The resting area beyond the first floor’s exit was a true marvel. The black stone ceiling sparkled with thousands of tiny crystal lights, arranged in constellations and intricate astrological patterns. Doors led to a restroom, a shower room where warm water rained constantly from above, and a reclining bath filled with gently bubbling, heated water.

After a full night’s sleep to heal and restore their reserves, the team reluctantly left the comfortable sanctuary the dungeon had provided.

The heavy stone door groaned as it closed behind them, sealing off the first floor and casting the room in dim light from glowing potions housed in glass containers haphazardly mounted along walls and ceiling. Selvara’s fluttering wings cast eerie shadows that danced across the uneven floor.

They had entered a sprawling alchemical workshop scaled up to monstrous proportions. The floor was a chaotic patchwork of uneven stone plates, and strange shadows loomed among cluttered workstations, thick pipes, and massive vats. Trails of dust and fumes floated through the air, carrying acrid odors that stung their nostrils.

Every step felt perilous. Cracks in the stone emitted faint vapor trails, some igniting in sudden bursts of flame. Selvara’s Alchemy skill, granted by her Familiar class, buzzed with warnings as her eyes took in the alchemical setups crowding each desk and shelf. Brewing vats, glass beakers, and tangled tubes covered nearly every surface, with heating enchantments keeping long-necked bottles simmering as colorful liquids churned through elaborate glasswork.

“I’m no expert yet,” Selvara murmured, her eyes widening as she scanned the experiments, “but all this looks like it’s one wrong touch away from exploding. Let’s try not to touch anything.”

They moved cautiously, spacing out to reduce the chance of triggering any area-wide traps and getting hit all at once. The floor creaked beneath their weight, and Selvara flitted just above them, scanning for hidden glyphs or sigils that might unleash an explosion or summon enemies.

Halfway across the room, Weylan paused, casting a wary glance at the alchemical apparatus around them. “Are we sure we’re supposed to leave all this alone? What if it’s some kind of test? Like… maybe it’ll blow if we don’t, I don’t know, add dragon blood at the right moment?”

Skorr shrugged. As a duskgnome, his race was naturally skilled in alchemy, but he had only the most basic training. Which boiled down to: Don’t touch anything you don’t understand.

Selvara tilted her head, studying a particular setup. “You know… you might be right. That beaker’s labeled with the symbol for manticore claw dust. If the liquid next to it starts to boil, steam would flow through that tube… condense… and drip onto the dust.”

Her eyes widened as she darted down and deactivated the heating enchantment beneath the flask, then carefully moved the container aside. “If that had dripped onto the dust, it would have released some nasty poison gas. Anyone else here know alchemy?”

The group exchanged glances, each shaking their heads. Ulmenglanz coughed, her face pale.

Selvara darted over to her. “You don’t look well.”

Ulmenglanz coughed again, wincing. “I don’t feel well either. This room is… wrong. The floor, the light, even the air feels off.”

As Weylan examined a nearby floor plate, he cursed, dropping to his knees to inspect one of the floor plates nearby. “This one’s sitting higher than the others, and… hold on, there’s something different here.” He leaned close, hands carefully tracing the plate’s edges as he lay flat against the ground. “Thought so. There’s a wire running along the joints between these slabs.” He followed the wire to a nearby table piled with bottles filled with swirling, unlabeled liquids. “It’s connected to one of the table legs, which has been sawed through. If someone steps on the plate, the wire will yank out the table leg, sending everything here crashing down.”

He looked up at Selvara, brows raised. “Any idea what’d happen if all this stuff mixed?”

Selvara shrugged. “No clue, but I doubt it’d be pleasant.”

Skorr scanned the room, worry creasing his brow. “If this floor’s like a trap floor I once heard tales of, it’s a deathtrap from start to finish. Should we turn off the heating on all these experiments?”

Selvara flitted from experiment to experiment, careful not to disturb anything. “Not all of them. Some are only stable when heated. Turning off the heat could destabilize the mixture, and… I’d rather not find out.”

While Selvara stabilized the more volatile setups, Weylan led the group deeper into the labyrinthine lab. He bent low, using a light stone to examine the floor. “Watch your steps here… and here… I’d recommend climbing over this series of tables, but the third one looks like a trap. See those hinges? I’d bet it’ll fold up if someone steps on it.”

Ulmenglanz spoke in a raspy voice. “Can’t you disable the floor traps?”

Weylan grimaced. “I wasn’t trained for that. I could use wood wedges to block the wires, but there’s a trick to placing them without pulling or pushing the wire… and I don’t know it.”

A bubbling sound began to fill the room, growing louder by the second. Suddenly, a plume of steam erupted from a nearby kettle, filling the air with a spicy scent.

