Things went back to normal for Adama and the gang in the next week or so. On the days that he wasn’t training with his warrior companions and Take Familia, he mostly stuck around on the 15th floor with his Crystal Mantis farm. Hestia had asked him nicely to take it easy for the week, and he had graciously obliged. He only dipped down to the 19th and 20th floors for the occasional jaunt through the forest, but beyond that he focused on recovery and steady growth. The entire time, of course, Tim was planning his next long-term journey down into the Dungeon. He was just trying to plan out what and how many quests he would take, while also putting out feelers for more possible deadline extensions.
The only hitch to these peaceful days was the slight change in atmosphere on the Middle floors. It was hard to put his finger on it exactly, but Adama sometimes felt like he was being watched whenever he and Lilli were doing their Crystal farming. Any further investigation always left him empty handed, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of eyes on the back of his head. Monsters were also behaving strangely, and he found that some of them were more conflict averse than usual, choosing to retreat rather than attack him head on. Lilli even swore that one of them had strangely colored eyes, but she couldn’t swear by it with certainty.
Strange happenings or otherwise, Adama was having a good time. He had just finished a good session with Aiz and Take and was now leading the latter’s Familia on to a new challenge. The six adventurers ambled down the corridors of the 15th floor, Tim looking for a suitable room to start a fight with a gang of Minotaurs. They would start small, with maybe only half a dozen, but Tim would get them up to a point that they could take on a dozen by themselves, without his help. As they walked, however, that nagging feeling of being watched returned. And something even more serious was happening:
“Where are all the monsters?”
Asuka queried, looking around in concern and confusion. Her question was a reasonable one, since their party hadn’t found a single monster after stepping foot on this floor. In a bizarre twist, the tunnels of the 15th floor seemed to be a complete ghost town. Mikoto opened her mouth to respond, but before she could, she suddenly perked up and whirled around. Tim had noticed what she was hearing half a second before she reacted, and they both stared towards the rear of the party as the rest looked around in confusion. Eyes glinting dangerously, Adama was the first to break the silence with a low growl:
“Run. Back to the surface.”
Without a moment's hesitation, the party bolted down the tunnel. They dashed away from a rumbling that everyone could now hear echoing down the passage from their flank. Adama didn’t move, however, unsheathing his blade and holding it in a ready position as he faced down the incoming enemy. As they were running, the others realized that their teacher wasn’t following them. Noticing the faltering in their steps, Tim pre-empted any of their questions in a slow, unworried drawl:
“Run along now, kids. Class is cancelled for today. I’m going to have a few words with our visitors before I go.”
They still seemed worried, but no one disobeyed his orders as they continued down the tunnel. He watched them go out of the corner of his eye, before turning his attention against the incoming horde. Just in time too, as a menagerie of creatures marched down the corridor right at him. Minotaurs and Ligerfangs and even a few Bugbears took up the vanguard, backed up by Wyverns and a wide swath of some of the lesser monsters of the Middle and even Upper floors. It was a bizarre parade, but each creature had one thing in common. Hundreds of gleaming purple eyes locked on Adama in unison. They lacked the mindless bloodlust and anger typical of the Dungeon’s monsters, and instead watched him with a machinelike calculation. They moved almost in lockstep, the monsters' hivelike coordination eerie to watch as they moved to destroy their target. Adama began a chant and charged to meet the enemy, matching their momentum with some of his own.
He would need all the leverage he could get.
…
Take Familia and Lilli ran with all their might but couldn’t seem to catch a break. They constantly tried to take the tunnels leading them back up to the surface, but each time they did they found more monsters with those disturbing purple eyes barring their way. At one point, Lilli took out her magic dagger and blasted their way through some of these obstacles, but it wasn’t enough. There were always more monsters, and they found themselves being herded toward the outer edges of the floor. Mind racing, Lilli recognized this portion of the Dungeon and realized that they were heading for a dead end. If they allowed themselves to get trapped, they would be easily crushed, even with Mr. Tim holding back the bulk of the enemy. She thought furiously about how to stop that, but her exhaustion and terror were interfering with her ability to think critically. They were running out of room, and she felt helpless as the party turned down the final tunnel leading to the dead end. Then, inspiration struck.
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Tunnels were the answer. She kicked herself internally for not seeing it sooner, even as she hurriedly shouted out new orders:
“Make a left!”
Like Pavlov’s dog, the group had been conditioned to obey Lilli’s commands. Anything less than total obedience, a slight hesitation, would probably get them killed in this situation, so they were all fortunate that the party almost reflexively took the first left they could without missing a beat. This new tunnel led to one thing only, a large shaft leading deeper into the Dungeon. It was a dead end in everything but name only, but Lilli was already thinking about how to fix that:
“Mikoto and Asuka, use your swords to slow your fall. Ouka, carry Chigusa and me. Use your skill!”
