Paz pushed Nicola out of the way.

The spears riddled him, punching large holes in his body. Blood splattered the floor and sprayed onto the wall.

Despite the brutal trauma, Paz didn’t keel over. Not immediately, at least. He wavered as his health meter zeroed out. And then, he fell. First to his knees, then to his face. Blood dribbled out of his mouth.

“Um, you alright, big guy?” I asked.

Paz didn’t answer.

Nicola clasped her hands over her mouth. “This is all my fault.”

“Nah, don’t sweat it. Paz should have his rez off cooldown. And, better him than you, really. You don't have effective immortality.”

I inspected the tile she’d stepped on. I wasn’t sure, but I’d probably walked across the same spot without triggering the trap. A consequence of the racial perk that all elves were blessed with?

Maybe . . . But, there could also be more to it than that. Casters were notoriously slower than other classes, which made them good targets for all kinds of traps.

If other traps in the Labyrinth could deal as much damage as this one, we needed to figure out a way to deactivate them for the sake of our quality of life.

“Ow, my head,” Paz said, rolling to a sitting position. His flesh knitted as he spoke, regrowing organs that had been harmed in the assault. A spear that had been lodged in his chest tumbled to the ground. “That was so not fun.”

“Oh, you big dolt,” Nicola said and pulled him into a hug.

Paz glanced at me, at a loss for what to do.

I shrugged in return.

“So much for regular armor,” Paz said, clucking his tongue at his mangled cuirass. “I told you that it was ranker-grade or nothing.”

“I’m not sure anything could have survived that,” I countered. “Except, maybe, a bullion van.”

“There you go with odd words again,” Paz said and peeled Nicola off his body. He unclasped his cuirass, letting it crash to the ground. “I didn’t intend to die, mind you. I was hoping my new skill would protect me. Good to know that it’s not infallible.”

“Ah. That’s the technique you got for reaching level fifteen, huh? What is it again?”

“[Deflect Missile].” Paz rose to his feet. “It’s a passive skill that slows projectile attacks within my vicinity. I’m guessing it’s not strong enough to deflect anything above a certain size, but I’ll get the hang of it soon, for sure.”

That sounded useful. “What happens when you deflect a projectile?”

Paz leered. “I return it in a chosen direction for two times the damage.”

Nice. With such an ability, we could employ him as a trump card against Rangers.

“How does it feel?” Nicola piped up. “Dying, that is.”

Paz furrowed his eyebrows. “I don’t know what’s on the other side if that’s what you’re asking. [Sanguine Return] keeps me in the mortal coil.”

“So, a kind of limbo? You can’t confirm if an afterlife exists?”

“Even if it did, I don’t plan to visit, Nicola. This lifetime is more than enough.”

I inspected the wall trap, more to take my mind off their discussion than anything else. My version of the afterlife featured a pyramid and a bunch of fiery monsters. I wasn’t sure the same held for all Vizhimans.

Paz followed my gaze. “Yeah. A Trickster would have been a great addition to our party, especially one equipped with [Trap Expert] or [Danger Sense] skills.”

“I’ll lead the way then,” I said, “with Nicola bringing up the rear. Between my elven perks and your [Deflect Missile] skill, we should be able to manage.”

“Works for me.”

We resumed our advance, albeit at a less punishing pace.

[Map] proved invaluable in helping us maintain a cardinal direction. It led us through winding turns and past attacking chimeras, which we butchered, though gained little XP from by dint of three-way sharing.

Paz urged us forward until our stamina meters bottomed out. We downed some potions, ate, and continued again.

True enough, time flowed differently for everyone within the Labyrinth. Despite the long hours spent navigating the corridors, the spirit orb timer didn’t advance by more than a few minutes. Where had this exploit been all my life?

But, I would worry about that once I caught my breath. It took every ounce of my attention to keep a lookout for traps while also dealing with [Map] and ambushes from chimeras.

In what seemed to be about twenty hours since our arrival in the dungeon, we finally found a second safe room.

All three of us collapsed inside, barely able to stand.

“Four hours to meditate,” I moaned. “Or we die.”

“You mean sleep, right?” Nicola said, curling into a ball. “I’m not going to return to a hundred percent with mere [Meditation].”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Paz simply snored.

I turned over on my back and studied the safe room. It glowed with the same ambient pink lighting that suffused all of the Labyrinth. Strange images covered the ceiling, carved in the stone, much like the murals I’d seen back at the abandoned mausoleum.

The images depicted a variety of scenes, of builders going about their activities. Lumberjacks felled trees in a forest and ferried the logs across a broad river. They erected some kind of structure—a house or a barn, I wasn’t sure which.

A taskmaster oversaw the proceedings, though the images blurred at this point, proving too difficult to decipher . . .

I awoke to Nicola shaking me vigorously.

“Damien,” she hissed. “We’ve got company.”

I forced my eyes to stay open. Across from us, with their backs to the exit, a new party stood in the safe room.

All four of them looked just as tired as we did a few hours ago and twice as angry. The only woman in their party limped on one foot, bleeding profusely from the other.

Paz faced them with crossed arms, a sneer on his lips.

“This room’s taken,” he said.

“It’s a safe room,” the leader of the opposing party—a young man in steel armor—replied. “Surely, we can share without any problems.”

“It’s taken.”

The leader furrowed his brows. “Look, man. I try to avoid altercations with fellow adventurers when I can, but you can’t in good faith expect me to concede. In case you haven’t noticed, the hallways are full of monsters. My party needs a breather.”

