As we continued through the Waldhof Dungeon, it kept its theme constant. From the laundry room with its shifting tiles, we moved back to the kitchen at Alex’ urging, where they used some of the chemicals and kitchen appliances to remove the stupidly sticky grime from the key we had found. Cleaning it gave us another portion of EXP, enough to push me to a level up and level sixty-three, bringing a grin to my face. It also made me realise that I needed to spend the points I had gained upon reaching level sixty, either increasing my Intelligence or my Intuition, unless I wanted to risk reaching level sixty-five without spending them and losing out on another trait.

Instead of letting myself get struck by decision paralysis, I simply put them into Intelligence, pushing me to fifty-five in the attribute and giving me the Astral Capacity trait, increasing the Astral Power I could hold by five per cent, similar to the Astral Power trait I had chosen when picking my initial traits. Neat, but not terribly exciting.

With the now-clean key in hand, we could enter the backroom and solve yet another puzzle, that one centred around connecting cables and directing electricity of all things. At that point, I stopped questioning how things were working in this place and simply accepted that some underlying Power made them work. Thus, instead of trying to understand the various expressions of its power, I focused my curiosity on that underlying Power. Not that trying to understand either the expressions or the power itself yielded results, but I wasn’t about to give up.

Either way, after solving the puzzle of connect-the-wires we found another set of items that made me question the sanity of this place, namely a Pickelhaube, an eagle necklace and a strange bar that reminded me of the bar needed to operate the fire door to the laundry room. The Pickelhaube was a fairly interesting item, increasing strength and resilience in addition to the protection it offered. What’s more, it served as a weapon if struck on the head and with a bit of experimentation we realised that it, somehow, fit neatly on Silva’s head. She looked fairly funny wearing it, but needs must and all that. One of her preferred moves had always been to ram into enemies and bowl them over, now she could simply put her head down as she rammed and not only bowl them over but disembowel them at the same time. A win if there ever was one, regardless of aesthetics.

The eagle necklace was luckily more tasteful and, maybe more importantly, a lot easier to conceal. It also wasn’t as useful, increasing the wearer’s Charisma and Intuition by one each, meaning it ended up around Luna’s neck. She primarily used those attributes and while I’d happily take extra Intuition, the extra point brought a bigger advantage to her. I’d be able to study the necklace, as I had hopes that it might allow me to learn how to create similar enchantments myself, but for now it was hers to wear.

Lastly, the bar wasn’t an item to wear or use, at least not that we could tell. On the plus side, just like the key downstairs, taking it yielded a large amount of EXP, making me think that the puzzles were the encounters of this place and solving them was akin to fighting the usual enemies within a dungeon. Sadly, the bar didn’t immediately give us an idea of its use and went up the stairs.

There, we immediately found the use of the bar, as another of the thick fire security doors barred our path, a door missing the bar needed to open it. If we’d been on the other side, we could have pushed it open but from our current position, the bar was needed. Luckily, we already had that item and, much akin to a certain blonde and mighty pirate, we could fit it in place and open the door.

Allowing us to see yet another hallway.

Given that, so far, the only danger in this place had come from traps, we were incredibly cautious. Knowing that the normal rules of physics had been suborned, we couldn’t even be certain that traps had to come from locations where they could fit, they could come from anywhere and anything could be one. The bedsheets-turned-whip that tried to strike Silva downstairs had been an excellent example, as had the bolts of lightning unleashed by the television. Just because the world should work a certain way didn’t mean it did in this place, leaving us all on edge.

My vigilance was proven right yet again when Silva moved past the second of the closed doors. We had opened the first set of rooms, one completely trashed, the other in pristine condition, and done a cursory search, trying to make sure there was nothing that could attack us from behind, before moving on. When moving past the second door, there was a click and Silva immediately jumped back while I tried to position the shield I was using to cover her to block a possible attack.

Maybe it was bad luck, maybe it was something else but the action of jumping back was exactly the wrong one. Just as she did, I could see a fast projectile shooting out from the door, or, to be precise, the keyhole, and while I tried to block it with the shield, it was simply too fast. By jumping back, Silva had put herself exactly in the trajectory of the trap, but luckily, she managed to tuck her head in. The projectile still hit, but it only produced a gong-like sound as it bounced off her newly acquired helmet, making her stumble a little.

Lia pulled her back further and we took up position between the doors, hoping that we were in a safe zone, though we kept vigilant. In the meantime, I took a look at the projectile that had impacted the ceiling after bouncing off Silva’s head and, once again, I could only shake my head. The projectile was shaped very much like a key and as I was watching, it crumbled to dust, as if it was made from some sort of chalk or something like that. To make matters worse, there was no visible mechanism, not even when we opened the door after making sure that Silva was alright, there was nothing to launch the stupid key, or even allow a key to pass through the lock. It was as if the entire place was haunted or something, but despite the best efforts made by Luna, Silva and myself, none of us were able to detect any foreign presence, no ghosts or the like. We could only study the effects, which felt incredibly futile, or simply carry on through the dungeon, hoping that we’d make it out the other side.

And so, onwards we went, down the hallway, caution and paranoia reigning supreme. There were more traps, and it seemed like none of them were the same. They came in all shapes and sizes, from cables shooting out of an electric outlet, crackling with energy, to those dratted darts being shot from keyholes or light fixtures. There was even one spot where the floor suddenly, for just a few moments, turned into lava, burning Silva’s paws before she could jump away. The entire experience was utterly bizarre, especially as we failed to find anything else on our way through the upstairs hallway. Just half the rooms thrashed, the other half in pristine condition, with no rhyme or reason why things were that way.

Finally, we reached the end of the hallway, where yet another door waited for us. Cautiously, ready for pretty much everything the dungeon might throw at us, we pushed it open, revealing a nursery of all things. Complete with a crib, a changing table that still had a diaper on it, a few bottles of white liquid and a wide variety of plush toys. Unsure of what was going on, we slowly and carefully made our way inside, eyes scanning everything for danger, another puzzle or anything that might give away what we were supposed to do here. Or what might try to kill us, both were entirely plausible occurences.

Noticing a strange shift in the darkness around us, I peered into the shadows and recoiled in horror. There, hovering above the crib, was a strange monster, shaped roughly like a baby only that it was the size of an adult, its chubby arms ending in tendrils similar to the one that had tried to strike down Silva downstairs and its face was mostly absent. There were no eyes, no nose, just a mouth that was far too large, taking up almost half of its face. A mouth that was open and filled with teeth more fitting for a crocodile or a shark but certainly not for a human regardless of age.

A noise brought my attention back to the world around me, though I noticed that one of the tentacles of the baby moved and in turn, the door behind me slammed shut, sealing us inside. Moments later, the entire place seemed to come alive, the stuffed toys started to move, tendrils struck out of various openings, even those that should be far too small and, for some god-forsaken reason, a soft lullaby started to play while the mobile above the crib started to slowly spin.

Up front, Lia let out a soft curse while Silva growled loudly, her body shifting as she activated the special ability that allowed her to walk on two legs, greatly increasing her fighting strength in the process.

All of us were ready for a fight.