Marcus knocked on Freeden's office door and stepped in. "Well, did those noble brats let anything slip?"

Freeden was finishing up some documents behind his desk, after signing the last page, looked up. "It would seem those nobles want control of not just the dungeon, but the entirety of Veridian." He said with a sneer.

"Fools, do they really think these invaders will leave anything for them by the time they finish pillaging everything valuable?" Asked Marcus.

Freeden snorted and, with a crooked smile, replied while waving his arm around himself. "Who cares? These fools threatened my daughters inside the dungeon's territory. Considering the dungeon's reaction to a light insult from Fredrick, what do you think its attitude will be to those twerps?"

"Hmm, well, we might either see a loss or two in their party, or perhaps they won't return at all. I vote for the latter. While their faction is insignificant, I find there need to enslave other races just for being different, despicable. It's not as if there aren't plenty of criminals they can buy if they must have slaves." Said an annoyed Marcus.

"Ha, those stupid nobles are mad because Darnath made a law that you can only own slaves of your own race. Not very good for the humans, as they are the only race that enslaves their own kind. The rest of us either lock criminals up for a time, or if their crimes are bad enough, we kill them."

Shaking his head at particular groups stupidity, Freeden says. "Enough about that. We now have five noble houses for Darnath to look into. That should make him happy he has been bored lately."

"Amy, I'm almost out of mana!" I said as I sent another fireball into the group of bees flying toward us. The first two floors went by like a breeze, no traps or locked doors to find clues to open, just easy fights that got steadily tougher. Now we're on the third-floor boss room and still haven't seen the boss, only dozens of two-foot-long black bees. Swarming from a giant nest in the back, out of range of my fireball spell.

Swinging her mace at a bee splattering green goo all over the place, Amy shouted back. "Charlotte, fall back to Nalle's side and switch to your bow. Nalle meditates for as long as possible to get some of your Mana back before the boss finally shows itself."

Shouting our assent to Amy, I fall back to a corner farthest from the battle, closely followed by Charlotte, who is pulling and shooting her bow as fast as possible, every arrow hitting a bee even if it takes two or three to bring one down. Not bad for a level three class.

About five minutes later, the last bee fell to a swing of Amy's mace. A moment later, the nest in the back of the room began vibrating, and we heard a roar, "My children!" Followed by the sound of massive wings buzzing. Then the nest exploded, and a gigantic five-foot-tall bee with the face of a human woman shot toward Amy.

Amy barely raised her shield just as a three-foot stinger punched forward, driving six inches through the back of the shield, narrowly missing Amy's arm.

With a yell, Amy swung her mace, breaking the stinger off and jumping back. "Are you ready, Nalle, Charlotte?"

I answered by raising a hand and visualizing a wall of ice just like Father showed us. I could feel three times the amount of Mana being pumped into the spell, but it worked as a wall formed two feet in front of Amy. Giving Charlotte time to get into position to shoot the queen without hitting Amy.

The boss slammed its body forward into the wall, causing a spiderweb of cracks, then it stopped for a split second before flying around the obstacle. Oh, I didn't think of that, I thought. However, as it was flying around the edge of the ice wall, I hit it in the torso with a fireball, causing it to pause again and look my way furiously.

Charlotte wasn't idle as soon as she had a shot. She poured her own Mana into five fire shots. Peppering the Bosses wings causing the bee to tumble in its flight, dropping to the floor, which allowed Amy to go between it and me. Amy swung her mace down toward the bee's face but hesitated at the last second as the human-looking beginning watched her impending death.

When the queen bee saw this, she smiled, flopped down onto her back, and said to the ceiling. "I lost master," then turned to Amy and winked, as she turned into motes of essence that split amongst all of us.

"Well, that was creepy," Amy said as she bent down to retrieve the three silver pieces that dropped. "Are we continuing or going home?"

Charlotte said, "um, we have been in here for a while now. Most likely, our parents are standing outside the portal waiting for us."

I nodded, "and I also don't enjoy being so low on Mana. Let's go home and sort out notifications, I just reached level 10, so I should get a new spell. Besides, you're covered in goo, isn't that uncomfortable?"

When I turned around to see if I can find a hidden room, I felt someone wrap their arms around me from behind. With an earsplitting screech, I try to jerk out of Amy's embrace. However, I couldn't budge as she began rubbing goo all over my back, laughing. I turned a pleading look to Charlotte, but she was bent over, holding her sides.

After Amy let go and Charlotte got ahold of herself, she said. "Katlyn always said you both were snobbish and lived in your own little fantasy worlds. Above us mere mortals, but you both seem like normal teenage girls to me."

Amy said, confused. "How can she even have an opinion of us when we have barely spoken together? Unless she thinks being mean to Nalle for three years, in the academy is talking."

