Doyle couldn’t help but shake his core as he watched Ace’s plan play out. It was impressive, long reaching, and could have blown up right now if Melanie reacted differently to his last bit. The fact she only sighed before leaving shows this likely not the first time she had gotten caught up in a crazy plan like this.

That wasn’t really the center of Doyle’s attention, though. Rather, it was the fact that before Melanie had arrived, Ace had decided that his group would start delving for depth again. He had felt obligated to stick around while this all was playing out, but with the plan complete, he felt free to continue. Though as Doyle watched, it still took a few more days to get everything ready.

Soon enough, though, Ace and his team appeared on the sixth floor. It had been a while since Ace, Sammy, Jack, Susan, Og, and Ruby had all gotten together at once in the dungeon, so good thing for them the sixth floor was a perfect chance to re-familiarize themselves with each other.

It was on the seventh floor, they really hit their stride. The lesser shadow wolves in the early sections of the floor did provide them some challenge. That ability to shadow warp was simply too novel compared to any other enemy they had fought. However, the floor didn’t require the wolves to be killed.

So while the group did fight back when they were attacked and Ruby even managed to take one out. Overall, the group trudged right in through the wolves’ area and into the section with the myconids. An area where once again Ruby and her fire magic shined.

Though the others weren’t slouches either. Og, in particular was really good at sniping away at the sprout swarms. With wood discs created by Ace, he was more than able to mow down the sprouts in large quantities.

Then they hit the eighth floor. The first room was a little harder than not as the kobolds there had a more than ample amount of time to familiarize themselves with their bows. In the end, Og once again shined as he started spamming a skill that infused whatever he was throwing with mana.

Sure, it really took it out of him when he used it to throw a handful of small wood caltrops and he didn’t seem up to giving it another go. The results, though? They were more than impressive, putting down a majority of the kobolds, leaving only a couple kobolds on the ground and the goats for the rest of the party to clean up.

The second room was even less of a trouble as the group knew what was coming. In particular, Ace had the best solution to being charged at by kobolds mounted on Axebeaks. He simply raised an ankle height wall right in front of them and watched them fall all over themselves. Then, without the advantage of speed, it was a simple matter for Sammy, Jack, and Susan to finish them off.

The next room was, of course the invisible maze. Sure, the grassen goats weren’t an easy fight, but most of the challenge came from the maze itself and once you know you’re in a maze, it becomes a lot easier to figure it out. Then the fourth room isn’t exactly any better.

While the spatial manipulation on display to make the room look flat is impressive and the goats did a good job, Ace and company hadn’t been stagnating even if they weren’t able to regularly delve together. Though of all people, Ace did almost get knocked off the cliff by a well-hidden goat. If he hadn’t kept his guard up, it might have worked, though even as Doyle watched in Glee, he had to admit to himself that a simple fall wasn’t likely to cause that much damage anymore.

Then they got to the vine rooms. Though most people in Wolf’s Rest who had made it this far generally agreed to just call it all one big room. This was actually a difficult room for those who weren’t prepared for it. While a simple fall and a few assassin vines aren’t the biggest threat, most people lack the skill to fight while hanging from a vine.

Worse, and this was something Doyle hadn’t even planned on, using too power of an attack could cut off progression if you aren’t careful. All it takes is damaging the wrong vines during a fight and you might end up with nothing leading through one of the holes. In the first and second levels of the vine room, this was a bit hard as there were vines that went up scattered around. For the final section, though? There was only one vine leading to the next room.

Suffice it to say, Ruby wasn’t allowed to throw around her signature fire ribbons. Instead, Jack took the lead to act as bait. While he wasn’t yet able to resist the monsters completely, that was mostly a leverage thing. After all, the regular ones only had 40 Strength and Jack had certainly exceeded that amount.

The one they had to worry about was the elder assassin vine. Weighing in at 60 Strength, the elder’s two longer vines had killed more than a few people on this floor. While not what Doyle had intended, with how weak the normal assassin vines tended to be, it had given most people a false sense of security when it came from the elder.

A sense of security that said elder crushes between its two vines and asks for seconds. With the Elder, Jack had to be extra careful and make sure he got his arms between the vine and his neck or the group was going to have to retreat for healing in a best-case scenario. Worse, it was guarding the exit so Ruby was doubly restricted from her fire magic.

A weakness that she swore to work on. So far, fire magic had been enough to get her through everything. Now though, she realized that while power, it isn’t omni-capable.

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In the end, instead of sending in Jack, they spend time, allowing Og and Ace to bombard the monster from afar. It tries to make its way over to them, but without a solid point of connection, the limbs start to flail around a little bit. The elder does manage to make it over to the group, but Sammy is more than able to keep its awkward flailing away as they finish it off before it can stabilize itself.

