James shook violently as he tried to roll and douse the fire that no longer was there. Naomi grabbed his shoulder and he stopped and opened his eyes.
“James. Calm down. Are you ok?”
James’s heartbeat slowed in response to the familiar situation around him. James looked over his arm and found the familiar mark. He rolled up his sleeve and closed his eyes.
‘I’m not dealing with this right now. I don’t want to deal with this floor or the next ones right now. It was fun for a bit, but I don’t want or need another painful death anytime soon. I wasn’t even alive for two hours before dying. I’m just lying to myself if I think we all can safely leave this prison. It has been 17, 18 hours since we entered the dungeon. If we were going to be rescued it would have happened already. Though that doesn’t take into account whether this time loop resets the whole world or just within the dungeon. Could that mean there is a parallel team going through this starting from one of the earlier floors because they entered 12 hours after us? Augh. I know nothing about this time loop, and it is not like the dungeon is going to say anything.’
“James. James!”
He was broken from his internal mopping by Wes. James looked up to see a look of concern on the kid’s face.
‘I should probably say something shouldn’t I?’
“We should catch up to Derek and Ian, shouldn’t we? I’ll be fine. Just give me a minute.”
James got himself up and strapped his bag to his back. He found himself repeating the same steps and cutting down the meandering skeletons that got too close. James didn’t really care what the others thought.
‘It is not like they will remember anyway.’
James kicked one of the skulls that dotted the dying landscape. It shattered into a thousand pieces and then he destroyed another. The feeling of joy from completing a dungeon floor was gone. Sucked from him as the spirits of these old bodies had.
‘The worst part is having to explain everything all over again. Why try when there is no meaningful change I can inflict before everything resets? They will just stay the same while I. Well, I don’t know what will happen to me. Have more mental breakdowns perhaps.’
James laughed at himself at those thoughts and slowed his pace as he saw them approach the boss area. His movements were simple and lethargic. A single shot removed the head of the skeletal knight. James kept walking towards the exit portal which was slowly flickering to life.
“As you can see there is only a single exit portal. You can thank Ian partially for that and the dungeon for whatever amount you think constitutes the rest. We’ve got more floors to clear, and we can accomplish little while staying here.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Ian, “This is in no way my fault. Are you sure it won’t let us out? I mean. What proof do you have of this ridiculous claim?”
“Just look at the portal and follow me. I promise you that I want nothing more than to be rid of you, but I don’t think that will happen soon. You have one path forward just like me and that is through this portal then the next and then the next and so on until I either figure out what is going on or the dungeon graciously lets us out.”
Their protests were deadened by the portal’s power as he stepped into the minotaur maze. James turned and waited for them to join him. Surprisingly Wes was the first through the portal followed by Ian and then Anna and Derek.
“I know the way to the end. If you would follow me, please. I will do my best to lead us around the harder areas of the maze and maybe even let you handle a minotaur or two on your own.”
“You have left off a lot of unanswered questions such as how far we will be going. And how will we handle the lower floors?” said Anna.
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“That is part of the adventure and mystery. We will find out together as long as we stick together. I will keep you all relatively safe.” ‘But I definitely will not be.’ “Some bumps and bruises are to be expected. This is a dungeon after all.”
“But what about the stronger monsters? I’ve heard some are as tall as mountains,” asked Wes.
“No way you believe that crap. Those fairy tales are for children who can’t sleep at night. Monsters of those sizes only appear once in a hundred years and only outside the bounds of the dungeons. They could never be held captive in a dungeon. That would basically be a dungeon break waiting to happen,” said Ian.
“He’s got the general idea down and some details wrong too,” said James to Wes, “The dungeon won’t give you a challenge that can’t be overcome. Every trap it lays can be disarmed or avoided even if you did not realize it and every enemy can be killed.”
James’s tone changed towards the end as he thought about his own situation. He wished in his heart that the words he said could come true.
“I have seen you all face the monsters so far and you have all been acceptable if not good. Whether you can be better depends on your teamwork, talent, and the hard work you put into getting this done. Now let us stop wasting time and get this floor done. I know the way.”
James’s mind was focused solely on clearing the 18th floor as quickly as possible when he turned a corner to see three minotaurs instead of two.
“Damn! We have to get back.”
In his focus on the floor and its ins and outs he took a turn earlier than expected and was now faced with more minotaurs than expected. Two was pushing it for them and had only been made easy by his skill and the traps he had made in the case of the 19th floor and their spiders. The charging bulls wouldn’t stop running until they hit someone or something.
James pushed the novices back and prepared one of his specialty arrows. He didn’t like using them as they cost too much of his mana and energy. James released the arrow and it transformed into a net a foot before reaching the minotaur’s feet. The net attached itself to both sides of the wall for support and stayed there as the charging bulls stopped and ran into one another. James put away his bow seeing as he had little mana to work with anymore and switched to knives instead.
Following his lead, Derek stayed nearby and got in a free hit on the leading minotaur. The others stayed behind and waited as the hallway was too small for them. James repeated his knife strikes around the wound Derek opened up and pushed the minotaur back allowing Ian to step up as the net failed.
Ian made quick work of the dying minotaur and made sure to throw some attacks in the way of the other two. As Derek exhausted himself with a few more swings. He had used his sword to attack and defend against the minotaurs even using his body occasionally until Wes took his place. Wes held up his shield and blocked the path of the minotaurs. His shield rattled with every blow taken. The old shield stood up to the abuse however and his skills kept it intact.
James moved back to Naomi and began firing occasional shots alongside her when an opening presented itself. With the help of Wes blocking the way of the minotaurs, they could not rampage and cause damage easily. Ian threw more spells at the minotaurs, and the fire and smoke caught up with them soon causing the remaining two monsters to collapse into motes of mana.
“What was that?” asked Ian, “I thought you knew the way.”
“I do know the way. What is your problem?”
“You said that we will have to go further into the dungeon which I will believe for now, but you aren’t answering our questions. Not really. And now you are tripping up when you should be our guide and know this place. We will waste half a potion healing Derek’s injuries. How far do you expect us to go before we run out of resources or die before we can even get to that point?”
James was conflicted. He wasn’t sure how to handle explaining the time loop to the others. It wasn’t like he could produce any evidence for it at the moment and for all of the one and a half floors he had traversed this time around he hadn’t done anything extraordinary.
‘Maybe if I spend a few loops improving my skills and test things out. I could waste some time wandering the floors until they collapse and force me to face the boss of the floor, die or teleport to the next one.’
It had been a thought he had floating around his head but hadn’t immediately considered it because he still knew too little about how the loops operated and it didn’t help that to reset the loop was going to be painful if done with the wrong approach.
“I know I can reach the 25th floor. It has been the one I have stopped at the most and know extensively. It won’t be easy to get to, but I have seen great teams do so after one year of training. We will have to be careful but if I am actively helping it should not be a problem,” James answered while making his decision.
‘The 25th floor will be my turning point. With enough tries, I can get there. To them, I can hold out each time the idea that we can leave. It will require tweaking each time. Either it will come true, or I can explain to them whatever I have learned about the time loop when the time comes.’