Pan Tian looked them over and gave them an approving nod. "Be careful here. With Jie's strength, we should be able to breeze through this place easier than most. But, let's not let overconfidence become our downfall. This dungeon is still full of dangers. Monsters, arak, traps, and threats nobody has even uncovered yet.
"This is my first time in the dungeon, and while I acquired as many notes as I could on this place, there's still a lot I don't know. So, I'm counting on you three to stay alert. Let the rest of us know if you spot something we miss and be careful. Ithilix, I want you to be extra cautious. It's a maze down here and I've heard of several groups getting attacked from behind even when they were sure the path behind them was clear," Pan Tian said.
"This one will be on guard," Ithilix said.
Pan Tian nodded. "Good. Jie, I'm going to be looking for traps so I need you to look after me just as you've been doing," she said.
Jie nodded. "I won't let anything happen to you," she promised.
"Alright then. Let's move out. Stay alert and keep quiet. Sound carries far in this place," Pan Tian said.
***
They moved along the long dark tunnel and came to a round room with pathways that led off in every direction and a familiar red statue in the center.
"Welcome, students of my Crimson Academy. This dungeon will prepare you for delving into ancient ruins and the tombs of esteemed experts. Learn well. You're the first to enter the dungeon this year and the horned lion's share of treasure and danger await you hand in hand. Will you emerge victorious, or will your lives serve only to make the path easier for those who follow you? Risk, reward, and lessons await you, dear students," said the statue, though its lips didn't move.
Pan Tian pulled a map out of her storage ring and consulted it. Jie caught a peek over Pan Tian's shoulder and her eyes widened. It looked like a nightmare of contorting tunnels so vast that each room was drawn incredibly small, and yet huge chunks of it remained unchartered as far as Jie could see.
Pan Tian pointed to a path that led to the right and slightly down and led the way. Jie followed after her.
"Does the map show you where traps are?" Jie whispered.
"Some of them. But they make new ones and make changes," Pan Tian whispered back.
"They?" Jie asked.
"The arak. Vicious humanoid bird creatures. They seem to worship our school's founder. I'm not sure about the details. You saw some of them outside," Pan Tian said.
They fell back into silence after that as Pan Tian led them through the tunnels. The air grew mustier, and the walls vanished behind skulls and bones stacked neatly along them. Though, Jie still heard the blood moving somewhere behind the densely packed bones.
The skulls were a mixture of all kinds of creatures. Human and bird skulls seemed the most common. Jie scanned the bones with her spirit sense extra carefully, as the ghosts in the first trial had made it all too clear that undead were a very real threat in this world. And, even if there weren't any undead in here, the bones still seemed like a good place for something to hide.
But, all Jie sensed were small things skittering among them. Their scrabbling movements echoed through the long, dark tunnels. But, the creatures Jie sensed were extraordinarily weak and shouldn't pose much of a threat. They still made Jie's skin crawl though.
"Pressure plates in the middle, walk against the walls," Pan Tian said without slowing down.
Jie did as she was told and so did the others. Her clothing brushed against the bones, but it allowed her to avoid a series of pressure plates along the center of the passage. They were almost imperceptible with the layer of dust covering them and the floor. Jie was curious about what they activated. When she looked up, she saw countless small holes that looked like they could shoot something out of them.
Jie swallowed hard and they pressed on.
Scratching, screeching, clacking noises echoed from somewhere ahead. At least, Jie thought it was from that direction. The echoes did strange things to sounds in the maze of tight passageways. But, the sounds were getting louder.
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A dim orange glow came from around a corner up ahead as the noises grew louder. A moment later, Jie sensed auras approaching them. They were indeed coming from ahead of them. A group of six auras. One eighth star Expert, three ninth star Experts, a second star Elementalist and a third star Elementalist.
Jie swallowed hard. She'd escaped an Elementalist already, but in the tight corridors and with two of them and the others... she had no confidence she'd be able to keep her friends safe and lead the creatures away this time...
Thankfully, the creatures hadn't bothered to veil their auras so they were easy to sense, and hopefully had not yet sensed Jie and her friends.
Pan Tian called a halt with an upraised hand almost immediately and looked at Jie, as though asking whether Jie thought she could handle what was coming their way.