“Everyone, hold your breath!” Selvara called, darting over to the source. The steam was thickening fast, curling around them, and her Alchemy skill was screaming with urgency.

“That smells nice… a bit like pumpkin spice,” Trulda muttered, though her eyes watered as the air grew denser. “But I’m betting that’s not a good thing.”

“It’s not,” Selvara replied, scanning the ingredients scattered across the nearby table. “This isn’t just steam, it’s a setup for a Dead Air potion trap. If the concentration in the room gets high enough, it’ll trigger a reaction that makes the air unbreathable.”

The containers around the kettle were labeled for once, which she thought was a clue. She spotted a jar labeled: Dryroot Bark. “Dryroot acts as a neutralizing agent… yes, that’s it!” Selvara took a pinch of the bark and dropped it into the boiling kettle. Instantly, the pumpkin-scented steam began to thin, dispersing harmlessly.

The group sighed in relief as the air cleared. Weylan kept his gaze on the kettle, frowning. “Traps disguised as experiments. This whole floor is set to take us out one way or another.”

Selvara chuckled. “What did you expect? It’s a dungeon.”

He sighed. “Yeah. Even Malvorik tends to almost kill me on a weekly basis. I just think it’s a bit too unfair to kill any team that hasn’t got someone schooled in Alchemy.”

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Skorr harrumphed. “We’re lucky it took time for that trap to activate. Most teams would have one or more thief class members who would quickly deactivate all traps from entry to the next area, while his team could follow him much faster than when moving through active traps.” He held up his hands to stall Weylan’s protest. “Just saying it’s a fair challenge! I’m glad to have your trapfinding skills. We’d be dead thrice over without you.”

Weylan nodded: “I do need to learn how to disarm traps, not only avoid them.”

They continued through the area, even more cautious than before.

Skorr, squeezing past a trap trigger, brushed against the wall. A click sounded. He ducked just as a sickle-like blade whooshed out, clipping his helmet. Everyone stared as he shrugged. “Sometimes it pays to be short. That trap was aimed at an average human‘s neck height.”

Ahead, they saw an open doorway leading to the next area. Even more cautious, they neared it. Weylan was more kneeling than walking, while he checked every step for traps, sweat glistening on his brow. Selvara disarmed the last two experiments nearby, redirecting one glass tube to another container, the other by selecting one of the ingredients in the nearby containers and putting it into an almost boiling kettle.

The doorway loomed, just three steps high and wide. Beyond, the lab continued, even more cluttered, the ceiling higher and the shadows deeper. Trulda frowned at the equipment towering around them, reminding her more of an modern industrial plant than a medieval workshop.

Weylan cursed. “There’s probably another time limit hidden in these experiments. We’ll need to move faster.”

Ulmenglanz coughed, her voice hoarse. “I could grow roots to disable an area, triggering every trap at once.”

Weylan shook his head. “Let’s call that plan B. We don’t know what reaction will be triggered here. If there are gas bombs or wide-area fire traps, we’re done.”

Skorr looked troubled. “I remember stories of dungeons like that. You get an area to get used to the floors theme, either without traps or enemies. As you enter the next area, you get attacked by both. Weylan, you concentrate on the floor traps and tripwires. Ulmenglanz and I will keep a lookout for enemies. There hasn’t even been a rat until now. Selvara, stabilize the experiments. If there was a time limit here, there probably will be another here. So, we move as fast as we safely can until we can see the floor’s exit. Be prepared for everything!”

They crossed the threshold, and the lights in the dungeon flashed once.

Weylan got on his knees and checked the floor. He frantically waved around his light stone, then stopped. This was too slow. The uneven plates could hide triggers and if the dungeon used the same mechanics as in the first area, the mechanic was hidden under the stone plates. He could look for wires and movable plates like before, but that took much too long. And his team had to follow his instructions to cross the traps without triggering them. If they were attacked, they’d be unable to move freely. His eyes followed the shadow cast by his light. Carefully, he placed his hand just above the floor and concentrated on the shadow cast by it. On the first dungeon floor, he’d been able to feel the area his shadow had touched when investigating the pillars. How had he done that? He let some of his mana trickle into the shadow and concentrated. It took a few heartbeats, then he could feel the coldness and roughness of the stone. He moved his shadow above the cracks between two plates and pushed a bit more mana into it. Then even more, until he sensed shadows beneath the plates. Ignoring his teammates’ questions, he straightened.

“Selvara, get me something to mark the traps. White paint, glowing goo, anything.”

She complied and returned with a small beaker of sticky yellow and faintly glowing substance. “Sunbees’ honey should be harmless unless you let it on your skin too long. Then you’d get something like sunburn below it.”

