Astoria and the others decided that they should check the rooms as they passed them rather than going all the way back to the beginning of the catacombs. It took a bit of time as they always moved slowly, but they soon arrived at the first fork. It was really amazing how huge this place was. The rooms were humongous, and Astoria couldn’t help but worry about when they would run into more trouble.

She pointed towards the open doorway that stood to their right and the others nodded in understanding that she would once again be the scout. Her stealth skill seemed to be steadily gaining experience with all the sneaking she had been doing and that felt good. She poked her head inside the room as she had before.

It was dimly lit, just as the rest of the place, and she saw that it wasn’t a room after all, but a passageway leading downward. The smooth stone floor curved in a spiral, so she couldn’t see very far. She walked down a ways and after a couple minutes she stopped and looked back up in the direction she had come.

Who knows what’s down there, but I wouldn’t be one bit surprised if it was something nasty. Dungeons always get worse the deeper you go. We should clear the first floor first.

Deciding that it was foolish to keep going alone, she turned back and made her way to the others, telling them about what she had found. A short discussion followed, and they listened to reason about going down.

“Let’s go check that other doorway first. If it’s a dead end, it won’t hurt to turn over every stone. We’re looking for more of those disks. Who knows, both of them might be right here on this floor and we don’t ever have to go down into that scary place," Astoria said.

"Okay. After you,” Tilly said.

“If we can get out of here without going deeper into the bowels of this foul place, then I’m all for it,” Ladriel added.

Garland had been quiet with a contemplative look on his face through the whole discussion. He didn’t seem to have anything to add for some reason. Astoria figured maybe he was showing deference to her as the leader of their little band. She sighed and turned back towards their next destination.

It seems like I’m the undisputed decision maker of this little group, I guess. I wonder if they’re letting me make all the decisions because they’re NPCs. It’s really too hard to say, though. Everyone in this game seems so real.

They continued back toward the direction they had entered the catacombs from. The next room had two exits leading off of the right side of the room. Astoria went over to the closest one and peered inside. Unlike most of the other rooms, this one was even more poorly lit. She couldn’t really see the details of anything.

“Garland, can you come light this room up a little more for me?”

He came over a few seconds later and held his palm up with the small orb of light. The dark room lit up and she could see a lot clearer. The first thing that stood out to her were the bookshelves on one side of the room that were covered with about two inches of dust. There was also a half-rotted table on one side of the room.

None of that was as exciting as the small chest that she saw at the back of the room on a stone dais.

Two statues stood next to it on either side like sentinels. The statues looked like two large birds roughly the size of a human being. They were eerily beautiful and were untouched by the age that most of the things in this place had been.

She moved towards the chest. If those disks were anywhere, they’d probably be in that chest. She stopped several feet away from the chest and looked at the large eyes of the bird statues. They seemed to be staring into her soul.

I have a really, really bad feeling about this.

Astoria took a few steps back and then spun to whisper to Garland. "There's no way that this room isn't a big trap."

“If something looks too good to be true, it usually is,” he replied.

She turned back towards the chest once more. She ducked down and looked at everything very carefully. Then she saw them. There were tripwires on the ground near the chest. She stood up and noticed that the tile in front of the chest was poking up out of the ground ever so slightly as well.

"Everyone move back. Be ready for when I come running out of here.” She saw the light dim as Garland backed most of the way out of the room.

Leader? I'm making myself glorified bait here.

Carefully, she moved forward while stepping over the trip wires that crisscrossed around the room. There were two tiles that looked suspicious to her that she would need to be careful to avoid if she had to run out of there. After several long moments, she stood only a foot or two away from the chest. That was when the statues decided to move.

Fuck my life! I knew something terrible would happen!

She watched in what felt like slow motion as the two statues changed. The stone melted away to nothing and left two blue, ethereal birds that turned their beaks towards her and let out a terrifying screech.

Fuck! Fuck!

She turned around and ran as fast as she could while jumping over the various trip wires like a nimble cat. She didn't dare look back to see if they were coming for her. She knew they must be right behind her.

"Trouble!" She dove through the door onto the ground and quickly rolled to the side. She got up just in time to see the two bird ghost creatures diving towards the spot where she had been only a split second earlier. She jumped back to her feet and ran towards the center of the room before she turned around.

The two creatures glided above the ground and appeared to be slow at least. Two arrows flew through each of the things as they advanced upon her party without causing any sort of damage.

