Date: May 15? 2020 - 11:10 am?

Location: West Byzantine? (C-rank Dungeon)

When Francesco first made his decision to go straight for the giant owl after it defeaned everyone, Valentina also had to make a quick decision. She looked around, and saw the uncertainty on the faces of not just the other Dungeoneers, but on her siblings as well. She stayed behind to try her best to call her siblings over to her using gestures. They noticed and quickly gathered around her by the time Francesco had made his way to the stone block that the giant owl was perched on. Valentina waited to see what would happen before giving out new commands. They saw a brief flash of light by the stone block and they saw Francesco struggle to maintain his footing. Then, he suddenly turned around, his back now facing the owl. Valentina was surprised by this sudden movement but continued to watch both him and the owl before making any moves. Then, after a moment of stillness, Francesco suddenly jumped down from the pillar and raced back towards the Dungeoneers. Did he suddenly lose his nerve and want to regroup?

Valentina didn’t think someone as haughty as Francesco would suddenly be running away from an enemy so frantically, but she figured that it should be a given that he would still value his life more than his pride. Valentina waved her arm out to beckon him to come over so that they could try to plan out their next move. However, he completely ignored her and instead ran up to another pair of Dungeoneers, one of them still on the ground, tears in her eyes and hands still over her ears. Does he want everyone to gather up first? To even desire the cooperation of the weaker Dungeoneers, Francesco was surprisingly desperate. Just as Valentina was contemplating on how she could go about mocking him for this afterwards, Francesco suddenly thrust his spear through a Dungeoneer’s head. As his corpse fell to the ground, the Dungeoneer beside him finally noticed what was going on around her and seemed to scream out, but of course, no sound could be heard. She tried getting up to run away, but Francesco’s spear ran through her before she could hardly get a step away.

Valentina’s poker face broke for just an instant. She panicked, and might have even let out a gasp that would have been quite audible in any other circumstance. However, before the horror of the situation left her frozen for any longer, she suddenly relaxed as her Mental Resistance B activated to calm her nerves. She activated her Perception Skill and carefully took in her surroundings to understand what she needed to do. She recalled what had just happened at an accelerated rate.

First, Francesco went to attack the owl. Second, he turned away from it. Third, he ran down to the Dungeoneers. Fourth, he killed a Dungoneer. Fifth, he killed another Dungeoneer. There had to be a logical reason for this course of events. If one excludes the possibility that Francesco had always intended to kill everyone else in the Dungeon, especially since there is a lack of incentives to do so, then the only logical conclusion is that the owl monster did something to him. Valentina could continue to think about all the different possibilities on that train of thought, but, even in her accelerated state of mind, she could see Francesco already turning around with a fiery gaze in his eyes.

Is he looking at me? At one of my siblings? Are we going to have to fight right now? However, Francesco continued to turn his head, and she could tell he was eyeing someone else. Valentina immediately turned to her siblings to start giving them instructions. She pointed to Cuore and then Diamante. Then, she used two fingers to point at the owl. Then she pointed at herself and Alessia. She then used two fingers to point at Cuore and Diamante, and then pointed at the owl. Diamante nodded but Cuore still looked distracted by Francesco. Valentina slapped her brother, and then pointed at him and then the owl once more. He nodded.

Diamante and Cuore sprinted towards the owl just as Francesco started running towards another Dungeoneer. Valentina and Alessia followed a couple steps behind them. As they ran, she thought she could suddenly see Francesco look at her. Valentina did not know exactly what kind of Skills Francesco possessed, but if it really came down to a fight to the death, she was still sure she would win, although she expected she may have to give up an arm or even more.

Francesco was not looking at her. His gaze had merely shifted because the Dungeoneer he was targeting was running away. Valentina capitalized on the situation and ignored him as well. Taking on the Boss was the number one priority. If they had to fight him they would, but otherwise they would use all of their combined strength to deal with the Boss instead. If they still had to fight Francesco even after that, then so be it. One step at a time.

Diamante and Cuore were the first to get to the top of the stone block. It was strange that the owl had remained in place where it stood the whole time. When the owl seemed to finally take note of the need to flee, both Diamante and Cuore were already upon it, each attacking one of its now spread out wings. They tried to keep the owl grounded, but it was clear to see the owl was already starting to overpower them and knock them away. Alessia charged in before her sister. Just as she was in melee range, the black owl aggressively launched itself forward, perhaps attempting to tackle Alessia. The sudden attack was slowed down by her two siblings that continued to cling at the owl’s wings and just before the owl rammed into her, delivered a counter punch between the owl’s flaming eyes.

