The group of six adventurers appeared in the entrance hall.

“Okay, everyone. Same thing as the first floor. It may look similar, but there could be differences,” ordered Franc, the burly leader with a full beard.

Charles, the scarred monster tamer, went to study the pillars for new creatures. Lyra, leather armored, metal mage, floated up to the lights. Teri, the gnomish gunner, walked over to the table.

“We’re finally moving on to the next floor,” Duzzig, the heavily armored dwarf, grunted as he sat down on the ground.

The other two followed his lead and sat down in a circle with him.

“You were plenty happy to fight the first floor special bosses solo,” scoffed Peter, the outwardly confident, inwardly skittish rogue.

“That doesn’t mean I’m not happy to see something new,” he growled back.

“I’m just happy the Prime Magus allowed us to modify the terms of our contract,” sighed Franc. “Even she knew logging every piece of loot dropped and treasure gotten would take too much time.”

“Do you think we should modify our normal contract? ‘Everything we know of’ becomes a time sink when you get a completion list. And it doesn’t even tell us what we missed, just that we missed something,” groaned Peter.

“No,” Franc shook his head, “this dungeon has been a one off, so we’ll keep our mantra for now. However, if all new dungeons start having a completion list, then we’ll have to change it.”

Walking over to the group, Teri made Peter and Duzzig scoot over before she plopped down on the ground, entered the circle, and interrupted their conversation.

“From an exploring the dungeon for profit or adventure point of view, the completion list is great. For our jobs, however, it’s an annoyance. It took us over a week to get fifty percent for both the loot and treasure sections.”

The rest of the group grimaced at the memory.

“Fifty percent is what we agreed for our new contract,” shrugged Franc. “Besides, the Prime Magus wanted the first floor cleared to alleviate the boredom of the soldiers and workers.”

“Considering the higher ups were scurrying everywhere, while everyone else had nothing to do, that bird must have changed the town plan,” shuddered Peter.

“The fact that the Prime Magus moved the trees herself rather than let the woodcutters cut them down, told us that,” said Duzzig.

The group nodded to each other in silence before being interrupted by Franc.

“Anything different Teri?”

“Nope,” she shook her head. “The same table, treasure chest, loot collection registration, and teleportation formation.”

“Good to know.”

They all looked towards Charles and Lyra to see how they were coming along, and as they did so, Lyra floated down from up high.

“Are they the same lights?” asked Franc.

“Yep,” nodded Lyra. “By the way, I heard you talking, and did we remember to tell everyone to party up? With the instance function, going in alone would be a bad idea.”

“Of course we did,” laughed Duzzig.

With a mischievous smile, Peter interrupted Duzzig’s laughter, “Says the guy who constantly forgot to re-party up after going solo.”

Duzzig’s laughter turned into a scowl directed at Peter.

Having settled down between Duzzig and Teri, Lyra wrapped her arm around Duzzig, “Ignore him, Duzzig, as always he’s just trying to get under your skin.”

He gave a large harumph, but his anger subsided.

“How were your solo runs by the way? The rest of us were too tired to listen to the reports you gave to Franc,” Lyra asked, removing her arm from around him.

His anger now completely gone, Duzzig began to explain with fervor, “They were the same bosses that we fought as a party, but weaker. Initially I was disappointed, but just like the bosses we fought as a party, they were beatable as long as I had a good plan and used all my strength. Match ups were important too. The slimes, jellies, and colony monsters, like the moss ball, were the most difficult considering I’m a physical fighter. I’m lucky that the moss ball I fought didn’t have the spore replication attack. Without Teri’s fire in that first fight, I’m not sure we could have won.”

Teri folded her arms with a smug grin on her face as she nodded her head.

“We can only be thankful that the normal boss is F- rank rather than G- rank. If it was G- rank, we’d have low rank adventurers one shotting the boss, and likely dying from the special boss,” said Franc with remorse. “The boss being beatable with a good plan and going all out means veterans will beat it, while rookies will assuredly die. The problem is that first floor is a good place to teach rookie adventures. G- rank monsters aren’t common in the wild, especially in those numbers.”

