The other group had made a single foray to floor four. Killed one pack of mobs before heading back for the surface. So while we were confident we would have no issues, the fights on four were the first ones we felt needed a bit more caution in our approach. If anything, just to get us into good habits for the next floor, where we would need to fight properly. So while we did split up, we stayed within sight of each other and started leapfrogging rather than heading off in different directions.

  I took a certain amount of satisfaction in seeing my friends sending a variety of spells out, even if it was pretty clear they preferred the melee weapons. This resulted in us taking longer to find the stairs down, but in the process, it let both groups get a feel for how the other fought. Kelysey’s growth interested me the most, though; she had picked up what she called Storm weapon, which rounded out the damage types she could use through her bow. We pulled some of the more valuable components from what we killed, but mostly left it, all convinced the more valuable loot would be found on floor six.

  All in all, half an hour later, we finally found the elusive flight down to five. A game of rock-paper-scissors later, and my party ‘won’ the honour of back-tracking and marking the route to the stairs. Ten minutes of jogging, and two roaming packs later, and we had returned to the stairs up to three, only to find a group of eight locals staring at our crude chalk markings.“You beat us down?” the first said in a gruff tone. “Unusual, I don’t like unusual.”“Gatekeeper said there were ten of you? Push too hard and lose half your number? Maybe don’t go beyond your skill,” the one behind him sniggered.

  We watched the eight of them head down the corridor, then turn off from the trail we had marked. “Think they will be trouble?” Peachy asked.“I hope not,” I muttered.“I’ve already messaged the other group to be on guard,” Darksider said, before turning and updating the first marker with the signs for the route to the stairs.

  We heard fighting in the distance but saw no sign of the men as we returned the others. From their state, it looked like our friends had used the time clearing some of the nearby rooms.

  “Ready?” Voices asked. We all nodded. Peachy and Voice faced each other and then smacked their fists into the other's hand three times and threw a symbol. Peach sighed, and Voice took the lead, heading down. Floor five, we had decided, we were going to do properly. Treat every room like it were completely unknown.

  Voice took the lead, Sam and I close enough for support, Daisy behind as his healer. The other DPS and Jacobs would then follow suit, with Peachy taking up the rear, ready to tank any roaming groups sneaking up on us.

  G won the throw-off for the first challenge room. It involved him climbing up a chimney while carrying a thick power cable. At one point, the hand holds switched sides, forcing him to throw himself across the gap. Not long after that, the gap shrank down, forcing him to walk up it with his hands on one side and feet on the other.“None of us going to talk about how this room is twice the height of the stairs we came down?” George asked. We all looked at him, then up at the disappearing body of G as he pulled himself out of sight. “No.” Kelsey declared. Who then scowled at a grinning Sam when he scruffed her hair.

  G fell from above, accompanied by a whining noise. We looked up to see his descent slow as he gave us a huge grin. He was gripping a handle secured to a line which disappeared upward. When G let go, it retracted up into the shadows above. “That was fun. Tempted to climb back up just to do it again!” he said, laughing, and he then tossed a crafting crystal at Kelsey. “Possible bow upgrade.” She caught it one-handed, a surprised look on her face. “Thank you.”

  We cleared a couple of roaming machine fights and found another room with the hanging plant creatures. I grudgingly let others use their Fireball spells and did the mature thing of not sulking while being on watch as I heard maniacal laughter coming from my friends in the room with fire weak creatures.

  “This seems like a letdown…” Kelsey said.“I think we got lucky. The next floor should be a challenge…” Daisy said.“Was it this dead last time you were here?” Voice asked.“No," I said. “There were shops over there, you could get repairs from someone there…” I pointed to the various spots. “I wonder when they will come down, or if someone has to tell them the route is marked…”“The teleporter looks dead compared to how it looked before…” Jacobs said.“Our turn to update the markings?” Voice asked. “Should we stick together?” I asked, turning to look at him and the others.“I think we should be OK, none of the roamers was much of a threat. Maybe next level if it escalates like it has been…”“Makes sense,” Peachy agreed. “With how this floor has gone, next time we should probably just split up…”

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  I headed over to the teleporter and took a look. Ahh, yeah, it looks like it just needed to be turned on. I took a look at the error log; there were very few, practically none, in comparison to how previous days had shown. Hopefully a good thing… I really do need to find a manual for these things…

  Peachy gave Voice a pointed, almost polite cough.“But I won…” he said.“For this floor,” she corrected.“Fine,” he brought his fist into his open hand.

