“Whiskers!” I turned to see King and the other two rogues entering from the next room. “Did a little scouting while the raid was getting back on their feet. Next room is free of traps, but Angus is waiting on the other side.”

“Did he see you?”

“We were stealthed, but he followed us no problems. We opted not to get close. He’s just standing there next to a lever.”

“Great, probably another trap. ALRIGHT, LISTEN UP!” I yelled to get the attention of everyone else. “Looks like the boss is going to keep tormenting us in the next room. Get in there, spread out, and slowly advance. Watch for when he pulls the lever. Guardians, I want you slightly in front of your charges, but not in direct line of sight to the boss.” Everyone nodded, and I walked in to the next room. I heard the raid spread out behind me while I took stock.

A long, straight room with nothing inside it, I was worried. No cover, no traps detected, just what the hell surprise was waiting for us?

“It’s about time! I thought that I had broken my new toys already!” The smug bastard called out to us from across the way, and I could hear it getting to a few of the members. “Especially since I wouldn’t be able to showcase my new rogue’s challenge course! Without further ado, heeeeere weeeee GOOOOOOOOO!” He shouted the last bit in an announcer voice, pulling the lever. A giant split formed through the middle two thirds of the room, and the floor dropped away to reveal a swirling purple and black void.

“Don’t worry, this one isn’t lethal. Though there are some penalties for failure, heh. Heh. Heh.” As he was chuckling, an obstacle course lowered itself into place. “I’ll be watching from my boss room, hope to see you soon!” He called, before turning and heading deeper into the dungeon.

“Got to be fucking kidding me.” I heard someone mutter, and turned to study the obstacle course.

Eight steps leading down to start, with no railing. Surrounding the steps was a hollow spinning cylinder. Inside it was splatter paint, leaving strips of multiple colors. I didn’t trust it. At the bottom was a small jump to a balance beam, that curved off to the right. Following along, it rotated it up and rose about a foot, with a series of swirling black orbs along the bottom that regularly faded and reappeared.

“Someone shoot an arrow above those orbs please.” I asked, and DeathFromAbove stepped forward and complied. Like I thought, the arrow immediately bent downward and was sucked into one of the orbs to be crushed. “Looks like the black orbs are gravity wells.” I noted. At the end of the sideways balance beam, it looked like you were supposed to leap off and grab onto the series of hanging rings to make your way across. Only above and below were orbs moving in circles, changing from white to black. “Anyone wanna bet that the white orbs are antigravity?”

“Not a chance.” DeathFromAbove chuckled. “It’s only logical. Besides, look at how the chains are moving. They follow the black orbs and are repelled by the white ones.”

“So much for making some easy money.” I chuckled, getting a laugh from the rogue. Hanging by his tail in the middle of the ring field was a monkey demon, and it looked like it would be impossible to avoid battle in midair. Should you advance beyond that, a platform would allow you to rest for a bit, before you had to cross a series of monkey bars with progressively stronger gravity wells beneath you. Along the far side were ten goblin archers with barrels of arrows to pester you. Beyond the monkey bars was a series of rope swings, requiring you to slingshot yourself around several gravity and antigravity wells.

“That’s going to be such a pain.” King commented, shaking his head. “He even set up the lever so that a magic blast wouldn’t undo it.”

“I got this. [Snipe shot]!” ShockerSnipe said, firing an arrow with a thin rope tied to it at the lever. Unfortunately, the multitude of gravity wells easily disrupted the flight of the arrow.

“OW! WHAT THE HELL? WHY’S THERE AN ARROW IN MY ASS!” ChaosBringer yelled. We all turned to see that there was a portal in the side of the wall, with a thin string connecting it to the arrow that ShockerSnipe had fired.

“Well, that answers where the portals go.” King muttered, stifling a laugh.

“S-s-s-sorry Chaos! I had no idea!” Shocker quickly apologized.

“Don’t apologize, get your arrow out!” He yelled, and one of the healers quickly performed some first aid.

“Thanks BandAid.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She answered with a giggle. “Just. How often do you have to have help pulling stuff out of your ass?”

“Ha ha, very funny.” Chaos grumbled, but he was at least smiling when he did it.

“Better to just own it dude.” EricDaRad said as he flung an arm around his shoulders. “The more you deny it, the more people will think it’s true.”

“Well, looks like we’re going to have a fun time with this course. I’m first!” DeathFromAbove shouted, heading down into the stairs. “Eyaaaaaa!” Three steps in and disaster struck. For some reason, he threw himself to the left, slamming into the rotating cylinder and getting tossed around as he was flung down and into the swirling abyss. We all turned to see him get unceremoniously dumped on his ass from the portal, sliding on his back for a few feet.

“Ow. Ow. Fucking hell, what happened?” He groaned, getting to his feet.

