It had been a week since they first ventured into the deeps of this dungeon. And except for more of the same they hadn’t found anything worthy of note yet. Except for more densely populated areas of the same kind of beasts the group hadn’t made any groundbreaking discoveries as of yet.

The only noteworthy feature so far, was the incredible size of the caverns discovered on the 4th floor. With the way things are now, the party had decided to risk it, and packed supplies for a weeks stay in the dungeon. Though they didn’t bring any specialized arrays to keep dungeon monsters out, with the way the dungeon was built, it didn’t look like they needed any on these first 4 floors. Hunting was exceptionally lucrative, with the density of wildlife found in these first caverns, and Fabian was relieved to know the outpost would have enough food to forage to last for a huge increase in size before more sustainable sources of food would have to be acquired.

Even with the way things stood, Fabian still agreed with Brian’s decision to leave the outpost where it was. Building within a dungeons influence was dangerous. It more often than not resulted in its occupants going mad over time, with the weaker inhabitants being the first affected. Delving into a dungeons depth was necessary to gather enough mana to progress through the stages, living inside the dungeon all year round however inevitably led to delvers going insane and starting to attack their former friends and family.

“Alright people, this is the descent to the fifth floor and you all know what that means. From here on out, we should expect some of the beasts to have made the transition from beast to monster. I expect nothing more than early Tier 1 monsters, though keep your eyes peeled. With the way this dungeon built so far, it might be something we haven’t seen before.” Fabian reminded his team, looking down into the brightly lit corridor leading into the base of the cavern wall.

“What do you think is the purpose of having so open caverns instead of a battle corridor and breeding grounds like most other dungeons?” Illia, their trained medic, wondered looking to Horace.

“How should I know?” He answered, “I’ve never seen a dungeon let delvers descend in levels without being challenged, especially with so many paths to descend down on.”

“Whatever it may be, don’t let it fool you this dungeon is harmless.” Fabian reproached him again “Just because we haven’t been challenged yet, doesn’t mean we won’t. It is still a dungeon after all!”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry. It’s not my first time, you should know, we did most delves together!”

Horace calmed his friend, while turning around to the brightly lit tunnel and as their scout, led the way further down.

***

Even with the way the dungeon built up to this point, Horace stood rooted in place, unable to close his jaw from the view in front of him. As far as he could tell, this seemed a single large cavern, spanning the entire width of the floor, with only the few pillars holding it up that he emerged on.

There were a spectacle of birds flying around these pillars, frolicking in the air as if they had no worries at all. In the distance he could make out a light waterfall falling down one of the pillars, pooling in what seemed like a small lake at its base. Everything from forests to grasslands and even what seemed like a rocky wasteland in the distance was just visible from the perch of the descends exit.

He was still standing astonished when a shouted “Watch out!” caused him to turn just in time to see a pair of horns filling his point of view, before pain erupted in his chest from the collision.

Stupid Horace! He scolded himself as he went flying back into the corridor he came from, Such a rookie mistake, getting distracted by some birds flying above.

Luckily, he stopped just inside the corridor or the mountain goat he now saw looking in on him angrily might have pushed him over the edge of the cliff. The path leading downward was only wide enough for two people to stand next to each other if they really squeezed, with a sheer drop leading to the bottom of the valley.

Fabian, who was following their scout with a bit of distance, immediately rushed up to his friend with worry in his eyes.

“Are you hurt?” He questioned, while unlimbering his shield and ax from his back, getting ready to defend another rush of the goat in front of him. Unlike the floors above, it seemed the beasts on this level were of a more aggressive mind.

“Yes, just bruised” The injured scout replied, rubbing his chest where the ramming attack impacted him. “You should’ve seen the vista from just outside. It totally caught me off guard and I missed the goat coming around the corner just ahead.”

“Sloppy” Illia commented, as she rushed up to him, prodding his ribs to see if any of them were broken, while Luke and Patrick joined Fabian in the front. Lomar meanwhile started to string his bow, in case of another attack. Getting up from the floor, Horace joined him, as soon as it was clear that all he would carry away from his encounter would be a nasty bruise.

Mia stood next to Illia, trying to excite the mana flows within her to pool on her fingertips, readying a small fireball spell. It took her about two minutes just for a marble sized fireball, but once ready it would be one of the most damaging attacks their team would have, even with its diminutive size.

