On the way back they ignored the pathway on the right, and they headed down the left path of the two remaining on the four-way intersection. A flash trap greeted them at a two-way intersection in which they went left. An earth spike upon entering, a puddle to the left, and a treasure across the room from them. They opened the treasure and were introduced to another chest with no weapon in it. Most of the group shrugged, but Teri had to remind Franc about the G- rank nature of the floor.

Going the other way, they deactivated another earth spike trap and saw a treasure chest across the room. However, this one was wide open.

“I think we may have already opened this one, Franc,” joked Peter as he saw nothing in the wooden box.

“The treasure in the last room, the one at the dead end, and this one are also shaped like regular treasure chests and not the rock type we saw in the larger rooms,” mused Teri.

Lyra injected her opinion, “We noticed the treasures disappearing in two of the large rooms, but found them again almost immediately. Maybe those chests teleported within the room. If so maybe these regular chests teleport throughout the whole floor?”

“That sounds like a good theory,” Franc grunted kicking the chest, “but these regular chests have worse rewards compared to the large rooms. It will be much harder to track the teleport locations across the whole floor rather than a single room.”

“That’s true, but there were a lot more monsters in the large rooms,” explained Teri. “We just didn’t really notice them as they were G- rank.”

Franc nodded at Teri’s opinion but still sighed, “I almost feel like we’ll need to ask for a bonus.”

Duzzig growled with a slight frown on his face, “Yeah, trying to figure out where all the teleport spots are when we don’t know how many treasure chests there are, how many spots there are, how often they teleport, or how to even detect their teleport locations is going to be time consuming. And there aren’t any interesting monsters to fight.”

“We’ll still have to do it,” Lyra sighed. “Our tagline is a full catalogue of everything in a new dungeon.”

“Maybe I can fight the boss over and over while you guys search for the treasure spots,” said Duzzig with hope in his voice.

The other five gave him exasperated looks with their heads leaning forward, eyes looking upward, and raised eyebrows. With a couple of guilty sideways glances, Duzzig agreed to help.

Their discussion done, they returned to the four-way intersection and went down the only remaining passage. As such, they arrived back into the first room of the floor with six total corridors, five that led deeper into the dungeon. They continued using the leftmost passageway, which would be to the right of the corridor that led to the fern room.

Down the pathway with a slight curve to it was a water trap that Duzzig deactivated with a smile and a puddle right before an oddly shaped, angular, but small room to the right. In a square nook on the left side of the angular room, they found another wood treasure chest. They moved on to another water trap before encountering another path split.

They took the left path which ended in a dead end. However, the left wall of that path opened into two other corridors that were dead ends. The corridor further in had nothing down it, but the other corridor had a flash trap and a wooden treasure chest. Franc kept reminding Peter to note down where they found the treasure chest, and all Peter gave Franc was a ‘Yes, boss’ and some eye rolls.

Continuing down the original passageway, a dead end split to the right with nothing in it. After a long section with a puddle in the middle of it with a couple snails, who Charles picked up and made have mock combat with one another, a hallway diverged to the left and headed back the way they came. Halfway down the hallway, and after they ignored another divergence, the hallway started to glow.

Charles had tossed his combat snails away and paid attention to the mold glowing on the walls, “Finally, a known useful ingredient.”

Teri asked confused, “Didn’t you completely ignore the mold in the large rooms?”

Charles stopped with his foot in midair and robotically turned to Teri, “There was phosphorescent mold growing in the big rooms?”

Teri looked at Charles with disbelief, “Yeah, you walked right past it. It was near the floor and behind some ferns, so somewhat hard to spot, but you would normally notice it easily.”

Charles scratched his head in bewilderment before turning a light shade of red.

“I may have been a little too focused on the spiders,” he muttered.

Franc sighed and rubbed his temples, “Not only does this dungeon have a more intricate first floor than normal, it also distracts us. How many damn times are we going to have to run it.”

Lyra shrugged at Franc as she was patting the dejected Charles on the back, “It’ll take more effort, but maybe we’ll receive something special at the end.”

“I can only hope so,” grunted Franc. “G- rank rewards aren’t going to cause any sort of economic boom.”

While scraping the mold off of the wall Charles added, “I think having this mold on a G- rank floor is more than enough. We always need health potions even the low rank ones. Of course, this stuff will probably make the potions glow, so that may put some people off.”

“As long as it doesn’t make me glow, a potion’s a potion,” chortled Duzzig

Charles scaped every bit of mold off of the wall to get an idea of how much a run through of the floor would net an adventurer. Afterwards, they continued on their way.

After finding nothing but a flash trap down the divergence, they got back on the long, curvy corridor. At the corridor’s end was a flash trap waiting to be deactivated. However, what caught their attention was the sea of white webs in the next room.