Crap! We're screwed if those things are completely immune to physical attacks. Where are the damned Ghostbusters when you need them?

Astoria considered taking out her bow and firing at the things too, but saw little point in doing so as she watched a couple more arrows phase right through the monsters.

Tilly charged in with her shield in front of her and sword raised, ready to engage in melee combat with the beasts. Her friend swung her sword and it passed through one of the creatures as it glided toward her making that screeching noise before back-stepping a couple feet and keeping her shield up.

The bird that Tilly had attacked reared up and was going to attack. The things were slow, and there was no way that Tilly wouldn’t be able to block that. Her friend carefully raised her shield and just before the beak of the monster was about to come into contact with the shield, Garland slammed into Tilly from the side, knocking her over.

"Don't let them touch you! These are wraiths!" He spun out of the way as the bird dove for him and grabbed Tilly’s hand, yanking her along with him.

"What can we do? Do they have a weakness? If we can’t touch them, then we should run," Astoria said.

"Holy magic!" Garland yelled back. He motioned them back and seemed to concentrate for a moment before slowly sliding his hand along the blade of his sword. A brilliant white light radiated from the blade and nearly blinded Astoria with its brilliance.

"I'll handle this one. Keep its twin distracted!"

Astoria didn’t know of any other way to distract the second wraith other than to dangle herself in front of the thing. She charged towards the creature, which had been on its way towards Garland’s position, and got close enough to get its attention.

The creature turned towards her and then began pursuing. Something was different about it than it had been before, it seemed to be moving faster all of a sudden. Maybe it realized that whatever Garland was preparing for was a threat?

She didn’t have a ton of time to mull things over though as the monster’s blue ethereal form bled to red. It screeched and began chasing her at nearly triple its previous speed. She ran with everything she had as it tried to chase her down.

What the heck happened to it? It’s so fast now!

It was hard to believe these things ever caught anyone with how they moved, but then again, all they had to do was tire someone out.

It didn’t help things that she managed to trip a few traps while running around the room. Tiles sunk in under her feet and darts shot out, just narrowly missing her. She had to hop over trip wires that were hidden in the rubble. It was sheer luck that she was managing to stay ahead at all.

She saw Garland slash at the other enemy as she circled around. His glowing sword passed through one of the creature’s large wings and then puffed into smoke.

It turned red as well after taking damage and dove for the older man with reckless abandon. He didn’t seem to be too worried, however and kept slashing away parts of the beast when it came for him.

Astoria thought as she began to pant from all the running, she wouldn’t be able to keep this up for long. Tilly and Ladriel stood near the center of the room, forgotten in all the noise. The monster had it in for her though, and would not be lured away even though the two of them were shouting at it.

Her stamina bar was more than halfway gone now. Her lungs and legs were beginning to burn from the exertion. Hurry up, Garland!

On the next lap, she saw Garland deliver the coup de grace on the wraith he was facing, but his blade suddenly stopped glowing. Her heart sank and she hoped that he had enough mana to cast the spell again or they were screwed.

The older man looked to be concentrating like before and then he brought the blade back to life again. I have to hang on! Just a little longer.

She zig-zagged around and she knew that she was slowing down. Her stamina was in the red now and she felt like she was going to die. She knew what she had to do, though, and ran towards Garland.

Her heart felt like it was going to explode and she was gasping for air as she ran, but she had to make it in time. The monster behind her let out its terrifying screech again and she knew it was only inches away from her.

Astoria felt something pass through her shoulder and down to her elbow. She let out a blood curdling scream. It hurt like nothing she had ever felt before and then her arm went dead. She felt her entire arm flop lifelessly down at her side.

Tears leaked from her eyes at the excruciating pain. She couldn’t stop now, he was just a dozen feet away now. She spared a glance for her arm, which was now grey and dead looking as she ran. It flopped at her side like one of those toy rag dolls.

Astoria pivoted as she got close to Garland and ran to the left. A scream of rage sounded behind her after a few more steps and she spun around. The old soldier had bisected the thing cleanly from behind. She stared at it as it puffed away into nothing and Garland stood behind it.

She stopped and grabbed her other hand to examine it. She couldn’t even feel it anymore. Not knowing what else to do, she activated her regeneration skill. It took only a second to activate the skill and almost immediately she began to feel a warm sensation run down from her left shoulder toward her elbow.