With practice she would be able to both make it faster and bigger, but she would need to advance in her pathway development a bit further before reaching that state.

Once the team was ready, they slowly inched their way forward, intent on facing this challenge head on, now that they knew what to expect. Before they could engage the goat in front of them, three more appeared, both below and above the path, clinging to the rocky face of the roughly 60-degree cliffs.

Spreading out they started to advance on the team. With two goats ahead of them blocking the path, one positioned itself to the right of the entrance, while the last one tried to make its way to a position above the exit of the descent. Having three strength specializations they each made to face one of the horned goats, ready to take one of the previously experienced charges.

Before they could charge however, Mia let loose with her fireball, shooting a thin stream of liquid fire at the pair in front of them. It immediately spread out to cover both goats, who had no defense whatsoever against a magical attack. The concentrated heat burned through their skin within seconds, killing the blockers ahead, freezing the flankers from the unexpected shock of the attack against their kin.

Taking advantage of their momentary lapse in attention, as the goat previously took advantage of him, Horace and Luke shot an arrow from their temporary strengthened arms, hitting both remaining goats and felling them within moments of one another.

Freed from focusing their attention on the immediate enemy close by, they could finally look up to what was showing in the distance. The whole team stayed silent for several minutes, just absorbing the vista presented to them.

“Wow” Luke finally managed to put so eloquently, what all the others were thinking. Deciding to stay a while, primarily to give Mia time to replenish her mana reservoir, but also to get used to the view, the team quickly formed a perimeter. Mia settled down in the center and concentrated on opening up the pathways of her skin in the tips of her fingers to absorb greater amounts of mana than a physical user ever could in the same amount of time. So far, she only managed to open up pathways in her digit finger and thumb, with all the others and her palm still resisting her efforts.

About 10 minutes later Mia had replenished her reserves from the higher concentrations of the dungeon and the team continued on their way down. About halfway down the steep pillar they encountered another grouping of what they decided to name horned bashers, taking the prerogative of being the first to encounter them.

Prepared they didn’t hesitate this time and Fabian was able to take the first bash on his shield, budging only slightly with a burst of energy flowing into his muscles just before the impact. Mia held back this time and led the rest of her team take the brunt of the attack. Within only a short amount of time this group also defeated and any others they saw from the distanced deciding to keep their distance.

With no more encounters until the floor the group started to relax a bit again. Once on the valley floor they still saw nothing more dangerous than a couple of rabbits diving away into their burrows in the distance. Deciding to have a break to eat some lunch they sat down and took out some of their supplies. They would rest a bit, and then explore their immediate surroundings before returning to what they knew to be safe position on the 4th floor to rest for the night.

They still had another 4 days to explore before the earliest date, the conglomerate expedition could be expected. They wanted to be there when the new administrator arrived to make sure they would get their promised reward.

***

The bobcat wandering around the pillar where Fabian’s team had descended was confused. It just came across the third slain prey it had encountered today. With none of its flesh gone it seemed unlikely it was another predator infringing on its territory. The smells seemed to confirm this, with a taste in the air she had never smelled before. Her genetic memory seemed to suggest danger, but it had been born into this mana rich environment and soaked up so much, that it could best any danger it had ever encountered.

Following the trail, it led to the bottom of the peak it called its own territory, finally disappearing into the forest below. The bobcat didn’t dare to follow it into the territory of the shadow beasts, as they tended to be very territorial and it had been hurt many times before. She could take any one of them 1 on 1 but they too often worked together as pairs that it just wasn’t worth the risk.

Mentally shrugging off the confusion, it returned to the site of the last kill and decided to take advantage of the lucky break and feast on the prey someone decided to gift to her, while the corpses she was not occupied with started to dissolve into mana streams around her.

***

Except for flashes of something in the wood the team hadn’t had to face any further combat. They didn’t proceed until the central lake, but they did arrive and follow one of the rivers flowing through the giant cavern.

The feeling of the forest on this level was completely different than what they felt on the 4th floor. It really showed to illustrate that the 5th floor of dungeons showed a different environment than the preceding ones. Without a monster repelling array to set up for camp, they definitely couldn’t risk staying on this floor for the night.