  Peachy and Jacobs led us onto the sixth floor. No one challenged me for my spot.

  The lanterns came out as soon as we hit the floor below. It wasn’t pitch black, but it wasn’t far from it. I could see the same light boxes which had been the floors above, but maybe only one in ten of them was producing any light. The distant thrumming was echoing more audibly. I could also feel a faint vibration from the metal walkway in the round tunnel that made up the corridor. The path we took followed a moist breeze; the rotten egg smell of sulfur built as we proceeded.

  “No side passageways? No rooms? We take the wrong direction?” George asked after a couple of minutes of our progress, and we hadn’t seen anything other than an occasional flickering light.“It’s starting to feel that way…” G responded.“The banging is getting louder…” Peachy said. “And I see some light coming up…”

  The corridor came to an abrupt end at a ninety-degree turn to a closed door. We exchanged quick looks, and then Peachy reached out and hit the button to open the door.

  The door opened onto a parallel corridor to the one we had spent several minutes traversing. The biggest difference, though, was that this one had a glass window on the other side, and what reminded me of a track running down the middle. I followed Peachy into the corridor and moved over to the window to look down. A couple of floors below us, a bright red glow lit up the area. It came from molten metal being poured. It was split into multiple different channels and then vanished beneath a series of machines which separated, spun, extruded, twisted or simply pounded the metal into different shapes. I’d seen videos of industrial forges working to scale… and this made them look small in comparison. “In!” A hand pushed my back, and I found myself up flat against the glass. I heard a rumble and then felt the whoosh of something slamming past me at high speed. The vacuum in its wake yanked me away from the window.

  I stumbled and turned to see the tail end of a sealed cart rumble on and out of view. “Everyone, OK?” Jacobs asked.“That was close, but yeah,” Darksider said.“Thanks,” I said to Voice after realising he was the one who had ensured I was out of the way. He nodded and turned to check on Daisy, who was on his other side.

  “What are we looking at?” Kelsey asked.“Large-scale production facility. Those look like the armour sections from the Python robots,” Darksider said, pointing at one machine's output. “Those look like parts from the mecha mastiffs…” pointing at the neighbouring machine.

  “Left or right?” Peachy asked as she started moving.“Left,” several of us said together in response to her rhetorical question. Though the rumble gave us enough warning now to duck in up against the windows in time to see another of the six-foot carts screech past. The corridor we followed had a curve to it. It took us over the large-scale forging room and then into a dark stretch. Every minute or so, a rumbling indicated an incoming cart. After a couple of minutes of walking and dodging, we eventually came across a pair of doors facing each other. “It looks like we are walking a large circle…” George said. “This door is 45 degrees from the first one…”“So we are an eighth of the way around it?” Sam asked.“I think so…” George said. “Left door,” Peachy said as she approached it. “The button isn’t responding.” She tried the opposite side with the same effect. “Guess we move on then…” We collectively sighed in disappointment. So far, Floor Six was underwhelming. I looked at the door as I stepped past it in disappointment, and my glasses showed me something unexpected… the power line wasn’t getting to the control pad…“Hang on…” I said, then pressed myself flat against the door as another cart screamed past.

  The toolbelt actually gave me a crowbar when I dropped my hand next to it, which let me open up one of the panels and get a look inside. One of the cables was unplugged and had somehow wrapped itself around the other cables, so it wasn’t able to reach where it should have been plugged in. Small hands for the win, I was able to get my fingers in the gap, unravel the cable and then slip it into its socket.

  I hit the button, and the door opened up.