Once they had all their wounds dressed and bandaged, he urged them all to rest. The two manteae were still out and they would need to be at as close to full strength as possible before they moved on. He figured that he could wake them if anything happened since he didn't need sleep and this was the best chance to use his only real ability besides linking. If he remembered correctly, the messages had said that they had five days until the dungeon collapsed. Of course, that could mean it was just collapsing a bit at a time and it would take five days to finish, which is what he assumed, or it could mean that in five days the dungeon would suddenly disappear, which is what he hoped for.

Assuming it was the slow collapse then it would hopefully collapse from the bottom, as any other way would cause too many problems for them to deal with. Using that idea as the basis, since they had already left the bottom two floors, then they should be somewhat safe for about a day. He didn't want to wait that whole day if possible, but he figured they at least had it now if they needed it.

Looking around at the sleeping bug-women made him realize he was going to need to call their two new additions something as well. The one Scratches had taken down was missing some parts now, unfortunately. She likely wouldn't be able to fight anymore as even his pre-weakened self might actually have a chance against her so she would likely become his new support. Since she was missing a claw maybe he could just call her Claw for now? As for the one that's been conked out since before he found her, he would just call her Conk. Yes, the names were horrible still, but again he wasn't planning on them staying their names forever and there were more important things to think about.

At the top of the list right now was how to get past the faerie area. They were about the same size as the bees, only marginally less coordinated, but with magic and intelligence to back them. Even a small faerie swarm could be incredibly dangerous. An uninjured arachne or mantea could deal with such a small swarm by just tanking through the magical attacks and using their individual types of prowess to take them down. With Conk, if she ever woke up, and Scratches being their only relatively healthy fighting force it left the rest of them as more of an exploitable weakness. The best case scenario would be if the faeries were all gone, as unlikely as it was.

In order, he figured the floors that were least likely to be empty would be the three undead floors, then the faerie floor, then the wasp floor, then the bee floor. The undead floors because of both their territorial nature and their stupidity. As long as at least half of the undead had left, though, he figured those floors wouldn't be too bad. Their stupidity should help the more powerful arachnae and manteae get through them without too much difficulty in the fights. The faeries and wasps, however, were both more intelligent and just as territorial. Wasps and bees would, in normal animal form at least, would at least leave if the environment became too bad. Faeries, on the other hand, could be almost humanlike at times and many would rather try to fight the environment for a place to stay.

He wasn't sure what kind of limits his linking had or what exactly they were or even what they were based on. He did know that there were limits to how many he could link to and he could also feel that he was reasonably close to that limit. Even the hope that he might be able to link some faeries seemed too farfetched as the basis for any planning at the moment.

Conk seemed to finally be stirring awake. He looked over and watched as she finally opened her eyes and glanced around at her situation in confusion. There was a brief moment of panic he could feel from her as she saw all the other girls but it settled down only a moment later as she seemed to notice the link attached to her.

She immediately locked her gaze on him. He felt waves of confusion, questions, and even minor panic coming from her through the link. He decided to wait a bit for her to calm down again. In the meantime he took note on how she seemed to recognize that he was calling her Conk, just like every time he had called someone else by the nickname he had decided for them the first time as if they had always been called such. He thought about it and realized it was probably less the name itself and more the feelings that were attached to it through the link. It was little different than saying 'hey you with these features'. It was an interesting difference between monsters and people that he might try and look more into in the future.

There was a brief flash of confusion again followed by a feeling of acknowledgement before she closed her eyes and tried to settle down again. He took the time after that to look over the rest of the girls, making note of several bandage that would have to be replaced and giving Claw and intense check to make sure she would be able to survive. His checks of all of them actually took enough time for him to begin to also note minute differences in all of their features to the point where he was fairly certain that if they somehow magically healed all of their wounds perfectly and were in perfect condition without scars or blemishes that he would still be able to tell who was who.

All of them except for Claw began to wake up soon afterwards. He pointed out the various bandages he had noticed earlier to be replaced and had Scratches and Conk help him with changing the more difficult ones. Once they were all done he focused one carefully replacing all of Claw's bandages, trying to let her continue her rest while he worked, helped again by Scratches and a surprisingly proficient Conk. Claw obviously woke up before they finished as no matter how careful they were, moving her around and tending to massive wounds and lost limbs still caused some pain and discomfort.

