With everyone awake, including Lucy who had been having what appeared to be a terrible nightmare, they gathered themselves and whatever weapons and things they had dropped during the fight and headed down the stairs. It was about 30 feet down when the room opened up to a room that seemed to be strangely lit, until they noticed that the room was lined with reflective crystals and there were holes leading to the outside of the mountain letting light in. It was a stunning use of light and reflection, almost a work of art in how it lit the room creating a sense of playful relaxation. The spiral stairs came down on one side of the room, the center had another podium or pedestal with a handrail sticking out from it like the end of the last floor.
“Should we wait until we are all healed and rested before we go into the next floor?” Bethany asked.
“I think we should move on, then rest in the third floor's safe zone, it's possible there's a timer for the whole place and each floor gets harder the longer we take on the previous one.” Beau argued. He was looking at Lucy and how she still hadn’t shaken off the fear effect yet, probably wanting to hopefully help her with a change of scenery.
“It is possible, I have no objections,” Eli added.
Everyone else shook their head or shrugged, so Eli motioned for everyone to grab the rail and again, in a blink, they were in a new safe room. He was worried that they were moving between floors too quickly, missing out on something that might be there like a treasure of a crafting material or something. The odds of this being the case, he thought, were pretty low, but he would just have to put his foot down and stay after the end of the next floor. From the humidity, the damp stone walls and general authentic cave feel of the safe room they were in, this floor was going to be very wet. Also, from the text next to the door leading out of the safe room, it would need to go quickly since it read:
“Resolve the floor before the poison takes you.”
Eli sighed and motioned for the others to read it, after they all had, he started laying out how this floor would go in an authoritative tone. “I’m doing this one alone, maybe letting Beau and Cody join if their resistance and vitality are high enough. The information given seems more specific than it is, we can tell a lot about it by what it doesn’t say.” Eli cleared his throat, he didn’t like speaking with authority like this, he had his reasons this time. “It doesn’t say how long it's going to take, most likely because it will be different depending on how high your defensive stats are. Also, it doesn’t say anything about avoiding the poison, which means it's probably in the air or water. Lastly, we will have to close the safe room door, safe rooms contain purified magic which would cleanse poison. I doubt they would leave a loop hole like that, so I bet the door needs to be closed before we can complete the test.”
Mostly everyone nodded, Bethany looked upset that she didn’t get to go but she knew it was for the best, she was focused on reaction, then strength, then vitality, resistance was one of her worst stats. Lucy looked relieved she would get to rest, hopefully the girls can talk out whatever Lucy’s issue was, Eli was upset at how much difficulty she was having. Half because he worried about her, and half because she wasn’t going to be very useful until she could get her head on straight. He wasn’t going to kick her out of his group or anything but he knew that she would get pretty depressed if she felt useless, not to mention she won't get stronger if she can’t go out with them and fight.
Cody looked like he was on the fence about going, he probably had the highest resistance stat aside from Eli, but his other stats were not very impressive. Eli knew that he would go if asked but probably didn’t want to. Beau wanted to go, but didn’t feel he had the stats for it, he was strength and wisdom focused with resistance and vitality being his lowest, but his armor might protect him and since he had just recently leveled the skill, it was getting easier to maintain it for long periods of time. The problem for Eli was, he wasn’t sure if he could even open the door again after he closed it, and if the poison is in the air or even the water, it could get into the safe room if he didn’t close it.
So the plan was for Eli to solo clear this floor as fast as possible, and with no one to protect, no ice to slip on or mountain to fall off of, he hoped it would be simple. He stood at the door, ready to open it, get out and close it as fast as he could, the plan was that if they ended up getting the poison, they would come out so they could stick together. But if he could get out without letting the poison in, he would be able to not worry about them while he was pushing through this floor. As quickly and smoothly as he could, he opened the door just wide enough to get himself out then closed it behind him. Just like the other floors he was in a cave, a small cave about 8 feet wide and tall, that was about twenty feet long ending at a waterfall.
Before anything else, Eli wanted to know when he was being poisoned and how fast it was spreading, so he did a minute or two of meditation. Looking inward, he was shocked with how insanely chaotic his internal magic was, it was so hard to parse things apart from one another that he wasn’t sure he would even notice poison. Last time he had checked on his internal magic it was like a calm lake, controlled and smooth, right now however, it was like he was in a storm with large waves crashing into each other from all directions. He took a very slow and deep breath in, and while holding it, he pressed down on his magic, asserting his active control over it. It started to get better almost immediately, after a minute it was about half as crazy, then another minute and it was half as crazy again.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
With the diminishing returns on his attention to inner magic, he stopped after about ten minutes, it wasn’t perfect, but he was reasonably sure that he would be able to sense poison in his magic. Walking out to touch the water, he had cupped some of it in his hands, then he realized that his body might be poisoned with something that isn't magical, so he would have to pay attention to it more closely than he was used to. The first instinct after this realization was to use his light spell since it purified his magic and body in order to give him the boost in stats and magic potency. However, with the spell running, it would be more difficult to notice what poisoned him, when it poisoned him, and how long he would be able to handle it.
