The traps were the easiest part of the dungeon. They were all reliant on runes. Hannah took joy in dismantling them as they traveled through the tunnels and entered new rooms laden with monsters.
The walk between monster rooms had become a routine that helped Hannah get into the flow.
For the most part, the beginning always remained the same. The monsters wouldn’t engage first. They would let the crawlers kick things off. It was through increasing difficulty and the appearance of new, tougher monsters that made this deadly game more variable.
Bookworms maxed out at Level 40 with several skills to watch out for. Commonly, they used Mind Scribbles. But sometimes they would use other skills called Bookmark Dart and Paper Cut.
Those skills didn’t sound intimidating until Hannah suffered a close call from a rushing bookworm. The monster used Paper Cut while she was under assault by another bookworm shooting a volley of Bookmark Darts.
Her highly resistant gear protected her, but she still felt the danger of their attacks and had a brief fear of being slashed apart or punctured by magical bookmarks. She retaliated in kind, of course, with sharp pulses of kinetic force, turning the bookworms into hundreds to thousands of shredded books and pages.
Other than that, Hannah’s parade of oddities steamrolled over the bookworms and treated them as the grunts they were. Since there were so many, it was easy to gain experience and levels off of them.
The book skeletons were the next tier of challenges and proved more noteworthy. They didn’t always hide under piles of books, especially when Hannah’s group entered monster rooms that held more varieties in designs.
At some point, the monster rooms transitioned into cozy-looking settings with rugs covering the floor beneath the piles of discarded, unintelligible books.
There were lamps lit with actual flames in the corners. There were even bookshelves against the walls. The ceiling lifted higher above their heads, dangling chandeliers that were round, wooden, and classical. The new room would’ve been more enchanting if it wasn’t huge and spacious.
Obviously, bookworms rose to their full heights once Hannah and her parade of oddities kicked things off. She was running low on Co-Opt Bombs at this point, but Hannah didn’t stress that since there were many other means.
She focused on any surprises that might jump out, which were the book skeletons. They revealed themselves to be higher in level now, around Level 44. The book skeletons threatened Zarian’s skeletons with reality warping alchemy that was more dangerous than the name of their skills would suggest.
Hannah had the solution.
“D-Bolt, Six Charges, L-Palm.”
Hannah obliterated one book skeleton that phased out of a bookcase. The dark bolt obliterated the bookcase as well. Splinters of bone and wood flew everywhere.
She swiveled around fast and turned to dust a second book skeleton that tried to use its Paper Alchemy on one of Zarian’s skeletons from behind. She turned and released a third charge of dark bolt, eliminating a third book skeleton along with several book worms.
Whenever she shot one, Zarian already gathered another in a dense ball on her palm. It almost felt automatic. She barely had to wait as he delivered his boon again and again, securing the safety of their forces while they removed the monster grunts.
Only after the book skeletons were eliminated, Hannah stepped forward and got some personal kills with her own abilities. They cleared out the room fast.
Things changed again on their way to the next room. Hannah first noticed it based on the complexity of a trap while walking through the hallway.
It was a double trap, which would trigger a sequence to force a wary crawler to move backward away from a pitfall. Then the unsuspecting crawler would fall to a more hidden trap that would drop several guillotines from the ceiling.
Hannah disabled their runic enchantments and recorded them.
The next room featured a new creature: mimics. The mimics hid in plain sight as plush seats that Hannah would’ve sat on for a cozy reading session.
The monster room looked better than the last. There were still piles of books on the floor, but they looked neater and newer, even with the unintelligible text.
The place smelled of subtle incense. The shelves looked nicer. The room had a more enchanting and comfortable draw that made anyone want to relax, especially with how inviting the mimics looked as seats.
Hannah asked for their info.
Zarian answered.
Hannah gathered a count of the bookworms and library mimics. She made some judgment calls on the likely locations the book skeletons would hide.
The odds were uncomfortable. She was running a little ragged after so many fights in a short time period.
