Valens watched as his chimera hid stealthily amongst the trees ignoring the humans strolling around the center of the boss room. The trees and bushes were thick enough to hide his boss, or rather the humans were too lazy to go out and actually track the monster down. His poor chimera was only tier two and around level 60, she stood no chance against the invaders who were to a man tier three. So, the core was having his monster weight, the other group of humans were approaching the boss room and would be there soon. Hopefully, the other humans would provide enough of a distraction for the chimera to off a human or too in the chaos.

Examining the chimera again, Valens felt like something was off about it. Hey, Magnus shouldn’t the chimera be higher level than it is? She’s killed a lot of monsters and invaders but she’s still only level 62.

Magnus stretched his head and pulled out his favorite book. I’m not sure, I can’t keep track of the levels of the mobs around here, but let me see if this has anything else on chimeras. The drake started to leaf through the pages rapidly, obviously looking for a particular section.

Wait, you haven’t read the entire thing? I thought you had had the codex for a while. The core had been almost certain the drake just used the glorified book as a reference, to be honest.

Well, I have had it for a while, but there was a massive amount of information in it, to begin with, and I’ve added any other books I’ve come across to it as well. Let's just say the table of contents is rather lengthy at this point, and I haven’t exactly had the time to lay around and read through all of it for a while. Valens shrugged to himself, fair enough frantically searching for a way to cheat death was probably not conducive for leisurely reading.

The drake paused his rapid flipping and read a few pages, the core waited patiently as the smaller of the two human groups drew closer to the ambush in the boss room. Well, that’s interesting.

What’s interesting? Valens wished the old lizard would hurry up, he was going to miss the fight if he didn’t.

There was a long pause but then the drake started to speak. Sorry, I just wanted to double-check to make sure. So it looks like chimeras are using experience to do their shapeshifting. It’s absolutely fascinating, I can’t believe I never read about this before. It also looks like the initial evolution into a chimera burns so much experience that the monster going through it will end up at the beginning of the tier they just finished. Yikes, it's a good thing that your chimera was such a low tier when she evolved, imagine having to repeat tier six or tier five. The drake shivered in horror, it had been hard enough for him to get through those tiers once much less twice.

Wait so she’s actively using up her experience whenever she does her shapeshifting act? Frankly, Valens was surprised that he hadn’t noticed before, the chimera must bring in a massive amount of experience normally. Anyway, that’s not important now. Put the book down Magnus the fight’s about to start.

Oh come on Valens, I’m just going to finish this chapter, then I’ll pay attention to the squabbling humans. The core created a rather sizable rock above the drake’s head. Of course, the attack did absolutely nothing to Magnus’ inky black scales but it did get him to grudgingly put the codex away, grumbling significantly as he did. Valens chuckled to himself at that, he wished he could use the same trick on the humans but unfortunately he couldn’t control his power well enough around them for that.

Stop whining Magnus, you can read your precious codex later, come on this’ll be fun. The two of them settled in to watch the drama unfold.

Arthur sneezed once hard and looked around suspiciously. It felt like he was being watched, maybe he was just being paranoid, but it was a dungeon there was always something hungry lurking around the next corner. “Come one Arthur we’re almost there.”

The young mage shook his head and jogged to catch back up to the group as Vance waited for him. He liked having someone around his own age around, even if Vance was prone to being a little quiet. “Sorry Vance, I thought something was watching us for a second.”

The chi user frowned at that, and looked around thoughtfully, even Kira took a second to glance around at the surrounding dungeon. It looked just like a normal forest, birds sang in the trees, insects hummed in the bushes. If not for the rock ceiling above and the deadly monsters it could have been an actual forest. “Well, I don’t see anything but don’t keep quiet about that sort of thing and don’t get separated from the group, especially if you think something is lurking around. Up on these floors, nothing should be too much of a threat to you in theory, but lower down a lone mage makes for a very tempting target.”

Arthur nodded, suitably chastised. “Thanks for looking out for me Vance, I’m just not quite used to all this adventuring stuff yet.” The other boy nodded and adjusted the massive sword on his back before they moved on. The young mage was rather curious about Vance, but he didn’t want to press, his new friend seemed to know an awful lot about dungeons, mages, and fighting in general despite being just as low level as himself. “I wonder how long it will take for us to get to tier three.” He wondered allowed still a little morose at how slow his level was growing.

Kira glanced over and looked slightly amused. “It’ll take quite a bit, should be somewhere from a month to half a year if you're slow. That is unless you decide to camp out in the dungeon and constantly fight until you tier up. Wouldn’t recommend that though, as Vance mentioned mages aren’t exactly the most resilient class.” As they approached the boss room Arthur felt his hands tighten on his staff involuntarily as his palms grew sweaty. He didn’t have the best memories of this room even if the second time he had fought this boss had been less horrific and bloody than the first time.

“Right Arthur come stand with me, Vance you’re out in front again.” Kira as the de facto leader of the group swiftly organized them into positions. Somehow it made him feel a little better having someone at least act like they knew what to do in this situation instead of just ordering everyone to charge into the boss room and hope for the best.

