I walked through the doorway into a long, narrow corridor filled with the same towering bookshelves covered by vines and branches; however, this time, some of the bindings of the books were stained with some kind of vermillion substance. It was as if fresh blood had somehow splattered onto these books recently. I continued flying forward while carefully watching my surroundings, especially for potential triggers for traps. In the distance, I saw a door larger than the rest I had seen throughout this trial dungeon. As I was nearing the door, I heard a faint clicking sound.

I immediately stopped flying and looked around, trying to figure out what exactly that click did. I saw nothing different compared to how the corridor looked before. Not seeing anything apparent, I resumed my flight toward the door at a slower speed, still a little suspicious about what happened.

Nothing happened, even when I got within a few feet in front of the door. I cautiously placed my empty talon on the door ring and carefully pulled the door open. As I did so, click, another faint sound resounded through the corridor. I hurriedly beat my wings to propel me backward, away from the door. I looked all around me to see if anything happened. I first checked the direction that I’ve noticed people frequently forget about, above, but nothing of note was there, just a bland ceiling. I then turned around to see if anything happened behind me: still nothing. Turning my head back so that I was once again facing the now-opened door, I turned my head from side to side to survey my immediate surroundings, and again, nothing was there.

‘Nothing again? What could those clicks have done? Surely they weren’t there just to scare me, right?’ I came up with a plausible hypothesis for what the sounds were for, but doubts quickly spread in my mind. ‘No, what is the point of doing that? There is no danger in this room, so there would be no point in scaring me. Scaring me only makes me more cautious and alert than normal which makes it harder to catch me off guard with another trap, which I’m pretty sure the dungeon does not want… Actually, why am I assuming that this dungeon is sentient and has a consciousness?’ I thought about this question for minutes before finally coming to a conclusion.

‘It’s probably because the phrasing of the last note in that book led me to believe that this dungeon was likely created by whoever wrote that book. If they did create this place, they would be able to implement mechanisms that serve no practical purpose other than pranking the trial-goer. Even if this idea were true, it would not help me much as I do not know the personality of the creator, so I have no way to know whether it is a serious trap or just a trick. For now, I’ll just have to proceed forward with caution.’

Turning my eyes back to the open doorway, I noticed something that I had glossed over since I was preoccupied with ascertaining the state of the corridor after the second click. Unlike the other doorways in this dungeon, this one had some sort of darkness obscuring the entrance to the next room.

‘What is this weird darkness? The only way forward is through this veil of darkness unless there is a secret entrance somewhere in this corridor.’ I meticulously checked each bookshelf for any hidden mechanism, but I found absolutely nothing.

‘So that door really is the only way to proceed. I really don’t want to go through that darkness, but it seems I must.’ I approached the door before stopping and simply hovering in midair a few inches away from it. ‘I should try a few experiments first before entering it fully at least.’

I stuck out my free talon into the darkness and it safely passed through the darkness. My talon disappeared into the door, but I could still feel it connected to my body, unharmed. I then stuck my beak into the door and the same thing happened.

‘Seems safe enough. The darkness was probably only there so I couldn’t see what was in the next room before entering the door. Judging from this, I’m guessing that the next room will be fairly intense in terms of difficulty, which probably means I’m near the end of the dungeon. Let's get this over with then.’

Slowly, I entered the doorway into a large spacious circular room. Like in the corridor, bookshelves completely surrounded the room, many of them covered with that same red substance that I assumed was fresh blood. Ripped pieces of clothing were littered around the floor, many of them soaked in that same red substance, and torn pieces of paper were floating around in the room, even though there was no breeze. There was a large circular gemstone-like object in the middle of the floor. Other than that, the room was devoid of anything else of note.

‘I don’t see an immediate exit other than the door that I came through, but there is no way that is the way to proceed in this dungeon. What is the way to move forward then?’

Without any idea of what to do, I searched through the articles of clothing hoping to find some kind of hint. I found some damaged weapons like swords, lances, axes, and halberds all made of iron. Nearly every weapon had severe damage, to the point where many of them were split into several parts. The iron portions had split into many shards, while the wooden handles had cracked apart. The only semi-usable weapon was an iron sword that had a few chips in its blade. However, it was still not usable to me because I no longer had any human hands.

‘It’s annoying how I can’t use this sword, but there’s nothing I can really do about that as I won’t be able to control my swings.’ I paused for a bit. ‘Perhaps I could use it as a projectile if I had to.’ I grabbed the handle of the sword with my free talon and tested the weight of it. The sword was heavy and it was extremely difficult to raise up, but after a few minutes of struggling, I was able to lift the sword into the sky.

‘A bit too heavy for my liking, but at least I’ve confirmed that I can carry it.’ Then I tried to swing the sword in an attempt to throw it, but when I started swinging the sword, I launched forward from the force generated by the motion. Hurriedly dropping the sword, I managed to steady myself before I crashed into the wall.

