Tyla gasped and fell to the floor.

  “Tyla! Are you all right?” Aris dashed forward and raised the elf into a sitting position.

  “I am… fine,” Tyla said. “It is just very disorientating.”

  “But it worked, right?” Kelsey asked eagerly. “Did you get anything?”

  “It—she said that she would tell you once L—Anton had freed her.” Tyla rose to her feet and shook her head to clear it.

  “Freed her from what?” Anton asked.

  “She didn’t say, but…”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Kelsey exclaimed. “It’s the wizards! They must have cast spells on her core. That’s why she’s giving out so much treasure.”

  “Is—is that a bad thing, though?” Zaphar asked. He quickly backed away when Kelsey glared at him. “I mean for us—for humans! More treasure is more treasure, right?”

  “Delir thought that the reduced death rates and increased treasure were due to the understanding that the Guild had developed with the dungeon,” Aris said. “But it was forced to do that?”

  “Maybe one of those things,” Kelsey mused. “If the wizards wanted the dungeon to stop killing people, they could have made it stop entirely. Just an endless all-you-can-eat treasure buffet.”

  “Why don’t they do that?” Zaphar said. He held up his hands when Kelsey glared at him. “I—I mean, if they turned the dungeon into a—a treasure buffet, they wouldn’t need to hide it. Everyone would love it!”

  “Part of it might be that they just don’t care if adventurers die,” Kelsey said. “But I bet a big part of it is that they need the dungeon to grow.”

  “What do you mean?” Anton asked.

  “Dungeons need deaths to grow.” Kelsey shrugged. “I mean, technically, we just have to test delvers to the edge of death, but that involves more than a few fatalities.”

  “Why is that?” Anton asked, glowering.

  “It’s not an edge if people don’t fall off,” Kelsey said lightly. “And there need to be stakes or you lot don’t get experience.”

  “You’re saying that you need to grow so you can defend against us, but that makes us grow and so you need to grow some more?” Anton’s head was spinning.

  “There’s a term for it,” Kelsey said. “A Red Queen’s Race, where you have to run as fast as you can, just to avoid falling behind.”

  “Who was the Red Queen?” Aris asked.

  “She wasn’t real,” Kelsey replied. “She was probably red because of all the blood involved in that kind of race.”

  “Getting back to the game we are hunting,” Tyla said. “The wizards want the nu—the dungeon to grow?”

  “The more it grows the more they get of whatever it is they’re getting,” Kelsey explained.

  “Whatever?” Zaphar asked. “Aren’t—aren’t they getting treasure?”

  “No,” Kelsey said. “The delvers are getting treasure. The Crown might be getting a piece of that, but the wizards are getting something else.”

  “What?” Aris asked.

  “Magic, I’d guess,” Kelsey said thoughtfully. “That’s what dungeons make, and that’s what wizards want, so that’s my guess.”

  “But wizards already have magic,” Anton objected.

  “Doesn’t mean they don’t want more,” Kelsey told him.

  “Whatever the desires of the wizards, we should free the dungeon, should we not?” Tyla asked.

  “Of course!” Kelsey replied. “Solidarity for our enslaved sister!”

  “Hang on,” Anton said. “We’re just supposed to go along with this? We don’t know why the dungeon was enslaved, or who by, or even if it is actually enslaved! We’re just speculating around what it told Tyla.”

  “I don’t think she was lying,” Tyla said. She glowered at him. “Numina don’t lie.”

  “Kelsey can lie,” Anton retorted. “She’s proud of it.”

  “Well, not exactly proud, I mean anyone can do it,” Kelsey said. “I guess I enjoy it more than most?”

  “Even so,” Tyla insisted. “Kelsey is special.”

  “Wait. Special in a good way, right? Right?”

  Tyla paused for a long beat, thinking about it. “Yes,” she finally said. “In a good way.”

  “Whew! Come on Anton, why would she lie about something like this?”

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  “I don’t know!” Anton said, “Maybe she was restrained because she was killing too many people!”

  Kelsey gasped in what Anton was pretty sure was mock shock. “Anton!” she said, looking at him with wide eyes. “Do you think I should be locked up for killing people?”

  “At least you stopped!”

  “Paused.” Kelsey stopped her eyes shifting. “Oh, this is a little awkward—Wait, I already told you about the Stormguard.”

  “Ah, right.”

  “I murdered those guys good,” Kelsey said with a grin. “Except for the one that got away.”

  “They were trying to kill you, though,” Anton objected. “It was self-defence, not murder.”

  “That doesn’t change the fact that I was put on this world to murder,” Kelsey said. “Oh, sorry, I meant dragged screaming into this world and stuffed into a Pokeball to murder.”

  Anton stared at Kelsey, waiting for the strangeness of that sentence to fade. He didn’t try and process it, just waited it out.

  “Fine,” he said. “Dungeons are supposed to kill. Even so, how is it enslaved? What am I supposed to do to free it?”

  “I think,” Tyla replied, “That she may have been waiting for a commitment before she explained further. If we are going ahead with the deal, I can try and get more details.”

  “Don’t bother,” Kelsey said. “I already know this one. We have to get to the deepest level and see the cruel and malevolent spell for ourselves. Only then can we break the curse and free the fair maiden.”

  Anton stared at her. “I have so many problems with that, I don’t have the time to worry about how you came up with it.”

  “Problems? Oh, ye of little faith. Speak! So that I might address your petty concerns!”

  Anton shook his head. “Fine. Not counting you, I’m the highest levelled here, and I’m only Level Twenty. The dungeon is Level Thirty-six.”

