“So where’s the exit on this floor?”

“Somewhere, probably.”

Liliei glared at Nalaine, whose answer was quite unsatisfying, to say the least. To which the Demon’s response was a large innocent smile, before explaining.

“Jokes aside, I really don’t know where the exit of the floor is, first because I don’t know exactly where on the floor we are, and second because it isn’t constant anyway. The only way is to wander in the halls until you find it.”

“And why is this floor considered the first dangerous one?”

“The main reason is the presence of traps, but the monsters on this floor are also quite a bit more troublesome than before. You see the armors everywhere, no matter where you are on this floor, they’re posted all around the entrances and some of them are monsters that will attack you when you pass beside them. However I don’t know this floor that well, so Lenc do you know how to detect them?”

“Yes, the most common way is just to hit them from a distance, but I’ve heard that they emit a small amount of mana that’s detectable, lightning magic will stop them but the best was to inflict damage is blunt force. Liliei try to detect them with your increased mana perception and we will test them before passing until we have confirmation it works or not. For the fights, Nalaine should stun them with lightning and Liliei finish them with a hit on the helmet. We’re missing a front line but it should work for now. Liliei you should construct a mace.

“Finally for the traps Liliei will go in front, you’re the fastest and the one most likely to dodge. On this floor they’re still pretty simple and never directly lethal so it shouldn’t be a problem, and it will be a good training for later. Is that okay for you?”

They didn’t have any problems, even if Liliei wasn’t too enthusiastic about getting the traps, but he was right in that she was the one that was the most suited for that – and that she would probably need the habits when she went into some of the most protected places.

The three thus started wandering inside the halls, Liliei going first and picking a random direction in each room and testing the statues with little constructs she made. The rooms seemed all pretty much the same, only ones had more entrances, or two stairways, one even had a second balcony higher than the first one. The corridors created a sort of distortion, making it impossible to see the room at the other end until you had walked through it past midway, until then you’d only see the corridor extending into infinity, even if they weren’t really that long – maybe twenty meters.

It took nearly twenty rooms before something happened. The group was walking in one of the corridor that linked the rooms when she suddenly felt a slight resistance as she brought her leg forward. It didn’t immediately occur to her what it was, and she didn’t react in time to dodge the arrow that shot from the wall to her left, embedding itself in her shoulder and just barely not ripping her arm. She fell down with a short scream at the sudden pain and Nalaine was immediately by her side.

“Are you okay?”

Liliei took a few breath – funny how pain could get her out of breath while exertion couldn’t, well not really funny but… – and placing her hand on the shaft of the arrow, she yanked it out before reconstructing her shoulder.

“Shit that hurt! Didn’t know that was a trap, I’ll be more careful.”

They waited a few minuted before continuing despite Liliei telling she was fine – which she was, her body made of mana really was useful in the Dungeon. But they didn’t go very far since as soon as they got to the room, Liliei informed them that her perception could in fact detect the armors that were monsters and they took position.

Nalaine prepared a lightning spell and when Liliei told she was ready, the Demon unleashed her spell. A huge lightning arc shot out and bounced from one of the armor to the other. Immediately, the two monsters started moving. Both were large full plate armors with their helmet covering everything, except for a small gap where the eyes should have been that lit up with a sickly green light. The left one was holding a large two handed sword and the right one a smaller sword and a shield.

They took a few steps forward, the lightning still going, until they stopped moving, the green glow still present however – but just a little dimmer –, and Lenc called out to Liliei. The thief shot forward as the lightning ceased and, hit the right one on the head as hard as she could. The armor took a step back but it wasn’t enough to kill it and it turned to her. The glow in of its eyes had dimmed however, and when she went for the second hit it was too slow to stop it and the mace send the helmet flying, the rest of the armor falling inanimate on the ground.

She the turned to the second one but an ice shard tore through it head, taking half of it in passing and extinguishing the glow, the armor also falling to the ground. Nalaine then went to the helmets and took out a little mana stone from one, the other had nothing inside. After a small rest, and deciding to continue in the same way for the fights, they started walking again.

From this moment, there were a lot more action as they went through the rooms. About one third of the rooms had living armors inside, always in group of two around the entrances. It seemed that even if the one around the other ways were monsters, they wouldn’t move so long as you didn’t attack them or try to pass. There were also more traps in the corridors, but those were fortunately pretty simple. Every single trap had a way of showing that it had been activated, be it a small part of the floor moving underfoot, a resistance as you crossed the detector or a small sound before it went off. Liliei, being more attentive, was able to dodge nearly every single one of them, the few she didn’t just grazing her.

