Emerging onto the fifth floor, Leon and the party were witness to a new Biome floor. The last one had been an Ocean or Marine Biome. This one was a desert. And it was huge. Like mind bogglingly huge. It didn’t make sense to Leon how the dungeon could have such an enormous area inside it. They were only a few hundred feet below sea level, but the ceiling had to be at least a thousand feet above them. What’s more, the staircase had only been maybe twenty feet deep. In fact, the top of the staircase was within his sphere of perception but the ceiling in the new floor defied logic.

“What in the world is going on with this place?” Leon asked as he searched his senses to try and understand what was happening.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean this floors ceiling is so high that it should be occupying the space of all four floor above it. It should actually be sticking out of the ground. And its far too wide. We can’t even see the sides. The dimensions of this place don’t make any sense. Now that I think about it the other floors don’t make sense either.” Leon sputtered actually feeling disoriented by the strangeness.

“If that’s all you were worried about you should go examine the dungeon from the outside. It’ll really blow your mind.” Cynthia said with a smirk.

“What does that mean?”

“Didn’t you read a ton of books about dungeons?” Daisy teased, “This is like… common knowledge pretty much everywhere.” The girls all nodded in unison at that.

“If you looked at the dungeon purely from outside it would just be the statue and about fifteen feet of rock beneath it. The outsides of Dungeons don’t grow. It’s only the insides that get bigger.” Lamia explained.

Leon stopped dead in his tracks, “I’m inside a freaking T.A.R.D.I.S. and I didn’t know about it!” he wailed in English and dramatically tossed himself to his knees. How hadn’t he noticed this? How had he not questioned the strange dimensions before? His Quantum Perception pierced through the ground just as it did everything around him. He just generally didn’t pay attention to what was going on in the ground and all around him that much with it. He’d missed something so easy to observe that he had no excuses about his own ineptitude. Actually, now that he was thinking about it his own senses were… Almost too much for him to handle. He actually spent a lot of time ignoring most of what all of his different senses were telling him because if he listened to them all it was overwhelming. That was a weakness that he should correct in the future.

“Well, I think you just broke his poor little mind… Leon you do realize that we all carry bags are spatially expanded and are bigger on the inside, right? Void and Space Affinities are rare, but not that rare. Expanded dimensions for upscale housing is a thing too. Its not unique to Dungeons. Admittedly Dungeons do tend to take it to extremes that should be beyond their Tiers.” Far said while patting his armored head with her armored hand. Inadvertently jerking Leon out of his introspection.

“I’m fine… Just realizing a few things. Let’s get to exploring this place.” Leon said as he stood, futilely trying to brush the sand off himself as he did so.

Several hours later the group had still not found the way down to the next floor. They had encountered a lot of wildlife though. The desert seemed to be broken up into different types of deserts. For those who didn’t know deserts come in five different types: subtropical, coastal, rain shadow, interior, and polar. They were currently in a rain shadow kind of desert, think Death Valley. The thing that they were encountering the most of here was rattle snakes. Rattle snakes of all different flavors. The things were aggressive and seemed to be under every rock or in every little crevasse. But they had not been the only predators the group faced. There were jackals, bobcats, scorpions, and Leon was pretty sure that Daisy had roasted a Gila Monster lizard at one point.

The polar desert region they’d crossed had actually had a few polar bears as well. But the main threat in that area had been environmental. Fissures in the ground and holes covered in thin ice. It was interesting how the different desert sections simply cut off from each other in definitive lines where the temperature would immediately shift between either terribly cold or scorching hot. It almost felt like real life minecraft biome boundaries.

The upside of exploring down here in the desert was how many treasure chests they were finding. The downside is that they were actually well and truly lost at this point. Leon was completely turned around and had no clue where they’d come from and none of the girls knew either. They weren’t really in any danger, but it was still disconcerting to be lost.

Ten hours later, Team Terra was still lost in the desert. They were now in what Leon would call a subtropical desert, the lights had dimmed, and the temperature was dropping. Not only were they not even close to finding their way out of the desert, but the girls were exhausted and needed to sleep. Leon didn’t sleep ever so that wasn’t a concern for him. But they were going to need to make camp. Leon would stay on watch while the others slept.

