Several hours later, having taken four more stops due to Mia's lack of stamina and infinite mana. The two of them arrived in the final room. Mia quickly collapsing against one of the walls in exhaustion.

Lock meanwhile, who'd only started to get slightly out of breath in the last room, where'd they'd fought 20 golems, went to explore the rather large reception room. It was stony, and square, with a gigantic steel door bound in chains taking up the entire wall adjacent to the door that they'd used to enter the place.

The fact that there was nothing here, except for the teleportation rune stone, stumped Lock for several seconds. While he hadn't expected a very obvious ritual circle to just be spread out on the ground in a place that adventurers probably visited regularly, he had expected some clues at least.

Well, he was here now. It was time to start searching. Lock bent down, pulled out one of his daggers, and started the tedious task of inserting the blade in-between the stones and shaking it to see if any of them were loose. It was quite literally the only hiding place he could possibly imagine being present here.

It didn't take him long to finish the entirety of the floor, but having found nothing, he spread his search onto the walls. Well, at least the lower half of them, he couldn't reach any higher. Another few minutes passed by, the only sound occupying the room being the metallic one of Lock's work, and Mia's slowly lightening breathing. Then, after a while, both of the sounds ceased.

The walls had revealed nothing.

“Odd.” Lock muttered, as he sat down next to the tired looking Mia to think. He'd checked all available surfaces but hadn't found any hints at a ritual being used here. No molten wax from ritualistic candles, no runes, no stones with slightly altered properties due to having come into contact with magic.

Either this wasn't the room that they were completing the ritual in, or they were very good at hiding their traces. Invisible ink for the runes? A thorough cleaning after every ritual?

“You haven't checked the ceiling and the door yet.” Mia said from her position sprawled out on the floor next to him. Apparently holding up her torso in a sitting position was too much for the poor girl.

“I don't feel like touching the door. I'm pretty sure there are some nasty enchantments, or straight out curses stuck to it.” Lock replied. “And I can't really reach the ceiling.” He finished, and demonstrated his inability by standing up and jumping as high as he could. He didn't even manage to reach two thirds of the way up there. Understandable, considering the ceiling was almost fourteen feet high.

Carefully analysing the dull rows of stones above also didn't reveal any hints that would indicate the ritual having been completed up there.

“How would they get up there anyway, and if they could, would they really bother every single time they had to do a repetition of the ritual?” Lock asked himself more than Mia, but she answered anyway.

“They'd only need to do it once, a skill to get them up there, pull out the stones, paint the runes on the back of the stones, and stick them back in.” She said.

“I guess I'm not well versed in rituals, but I can imagine that one doesn't necessarily have to be right next to the runes one is using to cast one.” He muttered.

“You don't have to guess. It is so. Distance matters little as long as one is closer than 21 feet, what's important is the constellation of the participants, but standing under the runes, instead of on them, changes little.” Mia said with a slightly passionate tone tingeing her voice.

“You seem taken with the topic.” Lock commented, at which she shrugged. The action did interesting things to her breasts. A detached observation. Now wasn't the time. But her interest in runes. He would come back to that later. An unfitting interest for a girl probably raised in a family of Ninjas?

“Well, I have no way of getting up there and loosening the stones, and I can't help but remember you mentioning a particular skill that would be useful in this situation.” Lock said, laying a gauntleted hand on her shoulder.

“I... don't think I'm physically capable of doing that right now. Sticking to walls is a challenge at the best of times.” She said. “Now?” She shook her head.

Lock hummed as he mentally went through the inventory of potions he had with him. Technically speaking he did have a few things that would help Mia recover at least a bit of her stamina. They would just take a while to take effect, and while they still had about two hours until the repetition back home was completely finished, they would lose at least one and a half if they went ahead with that particular option. This would basically stop them from being able to search for the ritual anywhere else, as they would then have to return to avoid possibly meeting the Castouts if they walked from completing the ritual, directly to the dungeon. The danger of them being forewarned, even if it was just a subconscious feeling of disquiet, was more dangerous than him not knowing where exactly the gate would spit them out when they followed.

Lock knew it was somewhere in this dungeon, and since the Castouts wanted the boss, they would appear somewhere on the route that he'd just covered. A route he was now tangentially familiar with. The chance of the ritual being completed here was also higher than anywhere else. This was the room that the adventurers visiting this dungeon saw the least of after all.

“We still have two hours. One and a half should be enough time for you to recover some of your stamina with my help, before we really have to leave.” Lock eventually said, having considered all the options he could think off.

Not waiting for a reply from Mia he started rummaging through the potions he'd brought with him, eventually managing to fish out the two that he needed. A slow-acting regenerative potion, a function of which was reverting the muscle tissue shredded through strenuous physical activity back to its original state a few hours earlier, the only downside being that this naturally counteracted an actual improvement of the muscles. And a potion that was generally dubbed the stamina up potion, although what it did on a biological level was to accelerate the bodies production of hormones, enzymes and what not, necessary to complete arduous physical tasks. Not really having stamina issues on his own, Lock generally used it for it's mild wake-up effect.

He would need to consider the needs of any teammates he might have the next time he made a batch to bring with him. He'd gotten lucky this time.