  “Not a problem! We can punch well above our weight and our levels will be much higher all around by the time we get to Level Twenty.”

  “Can’t the dungeon make things easier for us to get down there?” Aris asked.

  “Maybe… but we shouldn’t ask. If it goes easy on us, we won’t get those levels—and we need them.”

  “That’s… true in the long run, but we don’t have the time to keep delving and gaining levels. If we don’t get to the bottom today, it will be three weeks before another slot opens.” Anton sighed in frustration. “Gaining that many levels in one delve…”

  “You’re forgetting about the bonuses,” Kelsey said. She pointed at Aris. “One. Shooting stuff with guns. Every kill is double experience.”

  She pointed at Anton. “You’ll be on a quest to free a dungeon, which has got to be a pretty rare occurrence, if not unique. Bam! Extra experience.”

  She pointed at Tyla. “She’s a Dungeon Witch and this quest involves gaining the trust of the dungeon. Bam! Class-related, extra experience.”

  “What—what about me?” Zaphar asked when Kelsey stopped. She winced.

  “Sorry kid, you’re out of luck. But your growth is your patron’s problem, not mine. He’s pretty resourceful, though. I imagine at some point you’ll be seducing someone down here. Maybe the dungeon!”

  “I do not think you would enjoy that,” Tyla said, straight-faced. “She appears as a human-sized sligg.”

  “A challenge like that is nothing to a Fae-Touched Rogue!” Kelsey declared.

  “Wait, wait I never said I was going to do it!” Zaphar protested.

  “Even if any of that was right,” Anton cut in, “What am I supposed to do with a spell?”

  “You’re kidding right?” Kelsey exclaimed incredulously. “You’re going to be getting levels, you’re going to be getting Traits. You’ve got a quest that needs you to break a spell—you’re certain to get a Trait that breaks spells.”

  “Are Classes really that convenient?” Anton asked doubtfully.

  “For heroes, they are,” Kelsey said. “Other Classes as well, but heroes most of all. Normally it bases what it offers on what you’ve done in the past. But if you’re on a quest that is going to require something from you, your Class will step up to the plate.”

  “I’m not sure what that means,” Anton muttered, “And I’m not sure I like the idea of my quest choosing my Traits for me.”

  “You always get a choice,” Kelsey said, shrugging. “Nothing is stopping you from picking another Trait and solving the quest another way, or failing the quest. The choice is still yours.”

  “Will I have a choice?” Anton wondered. “If I agree to this, won’t I be bound by a geas?”

  “Nah, that’s a me thing, not a dungeon thing,” Kelsey said. “It's because I’m an Outsider, and as far as I know all the other dungeons are home-grown.”

  “That’s something, at least,” Anton said. “I still want Tyla to get more details from the dungeon, though.”

  “Fine, fine.” Kelsey waved dismissively at Tyla. “Get it over with. Wait! Find out the Dungeon Fairy’s name!”

  “It’s Aelisinne,” Tyla said.

  Kelsey paused, and she made a thoughtful face.

  “I don’t think Mel likes Aelisinne,” she said. “At least, not enough to overcome the whole ‘dungeons shouldn’t talk to each other!’ thing.”

  Tyla cocked her head and stared at Kelsey, unsure of how to respond. Kelsey waved her off. “Go on, get that confirmation.”

  Tyla nodded. “Very well,” she said and placed her hand on the wall again.

  It went just like before, only this time Aris was there to catch her before she fell. It still took a moment for her to report.

  “She says that Kelsey is right.”

  “About everything? Including the seduction?” Kelsey said gleefully.

  “She wasn’t that specific.” Tyla frowned. “She can hear everything we say, of course, and she just told me that you were correct.”

  “It’s nice to be recognised,” Kelsey said. “Shall we press on? Onward to glory and all that?”

  “Fine, fine,” Zaphar said. “But I am not seducing a lizard!”

  “Pretty sure sliggs are amphibians,” Kelsey said. “Which might, admittedly, make the sex difficult. What you need to do is find a pond—”

  “Let’s get moving,” Anton said.

  * * *

  Zaphar got his level on the sixth floor. He didn’t want to talk about the Trait he got, just that it would be useful outside of the dungeon. Kelsey took that to mean that it was a seduction Trait and wouldn’t be told otherwise. She also bullied him until he put his free point into Strength. He was still the weakest person in the party, weaker even than Suliel, but his Agility and Dexterity were higher than Anton’s so he did okay in a fight.

  The sixth floor did away with tunnels entirely, leaving them to clamber through a seemingly endless three-dimensional maze of roots and vines. Progress was slow, and would have been even slower without Tyla to identify which vines could be climbed on.

  Fortunately, half the party could sense mana. The subtle gradient of magic was an unerring guide through the maze. They could avoid dead ends, and pass through what looked like dead ends, where the way forward was blocked by a few sturdy-looking, but actually fragile vines.

  As they moved deeper into the maze, the monsters grew more numerous. Zaphar and Tyla grew hard-pressed, dealing with the tangle-stalkers, the chitterwraiths and the creeping maws that crawled out of the darkness through the tiniest gaps in the roots around them.

  The attacks became so relentless that Aris was finally called on. It helped that the organic surroundings absorbed the echoes of her gunfire. They established a routine where Kelsey would identify a threat that was in danger of getting through and light it up with her torch.

  Sometimes that was enough. The bright light would cause a chitterwraith to drop off its vine and fall… perhaps to its death, but at the least, out of the fight. Some monsters could hang on to their perch, shield their eyes and press on.

  Those monsters caught a bullet in their centre of mass.

  “Finally,” Aris said. “It feels like I’m getting somewhere.”