Spam tilted its head at Cyn, before making a confused warble. It never met Scott, obviously. Trying another tactic, she explained carefully, “There should be five people, humans, in my party. We are missing one. Do you know where he is?” The familiar went back to chewing its foot for a few seconds, making quiet gurgling sounds, before flicking its tongue the same direction as before.

Cyn turned back to her party and shrugged. Sam and Dana’s faces fell slightly, but honestly, she wasn’t sure if the familiar did not understand her question, or if Scott was actually in the same direction. With no better options, the party got moving again. Cyn was still relatively low on mana, but as long as they did not rush headlong into another trial, she figured it was fine.

***

A chime ringing out through the labyrinth jolted Scott out of his contemplation. That was the fourth one he had heard since the party had entered the second floor, and no less puzzling than the first three. The second time it had rung out, four days earlier by his best guess, Scott had started to pick up his pace looking for a door or one of his ducklings. His greatest fear now was that that chime meant someone had been killed, and without any indication otherwise Scott had mustered up the energy to keep moving forward. The worst of his Edge of Death debuff had passed, leaving him with close to seventy-five percent of his total stats. From fifty percent on, he was gaining back stats significantly slower, but at least he no longer felt his age.

“ Ah, it seems your friends have completed a trial. Best hurry up, before they arrive here and interrupt us. I will have to fight any cheaters that interrupt this trial in progress. Do you have an answer for me?”

The creature who spoke sounded serene, not even a hint of impatience in its soft, feminine voice even though Scott had been pondering the final riddle for quite a while. Relief flooded through him at her words, and based on their interactions so far he had no reason to doubt the truthfulness of them. If any of the ducklings were on their way, he needed to get this over with. The Trial of Mind had no time limit, thankfully, because its administrator was rather impressive - for a few reasons, in Scotts humble opinion - and he was sure if he got this riddle wrong there would be no saving him.

Inspect told him the creature was a sphinx. A race that held partly true to the interpretation Scott knew, with her body being that of a lion. But rather than just a human face, she had a whole human torso attached to the shoulders of the lion body. She was also significantly larger than a lion or human, with just the lion parts being close to the size of a car, and the human torso scaled proportionally. Putting aside the size, a mouth full of very sharp teeth, and the wicked claws the creature was sporting instead of fingernails, the torso looked like a lovely human woman. Sounded like one, too.

Scott had been lingering at this trial too long, despite being quite sure he knew the answer to the last riddle. With his life on the line for a wrong answer, he felt he needed to be careful and had taken extra time to think over every riddle the sphinx gave him. It definitely had nothing to do with the fact that, like so many creatures in Earth's mythology, the sphinx did not bother to wear clothes.

***

Cyn was at her wits end. It hadn’t even been half a day since the Trial of Will, and at this point, she wanted to find Scott more than anything solely so the passive-aggressive hostility between the Rogue and Archer could be someone else's problem. She thought moving forward in the labyrinth would help, or at least make it difficult for them to do much interacting, but she was so, so wrong.

Stats were high enough for people to talk easily while running, and Sam's attempts to make things better seemed to involve trying to get them both into conversation. Casual conversation, not that it seemed to matter. It was counter-productive, based on the evidence, but what was Cyn supposed to do? Tell the Warrior to please shut up? She didn’t have the heart. At least both of them were being nice to Sam, since clearly no one wanted to see the big guy cry again.

“Shocker.” Dana’s voice was dripping with sarcasm. At her wits end? More like over it. The Warrior was asking about Hex’s family, and the only thing the Rogue had said was that he wasn’t close with them.

The Rogue had been doing much the same whenever Sam tried to speak with Dana, so it wasn’t like it was just the Archer making problems. “We get it. You two hate each other now. Please, for the love of all things holy, either kiss and make up already or find a way to hate each other that does not force me to listen to it. I don’t fucking care, just stop before I throw both of you in the murder hedge.” The leafless, twisted mass of thorns and branches surrounding the party did not really resemble hedges anymore… but that was beside the point.

Rogue and Archer both turned their glares to Cyn, aghast at her suggestion to kiss and make up if she had to guess, but they seemed to have just enough sense to stay silent. Sam glanced back at her, looking Cyn over before saying tentatively, “I… I’m not sure you could pick up and throw either of them. You’re kind of…”

She interrupted the Warrior before he could finish his thought, her tone lighter and half joking, “Mention my height, and you are going in the hedge with them.”

She heard Hex snort beside her, and caught a glimpse of a smirk before the Rogue said casually, “Small and violent. Like a chihuahua.” Sam chuckled loudly, while Dana choked on a laugh she tried to hide behind a cough. I can take being roasted a bit, if it makes them stop going at each other. She scowled at Hex, but, before Cyn could come up with a retort, a chime rang through the labyrinth.

The party was running in pairs, with Sam and Dana up front, Hex and Cyn behind. No one tried to stop, but instead they collectively sped up and fell silent for a few moments. Cyn checked her objectives to be sure that chime was the same as the other ones.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Transitional dungeon floor 2: The Hungering Labyrinth -

Strangely thematic.

Bonus Objective: Trials completed 5/6

Rewards for completion will be distributed upon leaving this floor.

“The trial objective updated to five of six done. That has to be Scott’s doing.” Cyn let the relief she felt seep through her voice. It was as if a massive weight she was not even aware of carrying had been partially lifted off her shoulders, just from confirmation that their final party member was still alive somewhere. She had tried to set it aside - or at least not think about it - but the feeling of being responsible for everyone making it out alive had clearly been festering in the back of her mind.