Jie shook her head vehemently. Pan Tian nodded. She gestured back the way they'd come and led them rapidly in the opposite direction. None of them said a word, all of them trying to keep the noise of their movements down and their auras veiled tightly.
Pan Tian led them down a side passage, then turned around another corner and came to a stop. There, the older girl pressed a finger to her lips and turned off her lantern.
The others followed suit. Jie turned off her own lantern first, leaving Xue's till last.
As Jie turned off Xue's lantern, darkness swallowed them.
Jie and her friends waited there in utter blackness, surrounded by bones, the steady trickle of blood, and the scrabbling of things scurrying around them.
Footsteps drew closer, muffled slightly by the layer of dust that covered the catacomb floor. The approaching creatures screeched and clacked in a rhythm that sounded like some form of speech.
Jie felt a weak aura skittering over the floor toward her. A sixth star Adept and tiny. It reached her foot and crawled onto her shoe. Jie kept as quiet as she could and didn't move. It was small. Too small and weak to pose any real threat... even if it did have far too many legs. But, she dared not make a sound as the Elementalists approached.
Jie's breaths sounded far too loud in her ears despite her attempts to breathe as quietly as possible. The auras of the two Elementalists drew closer, traveling along the passage they'd been in only a moment ago. The orange glow that followed the creatures gradually lit the side passage they'd ducked out of, casting long shadows over the skulls as Jie kept her aura veiled as best she could.
Just enough light made it around the bends for Jie to see the hairy outline of a spider the size of her face as it started climbing up her robes.
She suppressed a shudder together with the urge to smack it away. Far, far away.
The approaching auras paused at the entrance to the side passage Jie and her friends had taken, and Jie's heart pounded in her chest. She felt certain that they'd been found. Sensed by the Elementalists despite their attempts to hide.
Then one of the creatures gave a series of harsh, screeching noises that sounded oddly like an order... and the auras continued moving down the original passage.
Jie held in her relieved sigh, afraid the Elementalists might somehow hear the soft noise echoing through the tunnels. She waited patiently with her friends, fearful the creatures might double back.
The spider lazily continued its climb up Jie's waist. The weight of its body tugged slightly on her robes as it pulled itself up. Jie's skin crawled but she remained silent and unmoving.
But, gradually, the auras moved beyond Jie's ability to sense them... the orange light faded and so too did the noise. But, nobody dared move. Not even Jie. Despite the spider that crawled lazily up to her neck.
Jie and her friends waited in the darkness for a while longer. Time the spider used to continue its climb up her neck. Jie felt the hairs of its legs on her neck and cheek as it climbed up her face. She tensed, aching to crush it and incinerate it with dragon lightning qi but held back. Elementalist senses would be better than theirs. They had to be sure.
Finally, Pan Tian dialed her lantern back up to a faint blue glow. Jie took that as her cue to at last do something about the spider.
She grabbed it with one hand and hurled it into the darkness. It landed with a meaty thud and skittered away down the tunnel. Jie shuddered and dusted herself off, trying to shake off the memory of it.
They encountered more of the screeching groups wandering the catacombs. Pan Tian said they were arak, but they never risked getting close enough to verify that.
"Are they hostile?" Jie asked after they'd evaded another group of them.
"Let's not find out," Pan Tian said.
They encountered other creatures in the long, dark passages. Larger versions of the hairy spider that'd crawled up Jie. They loved to drop down from the ceiling or spring out from hidden crevices in the walls. But the strongest ones they encountered were only at the fourth star of the Expert rank and easily dealt with. They collected their bodies and beast cores and moved on.
They also encountered multiple groups of skeletons that climbed out of the collection of bones along the wall, red energy suffused them and connected mismatched bones into nightmare monstrosities that should not exist.
Despite the fright they gave Jie when they suddenly ambushed their group from either side, fear soon turned to vindication at her paranoia being proven correct.
The skeletons were stronger than the spiders with several fifth and sixth star Experts among them. Strong enough to be a threat to the others in Jie's party. But Jie made sure to annihilate those threats as quickly as she could. And, they moved on.
The skeletons had nothing worth taking as they used no items and fought only with the red energy that suffused their bodies as well as the bones that composed them.
Jie was glad that not even Pan Tian wanted to take the bones.