Eli stepped through the waterfall, the water's depth changed abruptly and he sank down. His first reaction was to swim out of the water, but something shiny at the bottom caught his eye so he stayed in the middle of the waterfall pond for a minute just observing his surroundings. Being able to hold his breath for extended periods meant he could take his time and study the pond better. The water was crystal clear and with the sun overhead, he could get a good view of what was under the water. The pond was mostly circular, about 30 feet across and the same distance deep, while the edges of the pond were steep and rocky, the bottom was sandy and flat. The only noise he could hear was from the waterfall continuing the drop into the pond, but he could also hear a faint humming coming from the bottom, where a shiny white stone had caught his eye immediately after entering the water.
Before going after the stone, he checked his body and magic for poison, finding nothing and having a hard time deciding if that was good or bad. It was good that his time limit hadn’t started yet, but it was bad if he was poisoned and just didn’t know it yet. With no other signs of trouble, Eli swam down to the bottom and picked up the stone, his hands tingled from its touch so he put it back down out of caution. With no visible marks and the sensation not causing pain, he picked it back up and swam to the surface holding the stone in one hand, it was just barely small enough that he could manage to hold it like that. As his head broke the surface of the water he started to look around, getting his first view at what this floor contained.
He was in a pond with a waterfall at his back and in front of him was a massive jungle basin with what looked like 3 levels in rings with the center being the deepest. Five different large creeks or small rivers fed the basin creating 5 waterfalls per level of the basin with a pond at the bottom of each one. The center was a hole where the five water systems fell in, but it didn’t seem to be filling up. There were tropical plants and flowers all over each of the three levels as well as vines hanging off the edge of the levels. Everywhere he looked was green foliage, but not so much that it blocked his view, the trees and taller plants were sparse, but the vines, flowers and grass were thick in every direction.
Swimming over to the edge of the pond he had a greater appreciation for how steep the edges of the pond were, when climbing out with one hand was a bit too awkward, he tossed the rock to the shore and pushed himself up. Standing he could see even better how this floor was designed, unlike with the last floor, it was obvious what the goal was. The water kind of made it seem like it was something in the middle, but it all just disappeared in a hole, so it didn’t feel like an objective. Looking around more to get a better sense of the place, each level of the basin was slanted down toward the center and from 300 to 500 feet wide, the cliffs that separated the levels were very tall. He guessed that they were 300 to 500 feet tall, this place looked far more natural than the previous floors, everything was varied and random with some parts of a level being more flat and others slanted down steeply. The width and height of each level also varied depending on where you were, it all just felt more natural.
Eli reached down to pick up the shiny stone, but stopped himself right before touching it. The stone wasn’t white anymore, it was green, not a healthy green like the plants, but a sickly green with light parts that were vaguely yellow. Focusing on the stone, he got a better feel for its magic, and it was poison, some kind of flesh eating poison if he had to guess from the flavor of the magic. He thought about how this place was set up, and tried to guess how the stone factored into the puzzle but he didn’t have any other information so he decided to go get some. He took off walking around the upper ring where he came out of the safe room, coming to the next pond and waterfall, he noticed that there was another stone at the bottom and when he threw it out of the water, this one turned purple.
After making it all the way around the top level of the basin, he had found that each stone was a different color, there was the green and purple ones, plus yellow, red, and black. All of the magic from them felt close to the same, just different kinds of poison, except the black one that felt like a curse or hex, it was strictly magical, not affecting the body. With this raid dungeon being meant for fifteen to twenty people, and there being 15 ponds, this was probably meant for people to grab the stone they would be strongest against and try to endure its effects while they move it around. He could move them but he didn't know where, there wasn’t anything obvious around to indicate anything. Eli did another lap around the top layer looking for colors or symbols that would help him figure out which ones go where, but he was unsuccessful.
Being reasonably sure that he would be able to reset this whole thing if needed, he decided to follow his frustration and he grabbed the stone nearest him and threw it with most of his strength right into the hole in the middle of the basin. His aim wasn’t perfect, it bounced off the far edge of the center hole before it fell in. He wasn’t sure what to expect, so when nothing happened, he was confused, there was no way the puzzle for this floor was that easy, he thought. The only way to find out was to throw the rest of them in, so he went around and did it with the other four stones from the level he was on. Touching each one briefly left a lingering magic toxin, poison, hex, etc. that lasted 10 times the length of the time he had touched it. The effect got stronger the longer he held it and it got weaker as soon as he let go.
With all of the stones from the top layer of the basin in the center hole, Eli decided to wait it out and see if anything changed. After staring at the center for thirty minutes with nothing happening, he made his way to the edge and started looking for a way down. Despite his best efforts, it looked like the only way down was to climb or jump, which also meant that the only way up was to do the same. Climbing down did not look easy or fun, imagining climbing up was just as unappealing. Not wanting to waste anymore time, he jumped down to land in a pond below.