“What do you mean what happened? When you threw yourself off to one side?” Someone asked. “I thought rogues were supposed to be agile. Can’t even handle a staircase with no railing.”

“What? No I didn’t, there must be some form of gravity trap!” He denied.

“No traps.” King said. “And no gravity wells around the cylinder. Or antigrav.” He said, walking back and forth.

“What’s the penalty?” Shocker asked.

“Penalty? Oh. Oh crap!” DeathFromAbove yelled. “Three minute debuff. Lose five agility. Can’t be purged or cleansed, and stacks up to twenty times. Each stack adds an extra minute to the timer.”

“Brutal.” Several people muttered roughly the same things. I couldn’t help but agree.

“Well, we can do this how he wants, or we could do it the easy way. King? Wanna show everyone the easy way?”

“Heh, thought you would never ask. Oh, and just so you know Death, it’s just an optical illusion. Watch.” Closing his eyes, King easily stepped down to the bottom before opening them and looking across the way. “[Telekinesis].” A blue glow enveloped his arm, and over a hundred feet away the same glow enveloped the lever. With a simple swing of his arm, King disarmed the trap and quickly backed up the steps as the entire contraption rewound itself and the floor appeared again.

“Seriously? Telekinesis? What level do you have it at to effect something that far away?” Cinderfry yelled.

“Master 7.” King shrugged, before walking forward across the floor.

“Cheating. He’s fucking cheating.”

“If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.” Someone answered.

“Work smarter, not harder.”

“Wish I could see the bastard’s face when King disarmed the trap like that.”

I smiled, glad that the raid was back up into good spirits. We all trooped across the floor, following our newly stealthed rogues as they went ahead and scouted the room ahead.

“GODFUCKINGDAMNIT! IMMA RIP THAT SADISTIC FREAKS HEAD OFF!” We all froze for a second as someone ranted ahead, before charging in. We found a room with a weirdly red coloration, hexagonal tiles covering the floor with four pillars in the middle of each quadrant.

“What’s going on?” I asked as I walked up to King, who was standing there shaking his head.

“We entered just fine, but as soon as I activated the [Detect trap] skill, this happened.” He answered, waving his hand at the rest of the room.

“What?”

“The light here is the same color that traps show up as under detect trap. I caught a few flashes before the light initiated, but I can’t pinpoint them. All I can say is there are some traps here.”

“Fuck, this is only the first floor.” Darkmoon Lucy shuddered as she spoke. “Maybe he’s hitting us with his best traps right off the bat.”

“I can only hope.” King replied.

“Alright everyone, we got another fun one. There’s traps here, but the light has negated the detect trap skill, so we get to do this the old fashioned way. Three rows of people, leave a gap between you. Try and step where the person in front of you stepped. Rogues, lead the way.”

I stayed back to watch, as we formed three general lines. There were a few feet between people to minimize AoE traps, and it seemed like we were making progress.

“Damnit!” Shocker yelled as the tile beneath his foot clicked, causing him to jump to the side in a defensive posture. When nothing happened, he just growled and came back to where he was and started forward again. “Bastard. Fucking click traps that just set your nerves on end, I hate psychological games.” He kept muttering.

“OHDAMN!” A scream startled me, looking up to see a row of people mysteriously gone. We had about a third of the raid across, and two of the missing people were healers.

“What happened?” I asked Grandelf, the sage who had cried out earlier.

“I saw a grey blur, and they were just gone.” He said, eyes wide.

“Which way was the blur moving?” I asked, shaking his shoulders. He pointed to the left, and I turned to look but saw nothing. The entire raid was standing still, staring at me.

“Don’t move, I’ll check it out.” I said. Stepping forward, I felt a tile beneath my feet sink just a bit. Eyes wide, I watched as a grey blur shot back across the space that the three missing members were in. “Ok, everyone be ready. If you feel a tile sink beneath your feet, yell out. If you are in that middle section and hear someone yell, move. As fast as you can. Got it? Now get crossing again while King and I check things out.”

The raid kept moving, and King and I started searching along the wall for a clue. “Nothing at the base. No blood, no dropped equipment. What happened to the bodies?” He asked.

“Think that hole in the wall up there has anything to do with it?” I asked, pointing above me. “Brock! Need you and HealYaButt over here!” I called, smiling as the three people in the middle of the room immediately dove to the ground at the first sound of a shout. “Sorry about that, false alarm!”

As the two I had called over were on their way, I heard someone else shout, “DOWN!” Two managed to avoid it, but Brosef got smashed by what I could tell from this direction was a truly massive hammer. It was moving so fast that the body was plastered to the head, and it swung up above us into the alcove before clicking into place.

“Alright, looks like the trap is a giant hammer coming from the side, and it is low enough that just hitting the deck isn’t going to cut it.” I shouted to the raid. “I want everyone who hasn’t crossed the room yet to move to the sides of the room. The hammer’s trajectory is such that you won’t get hit if you are next to the walls, but keep an eye out for more traps. I doubt there is a safe path across the room.”