“Hopefully we can collect him before finding the last trial, so we don’t miss out on it.” Hex didn’t sound annoyed, but he wasn’t happy either. Cyn knew it probably bothered him to miss out on another of the trials. Thankfully, Dana had not seemed to pick up on his lack of joy, or at least had gone back to ignoring the Rogue. Have to celebrate the little things, sometimes.

There were only a handful more crossroads before the next trial arena came into sight, causing Sam to whoop in celebration since it was immediately clear Scott was still here. The Guardian stood in the center of the stone slab arena, and raised his hand in greeting as the party came into sight. It was his companion, though, that made the party slow as they got close. Dana held a hand out to stop Sam from just entering the trial arena, clearly more cautious than the Warrior.

“Right on time. Please, do not be alarmed. The Trial of Mind has been completed, and so long as you do not show hostility I will not be inclined to either.” Cyn felt her anxiety skyrocket, and while she couldn’t grab Dana and Sam before they stepped out of reach, she did reach to the side and grab Hex who was wandering in right behind them. They were just barely inside of the arena now.

“Wait!” The Rogue gave her a puzzled look, but seemed to register the clear alarm in Cyn’s face and voice. The Archer and Warrior were already running to give Scott a hug, and did not stop or seem alarmed by the large sphynx they now stood beside. This made Hex quickly pull on the hood of his new piece of gear, and pull the cloth around his neck up to cover his face in the same way his previous mask did. The combination almost entirely obscured his face, and the cloth changed from a bright gold to dark blue.

Cyn noted the changes with mild interest, but she had more important things to worry about. The entrance and exit did not close over when they entered the area, thankfully, but that did not do much to ease her anxiety. While Spam was croaking up a storm, she did not need it to tell her there was danger here. The creature’s voice felt like sandpaper applied directly to Cyn’s eardrums, and there was something very… wrong when she tried to look at it. Cyn saw the sphinxlike creature, a lion's body and a woman's bare torso, but it was hard to look at. Not exactly the same as the Trial of Will illusion but similar feeling. She tried to use Inspect, and it returned a very confusing mess of letters initially.

“Are you two just going to stand there and glare? This lovely creature was kind enough to keep me company and let me know you should be arriving here, so I wouldn’t have to run around searching.” Scott sounded a little annoyed, but Cyn ignored him. She was too busy trying to focus on her Inspect results, looking for the truth. She also still had a hold of Hex, who seemed to put enough trust in Cyn to remain distant from the creature and their party.

“Ahh. You can see me, can’t you little Mage? You must have quite the mind, or will. Please, do not be alarmed.” The nickname, the same used by the Trial of Will, caused her adrenaline to shoot through the roof. As for the Inspect she was struggling with, Cyn was quite sure it was functionally two Inspect results layered atop one another. She just needed to untangle them into separate results. What she was physically seeing was probably the same, explaining why it was weird to look at.

She felt a hand squeeze her wrist hard, the Rogue whispering sharply. “Threat or not, Cyn?”

Refocusing on the creature, she saw it had stood up and slowly started to move towards them, clawed hands spread. “I do not want to fight you. My illusion is intended to keep the trial participants at ease, and it works quite well for that purpose.” Sandpaper on her eardrums. Mental influence, probably? Two images, layered on top of one another. The doubled vision was easier to separate when looking at the creature directly, versus the Inspect results.

The first image, a huge golden lion combined with a beautiful woman. Just imperfect enough, with just enough characteristics of the lion bleeding into the human part to be convincing. Dangerous, warranting caution, but… fake. The shape had a feeling of wrongness to it, a fuzziness at the edges she did not see, but felt.

The second image felt wrong for an entirely different reason. The lower body still appeared feline, but instead of golden it was corpse-like. The hide was lacking fur, tattered and a dull, gray-green color. Dark, thorned vines wrapped and crossed around the body, plunging inside in some places and holding together jagged tears in others.

Where in the first image the woman’s torso appeared to grow smoothly out of the lion’s shoulders, in the second it was more like someone had shoved the top half of a bisected humanoid body into a jagged, cavernous hole created post decapitation of the lion. More of the vines appeared to be supporting the torso, and holding together the junction of the bodies.

The stomach of the torso was hollowed out, and the broken ribs that once protected vital organs were now broken and pulled to the side to create a wider hole filled with even more jagged shards of bone. Cyn could see vines snaking up the spine of the torso from the inside as well, the flora plunging out near the collarbone to twist and wrap around the arms.

The head was eyeless, and clusters of small, striking yellow flowers filled the sockets instead. She could see a few clumps of dull, black hair remained on the head, but it was mostly replaced by thin, shoulder-length vines poking out of the skull. There was no nose or ears either, the cartilage seeming to not have lasted as long as the rest of the corpse. Sunken skin clung to bone, and the mouth appeared to have once been extended all the way to where the ears once were, a jagged gash running along either side of the natural mouth shape. Whatever the reason that was done, tiny stitches now held the orifice closed.

As Cyn watched, it was as though the plant was using the corpses like a puppet. The movements were smoother than she would expect, but it still bent in places a human body would not, and lacked the stiffness and shape that came with being filled with muscles and organs.

“Cyn!” Hex’s voice was even more urgent now, tugging her backwards as the monstrosity got closer. Cyn couldn’t speak as bile rose up, her mind struggling to come to terms with what she was seeing.

The sharp, fractured rib bones appeared to be moving of their own accord as the creature spoke again, and since the stitched slash across the human face did not move, Cyn presumed the hole in its stomach was more akin to a mouth for this abomination.

“This does not have to end in violence, little Mage…”

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