Astrid had no idea how long they rested for, as she had lost all sense of time in the dungeon. She shared the food she had brought and recovered all her stats back to full capacity, yet the break didn’t end. She overheard Kelan tell Walter that he was suffering from mana fatigue, and it would take him a long time to recover.

Astrid knew that mana fatigue happened when mana was drained repeatedly without allowing time to fully recover in between. It could also happen to health, stamina, focus, or spirit and it slowed recovery to almost nothing unless a healer helped. The condition also left normal potions useless.

“So, you must be Astrid’s sister, Sigrid,” Ina said. “I don’t think we have met.”

Astrid, of course, knew who this was, but Ina was probably right that she hadn’t met this persona, so she played along with the introduction.

“Nice to meet you,” Astrid said.

“You’re a lot like your sister,” the woman said. “Where is she anyway?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since you guys left. I thought she might have followed you, but..." She trailed off, hoping that the topic would be dropped.

Finally, Walter called that it was time for them to continue.

“Once we enter, we’ll all stay by the entrance until we know what’s going on in the room,” he said. “Sigrid, you’ll scan the room for traps. The rest of you be on guard. If anything moves, put up a shield.”

They entered the room, and Astrid got to work scanning the room immediately. There were three boxes in the middle, each with a big padlock. On the first box it was red, on the second it was blue, and on the third it was yellow. However, she saw no keyholes on the locks.

She looked around the room some more. The door that they had to get open to continue through the dungeon had a complicated locking mechanism. Astrid was sure they would need the stuff in the boxes to get it open.

As she continued scanning the room for hidden dangers, one thing became clear. There were no traps they could trigger. The damage had already been done the second they entered the room.

“So, there are no traps inside the room,” Astrid explained, trying to stay calm. “But we have activated something. I’m still not sure what will happen, so we have to find our way out quickly.”

They had only made it a few steps into the room when the first monsters appeared. Three large, colorful slugs. One red, one yellow, and one blue. They got to fighting and quickly slayed the tree slugs, as they were some of the weakest monsters that existed. But about thirty seconds after the last slug had been killed, three new appeared.

“I think we have to get the boxes opened.” Walter said. “Does anyone have any idea how?”

Astrid couldn’t think of anything to try that didn’t rely on deceptive abilities which she couldn’t use in front of the others.

No one else came up with any ideas, so Walter assigned Ina and Kelan to the puzzle and the rest of them to fight monsters.

Astrid threw herself into the fighting, and once again it didn’t take long to kill the slugs. However, unlike last time, these slugs weren’t replaced by three new ones. Seconds after the fight had ended, six slugs crawled out of the wall. Two of each color.

“Any progress on the boxes?” Walter shouted.

“Not yet,” Ina shouted back. “we’re working on it.”

“Work faster.”

Astrid and the team got back to fighting the monsters, but the slugs now outnumbered them. If this continued, they would soon be overrun.

“Let’s try not to kill the monsters. Every time we do more, just more appears.” Walter ordered. “Instead, we’ll focus on keeping them away from the boxes while Ina and Kelan work.”

It became obvious a minute later that that plan wasn’t going to work. Even though they hadn’t killed any of the slugs in the room, six more decided to appear from the walls, joining the others.

“New plan,” Walter said. “Slay the stupid monsters as fast as you can.”

Astrid cast a water blast at the fire slug, killing it, and then cast her shield to avoid getting hit by a lightning bolt a yellow slug sent after her. She fought along with the others for a while, and they only just managed to kill the slugs before more appeared, this time nine.

“Any progress with the boxes?” Walter asked, unable to conceal his worry any longer.

“Not yet,” came the response.

Astrid and the other fighters were no longer able to keep all the monsters occupied simultaneously, so the slugs began to attack the shield Kelan had set up around the boxes. Astrid tried to stop it as much as possible, but as she also had to keep herself safe, it was a lost cause.

Another round of monsters appeared, and this time there were twelve. The new slugs joined the ones remaining from the previous set and fired a continuous barrage of attacks at the fighters and the shield surrounding the boxes.

The fight felt like it lasted forever, although it could only have been a few minutes. The fighting formation Walter had tried to keep them in fell apart as the monsters kept coming. Astrid ran out of mana and got separated from the others as a couple of the slugs pressed her to retreat towards the corner of the room.

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Seeing no other option, she swung her staff at the nearest slug. The impact sent it flying into the wall. She swung at the other slug, and this one too collided with the wall. However, the first had already recovered and was preparing to fire an electric blast at her. With as much force as she could muster, she brought her staff down onto the slug’s head, crushing it against the floor.

The audible crack that ensued first confused Astrid. She had not thought the slug had any bones to break, but then she noticed her staff. The top had broken off. Before she could figure out what to do about it. Pain radiated from her right ankle. She looked down and saw that the other slug had just bitten her. Before it could do it again, she stabbed it with the broken end of her staff, impaling it. Quickly she retrieved her dagger from her inventory and finished off the slug off.

Scanning her surroundings for more threats, she noticed all the other slugs were concentrated at the other end of the room where the others still fought. Kelan had left his protective barrier and joined the fight at some point, leaving Ina to study the boxes on her own. He would only have done so if someone needed healing. Since all the others were engaged in fights, he must have succeeded. He should have returned to safety, but the number of monsters in the room blocked his path. As he had no fighting skills, he was completely dependent on the others to protect him.

Astrid rushed back to the fight with her dagger raised. She managed to backstab several slugs, slaying them instantly before the slow creatures noticed she had rejoined the fight.