Her vitality – the energy that defended her body from excess harm, helped her recover rapidly from injury, and fed into her stamina – must’ve been beaten up from the excessive strain of combat.
“I can keep going.” Hannah used more Co-Opt Bombs, driving her supply to its lowest point.
The skeletons charged them up and hurled out bombs for fire, wind, frost, vibration, and warp. Twisting flame tornados scorched the mimics and revealed them as horrendous monsters with serrated teeth and long tongues. Shooting shards and shockwaves knocked the book skeletons out of their hiding places while destroying multiple bookshelves. The warp bombs sent the bookworms flying through air regardless of physics.
The explosions sent the monsters into a frenzy, ticking them off and leaving most of them damaged. Hannah then reached behind her and had Roller lunge with a kinetic jump into her hand.
She maneuvered it around awkwardly and took the lead before blasting the round, two-foot-wide golem like a ball out of a cannon. Roller smashed apart a mimic, obliterated several bookworms, and turned the bones of a book skeleton to dust. Then Roller collided with the back wall and rebounded at a new angle with a pulse of kinetic force.
“D-Pillar, Hard, Close Front.”
Hannah watched a dark pillar rise in front of her and cover their way into the room as Roller bounced around and smashed into monsters. She counted down the seconds before Roller’s current command ended to conserve aura.
Then Hannah requested for the pillar to fall. Roller had done his job well.
The skeletons, spiders, and Reiki rushed out for battle. They overcame a few surprise ambushes by the book skeletons and put down a mimic that had more vitality than most.
Once the battle ended, Hannah breathed hard. Her body felt weary. The strain was considerable. This was far more advanced than the fighting back in the White Spider Dungeon. It was taxing on the mind, too.
But the rewards were real. Maybe not anything upfront. But the experience gains were immense. There was enough for all the skeletons, as well as herself, to grow consistently.
Better yet, all the skeletons had advanced after this latest battle.
Zarian gave her the rundown:
Loner, Goblin Skeleton, Level 40 Runic Enforcer, Best Alpha Skill: Enhance Runes.
Flamer, Gnoll Skeleton, Level 37 Runic Burner, Best Alpha Skill: Blaze Control.
Windy, Gnoll Skeleton, Level 37 Runic Typhoon, Best Alpha Skill: Gale Power.
Icicle, Gnoll Skeleton, Level 37 Runic Freezer, Best Alpha Skill: Frost Range.
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Mighty, Human Skeleton, Level 36 Runic Lifter, Best Alpha Skill: Strong Crush.
Hasty, Human Skeleton, Level 36 Runic Runner, Best Alpha Skill: Speed Hype.
Blender, Human Skeleton, Level 35 Runic Stalker, Best Alpha Skill: Habitat Stealth.
Warper, Human Skeleton, Level 35 Runic Spacer, Best Alpha Skill: Spatial Blink.
Glowy, Goblin Skeleton, Level 35 Runic Showman, Best Alpha Skill: Enhance Light.
Darko, Goblin Skeleton, Level 35 Runic Stalker, Best Alpha Skill: Enhance Dark.
Better yet, they all had the Self Sufficient trait now. They could run for a long time on their own by absorbing ambient aura.
Hannah caught a small shift that looked like relief coming from Zarian. She figured keeping the necromancy spell running for so long wasn’t that hard for him, but it took away one of his concentration slots for spells.
Neither he nor Hannah wanted more than this, either. A squad of specialized skeletons that could grow quickly together was more appealing than an army of skeletons that would serve as mere fodder to enemies.
“Good job, everyone. You did well.” Hannah smiled at the skeletons as she walked by them and refreshed their enchantments individually.
Their new skills all differed from each other based on their experiences. However, they still depended on her enchantments to make the most out of their new abilities.
Flamer lobbed a ball of fire up and down. His blackened bones streaked with red and orange embers glowed with excitement.
