Serenity was grateful he’d thought to bring his tent; while he’d offered to loan it to Rissa, she’d turned him down. He’d spend several days in the Layered Dungeon, while the dungeon she was headed towards was no more than a single overnight and could be finished in a day. It wasn’t like he’d needed to leave it behind for the others, either; they’d already moved out of the tent into the beds that Legion gathered.

The comfort was definitely nice, but the important part of having his own tent was the privacy. Serenity wasn’t all that worried about them seeing his wyrmling dragon form; instead, he was concerned that something might happen as he explored his connection to the dungeon. He really couldn’t justify not exploring it, not when he had a couple hours before dinner. The Silver Blades were napping or otherwise relaxing; this would have to count.

Serenity closed his eyes and tried to relax. The dungeon was all around him; he could feel it. It waited for him to listen, then told him everything. The number of oases was not random at all; it was based on the path taken through the desert. There were ten, of which two were false, and at least six different possible routes with no backtracking.

There were two ways to reach all eight real oases, but no one had ever tried; one of the two did require repeating an oasis, but that route was actually slightly shorter than the one with no repeats, since it skipped both false oases. No one had ever tried, since there were routes that seemed to be “forward” that would lead to the exit.

Each oasis had a treasure hidden in the center, but only one treasure could be opened per dungeon run. The more oases that were visited (and therefore the more monster waves that were defeated), the better that treasure would become. Even with all ten oases complete, however, it was still only at high Tier Two or the very bottom of Tier Three; with the four they’d completed, Serenity was pretty sure all he could expect was an Etherium or two or maybe a Tier Two mana stone.

The hidden treasures were rarely collected. The dungeon seemed to like that; Serenity could feel the enjoyment it got from watching people miss things because they didn’t bother to explore. After all, they knew the zone.

Serenity felt “upwards” in the dungeon. It wasn’t really up; the directions weren’t spatial. Instead, it was “lighter” because it was lower Tier and less dense.

I mapped the first floor as we went through it, Aide told Serenity. I don’t think I learned anything from the dungeon, however; it doesn’t treat me the way it treats you. I can barely hear it whispering, and I think I’m overhearing what you’re not paying attention to instead of hearing it myself.

The dungeon eagerly showed him the first floor; Serenity split his attention between what the dungeon wanted to show him and Aide’s map. There was a small number of frogs on the first floor, but three frogs weren't exactly likely to cause many issues. The dungeon wasn’t very interested in showing Serenity what he’d already seen; instead, it wanted to show him what he’d missed.

The first thing they’d missed was a small chest hidden in one of the mud pits; from what the dungeon said, it was a single-use item, but exactly what it was changed each time it was awarded. It wasn’t found often; most of the time, it was found when someone almost died in that particular mud pit.

The second thing they’d missed was a hidden boss monster, the sort of monster that could have been the floor guardian if the dungeon had made a different choice. It was an oversized frog; conceptually, it was the “mama” frog for the entire first level. It hid near the entrance, and didn’t give a direct reward other than a Tier One mana stone; instead, if the mama frog was defeated, it triggered an event that pulled all of the other frogs to the entrance. A weak group could run, but a better group could just kill them then have a far faster and easier trip through the level.

Other than the things they’d missed, the maps Aide had made of the first two levels matched up well with what the dungeon showed Serenity.

“Serenity? Dinner’s about ready. If you don’t come out on your own, it’ll get cold.”

Serenity didn’t hear Naomi’s voice through his own ears. He wouldn’t have been able to, since she hadn’t opened a tent flap and his tent was soundproof because of how it was made. Instead, he heard her through the dungeon. He vaguely knew he’d been aware of the three Silver Blades stirring for a while; he just hadn’t paid attention because he was concentrating on the dungeon. It wasn’t until he heard his name that it caught his attention.

The dungeon couldn’t see into the tent. Serenity could feel the dungeon through it because it was his, but the tent was a blank spot in the dungeon’s awareness. It could see into Naomi’s tent and Gabriel’s tent, but Daryl’s tent was also a blank spot. The dungeon told Serenity that was rare, but not unknown; it meant that the tent was a doorway rather than just a tent.

Serenity tried to stand up and staggered. His body felt wrong for a moment; dungeons couldn’t move themselves. He pulled his awareness away from the dungeon and the vertigo faded.

As it turned out, Daryl was a surprisingly good cook, as long as you didn’t expect anything that couldn’t be cooked over a campfire and easily carried in a relatively small space. His spice collection left a lot to be desired, but salt, cumin, and cardamom together worked.