Stopping to sleep for the night in a sand dune the girls all pulled sleeping bags out of their bags of holding and promptly passed out, trusting Leon to keep watch.

“Do we have enough water?” Leon heard Far asking from behind him.

“I’ve got enough to last us for several months.” He responded. It was true, he kind of just ended up storing things as time went on. He was kind of like a hoarder, just that no one could see his hoard.

“Just making sure, I only have enough for a few days. This floor is going to be a pain until we’ve got it all mapped out.”

“Yeah, seems like this floor is going to be the bottleneck for getting to lower floors quickly.”

“How many Elixirs did we find today?” Far asked

“Four. And they are all the same as the first one. I’ll be able to finish the doses with this.”

“You should just do it now. We might need the advantage down lower.” She said before unpacking a bedroll and laying down to get some sleep.

Malorie FleshShaper

Team Terra hadn’t returned from their delve today. Malorie would have been concerned if not for Daisy’s Mentor Elana. Elana apparently had given Daisy an enchanted beacon that would go off if she were seriously injured or she activated it herself. Seeing as the beacon hadn’t been triggered it meant that they were likely lost on one of the deeper floors. They’d find their way out eventually and probably be much richer for the adventure.

The biggest development of the day was not the lost Mentees however, it was that the Telepad had finally synced to the network and could now be used for trading. Malorie was sending a message to a trader for several items, not the least of which were books for the starting of the library. She would soon have the pull to get ahold of Lore books that were quite rare and even more controlled than normal. Her protégé would be the best of his generation and her ticket to the deeper layers. When the evaluations hit at the end of the training period he would rise to the top, and she would get a one-way ticket to the second Layer of the heavenly spheres. She would still need to be careful. Getting Enchanting Lore and potentially Rune Lore would be doable. But getting things like Necromantic Arts Lore, or Undeath Lore would still be a bit difficult. The controlled topics were controlled for a reason.

Leon Crumbl

The night did not pass without incident. Leon had had to deal with wave upon wave of random critters attacking while the rest of his team slept. He’d taken out his centipede monsters to help defend them so that they could actually get some sleep. His centipede monsters were a menace to the animals that came to attack. Their hard exoskeletons, fast reflexes, and powerful venomous bites made short work of most enemies. Leon was a little concerned that he would lose one of them and end up giving the dungeon access to them prematurely. He’d give the Dungeon a sample of the monsters after reaching Tier 2 himself. And he’d told the dungeon that as well. After a good eight hours of darkness and several hundred desert animals slain. the Dungeon started to brighten up again, Leon stowed his monsters, and the multitude of corpses then woke his team. They had a short breakfast then set about exploring once again.

The desert was monotonous and irritating as hell by the time they reached the stairwell leading down to the next floor. Leon took special care to observe his surroundings with every sense he had as they descended the stairs. Not seeing anything fishy until his sphere of perception reached the next floor and he could immediately tell that it should be occupying the same space as the floor above. He was so engrossed in trying to tell how the space around him was working that he did really see what was in front of him until Daisy’s voice drew him out of it.

“Gods above and below. It’s beautiful.”

Finally paying attention to what was in front of his eyes, Leon marveled at the sight before him. The entrance to the sixth floor opened up on the top of a mountain. It was straight up an archway on a plateau not even connected to a wall or anything. But the sight laid out before them was incredible. A valley spread out before them with a huge lake dominating it. It was surrounded by snowcapped mountains with temperate forests surrounding the lake and spreading up the sides of the mountains. Going from green to white as the elevation rose and the trees were increasingly covered by snow. Hundreds of waterfalls, great, and small fed into creeks, and rivers flowing down into the valley lake. Birds soared, and mountain goats were visible climbing the mountainsides. It was the most breathtakingly beautiful sight that Leon had ever seen with his own eyes. Like he’d gone into the real-life version of so many scenic fantasy games he’d played in his previous life.

“I could live here forever and never get tired of that view.” He said in wonder.

“That would not be advisable, but I understand the feeling.” Cynthia said in a reverent tone.

The group decided to eat lunch right there before attempting to find the next stairwell down. Leon had his doubts that they’d actually find it today, but maybe it wouldn’t be all that hard.