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The girls thought about it for a few moments before eventually nodding, Conk taking a few extra moments. Then he gave the signal and they started heading up again. As they reached the top of the ramp, he looked around and couldn't see any of the faeries. That actually made him more nervous and wary, which the girls apparently felt through the link as they all started acting slightly jittery as they walked carefully into the area.

About halfway across the area there was suddenly a burst of fire in front of them. His eyes seemed to adapt quickly to the sudden brightness allowing him to catch a glimpse of movement off to their side. Almost like a reflex action he tried to throw a link at it, which seemed to surprise the monster as well. He was definitely past his linking capacity, making it unstable, but at least there was enough to try and talk to the...fox.

<...no.>

He wasn't sure if he entirely believed that but the little fox seemed to be intelligent and have some tricks so maybe she was able to pull it off somehow.

<...>

He removed the link and let the girls know it was okay to keep going. Out of the corner of his vision he noticed that the little fox kept watching them until the started going up the ramp. It was a bit of a strange encounter but at least there were no faeries so he considered it an overall good encounter. The next three areas should be the three undead areas so he was happy they didn't have to chance injuries and exhaustion before the long slog that they would soon be going through.

As an afterthought he remembered that the fox he had to fight had been slightly bigger with a green jewel in her forehead, so maybe that was one of the sisters the little fox was searching for. Either way, if he saw any more foxes he would try to let them know about their sister.

Unfortunately the next area was about as bad as he assumed it would be. There were just waves of zombies charging at them as soon as they were in vision and he could tell from the looks on the girls' faces that the smell was none too pleasing, either. More than once even Claw had to help push them back or take them down. Aside from being able to help them coordinate, he felt incredibly useless as they advanced. As they neared the ramp, more bad news became visible in the form of zombie and skeleton rats.

Apparently the undead rats were so stupid that in their attempts to flee the dungeon some of them had fled further down. So in the middle of their fighting the girls now had to also stomp and kick. Since there were also regular zombies on the ramp as well, it was likely to be the same kind of thing for the next floor as well and maybe even the floor after that. The only two good points he could try and get out of the situation was that he could actually help a little against the rats and the regular zombies allowed him to learn some of what the more common races were in this world. He could easily identify some of the zombies with dwarfs, elves, and the numerous humans. There were some that were more odd and he could only make guesses, such as beastkin, gnomes, halflings, and orcs.

Luckily, even though the undead swarms seemed nearly endless, the area wasn't. As they were heading up the ramp he also came to new realization. As weak as he felt and should have been, he was actually helping take down the undead rats which meant he was actually getting stronger. When they reached the curve in the ramp he suddenly told everyone to hold position for a bit. He and Claw watched the upper ramp with Scratches while Conk and Scar watched the lower ramp so Gash and Legs could take a few minutes behind them to rest. He continued rotating everyone out for about an hour so everyone could be at least a little better rested before continuing.

Wading through the next area was similar to the last. In the zombie area it had turned into fighting with some stomping and kicking in between. Now they were all stomping and kicking with some fighting in between. As they moved forward, he saw what he had both expected and hoped not to see. The skeletons had also spread down to this area. In a brief moment of ingenuity he tried to find a skeleton rat, preferably mostly clean so as not to assault the girls' noses. As soon as he found as good of a specimen as he could he tried to link it. He really wasn't expecting a whole lot from it, but with a bit of work it might work as a scout or something. After all, even if it's dumber than a box of rocks, a nearly immortal creature that can avoid detection from most other beings is likely to find some kind of use at some point.

The pleasant surprise was that the limit for his link was barely changed with the addition of their new friend. He still wasn't sure if the link limit was based on size, intelligence, both, or something else, but the skeleton rat was basically a free addition. The downside was that it was only marginally more intelligent than a pet rock and could only follow simple commands. He called it over and commanded it to stay clinging to his head as it seemed the best place to keep it for now.

They made it through the rest of the undead rat area and he had them swap around at the ramp's bend again so they could all get at least some rest. This time he also helped to swap out some of the bandages as needed and let everyone rest just a little more. The next area after the skeleton was going to be wasps and he might have been lucky enough to not have to deal with the faeries but the wasps were going to be almost as bad for this group. Whatever skeletons might have made their way up would probably have not even noticed the wasps enough to clear them out in any substantial way. He was actually considering trying to go into the dungeon proper through the skeleton secret entrance, but he couldn't be certain that the real wasp floor would be any better so he just hoped that they would be able to deal with it.