That was way too close. I would've been a goner if it had managed to strike me in a vital spot. Thank god that Regeneration seems to be restoring me.

The warm feeling continued to move down her arm and after a few moments the skin all the way down to her elbow was back to normal, and then the skill ran out.

Skill duration must have run out. Stay calm, everything is going to be okay. Just have to wait on cooldown.

"Everyone okay?" Ladriel asked.

Tilly ran over to Astoria and knelt down next to her, examining her. "Astoria... your arm⁠—" she reached into her bag for a potion.

“A regular potion won’t work on a wound like that. We need to get her to a healer,” Garland said.

"It's okay. I can heal myself, see."

She activated the regeneration magic once more and felt her dead forearm come back to life. The second casting had been enough to bring her back to normal. She wiggled her fingers in front of Garland who had a shocked look on his face.

“If you had healing magic, you should have told us sooner. It will be of great aid to us down here,” he said.

“It’s just a skill. It only works on myself though, sorry.”

"At least we managed to kill them. Thankfully we have Garland and his holy sword enchantment or we would've been toast," Tilly said.

“Can you teach us that spell?” Astoria asked.

Garland shook his head. "Don’t you know? Magic can only be gained through spell books under normal circumstances. Master magicians work with scribes to create spell books in order to pass on their knowledge. The books are horribly expensive. It's interesting that you have magic yourself and did not know this."

Astoria was disappointed to hear this, but hoped that in the future she might have a chance to steal magic from someone using Kleptomancy. The goblin warrior's regeneration skill wasn't listed as magic, but rather as a skill.

“I didn’t learn the magic in the normal way. I have a special ability, and took the skill from a goblin warrior,” she said.

“Intriguing.”

"Anyway, I want to go investigate that room now that those wraiths are gone," she hopped up onto her feet and walked over to the dark room. “Let’s see what’s in that chest. Hopefully, it’ll be two more bronze disks.”

Garland and the others followed her back to the room. Everything was well lit since Garland was using his light spell inside the room. Astoria headed over towards the chest, taking care to avoid the traps.

This must have been a study or something. Why would there be a room like this down in the crypts? Maybe they used this place as a shelter at some point. Just how old is this place?

Astoria spotted a couple unlit torches on the wall and grabbed it. The top smelled like tar or something and she took off her necklace to try to light the thing.

After a few strikes of her flint and steel, the torch roared to life. "Now we can have a bit more light without relying on your spell," She smiled as she handed the torch over to Tilly.

She grabbed the second torch and lit it with the first one. After both torches were lit, Garland extinguished his ball of light and Astoria was ready to go directly to the chest, but something in her made her want to look at the bookshelf.

There were two books that lay on their side rather than being put into place. They looked to be in better condition than the rest of the tomes and she blew off the mountain of dust that covered them. Astoria read the covers: The Art of Trap Detection Vol. 1 and Disarming Basic Traps Vol. 1.

"Are these... skill books?" she asked. Astoria felt excitement rising within her. She had just found some loot that would actually be useful in this place.

Ladriel peered at the dusty tomes. "They appear to be skill books, yes."

"Awesome! Would anyone object to me using them?" Astoria didn't think anyone would mind, but this place did belong to Garland's family, so she felt that she should give him a chance to object.

Nobody offered any objections. They all agreed that she was well suited to skills like the ones these books based on the scouting role she had been playing throughout the expedition.

Astoria excitedly flipped the cover of The Art of Trap Detection open and a prompt window snapped up in her field of vision just as she had hoped it would.

Notifications Do you wish to learn the skill: Detect Traps?

Yes / No

WARNING: This book will disappear forever once used.

Astoria didn't hesitate at all and selected yes. The book floated out in front of her upright and began to emit a dim light. The pages of the book flipped quickly from start to finish and Astoria felt knowledge flooding into her brain.

After just a few moments, it finished going through the pages and slammed shut, sending a cloud of dust up around her. Astoria was unable to stifle a cough and watched in awe as the book began to disintegrate. It fell to dust starting from the bottom and working its way to the top until nothing remained of it other than a fresh pile of dust on the floor.

Just like that she had learned a new skill and the world sprung to life around her. All the trip wires and traps she had seen before began to glow a faint red signaling that they were traps.

To her surprise, only one of the two odd tiles was trapped. She wondered if maybe it was trapped but her skill level was too low to see. Better play it safe for now.

Astoria reached over and grabbed the second book off the shelf with the intention of repeating the process but heard a loud click as she lifted the book. Fuck my life.

