Team NPCS had their strategy down by now. They moved fast, weaving through the chaotic workshop as explosions and choking gas filled the air. Weylan had finally deduced a pattern in the traps, so they avoided what hazards they could while enduring the rising heat and worsening air quality of the dungeon.
Finally, the end of the floor came into view. A wide-open chamber with a seamless, smooth floor. At its center loomed a massive mound of discarded alchemical equipment: warped cauldrons, bent pipes, dented kettles, and shattered glassware. The pile was an eerie mix of bronze and copper, glinting faintly in the dim light. On the far side stood a polished bronze exit door, its surface pristine compared to the surrounding chaos. Beside it, a lone pedestal jutted up, ominously empty.
Selvara hovered in place, arms crossed. “We’ll need to place something on that pedestal to open the door. Likely the floor boss’s key item.”
Weylan crouched low, inspecting the ground. His shadow magic stretched across the floor, revealing no immediate traps. He frowned. “The boss is surely hiding inside that mound of garbage. Or the whole junk will unite into a giant golem monster!”
Skorr shook his head. “I’d expect a collector golem at floor four or five. That’s much too powerful for a second floor.”
Weylan stared. “There really are such monsters?”
Ulmenglanz coughed and laughed. “Of course. It’s a common enough boss monster for high level dungeons.”
Selvara nodded. “They are endlessly variable and customizable. You can give them a thematic appearance and abilities. If there was one here, it’d probably spew poisonous steam and hurl acid bombs.”
They crossed into the free area in front of the mound. As they reached half way to the mound, a screech filled the air, followed by the sound of wings. A dozen Minion-Apes swooped down from the shadows and landed, taking positions around the perimeter. Each carried an instrument. A drum, a flute, a horn, and some even stringed instruments.
The team froze, unsure of what to expect as the apes began playing a raucous, battle-ready melody.
Ulmenglanz’s face darkened. “Bardic magic,” she muttered.
The junk pile shifted with a groan of metal.
Weylan tensed, weapon drawn. “Here comes the boss. Get ready!”
The pile shuddered as a golden-furred Minion-Ape emerged, not much bigger than the others. He was crowned with a tiny golden diadem. Without flapping his wings, he rose into the air, glowing energy coiling around him like smoke.
“Chymorak” Minion-Ape Arcane Alchemist
Dungeon Boss Monster (Second Floor), Level 11
“Level eleven,” Skorr growled. “That’s Master tier, higher than ours. Our attacks will deal less damage, and his will hit harder. The power jump from one tier to the next is far greater than a simple level increase, much more than the difference from the last boss would suggest. And watch those musicians. They’re not just decoration. Right now, they’re playing his theme song, but there’s nothing stopping them from attacking us all at once.”
Chymorak looked at them with golden glowing eyes. At a commanding gesture, a ring of runes appeared surrounding the edge of the open area. A shimmering haze raced up and formed a dome of force. The boss grinned, then clapped his hands once. The mound below him exploded, scattering scrap metal and glass throughout the room. The surprised delvers tried to dodge. Weylan moved like water and barely got out of the way of a whole cast-iron cauldron zooming past him. Selvara’s leg was hit by a copper pipe, bruising it badly. The others each got hit by smaller debris. Fragments struck the barrier surrounding the battle zone and bounced back again, transforming the once pristine floor into litter filled difficult terrain. The musicians, safe behind the magical shield, grinned and played a mocking crescendo.
Glowing cracks appeared on the force dome, then the short-lived enchantment dissolved.
The delvers formed up their loose formation again.
Chymorak raised his hands, palms upward. Glowing golden darts materialized around him in a slow spiral, crackling with arcane energy. With a flick of his wrists, the darts locked onto the team.
“Scatter!” Skorr barked.
The team darted in different directions as the golden darts launched. They curved toward their targets, some hitting the ground and exploding in bursts of golden fire. One clipped Selvara’s wing, sending her spinning into a rusted cauldron. She groaned, clutching her side as she struggled back into the air.
The music shifted, becoming faster, more frenzied. Chymorak’s aura brightened, and his movements grew sharper and more deliberate.
Selvara, her wings faltering, shouted over the din, “The music is empowering him! We have to take out the musicians!”
Trulda roared in agreement, her blood-red eyes blazing as she charged toward the nearest drummer. The Minion-Ape’s eyes widened, but it didn’t stop playing. Instead, it swung the drum toward her at the last second, releasing a shockwave of concussive sound. The force hit Trulda square in the chest, throwing her backward into a pile of broken glass. She staggered to her feet, blood dripping from shallow cuts, her rage keeping her upright.
