Alice laid there, in a pool of her own blood. Everything hurt, by by... why couldn't she... huh, she wasn't allowed to think... of that. That word, that concept, what was that word! Alice groaned, her frustrations with the way this world, this System were affecting her head was getting out of hand, now she was barred from a specific term in her own mind??

  

  

  That... wasn't good. Alice focused opening up her [Status Page].

  

  Name: Alice

  HP: 2/35

  Mana: 0/20

  Great, how was she supposed to restore her health... here.

  Where was here? She slowly moved up, everything in her body screamed at her not to, she could feel a bone shift around loosely inside her body as she did, but she could not just lay there. She will die if she doesn't move. She has to MOVE!

  She screamed, one of her ribs ripped through part of her insides, she was down a kidney now. She looked around and found... brick? Stone brick, grey and unwelcoming but brick. Manmade, it went for a while, she could see areas she could turn off, but that wasn't important, one of her wings was broken but if she fought through the pain she surely could fly up the way-

  A rumbling began, she watched and listened as stone gnashed against stone, a low grumble as she watched the tunnel she had fallen down disappear as everything around her shifted. It became very apparent to her now, she was in... a maze.

  Alice breathed, it was shallow and weak, she glared at the long hallways of this maze.

  "FUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

  She screamed as loudly as she could manage in her current state, what was this! She was on the brink of death and now she was in a maze?! Her gaze turned to glare at the notification taunting her at her side.

  

  What a joke, how many people were given a constant tracker of when they'd die?

  Alice began to limply pull herself forward, despite everything she couldn't just lay and wait to die, no matter how much pain she was in. She grumbled to herself as she crawled.

  "Oh yes Alice, lets pick [Shadow Magic] brilliant plan Alice, you couldn't of picked [Healing Magic]??"

  She chided herself, she supposed Xana might find the traces of their fight but would she follow her down? No, that would be insane, why would she? They barely knew each other, more likely she would find the traces, search around and see that Alice had gone to a lower level and just write her off as dead.

  

  Shut up.

  Alice thought she couldn't focus on that, she needed to put all her attention on finding a way out of this. She just had to fin- Danger. Her [Supernatural Sense] roared at her with such ferocity that she had thought her heart had stopped, she quickly scanned the area around her and noticed a torn part of the way, she could slip her body into, she crawled over hiding in the hole as she watched.

  Creaking and scraping became louder and louder as she stayed there, almost feeling as if she should hold her breath.

  Creak. Creak. scraaaape.

  She finally saw it, a foot, well not a foot exactly. The skeletal bone of a human foot, yellowed with age, dirt and dried blood clung to it, as it took another step forward, she heard chattering noticing another foot and another, a total of eight skeletal feet walking past her.

  

  She assumed that was her [Language of the Deep], whatever that was.

  "Chatter chatter Meatbag chatter chatter chatter Hammer chatter chatter chatter chatter Fire chatter chatter"

  She... had no idea, meatbag? She supposed something with flesh, and then mentions of a hammer and fire... oh. Oh that wasn't good. Did that mean... Humans were down here? Even if she was one... currently she was in the body of a Bat, of a creature they viewed to be a Monster.

  Alice waited a long while before she moved, making sure the... well they were Skeletons right? They had to be, that was... reassuring in its own way, Alice had been afraid that the only Monsters were Bats, Rats, Lizards, Birds and so forth, animals. It was good to know there was more tradtional Monsters... tradtional huh. She was a [Young Vampire Bat], so that meant she'd become a vampire in the future right? That would give her a humanoid shape, humanoid look, she could... blend in with humans.

  Okay, order of priorties, replenish my Hit Points, survive this maze, find a way back to my sector, kill the Plaguemaster, evolve into a vampire, escape the cave, find Lily, woo her again using my new vampire charms.

  Alice chuckled to herself as she jokingly added her last goal while crawling forward.

  The maze was... strange, the stone bricks were just... too perfect? Exactly cut all the same and they went on forever, the amount of work that would be needed? And to build it all down here? That was... scary, whoever could accomplish such a thing must have been extremely powerful and very good at controlling others. Maybe it was the skeletons? Undead workers wouldn't need rest and could be controlled precisely... at least probably? Alice didn't actually know.