I butted in before Paz could say the first rude thought that jumped into his mouth. My use of [Identify] had put each of the newcomers at levels above 18. We could take them if it boiled down to a fight, but I wouldn't be the aggressor.

“Hey,” I said. “I won’t deny other rankers a chance to rest. But, I’m not sure I feel safe sharing a room with you. Why don’t we go about this with some civility?”

The limping woman frowned the moment I spoke and whispered to her teammates. “It’s him. The Dark Elf. The one who attacked Byron.”

I can hear you, lady.

“The party killers?” their steel-clad leader said, not even bothering to lower his voice.

“Yes,” Paz said with a grin.

“No,” I spat and glared at Paz. “Byron lied.”

The other party fell silent. However, the tension in their shoulders remained.

This could get ugly—

“He’s telling the truth,” Nicola said, striding forward to join me. “I remember your faces. I’ve seen you around the guild. You might have heard of me in turn.”

The leader of the other party stiffened. “You’re the carnal sister. The one who traveled with Ben.”

“And, I might be known for many things, but violence has never been on the table.” She extended her hand. “Peace?”

The man spent a moment in consideration, then accepted the handshake. “Peace. I’m not a big fan of Byron anyway. As long as we share the room equally and stay in our respective corners, there’d be no hostility from us.”

I stepped on Paz’s foot before he could answer. “That sounds good, yes.”

“Though I must warn you,” the man said. “Many adventurers actively try to avoid getting on Red Wyrm’s bad side. Don’t expect a lot of help from the parties you meet.” He paused, as if reluctant to add. “We caught sight of Byron a few hours ago, for that matter. His party had just cleared a boss’ room by the looks of it. We traveled as fast as we could in the opposite direction, though I could not tell which way they headed. Consider this a tip.”

Oh, wow. I hadn’t rested enough to refill my renewables, but assuming Paz was correct about the Labyrinth funneling rankers toward each other, hanging around the same vicinity as Byron was akin to suicide.

Byron probably didn't need to use the safe rooms in this region. But, we definitely did. And, if he knew that . . .

“Let’s move out, people,” I said to my team, paying no heed to the other party.

Nicola caught on as we reentered the corridors. “You think Byron’s searching the safe rooms?”

“Dunno, but I would do so in his shoes.” I glanced at my other teammate. “Is it possible to differentiate between safe rooms and monster lairs?

“Usually so,” Paz answered. “But, I have heard of mimics that lure unsuspecting rankers in.”

A dark shape barreled out of a corner. We obliterated it before it got a chance to strike.

“Left, then right,” I said, studying the [Map]. “Left again.”

We ran down the passageways, reducing the monsters that occupied them to bloody matter.

I kept an eye on the miniature layout and missed the chasm that I would have tumbled headfirst into had Paz not grabbed the back of my shirt.

“Whoa,” I said as he tossed me away from the edge of the drop. “Another trap?”

“Aye,” Paz said. “But, this one seems to have been triggered by someone else.”

I stared into the dark chasm and tried not to think of a preceding party falling to their doom. I failed.

“I can’t cross this,” Nicola said, eyeing the divide.

It stretched from one side of the wall to the other, about ten meters long.

“Same,” Paz said. “You’d need [Levitation] to pull it off, or the highest tiers of Strength or Dexterity.”

Clean wind howled up from the chasm, hinting at a cavern below. I couldn’t even bring myself to kick a stone into the drop for fear of rousing whatever slumbered within.

With no other choice left to us, we turned back the way we came. My heart thumped wildly in my chest all through as I imagined Byron bursting out of the next corner.

After a few grueling hours—during which I drained most of my stamina—we ran into the umpteenth dead end. Unlike the others, however, this one bore a double door, no different from a tavern’s, and an inscription:

For those without fear.

“Do they mean the affinity,” I wheezed, “or the regular emotion?”

“Can’t know without entering,” Paz said. “This is a boss monster’s lair.”

Nicola crouched over her knees in a bid to regain her breath.

She had even less stamina than I did which was another issue we needed to manage. It would suck for our biggest damage dealer to run out of gas before we even got into a fight.

“Potion break,” I called, reaching into my inventory for a vial of brilliant green. “We’ll take a breather and find some other way around. The last thing we want is to get stuck here. Not with Byron lurking nearby.”

The boss’ room emitted a hideous aura that, although similar to mine, failed to trigger [Dismay]. I studied the huge double doors as I waited for the potion’s effects to kick in, noting a reoccurrence of the images from before.

Where before the paintings had only depicted human builders. This time, it showed a panoply of strange animals trooping toward an underground cavern. It was a scene eerily similar to the flood myths from Earth, except there was no flood, and the cavern seemed manmade, just like . . .

Hold on. Did this mean that an ancient civilization constructed the Labyrinth?

“This boss’ room blocks the path,” Paz said, touching the door.

“Obviously,” I replied, surfacing from the pool of my thoughts.

“No. I mean, it’s not a dead-end.” Paz gestured at an insignia on the door. “This is a corridor, guarded by a Way-keeping Boss—one of the special kinds in the dungeon. We’ll be able to continue onward to the other side after beating the monster.”

“We’re not fighting a special boss,” I started to say before Paz kicked open the double doors.

Walls sprouted on both sides of our party, slamming into the ceiling. A purple mist rolled out from within the room.

Sequestered far within the dark, a pair of inhuman eyes opened above us.

They glowed red.