As the lights started to dim the party arrived back at the ramp to the above floor and started to make their way back up. Keeping a look out for more horned bashers, they slowly ascended the ramp. Once the light started to dim more, howls of what could only be wolves started to sound out in the caverns, and they were indeed happy to have made the decision to return to the top floor for the night.

Halfway back to the top, the lights dimmed all the way to night, and the group finally caught sight of the dungeon at night. Instead of the darkness with only points of the diminished manalights at the ceiling, parts of the forest below them seemed to glow.

Patches of it seemed illuminated from within, with all colors shining through. Occasionally those glowing patches would flash brightly before starting to move through the forest. “I can’t wait until we have a monster repelling array to use, so we can explore further into the 5th floor.” Lomar quietly commented next to Fabian, looking out onto the the dungeon floor they just left.

Once they made it to the entrance of the top floor the party started to relax and turned around once more to the beautiful spectacle playing out below them. Having returned to the ascend none of them payed attention to the entrance itself and noticed the corpse of one of the horned bashers still lying there, instead of dissolving into mana as they usually did when left alone.

The first anyone noticed of an attack was when they heard a thump followed by a low rumble in their midst.

“Aahhrgh” Shocked they all quickly turned to find Patrick clutching his neck, bleeding profusely from a clawed wound by the bobcat baring its teeth at the invaders.

Veterans as they were, they quickly snapped out of it, and engaged it with haste. Mia, not having time to charge up a spell, seeing as the cat landed right next to her, grabbed the rapier at her side and quickly created some distance while stabbing at the flank of the large cat.

After the initial surprise attack, it didn’t immediately pounce again, but tried to evaluate the situation. Judging Illia to be the least dangerous it tried to pounce toward her, but it miscalculated the speed a boosted Horace was capable of. Before it reached Illia, it found its path through the air suddenly interrupted by the point of the small one handed blade thrust forward by Horace.

Unable alter its flightpath significantly, it nonetheless twisted in the air in an effort to avoid the blade, however that only helped to move its body into the swing of Fabians axe, gouging a deep wound into its side.

Wounded as it was, it could not put up enough of an effort to fight off an experienced team of veterans and soon succumbed to the teamwork of multiple opponents. Its death released a large amount of mana, that if fast enough could be absorbed by the victors, should they choose to actively absorb it.

With a wounded on their side however, no one bothered to absorb the mana cloud and instead, chose to let it disperse.

“Quick! Help me put pressure on this and get me some clean bandages!” Illea was already at Patrick’s side, pressing a wad of cloth against the wound in his neck.

“Focus Patrick!” She implored him “Control your mana flows, let them gather at your neck! Feel my guidance and let the mana do its work. Don’t let the pain control you! Focus!”

Pushing her free hand against the skin of his neck she made a connection and opened her pathway to her palm and let a bit of her mana soak directly into the wound. Trying to guide someone elses mana was nearly impossible if she was not significantly stronger, which she was not, or the other person actively allowed it.

Trying to visualize in her mind how the flesh would need to knit back together she offered the scaffolding that Patrick’s own mana would need to follow in order to effectively accelerate his healing. If he could not concentrate enough or was already near death his internal flows would rip through her scaffolding as if it were paper and would not work fast enough to save him from bleeding out.

“Here, guide it like this! See, follow the structure and trust in the mana!” She encouraged him further, feeling his mana already doing the work, but not yet over the top.

While she was working the rest of her team took op the perimeter watch they had neglected giving her the time and space needed to help her patient.

***

Weak but with a new growth of skin covering his neck, Patrick followed the others up to the 4th floor. Shaken by his close encounter with death, he didn’t talk much on his way up. Once there they quickly decided on a watch schedule with him getting a pass due to his weakened state.

While he quickly rolled out his sleeping mat and lied down to rest, he could hear the others discussing whether they should continue delving tomorrow again, or if it was already too dangerous to continue. In the end however they agreed to once again descend come morning, as the danger came mostly from their own carelessness instead of an inability to deal with the beasts present. For as far as they could tell, all the beasts they encountered so far truly were only beasts with no evolved monsters yet.

The flashes of light they saw in the forest must have come from monsters, so there were some present and the group was eager to figure out, what this dungeon had to offer now that it finally seemed like it would at least slightly resemble what they knew from other dungeons.