‘Okay, so I am unable to throw the sword, but at least I can still drop the sword when I’m directly above the enemy. That should do quite substantial damage to whoever it hits. Anyways, back to what I was initially searching for, clues about how to advance in this dungeon.’ I went back to rummaging through the scraps of clothes and the fragments of papers. The papers all had words written on them, but each page was either illegible due to wear or completely unintelligible because large parts of the words were missing.

I searched for a long time but still found nothing that would help me, yet I continued my foraging. At this point, there were only 2 more piles of clothes that I had not searched through. I was beginning to give up hope, but I still meticulously dug around the piles. There was again nothing in the first pile I searched, and my thought that there was nothing here was reinforced. Despite this, I went through the last pile, tightly holding onto the remains of hope that lay buried deep in my heart.

I searched through each scrap of clothing, ensuring nothing was hidden in them. Each time I did this, I found nothing. I continued searching until I had reached the last piece of clothing that I had yet to check. My spirit was low and the hope I had originally tightly held was beginning to fade. I dejectedly flipped over the last scrap expecting nothing; however, something was there. My face brightened and I felt a slight sense of relief.

What I found was a worn-out journal with scratches and rips all over it, but it was readable to some extent. The beginning of the journal had been completely torn out of the journal, and the middle of the journal was almost entirely covered by blood. The only legible portion of the journal was the entries toward the end. Some words and letters were faded, but the general idea of the entry could still be pieced together.

D y 10

We finished exploring the second floor after 7 days. The w nding passageways were a pain to get through. There were many bra ching paths that we had to decide whet er to take a detour or continue follo ing the original path we took.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The enemies were also very annoying. We encountered a la ge sentry-like rob t that had swords for arms and would constantly just circle around a room. Once th y saw us, an al rm triggered and some of the tomes that we had fou ht on the first floor appeared and joined the fray. On top of that, the sentry shot out a nar ow beam toward all of us. Once the beam reac ed one of us, the person who was targeted by the beam felt very tired and out of energy, as if their energy was . The rest of the sentence was obscured by that red substance

It took us so long to explore the second floor of the dungeon because the exit was in the last room we checked. Now we are finally descending into the third floor.

Da 11

We’ve entered the 3rd floor and so far, nothing jumped out at us. The floor started with a long corridor with many blood splatters leading into a door. Weirdly enough, when we opened the door, the only thing we saw was pure darkness. We played a little game to see who would go through the door, and in the end, S lost and so she reluctantly went through the door.

A few seconds later, she told us it was harmless and that we could go through it. All of us then went through the door into a room much larger than the other rooms we had seen in this dungeon. The room didn’t appear to lead into anything, but it was the only way to continue moving through the dungeon, so we searched all around the room for anything. None of us could find anything. Giving up, we decided to huddle together to make a new plan, but as I moved toward the rest of my team, I stepped over the large gemstone in the center of the room.

Then I suddenly heard a loud rumbling sound coming from the roof.

The rest of the page was obscured by the red substance, which I was now almost certain was blood, and scratches, while all the subsequent pages in the journal were blank.

‘Without a doubt, this is someone’s diary of their exploration through this dungeon. However, it appears that they must have perished somehow in this room given that this journal was left behind and covered by tattered clothes. What could have caused their demise though? There is nothing harmful in this room. It most likely has something to do with the rumbling sound this person heard when they stepped on the gemstone.’ I flew closer to the gemstone and began to carefully inspect it. Nothing about the gemstone was too notable, it was simply a shiny red ruby that glistened in the dim light of the room.

‘This doesn’t seem like anything too special, but based on the journal, this is the way to get something to happen or at least one of the ways. That something is likely dangerous if the person who wrote this journal met their end to that something.’ I hovered close to the gemstone but hesitated on whether or not I should press it or not.

‘It might be dangerous, but it might be the only way to proceed and finish the dungeon. Let’s just do this already, I’m already getting a bit tired of this dungeon and its tricks.’ I slowly descended until my talons were touching the floor. When they were, I folded my wings behind my back and gently dropped the ring that I was still clutching onto. I needed both talons, one to activate the mechanism and the other to quickly get away from there if it turned out to be a trap.

Cautiously, I placed one of my talons on top of the gemstone and it immediately sank a bit. A rumbling sound echoed from above me and I swiftly unfurled my wings and began flying again because I was more confident in my ability to fight or escape when I was in the air as opposed to on the ground.

