Remus stopped near the end of the passage to stare at the work of art before him. Like the castle was some joke to scare away people from the true beauty it held below, the next door he found was an amazing gate of worked stone with inlay of different rocks. He was no rock expert, but he recognized that most of the inlay were some kind of quartz creating an array of colors. Once again he wondered about the origin of this Dungeon.
"Could there be some ruins of the Imperials or Faerun here? Those would have the artistry for this level of detail that the Dungeon could copy." He spoke aloud to himself, and a light flickered to life above him, some kind of large opal with light pouring out of it. At first glance he just thought it was magic, but he saw the shaft of light coming from the tunnel that he entered from. It entered the crystal and reflected around to light up the room with a steady, rainbow tinted light. His jaw dropped then and it went a bit further than it should have. He in the ruins he had seen this level of work was rare and prized by the Kingdoms. He had heard such light sources were common back in the days of the Imperials and the Grand Empire though, because they didn't have the same level of magical mastery as the Faerun.
Shaking his mind free from the distracting thoughts he focused on touching the Will of the Dungeon to contact it, and was utterly confused when his magical probe was slapped away with force. It just touched the door, and seemed to explode and unravel. Giving him a nasty headache since it was a skill he had mastered outside the System's management. Such skills were possible, but took a lot of work to honor the System while working around it.
"Alright, so I will have to go deeper to reach the Will. Not what I planned, but I have barely had to work for the effort so far. It shouldn't get too much harder by the third floor where it's Core should be..." He mused aloud before walking forwards to push open the stone door. Where he was greeted by another shocking sight, and he decided that he needed to just expect startling things from this Dungeon going forwards. Before him was a series of short, rolling hills covered in flowers with sunlight coming from above, and this time it wasn't a clever mechanical device and cut stone. This was a rock heavily invested with Light Mana and maybe Fire Mana in order to get the temperature so perfect. It looked and felt like he walked into a forest clearing with wildflowers of many colors blanketing the ground. He didn't have time to stop and enjoy the scene though. Considering his short timeline with the battle outside, he didn't want to take too long, and be at the mercy of the soldiers outside being tired, hurt, and out of Mana. Since you couldn't regenerate Mana inside a Dungeon, and could sometimes lose it at higher rates.
Stepping into the area he used his [Steps of the Shaman] to reach the other side without disturbing the guardians of the place. He knew it was a few of the flowers, especially the blue and purple ones that were so out of place. Yet it wouldn't matter since, as a Shaman, he could basically walk through any natural environs with ease thanks to his skills. Turning a short bend in the stone to another room, he frowned to himself as he looked out into the exact same room. He knew a place after being there once, and this was exactly the same room.
"A maze?!" He said with surprise and alarm, "A Dungeon this young has a maze using turns and no magic. I don't have time for this!" His last words were punctuated by him using [Blood Cannon] a skill that turned his blood into a powerful physical attack. He aimed it down at the floor of the tunnel, and the magic just splashed on the floor. No expected explosion or slam of magical force, it had all been stripped by the Dungeon. No way to brute force his way through this maze, and he was started to get a very bad feeling. A feeling he only got after entering the Gates of Madness, and that was from the impossible angles and odd Mana forms. This was more subtle, and his Shaman skills started sending him information that it wasn't the same room actually, parts had been changed, new tunnels added, like the maze was alive.
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Silently praying to the Goddess he reached out with another Mana probe to try and reach the Dungeon. Only to get another headache for his troubles.
"Damn it!"
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I was quite pleased with the way the Beastkin was appreciating my hard work. It had taken a long time to get all the elements right after watching the group outside build their wall, and getting references from the books that I still had. I did like the Imperial architecture that I added to the castle area a week or so ago, and while I wasn't a fan of only making Elementals they did work much better at changing the Maze around. Though I wasn't entirely sure what he kept trying to do with that mana tendril. It was like the ones I had used back in the beginning before I became far more refined with my control. The flavors around it seemed to want to reach out and touch minds too, which I was certainly not letting happen after the "Change". It could have been something like that used against me to get all the changes to my memories and the "Instincts". Never the less it brought a smug smile to my face when he seemed to scoff about the maze, and then turned around to be shocked and angry when he couldn't just power through it.
"It's okay little beastkin, I am sure you will get to the story floor at least today." I said aloud with a grin to my tone. I did want to see his reaction to my newest child since they had a purpose in the following floors too. There was so much that I had gotten done while the people up above argued, fought, and tried to build their own stuff. I was a dungeon and I was the master of my domain. Something that both beastkin and humans needed to realize.
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It had been hours already, and Remus was certain that the battle had stopped or at least taken a break. He had been forced to crawl his way through twisting tunnels, and he had actually needed to use several of his old skills to try and find the right path. [Eagle Eyes] helped him pick up on the small changes in the rooms before he stepped his way through them to avoid fights. Which the defenders were all too happy to let him do, even a couple of the flowers waved at him as he went by. [Landsense] was the real help, once he dug it out, since it allowed him to partially see what was going on in the rooms beyond the twisting and coiling tunnels. It was what allowed him to reach the absurdly tall door, and the stairs leading down to the final floor. Or, he hoped it would be the final floor. It was completely possible that it was somehow a ten floor dungeon with even more elaborate traps and puzzles to drain away his time.
Realistically a maze like this would be simple if all of his magic worked in here, but the Dungeon seemed to have odd control over the flows of Mana in this place. It prevented him from using his stronger skills like [Stone Walker] or [Shade Form] that would allow him to just fade through the walls and find the core with ease. Though it had never worked in the past when it came to Dungeons he had been in, but he had also never had a Dungeon shatter his mental communication so completely either. The Gates of Madness just hadn't answered but it had connected to something. While the rest had readily talked even if they were slow and dull.
The maze had been the same room repeated over and over again with changing tunnels and links to random stone walls. It wasn't hard just frustrating and time consuming, both things he didn't have time for, so he once again prayed to the Goddess as he walked down the spiral stairs.