“The rookies that are sent here to learn will have to be the smarter ones and the ones that follow orders,” said Peter as he flipped his dagger up into the air and caught it on the way down.

“Oh right!” exclaimed Duzzig, “I figured out what the stone coins we got after killing all the normal bosses do!”

“Oh really?” said Franc stone faced, “And why didn’t you mention this earlier?”

Waving his hands in front of his face, Duzzig quickly responded, “We rushed in here right after I beat the boss, so I didn’t have time to tell you.”

“Fine,” sighed Franc. “What do they do?”

“They let you choose the boss you want to fight.”

“It overrides the one selected by defeating monsters?” questioned Peter.

“Yeah, if you touch the stone coin to the associated picture on the door, it shifts the section that is lit up. For the spider section, you have to think about what spider you want and the light will change appropriately,” explained Duzzig.

Franc stroked his beard and mused, “That does remove having to kill certain monsters to fight certain bosses. That was a hassle. We’ll have to see if others can use our coins or if they’re tied to us. Since we can only get the stone coins after killing all normal bosses, they’re not too important to us, but they would be important to anyone needing to farm a boss.”

“I like them because they’re a miniature of the boss door,” interrupted Charles as he walked over to the circle.

“When we teleported in here after clearing the first floor for the first time, you said it seemed like there were different carvings. Were you right?” asked Franc.

“I was. In addition to all the ones from the first floor, there are swallows, cicadas, mosquitoes, flies, dragonflies, butterflies, and a spider with sickles instead of front legs. There is also something that looks like a light ball. I’m not sure, but it might be-”

“Elementals!” shouted Lyra.

Charles gave an amused look to Lyra, “Yeah, elementals.”

Lyra’s eyes burned with fervor, “Considering the way these entrance halls glow, there might be a metal elemental!”

“Lyra, I can’t tell what kind of elemental it is, so don’t get your hopes up,” insisted Charles

“But think of all the different spiders on the last floor! The dungeon might have just as many elementals on this floor!”

“Stop making me excited at the possibility, Lyra!” yelled Charles with a pout, “The spider variations on these pillars far outnumbers the elementals.”

“I knew it!” said Lyra as she poked Charles in the side, “There’s no way you wouldn’t be super excited about the possibility of elementals, considering how rare they are in the Empire.”

Charles crossed his arms and looked away from her, which only made Lyra giggle more.

“All right you two, that’s enough fun,” smiled Franc. “Now that we have an idea of the monsters we’ll face, let’s get a move on.”

The rest of the group stood up, adjusted their armor, and made sure all their gear was prepared. They headed to the teleportation formation and entered the second floor.

♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️

Dungeon Reconnaissance appeared on the G rank floor and immediately began their exploration. Two rooms and two hallways later, all they found were upgraded monsters and traps from the G- rank floor. However, at the end of the second hallway, they encountered something new.

A door greeted them. It was far less grand than the boss door from the first floor, but it was still larger than a normal door.

When the rest of the group approached the door, Peter was pushing on it to no avail.

“It won’t budge, so either I’m too weak to open it or it’s locked. It might also have something to do with this odd picture in the center.”

“Let me try,” grunted Duzzig as he strapped his axe to his belt and his tower shield to his back.

Duzzig pushed as hard as he could until his face turned red, but the door still wouldn’t move.

“A sturdy door,” he gasped.

A groan from Teri appeared behind Peter and Duzzig, “Will you two stop being muscle-headed idiots. It’s obviously a puzzle door.”

“On the second floor?” they both asked.

“Are really asking that after what we’ve seen so far?”

“A fair point,” grunted Duzzig.

Peter didn’t say anything, but turned his head with a slight tinge of red on his cheeks.

“I assume you can solve it?” asked Franc.

“Yes. In fact, it should be pretty easy. It looks just like one of those sliding puzzles that kids play with.”

