Along with several delvers, I winced at Alice's words. I had half a mind to call this expedition over because whatever Clotilde did to her, knocked her mind off the rails. I didn't believe she thought that the delvers were filthy roaches. Maybe she was talking about the PKs? Maybe. However, she was a public person and should take more care of her public appearance. But one look at her told me any complaints or advice I gave her would fall on deaf ears. Alice had earmuffs on and was tying a handkerchief over her eyes.

"When the boss doors open, we're going in," She said. "Tell me where the boss is."

"Can you hear wearing these earmuffs?"

"As well as a drunk orc," She replied.

"Okay."

We waited. The boss room opened. Nobody tried to cross before the boss spawned. Alice walked inside and I followed.

"That's far enough," I told her.

Alice stopped. "Now we wait."

The doors slammed shut. The boss started to appear. A magical circle appeared in the center of the room and lights shone from it. The boss rose through the rock instantly, casting an ominous shadow behind it. The creature bellowed in rage.

"It's a Minotaur."

The Minotaur was four meters tall. It had the body of a man but the head and hooves of a bull. It carried a double ax, each blade the size of a normal door.

"Where is it?"

"He's at your four o'clock, twenty-five meters away."

Alice waved a hand. The roof above and the floor below the MInotaur lit up. Sparks formed and the boss roared. Then, Thunder and a blinding light overwhelmed our senses. My senses. Alice had protection.

> A level 33 Minotaur was killed. +1 Endurance, +1 Wisdom.

The MInotaur's body burst into flakes of darkness, like burnt paper.

Damn. The doors opened. I couldn't hear or see shit. I felt some taps on my shoulder and the vibrations of footsteps near me. Light and dark spots swam in my vision even though I had my eyes closed. As my hearing returned, I heard the doors closing again.

"RUN!" Some random guy shouted.

My sight returned. Another boss was materializing.

"What's the new boss?" Alice shouted. "Where is it."

She was still wearing the stupid blindfold. "Lesser Hydra, at your three o'clock, twenty meters."

A lesser hydra was a ginormous newt five meters long with three heads on long necks sprouting between the shoulders. They could be venomous.

She shouted something about swords in elvish. The ground opened and a hundred or so blades three meters long sprouted from the ground at odd angles. They impaled the lesser hydra. I stared at Alice in disbelief. I could see her gnashing her teeth. Worse, the hydra didn't die.

"It's still alive."

She pointed her upright palm at the hydra. A horizontal vortex of ice and hail formed, swirling in a cone toward the monster. Even outside its area of effect, I could feel the biting cold. The hydra roared but soon the ice froze the monster. Pelted by the incessant cascade of hail, it shattered.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

> A level 30 Lesser Hydra was killed. +1 Dexterity.

Poof. The hydra burst into black particles. The doors opened. More delvers rushed toward the exit. The blades Alice had conjured vanished into motes of light.

"Go! Go! Go!" The last delvers ran and shouted their thanks as the doors closed again. They vanished into the dark staircase to the second floor.

"Alice, we need to talk. This is getting ridiculous."

A third boss materialized.

"What's the boss now?"

"A fake dragon. Red scales. Again at three o'clock, thirty me—"

The fake dragon was a lizard with vestigial wings. This one was fire-aspected, given its color.

She grumbled. A ball of fire flew from her hand, struck the fake dragon, and launched the boss toward the far corner of the room, where it splattered. I heard bones breaking before the fireball blossomed into a big explosion that made a fourth of the room vanish behind it.

> A level 25 Lesser Hydra was killed. +1 Endurance.

"Alice, stop!" I protested.

The doors opened. Four delvers crossed. The rest had no intention of going to the second floor and just stared from beyond the door.

"How many times are you going to keep killing the boss?" One of them asked me.

"I have no idea, man," I grimaced apologetically.

The doors slammed shut with much more impetus this time. The summoning circle was red and had two bands of runes that spun in opposite directions. The boss was launched from the circle. The bosses. I couldn't believe it.

"Vampire bat swarm. Everywhere in the room." It was impossible to miss their supersonic screeches.

"Blade Barrier!" Alice shouted. "Silence area! Blood Ward!"

Swords, daggers, and hand axes appeared around us, forming a dome. They spun so fast that it was almost impossible to distinguish one weapon from the next. A magic circle, this one shining in yellow, appeared around us.

The vampire bats' noise vanished. Then they attacked, diving into the blades to reach us. They turned into chunks of meat that flew everywhere. All I could hear was tinnitus from the lightning that killed the Minotaur. I pulled my hood up and shielded my face with my forearms. Chunks of bat struck me for a long while.

Attribute gain notifications flew past. Each bat was around level 11 but the swarm had dozens upon dozens of them. I noticed that the blood flowed over us like water off a duck's back. It also avoided the magical circle underneath us.

I gained ten in each of the three Attributes my PP granted.

*

*

The doors opened. The blades still whooshed around us. I turned to the delvers and shouted, "You guys better keep away. I think the Dungeon is going to throw a big one—"

The door slammed shut, pushing so much air around that the delvers next to the door were tossed a couple of meters away. The summoning circle appeared above this time. The torso of a woman with spider eyes fell from it, followed by a gigantic spider body. The spider legs hung to the ceiling.

"Arachne," I told Alice. "On the roof, three o'clock, fifteen meters away, twenty meters above the ground."

Another angry chant in Elvish. The skin, muscle, and viscera of the humanoid torso liquefied and splattered on the ground, leaving only bones and sinew behind.

> A level 55 Arachne Queen was killed. +1 Endurance, +1 Wisdom, +1 Dexterity.

The doors swung open. Did I forget to mention that the blade barrier was still swirling around us?

"Alice, it seems that the Dungeon—"

BAM!

The doors shook and trembled as they were violently slammed shut by the Dungeon.

"— Is getting angry at us."

"I don't care. What's the next boss?" She replied without an iota of empathy.

The summoning circle appeared. "Acid slime cubes, two dozen of them. The same spot where every other boss has appeared in this room."

Things were getting out of hand. A couple bosses ago.

Alice cast her spell. "Dessicate!"

The slimes shriveled, taking on the texture of giant dried sultanas. Over the whooshing of the blades, I could hear the slimes' cries of pain. Or so I thought.

"They're still alive."

"I can see my Experience notifications, thank you," Alice tersely said with a rude tone. "Cover your eyes and don't breathe. Conjure Salt."

I heard the sound of sand pouring all over the room. I inhaled and regretted it instantly. My nostrils burned and dried all at once.

The two dozen notifications from Scout's Duty chimed in while I coughed.

"Drink some water and rinse your nostrils," Alice said.

The doors swung open. The blade barrier vanished. The dried slimes vanished in poofs of black ash. The delvers on the other side stared at the now white room. Then the doors vanished.

A minute passed, way more time than the way to the second floor ever remained accessible without fighting a boss.

"It seems that the Dungeon gave up on spawning bosses here," I conjectured.

"Yes and no," Alice said. She seemed a bit calmer. "The moment someone tries to cross, the doors will reappear in the shut position."

The salt vanished.

Alice tugged on my tunic. "Come, let's go down."