“Should we just burn it?” asked Duzzig.

Charles gave him a sharp glare, but Franc answered him first, “Nope, we need to see if there’s anything special inside.”

So the team entered the room with Duzzig and Franc, axe and greatsword in hand, cutting the webs as they went. Rather than dropping down from above as the spiders most often did in the other rooms, they skittered across the webs and lunged at the group. They still caused no damage to the group, but the party of six now had to swat the spiders away in multiple directions: a much larger annoyance.

As they approached the center of the room, they noticed a tree surrounded by spider webs.

Teri was the first to spot what was hanging from the branches, “Are those golden apples?”

Everyone’s head instantly whipped towards the tree, and their eyes widened at the sight.

After a brief stop in their trek towards the tree, Franc shouted with determination, “Be on guard! If those are the same golden apples that we’re all thinking of, there’s no way in the Depths only G- rank monsters are in here!”

The party instantly got serious. Franc’s sword glowed a white light, his muscles bulged, and an armor of wind surrounded his body.

A second blade sprang out of the other side of Duzzig’s axe, his visor shut tight, inscriptions on his shield began to glow, and mana started flowing inward.

Teri’s rifle-like gun disappeared and larger one that glowed red appeared in its place. She pulled out a long string of red mana stones and attached them to the loading mechanism. A pair of glasses with targets and flowing numbers appeared over her eyes.

Lyra’s entire bodied became a sheen of metal. The small flock of metal spikes became a storm of spinning razors that surrounded the party but kept line of sight open.

All five of Charles’ familiars appeared. Stacy stayed on his shoulder and observed the surroundings. Ciel covered the left flank. Lioric covered the right flank. The Dread Cockatrice, Nielfor, covered their backside. The Garbage Jelly, Goober, rested on Charles’ other shoulder in preparation for future clean up.

Peter stood in between Teri and Lyra, his two deep black daggers at the ready. His enhanced eyesight kept a lookout on the surroundings with an intense focus on his unique skill.

“I currently sense the same amount of danger as the other rooms,” he provided.

Franc grunted in acknowledgement, but they maintained their readiness as they approached the tree.

Any spiders that tried to approach them, they were getting even more aggressive compared to the largest room, were simply vaporized. Sure, they were technically turned into chunks of meat and guts, but the pieces were too small for the naked eye to see anything other than a multicolored mist.

Upon reaching the tree, Teri shot an apple down, Peter grabbed it out of midair, and handed it to Teri. She examined it with intense scrutiny before biting into it and swallowing a piece.

“It’s a normal apple except gold in color,” she spit out.

Franc’s turned head, wide open eyes, and raised eyebrow instantly conveyed his question of ‘Really?’

After a nod of Teri’s head, Franc ordered, “Be at ease. I can’t believe it’s a normal damn apple.”

Duzzig spoke between bites of the apple he had already picked, “They’re sweeter than the apples I’m used to. Tastes good.”

He tossed one each to the remaining four. As they each took a bite they agreed with his assessment.

“These could be useful,” Franc mused, “but I don’t know how far a single tree is going to go.”

“If this dungeon is instanced, it could go quite a ways.” suggested Lyra.

“Right, we would need to check for that with this dungeon,” Franc sighed.

As they stood chewing on the golden apples, Charles suddenly leapt towards the base of the apple tree and scooped a handful of dirt out of the ground.

“What are you doing, Charles?” asked Lyra with a look of amusement on her face.

“Glow Worm,” he said with a smile as a blue worm hung from his hand in front of his face.

“Useful, but what’s one going to do?” queried Peter.

“I’ll say the same thing Lyra did about the apple tree.”

“One worm’s a little different than a whole tree.”

“We don’t know this is the only one.”

“Did you see anymore?”

A little dejected, Charles responded, “No.”

Peter sighed, “I’m not trying to shit on your plan, but just don’t get too excited about a single worm.”

With a shrug of his shoulders, Charles turned the blue worm into a small ball.

A quick sweep of the room resulted in two illusion pitfalls to be disarmed and another puddle with snails. Charles contemplated picking the snails again but chose to study the apples instead.

Peter quickly mapped out the short corridor that led to a small room they’d already been to between the boss room and the largest room. At which time they entered the last of three corridors that led back in the direction of the entrance.

They made quick work through the short corridors and small rooms filled with slimes and jellies. The encountered three puddles with snails: one in the first corridor, one in the second room on the left path, and one in the first room on the right path. After the last room on each path was a flash trap. The left path connected to the corridor they had not traveled from the largest room. Both paths connected to an essentially empty medium sized room with only monsters and creatures inside. Two of the three remaining paths connected to the first room from the entrance with one of the paths having a water trap. The last remaining path connected close to the four-way intersection of corridors, where they found an already opened chest.