The next day, Serenity found that he couldn’t manage to pay attention to what the dungeon was telling him and actually do anything at the same time. It was simply too distracting. Aide couldn’t, either; after the first hour, he was confident he was only hearing what Serenity did, and however he was hearing the dungeon didn’t seem to be a sense Aide could tap into the way he tapped into Serenity’s sight and hearing.

Fortunately, all of the experimentation was complete before they actually headed into the third level. Serenity tried to be reasonable, and attempting to learn an entirely new sense or communication method in the middle of battle was anything but reasonable.

The third level was frustrating. It was a beach level, but a beach level with the annoyance factor turned all the way up. The ground was sand filled with many sharp broken shells; it was both tiring to walk on and potentially dangerous in light footwear. Serenity didn’t have a problem, since he glided above it, but the Silver Blades didn’t have a way to fly.

The biggest hazard on the third level was the Giant Wave. It would crash over all but a few spots on the level; you had to climb a tree or find a hole in the cliff at the far side of the level, away from the water, to be above it. There was no way to stay completely safe from it; even traveling along the cliff wasn’t safe from the Giant Wave unless you were holed up in a cave. The Giant Wave also deposited monsters along the seashore, which made traveling even slower.

If they walked in the dry sand, it was tiring but they’d only have to deal with a small number of ambush monsters and the monsters that rode the Giant Wave. If they walked in the area of wet sand, there were many fewer ambush monsters, but there were monsters carried in by each wave. If they went out a little farther, to where the water always stood, the footing was better but each wave had a noticeable pull and there were always monsters in the water. Theoretically, they could probably swim, but the Silver Blades didn’t know anyone who tried that on the third level of the Layered Dungeon. It just wasn’t worth it, not with the increased monster attacks.

You’d have to swim whether or not you wanted to if you were pulled out to sea by the monsters in the wave zone, the pull from the shallow water, or the Giant Wave itself. More delvers had died deep in the water than in any other part of the third level.

It reminded Serenity of a huge boss fight; you had to balance travel speed against safety and deal with a soft DPS check on top of everything else. If you could move fast enough, you might face only one or two Giant Waves; on the other hand, if you tried to stay safe from the normal monsters, you’d end up slowed enough that you might face a dozen. Worse, trying to stay safe would exhaust you from walking in deep dry sand.

They walked in the wave zone. The Silver Blades considered that the best compromise between attack frequency and ease of walking; their goal was to reach the far end of the beach before the Giant Wave struck too many times.

Serenity expected one of the standard ocean monsters, of which the kraken was the most famous; octopi, jellyfish, sharks, turtles, and even ordinary fish were also on his list. Even a hydra wasn’t out of the question, though he doubted it would be in anything except the Giant Wave. The dungeon hadn’t picked any of those. Instead, the monsters were cuttlefish. More like squid than anything else, they ranged from half an inch long in the small waves to half Serenity’s size - giant for a cuttlefish but not nearly as unreasonable as many monsters Serenity had fought over the years.

The cuttlefish were individually not all that dangerous. Sure, they had a venomous bite, or was that a sting? Well, whatever it was called when a cuttlefish stabbed you with its beak, it was definitely venomous. Stab with their beaks was really all the small ones could do, and it wasn’t enough to actually hurt any of them; it couldn’t penetrate their shields, never mind the armor everyone except Gabriel wore. Serenity quickly got the idea that that was why they’d picked the wave zone: it was the best footing they could get without running into much that could actually hurt them as they hurried through the level.

The bigger ones, unfortunately, had some tricks. Even worse, the larger waves could carry cuttlefish up to a foot and a half long, and that was big enough to actually attempt some of the tricks. They’d try to wrap around their target’s legs and trip them into the water, then hold them under while other cuttlefish, usually more relatively large ones, tried to beat their way through the shield. It didn’t work well on Naomi or Daryl; they were all strong enough to pull their way out of it, as long as they weren’t caught off guard. They couldn’t even reach Serenity since he was floating a little higher up, out of reach of the waves.

Gabriel wasn’t strong enough. After the third time he was knocked into the waves and they had to cut the cuttlefish off him, Serenity picked him up. “Do you mind if I carry you?”

Gabriel was clearly soaked and uncomfortable, but he shook his head at the suggestion. “We’ve tried that, we can’t afford to have someone tired from carrying me if we’re going to reach as far as we want to tonight. It’s better to just deal with me getting knocked down a lot.”

“It won’t tire me out,” Serenity said. “Even carrying you, I’m barely spending any more mana than my normal regeneration. I can carry you for hours without any problems. It’s not like I’m walking, after all.”