The rumbling increased to the point that even the bookshelves started shaking. Books fell out of the shelves landing on the ground with a dull thud. I was half expecting all of them to turn into monsters, but surprisingly none of them did. They just lay there, motionless. This whole time, I kept my gaze sharp on the ceiling, waiting for whatever was going to appear. I did not have to wait long as cracks soon appeared, scattered around the ceiling. The ceiling continued to crack until it resembled a large spiderweb, and a moment later, the ceiling crumbled, raining debris throughout the room. Some of the debris was crashing down toward me, forcing me to weave my way through all the falling pieces of the ceiling. While doing this, I made sure to focus the majority of my attention on the ceiling, especially on the other things that fell with the debris. Along with the debris, 3 larger objects came crashing down through the ceiling of the room: 2 of the sentry automatons and one metallic-looking animalistic golem or automaton. It resembled a large snow leopard, but much less fleshy and more robotic looking. Instead of actual eyes, it had sockets to house some kind of visual system for it. At the moment, the sockets were empty. In fact, the sockets of all 3 automatons were empty and they were all standing motionlessly on the floor.

I was a bit confused about why they weren’t doing anything, but after around 5 seconds since they landed, each of their sockets emitted an ominous red light and they sprang into action. One of the two sentry golems aimed the beam of red light at me, while the other sentry and the beast golem rushed at me with their swords and claws respectively.

Caught slightly off guard, I was unable to avoid the beam and I instantly felt my body grow heavier. In response, I increased the frequency of my wingbeats and tried to fly upwards, hoping to get to a place where the beam would not reach me. However, I was unable to ascend quickly enough before my other two opponents reached me with the beast golem slightly in the lead. The beast golem swung down its front paws for a powerful swipe attack aimed at my wings. I tried to dodge by performing a roll in midair, but I was unable to fully dodge the attack as the beam of light had lowered my mobility and agility in the air.

My wings ended up being grazed by the sharp claws of the beast and I winced in pain. Although the attack did not disable my wings, it caused me to stop flapping my wings for a few moments, thereby forcibly decreasing the altitude at which I was flying. I had no time to rest as the other sentry was already unleashing a devastating helm splitter to cleave me into two. Even with my lowered mobility and injured wings, I was able to safely dodge out of the way of the entirely vertical swing by heavily beating my wings forward to propel me backward to safety.

The beast golem followed up the sentry’s attack by lunging at me and baring its fangs. It had traveled over 15 meters within a single second with a simple leap, which greatly surprised me. Desperately trying to ascend to dodge the attack, I barely managed to get high enough so that the lunge would miss me. The beast passed right by my head and I felt a slight breeze as the beast went past me. If I had even been a millisecond late in my reaction, I would have definitely gotten hit by the attack and I likely would have perished.

The beast landed harmlessly behind me on all four legs before turning around and leaping toward me again, this time with its claws raised in preparation for another swipe. At the same time, the sentry raised its sword arms and sliced diagonally with each of its arms. I was able to dodge both these attacks by simply ascending higher out of range of their attacks. The sentry’s swing hit nothing but air, while the beast completely missed its swipe and ended up colliding with the sentry. They both fell to the ground; however, they were unperturbed by the collision, and neither showed any signs of damage.

Despite the lack of damage, the collision gave me the opportunity I needed by providing me with some time to focus on the sentry that had been simply aiming its beam of light at me while my other opponents were reorienting themselves. I continued ascending until I felt the weight on my body entirely disappear. From that point, I flew forward until I was almost straight above the lone sentry. Upon reaching the point that I desired, I dove down straight toward the gem in the middle of the sentry’s chest. When I had just begun my divebomb, the other two mechanoids had already recovered from the collision and were rushing toward me, trying to unleash another set of attacks.

Disregarding the two of them because I knew they would not be able to reach me before I finished my attack, I continued my swift dive and stuck out my beak to put a bit more power into my attack. The sentry that I was aimed at tried to repel me by swinging its sword-arms when I was close enough, but I was able to avoid them by making micro-adjustments in my position with small flaps and other miniscule motions. Refocusing my aim after dodging, I collided with the gem, causing it to fracture into hundreds of shards. The sentry fell lifelessly forward and I turned my attention back to the other sentry and the beast automaton.

To my surprise, they stopped their charge at me and simply stood still. They just stood there for several seconds before turning to each other and nodding. Seeing this, I raised my guard even more and prepared myself for whatever they were planning to do. Suddenly, both of them turned their head into the air and released a loud, blaring alarm sound. The sound was loud enough that it nearly caused physical damage to me, but I was able to avoid any potential damage by flying a decent distance away from the two automatons. Now at a safe distance, I glared at the two of them while trying to predict what would happen.

The alarm continued for a minute before it finally stopped. This whole time, I was just watching them without taking any action. When the alarm stopped, the whole room shook with an even greater intensity than before. All the bookshelves violently vibrated and a few of them even toppled over. The quaking lasted for a short time, and upon its termination, it appeared…