With no more unexplored areas in the immediate vicinity, the party turned to Peter.

“Any unexplored areas?” Franc asked.

“We have four corridors that we haven’t gone down. One in the square large room and one in the large clover room. The last two are in that long corridor between the mushroom room and the square large room,” answered Peter.

“Okay, let’s fill those out and then fight the boss.”

“Finally,” said Duzzig pounding his fist into his hand.

They trekked back through the long corridor first. The first corridor led to three dead ends, a flash trap, and a wooden treasure chest. The chest contained a pair of wooden knuckles without any enchantment on them.

“Without any enchantments, these are just junk,” growled Franc.

“They could be used as children’s toys to train them,” suggested Peter.

“We already make those. We don’t need inferior versions from a dungeon that may not fit the preferred fighting style.”

“How many people fight using knuckles? Not many. If the weapons from this dungeon start becoming popular among children, we could see an introduction of different fighting styles.”

Franc rubbed his chin, “That’s a good point. However, what adventurer is going to be willing to lug this out of the dungeon when there’s better stuff?”

“True, not many will,” Peter acquiesced, “But some will because they’re greedy, hoarders, or stupid. Besides the mold, apples, and based on Charles’ reaction, unique monsters should be enough to pull people in.”

With her left hand on her hip and her right finger pointing at the two, Lyra scolded them with humor in her voice, “Now you two, no discussion until we finish exploring the whole dungeon. Right, Franc?”

With a scratch of his cheek and a light blush of embarrassment, Franc agreed and they moved on. The next corridor was a dead end with a water trap. The corridor in the square large room was also a dead end with nothing of interest in it. The last corridor from the alcove room led to a illusion trap right before a medium sized room with, once again, nothing of interest inside. With the floor fully mapped out as far as they could tell, they headed to the boss door.

Once they arrived, the previous glowing mushroom portion of the door had changed to the moss portion of the door. The other five gave Charles the look someone gives a mischievous child. He turned his head aside and gave a fake cough.

Duzzig asked him, “Why not the spiders? You were enamored with those.”

“I doubted we’d be able to kill more of those with how many ankle biters we’d already killed, so I settled for the moving moss,” Charles replied with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Alright, then,” announced Franc, “Due to Charles, we’ll be fighting some moss based creature. Everyone ready?”

A determined ‘Yes’ resounded and Franc pushed the door open. They looked inside and didn’t see any boss.

“Looks like it only spawns the boss after we enter,” shrugged Duzzig.

The party entered in formation and when all six were in the room, and clear of the doors, the doors slammed shut. Magical moss similar in fashion to the vines in the safe room instantly covered the room. A plop sounded in the center of the room as a ball of moss appeared in midair and dropped down. After a couple of seconds it jumped at Duzzig who swatted it with his shield causing it to explode.

“Not surprising,” shrugged Lyra.

Peter sighed, “I mean it is a G- rank floor. What else-”

The magical moss shifted to a red color and started to writhe. At the far end of the room a moss ball of the same size and shape as the first appeared, but instead of green, it was a dark red.

“Charles!” shouted Franc.

“SS- rank!” replied Charles.

The party shifted near instantaneously into the same prepared mode as the spider web room. However, the red moss ball had already shot towards Duzzig. It smashed into his raised shield pushing him back a foot before bouncing back across the room. The bounce back allowed the party enough time to finish their preparations.

Roots sprouted out of the moss ball, acting as spikes, as it started erratically bouncing around the room.

The storm of metal clashed with the moss ball and in that brief pause of motion, Duzzig, Franc, and Peter sliced at its body. Small pieces slowly fell off of the moss ball, eventually causing it to stop bouncing erratically.

As it plopped back onto the ground, the roots it was using as spikes continued to grow, now acting as long whips. These whips lashed at the party from a distance periodically making their way through the metal storm and creating superficial wounds as the group dodged them expertly.

After a minute of avoiding root whips, Franc shouted, “Ready, Teri?”

“Ready,” she replied, red gun pointed at the moss ball.

A hole opened in Lyra’s metal storm. The moss ball retracted its vines and started to bounce away, but the initial retraction cost it valuable time. The gun rapid fired bolts of red energy that blasted the moss ball apart. Hisses and screams resounded as chunks of the moss ball flew off its main body. With one last screech its body exploded.

The tension eased from five of six party members, happy at the end of the monster before the scream of a hawk raised it right back up. Stacy fell to the ground with only one wing. The other wing was now outside their formation surrounded by red moss. A couple of seconds later the red moss dispersed and nothing of the wing remained.