Alessia could feel her entire arm tremble as her blow knocked the owl backwards. However, the owl did not fall onto its back and quickly regained its balance as its talons scraped along the floor. With another great exertion of force, the owl flapped its wings again and finally threw Diamante and Cuore off of it. Then, it prepared to take off into the air once more. It was finally Valentina’s turn, though.

She watched her siblings struggle to keep the beast down and saw that even Alessia’s counter punch, which should have been greatly empowered thanks to her unique skill, failed to down it. At the very least, the Defense of this Boss was greater than the D-rank Boss. Not knowing what other trick this owl might attempt to pull if it got to the centre of the chamber once more, she went all out. Valentina imagined arrows, spears, blades, drills, and any other manner of sharp objects, as many of them as she could. Valentina’s body trembled slightly as she felt the majority of her mana drain away in an instant. She could feel the air around her turn heavy as her imagination began to manifest invisibly around her. Alessia fell back to stay right in front of Valentina to protect her from a sudden attack. The monster seemed to notice something bad was about to happen, and when it took off from the stone block, it seemed to be flying backwards, away from her. Valentina got on one knee as she tried to maintain her concentration and calculate a further trajectory for her imagined weapons. More of her mana drained away as he maintained the hidden weapons in the air until she was sure of the owl’s flight path. Then, she unleashed them all.

To any spectators, and even Valentina herself, who could not actually physically see them, it looked as if the owl was suddenly impaled, slashed at, and blasted at from a countless number of attacks. The metallic feathers that covered its bodies were rapidly grinded down and sliced apart, its wings and chest had rows upon rows of holes suddenly punched into them, and an increasing number of cracks appeared on its head until its face started to break apart completely. When the innumerable attacks had finally dealt the critical amount of damage, it seemed as if the owl’s entire body then suddenly exploded into a thousand pieces. And then, those pieces too looked to be in the midst of a further barrage of blows just as they transformed into the usual black mist.

Valentina collapsed onto the ground, gasping for air, her body in mild shock from the sudden depletion of mana. Her siblings rushed over to her, first trying to help her back up, and then quickly backing away again, not sure if they should be touching her at that moment. Valentina’s breathing was slowly returning to normal when one of her siblings offered her a mana potion. Valentina waved it away.

“N- no, I don’t need that right now…” Valentina could suddenly hear again. Judging by her siblings’ reactions, so could they. Then, from below, they heard the sound of someone firing a rocket launcher. Valentina still wasn’t in the condition to turn around to look and had to rely on her siblings to react appropriately. Shortly after it fired, there was the sound of an explosion. Then, they could hear someone else speaking.

“Y- you fucking monster! You murderer! H- how dare you do this to us!” Valentina tried to get back up and move to the edge of the stone block to appraise the situation, but she could only crawl. Without asking, her siblings gently picked her up onto her feet.

“V- Valentina..” Francesco said, stuttering for the first time since she met him. “What happened?”

“What happened? What happened?! You just betrayed all of us and started killing us?! Are you pretending to have amnesia?!”

“Tell them to stop shouting…and stay put…I’m coming down…” Valentina hoarsely spoke to her siblings.

“All of you! Shut up and stay where you are! We are coming down right now!” Alessia shouted on her sister’s behalf. Surprisingly, that worked. Now, it seemed like Valentina just needed to recover and sort out the situation. After all, they defeated the Boss so at least nothing else could go wrong. However, just as Valentina was thinking about what she needed to ask and found out from Francesco, she received an update.

C-rank Dungeon Mid-boss defeated.

Strength increased by 10

Defense increased by 10

Dexterity increased by 10

Magic increased by 10

Skill upgraded: Ace of Spades C (Unique) to Ace of Spades B (Unique)

Valentina maintained her poker face as her siblings brought her down the stone block and towards the remaining Dungeoneers. Other than Francesco, there were only two other Dungeoneers still alive in the chamber. One who fired the rocket launcher and was still holding onto it, and another who had just come out of hiding from behind one of the stone blocks.

“I- Is everything over now?” Luigi Gallo asked as he walked away from his stone block. His voice clearly showed his fear, but the manner in which he asked his question also clearly showed he was happy to be alive and was willing to just focus on that. The Giocondo siblings gathered by the rocket launcher Dungeoneer, Valentina now having recovered enough to walk on her own two feet, if still somewhat a bit shaky.

“No,” Valentina answered. She looked at Francesco who was standing beside the last Dungeoneer he killed, and still holding onto his bloodstained spear. “Francesco, can you explain yourself?”

