable even with the spell, and the boss rushed after Kju through the tunnels and passages into the storage room, where the rest waited for it. Kiresula was worried and started pacing to and fro. Mayana knew better than to tell her not to do it. It was an emotion, she was feeling and telling her not to do so would only dampen the expression not the feeling. Mayana however trusted in her minor enchantment, as well as her wife's spells and expected Kju to rush into the room any moment now, unharmed and well.

When Kiresula heard the footsteps, she turned to the tunnel and saw Kju rush through and dive behind a barrel and pant as if he was about to expire. The angry boss monster saw the hatch and, like the others, jumped into it, scratching Kiresula who didn't dodge in time. Then, the group walked to the boss room. Only to find the door missing.

For a moment, they just stood there. Stunned. Also, admittedly confused.

"Okay, so this is not how we solve this dungeon." Kiresula said, dryly.

Mayana nodded: "I guess that was one way to find that out."

Kju asked: "So, we did the entire song and dance in vain?"

Kiresula nodded sadly: "If I knew, I would have done without. Apparently, we need to get to the hatch and climb up. Which would not be an issue if more than one person had that skill. We don't have rope, do we?"

Mayana shook her head, but reminded the others that she saw rope in one of the side passages. After a bit of a detour, she arrived at the hatch with a rope that seemed far too long for that particular issue and that was thankfully in a decent state. "You noticed that none of the things here had been nibbled on?" Mayana remarked.

"I mean, with how bad the vegetables are, I was not surprised… One probably tried and dropped dead… then the others were smart enough to avoid that stuff." Kiresula opined.

Kju nodded: "Or it's dungeon logic and the thing wants to provide edible food?"

Kiresula shook her head: "It's not. I mean, I guess if you're starving, but the vegetables will ruin you long-term."

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Kju raised an eyebrow: "Is that [Botanical Awareness] speaking, or any elemental stuff that the system calls an element and we wouldn't?"

Kiresula raised an eyebrow: "Are there such things in the system? But in my case, it's just [Botanical Awareness]. The root vegetables are not carrots and parsnips but related, mildly poisonous plants. At least if you eat too many."

Kju nodded: "I know that there are many elements… but not what they are. I have thrown several 100 Seren at the matter, because it has been bugging me, but haven't gotten any further. The best I found out is that to the system it is obvious what an element is, but since it is older than the war of liberation from the Island-and-Coast people, it no longer seems to be."

"This has been bugging you for a while, hasn't it?" asked Mayana.

"Ever since Kiresula has gained her secondary class." Kju admitted. "I found out a few things she can gain from level ups, but there is next to no explanation… so I didn't for example know what [Bubble] did and thought this related to water breathing… So yeah, I wanted to understand what to expect from your class."

"I see. I am sorry for confusing you." Kiresula felt bad about this even though she knew there was no reason for it.

That was when they reached the hatch near the wall and Kiresula took the rope and clambered up, her improved climbing assisting her footing and indicating handholds. Getting up there was not difficult at all for her. When she was up there, she gave the place a few glances. The place was a kitchen, except that everything in there seemed a bit off in a way she could not specify. To her great pleasure, her elemental awareness caught up to this place as soon as she climbed into it. She quickly tied the rope to the hook above the fireplace for the cauldron and then helped Mayana and Kju to climb up. She was at 50 Seren of magic and thus could not help them any further by magical means, so she just lended a hand.

As everyone made it upwards, she looked around: This place had the trappings of a kitchen: the fireplace, the shelves of ingredients, the racks of spices, the implements, the scales, the weights, the various knives, it all kinda seemed to belong. And yet, she had a bad feeling about something here. It didn't surprise her that after letting the rats into this place, some of the ingredients looked nibbled. These looked mostly edible, her skills didn't warn her of detrimental effects. The various jars with powders however didn't register in it, probably as the matter had been grated, preserved and otherwise changed too much from its original state, so she had no idea what they were.

She listened for the noises of the building and heard the rustling, the howling of the wind, the creaking of the roof, dripping of water and other noises. She opened the door into a hallway that was dark even in the light of noon. She saw several doors to both sides and investigated, with the group following.

The first door led to a sleeping chamber similar to their rest area. However, she noticed that there were secret compartments in the bed frame. A quick check revealed a blade, a vial with an unknown substance and a notebook with hasty scribbles in a foreign alphabet. As she touched the documents, the ink shifted into her language. She was still barely able to read it as the writing was not careful but seemed like someone with the worst handwriting ever had penned it. Still, she was able to read things and what she read disturbed her. The owner of this diary, whose rune was never translated, had written about how the world had wronged them, but all the wrongs seemed petty and barely even worth mentioning. This was not the opinion of the writer of this document and there were elaborate revenge plans that the writer concocted. For most of them, she hoped that the dungeon just mistranslated. If not, many of them ended in death or disability of people who slighted the writer by not greeting them, by rejecting their romantic advances, by selling them turnips of bad quality, by trying to price gouge them, by demanding payment for work upfront, by not coming to their party and by many other minor means.

"This person has a really gruesome imagination. At least I hope it is imagination." Kiresula pointed out how he talked about sneaking a dangerous poison onto the person's mail via his pet rats in order to kill that person's favourite servant, who she was implied to have a relationship with. What was the crime that required to react in such a cruel manner? She had told him that she was holding a party. As one of the last people. Worse than the punishments that random strangers suffered was the constant abuse that he documented about his daughter. Until he used a long ritual using magic, potions, spells and plants to turn her into a giant rat for being an utter disappointment of a daughter. The boss rat.

Kiresula didn't want to read anymore. She wanted to take a long bath as she felt filthy just reading this, but in this dungeon, she didn't dare.

While taking a momentary break from reading, she had gone with the others into the library, a place illuminated by strange, black candles which burned with an eerie, green light. The tomes here were about poisons, disease, death and decay. Kiresula wasn't sure if she even wanted to know. She was not above using poison but she didn't want to become… that. Whatever the owner of this place had become. The group checked the books and shuddered. They positively didn't want to fight this person. They however realised that they had to.

There were a few other rooms which all seemed to be sinister. The wardrobe contained nothing but black clothes. Many of the clothes allowed to hide daggers on the body of the wearer. The washroom had enchantments that Mayana refused to even go near and so no one else dared. When the group proceeded down the hallway, she stopped them: She noticed a hole behind a carpet of the wall. As she approached, she noticed a movement and then realised that there were the rats hiding behind the wall carpet. "Aikanu?" Kiresula whispered.

The biggest rat nodded.

"This is your father, we are fighting?" Kiresula asked.

There was a nod from the rat again.

"Do you know any weakness of him?" Kju asked.

The rat pawed at the ground.

Mayana asked: "You cannot speak, you mean?"

The rat nodded again.

Mayana asked: "Can you write?"

The rat shook her head.

Kiresula pointed to the bedroom: "Let's strategize together! Then we attack him as a group, okay? I feel that we are all rather unprepared for a fight against this guy."