Cass started running. She didn’t know where she was going, just that she couldn’t stay here.

A bolt of lightning ripped through the air, sparking blue and white and illuminating the chasm for a fraction of a second, revealing the walls and casting strange shadows through the rubble.

It landed behind Cass, the air smelling of burned ozone and crackling with unspent energy.

Another bolt. Cass ran faster.

Another and another.

The mage was running as fast as they were able behind her, a shriek slipping from their lips as another bolt rained down from the walls.

They were all around them. Continuous. The room was awash in the crackling blue light. The shadows danced around them, the light source constantly changing.

Ahead was a door.

Cass Sprinted for it, her arms pumping, the gusts of wind pushing on.

Dodge pulled her head down. A bolt shot over her, scorching the wall beside her.

Another forced her to sidestep. Another had her jumping back out of the way of a bolt from directly above.

She slammed into the door, yanking on its handles when it didn’t swing open with her impact. A circular pattern of sigils glowed to life over the door’s surface, but they didn’t budge.

No!

Another burst, another dodge. The lightning scorched the door. It was far from the only such mark on the stone.

Cass pounded on it, but it was pointless. Every pound of her fist on the doors renewed the glowing sigils. It would take significantly more than Cass’s 18 Str and her bare hands to break it down.

She couldn’t stand here pounding on it either. A trio of lightning bolts snaked from above, forcing Cass back. Standing still was dangerous.

“Open the door!” the mage yelled.

“Its stuck!” Cass yelled back, pushing the both of them out of the way of another lightning bolt.

What now? Was there another exit? With a quick scan of the room, she didn’t think so. She could Wind Step, but she didn’t have enough Focus to guide the wind out with Elemental Manipulation.

There were way too many crocodiles to kill them all. Not by herself and not with the Focus she had remaining.

But she had to do something. Her Stamina would only last so long before she became too tired to keep Dodging.

Could she hope her Stamina lasted longer than the crocodiles’ Focus?

There had to be more she could do.

The mage ran up to the door, pushing at the handle with the same panic running under Cass’s skin.

It swung open.

The mage glanced over their shoulder, their face obscured by their hood, but their shock in their body language obviously mirroring Cass’s.

Another bolt struck the upper corner of the door. Both Cass and the mage jumped and ran through the door, slamming it shut behind them.

Purple sconces flickered to life along the walls, illuminating the space in that ever-present eerie glow, barely brighter than the darkness they banished. The room was still and quiet, save for the panicked panting of the mage and the pounding of Cass’s heart.

“It wasn’t stuck,” the mage said as their breathing steadied.

“It was stuck.” Cass wouldn’t have made such a simple mistake. The door had glowed like it was magically locked and everything.

“It-it wasn’t,” the mage stuttered. “I barely pushed on it.”

“I ran into it full force and it didn’t open.”

The mage frowned. Their lips were thin to the point of barely existing. Their skin was a dark grey. The top half of their face was still obscured by their hood, though they seemed able to see without issue. “Maybe you jammed it when you ran into it?”

Maybe. Cass didn’t think so. There had been no give when she’d run into it.

But what were the other options? The door was locked for her specifically? Why? How?

Alternatively, it was only unlocked for the mage? Again, why? How?

Maybe it was on some sort of timer before it could be opened? What started the countdown? When they entered? From when Cass touched it? Again, why?

Maybe it was a trap? People walked in and then had to survive in the crocodile infested room for a set amount of time? It was possible; it was a common enough video game dungeon feature. But it didn’t feel like they’d been trapped in that room strictly long enough for that to be a worthwhile trial, if that was the point.

Were these more likely than Cass having jammed the door when she’d run into it and unjammed it when she’d tried to yank it open?

It sounded like four equally unlikely theories to Cass.

For now, it didn’t really matter. They’d gotten out and were now… somewhere else?

They were in another room, much like the ones they’d passed earlier. On the left and right walls were a large pair of doors—the main path. On the walls in front and behind them were a handful of smaller doors, including the one they’d just come out of.

Cass rubbed her temples. Now that the immediate danger had passed, her Focus headache was announcing itself without mercy. She needed to rest.

“Suppose we’re safe here?” Cass asked.

