It was the fifth time waking up in that pod in this past month. And the third time she got company upon waking up.

A team of five was waiting for her, all dressed for combat but with no weapon at hand.

They were cautious but not hostile about her, the newcomer in their midst. And as always, she effortlessly escaped the pod, shrugging the slime away, and went for her safe without a care for her audience.

"See? I told you it was her." A shy boy in light armor said to a girl in chainmail at the center of their formation.

Rogue and Fighter.

The others were a bit more difficult to ascertain with their mismatched equipment: One guy in a blue Robe was also wearing light armor. While another seemed to have given up on his armor entirely, wearing a clean respawn suit, but still had rogue boots, a belt, and sheather. While the last one was again wearing light armor but his weapon didn't match.

It did not take a genius to deduce that at least half of their equipment had been scavenged from the dead.

So she was cautious, in case she would end up next on their shopping list.

But at least, they had the decency not to bother her until she was all dressed up.

"So you are that lunatic who serenades the stone giant. What exactly are you? Certainly not one of the four starters, that's for sure." The girl leader said.

"It's complicated," Sophia said. "But long story short: I'm a witch with a weird patron. You?" She looked at all of them, one after the other, gauging them.

"I'm Arya a light paladin." She declared before introducing the rest of her team: "Jeong-hoon, he is a pure rogue. Chakkrit, he is a spellsword. Valeriy, he is a barbarian fighter. And Muhammad, he is a swashbuckler rogue."

"No sixth member?" Sophia asked, though her previous made it clear that member, if it existed, was currently missing.

"Our cleric, she died to poison on the second floor and we got separated. So I took the mantle and became a paladin."

So they were originally two fighters, two rogues, one cleric, and one wizard. But they had to mix things up after losing a member. Still, that team was different than any she encountered before and that made her suspicious.

"Well, I got a team of my own which I would like to see again. So I'm going to prepare and get out your hair as soon as I can." She promised.

"You sure?" Arya exclaimed. "We could use someone like you on our team."

And Sophia already did not like the way she talked about using her. But she kept her cool:

"Look. I'm sure you are an amazing team. But I don't know you. And other people are counting on me."

"It's okay. I won't push it." The girl said appeasing though she was doing the exact contrary. "We will give you some space. Though if you could give Chakkrit some of your time, I would really appreciate it. He is really spell-starved and your mojo looked really good."

So that was what it was about? Her entire time was close combat, including their Wizard. And they wanted her to supplement for their lack of a long-range blaster. Except she did not fit the bill, although they could not possibly know that.

"I think there is a misunderstanding here." She said before they could leave. "I'm not a primary spellcaster and unless someone here wants to learn how to unlock their magical bloodline or how to make a bargain with a shady higher power, I can't really help you."

Before she counteroffered: "However, believe it or not, one of my teammates is a badass battlemage bookworm with a lot more knowledge than I can offer. You help me get back to my team and he might be willing to help you sort your own problems."

"So you are asking for help but only offering a maybe?" Arya reformulated before she put an end to all negotiations: "You know what? Go on and get yourself killed."

The Indian girl had no way to know that her help wasn't required and that on the contrary Sophia had been genuinely trying to help them rather than the other way around. Though her empathy did not extend so far as making any further concessions for the sake of strangers.

So she left the respawn room and went straight to the library, which was a lot less furnished than it used to.

Was it because she got separated from her team? Or because she died? Or because she ignored the library entirely on her last visit to the resting area?

Anyway, there were a few books neatly aligned on a couple of shelves, a table, and two chairs but that was about it.

There was no paper or ink. And the room felt incredibly empty.

So she took the purple master book waiting for her and started perusing through the titles.

And again, the system seems rather opinionated on what she should be reading. It was about 70% lore, 15% music, 10% alchemy and 5% magic. The 5% was being generous as it consisted of only one book.

She perused through the lore first, one tome at a time, carefully reading their index for anything new that would be relevant to her current predicament. But she quickly dismissed them, all nineteen of them. She outright ignored the music, putting it aside for potential before-bed light reading, and went straight to alchemy instead.

And she did the one sacrilegious thing she would never have done before: she tore down the books, only taking the recipes she needed, before adding the new pages to her already heavy collection of recipes.

And finally, she forced herself to read the entirety of the magic book, just to spite the system. It was again about theory, of which none actually applied to any cantrip she knew. And some passages were so obscure that she understood the words but not their meaning, which was saying a lot about her current understanding of that writing system. Almost every sentence relied on context clues she simply did not have.

And so she left the library and decided to go to bed early, so she would leave the resting area even earlier in the morning.