The pieces of the red moss ball were bouncing erratically around the room. They were nowhere near as strong as the large moss ball, but they could still do damage. Lyra’s metal storm couldn’t counter the increased speed of the small balls resulting in occasional chunks of flesh being lost. However, when they did make contact with one of the small balls, they were able to eliminate them by using low level fire spells on their weapons. This caused a decrease in the overall mass of the moss ball, unlike when they cut off chunks from the main body which were now attacking them.

The realization must have hit the moss ball that it was losing body mass without doing much damage, so it pulled back half of the mass and reformed into a smaller ball. Roots shot out and clung to the walls, and its main body shifted throughout the web of roots. The other half of its body mass continued to harass the party as small balls.

However, the initial pullback of body mass allowed the group of six to cast minor healing spells on one another restricting blood flow and growing some flesh back. Charles had stopped the flow of blood from Stacy’s wing, but had to place her back into his tamer home for the remainder of the fight.

With the moss ball partially back together, Teri prepared her gun again. Before she could get a shot off, the moss ball puffed up and expelled a large cloud of spores. As the cloud reached them, Franc released his wind armor and Lioric created a tornado. The wind spells blew the cloud away from them, but as soon as they touched the walls, ceiling, and floor they sprouted into new patches of red moss. In fact, there was now more red moss than the initial boss monster.

Franc shouted, “Duzzig!” and the two of them sprinted out of the metal storm towards the hanging moss ball. The small balls harassed them but Duzzig’s metal armor and Franc’s wind armor kept the wounds to bruises. Upon reaching the medium moss ball, rather than cut pieces of the moss ball off, they caught it between the two of them not allowing it to move around the web.

“Now!” shouted Teri.

The two of them leaped backwards before bolts of red energy blasted the moss ball apart once again. Before the pieces of moss could start bouncing erratically again, the rest of the party formation sprinted forward.

Teri pulled out a two handed rifle shaped gun with a fist sized red mana stone installed in the back. She pointed the gun at the twitching remains of the moss ball and covered them in flames. Hissing covered the room as the pieces writhed in pain.

The remaining moss ball formed back together and started a full frontal assault on the now reversed party. It ignored the pain and cuts caused by the metal storm and broke through to the main party. Focused on who it assumed was the weakest member of the party, a hole opened in its body and a shot of liquid sped towards Peter. The moss ball expected the little man to be melted on the spot, but he expertly dodged it.

“That spit is extremely dangerous,” relayed Peter to the rest of the group.

The moss ball sped away from the party as blades of wind sliced it and part of its body turned to stone. It stared at the party in anger for a few seconds before the small hole that it opened for its acidic spit turned into an evil smirk. Roots turned spikes appeared all over its body, and its body started to smoke before it sprang towards the party.

“Duzzig, guard now!” shouted Peter in alarm.

Duzzig sprinted to the center of the party and slammed his shield into the floor exclaiming, “Fortress!”

A sphere of energy surrounded the party as an explosion rocked the boss room. Cracks formed in the sphere as root spikes and acid slammed into it.

After the cracks stopped expanding and the shaking stopped Franc asked, “Peter?”

“Opposite side of the room hidden in the magical moss,” answered Peter.

“Get to it Teri.”

“Okey dokey,” said Teri with a grin on her face.

The party moved across the room where Peter had pointed, and Teri covered the area in flames. A small hiss resounded indicating the last bit of red moss being burned to death. Afterwards, the teleportation formation in the alcove started to glow.

“Haha, that was fun!” laughed Duzzig.

“I agree,” added Teri.

“I’m not sure I agree with your sense of fun,” sighed Peter.

“Don’t complain just because you were bored with nothing to do in the fight,” Duzzig continued to laugh.

“What dropped?” asked Lyra

Teri walked over to where she killed the last piece of moss and squated, “It looks like four platinum coins, a SS- rank mana heart, a SS- rank mana stone, a vial of that acid spit, a mat of that red moss, and a bag of its spores.”

“Sounds pretty normal.”

“It is for an SS- rank. However, an SS- rank on the first floor is not normal,” sighed Franc. “This job is going to be a bigger hassle than I thought.”

Charles brought over a F- mana heart and a mat of green moss from the first boss.

The party turned to leave, but a large window appeared in front of them. As they read what was on it, Franc sat down on the floor in a crossed legged position and put his head in his hands. Peter came over and patted him on his back, while Charles and Duzzig were enamored with the window.

The window contained their overall clear rate of the floor. Which creatures they killed, which ones they captured, which traps they triggered, which ones they deactivated, which treasure chests they found, which type of treasures they received, percentage of floor traveled, which boss they killed, and the most important which special boss they killed. They had maxed out some of the categories, but were nowhere close to finding all the treasures, finding all the loot, or killing all the bosses.

“It’s okay, Franc,” said Peter while patting their leader on the back, “At least we have a list of what we need to do now”

A sharp glare was all Peter got.