Charlotte gaped. "I assumed since she recommended you two; you were besties, or at least bad friends. Regardless of the way she talked about you both. Katlyn says things like that about anybody with more talent than she has."

"Oh," said Amy, "what about you?"

With a snort,

Charlotte replied. "I am a distant cousin of a branch family. It would be far beneath her to compare herself with me."

"I remember now! You're the girl that almost ran me over the other day at the weapon store. Is that your parents' place?" I ask.

Charlotte walked up to me with a thoughtful look and pulled open my robe a little, tapping on my armor. "Ah, so you're the naughty girl Mother told me about."

While laughing, Amy pointed out. "Your mother said you are just as naughty as Nalle."

While we had been chatting, Charlotte and I walked around the room, poking at the walls, and finally found a seam. "Guys over here, I found the secret room."

Charlotte ran over in excitement as neither previous floor had a secret room. Or at least we didn't find them if they did. But Amy continued scraping goo off her armor, waving at us to deal with it ourselves.

While we discussed whether to blow the wall up with some good old-fashioned explosions, a tiny bee flew in and landed on a small protrusion.

Amy, who had stopped when she heard the bee, let out an explosive round of laughter that had her bent over, holding her side, and said between bouts of giggles. "I guess the dungeon doesn't like you blowing up its walls."

As I stuck my tongue out at the little bee that flew up and landed on my shoulder, I pressed the button, and the wall slid into the ceiling. Inside was a chest just as expected. I waved at Charlotte, "time to do your rogue thing." At the same time, wiping fake perspiration from my forehead.

Walking past me, Charlotte rolled her eyes and gave an elegant bow "excuse me, your majesty." She carefully looked over the chest; however, she forgot to look under the seam as she opened it, and I heard a click. Reaching inside, I yanked Charlotte back as a small dagger shot out of a small hole in the lid.

The blade barely missed her as it rushed past, bouncing off Amy's shield as she had silently come over at some point. "I'm sorry I should have checked as I opened the chest."

I just patted her back. "It's fine. Everyone makes mistakes, so long as you learn from them, it's fine." However, I could feel Charlotte trembling, so I stayed next to her, still holding the arm I grabbed earlier.

I turned my head to Amy and nodded toward the chest.

Sticking her hand inside, Amy pulled out a tiara, cloak, and a short silver bow. She lay the tiara and bow down next to us but kept the light purple cover just staring at it, then looked at us. Can I keep this?

Charlotte and I smirked and nodded. I picked up the tiara. It was gold with a rounded triangular shape, with a beautiful brown gem in the center that had me mesmerized, staring into it. Sticking it on my head, I said, "now people will have one more reason to think I have a princess complex because I'm keeping this on always."

Amy remarked, "what do you mean people will think. You absolutely have a princess complex half the time you're too lazy to dress and have Yuri do it."

Testing her new bow that seemed to draw and shoot her elemental arrows twice as fast. Charlotte turned and raised an eyebrow at me, "Seriously?"

My only reply was to point my nose into the air and walk through the exit gateway that appeared when we beat the boss. Getting a laugh from them both.

When I came out the other side, I stopped in my tracks. My heart skipped a beat as there were six people, with a mixture of worry and irritation on their faces. A moment later, Charlotte walked into my back, nearly knocking me over before I regained my balance and stepped aside for Amy, who came right after.

I was about to open my mouth to speak when Mother stomped forward, grabbed my hand, looking at my ring. "Third floor, why are you finished with the third floor already." She turned an annoyed glare at Father, "didn't you tell them not to dive too far too fast that the essence levels increased too quickly?"

Then she took a long step back, holding her hand over her nose. "You three stink." Which broke the tension as everyone started chuckling except us three, as we absolutely do reek.

When Charlotte let out a long yawn, our parents relented and led us home. Well, after Charlotte's Dad introduced himself, apparently he runs another weapon shop nearby for their clan.

On the way back to the manor, I walked up to Aunt Melania, gave her a light hug, and asked. "Where have you been? I haven't seen you in a few days?"

She snorted, "doubtless because you have been unconscious for most of that, but I went with Fredrick to Eleneer to get him squared away."

As we talked, I began stumbling slightly, and when Mother walked over, she said, "excessive mana depletion. You will be fine in the morning, but you shouldn't make a habit of running dry too often inside the dungeon."

When Amy and I reached our room, we barely got undressed and bathed before flopping down on our beds before falling asleep. Yuri, who walked in with our pajamas, just scrunched up her nose at the extra work to get us adequately covered.

Although she didn't have to worry, Aleana walked in to check on her daughters and helped Yuri with a motherly smile. "What will we do with these two."