In her distraction, a slime protracted itself and latched onto Liza’s leg. She didn’t notice it at first (Ben’s show was that strange), but when her trousers corroded and she felt the burning sensation on her leg, she screamed and jumped away.

“Damn you Ben, just what the hell are you doing?”

Grumpily, she nocked an arrow and let it fly, killing the slime that had attacked her. Thankfully, she’d bought reinforced boots, so she wouldn’t need to walk barefooted just yet.

After using the entire jar of salt, the slime was back to roughly the same size as before, but it was much weaker and sluggish. Ben took his time, aimed, and tossed the throwing knife with all his strength. The knife pierced the nucleus with a pop and the monster collapsed. Ben raised his two hands in the air in a victory pose and shouted.

“I win! I win!” he exclaimed while laughing.

The others were still confused at what exactly he’d done, but they were relieved to know Ben was now safe. This way they could devote their entire attention towards their own battles. Eliot tried to cut large chunks of the gelatinous cube and kick them aside to reduce the overall size of the creature, but the parts that spilled out lost their consistency and were impossible to be moved out of the way. Thus, the creature would reabsorb them easily when edging forward. Eliot was starting to get frustrated when he heard Liza’s shout.

“Let’s change targets Eliot! Get rid of these annoying ones near me and leave that one to me!”

The young man turned around to see Liza backed against a wall with a dozen slimes surrounding her. She was shooting them down the best she could, but the fire rate of the bow just wasn’t quick enough when there were this many and they were this close. He rushed back and sliced through the core of two slimes at once, making them deflate and flop to the ground. Liza dashed through that opening and left the other monsters to Eliot.

“Thanks!”

After taking a few seconds to readjust herself, she nocked another arrow to her bow and pulled its string back to the max. Liza lined up the shot and let it loose. The projectile soared through the air and pierced the large gelatinous cube, but it quickly began to lose power once inside the creature. The arrow ended up never reaching the core.

“All right big guy, if that’s how it’s going to be.”

Her hand went to her quiver and she palpated the fletchings of her arrows until she found the one she was looking for. She grabbed it with care and nocked it on her bow. After two breaths of time, she drew the bow taut and let it go in one swift motion. This time the projectile pierced the membrane of the monster and kept going strong inside its body. These enchanted arrows were sure worth their investment. Once the projectile reached the core, it pierced it all to easily.

The large gelatinous cube fluctuated for a moment before collapsing without form on the ground. The vast amount of corrosive liquid it contained spilled everywhere on the corridor, like a large water tank that was suddenly cracked open.

“Back off guys, let’s keep some safe distance from that stuff,” shouted Liza.

The others complied immediately. No one wanted to be bathed in corrosive goo. Since the fight was happening on the intersection, the liquid spilled in all directions and didn’t managed to get too far on any particular pathway.

“Liza.”

“What is it Eliot?”

“Besides a new sword, I also want a bow!”

“That can be arranged. I’ll teach you too,” she said with a prideful smirk.

“Look at all that goo… it’ll be a hassle if any of the surviving slimes were to absorb it and grow bigger,” Ben chimed in.

“Not a problem, there’re won’t be any slimes left,” said Fang Chu as she threw two javelins at the last remaining monsters, killing them on the spot.

“Yep, I guess that does the trick,” he conceded.

“Speaking of doing the trick, what the hell were you doing before?” asked Liza.

“Fighting a slime?” Ben replied with confusion. He’d been so lost in the moment back then that he didn’t notice the amount of attention he was drawing with his strange actions.

“Fighting? You were dancing around a slime, throwing some sort of powder on it.”

“Ah, that…” he said while blushing. It was somewhat embarrassing when he thought back at his previous behaviour.

Ben tried his best to explain the principles of osmosis, but all the others could understand was that it was some sort of alchemic magic of sorts. Since they wouldn’t take it any other way, he decided to ignore it and let them think whatever they wanted. He continued leading them forward, more carefully this time.

They spent an entire day marking the routes, excluding wrong paths and moving onwards. There were other traps on the way, but they were all detected earlier and didn’t cause a problem. Finally, when they were reaching the end of their patience, they arrived before a new door.