Icicle froze the floor under him while spreading the effect outward. Mighty hugged the corpse of a mimic and turned it into a mush. Hasty kept dashing all over the place with more speed.
Blender was nowhere to be seen unless Hannah used her Rune Scan +1. The others celebrated their advancement with displays of their increased prowess and new Self Sufficient trait.
From above, latched onto the remaining chandeliers or dangling from arcane webs stuck to the ceiling, a hundred spectral spiders waved their legs as part of the celebration.
“You deserve a good job as well,” Zarian teased, looking up from his book. “Level 39 now. You’ve done good work, Hannah. You’ve worked for those levels, too.”
Hannah wasn’t sure about that. But her body said otherwise. She could really use a nap. But she wanted to keep pushing. She wanted to see an end to this dungeon so they could reconnect with the others outside.
Their time here was especially limited because of Zarian’s appetite. There were only a few meals left, and they were for Hannah.
Zarian was growing hungry.
Para was eating old corpses from her pocket dimension. The monsters weren’t edible. Even the mimics’ bodies, which spurted out bony limbs, teeth, and a tongue made of threads, weren’t something Para would like to eat.
“Onto the next?” Hannah asked.
“Maybe we should take a nap.” Zarian pointed at the sofa that remained unaffected by the battle. “That’s as good a spot as any. You can catch some Z’s that way.”
“You’re growing hungry.” Hannah placed her hand on his shoulder.
“I’m almost done with the new dread mire gator spell. The third spell is one hell of a way to rock an army.” Zarian licked the front of his teeth. “After that, I’ll return to working on the gravity spell.”
Hannah was surprised. She’d thought he would want to jump into fights against the next round of monsters. He’d been studying for a long time, hadn’t he? Wouldn’t he want a break?
Zarian waggled his brow. “You’re doing your best. So, I’ll do my best in return.”
Hannah nodded. Perhaps he had a point. He needed to study hard to overcome the sheer difficulty of the gravity spell.
It sounded like a monstrous spell that would have her feeling daunted if she had the talent for wizardry. Meanwhile, she was playing the role of ferocious adventurer, crawler, battler, cutting her teeth in a gauntlet of monsters.
“Perhaps I should get some sleep. Take some of my meals if you must.” Hannah turned toward the comfy sofa.
The moment she lay down, she felt weary. Her vitality was more tattered than she’d thought. That could’ve been dangerous.
Lack of rest would make it easier for her to suffer permanent injury and risk death. As she drifted off, a thought occurred to her. She mumbled it aloud:
“Wait, Zarian, you should be past Level 40. Please tell me you didn’t wait like you said.” Hannah would hate for him to miss out on experience and levels.
Zarian’s face grew fuzzier as she drifted closer to sleep. She could barely see his smile as he said, “Sleep well, Hannah.”
Indeed, she slept well. When she woke up, Zarian presented her with breakfast and a waterskin. They were running low on water. They really should pack up more emergency supplies in case of sudden-dungeon scenarios like these.
Hannah went into the hallway they came from, rearmed a pitfall trap, and conducted her business into the pit. Thankfully, they had toiletry in Para’s pocket dimension. When she returned, she took a good look at Zarian.
He looked bad.
He was starving.
“There is the option of deactivating Para,” Hannah said grimly.
The Parasite Cloak didn’t object.
“Nah. Para’s gonna stay active in the alpha section forever,” Zarian said.
The cloak quivered affectionately and hugged her host with threads and tendrils. She looked alright and must’ve fed healthily on corpses they had stored.
Hannah scanned the room and saw it was empty of their skeletons.
Without having to ask, Zarian’s cloak flapped and released various piles of bones. Each skeletal pile had distinct qualities that foretold which were which, such as how one pile had bones that looked like charcoal and embers or how another pile had bones that glowed with a consistent light.
Zarian raised his advancing skeletons. They all stood ready with enchantments still fresh and fully powered.