The mage shook their head. Their shoulders were trembling. “I-I don’t know.”

They were a small person, and they looked even smaller standing in the dim room, staring back and forth between the many doors. They were maybe as tall as Cass’s shoulders. Probably a couple of inches shorter, actually. In their hood and robes, they could have been a young boy or a modestly proportioned woman.

Cass plopped herself down along the wall, pulling some fire starting stuff from her Bag. Whatever happened next, she needed to recover some of her Focus before she dealt with it.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Cass started the fire with the flint and steel that she’d gotten for these times when she didn’t have the Focus to spend on magic. Beacon of Hearth and Home, the evolved version of her old Set Camp, guided her hands, making it easy.

Immediately, the flames sprung up, radiating Beacon’s healing warmth through the room. Cass sighed with relief and leaned back against the wall.

The mage was still standing in the center of the room.

“Come sit down,” Cass called.

They looked back and forth, as if Cass might be speaking to someone else. “Are you sure?”

“Do you have a way back to your group?” Cass asked.

They shook their head.

“Me neither,” Cass said. That wasn’t strictly true. Once she’d recovered her Focus, she could reenter the crocodile room and Wind Step up to where she’d fallen. Probably.

There was just the issue of the crocodiles. And the question around the door. Would she get locked in again? Was the door the only mechanism that would keep her from leaving?

There was also the question of how far Alyx might have gotten and how many groups might have gotten in between them by the time Cass had recovered. More than one or two, for sure. Could Cass sneak her way past all of them back to Alyx? Or was it better to wait here for Alyx to catch up?

They seemed to still be on the main path, so Alyx had to get here, eventually. Right?

Unless she died in between.

Cass set that thought aside. Salos was with her. Marco was with her. She’d be okay.

Rather, it was Cass, all but on her own, who should be worried for her life.

“How far do you suppose we fell?” Cass muttered. “What floor are we on now?”

It was supposed to get more dangerous the deeper one went. There had been lots of level 20~ish monsters on the first floor. And far too many level 25~ish monsters in the room she’d just left. She hadn’t actually thought to Identify more of the crocodiles, so she couldn’t say if 25 had been high, low, or average. Lacking more data, she’d just assume 25 was the average for this floor.

Did difficulty increase by one level per floor? If so, did that put her on the sixth floor?

In real buildings, a floor was something like 10 feet? So six floors would be about 60 ft? She was pretty sure she’d fallen over 60 feet. Did that mean they were even lower?

The eighth floor? The ninth? There were only supposed to be nine floors. Could there be more secret floors? Or floors unrelated to gaining the goddess’s blessing? Could she be even lower?

“I think,” the mage said slowly, “That this is probably the fifth floor.”

Cass cracked an eye open to look at the mage, an eyebrow raised. “What makes you say that?”

The mage pointed at the side doors. “There are only two on each wall. I read that, um, The number reduces with each floor. The first floor had seven doors on either side.”

Cass didn’t remember how many there had been before, but it was more to go on than her own speculation. “Seemed like we fell further than that.”

“It’s possible that the books are wrong,” the mage said. “But, um, we can’t be deeper than nine. The books say that the catacombs change a lot after nine. Unless the books are very wrong, I suppose.”

Cass shook her head. “No, I believe you. If the books say it’s the fifth floor, you’re probably right. I was just thinking there was a lot of space between these floors. Now that I think about it, the stairs between one and two were pretty long for only covering one floor.”

Much too long. Why was there so much space between the floors?

“Oh!” the mage snapped their fingers. Their fingers were long, their nails black. “I think I read that the side paths sometimes have multiple floors but that they rarely cross floor boundaries. So, that’s probably it?”

Cass nodded. That seemed possible. She certainly didn’t have a better theory.

“I’m Cass, by the way,” Cass said, realizing she still didn’t know a single thing about the mage. “Hi.”

“Oh! I am Pellen Ioptes (I-op-tes),” they said. They bit their lip. Were their teeth pointed? That mouth was very wide, now that Cass thought about it. Like almost ear to ear wide.

Slowly, they lowered their hood

Cass was not ready for what was underneath.

Eyes. So many eyes. More than eight. More than Cass could quickly count. They were all different sizes, protruding at different angles around the otherwise squat face. A single, larger eye filled the center of the face, surrounded by more smaller ones.

