Mash woke early in the morning, far before anyone else normally did. The sun wasn’t even up yet, and Mash took the opportunity to walk around. He went through the camping ground, using his mana sphere to gauge the strength of those around them. Most adventurers present had less mana than him, but there were a few that could compare to himself. That was a little surprising to Mash, since his mana pool was effectively as large as someone double his level. He guessed that those people had skills like his or Jill’s.

He wandered around for a bit more, before coming to the staircase. He still felt drawn to it and chanced a glance down the staircase. As he looked down now, there seemed to be a wall of darkness that cut through the little light that passed through the entrance. The light got Mash to stop, the sun was coming out now and he could go wake the others. They wanted to be one of the first teams to enter, and had decided that Mash would wake them as soon as the sun was out. He ran back to the makeshift tent to wake the others.

When he woke up the tent was in a horrific state, the wood having decayed significantly over the night. It had looked demonic with the dead wood. He was able to patch it up with more mana and would need to figure out a way to maintain the wood overnight.

Mash walked back into the tent and was a little surprised to see that Jill and Luke were already awake. Jill especially, since she was the one who slept the longest before. She probably felt more comfortable at her home. Sleeping outdoors wasn’t really the same experience, even with the housing and warmth.

Red didn’t wake up easily. Mash’s words seemed to not be enough to rouse her, but he didn’t want to yell in the public space and would just tap her shoulder. He touched her lightly, but she reacted quickly waking to stare at Mash.

“Good morning?”

He phrased his greeting as a question, unsure of why she seemed so jumpy. She quickly got out of her sleeping bag and spoke reassuringly to Mash.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. Half-elves have a hybrid sleep that is somewhat like the elvish trance and human sleep. I only need six hours of sleep, but it functions more like a trance, so its a bit harder to wake me up, and I don’t really feel the dregs of sleep when I wake up. For next time, patting me on the shoulder, like you did, will work fine.”

Mash didn’t think that half-elves would sleep differently than humans. It seemed more convenient though since she was wide awake now. She got to skip out on the morning tiredness. Getting a new race was growing ever more tempting for Mash, who knows maybe he would become a dragon. He kind of regretted not taking the dragon observer class. That would certainly be interesting, but for now he had more pressing concerns.

“Let’s get going, the sun is almost up, and I think we can still be the first ones into the dungeon.”

Mash spoke quickly, trying to rush the group as much as he could, but stopped when he noticed Jill’s glare. A single look was all it took to stop him in his tracks, and he waited patiently for them to get ready. There wasn’t any reason to rush, most others wouldn’t wake up this early and even if a few did, the dungeon was bound to be filled with treasures and monsters.

However, the others didn’t take more than five minutes to get ready, and once done they made their way to the entrance staircase. Mash started walking down immediately, they had decided that he would lead the party with Jill following directly behind him. His mana sphere would pick up any magical traps and would make him the quickest to react to other surprises. Jill had heightened senses and could perceive other types of traps like poisons or sounds.

The staircase was shorter than he expected, and as he moved past where the light had reached, he was swallowed by darkness. It wasn’t like falling unconscious, rather he felt as though he had passed through a door. The other side wasn’t at all what he expected.

He was standing on grass and saw the sky. At least that’s what it looked like. It was sunny as well, and he was a little surprised by the labyrinth itself. It wasn’t what he expected, instead of stone walls the labyrinth’s walls were made of thick wooden logs. They were stuck into the ground like a fence, and he wondered if he caused this. He had read up on the dungeon, and was expecting a cave style labyrinth, this was clearly a forest maze of some kind.

Did his class somehow react with the dungeon, was that why he felt drawn to it? Then he thought about the others, taking the opportunity to look back. Thankfully, they were still there, but they had panicked expressions. It only took Mash a second to realize why. The exit behind them had vanished, they didn’t seem to have a way out. They had planned to check out the dungeon briefly before leaving and coming up with strategies, but it seemed like they wouldn’t be given the opportunity.

“What happened? Did you do something?”

Jill sounded agitated as she spoke to Mash. It felt like an accusation, but Mash couldn’t blame her. The wooden walls of the dungeon had streaks of different colors along them, much like Mash’s own creations. He didn’t have the answers she wanted.

“No, I didn’t…I mean I don’t know anything.”

Mash struggled to get the words out, his mind was racing with possibilities trying to figure out what had happened. He didn’t know something like this could even happen but found himself getting excited. It would mean that this variation was probably never explored, the rewards would be completely unknown. The monsters would too, but after the fight with the rats, he was feeling confident. Jill didn’t give him the time to focus his thoughts.

“What do you mean? Didn’t you say you were drawn to this place, and what about all of this?”’

She sounded panicked, waving her hands around and gesturing at the surroundings. Mash didn’t know what to say and was feeling increasingly worse as he saw her panic. Surprisingly, Luke spoke as the voice of reason.

