The tunnels kept on going down. Aris didn’t like it. The darkness and the twisting tunnels were not a good fit for her weapons. The intense noise they caused when she fired them was also a problem. The sharp retorts of her fire reflected off the closed-in walls and sounded many times louder than they should. Anton and herself had magical protection, and Kelsey sneered at the possibility of harm, but Zaphar and Tyra were vulnerable.

  Both of them had better than normal hearing, and just one shot in these tunnels seemed to cause them physical pain. So, for the moment, Aris kept her pistols holstered and let the two scouts take care of the threats.

  Not that sliggs were very threatening. They grew larger and sophisticated as the party descended, graduating to poison-tipped spears for their weapons. But they were still only first-Tier creatures. Tyla and Zaphar dispatched them without difficulty.

  “I feel useless,” Aris confessed. As the only party member who needed a glowstone to see, it felt like they were making concessions to accommodate her.

  “Don’t think like that,” Anton told her. He held her arm to help her past a slippery and complicated slope. “It's standard practice to let the lowest-leveled member take on the early levels. They won’t get much experience, but they’ll get more than anyone else would.” He kept holding her arm as they continued, which Aris rather liked.

  “Zaphar is a higher level than I am,” Aris pointed out. “I’m only thirteen, the same as Tyla.”

  “That’s why he’s backing her up,” Anton said.

  “Also, Zaphar needs more practice fighting,” Kelsey said. “Most of his life has been spent running, not knifing. He’s got the basics, but he needs more work.”

  “Most of my life has been spent baking,” Aris said.

  “Yeah, but you have a humdinger of a combat Class,” Kelsey said smugly.

  “Humdinger?” Aris asked.

  “You know, a Doozy. A barnburner of a Class. A ripsnorting sockdolager of a Class.”

  Aris giggled. “You’re just making words up, now.”

  “I wish I was,” Kelsey said. “Anyway, the point is that you’ll get your chance once we get out of the kiddie pool.”

  Sounds of fighting came from ahead. Aris got her gun ready, but they didn’t charge forward. They kept moving foward cautiously, as the plan called for.

  Soon enough, they found the bodies. Most of them had an arrow sticking out of them. Kelsey removed the bodies and had her skeletons pull the arrows out. When Tyla ran short, Kelsey would be able to provide a fresh quiver.

  “They’re getting bigger,” Aris commented as Kelsey made the corpses disappear. It was hard to tell with them curled up on the ground, but she thought that at least some of them were as big as a human.

  “I thought they might be a Tier upgrade, but they’re still first-tier,” Anton said. “They’re Sligg Reavers.”

  “They’ve been the bosses for the last two floors, but they’re every second monster on this one,” Kelsey said. “Are we going to see a bigger one for the boss on this floor?”

  A muffled roar sounded from ahead of them.

  “Yeah,” Anton said. “According to the accounts, it’s called a Sligg Tyrant.”

  They rushed ahead, but they needn't have worried. Tyla had it under control.

  They burst out into a large, irregularly shaped cavern. For the first time since they’d come down here, the illumination from Aris’s glowstone didn’t reach the walls or ceiling.

  From what they could see, the floor was irregular as well, pockmarked with pools and puddles. A few sligg corpses were scattered about, most half in the water. The real action was outside of the lit area. Aris could see shadows moving, one much larger than all the others.

  The roar came again, much louder, as they moved forward, carefully avoiding the rock pools. Kelsey’s torch shone ahead of them, picking up a massive sligg, more than seven feet tall and with four arms. He howled ferociously and lashed his arms out at Tyla and Zaphar… But there was something wrong.

  The two fighters were able to easily keep out of his reach as they finished off the smaller Sligg Reavers that surrounded him. As the party approached, Aris could see why.

  The Sligg Tyrant had his feet frozen in the ground.

  He must have been standing in a pool that had, for reasons that escaped Aris, frozen solid with his feet in it.

  “Oh, Tyla’s using her magic! Good girl!” Kelsey said.

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  Even as Kelsey spoke, Tyla finished her opponent and took a few steps back from the Tyrant. She had switched to melee for the fight, but she sheathed her shortsword and took a few deep breaths.

  Aris looked back at the Tyrant. His roars now seemed pathetic instead of threatening. Under normal circumstances, he would have seemed threatening. His height, his reach, the four arms. He had even picked up mismatched pieces of adventurer armour and weapons. He reminded Aris of the monstrous zombie, cobbled together from parts, that she had fought in her first delve.

  Tyla took another breath and then shot it in the head. It toppled like a tree, crashing to the ground and cracking the ice below it with a snap. The Reaver that Zaphar was fighting howled in despair, giving him the opening he needed to finish it off.

  “Still no level,” Tyla said. “But I am getting close.”

  “It was only level eight,” Anton told her. “We have a way to go before the gains kick in.”

  “Until then, we’ll have to console ourselves with material gain,” Kelsey said. “To the victor, the spoils!”

  She walked up and disappeared the corpse of the Tyrant. Aris noticed that the ice had allready melted.

  “You’re looking awfully pleased about getting some corpses and some trash equipment,” Anton said.

  “The armour looks trashy, but two of the pieces are second-tier,” Kelsey informed him. “Once I get them cleaned up, they’ll be fine. But it’s not about the having, it’s about the taking.”