Slowly but surely, they managed to reduce the number of slugs in the room. Astrid concentrated mostly on her own fights. Her speed allowed her to easily get close enough to deliver her attacks with her small blade and get away again before the monster could counter. At close range, the only attack she had to worry about was bites. However, with so many in the room, she couldn’t stay close to all of them simultaneously. She used that to her advantage. When a monster fired a blast in her direction, she would dodge out of the way, ensuring the attack would hit a monster instead of her.

Occasionally she caught a glimpse of how the others were faring. Villads was fighting next to Walter, and Ina was still frantically working on the boxes. Brigitta and Filip stayed near Kelan as their lack of experience required more frequent healing.

A new wave of slugs arrived, and Astrid focused on slaying as many of those as she could before she lost the element of surprise.

They had almost managed to clear the room of monsters when the fight took a turn for the worse. A blast soared through the air, striking Kelan in the chest, knocking him to the ground. He didn’t get back up. Astrid couldn’t believe Kelan was downed by a single attack. He was by far the one with the highest levels out of all of them. If she remembered correctly, he was level five in healing. Then again, if he had never trained his health or applied a level-up bonus to it, then it would be no stronger than the ten points everyone started out with.

The shield that had protected Ina while she worked on the boxes collapsed seconds after Kelan had been knocked out. She quickly noticed what had happened, drew her sword, and joined the fight.

Astrid tried to get to Kelan as she had the healing potions, but the path was blocked by monsters. With her current knife-fighting skill, her dagger wasn’t much use unless she could use her backstab technique, so she switched weapons to her staff. Not the training staff she had broken earlier but the one she had gotten from the god of deception. With it she bashed the slugs blocking her path away and fired a few spells to aid Brigitta and Filip in keeping the slugs from biting into Kelan’s flesh.

As soon as Astrid reached them, she knelt down beside Kelan, who let out a pained groan. Relief flooded through Astrid. At least he was alive.

“Drink this,” she said, tipping the contents of a potion into his mouth. She helped him up into a seated position, willing him to recover faster.

“Can you make a new barrier?” Astrid asked.

“No, I don’t have any mana left. I’m sorry.” He lay back down and closed his eyes.

This was bad. At any moment now, more monsters could arrive, and they couldn’t focus on solving the puzzle when all of them had to fight. They needed a break to recover and plan what to do, but for that to happen, they needed a barrier.

Astrid knew what she had to do. There were no other options left. With her staff, she quickly drew a large circle around the place where Kelan lay while chanting the necessary words. She was painfully aware of Brigitta’s and Filip’s stares, but this had to be done. Besides, they were her friends, so surely, they would understand.

She finished the protective barrier just as Walter killed the last monster in the room with a powerful wide area attack Astrid hadn’t seen before. Still, more were due to appear any second now.

“Hurry in here before more arrives,” Astrid shouted. The others sprinted towards her and entered the barrier.

Just as the last person entered, more slugs crawled from the walls. Astrid had lost count of how many each new wave produced. The slugs moved around slowly but didn’t attack them. They didn’t even seem to notice they were here. Astrid let out a sigh of relief. It had worked. They were safe. At least for now.

“What’s going on here?” Walter asked, confused. “This isn’t Kelan’s barrier. Where did it come from?”

Astrid's barrier was nowhere near as strong as Kelan’s and Walter's, along with everyone else who had a magic skill above level one, could tell.

“Sigrid made it,” Brigitta said.

“Why didn’t you mention you could make these earlier?” Walter said.

“I don’t know,” Astrid mumbled. “I haven’t really done it before now.” At the moment she couldn’t remember if that was the truth or another lie.

“Why aren’t the monsters attacking us? Ina asked. “They would attack Kelan’s barrier all the time.”

“I don’t think they can see us in here,” Kelan answered, having recovered enough to sit up on his own. He gave Astrid an intense look that made her feel like he could see right through all her secrets and lies.

He knows, Astrid thought. He’s going to tell the others.

However, he didn’t say another word even though it looked like he wanted to.

Even though Astrid didn’t know why she was grateful he kept quiet. Now she just had to get the others to focus on something other than her.

“We still have to find a way out of here,” she said. “More monsters will arrive soon. In a few minutes the entire room will be filled.”

“Which god?” Villads asked, studying Astrid.

“What?

“Which god are you following?”

“We can talk about this later. Right now, we must focus on getting out of here,” Walter said, but the others didn’t listen.

“Tell us who it is.”

Astrid couldn’t get a word out. Part of her was trying to find a believable story that would keep her secret safe, but another part was tired of all the lies and just wanted to come clean. In the end she said nothing. However, her silence spoke volumes.

Astrid looked down but could feel the other stare at her as they tried to figure out which god she was a follower of.

She was only partially aware of her friends talking to each other, trying to come up with an answer.

Walter and Ina tried in vain to break up the discussion so they could focus on getting out of this room. Kelan had lain back down to rest, likely still suffering from mana fatigue.

Astrid felt like she should say something but still couldn’t get her voice to work.

“She grew up on a farm so it could be the goddess of nature. Natural camouflage could explain why the monsters can’t see us through the barrier,” Brigitta said.

“If it was the goddess of nature she would have told us a long time ago.” Filip countered. “Theres only one explanation for why she has kept it hidden.”

“We can’t make that accusation without proof,” Brigitta hissed.

“I’ll just ask her directly,” Villads said turning towards Astrid.

She looked up at him. His expression was uncertain, and he spoke slowly.

“Are you a follower of deception?”