Collectively, the team recognized what she was thinking without her having to spell out the whole plan. Mikoto and Asuka jumped into the pit without hesitation, making sure to stay close to the hole’s edge. In the heartbeat that it took for Ouka to toss his axe down the shaft and obey her orders, Lilli took her cerulean dagger and smited their closest pursuers with a wave of freezing magic. Even as Ouka scooped her over his shoulder, she grimaced at the cracks that had started to spread over the blade’s surface before tucking it away.
Ouka, courageous Ouka, leapt out into open air with no hesitation. The wind whipped through the girls’ hair, and both couldn’t help the screams that escaped their lips as they plummeted through the Middle Floors. They were drowned out by Ouka’s roar, his skin shining blood red just in time. The trio hit the ground with an enormous BOOM, Ouka’s legs carving holes in the Dungeon as his knees buckled. The big man held out, however, and neither of the girls were dropped even as his knees crashed to the floor. He set them down and Lilli offered him a healing potion, which he drank gratefully, rubbing his legs gingerly. The other girls soon joined them, skillfully controlling their falls with all the grace of predatory felines. The big man retrieved his axe while they waited. They didn’t get to rest for long, however.
Above them, the howls of monsters grew loader, and Take Familia looked up to see their enemies systematically scaling the sides of the tunnels just as the two girls had. Even the Minotaurs clung to the walls with powerful fingers and allowed themselves to fall in regular spurts. Staring up at their impending doom, Ouka muttered:
“No way…”
“Since when could monsters do that?”
Asuka supplied, sharing in her leader’s disbelief. Even Mikoto seemed stymied. It was up to Lilli to keep everyone on task:
“We need to keep moving!”
She shouted, pointing down one of the tunnels leading off to the right:
“This way!”
They hustled away; monsters still hot on their heels. The lavender clad adventurers didn’t know where Lilli was taking them, but they trusted her implicitly. That trust was tested, however, when she led them into the largest room on the 17th floor, one where the walls were lined with bright white crystals. In the center of that room lumbered a massive, grey skinned behemoth, perhaps seven meters tall and absolutely yoked with powerful muscle. The Goliath’s red eyes locked on the intruders, its roar a bellow that shook the stones around them. All four adventurers stared at the creature with eyes as wide as dinner plates, and it was once again Lilli’s task to hold everything together:
“Mikoto! Futsunomitama! Everyone else distract it!”
Prompted to action, Mikoto began her chant, and the others moved to defend her. On the other side of things, Lilli had whipped out her magic sword and was using it to freeze their pursuers. The blade cracked further as she drew out more and more of its power, encasing the passageway behind them in a block of solid ice. Their monster “friends” had been smart enough to back off before she froze too many of them. But she wasn’t trying to kill, only delay, and by the time the sword shattered completely the tunnel behind them had been sealed shut. It wouldn’t hold for long, but it would have to be enough.
Things weren’t going so well for Take Familia, however. Chigusa’s arrows were less than toothpicks to the giant. They couldn’t even meaningfully damage its eyes. Asuka’s sword was similarly impotent when she tried to slash at its ankles, and she was nearly swatted to oblivion before Ouka activated his skill. The Goliath’s attention immediately swiveled to him, and it closed the distance with the big man in several earthshaking stomps. It threw a full force punch at the man, and it was all Ouka could do to raise his axe and block. The blow hit him so hard that he went shooting backward like a rocket, crashing into the crystals with a loud BANG. Chigusa and Asuka screamed at the plight of their friend, but all the arrows in the world couldn’t distract the behemoth and Asuka couldn’t get there in time. The Goliath strode over to the fallen Ouka and raised its fist for the final blow. Then the side of its head exploded.
Lilli had finished covering their rear and entered the fight. Loading her automatic ballista, she fired explosive bolts into the side of the fiend’s head at rapid speed. The ballista could only fire small explosives, but it could do so very quickly, and the side of the creature’s face was lit up with the boomboomboom of a hundred tiny detonations. The creature staggered to the side a little, roaring angrily at the interruption, before it turned its livid eyes back towards Lilli and Mikoto. Lilli stopped firing because she knew she couldn’t kill the thing with just the bolts, but they were enough to get its attention. Even as the Goliath started towards Lilli, she knew she had already won. From her left, she heard Mikoto’s noble voice ring out across the battlefield:
“Futsunomitama!”