As soon as they walked into the room Arthur knew something was off. For starters, there was no boss to be seen, which wasn’t terribly unusual but was different was the fellow human sitting in front of them. The man’s eyes widened as he caught sight of them and he scrambled back into the trees shouting as loudly as he could, his armor jangling as he carelessly crashed through the bushes.

Vance hefted his sword and grumbled to himself. “Well that’s not good, did you see the crest on the uniform?” Arthur blinked in surprise, he was impressed that Vance had noticed anything about the man before he scrambled away.

“Yes, it was Bancroft’s wasn’t it.” Kira seemed slightly resigned. “Well let me do the talking, hopefully, we can avoid too much of a confrontation. You’ll probably be safe no matter what happens Vance but Arthur and I might be in a bit of trouble if anything happens.” Now he was nervous, captured, executed, what was going on here? Arthur took a deep breath but decided to remain quiet, he would ask later when they weren’t in apparent danger.

There was a subtle shifting in the air as Kira settled into place planting her staff firmly in the ground. Arthur shook his head trying to clear the unfamiliar sensation and looked back to the trees as more armored men walked out. Soldiers he realized and shivered slightly, that wasn't good. There was one person who obviously wasn’t a soldier though just based on the fact he wasn’t wearing armor. He also looked a bit silly wearing such fine if dirty clothes into a dungeon.

“So Storm you were actually stupid enough to come here you should have stayed cowering in your rotting trash heap you people call a city, at least then you might have survived.” Vance shifted uncomfortably but stayed silent and looked at Kira. Arthur opened his mouth then thought better of it and gave Vance a hard look. Why was Vance being referred to as Storm? That was the family name of the duke’s house. Was Vance a noble? Surely not he was way too nice for that, right?

Kira was mentally cursing her luck, while they had suspected that Vance’s identity had been revealed already it still wasn’t ideal. Hopefully, they could play dumb and pretend that Vance wasn’t related to the Storm family, that way they might be able to avoid whatever Gary wanted altogether. She opened her mouth to reply, but she was just a second too slow. “At least I’m not stupid enough to make threats I don’t plan on carrying out Bancroft.”

Kira once again had to bite back a curse, hadn’t she said to let her do the talking? Throwing her current plan out the window she furiously thought about what she knew about the Bancrofts and how to get them out of this situation. “I’m afraid I’m not sure why you’re stopping us, Sir Bancroft, we were just planning on getting a bit more training down on the lower floors. Would you mind stepping aside and allowing us to pass?” No sense in being overly hostile even if Vance had probably blown their chance of just slipping by if there was ever a chance of that in the first place. She had noticed the none too subtle threat just as the young Storm had.

“No, I’m afraid I cannot let you pass. You see this is my family’s new dungeon, and we don’t like trespassers, which is what you are now.” Gary’s expression grinned wolfishly as his men spread out to encircle the group. “It’s a tragedy really, the young master Storm vanishing in the dungeon never to be seen again.”

When that statement sunk in Kira paled, this guy was crazy he actually planned on killing another noble? “Don’t be a fool Bancroft, it's only you and us in the dungeon, if you kill anyone it’ll be obvious what happened. The kingdoms will come down like a hammer on your entire family, even if you just try and fail.” Any hope she had of reaching at least a nonviolent resolution died as Bancroft’s face twisted in fury.

“Don’t tell me what to do, commoner trash, and that’s Lord Bancroft to you. You’re forgetting we are one of the founding families, the kingdoms won’t care what we do so long as we’re not caught. Like I said, just a tragic accident in the dungeon, and another victim to your family’s greed and arrogance to think they could take this dungeon from us.” Kira’s group slowly backed up as Gary’s soldiers inched forward, the entire confrontation edging out of the boss room entirely.

“You think anyone in my family would go that far for a newborn dungeon? We couldn’t hold it with just me even if we tried. Whatever, in accordance with the rules of engagement, I offer formal surrender to house Bancroft with the understanding that all claims that I might have on this dungeon will be forfeit.” Kira had a tiny flash of respect for the young Storm, which was a rather clever ploy. The ostensible reason behind attacking them would be to control the dungeon but with a formal surrender from Vance that was no longer a factor. Until another noble challenged for the control of the dungeon the Bancrofts would have exactly what they were now officially acknowledged by house Storm as owners of the dungeon.

“Too late Storm I don’t give a damn about what you say, it's time for you’re pathetic house of glorified dirt mongers to pay for what you’ve done to my family.” Kira gritted her teeth, out for blood was he, well it looked like combat could no longer be avoided. Her gathering power began to coalesce as quickly and quietly as possible beneath her feet. Hopefully, there were no enemy mages to notice what she was doing and if they did notice, too bad they were going to fight anyway.

“What did we do to you? It's not our fault that you Bancrofts are pathetic, you haven’t even produced a fighter over tier four in how many centuries? It’s not our problem that all of you care more for scheming and plotting and are scared of actual combat.” Vance looked sincerely angry now, but it was nowhere near the apoplectic expression of rage on the other noble’s face. If the situation wasn’t so serious it would almost have been funny.

“Kill them all.” Gary hissed through gritted teeth and his soldiers drew their swords and charged.