“Calm down Jill, you know its not his fault. Rather than expecting him to have all the answers let’s figure them out together.”

Luke’s words didn’t have even the smallest bit of doubt, and that seemed to shake Jill out of whatever panic she was in. She was about to say something but stopped herself, just taking some breaths as she recovered. After a couple seconds of silence, she spoke sounding a lot calmer.

“I’m sorry Mash, and you're right Luke. I just don’t know if we are even able to go back. Let’s just try and figure this out.”

Mash felt a lot better, mostly because she didn’t seem as panicked. He hadn’t thought about the implications of the entrance being gone until now.

The labyrinth was a dungeon that had a single way out. To “complete” the dungeon properly, you would have to get to the center to receive your reward, and then return to the entrance. They had no idea what would happen now, what if they didn’t make it back or ended up in a random place. Jill wouldn’t be able to help her family and they would likely assume that she died. What about his own family?

He didn’t want to continue down that line of thought and asked Red a quick question.

“What do you think?”

Since they entered, Red had been quiet and lost in her own thoughts. He wanted to stop her from spiraling like he almost did and hoped that she had an idea. She had the most knowledge on dungeons of all of them. She didn’t let him down and had an answer.

“I have an idea but it’s just that, an idea. I think that the dungeon reacted to Mash entering. He resonated with it somehow and that’s why it changed like this. It hopefully means that there is something important for him in here. Well, those are my assumptions, and I don’t know about you, but I want to start moving.”

She spoke with such confidence that it got them all to start moving again. The entrance they were at had only one path, and they proceeded further in. They didn’t have a perfect strategy, but the one that was most commonly used was to make sure that they went forwards. So, they moved while being certain that they weren’t backtracking. If there was a turn, they would take a note about which direction would lead them backwards. So long as they were moving away from the entrance, they would eventually reach the center.

Rather than a sharp turn though, the path seemed to fork in two directions that both seemed to continue onwards. By now Mash had formed his weapon and armor and was ready for whatever may jump at them. He tried to feel the ambient mana to get an idea of which path to take, but found nothing. Jill said that something smelled funky on the left path, so they proceeded along the right one.

After walking for a few minutes, Mash noticed that there was something within his mana sphere and stabbed at the nearby wall. He heard a small wail, as his blade pierced the skull of a monster. It became visible shortly after and fell to the ground dead. It was a lizard of some kind and was spotted by multicolored scales. They reminded him more of a fish than a lizard, and he kind of wanted to eat it. Fish was rare back home, but he always liked it.

“I didn’t notice anything.”

Jill whispered the words but was looking around more attentively. It didn’t matter though as more of the creatures revealed themselves, launching a viscous goo from their mouths. The goo lit on fire as it flew towards them, and they were forced to dodge the burning spit. They reacted immediately, Jill teleporting next to a small group of them. Luke ran after her, casting buffs on himself as he struck at the nearby creatures.

Mash and Red would have to deal with the ones along the walls and were forming and launching projectiles at them. Mash formed long javelins and tried to make them as sharp as possible. On the other hand, Red made small needles, and controlled a swarm of them. Mash had to throw the javelins by hand, but Red was able to use her skills to make more accurate strikes with her needles. It didn’t make much of a difference, since the lizards were more focused on attacking Luke and Jill than dodging their projectiles. His javelins would pierce their entire bodies, while Red's needles targeted the eyes and ears of the creature. They both killed effectively.

The fight only lasted a minute or two, and they were rewarded by around twenty dead lizards. Jill had only taken a single direct hit but had several other burns across her arms. Her one major injury was on her back, and it had burned through her armor. She was in a lot of pain, as the spit stuck to her and continued to burn her skin. The fact that she had managed to last the whole fight like that was a testament to her determination.

Mash was worried that she wouldn’t be ok, but between Luke and Red they managed to heal the wound flawlessly. Red using blood to wash away the spit, while Luke healed it so that there would be no scars. It required Jill to change into her backup set of armor though, and that had caused her face to turn redder than the pain had. That fight was small but had been harder than the rats.

Despite the fight only lasting a few minutes, both Luke and Jill had gained a level. They were now at the same level as Mash, and he was sure that the three of them would soon catch up to Red. He bent over and tried cutting one of the lizards, he wanted to get some meat for dinner tonight. Red realized what he was doing and prepared perfectly sized pieces from the lizard. Red took out a frost box from her storage space to place the meat in.

The frost box was an impressive item, about as fancy as his own bedroll. It would stay cold by absorbing the hot mana types within it and expelling it outwards. It could preserve meat for several days, but hers wasn’t particularly large so they had to fill it with whatever they found. It would hold enough meat to last a few days for a single person, but for their group they could only store enough meat to last a day. He just hoped it tasted like fish because it certainly had the same unpleasant smell.