★☆★

It was after resting that she realized she had forgotten to contact Paolo. She had been so surprised the system did not reunite them and so focused on preparing her trip back to him that she forgot the essential:

Hey! You probably won't read me before a few hours but I made it to the 4th floor yesterday and I'm going to head out. Please describe me your surroundings so I can find you — Sophia

She did not expect any response but ten minutes later, she got an answer anyway:

Hello Sophia! Nice to learn you survived that stunt on the 3rd floor. That was pretty amazing. The 4th is an Elemental Forge: Sentient armors, raging volcano, and fire elementals from what I have seen so far. I'm on the western aisle of the forge's second floor. Got separated from my team and I would not mind help from you and pretty boy — Michel

There had been some misunderstanding here but it was to be expected. If Michel was reading all their message, the last things he had read must have been about Paolo saying he got to the 4th and would wait for her, as well as her laconical "Okay, I will meet you there ASAP."

Without any more information, Michel had no way of knowing she already had died sending her message and worse: that it had been all part of the plan. In addition, he had no reason to assume the system would separate them. She had also assumed as such and been proven wrong. Unless Paolo's resting area was somehow full, so the system had no choice but to redirect her elsewhere?

Hello Michel! I got separated from Paolo and tried to contact him. But I would gladly meet you there anyway.

What happened to your team?

The response came within seconds.

Monsters on this floor have an unfair home advantage, weapons, and strategy. A bunch of sentient armors overwhelmed Sienna, skewered her, and pushed Blake down a lava river.

Ouch. Even if she did not carry Blake and Sienna in her heart, that was brutal.

How did you make it?

Her question was answered just as quickly:

Two words: invisibility spell.

I can only use it twice a day for a couple of minutes at a time. But it's a lifesaver.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

She already had a good idea how unfair her weavesinging was but that did help put things into perspective.

True, her diminutive presence was nothing like invisibility but so far, it did the trick just as good. But if she ever had a bad encounter against an enemy without an actual mind, all her little tricks would not do her any good.

Anyway, she was incredibly lucky not to suffer the same extreme limitations with her weavesinging.

If the armors are truly sentients, I should be okay. I will get back to you when I find my way to the 2nd floor.

And then, she left the safety of the resting area.

★☆★

The heat was unbearable. As expected of a forge powered with freaking magma, but still. If it had been magma abiding by the law of physics, she would be dead from the heat, the lack of oxygen, and the fumes. So maybe the system bullshit that made that environment livable for humans could have made it a little bit more comfortable? But so far, the only countermeasure she had against the heat had been to cast prestidigitation on her clothes to cool them down.

At least, she had confirmed that none of the enemies here had been able to detect her presence so far, so she had been moving smoothingly. Although she went a long way to meet Michel. According to her map, her rest area exit had brought her to the north-north-east of the forge.

And she suspected the roguish wizard was not entirely correct and that though she did not doubt his sense of direction, it was somewhere in the southernmost part of the second floor, as she had encountered more than one empty corridor heading west. And when she had asked for precision, he told her it had been the first on his left, with the 'sun' setting in that direction.

So after confirming that his 'west' was indeed the geographical west on her map, she had a couple of ideas about where Michel's western aisle could be, depending on the entrance he took. As though she had not revealed that part of the map yet, the forge had so far proved to be a masterclass in symmetry. She did not know the purpose of any of the things she had passed through on that forge but it was absolutely nothing like foundry.

Hello Sophia. Nice to hear from you. Prince and I were getting a bit worried here. I was still in the resting area, waiting for you. Though following your conversation about the sun, our entrance is oriented northwest (we never got to see the sun!) so we should be southeast. We can see the forge from here and we are close to a sort of contraption pumping the lava? Should we head out or wait for you?

A lava pump was definitely something new. She had seen heat crucibles, lava-powered steam engines, and weird lavamills, as well as cascading from the ceiling of the entire facility and many weirder things. But a lava pump was about as reasonable as the lavamills in the absolute insanity of this forge.

Thanks for the news. I would definitely look out for lava pumps. Stay where you are for now. This floor is a maze and I don't know how anyone else is doing without a map. I will get to you ASAP.

Sophia continued her journey toward Michel's location but some odd detail was giving her mixed feelings: the complete absence of corpses. It should be a good news. But if people had been fighting for today and the sentients' armors liked to fight dirty as Michel suggested, she should have encountered a ton of them already.

'Something is wrong about this place.' She thought.

And then, she finally got to the right corridor and found nothing. There was no one in there and no place for Michel to possibly hide from her there.

Okay, guys. I'm at Michel's presumed location and he is not there. I'm going to assume I got the wrong location and keep going but something doesn't add up.

Michel's answer was immediate.