The sixth floor for all its beauty was incredibly difficult to navigate. Mountain Lions, Bear, Goats, and a huge variety of horned and antlered animals attacked them constantly as they made their way down the mountain paths. In the woods it was even worse. Wolves, deer, moose, the trek was a constant slug fest as they killed their way through the floor in search of the way down to the next floor. Even the riversides were dangerous as giant fish would hurl themselves out of the water to attack.

Fortunately, the Team found an exit to the floor after only a few hours of exploration. It was hidden in an outcropping of rock underneath a waterfall and Leon was the one to spot it as he was trying to work on using his senses to their utmost.

The seventh floor was definitely another forest, though this time it was more of a temperate one and not a jungle like the third floor. The seventh floor was again a strange environment to find themselves in. it didn’t have the majestic views of the sixth floor. But it was beautiful, nonetheless. The mana density of this floor was the highest so far and the wolves, bears, and other animals that attacked them were among the strongest they’d faced so far. Lamia was getting a workout with all the healing she was doing, and Far was struggling to take on the animals that came after the Team. Cynthia was holding up like a champ. Her petite form was surprisingly resilient. Daisy seemed right at home in the woods, and only a couple of times came under the scrutiny of the wildlife. But her flames kept her pretty safe. Leon was utterly ignored most of the time thanks to his Stealth and Perception Filter skills making it easy for him to take care of lone attacking creatures without even raising an alarm.

The fighting was almost constant, but the rewards were amazing. By the time they reached the exit they’d all be several hundred gold richer, and Leon was pretty sure that he’d finish another set of Elixirs by the time they left.

They ended up having to camp out on the seventh floor for the night. Leon giving a repeat performance of ripping through wave after wave of hostiles while the rest of his team slept. He couldn’t understand how they slept through all of the noise. The howling of wolves, the ripping of flesh and the cracks of Horrific Missiles tearing through the air throughout the night.

The next day they managed to descend to the eighth floor. And found a Biome that Leon would have called a Taiga. A boreal forest, conical-shaped evergreen trees with needle-like leaves grew everywhere. Again, they dealt with a continuous onslaught of forest dwelling critters hounding them at every turn. There were animals like weasels, grouse, and rabbits everywhere. But thankfully after only a few hours of travel in a random direction the group managed to find the stairs down to the ninth floor.

The nineth floor was a Grassland Biome. Stretching off as far as the eyes could see. There were herds of bison, horses, and practically every other kind of animal that traveled in herds all over the place. The mana density of the ninth floor was starting to actually help Leon progress. His body drawing it in, and even with it losing a bit of density before it reached his core it was still helping to push his development forward faster.

The only thing about this floor that was very different about the other floors was the level of danger here. Every animal, both great and small, seemed perfectly capable of harming each and every one of the group. All of the animals here were pushing the boundaries between Tier 1 and 2 and it was nerve wracking having to avoid the massive herds of animals and use stealth as much as possible to avoid being trampled by a stamped.

Leon wondered what the tenth floor would be like with this one being so difficult. The animals were tough here. Hard to kill and able to deal tremendous amounts of damage. Everything that Leon had read about the difference between Tier 1 and 2 of Dungeons was that animals began to mutate and take on more magical effects. Making them significantly more dangerous. If they had to deal with animals that had magical powers, he highly doubted that his team would be able to handle the same volume of attacks that were coming their way right now. He could only hope that the Dungeon stopped at the tenth floor and didn’t have a repertoire of magical beast floors for them to have to go through to find the exit crystal.

It took team Terra two days to finally find the staircase to the tenth floor. Descending the staircase Leon could feel the mana density in the air around them increase to just below the threshold of Tier 2. The tenth floor was different from any floor before that point though. And Leon was unsure whether they were facing a Maze or a Labyrinth floor when they first got there.

For those unversed in the differences, A labyrinth has a single through-route with twists and turns but without branches. A maze is a confusing pathway that has many branches, choices of path and dead ends. A labyrinth has only one entrance and that is also the exit. There is just one path from the entrance to the center. If they were in a Labyrinth, then it was as simple as following the path before them to its conclusion, essentially a Labyrinth is nothing more than a long winding hallway without door or other access points. If it was a maze… they might be stuck here for a while.