As the raid group scrambled to obey, I turned to the geomancer and healer that had arrived. “Brock, I want you to create us a platform and raise it to the height of the gap in that wall there. We can’t do it until the group is across, unless you want to take a massive hammer to the face.”

“What am I here for?” Heal asked.

“There are bodies on the other side of the wall.” I said, pointing to the wall behind me with my thumb. “We’re going to have you rez them.”

Warning!

Raid leader, we have detected that one of your raid members has been dead for five minutes. If that body is not recovered and resurrected within ten minutes of death, the body will be respawned either at the entrance of the dungeon or at the room of the last defeated boss. Should this be required, the resurrected person will suffer a penalty for the duration of the dive and the raid will incur a morale penalty.

“Aw fuck me. EVERYONE, LISTEN UP!” I yelled, getting everyone to freeze. “Looks like we have a new issue. If you die and aren’t resurrected within ten minutes, your body will be transported to the beginning of the dungeon or last boss defeated, and we all get a penalty. I need everyone to stay where they are, we have less than five minutes to rez four people.”

Turning back to Brock, I said, “Get going on that platform.”

“Yessir.” He saluted, then placed both palms on the ground, and with a gentle shake I felt us rising.

“Nice control. I barely felt any tremors.” I complimented him, getting a grin from the rapidly sweating geomancer. We reached the top of the wall within thirty seconds, and looked over to see a pit with four bodies in it. “Save Brosef for last. Use your skill and a scroll, I’ll use another scroll.” I ordered Heal, pulling a rez scroll from my inventory.

Comrade gone beyond the veil,

There are tasks left undone.

Return once again to our sides,

Fight once more for the light.

[Resurrection].

Though it was through a scroll, I still had to do the chant and ended up my spell as the same time as Dr. HealYaButts. LadyFisticuffs and HolyDungeonDiver both stood up immediately, took a step towards us and fell down as they died once again.

“What the fuck is that?” Brock asked, staring as the same thing happened to SirMixaLalalot.

“What the? Why are they dead again?” Heal snarled, looking like he was getting ready to drop down in there.

“Hold on a second. There’s gotta be a reason, and I’m not going to risk a healer. Brock, can you raise the floor underneath the bodies so that they are at our level?”

“Yeah. Probably?”

“I don’t need probably, I need you to do it.” With a sigh, he got to work. As he was taking a break with his first mana potion, I used a resurrection scroll on Brosef. He died as well, even being halfway up the pit. By the time Brock managed to get all four bodies up to the same level as us, we were pushing the limits for recovering the bodies of the first three.

“Brock, use a rez scroll on Diver. I’ve got Fisticuffs, Heal you take SirMixaLalalot.” I ordered, pulling another scroll from my inventory. We all got our people resurrected, and they didn’t die immediately.

“Don’t move!” I shouted as they started looking around. “Brock’s going to get you a bridge out of here. I’ll rez Brosef in just a minute.”

“What happened?” LadyFisticuffs asked.

“Giant hammer. Carried your bodies into a pit filled with poison gas.” I answered, holding up a clear vial that I had taken the time to dip into the area while Brock was bringing up the bodies. “Looks like he managed to create an airborne version of Death’s Knell, and keep it denser than air so that it won’t escape this pit.”

“Damn. We could have burnt up so many resurrection scrolls.” Heal said, voice soft with respect.

“Finally seeing that this isn’t a normal dungeon run?” I asked, giving him a sideways glance. “Anyway, keep to the edge of the room and we can move along.”

Ten minutes later and the entire raid was at the end of the room, looking at the stairs leading down. We had lost another one when someone got too close to the pillars and whirling blades blasted out. They spun just above waist level on a human, which just happened to be about neck height on the poor dwarf who lost his head.

“Well, ain’t we off to a great start.” HolyDungeonDiver muttered. “Three rooms in the first floor, and we have 28 deaths on record. Best. Raid. Everrrrrr.”

“Maybe now everyone can get their heads out of their asses and treat it like the hardest raid the game’s ever had?” I snarked back at him. “I want King heading out first, then Shocker and finally Death at two minute intervals. See what’s on the next floor and check for traps.”

“One second.” King said, pulling a rope from his inventory. “Keep it slack. If it starts pulling swiftly, I’ve fallen victim to a trap on the stairs. Two tugs from me in quick succession means I safely made it to the bottom.”

“Good idea.”

“Why?” Diver asked. “Seems a little over the top.”

“Because of the raid mechanics.” RaiderDave answered. “I had forgotten until just now, but unless someone sees them die the raid doesn’t get a notification. Up until now, nobody had been completely out of sight while still alive.”