I haven't moved. Still waiting for you. You must have gotten the location wrong. I will keep waiting.

So Sophia kept checking the other locations that might fit the description and then, scout the entire forge before she concluded the evidence:

My forge is empty. I explored the first two floors and found no corpses or people for that matter. My conclusion is that we are at different locations entirely. Did you get some clues about how to access this forge's third floor?

Again, Michel's answer did not keep her waiting.

Yes and no. I found the elevator system on the first floor but it's not working. And there is no third floor, only the roof there. Or at least, that is what the elevator was calling it.

An elevator? That's something Sophia had missed on her way here, and so she started making inquiries:

The elevator? Where it is?

There are four on each floor, near the center of the forge. A bit cage of metal trapped between three lava pillars poured from the ceiling. It looks like a deathtrap but it's not. It's a none functional elevator.

It must be a puzzle that needs a key to activate. I'm going to look into it.

Good luck!

And so she traced her way back to the center of the facility, where the lava melter where, and indeed, she found the metal cage Michel mentioned. She completely disregarded them on her way in as it felt like another weird contraption with no apparent purpose.

But inside the cage, there was a mechanism with an inscription on it saying:

"Underground — Ground Floor — 1st Floor — 2nd Floor — Roof Floor"

And indeed, she could move the mechanism toward any desired floor but nothing was happening. So she started to inspect it more closely. This entirely alien technology looked like it was taken out from some madman lava-fueled steampunk wet dream. The mechanism was supposed to activate a steam engine fuelled by the surrounding lava that should be strong enough to cook her alive many times over. And the gears were only there to open the water valve and supposedly control the amount of water to get to the desired floor.

Only the water valve was not opening. That was where the missing piece was. And so she realized on closer inspection that it wasn't the water valve itself that had an issue but the safety mechanism that was blocked. Something was wrong with the device and so it did what it was designed for: preventing users from falling down into the surrounding lava.

The missing piece was a star-shaped clockwork gear, of which only one point of the star was remaining.

It was a puzzle.

Finally! Since the first floor, it had only been traps and monsters! Puzzles were finally making a comeback.

I found the issue. It's a star-shaped mechanism that was divided into five pieces. One piece is still in place if you wanna check. But they are irregular yet axis-symmetrical quadrilateral with one obtuse angle and an opposite almost-right angle. The color is red but that could be because of the temperature.

Can you search for it on your side? I think there is more than one forge and that they are all exact carbon copies, puzzle elevator included. If you found a piece, tell me the location. If I'm getting the pattern right, there should be a piece on each floor to get the elevator running and gain access to the roof floor.

Got it.

Message from Prince: He wants us to head out so he can help. He claims he can fly up to the roof, see what's there, and report to me, so I can report to you. He is really adamant about doing this.

'That's a really wrong timing to finally get cooperative, Prince!' Sophia thought.

I would leave it up to you to decide. It's your life. If the area around your door is clear and you think you can stay hidden there until I find my way back to you, it's your call. Useful tips: use prestidigitation to cool down and stay away from the edges.

Prince just made that decision for me and went through the portal. I'm going to get prepared and await his return.

And that's it. She was going to murder Prince.

But no time to waste. And so she started searching the area until she got news from both Michel and Paolo.

Report from Prince: the roof is a mine cart railway station. Each forge is part of a 9 x 9 network of identical forges. And we are located 5:3, west-to-east, north-to-south. He also says that location 5:5 has a second functional elevator on its roof and that constructs are loading it up with metal bars while lava golems and sentient armors are standing guard.

That was surprisingly useful. A clear report on their current situation and a head-up on future objectives they had to clear on this floor! Any more than that she would start thinking that their useless tressym mascot got replaced by someone else.

To Prince: Good job! Keep up the good work! But please stop flying solo and endangering your companions. To Paolo: Please properly discipline him and offer him something nice to eat once you are sure he is repentant.

And then, only ten minutes afterward she received a new message from Michel.

Hey guys: I have good news and bad news.

Good news is: You won't have to search every floor for the missing pieces. Bad news is: They do not exist, yet.

There is a mould for it in the central area underground and it goes into the forge on the second floor. Thing is: I think that is what the armor enemies on the first floor are for. We are supposed to loot their armor, melt it on the ground floor furnace, and make our way to the second floor before it cools down. I'm going to give it a try. Good luck to you too!

'Hell yeah! That's what teamwork should be like.' Sophia thought, excited by all the good news coming all at once.

Michel found the elevator and she found what was wrong with it. Prince did something constructive for once and provided useful Intel about what awaited them on the roof. And Michel found the solution to the missing pieces, though it still needed to be tested.

Now, she just needed to be on her A-game and find a way to contribute some more.