  She crawled for what felt like forever, but maybe that's because everything was so... the same. But she did have one constant reminder and show of time.

  

  She was quickly running out time, and she wasn't sure what to do.

  Suddenly her [Supernatural Sense] went off again, but this time it wasn't alerting her to danger, just alerting her, something was happening and her senses clearly didn't know what. A dull wave of light flowed past her, splitting into each direction of every hallway, she as confused looking around for what it had done before she realized, looking back at the way she came. Her blood stains were gone.

  The only way to trace her steps had just been erased, who did that! Who made a maze in a big cave of monsters and and... enchanted it to clean itself!?

  Despite the absurdity of this entire place Alice had no choice to keep going, she traveled further down the hallway, finding a dead end she groaned and turned around, crawling the other way and taking an right that she had not gone down prior.

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  And then she heard it, CLANG CLANG CRUNCH! The sounds of combat, that was... hm, not the worst sign? If she was careful... no it was risky, she could easily die if she got involved in a fight she needed to be safe this risk wasn't-

  

  She cursed, she didn't have time to be safe, to avoid danger. She needed a solution to her pending issue of Sudden Death. She moved towards the fighting.

  Anno hated this, she hated every moment of it, she didn't want to go down to the Lower Dungeons, she didn't want to risk her life so Callum could get a stupid gear upgrade. Who cares if he needed Skeleton Femurs, he should hunt them himself instead of dragging their entire party down! Unifier give her strength. She should have been at the Royal Academy, she should have been learning [Healing Magic] from the likes of Ser Reylia.

  But instead she was stuck down here with an [Adventurer] group desperately trying to pay off a debt that wasn't her fault. And of course since she was a [Beastkin] the only party she could join was this one! She secretly glared at her party members.

  There was of course Callum, stupid Callum with his stupid shaggy brown hair. He was the [Rogue] of the party, but he was a [Grave Rogue], his [Class] according to him involved utilizing undead materials and was more of a [Spellblade] than most traditional [Rogue]'s. Anno always balked at that, comparing his tricks to Magic? Yeah right! It didn't matter that his blue leather top didn't fully cover his stomach... nor that his brown leather pants didn't leave much to the imagination. Anno cursed inwardly remembering how the others teased her for always looking at him. She was just making sure he didn't get into trouble! Nothing more!

  "Anno! Pay attention!"

  Anno's attention snapped to Jasper he had just had his right arm torn open, maybe if he wore some bracers instead of just wearing those dumb oversized skull pauldrons. He wasn't even a [Knight] even less so than a [Death Knight]. It would have made sense if they gave him any overly used stats but he was wearing them because he thought they looked cool! They completely clashed with his chainmail shirt and his red leather pants with the steel knee guards.

  "[Flesh wind and bind, close and clot, Wound Close!]"

  Anno threw a lower level spell at him, [Wound Close] wasn't the strongest healing magic but it could be focused on a single injury once you reached Rank Five in it. That increased the potency a fair bit.

  She snapped her gaze to Hestor, of the entire group he was the most reliable but she still needed to check on him, but he seemed fine his grey cloak let him blend into the natural background of the Lower Dungeons with ease, and his Blunt Arrows were effective enough on the skeletons.

  "Ugh! These are all just Tier Three! We need Tier Five skeletons for the Femur drop!" Callum complained as he brought his two Short [War Hammer]'s down, crushing a skeletons skull.

  "I thought!" Jasper swung his Normal [War Hammer] against a skeleton. "That you said there was for sure tier fives and sixes guys trust meeee" He brought his War Hammer to the side, smashing the torso of another skeleton.

  "Well I had it on good authority!" Callum defended in a grumpy tone.

  Anno rolled her eyes at his childish tone. "Yeah? And which authority was that?"

  Callum was quiet for a moment before speaking in a tone that clearly contained guilt "Ryker..."

  All three of them paused and looked over at him, of course Jasper had to return fighting against the skeletons that were ontop of him.