“...Yes.” The rocket launcher Dungeoneer looked just about ready to explode himself. Valentina motioned with her eyes for one of her siblings to keep him calm.

“Go on then.”

“...I thought I was attacking the Boss.” Valentina quickly motioned for someone to shut up the other Dungeoneer’s mouth. Valentina told Francesco to elaborate and he told her everything he saw. Valentina watched him very closely as he recounted his experience and she thought it was likely that he was speaking the truth. It also made sense. Since it seemed that everyone’s hearing recovered at the same time and they could hear perfectly fine now, the cause of deafness was likely due to magic. Then, after having robbed everyone of their hearing, it would make the second type of magic that caused visual hallucinations much more effective, since they could only rely on differences in taste, smell, and touch to figure out it was all an illusion. After he finished detailing the last thing he saw, Francesco then decided to say one more thing. “The Boss drops…I’m fine with taking a reduced share.”

“A reduced share?! You f-” Alessia’s hand slipped from the Dungeoneer’s mouth for a moment because even she was shocked by what Francesco had just said.

“Reduced by how much?” Luigi asked, genuinely curious.

“I’m thinking…maybe half as much as I should get,” Francesco answered, his confidence returning in his voice. “What do you think, Valentina, does that sound fair?”

“Fair?”

“Yeah. I got affected by some kind of magic that the Boss casted on me, but that was just unlucky for me. It could have targeted someone else. However, I think I caused too much collateral damage so I am willing to take a penalty. Oh, and by that, I mean I think the half I lose out on should probably go towards the ones I accidentally killed. That’s what I mean by fair.”

“Okay,” Luigi agreed. He was countered by angered, muffled shouts.

“We can revisit the specifics of your penalty later, Francesco. But first, I have something to tell all of you. That owl monster that I defeated was not the Boss. It was only a Mid-boss.”

The muffled noises ceased, Luigi stopped strutting over, and even Francesco’s face turned deathly serious. Upon looking around the chamber once more, one could see marks were dug into the stone walls at regular intervals, creating something akin to a ladder. There were dozens of these ladders, each of them having a base that starts just above each stone block. Following them up along the wall, although it was very difficult to see due to the pseudo moonlight cast down from the ceiling above, there were openings at the edges of the ceiling, which presumably led to yet another floor above.

“I’d say there is another important decision that we need to make first,” Valentina said, looking towards the opening in the floor that would serve as the exit. The first to break the pensive silence was Luigi Gallo.

“If you are planning to go up, I’ll go up, too.” Francesco and Valentina’s siblings looked at him incredulously. “I mean, I might be able to help at least the tiniest bit, right? Like, if they use some kind of illusion magic again, maybe it’ll hit me, instead. That wouldn’t be so bad for the rest of us.” At first, Francesco’s expression seemed to indicate that even he thought that comment was in bad taste. However, after another few seconds of thinking on the matter, he actually nodded.

“Yeah, that would be better.”

“Y- you are all just crazy…forget this. If that thing wasn’t even the Boss, I’m out. I’m going down to tell the rest so we can head to the Dungeon portal. Let the military handle the rest,” said the rocket launcher Dungeoneer. Alessia let him go and he went over to the stairs. Before fully descending out of view, he took another murderous glare at Francesco, but said nothing.

“So, the rest of you are still going, right?” Luigi asked.

“Does it look like we are ready to just go up there?!” Alessia asked angrily, clearly concerned about her sister’s current condition.

“Oh, I mean…yeah, it doesn’t have to be right now. I just wanted to make sure we were all still planning to proceed.”

“Well, I’ll still go,” Francesco responded. Luigi nodded but kept looking over at the Giocondo siblings, clearly banking on their approval more. Valentina’s siblings looked at her. She took a closer look at her upgraded Skill before deciding.

Ace of Spades B (Unique)

A Skill born simultaneously with three other Unique Skills due to strong bonds and desires.

This version of the Spades Skill is the manifestation of the desire for overwhelming power.

Increases Strength by 75%. (passive)

Can consume mana to create invisible objects from the user’s imagination. Created objects have their own Stats and can be moved by consuming mana. Can consume mana to add the user’s Strength Stat to the created objects.

Mana consumption is reduced when nearby holders of the Hearts, Clubs, or Diamonds Skill.

All of the Skill descriptions remained the same, except for the Strength bonus increasing from 50% to 75%. Valentina carefully considered that this was a sizable bonus alongside the fact that her barrage of attacks against the Mid-boss was clearly overkill. She weighed this against the unknown of just how much stronger the real C-rank Boss would be. Still unsure of what to do, she then took a closer look at the items that dropped from the Mid-boss.