  “You enjoy stealing this dungeon’s treasure?” Aris asked.

  “Normally. I’m on the other side of this scenario,” Kelsey told her. “Having adventurers come and take my stuff. It’s nice to be on the other end of the transaction.”

  “I seem to recall you taking the things of quite a few adventurers, right down to their bodies,” Anton said dryly. “You don’t get to claim it was all one-sided.”

  “And I enjoyed myself when I got to do it then,” Kelsey agreed. “Anyway, let’s see what the floor reward is.”

  She strode over to the chest at the back of the cavern.

  “Shouldn’t Tyla or Zaphar open that?” Aris asked.

  “There’s no experience for opening a chest,” Kelsey shot back. The chest and its lid were made of stone, which made it hard to open, but her strength was equal to the task. She flipped the lid open and looked inside.

  “Huh,” she said. “Two gold and fifty silver. At least it’s not mad at us. This is just over the average take for this floor.”

  She flipped a coin to both Tyla and Zaphar that flew straight to them in a glittering arc.

  “Here, a souvenir. Your first gold earned from a dungeon.”

  Tyla pocketed her reward without comment. Zaphar looked down at his.

  “Technically, my first dungeon gold was when you paid me for our first job together,” he said.

  “That might be true, but no one likes a smart alec, Zaph,” Kelsey said. She pushed the chest out of the way. There was a small hole underneath with a lever. Pulling it opened a hidden door.

  “This is the end of the sliggs, right?”

  “Right,” Anton confirmed. “The next floor is where the root jungle starts. We’ll need to close up, keep everyone in sight of each other.”

  “No scouting?” Tyla asked.

  “You’ll see,” Anton said. He led them through the passageway. There was another lever that closed the first door and opened another one.”

  “Ah, the old airlock gambit,” Kelsey said. “But when you make it obvious like that, adventurers start to think there’s some benefit in keeping both doors open.”

  “Is there?” Anton asked.

  “Not really. It just prevents mana loss. So if you think pissing off the dungeon is a benefit…”

  Anton looked at Kelsey for a long beat. Aris was sure he was waiting for Kelsey to say that they should piss off this dungeon to make the fairy appear. She didn’t, though, and Anton moved on.

  As they moved through the second door, the light from Aris’s glowstone showed a complicated tangle of roots and vines. There were pathways through it, but the roots were so densely packed that Aris couldn’t tell if they were following natural passages through the rock or if the whole area was one massive cavern.

  “Oh!” Tyla exclaimed. “This is more like the mazes we have at home! Except for the part where they are underground.”

  “Interesting,” Anton said, carefully examining the plants in front of him. “Did your mazes also do this?”

  He stabbed one of the vines with his sword and then leapt back. The vine he had stabbed twitched violently, coiling around itself to try and entangle whatever had stabbed it. A second later, it had coiled up so much that it had withdrawn from the edge of the light.

  “Wait for it,” Anton said.

  With a crack, the vine whipped back to where it had been before. In the process, it set off several other vines that all did the same thing, except for one that released a puff of smoke or poison or something.

  “Well, obviously, you don’t step on the strangleweed,” Tyla said. Four more cracks announced the return of the second wave of vines. These ones didn’t set anything off, either through chance or because they were designed that way.

  “That would not be wise,” Anton agreed. “I think Kelsey and I are strong enough to not have to worry about getting dragged off, but the rest of you are vulnerable. And Zaphar…”

  “I am not strong,” the thief agreed. “Not strong at all. I would be wrapped up and delivered wherever it is they take me.”

  “What does the smoke do?”

  “Different things,” Tyla answered. Some types make you drunk, others burn the skin. The vines look different from what I am used to, so there may be other types.”

  “Just avoid the vines, and any smoke if possible,” Anton told her.

  “I think…” Tyla said thoughtfully, “That I can use magic for this.”

  “Gonna burn them all up?” Kelsey said hopefully.

  “No… The vines and roots are wet and contain water. I would take a very strong spell to set them aflame and I cannot cast strong spells as yet. But I can control plants, and keeping a plant still is only a weak spell.”

  “Give it a try,” Anton suggested, stepping back from the tangle. Tyla stood closer and stared at the vines. At a signal that Aris couldn’t see, Anton moved forward and slashed at a vine. This time it fell to the ground, severed without reacting.

  “That will make things easier,” Anton said. “We still have to watch out for Vinelurkers and Black Maw Writhers which move through gaps in the roots that we can’t see. They’ll slip by any scouts we put out and go straight for the backline.”

  “Hey, that’s me!” Kelsey objected. “I’ll be vulnerable!”

  Anton looked at her with a flat, unblinking stare. “Yeah, you are pretty fragile,” he said. “Maybe you should put on a helmet or something.”

  “Good plan!” Kelsey said. She pulled a round helmet out of nowhere and plonked it on the head. Everyone stared at her, but it was Zaphar who failed to resist the urge to ask the question.

  “Why… why is it yellow?” he asked reluctantly.

  “For safety!” Kelsey answered.

  Anton took a deep breath. “Let’s just get moving,” he said. “Stay close, and stay alert.”

  Everyone nodded. Zaphar pulled out another glowstone. Arranged in a new formation, they set off to conquer the fourth floor.