After several hours of following the pathway before them Leon decided that it must be a Labyrinth. There had been no animals, no challenges, no secret stashes of treasure. Only a Massive corridor of stone that kept going on and on. The walls were thick enough that Leon could not perceive anything but stone around them. It made him wish he had a ball of thread to see if this was like the Labyrinth of Crete.

As they walked, there started to appear scattered bones on the floors. Animal bones strewn along the sides of the path haphazardly. Leon was liking the ambiance being set up here. As they walked there were more and more bones littered around the floors. Some that had to be Elephant or Whale bones even. Until the floor was completely covered in bone chips and shards everywhere. They couldn’t take a single step without the sound of crunching bone beneath their feet.

Rounding a final bend in the pathway the team emerged into a circular room filled with bones and sitting atop a minor hill of them was huge, crouched form that was facing away from them. Leon noted with a little trepidation that the ambient mana in this room was definitely Tier 2. If only just. The figure in the center of the had a core of mana that Leon would place as something that had just crossed the threshold into Tier 2.

“It’s an early Tier 2, whatever it is.” Leon commented.

His voice seemed to be the trigger for whatever form of creature was atop the mound of bones because it suddenly growled a deep menacing growl while shifting to face them. Tier 2 was where the Dungeon could start mutating monsters. Changing them and making things more deadly. Apparently, it was also the point where it could start mixing creatures together. Because what stood atop the mound of bones looking down on them looked like nothing less than a cross between a gorilla, a bear, and a moose.

It stood a good fifteen feet tall, was covered in brown fur and shaped like a gorilla. But its head was that of a bear with moose antlers sprouting out of its brows. If Leon squinted at the thing just right, he could imagine that it was a minotaur. But just as he was thinking that the monster leaned forward and let loose a roar that rattled the bones on ground around them and shook him to his core. The Bear Gorilla Moose thing charged at the team even as its roar died down, sending bones flying in every direction as it moved down the mound of bones it had stood upon on all fours.

Leon let fly a Horrific Missile. Aiming for the monster’s face. Daisy unleashed her own version, a flaming ball soaring at the monster. Cynthia raised her shield and stepped in front of the team to meet the charge while Far started circling to the right. Lamia was right behind Cynthia with magical energy swirling around her hands, ready to heal whoever needed it first.

The first thing that Leon noticed was that his Horrific Missile barely did a thing. The monster didn’t dodge or show any reaction to a supersonic hunk of bone, horror and cursed energies that slammed into its nose. All the shot managed to do was cause the monster a nosebleed. That was shocking in and of itself. The second thing was that the fireball had a much different reaction from the monster. The things eyes widened in animalistic fear as the orb of fire closed on it. It hurled itself to the side with all the force it could muster unleashing a wailing keen of fear.

“It’s scared of fire. Daisy do your best to keep it locked down. Far, keep Lamia safe. Cynthia Keep Daisy safe. I’m going to flank it and hit with everything I’ve got.”

Leon blinked across the room without further ado. He extracted a bow and arrows from his Utility pocket and began launching arrow after arrow at the monster as it rolled away from yet another fireball. The arrows didn’t seem to do anything, so Leon launched another Horrific Missile at the thing while he switched to a spear and blinked into range simultaneously stabbing forward with everything he had. He felt the spear drive deep into the monster’s hip before he suddenly found himself flying through the air. Only registering as he flew that he’d just been backhanded hard enough that he felt his ribs break even through his armor.

Midflight, through the pain Leon got a glimpse of the girls and used blink to land in their midst. Coming down hard and driving the wind out of him. He felt Lamia casting her healing on him and breathed a sigh of relief as his bones knit back together.

“That didn’t work.”

“Ya think? I’m going to run out of mana soon at the rate we are going. We need to be able to kill this thing quick.” Daisy called out as she unleashed a flamethrower blast that sent the monster scurrying back while screaming its lungs out.