“Ok, I got us through the maze. You can have the honours on the door,” said Ben as he handed the spear¹ back to Liza.

Grabbing the spear that was being handed to her, Liza started her entire procedure on the door. Five minutes later, she was confident there weren’t any traps on it. Nevertheless, she decided to push the door open with the spear shaft. It was never a bad thing to be extra careful.

Once the door was completely open, the clanking sound of moving mechanisms resonated throughout the entire maze. This sound was something they were starting to dread at this point, there was never a good thing that followed it. In front of their very eyes they could see the walls of the labyrinth changing, with some of them going down while entirely new walls were raising from the ground. It was clear that, from now on, the maze had an entirely new configuration.

“Was that really necessary?” asked Fang Chu.

“It’s not throwing arrows or raining monsters down on us, I’m not complaining,” said Ben.

“I guess it’s just more work for when we want to get back,” said Liza.

“See, I knew it! Other walls can move too! This place is cool. When I’ve a house I want it to have moving walls like these.”

“What for? They’re also probably super expensive,” said Liza while shaking her head.

“I don’t care, I’ll have them!” Eliot fired back with puffed cheeks.

“Yeah, I’ll bet you’ll have tons of them,” Liza gave in. “Okay, it seems there is a large curved corridor ahead. I’m spent after today. Let’s eat and rest here before going forward tomorrow morning.”

No one objected. They closed this new door, averting the temptation to discover what lay ahead, and used their torch as substitute for a bonfire. These torches were specially made and could burn for a long period of time. This way they’d always have a source of light and warmth in that dark underground mausoleum.

The rations were distributed, and they ate mostly in silence. The longer they were stuck in this place and the deeper they went underground, the more solemn they got. Even Eliot and Boro weren’t up to their usual antics. Before going to sleep, they set up the lookout shifts, something only possible now that they’d more people and Eliot and Boro were more collaborative.

Many hours later, when everyone managed to get at least six hours of rest, they got ready and moved onwards. Beyond the door was a corridor that curved to the right. It was very similar to the passageways in the maze, but this one didn’t have any branching paths. At the end of it was a large square room that instantly drew their attention.

In the middle of the room there was a strange pillar. It was made of a dark metal, different from all the stone structures they’d encountered so far. It was also weirdly thick. One would need two to three people to embrace it completely with their open arms. At the back wall of the chamber there was an open passage to another room, but they couldn’t see it too well from where they were standing.

What really got their attention though, were the many shelves that occupied the entirety of the side walls. They were filled to the brim with glittering gems, precious metals, books, rare alchemic materials and all other sort of wonderous items. Many of them resembled the illusion they’d seen in the sarcophagus room before. This huge assortment of treasures took their collective breath away.

“Is this one for real this time?” asked Ben.

“Who knows? Let’s find out!”

Liza wielded the spear with renewed enthusiasm and went around the room checking for traps. She was glad to discover there were none on the floor or the pillar. When she came close to the other passage at the end of the chamber, Liza peeked from the outside.

It was a short corridor, maybe not even two meters long, that connected to another room. This new chamber was spacious and had strange grooves carved on the ground. She didn’t glance at it for long and returned to her companions in a much calmer mood. This treasure they’d found wasn’t in the last room, which made the chances of it being real drop a great deal on her mind.

“Nothing I could find. You can come in now. It’s time to see if any of this is real.”

Liza poked at some of the precious stones on the shelves with the spear and dropped the weapon immediately afterwards. She was dreading the return of the black fire that they’d witnessed previously. This move nudged the gems around, making a few of them fall to the floor. This stunned Liza. The others however, couldn’t conceal their glee.

“Uh? It’s real?”

“So many pretty stones,” said Eliot as he grabbed one that had fallen to the ground. “This time you’ll have to let me play with some!”

“Look at all of this,” laughed Ben. “Our money problems are gone!”

“That’s a decent stash,” nodded Fang Chu.

“It’s really real? How come? There are more rooms left...”

-

¹ For those keeping tabs, that’s a new spear. Fang Chu has a lot of weapons, multiple of the same in some cases.