C-rank Dungeon Mid-boss Core (Uncommon)

This pyramid-shaped object once served as the ethereal container of a C-rank Dungeon Mid-boss’s life force.

Contains mana.

Uses unknown.

C-rank Ring of Dexterity (Rare)

A magical ring that increases Dexterity.

Increases Dexterity by 50 when equipped (maximum 2 rings equipped).

The Ring was a potential gamechanger. 50 points was a significant amount. If Valentina equipped it, her Dexterity would increase by more than a third. Valentina then thought about the potential item that the Boss could drop.

“I’m going.”

“So, how many of us are going in total?” Luigi Gallo asked, picking up on the fact that Valentina said ‘I’ instead of ‘we’. Each of Valentina’s siblings decided to go with her.

“However, we can’t go right now. My mana is depleted so I need to rest first to recover it.” Now that it was down to just six of them, any decision Valentina made would essentially be an automatic majority, not that either Francesco or Luigi was in the position to argue anyways.

They decided to rest on this platform, with Valentina’s other siblings taking shifts to stay on guard. The other Dungeoneers below were informed of what happened above and they came up in order to retrieve the bodies. The other Dungeoneers were in full agreement with the rocket launcher Dungeoneer in retreating to the portal and would not be resting on the mountain. Despite the fact that six of them were still in poor shape, two of them alongside the three that were in better shape still planned to take all the bodies out of the Dungeon so that they could be properly buried. While Valentina went to a corner to rest with her siblings, Francesco helped to at least bring the bodies down the stairs, which garnered mixed reactions.

After about four hours, all of the Giocondo siblings recovered their mana. The six of them then started to climb one of the stone ladders, with Cuore taking the lead. Tensions rose as they got closer and closer to the top, and Cuore’s nervous shaking almost made him slip as he finally got through the opening on the top.

On the next floor, they found themselves in another round chamber. All across the floor were many large metal vats. Upon cautious inspection, they could see that each of the vats seemed to be filled with some kind of metallic liquid. Fearing it might be mercury, Luigi was the first to panic and run to the edge of the chamber. All of the Giocondo siblings with the exception of Cuore waited with him. After Cuore was done looking at all of them, he returned. They all seemed to be identical and he didn’t think they were mercury. At the very least, Cuore didn’t think he got poisoned from being around them.

The six of them then continued climbing up the stone ladder, which continued from the opening in this floor. Again, Cuore climbed ahead of them. At the end of another fifty feet of climbing, they found themselves on top of the mountain. The mountaintop was completely devoid of anything other than a mild breeze and a solitary, round object. At the centre of the mountaintop was a boulder, about four feet high. It was orange in colour, but other than that, seemed to look like an ordinary stone boulder. They slowly approached it, half-expecting a sudden ambush. Nothing happened.

Cuore touched the boulder. Nothing happened. No prompt or anything. The six of them stared at it, a bit puzzled. There was no way, after all of that, that there would just be an ordinary stone at the end, right?

“Do you think we can take it?” Luigi asked. The Giocondo siblings said nothing but Francesco did try to lift the boulder. It didn’t budge. He exerted more strength, but still there was no movement. “Is it too heavy?” Francesco tried lifting it one more time.

“I’m not sure. It’s not that it feels too heavy so much as it just feels like it's stuck to the ground.” After some more pondering, Luigi suggested something else.

“How about we try breaking it?” Francesco seemed to think that that wouldn’t work. If he couldn’t even lift it, why would he be able to break it. However, Valentina decided to give it a go. At first, she just kicked it. Nothing. She kicked it harder. Francesco laughed when she failed again. Without showing any frustration, Valentina proceeded to her next idea. She imagined a hammer and chisel. Then, she applied her Strength Stat to both of those objects. Then, with what looked to be mimed actions, she hammered at the stone. It cracked. Francesco stopped laughing. She repeated her hammering and the boulder eventually cracked wide open, and when it did, a cloud of orange dust burst out of the crack and the boulder lost its orange colour before disintegrating into sand.

C-rank Empowering Stone has been destroyed.

C-rank Boss will lose bonuses to all of its Stats.

All Stats increased by 1.

With the exception of the Stat increases, everyone else also saw the notice pop up in their minds. As the other Dungeoneers tried to appreciate just how different this Dungeon was from the D-rank Dungeons, Francesco felt the need to voice a particular comment.

“So, it was a good idea to come here first.”