Weylan leapt onto a nearby table and used his sling to hurl a lead ball at a flute player. The projectile struck true, shattering the instrument, but the ape retaliated immediately. It hurled a glass vial, which exploded in a cloud of sticky, burning tar. Weylan rolled away just in time, though the tar singed his boots.
Skorr climbed a stack of copper pipes, aiming for a horn player. His war-pick connected with the ape’s shoulder, sending it tumbling to the ground. But before he could finish it off, another musician struck back, throwing a glass orb that shattered before him and filled the air with crimson alchemical gas. The cloud enveloped Skorr, who dropped to his knees, coughing violently. The two musicians flew away to land again outside the gas bubble.
Ulmenglanz hurried to Skorr’s side, her hand glowing with golden light. “Stay still!” she commanded, casting a healing spell. The light eased his breathing, though his movements remained sluggish. The Minion-Apes kept their distance and continued playing.
Above them, Chymorak summoned another volley of golden darts, this time accompanied by swirling orbs of green acid. The orbs exploded as they hit the ground and created puddles of steaming acid, from which toxic fumes wafted up to slowly fill the arena.
“Can’t we just kill that golden hairball?” Trulda growled, smashing a drum with her club.
Chymorak screeched, his eyes narrowing as he pointed toward Trulda. A concentrated stream of green acid shot from his hand, striking her in the chest. She turned away but then screamed as the liquid found entrances into her dirndl, melting some of her skin.
Selvara flew higher, gathering mana for an attack. “I’ve had enough of this!” she cried, unleashing her upgraded Frost Breath. The icy cone, laced with razor-sharp shards, struck Chymorak head-on, tearing into his golden fur and freezing one of his wings solid. He howled in fury, faltering midair.
“Keep up the pressure!” Skorr yelled.
Chymorak retaliated, raising both hands to summon a transparent cauldron of glass above his head. The cauldron glowed brighter with every passing second, sparking with electrical energy, while it filled up with a foaming sparking potion.
Weylan sprinted toward the mound, dodging acid pools and debris. He leapt onto the junk pile, using his shadow magic to cloak his movements with flickering shadows that drained his mana reserves rapidly. As Chymorak focused on maintaining his spell, Weylan jumped up at him and swung his maximally extended sword-staff two-handed. The boss had not expected him to reach up to him and was hit completely unprepared. The strike cut a deep gauge from breast to hip. He lost the concentration on the spell he was charging and the translucent cauldron exploded in concentric waves of heat and lightning. Chymorak tumbled to the ground twitching and sparking.
Weylan was caught by the edge of the explosion and collapsed to the floor, momentarily stunned. His sword-staff clattered from his grasp, sparks dancing across his armor as the aftershock jolted through him.
The golden-furred Minion-Ape struggled to lift itself from the ground, snarling despite its injuries. Before it could regain balance, Trulda charged with a full-force running attack, her club smashing into its side. The impact sent the creature hurtling through the air, golden blood arcing in a dazzling spray before it crashed to the ground. Right at Skorr’s feet.
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The duskgnome didn’t hesitate. With a grunt of exertion, he swung his war-pick in a powerful downward arc. The spike pierced clean through the boss’s chest, driving into the stone floor with a crack that echoed through the chamber.
The Minion-Ape let out a final screech before its body disintegrated into golden drops that defied gravity by falling upwards toward the ceiling. A final sign of its unnatural existence.
The team regrouped, battered and bloodied. Trulda leaned heavily on her club, her breaths coming in ragged gasps, though her eyes still burned with residual rage. “If this is just the second floor,” she rasped, “I’m happy we’re not planning on doing the third. I’m spent.”
Skorr wrenched his war-pick from the stone, inspecting the chipped edge grimly. “That boss took a full-powered strike from you and Weylan before I finished it off. And it was a mage type monster. I fear we couldn’t hurt a master tier tank type boss, even if it stood still.”
Ulmenglanz crouched beside Weylan, her hands glowing faintly with golden light as she cast a restorative spell to calm his twitching muscles.
Weylan staggered to his feet, flexing his fingers to test his grip. His relief was short-lived. He dropped into a defensive crouch, scanning the room with narrowed eyes. “There’s no victory notification! It’s not over yet.”
As if on cue, the Minion-Ape musicians discarded their instruments. From their throats rose a haunting dirge, sung in a haunting and weighty melody steeped in a sense of ancient gravitas. The unfamiliar syllables flew in the rhythm of an incantation, rhythmic and deliberate as it reverberated through the chamber.