All of them were a deep blue, like the depths of the ocean.

Below the eyes was just a wide mouth, stretching from one side of the face to the other. Their teeth were pointed, like a shark’s.

Above their eyes was a head of dark hair. So black it was purple, or perhaps that was just the lighting? They wore it in a braid pinned flat to the back of their head.

Cass was staring. Rudely.

But she couldn’t stop. She knew she wasn’t on Earth. She was a slyphid with magic and everything, after all. She’d seen elves and dwarves and beast people. But never…

Agru Mage

Lvl 27

[The Argu are natives of the Aegic Archipelago in the Southern Skies. They are well known for their sharp eyes and deft hands. It is said that they were created by the God of Perception in the Second Age. Little goes unseen by their eyes.

As a mage, they command powerful magics, frequently of light or projectiles.]

… an Agru.

She hadn’t seen it listed among her options when she’d picked a new race. Perhaps it had been listed among the uncountably many she was initially offered and she just hadn’t seen it.

Cass shuddered at the thought. She was having a hard enough time with what was essentially a human body. How would she have handled transforming into a race so obviously foreign?

“Um, I can put my hood back up,” Pellen said quickly. “Most people of the Peninsula have a hard time with—“

Cass shook her head frantically. “No, no, no. Make yourself comfortable. I’m sorry I’ve made you uncomfortable. I just remembered something entirely unrelated.”

Pellen frowned, but lowered their hand from the hood. “O-okay.”

Cass stared pointedly into the fire. It was awkward now. But she couldn’t think of anything else to say on the subject which would make it less so. Perhaps it was better to just push along like nothing had happened.

What came next? What were her options?

1. Wind Step back up the chasm and attempt to catch up to Alyx.

2. Sit tight until Alyx caught up with her.

3. Try the doors along the Main Path in order to…

3a. …regroup with Alyx.

3b. …find the next floor down and beat everyone to the blessing.

4. Explore the side rooms looking for treasure.

Cass set option 1 aside for now. She’d already explored it, and she didn’t like the idea of trying to fight her way through the other contestants to catch up with Alyx. The primary virtue of that option was it was unlikely there would be many monsters in between them that way.

Option 2 was promising. It was what one was supposed to do if one was lost, and well, wasn’t she lost? But what would she do if monsters wandered in here? This was—apparently—the fifth floor. That meant monsters strong enough to thrive on the fifth floor. Could Cass handle them alone?

Assuming she could, there was also the question of if it would be Alyx that got to her first. Fioreya was in the lead as far as Cass knew. Cass didn’t know how Alyx’s cousin would handle running into Cass here. Would she kill her on sight? Ignore her? Either seemed equally likely.

Option 3 had identical problems to option 2. Either way, there would be floor five monsters and the threat of running into Fioreya. Getting back to Alyx faster would be nice (option 3a), but Cass didn’t have any reason to rush down to the blessing by herself (3b).

Option 4 was much the same, though running into Fioreya was replaced with the worry of missing Alyx entirely. Then again, Salos was with Alyx. He could probably sense if she was in a side room. Probably. As it was, Cass could vaguely feel him above her. He should be able to feel the same. Add his Stone Memory skill, he should have no trouble tracking her down.

Cass frowned. Did that make Option 4 the best? That didn’t seem right?

But it would probably be a while until Alyx got this far down. Cass could cut that in half if she met up with her, but she didn’t actually know which way would take her toward Alyx. If she picked the wrong direction along the main path, she could accidentally end up deeper in the Catacombs, increasing the time they spent separated.

“Do you have any idea which door we’d want to go back up?” Cass asked Pellen.

They seemed to know more about the Catacombs than Cass, so maybe—

They shook their head. “No, sorry.”

Well. Alright. That made trying to get back to Alyx a coin flip, potentially increasing the time they were separated, potentially decreasing it. That meant options 2 and 3 had the same payoff and the same risk.

Option 4 had similar risk as the 2 and 3, but had the benefit of potentially finding treasure? That made it strictly better, didn’t it?

Cass closed her eyes and leaned up against the wall. She had a while still to think about it. She could put off the decision until her Focus had recovered.