“Oh, yeah, it does,” said Franc with a slight blush to his cheeks.

Charles and Lyra had to turn their heads and scratch their cheeks at that.

About two minutes later, a click resounded and the door slowly opened. However, what caught Charles’ and Lyra’s attention was not the door opening, but the completed picture.

“Elementals,” they both muttered.

“Since Charles and Lyra have been so kind as to provide us with information about what this room will contain, make sure you have mana based attacks ready,” ordered Franc with sarcasm laced words.

The group entered the room and were stunned. Water flowed and gurgled down the walls and throughout the room in every direction, eventually reaching the large pond in the center. However, this was not what stunned the group. The glowing water elementals floated and flew around the room, but were concentrated around the pond. The ceiling contained floating water droplets that glowed an ethereal blue.

Their stares were soon interrupted as the water elementals closest to the door began shooting water at them. Even with their low rank, attacks from G rank monster could still hurt, so the party got back in formation and proceeded to clear out the room of monsters and traps.

“Damn, this room is beautiful,” muttered Charles.

“After we clear the room out, I’m going to go check out those glowing water droplets,” said Lyra excitedly.

“You get a water elemental Charles?” asked Franc.

“Yep,” answered Charles as he turned a water elemental into a small ball. “This room will be good for water mages. Taming a water elemental may not provide as many benefits as contracting one through a summon, but they still help with casting magic.”

“Do you think there’ll be a metal room? I could really use a metal elemental,” pleaded Lyra.

“I didn’t say it before,” growled Duzzig, “but you’re expecting too much. All the time I’ve lived in the dwarven cities and worked the dwarven mines, never once did I see a metal elemental. You ever see one Charles?”

The look Lyra gave him really made him want to answer in the affirmative, but he couldn’t lie, “No, I’ve never seen one. They only appear in areas of both high mana concentration and high natural concentration. If this room wasn’t in the dungeon, it might not be enough to naturally spawn water elementals. I’ve also seen very few elementals in dungeons.”

“But elementals are rare anyway, so it’s unlikely you’ve seen every one,” argued Lyra.

“That’s true, but don’t get your hopes up Lyra. These elementals might be the only ones on the floor.”

Her shoulders sagged at that.

As the group approached closer to the pond, a stream of water shot out of it. Duzzig blocked it with his shield easily.

“Hey Charles, do water elementals hang out underwater?” asked Duzzig while peering into the pond with his shield at the ready.

“They do, but hostile elementals are unlikely to hide. They’ll get in your face to protect what they consider theirs,” he answered. “I’ll swim down there with Goober to see if it’s a new monster.”

“How’s a Garbage Jelly going to help?” asked Peter.

Charles shrugged, “Sure, he’s weaker than my other monsters, but he’s strong enough to absorb a couple water shots from G rank monsters.”

With that Charles dived into the pond and began swimming downwards. It didn’t take long for him to reach the bottom, where he noticed some ferns growing. They began shooting water at him, but the shots didn’t hurt at all. Rather than water shots, they felt like periodic pushes of strong current. He continued swimming towards the Wet Ferns, until he captured one of them and killed the rest with a dagger.

As Charles began to swim back to the surface, he noticed an unusual hole in the center of the pond. He decided to report back to the group before investigating it.

He surfaced and swam to the edge of the pond where he climbed back out.

“New monster?” asked Lyra as she began to dry him off.

“Yeah, Wet Fern,” replied Charles receiving a nod in return.

He turned his attention to Franc, “I also noticed an unusual hole in the center of the pond.”

“Hmm,” Franc mused, “Peter, go check it for traps.”

“Alright,” said Peter as he dived into the pond.

About two minutes later, he resurfaced.

“I feel danger from it, but not enough to do any significant harm.”

“What do you feel it’s for?” asked Franc.

“The hole’s a perfect size to fit an arm or a leg in,” answered Peter.

The group turned to look at Duzzig.

His face hardened, “No, not again.”