Hannah faced them all, and they looked to her for instruction. When she searched past them, she saw Reiki rousing from a webbed hammock, spectral spiders flickering in and out view as they scuttled off her body.
The summoned dungeon boss yawned into multiple hands before sauntering forward to join them. She hadn’t gained a level. She couldn’t grow normally, which was similar to the spectral spiders.
Hannah nodded at everyone. “We’re going to finish this crawl today. Zarian is suffering from starvation. We have to pick up the pace.”
Everyone nodded. The spectral spiders appeared from all over and performed a one-legged salute.
Hannah took a deep breath and steadied herself with her Level 0 Tranquil Mind. She performed some light stretches and warm-ups Naomi had drilled into her.
Then they started things off with the usual scouting led by the spiders. That was when Hannah realized things had changed drastically.
The next hallway Reiki pointed toward had no traps. Instead, it transitioned from its usual stone design into a more formal, aristocratic setting.
There were framed illustrations on the walls, vases on marble shelves coated in dust, and a frayed rug on the floor. More frayed furnishings, such as banners draping down from the upper walls and ancient curtains covering blocked windows, adorned the hallway further ahead.
At some point, the spectral spiders’ journey stretched further than Hannah felt was comfortable. She decided for everyone to move forward.
Zarian focused on reading his black magic book to conquer the impregnable gravity spell. Hannah scanned for weaknesses and traps. The obscuring enchantments were stronger here. But so was Hannah, herself.
Yet, she couldn’t find anything. Thus, for some hours, they went on a long journey down a nonstop aristocratic hallway.
Hannah was fearing the worst – such as a loop situation – when the scouts found an exit. She picked up the pace with her parade of oddities until they reached the forward scouts and saw with their own eyes – or lack of eyes – that they’d reached the last room.
There was no doubt of that.
Hannah saw the dungeon core in the far distance, shining like a star floating high in the air.
In front of her boots, there was a staircase leading down into an immense maze of tall bookcases. Hannah would’ve suspected the best way was over if it wasn’t for the floating paper sheets waiting in the air.
They were trip mines with a variety of effects that were surprising to Hannah. Most were using a combination of spatial and dimensional magic that gave Hannah shivers.
It would be a terrible idea to fly over the maze. It was also a bad idea to enter the maze without reconnaissance. Or more information.
Hannah committed to the thing she’d dreaded since starting this crawl. She picked up the same style books she saw everywhere, sat on the steps, and deciphered their unintelligible text by cross-referencing everything within their pages.
There were five books in all. They had appeared everywhere no matter what was inside of the monster rooms Hannah and the others conquered.
Each of these distinct style books had the same print in all of their endless copies. The clues were pretty obvious. The only problem was that Hannah had to make sense of the senseless text using all five books.
She had to find the pattern and … oh … she could sort of see it now.
Each book contained incomplete lines. Hannah matched up the incomplete lines between all the books. She found which books should pair with each other in specific orders that changed every five pages before going back to the start of the order on the twenty-fifth page. She used a runic device for journaling and produced a text written in another language.
Then she cheated by using Zarian’s Identify trait to translate that text.
She came out with directions for a safe and quick passage through the maze. They had to take the roundabout way and based the timing of their movement on the sound of a loudly dropped book.
The sound would occur once they step foot into the maze and would repeat itself every ten minutes to inform them of a shift in the maze’s design and how they should adapt to that shift.
“No wonder nobody survived being sacrificed to this place,” Zarian said, rousing from his gravity spell study. “The Hemlock Family and their dungeon went all out to make sure there were only losers.”
“Not today,” Hannah said.
Reiki chuckled before repeating the phrase: “Not today.”
Then Para joined in: “Not today.”
Hannah nodded in agreement. “Come, everyone. Let’s end this farce and get what we came for. Then get Zarian fed.”
Reiki and Para cheered: “Yeah!”
The skeletons rattled. The spiders swung on their webs and frolicked. Zarian followed in the back with Roller. The wizard looked keen to have a meal.