A trap wall slammed down right behind her cutting her off from the others. She could hear shouts from the other side of the trap but didn't see a way to lift the wall up and escape. Pushing on the button that had activated the trap in the first place also didn’t do anything. Stay calm. There has to be a way out of this room.

She glanced around the room to make sure nothing else was out of the ordinary and didn't see anything. "I'm all right. I don't see a way to lift the wall, but I'll look around more carefully. Do you guys see any way to lift it up from that side?"

"Hang on! We're trying!" Tilly shouted through the wall at her.

Astoria could hear them banging on the wall, but it didn't budge.

"I'm going to keep looking around here. There has to be a way out, right?"

Silence.

"...Right. There has to be. Just be careful!" Ladriel's reluctant voice came through the wall.

Her vote of confidence didn’t do anything to make her feel better. It was time to use the other skill book. If nothing else, maybe the skill could help her get out of this mess. She put the torch into its place on the wall and opened up the book. Here goes nothing.

Within a few moments she had gained yet another valuable skill. Knowledge about the workings of traps burst to life within her and now she knew the basics. She felt like she was in the matrix or something. “I know kung fu,” she whispered to herself and chuckled at her own corny joke.

Now to test it out. These trip wires are pretty simple looking.

She knelt down next to one and looked it over carefully while using her disarm traps skill. At the end of the tripwire she saw a green glow. She bent down close to it and looked into the small hole in the wall where the wire was coming from. It was tied to some sort of mechanism.

I see. So all I have to do is⁠—

She managed to get one of her fingers into the small opening and felt around extra carefully for what she was looking for. After a second she was rewarded with the sound of a small click and the red line that had been the tripwire lost its color and fell to the ground.

Astoria stood up and brushed her shaky hand through her hair. I did it! That was freaking scary though!

There were three other tripwires clearly visible in the room and over the next few minutes she disarmed each of them in the same way she had done the first. They all turned out to work in the same way and she got faster at it as she practiced.

Astoria checked and saw that the disarm trap skill had already leveled up and was well on the way to level 3. Her detect traps skill was nearly level two now as well.

If I can get out of this room alive, I should go back and disarm all of the traps in the rooms we explored before. Most of them were just tripwires like these, but maybe I can gain some more levels. What would an MMO be without a bit of grinding, after all?

Now that all the trip wires were gone she knelt down next to the glowing red tile. She circled around it carefully examining it from each side. After doing this twice she noticed the slightest green light along the far side of the tile coming from a tiny slit.

Somehow she knew exactly what she had to do. She took out her dagger and carefully poked the tip of it into the slit and pried gently. The tile popped up out of the floor without too much difficulty and she deftly snatched it up; setting it to the side.

Beneath the tile was a mechanism with a pressure plate. It had a vial of brown liquid attached to it. She could somehow tell that it would have broken open and released some sort of gas into the room.

That would definitely not be a good time if it was to go off. Maybe I can retrieve it and throw it at an enemy or something. Waste not, want not. Maybe I can take the entire mechanism and set my own trap down the road.

"Are you still okay in there?" Garland's muffled voice came through the wall.

"I'm okay. I read the second skill book and I've been working on disarming the other traps. I'm hoping that I can find a way out by combing through this room." Astoria replied.

Astoria went back to work on the trap in front of her. After a few more minutes of looking it over, she was able to disable the mechanism and retrieve the whole trap in one piece. She examined her new toy.

Noxious Gas Trap • Quality: Crude

• Durability: 17/19

• Effects: When activated this trap will release a vial of noxious gas that will affect a 15 foot area. Enemies who come into contact with this gas will be inflicted with large boils anywhere the gas comes into contact. Breathing the gas will destroy lung tissue.

Wow. That sounds awful. I'm glad that I was able to avoid that fate. It seems like it might be possible to survive if you hold your breath, but you still wouldn't be happy, that's for sure.

She placed the trap into her bag and then went over to look at the other tile that had stood out to her before.

There's just something so suspicious about this. It isn't red, but then, neither was the bookshelf.

She slid her fingers along the raised edges of the tile and it didn't feel like it wanted to give. She got down on the ground and looked at it very closely and then she saw it. The tile suddenly began to glow the same faint red as the other one had. Success! I knew there was something up with this thing.