“Come on, Duzzig, you’ve done worse,” grinned Lyra.

“And I’ve hated jumping into water every time,” he growled. “I know it’s my job to test traps, but I hate getting wet. I can appreciate the beauty of this room, but jumping into the pond’s another matter. Besides, no matter how much I trust Peter’s judgment, sticking my arm in an unknown hole seems like a bad idea.”

“I’m sorry that you have to do this, Duzzig,” said Franc placing a hand on his shoulder, “but it’s your role. With your Endurance attribute and skills, you can tank just about anything. Even mental spells.”

He scowled at Franc and turned to Lyra, “Give me a water breathing spell and a hydrophobic spell, then I’ll be off.”

“Each one will only last for ten minutes, so don’t play around for too long,” she teased.

After the spells were applied, Duzzig jumped into the pond still fully armored and yelled, “If I lose an arm, all five of you are paying for the regeneration and the new armor I’ll have to buy!”

He slowly sank to the bottom until his feet settled on the ground. Even with the increased resistance, he walked over to the hole in the ground at a normal pace. With a sigh, he stuck his hand into the hole. As he did, words appeared on the ground and asked a question, ‘Name two skills of the water elementals present in this room.’

Duzzig stared at the words before muttering, “Shit.”

He removed his hand and walked over to the wall of the pond. He poked at the wall and was able to successfully poke a hole in it. With a nod, Duzzig started climbing the wall while making handholds for himself.

A couple of minutes later, he surfaced and climbed onto solid ground.

“What happened?” asked Franc.

“As soon as I placed my arm in the hole, words appeared on the ground and told me to name two skills of the water elementals in this room,” answered Duzzig.

“So, did you answer?” questioned Charles.

“Of course not,” growled Duzzig, “that’s your expertise.”

“Old Duzzig can’t even answer such a simple question, tsk, tsk,” chided Peter with a smirk on his face.

“I don’t care about their skill names, just how to counter them,” said Duzzig as he nearly spat, but stopped himself in time. Spit and hydrophobic spells didn’t mix.

Teri interrupted the conversation, “Is it another kind of puzzle? A simple question based one rather than a sliding puzzle like was present on the door?”

“If you consider questions puzzles, then sure,” Duzzig shrugged.

“I want to see it myself, let’s go Duzzig,” ordered Teri. “Coming with, Charles?”

“Sure,” Charles responded.

Teri turned to Lyra, “Can you cast the spells on Charles and I, please?”

“Happily,” Lyra smiled back.

With the spells cast on Teri and Charles, and Duzzig’s renewed, the three of them sank to the bottom of the pond.

Standing around the hole, Teri ordered Duzzig, “Stick your hand in it.”

He scowled, but still followed Teri’s distorted words.

Charles looked intrigued as the words appeared, “Before you answer, let Teri or I try first. It’ll be good to know if someone besides the one with their arm in the hole can answer.”

“Yes, because I was going to answer something that I don’t know,” Duzzig replied as he stuck his arm back in the hole.

“Water Shot and Water Creation,” answered Charles.

The three of them waited, but nothing happened. During this time, Teri was examining the hole, but noticed nothing about it besides the fact that it was a hole.

“Sometimes, Dungeon Puzzles are truly confounding. It’s obviously magic of some kind, but to me all I see is a hole.”

“Can I answer now?” sighed Duzzig.

“Go ahead,” both replied.

Duzzig repeated what Charles had said. The words disappeared and in their place appeared five stone coins, an iron coin, three G rank water mana stones, and an enchanted javelin. Teri picked up the javelin and began examining it. Duzzig and Charles picked up the rest of the treasure. The three waited until the nine minute mark, when they started levitating upwards. Right before the spells cast on them disappeared, they breached the surface and floated over to solid ground. Lyra wiped the sweat off her brow from levitating three people.

“Was it a puzzle, Teri?” asked Franc.