  "RYKER!? REALLY? AFTER LAST TIME??? I SPENT DAYS, NOT HOURS, DAYS GETTING THE SLIME OUT OF EVERYWHERE!"

  Anno yelled at him furious, turning her gaze to the skeletons.

  "[Let ash coalesce and water boil, bring forth the flame of the Elder, claim waste to these lands, claim waste to my enemies, strike down upon those who would covet the darkness, Flame Spears!]

  Anno instantly felt weaker, using this much mana was a lot, but [Flame Spears] was her best large area spell, and she really just wanted to get home. She watched as the dim cave suddenly lit up, spears of flame erupted out of the air, striking into the groups of undead, upon impact they exploded into violent flames melting down the bones.

  "Anno? That was a bit much for this group." Hestor asked in that calm tone he always kept no matter the situation.

  "Yeah... I just, want to get back to the surface? I don't like it down here, I always feel like some Monster is watching me. Besides I was on the cusp, on the very cusp of getting a new spell down when this idiot barged into my room shouting we needed to get down here right away!" Anno complained glaring daggers at Callum

  In response Callum simply shrugged. "The Lower Dungeons change all the time, I figured we needed to act fast, maybe thats why we can't find any Tier Fives, after all Miss Prissy here had to do her hair."

  Anno's eyebrow twitched.

  "I've told you a thousand times, I am not letting my hair run wild while we're delving! Blood, Slime, SPIDER WEBS, do you know how hard it is to get spider silk out of your hair? What if we ran into a [Cocoon Spider]?! I would have to shave off all my hair!"

  She smacked Callum with her staff. Of course, it didn't hurt Callum, Anno had a pitable strength score of 15, she was about as strong as a child when it came to physical strength.

  "Right right right the hair, okay fine we can head out." Callum said moving away from the beastkin.

  Anno nodded turning to walk away but then she stopped, her ears twitching. [Beastial Sense] wasn't a normal skill. It was something you usually couldn't get if you weren't a monster but Anno was a beastkin and this allowed her some advantages. The skill itself was a constant reminder she wasn't fully human, but it was also very helpful as an [Adventurer] warning her of potential danger and when she was being watched and it wasn't just in her head.

  She turned peering down a long hallway, it wasn't the way they had intended to go but something in it was watching her. Her blue eyes glowed as she activated [Darkvision] and spotted it. A small bat, that... oh... oh Uniter it had a rib pushed out of its back, and some of the wing bones were jutting out as well. And it was... it was watching them, with... curiousity? She wasn't sure it was hard to tell both because of the distance and the fact it was a bat.

  "There's... there's a bat down that hallway?"

  The bat seemed to startle, as if it understood her, it turned and began to crawl away. That was odd, she used [Inspect] on it. There was... a delay? [Inspect] never had a delay, it either worked or got blocked.

  Name: Alice

  Race:

  HP: 2/35

  Mana: 0/20

  

  What? System messages on the [Status Screen]? And of this nature... what was this bat.

  Alice felt uncomfortable, not only because she had been noticed, not only cause she was struggling to escape these Humans, but because... she felt... hands, hands searching along her body, gently caressing its every crevice, one sliding into her wound and running a finger along her heart, tracing it, tapping with its frantic beating. It was so wrong, everything felt wrong, she didn't like this feeling, she didn't like whatever was happening, and she swore she could hear the slightest whisper.

  "Wait!" The blue haired woman called out towards her, Alice couldn't just wait! She needed to escape!

  "Anno wait don't!" The man she had struck called out.

  She heard a flash and suddenly the entire hallway was filled with light.

  Alice turned her head, the four Humans were gone... and in their place was a treasure chest? She had missed where the blue haired one had stepped on a trap, she didn't even know traps could be in this maze, but what she saw now... was a chest, a treasure chest. Maybe... maybe something that could help her?

  

  Alice moved, crawling to the chest, she wasn't sure how to open it... but eventually she decided to just slam her body against it, over and over. If she knocked it over then the lid should open!

  

  

  

  One more slam! She had to, she had no choice, she put everything into and then the chest tipped over... its lid ever so slightly ajar... as Alice climbed in to find her prize...