Then Ace uses his wood magic to turn the vine heading up to the next room into a ladder. Ruby turns to him with a betrayed look and he smiles while shrugging. “Yes, I could have easily fixed any damage your fire magic might have caused. However, you had to realize the limits of your path. After all, you won’t always be partnered up with someone whose magic can fix what you break.”

Ruby isn’t exactly happy with this response, but sighs and the group continues to the next room. Being angry or annoyed can wait until they’re no longer in the dungeon. After all, the next room is a hard stop for most groups that get there.

In fact, of all the groups that report in on how far they’ve gotten, this sixth room blocks over eighty percent. Not that any of the later rooms on this floor are any better, but room six does a really good job of separating the wheat from the chaff. People just are not ready for a zero gravity fight. Hell, even with system buffed bodies not everyone can even stomach it in a literal sense, losing their lunches.

Ace’s group luckily doesn’t have that problem. Though the fact that even with the system, people are still able to be affected by the various annoyances that follow in line with seasickness is impressive. Not that better body stats don’t help with the problem.

The group looks out into the sixth room and takes in all the enemies. While there are floating cubes to block the line of sight, people have managed to get a good count of what they’re about to fight. Most worrying, though, are the six elemental mages that the kobolds have and of course another elder assassin vine. Though the two sprout swarms make decent environmental hazards with their obvious clouds of spores.

Ace can only sigh in relief that the room’s current set up is decent. He is sure that some groups have tried just jumping straight for the room’s exit. Of course, he can’t be one hundred percent certain as any that have got wiped.

Doyle, on the other hand is hoping very much that Ace doesn’t try that as he has seen what happens when you try that. The unarmed kobolds have more than enough practice in between fights practice and any group that spends too much time in the air will have party members sniped away as kobolds slam into them, separating the group.

In the end, Ace has a much safer plan. Instead of trying to jump straight across the room, they do short hops between cubes. The melee kobolds still try to grab away people, but Ace has prepared for this and with the handles on the cubes as an anchor point is able to use vines to rescue anyone that needs it. Though the real trouble with the kobolds starts once they’re in range of the mages.

Magic being magic, their wands are able to shoot without any recoil, and so it is quite simple for them to anchor themselves to the handles on the walls with their feet. This leaves them free to fire off spell after spell without worry. Ace is certainly thankful that his group’s magic is just as inertia-less as the kobolds’ magic.

While countering it all is out of the question, there is more than enough air time for the group to be ready for it, especially since the kobolds are yet capable of guiding their magic after they shoot it. Still, by the time Ace and company make it to the last hurdle, there isn’t a single one who doesn’t look at least a little bit scorched.

And the last hurdle? There are two cubes. Either will get them to the exit. One has the elder vine on it and the other a sprout swarm. Now, for a normal group, this might actually be a challenge. Ace, however, is in charge of the only people capable of producing the counter for the myconids spore magic and so has more than enough doses of the stuff.

Doyle is a little sad that they are able to trivialize the choice, the group easily able to move through the spore cloud and onto the exit. On the other hand, the potion to resist the spores requires spore to make and more than enough farmers have ended up dead trying to collect more since the money is better than just harvesting meat.

Once through, Ace and his group are onto areas of the dungeon they haven’t ever been before. There are reports of what to expect, but as they enter the room, the warnings about how you have to see it to believe it ring true. As Ace tries to take in the room his mind squirms.

This room was similar to the room with the cliff that looked flat, but worse. Whereas the flat cliff room and some of the sections of the seventh floor felt wrong but could be ignored since it looked alright. This room put it all on display. Each wall was straight and even, while each corner was made up of a crisp ninety-degree angle. If only there weren’t five of those corners.

Ace knows of a few out-of-town groups who have managed to make it here and their current situation made the need for mental healthcare professionals all the more important. Worse was the fact that a high Intelligence stat actually makes this room’s effect worse if you don’t have it balanced with an equally high Wisdom score.

Suffice it to say, the other groups who made it this far through min maxing their stats lost any mages they had. They saw too much and lost themselves to it. Doctor isn’t even certain if regular therapy will help them, instead believing they’ll either need a high level psychologist whose skills allow them to use mental powers to help root out the corruption or something that can wipe memories.

Though he does admit that if you could force them to increase their wisdom that might help as well. Oh, and the memory wipe solution might not work if you wait too long. From what he can tell, the revelations caused by the spatial manipulation can taint even old memories of stuff like a math class on trigonometry or even something as simple as the memory of drawing a square.

Thankfully, the Wisdom needed to stay sane isn’t too extreme. In fact, anyone who isn’t trying to dump everything into one stat or another should be fine. Still, these experiences were enough to warn Doyle about the potential dangers that could lurk in his dungeon if he doesn’t design things carefully. Though admittedly, whatever he did with the room was still beyond him normally and might only be repeatable if he takes the path he got for it.