He snatched a stirring rod from a nearby table and dabbed it into the honey. He concentrated on the shadows below and between the stone. There it was! Wires, metal contraptions, and in one place a giant hole leading downward toward a surface full of pointy objects. He quickly marked the trap triggers and instructed his team to avoid the pitfall. His mana reserves slowly fell, but he estimated he could keep this up until the end of the area. And he had gotten a small mana potion from the last floor’s cache. They could do it!

Selvara inspected a nearby wall covered in valves and levers, each clearly labeled but without any explanation of the results. As she searched the papers a nearby desk for clues, she felt a sharp sting in her back. Whirling, she saw something slightly bigger than herself vanish among the tubes on the ceiling. “Enemies above! Blowpipes! They…” Her wings slowed, and the tabletop seemed to move upwards to catch her. She tried to make sense of what was happening, then she sank into an involuntary yawn, curling up on the wooden surface.

Ulmenglanz dashed over, heedless of traps. A dozen darts hit her from the side when she stepped on a trigger plate. She paused and plucked one out to inspect it. Then she grinned. “Sleeping poison. That doesn’t work on dryads, even if those darts manage to pierce my skin.” She continued to the sleeping fairy and carefully lifted her up.

Golden light flared and Selvara awoke with a start. “What in the how!? What are you doing in my sleeping chamber… Wait, where am… Oh, you got to be kidding me! They got me with sleeping poison?” She saw the darts still sticking out of the dryad’s body. “The dungeon seems to aim for a technical victory. If all delvers fall asleep, they lose and get teleported outside. After the dungeon removed all of their equipment, revenants fear that more than death.”

Her complaint was cut short as three dark-furred, winged apes emerged from a large kettle. Ulmenglanz turned, unimpressed. “More darts? Go ahead, try me.”

Selvara identified them.

Minion-Ape. Alchemist class.

Dungeon Monster, Level 6.

“That’s the race the dungeon chose to get a class for? Well, Trevisanus probably had few options at the point and their body is suitable for alchemist’s work…” she commented, watching the apes take flight.

Skorr and Weylan had hurried over to help against the potential attack. Weylan checked for traps in the area and warned everyone to keep clear of one side of a worktable.

Skorr ignored the three obvious monsters and scanned the ceiling and surrounding area for other attackers. For him, it was an obvious distraction. And he was right. Another Minion-Ape stealthily climbed out of a hidden door at the ceiling. The duskgnome cursed the fact he didn’t have any ranged weapon at hand. He grabbed a brass bottle and flung it, missing as the ape dodged and retaliated with a marble-sized glass bomb. It struck Ulmenglanz, erupting in green-blue flames. She staggered, arms flailing.

Chaos erupted as the three Minion-Apes stopped their distraction mode and scattered in all directions, then pulled out blowguns and opened fire on everyone but the dryad.

Weylan’s mind raced, and then he proclaimed with boisterous intonation: “Hide behind me since I’m also immune to sleeping poison. And protect the dryad’s arms, where she’s vulnerable to poison!” Then he pulled out a leather sling, put in a pebble, and started swinging.

Selvara raised an eyebrow at his bold claim of immunity but was too busy evading more poisoned darts to comment.

Trulda blocked a dart with her club and hurled a discarded piece of pipe at the Minion-Ape, missing it. “We really need more ranged weapons.”

More Minion-Apes appeared from hiding and started using their blowguns, concentrating on Skorr, Trulda, and Ulmenglanz’s arms. They’d clearly understood what Weylan had said, which he didn’t comment on but couldn’t suppress a smirk. His slingshot at a dungeon monster missed and ricocheted down the lab.

Skorr looked around. “Don’t forget we’re on a timer here. I can’t even see the end of this area. We have to get rid of these pests as fast as possible. Kill them all!”

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Weylan extended his sword staff to its full length and in one smooth motion impaled one of the creatures mid-flight. It vanished in sparkles, leaving behind a silver coin, which he caught with a grin. “Hey, those things give loot!”

Skorr jumped on a table, sprang up, and swung his short sword at another, slicing off one of his wings. The wailing creature fell to the floor. Skorr jumped down and crushed it with his thick leather boots. He picked up the appearing coin and looked at it. “They’re no monster hearts, just normal silver coins. You can just take them. Better check if there’s a monster coin among them before we leave the floor. We don’t want to anger the dungeon heart.”

Ulmenglanz let her quarterstaff glide through one hand, pushing it with the other to barely reach another monster. The hit rammed it against the ceiling and it dropped down unconscious. Her triumph was short-lived, as the tiny alchemical bombs on his belt exploded on impact, bathing the area in blue and green flames.

Trulda hurled random objects at the flying monsters. Some hit running experiments, and some damaged pipes that started to leak fumes. She wasn’t even in a rage; she was just angry.

A faint clockwork whirr filled the room and Selvara’s eyes narrowed in recognition. Their time limit was already at an end.