Teri shrugged, “It gave rewards in response to answering a question correctly, so maybe. It could also be a different kind of treasure chest. However, like a lot of dungeon puzzles, it seemed to work through some unknown magic. All I saw was a hole.”

“Well, okay. What were the rewards?”

“This enchanted javelin. It’s a single use like the ones we found on the first floor. However, it’s made out of basswood, so better than the balsa we found there. The enchantment allows the user to shoot water out of tip, but I’m currently unable to determine how powerful that shot is.”

“Anything else?”

Charles filled Franc in as Teri went back to examining the javelin, “Five stone coins, one iron coin, and three water mana stones.”

“An iron coin on a G rank floor?” he asked with a raised eyebrow, “We only got stone coins on the last floor.”

“I’m not sure how the dungeon thinks or even if it does, but even for low rank adventurers, stone coins aren’t worth much. Maybe the dungeon realized this and placed iron coins for more of an incentive on this floor.”

“Maybe,” Franc replied with a wave of his hand, “Let’s finish this room and continue on then.”

Peter detected no danger, so the group spread out to clear the room quicker. As they cleared out the room of water elementals and wet ferns, Lyra examined the floating, blue water droplets.

Charles called out, “Hey, I found something!” as he pocketed another creature orb.

The group lightly jogged over. Franc started to ask, “What is it, Ch-”, before gagging.

The rest of them soon noticed the smell and gagged along with him.

Holding her nose, Lyra punched Charles’ shoulder, “God dammit, Charles.”

Charles’ serious face warped into a smirk as he started chuckling.

“I hope you didn’t just call us over to make us gag,” Franc glowered with folded arms.

“No, No,” Charles chuckled, “The plant producing that smell is actually a useful ingredient called Pungent Liverwort. It can produce low level mana potions. Although, the potions smell and taste just as bad, so few can hold them down.”

“If few can hold them down, then how is the ingredient useful?” asked Peter.

“Even if they’re hard to keep down, they’re still mana potions. To my knowledge other places with pungent liverwort don’t produce enough to make harvesting worthwhile. This dungeon however is instanced, so it should produce plenty. With the war against the Bug Lord, any mana potion is a good mana potion.”

“Hah hah!” laughed Duzzig, “Soldiers and low level adventurers are going to have to train to keep this stuff down once the town is established. I can see the vomit covered rooms now.”

“I know a town almost always springs up around a dungeon, but is what we’ve seen really enough to make a town all the way out here worthwhile?” sighed Lyra.

Teri rolled her eyes, “You know that if the only thing this dungeon produced was goblin dung, there would still be a town built here.”

Lyra simply responded with another sigh.

“I wonder if the dungeon is intentionally choosing materials with negative aspects,” mused Charles.

The others decided to ignore him and finish the room. Afterwards, they left through the leftmost door.

“No puzzles on the inside, so good thing these doors aren’t locked,” joked Peter as they exited the room.

The door closed behind them, and Teri was the first to look behind, “The door has a puzzle.”

The rest of the group turned to look.

Peter muttered to himself, “Idiot.”

“Duzzig, check if it’s locked,” ordered Franc.

Duzzig grunted in affirmation as he went to push on the door. A couple minutes and a red-faced Duzzig later, the door was confirmed locked.

“Teri, please solve the puzzle, so we’re not trapped here,” Franc said with slightly more seriousness than normal.

With a nod, Teri solved the puzzle faster than she did it the first time, even though the picture was mixed in a different way.

“Okay, we’ll re-enter the room, then exit and check if the door is locked again,” ordered Franc.

They followed Franc’s orders and when they tried to open the door after exiting, it opened easily without having to solve the puzzle again. In fact, the puzzle was still solved.

“Once a door is unlocked, it stays unlocked. Good to know,” Peter nodded.

“Don’t get complacent, Peter,” lectured Franc. “It’s possible other doors won’t be the same way. Also, if this is what the dungeon considers G rank, then future floors will be much harder.”

“Right, sorry about that,” he apologized while rubbing his head.