“First, drink this.” Lock said, stretching out the two glass vials in Mia's direction. She took them from his hands, got into a sitting position and gulped them down without hesitation, although she did make a face of disgust as she did so. Potions, as a general rule of thumb, tasted horrible.

“Now give me one of your bare legs.” Was Lock's next command, which he issued as he went through the motions of removing his gauntlets.

Mia hesitated, only slightly to her credit, before removing the ninja tabis on her right leg, pulled up the pants, and dropped the appendage into his lap.

He took it into his hands, and started roughly massaging it. Now, he was by no means an expert, but he'd been an old man once, so he definitely knew a bit about physiotherapy. Mia, going by her content, if slightly flushed expression, seemed to share his opinion about his skills. Namely just good enough so as to not be accused of using the message as an excuse to cop a feel.

No, this was a purely professional gesture, aimed at recovering as much vigour to Mia's body as quickly as possible so she could complete an important task.

If he had been trying to cop a feel he definitely wouldn't have started with the feet, he noted as he moved up to her calf.

He sighed once his arousal started acting up, but remained professional over the next hour as he dutifully finished the massage, avoiding any critical areas.

This was partly the reason why he frequented prostitutes. A young bodies hormones, coupled with an old man's knowledge on how good sex could really be, and how easy it was to get if one had the right attitude, was a mixture for disaster for any meaningful venture.

He could have attempted coming clear with his emotions, letting go of worldly desires and all that crap, but whores were easier, and he had things to accomplish. He couldn't afford spending several hours a day in deep spiritual contemplation, and trying to tame the bull that was the teenage drive for sex, was an almost completely futile task. He'd also had an achieved immortality to celebrate, and before he knew it, it had sort of become a habit.

Maybe he'd bother with an attempt at celibacy in one of his next lives, when he wouldn't have to work against the already formed hormonal reward systems that resulted from continuous sexual encounters. It would be a good idea. Nobody could really claim that fucking one's way through a species supply of whores was a healthy and productive way to use one's time. Maybe he'd even settle down to have a family in one of his lives.

Lock clapped Mia's bare back to tell her that he was done with the massage and leaned back, eyes catching on the cloth riding up her athletic back once she'd gotten back into a sitting position.

On the other hand, not being horny all the time was well worth the money and time invested, yeah.

He cursed the Castouts once again for not having an easily discernible schedule, he was feeling backed up after almost two weeks of no intercourse.

“Thanks.” Mia said to him after she'd finished adjusting all of her clothes to their previous position. She stretched, he averted his eyes, not that she could see them through his helmet.

“It was necessary.” He stated, and then got up.

Mia's eyes landed on his bare hands, which had spent the last hour or so roaming all over her body. In a purely platonic way of course. “You're not putting your gauntlets back on?” She asked, causing him to shake his head.

“You'll be walking on the ceiling trying to loosen out stones, I think it would be better for everyone involved were I to catch you with bare hands, instead of gauntleted ones, if you were to fall.” Lock replied.

Mia nodded with a wince, eyes running down the sharp pointy fingers of the gauntlets sequestered in one of the rooms corners. She gave him a hesitant look, before moving to one of the walls and taking up a running position. “I'll start then?” She said questioningly. He nodded and she took off.

Not as fast as she'd been at the start of today's venture, but she'd recovered a significant amount of her fitness, Lock noted, and tilted his head once she started running up the wall.

What an odd sight.

She cleared the wall quickly, and stepped onto the ceiling, Lock could almost swear he saw a blue glow emitting out of her feet. Defying gravity she stuck to the ceiling once there, and squatted down to start shoving her ninjato in-between the stone cracks and rattling it. A stone was loosened and fell out at her third attempt. Lock caught it, but had to deposit it onto the ground to catch a flailing Mia not a second later. She took him by surprise, and therefore they both sprawled onto the ground once their bodies met.

He watched curiously as she froze up in her position of straddling his waist, face growing red. Lock extended a hand to her face, and gently laid it onto her cheek, before roughly shoving her off of him as he got up, dusted himself off and went over to where he'd dropped the stone.

“No damage, good.” He muttered as he picked the quader shaped stone up, and turned it around to inspect the side that he'd noticed, as it was falling down, had a symbol drawn onto it.

A rune he didn't recognize, with 21 small dots surrounding it. Lock tilted his head curiously. The 21 dots signified that the ritual here had already been completed. Now the Castouts only needed to finish up the other side and they'd have a full functioning Gate leading right to the boss room of the dungeon.

“Well, it seems like our confrontation has moved up in schedule.” Lock commented as he handed the stone back to Mia.

Understanding his intention she took it, took a few deep breaths and ran up the wall towards where she'd pulled it out from. She stuck it back in. It held, thankfully. She managed to make her own way downwards this time.

Lock gazed up at the ceiling, already planning on how they would drop down from there without sustaining any injuries and ambush the Castouts as they fought the boss. Glancing at the still Mia reminded him that he hadn't told her exactly what they'd be doing yet.

The complete explanation of the mission could wait until they were back in his apartment though. He disliked repeating himself. It would be better to tell both the twins at the same time.

He nodded at Mia and walked over to the rune stone that would take them back to the entrance of the dungeon. “Come on, let's get out of here.”