James opened his eyes to see Naomi looking at him. He looked around his eyes darting back and forth. He was still alive but that didn’t make any sense, though.
“Are you ok? You collapsed back there,” she asked.
James sat up realizing that his mind was wandering, and he should have said something. He put a hand on his injured shoulder. He felt it and his arm was fine. Back to normal. After sitting up he was able to look around and he recognized the floor. He was on floor 17 somewhere he had left about an hour ago.
‘It shouldn’t be possible. I’m back here and I’m alive. The others are alive as well. The dungeon is still acting strange but now in a new way. Like a prison to be honest. I need to try and get out again. I am lucky to get to try again. I need to-‘
“James?”
“Sorry. I think I have a leftover headache. I suppose Ian has already left.”
“He ran off to fight the skeletons and ‘prove himself good enough’ about a minute ago when you first knocked yourself out. We should be able to catch up to them I know what way they went.”
“We can catch up with them just fine. Let’s start with a jog and I can deal with the enemies we come across.”
James stood up and started taking the familiar steps through the 17th floor. Naomi and Wes took up spots behind him and followed.
‘I’m back in time by some miracle of events. No one else seems to have been affected by this phenomenon but I can’t know that for sure yet. For now, I need to use this event as a chance to do things again but differently this time. That also means that everything will be the same. The maze and this floor should work out the same. Better even given that I now know the fastest way through every time. The difficult part will be dealing with the 19th floor and then future challenges, but my planning should solve that.’
James's thoughts went through possible actions he could take once he reached the 19th floor. He had one variable he could change in this dungeon to make his journey successful, and that variable was the actions he took from here on out.
Settling into a course of action James took out skeletons while going into a version of the speeches he had spoken what felt like only an hour ago. The familiar moves helped his nerves and keep his focus centered on his planned course of action.
When James got to the exit portal he was met with a similar scene. Ian and Derek were intensely focused on fighting the boss. This time he decided to walk down to the portal instead of killing the boss outright.
“Help them finish it off,” James said.
Wes took up a spot in front of the skeletal knight and Derek was able to step back for a moment after chopping off the knight’s arm. The fight followed in a similar matter a minute later. Plenty of time for James to plan a better way of disciplining his misbehaving novices.
“Was it really necessary for you to run off so quickly? The exit gate isn’t going anywhere.”
“I want to get to the drake. I can kill it. I know I can. I mean me and Derek almost killed off the boss before you got here.”
“Well, that isn’t likely to happen again. ‘I know it likely won’t because I’ve seen how we do on the next two floors.’ We need to work as a team, and you have not shown that you can do much of that yet. And Derek doesn’t go running off with him again. It is dumb to go into a dungeon with less than five people. It is even dumber to try and do it with two. Now lucky for the two of you. ‘Unlucky for me.’ We have to go to the next floor and continue onward.”
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James pointed to the exit portals and only one lit up. And moving forward only one would even be generated by the dungeon.
“It is our only choice. Maybe you will learn some of the mysterious things called teamwork along the way.”
The journey through the 18th floor was fairly quick and painless. Instead of a 45-minute journey of wandering and searching for missing teammates while looking for the boss and exit, it was instead much closer to 25 minutes before they hit the boss.
Using James’s memory of the correct exit he was able to direct them easily through the maze and did so without hitting any of the three-man groups of minotaurs. As he had seen before the novices assaulted the minotaurs with a bit of his help. The slaughter also went much faster this time around with the assistance of all party members.
James was relieved as well that he hadn’t needed to rely on any of his limited resources yet. Those should be used against bosses or hordes. As James watched for the eventual death of the boss he occasionally shot off arrows forcing the boss to block or move into less optimal situations. He was most worried about Wes because of how he died. His shield was on a timer, and he needed to find a way to deal with it soon. The shield would likely not be able to stand against one more boss without falling apart again. Even assuming he could survive the destruction of his shield his power would drop. All his abilities required a shield and if they wanted to continue through the dungeon his participation was needed.
‘I will likely need to return to the 17th floor again for a new shield for Wes. His shield might be able to survive for a while longer, but it needs to be switched out. I should have grabbed it this time, but I suspect that I will have to die again before this dungeon delve is all over.’
James refocused on the boss in front of them. Despite him slowing his help in the last minutes the minotaur fell at a similar time as the other minotaurs.
‘We are lucky there hasn't been any other variant or more magical enemies to deal with. They are less consistent compared to other enemies in how to deal with them. The demon will be interesting.’
The minotaur’s body fell, and the unlit portal changed to glow blue once more. The novices looked to the single portal and its opening and James stopped them this time.
“Listen up! As you may have noticed the dungeon has changed slightly. We only have one path through the dungeon and can’t exit it right away. This is an unfortunate circumstance because this could have been avoided if we left on the floor we were supposed to,” James said leaving some words unsaid, “I don’t know what these changes mean exactly for us but for now, we are forced to continue downwards. I will help you as much as I can moving forward because I don’t think we can survive otherwise. We will take each floor one at a time and do so slowly. Trying to do more will risk death.”
“Will we be able to get out of here?” Wes asked.
“Maybe if we are careful and a lot smarter.”
“We’ve never even tried those endurance challenges and more in a training setting let alone in a dungeon. How are we supposed to go deeper into the dungeon without it? We’ve got less than one year in the field. When did you beat this dungeon first?” asked Naomi.
Naomi’s last question hit at the core of the issue that James was trying to avoid in his mind. He didn’t know how far he would have to go and had tried not to think about how many times this loop could be reset.
“I was brought into this dungeon to completion 15 years ago and since then I have done it again three more times. I honestly hope we don’t have to go quite that far before we leave. The 20th floor has a safe zone at the end and hopefully an exit. As for the training, I will help you and show you the tricks I can to survive. I can’t promise anything except that I will do my best to get you all through this.”
“Is that all we can do?” Ian spoke up, “It is all you can promise. You’ll try and keep us alive until we can get lucky and get out of here. What you’ve said is just niceties and stuff to make us feel better. You’d better hope we can get out of here after the 25th floor. Maybe it is my lucky day. I will get to go all the way to the drake and kill it and you can’t do anything to stop me. Even the dungeon believes in my righteous goal.”
James decided to be silent to that last comment and the others. He knew the situation wasn’t great and there was little he could do at the moment. Their group stepped through the portal with somber feelings. James felt in the end that what he had to say was needed but he wondered how he had said it could have been done better. Those thoughts were pushed back to when he had to deal with this floor again. For now, he had spiders to deal with and a plan to implement.