After further investigation she found that this tile had two slits instead of one. They were on opposite sides of the tile and she took out her second dagger. Please don't blow up in my face. She slid the tips of her blades into the tiny slits that glowed that faint green color simultaneously and heard a click. It felt like her heart was about to leap out of her chest when she heard that noise but nothing happened.

Sweat trickled down her face and dripped onto the tile she was working on. She panicked again. Oh no!

Nothing happened.

Phew! It would've sucked if that was enough to activate it.

Seeing that she hadn't activated the trap by sweating on it, she pried it up using the two blades. There was another pressure plate mechanism below this tile but the trap itself was different. She saw that when activated it'd pull a cord that went off beneath the tiles.

She looked up and sure enough there were three glowing red holes in the ceiling above the tile. Probably poison darts or something.

As before, she looked the mechanism over and meticulously worked to disarm it. It didn't take long as she understood how something like this would work now.

With a sigh of relief she flopped backwards and looked up at the ceiling. "I disarmed all the traps that I can find. I'm going to go get whatever is in the chest next."

"Okay. Be careful." Tilly answered.

Astoria spent a little time taking deep breaths and recovering from the stress of disarming those deadly traps. After a few minutes, she was ready to go see what kind of treasure she had earned.

Hopefully it's another one of those coins for the pedestal room and a spell book or something. Please be something awesome like fireball.

She walked over and looked at the plain looking chest that stood before her between where those wraiths had been. Better be on the safe side here. She leaned in close to look for any signs of traps.

The plain looking chest sprung to life and dove for her. She only just barely avoided having her face eaten off. It's jaws opened wide and its maw was filled with jagged teeth.

Astoria rolled backwards just in time to avoid certain death as the thing sprang to life and leapt for her. A mimic! Really? I just can't catch a break. She backed away from the creature and prepared to fight in the tight space.

The mimic had formed crude legs out of its bottom and was charging towards her. She readied her daggers, but it did something unexpected, and a razor sharp tongue slammed into her upper abdomen like a spear.

It pierced her new armor, but only just a little bit and threw her off balance and shoving her backwards with incredible force. The wind was knocked right out of her and she was stunned for the briefest of moments.

Its tongue was like a bladed whip and it was readying itself to make another strike. Astoria dove to the side avoiding a second, whip-like strike that would have sliced cleanly through her neck if she had been standing still. I need to end this fight fast!

Astoria charged at the beast and got around behind it while it prepared to strike again. She stabbed both of her daggers into the mimic simultaneously and twisted before yanking them back out.

Green liquid oozed out of the holes she had made and the mimic let out an angry sounding noise. It moved lightning quick and spun around, chomping at her right arm.

"Astoria! Are you okay?" Ladriel's asked through the wall.

"Mimic! Busy!"

The thing was much faster than anything looking like a box had any right to be. It dove for her and she was too slow to get away. It chomped its razor sharp teeth into her forearm. The bracer was pierced slightly, but it held. She gritted her teeth against the crushing pain and used her free hand to stab the mimic repeatedly as it continued trying to crush her arm.

She felt her arm being crushed like it had been put into a vice. It felt like it was going to snap right off. "Let. Me. Go. Asshole!" she said putting emphasis on each word as she continued stabbing the thing again and again.

After what felt like forever the chest's grip loosened and it no longer moved. A pool of green, malodorous liquid had formed below the chest as she had stabbed it relentlessly. She tossed the chest angrily to the ground and it landed with a thud.

She reflectively shook her arm and activated Regeneration. Astoria gritted her teeth against the pain in her arm as it slowly melted away. When the skill finished doing its work, she felt a lot better, but not completely. Her MP was now too low for her to cast it a second time, so she’d just have to live with the pain until it went back up. At least her hand was functional again.

It was time to see what, if anything, this chest held. She kicked the thing over with her boot, just to be sure it was dead before carefully reaching down and opening the lid. As she had hoped, a bronze coin sat nestled in the bottom of the dead mimic.

She pulled it out and saw that there were three squiggles on its face, probably depicting a gust of wind. "I'm okay. It’s dead," she announced triumphantly through the wall to her companions. "It had another of the bronze coins, too. Now I just have to find a way out of this death trap of a room.”

“That’s great. I’m glad you’re okay! We’re looking around out here too, but there isn’t anything to find on this side. The wall won’t budge an inch,” Tilly replied.

Astoria sighed to herself and told the others that she was getting back to work. There has to be a way out. Don’t give up no matter what.