Leon just shrugged and started shooting Horrific Missile after Horrific Missile at the thing. The only thing that he could think of was the secondary effects of the skill. Nothing had ever been tough enough for the Cursed and Horror aspects of the skill to ever really do much. But this monster was tough as hell so he could only really hope that the curses that it inflicted would slow the thing down and maybe accumulate enough energy to kill the thing. Not that the projectile itself wasn’t doing anything, it just looked like the damage was minimal.

Daisy meanwhile allowed the thing to resume a charge at them. As it got closer and closer Leon kept shooting it with everything he had. Then when it was no more than twenty feet away and moving to fast to stop or turn Daisy unleashed a flamethrower directly into the things face.

The monster screamed and rolled on the ground as its fur caught fire in a flash. Team Terra’s members were now in the way as it still had all that momentum built up from its charge. Everyone dove for cover as it barreled over where they had just been in a panicked fury. Black smoke billowing up from its form as it screamed to the high heavens while trying to put itself out. Whatever its fur was made of it was obviously highly flammable and burned ridiculously hot.

By the time that the monster’s fur had all been burnt up it was no longer moving. It was nothing but a charred corpse surrounded by millions of bones. The group stood there feeling a little confused and a bit worn mentally. They had just defeated a monster that could have easily killed any of them. It almost had killed Leon. If it had grabbed him instead of backhanding him, he might have died. But its death felt sad. It was obviously designed to have an extreme weakness to fire. Which would be handy for other teams to know. Leon stored the corpse of the monster and checked that everyone else was in indeed ok.

After a brief pat down of everyone they all found themselves to be in working order, so they worked their way up the mound of bones. At the top they found a platform of stone with a chest and a stairwell leading down to another floor.

“Should we go down and hope that this is the last floor, or should we just turn around and try to find our way out?” Leon asked

“We should open the chest first and get the first-time completion port-stones is what we should do.” Cynthia said with irritation in her voice, “I swear Leon for how much you know, you seem to have never even listened to stories about how dungeons work. Everyone knows that every ten floors a Dungeon gives out port-stones to the party. Then they can just skip down to those floors they’ve already been on. And more importantly leave from anywhere in the dungeon.”

Leon just shrugged, “I read mainly factoids about different types of rooms, and monsters. Loot was a part of that, but I guess that these port-stones were not mentioned.” He defended

“Lets just loot the chest and then get out of here. We need to go home and divide the loot, and take a bath, and hopefully use the Telepad to make some trades.” Far intoned.

Nodding Leon flipped open the chest and peered inside. There was a pair of daggers, a hundred silver coins, and five bracelets with a gem attached to them. Using identify on everything Leon was surprised to find that the daggers were enchanted.

Venomous twin Daggers (Set)

These daggers are a pair meant to be used together. When wielded together each daggers blade becomes coated in a potent venom that will paralyze an opponent while leaving them conscious and fully capable of feeling everything.

Port-stone Bracelet

The port-stone is awarded by the dungeon every ten floors completed. This Port-stone grants free access to floors 1 through 10 of The Legacy Of Earth Dungeon. User will always arrive at the beginning of the floor. User may use the port-stone to vacate the Dungeon at any time or point on floors 1 through 10.

Storing everything and distributing the port-stones Leon watched as the girls all put the bracelets on then after concentrating for a moment vanished. He looked around the bone strewn floor and put his bracelet on as well. But before he used it to leave the Dungeon he popped into meditation and looked at what was happening with the Tier 2 mana his body was absorbing from the environment.

The mana was breaking down as it entered his core, but it was doing a whole lot more than just that. It was filling his entire core at a much faster rate and pushing his max mana capacity up steadily. This place would get him to the next Tier much more rapidly just by being in the environment. In fact, he was willing to bet that he could push himself to the next Tier by actively helping Corey cycle his mana in only a few hours if he wanted to. But right now, he needed to leave. Get some more Elixirs from the markets by trading and max out what he could benefit from by being Tier 1. He’d already gotten the enhanced reflexes and enhanced strength set from the dungeon. At a minimum he wanted to get ahold of the enhanced mana recovery set before he advanced. But now he had a decent idea of how to progress at least.

Taking one last look around the room Leon focused on the port-stone bracelet and a menu popped up in his vision asking him if he wanted to be taken to a specific floor or if he wanted to exit the dungeon. He chose to Exit.