Selvara’s face paled. “That’s Ancient Cathurian,” she whispered.
Weylan looked upward. His breath caught as he spotted movement. Far above, the golden drops from Chymorak’s disintegrated form had begun to glow and move together.
Selvara cursed loudly. “He’s got a second phase!”
Though battered and weary, the team rallied, preparing for another fight. Selvara flew upward, her wings beating furiously until she reached the ceiling and unleashed her final reserves of mana to cast another Frost Breath. Most of the golden liquid froze on the ceiling, but some drops kept moving. And in the hot air lingering at the ceiling, the rest of the liquid wouldn’t stay frozen long.
Something streaked past her face. A dart. She turned sharply, realizing the musicians had armed themselves with blowguns once more. Three of them were already in pursuit, firing poisoned darts with frightening precision.
Selvara banked hard on one wing, dropping into a dive to gain speed. The three monsters followed. She banked at the last moment and leveled out in a narrow horizontal flight. The Minion-Apes had no problem following her maneuver, but realized too late their flight took them right next to the dryad princess. Ulmenglanz swung her quarterstaff and knocked two of the apes out of the air. The third tried to dodge but wasn’t quick enough; Ulmenglanz snatched it by the leg, swung it in a wide arc, and slammed it into the stone floor. She made sure she got the victory notification, then turned to the next enemy.
Elsewhere, Skorr grabbed random pieces of metal debris, hurling them at the Minion-Apes with surprising accuracy. The first was struck mid-flight and careened into a wall. The others dodged, but their attention was diverted just long enough for Weylan, who’d used the distraction to get behind them and extended his sword-staff to full length. With a single sweeping arc, he decapitated two of the Minion-Apes.
A fierce battle ensued, that left none of the delvers unharmed, but all musicians dead on the floor. Above them, the frozen golden liquid began to thaw, droplets raining down. Each one vanished into harmless golden sparks as it hit But then, one droplet fell with a brighter glow, leaving behind a golden key on the stone.
Beside it lay a monster heart coin, its surface engraved with Chymorak’s snarling visage.
Selvara retrieved the key but very deliberately did not touch the monster heart. She tucked the key into her satchel. “Let’s go,” she said, her voice weary but firm. “The fire traps are still heating the air. We need to leave before we suffocate.”
Her flight faltered as exhaustion took over, and she landed on Weylan’s shoulder to rest. The team, sweating and battered, limped toward the exit. At the pedestal beside the bronze door, Selvara placed the key. The door groaned open, revealing a cool, tranquil chamber beyond.
The room had a glowing portal on one side and an iron door on the other. A plaque explained the rules: the door led to a rest area usable only by those willing to advance to the third dungeon floor. The portal, meanwhile, would return them outside the dungeon. They would get tokens to teleport to the third level entrance should they ever return and wish to skip the already conquered floors.
Selvara eyed the door wistfully. “Shame we can’t use the rest area before leaving, as we don’t want to delve into the third floor. It would be nice to recover without worrying about what’s next.”
Ulmenglanz coughed, her voice dry. “I don’t care for luxurious baths right now. I just want to see the sun again.” She stumbled toward the portal and disappeared in a shimmer of light.
Skorr cursed loudly. “How many times do I have to say it? The healer doesn’t go first!” He bolted after her.
Trulda chuckled weakly, leaning on her club. “He’s still not used to not being the tankiest class in the group. He’s no longer travelling with squishy duskgnomes. Skorr is a ranger for Pallandur’s sake. I’m the main tank, especially since I can come back from death.” She smirked. “And if I don’t go first, it should be you Weylan. To check for traps.”
Weylan seemed unsure. “He’s a ranger. Aren’t scouts not supposed to go first?”
“When it comes to exploring the route, sure. But not in confined spaces. Especially not in dungeons, where he could accidentally trigger a group-level encounter alone.”
Selvara lifted herself shakily from Weylan’s shoulder, holding fast to his hair. “We’re out of the challenge area. We should be fine now. I’ve heard there’s always an inn near famous dungeon exits. I can’t wait to sleep for a week.”
Trulda gave a weary nod and stepped through the portal.
Selvara took a deep breath, pushing herself upward with what little energy she had left. Weylan turned to her. “You don’t have to fly. I can carry you.”
She shook her head. “I delved my first dungeon, and I want to leave it on my own.”
She soared toward the portal… and bounced off an invisible barrier.
Surprised she hovered in front of the glowing surface. “What the…”
She tried again, only to be repelled once more.