It also helped that they weren’t too dangerous. It would be something like the first one, an arrow shooting at shoulder, or hip height or a pitfall – not too deep, but that would be quite hard getting out alone without equipment and you could break your leg if you had a bad fall. They would still be quite problematic for a normal person, since a shoulder wound would be quite handicapping in a fight.

They had just rested after killing two other armors when a change made Liliei stop. The room in front of them had a complete change in color scheme, passing from white and blue to red and black. The distortion in the corridor made so that the others didn’t see it yet. After a small hesitation, she turned to the them.

“So, is that normal?”

“Is what norma… seriously, how unlucky can we get! This, Liliei, is one of the danger area of this floor.”

From Nalaine’s voice when she spoke, it seemed that was a big problem, but…

“Then we just have to go back right?”

At that the Demon shot her a dry smile, with an air of ‘oh so naive’.

“You’ve seen the way the corridors distort the vision right? It’s a spacial distortion, which mean that the room you end up in is chosen while you walk inside. So going back to the other room now won’t allow us to leave the danger area, that would be too simple. We’ll have to go through it. And we’ll probably have to take another strategy for the fights.”

Nalaine turned to Lenc as she finished talking, waiting for him to talk – he had more experience than her on this floor.

“It’s red and black, so it could have been worse, but we’ll still have to be a lot more cautious. First of all, Liliei, the traps are going to be a lot more dangerous and less predictable, so be extremely attentive. At the slightest indication that something is happening don’t hesitate and dodge. Second thing, the armors in this place will be more resistant and affected only by water or ice magic plus they’re a lot faster, so be extremely careful and don’t worry about using more power for your spells Nalaine even if it means we’ll have to rest longer.

“There’s also another type of monsters that we’ll have to be careful of. They’re intangible ghosts that are completely impervious to any physical damages, so Nalaine will have to deal with those. They’re quite slow, but we can’t let one of them touch us, they won’t outright kill you but they can pretty well paralyze you which will be just as deadly in a fight. And last thing, we’ll go back to testing every armor until we’re sure you can detect those too Liliei.”

They started walking slowly through the corridor. As they got closer the room came fully into view. It looked a lot like the previous rooms, while being completely different at the same time. Where the armors before were like knights protecting the way, these looked like beasts ready to pounce on anything. Everything gave a more aggressive feeling, the archway over each entrance being more angular, the tapestries showing strange distorted scenes that gave made Liliei shiver.

She concentrated but didn’t detect anything from the armors, and after Nalaine shot two small rocks and they didn’t budge, they continued taking the passage directly in front of them. They continued slowly, wary of their surrounding, Liliei a few steps in front of the others and ready to jump back in case she activated a trap. She had, however, underestimated the changes in this area, and didn’t take notice of the very faint click she heard until she felt something pass very fast just to her right.

It took her half a second to realize something had happened and look at her arm that was slowly dissipating on the ground before the pain hit. She grit her teeth through the wave of pain, only letting a low grunt pass, as Nalaine rushed to her side, supporting her and making her sit down.

“Liliei!”

“It’s alright,” the thief spoke slowly – no matter how many times it happened it wasn’t something you could get used to, especially when you didn’t expect it – “what the hell was that trap?”

“I don’t know, I felt a feint wind on my face and then your was arm suddenly falling.” She then turned to Lenc “do you know what this was?”

“I only got a glimpse, but it looked like a giant nearly invisible blade that swung from the ceiling. But it was fast, and you would probably only have been able to dodge by getting on the floor. You’ll have to be very careful Liliei.”

The girl was currently concentrating to regenerate her missing arm while internally scolding herself. She had heard the small sound but hadn’t reacted, not thinking it was the warning of a trap. She would have to be ready to react at anything, the slightest sound, movement should have send her jumping backward, and from what Lenc told, getting down would also be a good idea.

Once her arm was back in shape, she stood and after a nod, she went back to walking. The path to the room hadn’t any other trap and she waited on the two behind her before getting inside. Then she took a single step into the room and discovered two things. First she could still detect the monsters from the normal armors, which was a good point. The bad point was that it seemed they would no longer wait for them to start the fight, if the six armors that turned their head to her were any indication.

This floor was getting quite tiring.