Weylan extended his hand through the portal, meeting no resistance. “It’s fine for me.” He gently reached for Selvara and tried to guide her through, but it was like pressing her against solid stone.
He stopped trying, to not risk being transported and leaving the dungeon fairy alone. “It’s not working,” he muttered. “Some kind of malfunction? Maybe the portal isn’t designed to transport fairies?”
Selvara’s face fell, her wings drooping. “It’s not a malfunction. It’s Article 53 of the Fairy Realms Accords. Those drunk idiots…”
Weylan stared. “What does that mean?”
“It’s supposed to stop me from using fairy portals to leave dungeons at any time, which I usually could. But they didn’t specify fairy portals. Just portals. I can’t use any portal while I’m still a delver. And a dungeon delve isn’t complete until you leave the dungeon entirely.”
Weylan paled. “We have to tell the others. They need to come back!”
“They can’t. That’s a one-way portal. They can’t return without delving the first two floors all over again. And we can’t go back; the floor doors prevent anyone from returning to a former floor.”
Shimmering lights formed behind them as Galadressa appeared through a fairy portal. She rushed to Selvara, hugging her tightly. Her mouth moved furiously, but no sound came.
Galadressa stepped back from Selvara, her mouth still moving but no sound emerged. Frustration etched itself across her face. She turned toward the dungeon ceiling, her hands gesturing wildly. A shimmering piece of paper and a pencil materialized on the floor beside her.
With hurried movements, she grabbed the pencil and began scribbling furiously, but no marks appeared on the page. She flipped it over, tried again. Still nothing. Her shoulders slumped, and she hurled the pencil away in frustration. She started to gesticulate in some kind of sign language, then flinched. Her mouth worked while she was addressing empty air.
Galadressa’s hands curled into fists, but her expression softened as she returned to Selvara. Tears welled in her eyes as she pulled the smaller fairy into another fierce hug.
Galadressa stepped back once more, her head bowed. She glanced at the fairy portal she had come through, hesitated, then looked back at Selvara. Her lips moved again, forming words they could not hear. She reached out one last time, cupping Selvara’s face gently, before stepping through the portal.
As soon as she disappeared, the portal winked out of existence.
Weylan stared at the empty space. “What just happened?”
Selvara slumped to the ground, folding her legs beneath her and wrapping her arms around them. “She came to see if there was a way around the rules. She’s not allowed to communicate with me. She probably got a warning by the voice when she tried to circumvent the rules with sign language.”
Weylan turned back to the glowing exit portal, his jaw tightening. “So, you can’t go through and she can’t help you?”
Selvara nodded faintly.
He paced, his mind racing. ““The others have left and also can’t return, unless they delve the first two floors again. What about time?” Weylan pressed. “How long can we wait here?”
“There’s an eight-hour limit between floors. If we’re not out by then, the dungeon forces us to enter the next floor. They need a full night’s sleep, just to get into good enough shape to travel back home, let alone to fight. Even our whole team couldn’t manage to get back here in that time. Without a trap seeker, they’d never survive the second floor.”
“They know where most of the traps are.”
Selvara let out a weak laugh. “The traps and enemies reset after each delve. No matter how much they remember, the layout will be different, and the hazards just as deadly.”
Weylans eyes lit up. "Wait! The plaque on the portal says, they get a token to return here!"
Selvara waved his argument off tiredly. "They'll get their tokens as part of the dungeon reward. After the end of the dungeon delve. Which is after the last member of our team left the dungeon. There's one more problem with meeting up again. We're in a dungeon with multiple instances. Even if they could somehow start a new delve, they'd be placed in a different instance than us. So we could never meet anyhow."
“Then we go forward. We’ll clear the third floor and leave then. You mentioned that floor has a physical exit that’s really famous for its scenic route out of the mountain.”
Selvara shot to her feet, her wings fluttering erratically. “No! You can’t enter the third floor! It would be suicide. Nothing is stopping you from leaving. I’m the only one stuck here. Maybe…” She faltered. “Maybe I can find a way through. Fly low. Hide and somehow sneak out through the exit.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Really? You think you can exit without killing the floors boss?”
Her face twisted with frustration. “Then I’ll die. But you’ll live. Just go. Tell Malvorik… tell him I was honored to work with him. He’s the brightest, most good-hearted dungeon heart there is.”
Weylan’s voice was calm, but unyielding. “No.”
Selvara blinked. “What do you mean, no?”
“I mean no.” He crouched beside her, his tone firm. “I won’t leave without you. We will delve the third floor together.”