The next room the pair found was comparatively much less exciting. Traps tended to be less exciting than monsters, after all. Lucian noticed them before they triggered any of them, an unnatural looking hole in the wall.

  He had summoned his sword before entering the room, and waved it down past the hole. A sharpened fragment of stone shot out from it, embedding itself into the far wall like a dart in a board.

  Annabelle shined her light around, and they were able to identify several other suspicious holes that after being tested by Lucian putting his sword in their path proved to also shoot rock darts. Notably, they triggered even from the far side of the room. Anything in their path from them until the opposite wall caused them to activate. They could go off a second time, but only after a delay of about half a minute - more than enough time for them to walk past one after manually triggering it.

  The next room had more monsters and another set of closed doors. As they entered the room they saw a set of three spherical blue gems laying on the ground on the other side of the room. The spheres flashed with a dull light and floated up into the air, rocks and streams of dust gathering in swirls around them like planetary rings. They were golems like the monsters before, but different. They floated further into the air and spread out.

  Lucian dashed forward towards the closest one. As he moved, the other two reacted. Some of the stones orbiting them glowed with a white light for a second before separating from the orbiting rings, hanging in the air for a moment before shooting towards Lucian like bullets.

  “Careful!” Annabelle shouted as she saw the glow of them activate a skill. Lucian leapt upwards as soon as she spoke, glancing towards the other golems as the stone shards impacted the ground around where he had stood, peppering it with fragments of stone.

  “Of course they’re the ranged type…” Lucian cut downwards as he reached the apex of his jump, aiming for the golem floating ahead of him. It lurched backwards out of his reach, propelled by an unseen force.

  Lucian landed and gestured up at an angle, “[Cleaving Wind]!” A blade of wind collided with the golem, knocking rocks and dust out of its orbit and pushing it back through the air against the wall of the room behind it. Lucian leapt at it again, and this time with the wall behind it it was unable to get out of the way. His sword cut through its core, and the remaining rocks and dust simply fell to the ground.

  The other two golems went down in a similar fashion. They peppered Lucian with ranged attacks. Several did hit him, but the impacts were dampened by [Spirit Barrier], bruising him rather than penetrating his flesh.

  One of the golems strayed too close to a wall closer to Annabelle, allowing her to use [Tanglethorns] from the rocky surface of the wall. The orb tried to pull away from the vines, but lacked the mass and strength to break free - making it an easy target for Lucian.

  The last golem fell when it dodged out of the way of Lucian’s attack only for him to use his [Ring of Wall-Clinging] to adhere to the wall he had leapt at and immediately lunge at it again, managing to strike its core. As the last golem fell, the doors at the end of the room slowly opened.

  The next room had a set of 4 golems with 2 of the floating golems providing ranged cover. Annabelle opened the fight with two casts of [Tanglethorns], binding two of the golems which were dispatched immediately by twin blows from Lucian. The other two ground bound golems were equally quick to fall, and the flying ones were more annoying to deal with but fell as well.

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  There was no set of doors to another room in this one, but there was a nook in the far wall where a stone chest like the ones they had previously found items in. After briefly checking the walls and floor for suspicious holes, Lucian dismissed his sword and opened the box.

  A small silver ring with a light blue gemstone embedded in it laid at the bottom of the box. Lucian took it out and examined it.

  “Annabelle, wanna help me put this on real quick?” He asked. She came over and slipped the ring onto his index finger.

  “Neat… I definitely don’t need it, I have my skill. It would be better for you.” Lucian used his thumb to push the ring up his finger and off, turning his palm up and letting the ring fall into it. He handed it to Annabelle.

  “Thank you kindly.” She smiled and slipped the ring onto her left hand, “Oh, I can feel that change. That feels… Weird… But good weird, not bad weird…” She mumbled, looking down at the band on her finger.

  “That’ll help us a lot with our recovery times.” Lucian smiled, satisfied. In addition to the magic item, they had each leveled up once from clearing out the rooms to get to it.

  Lucian had also managed to get a skill level in [Manifested Proficiency], bringing it up to level 6 like [Manifest Weapon].

  “Not bad at all. If it feels lighter, presumably I can swing it faster, which adds onto the flat bonus from [Manifest Weapon] itself. Neat.” Lucian mused to himself as he reviewed his gains.

  Annabelle had hit level 26, and leveled up [Tanglethorns], increasing their durability.

  The pair briefly rested before heading back through the rooms they had cleared, bypassing the traps as before, and returning to the main chamber. They moved to the next branching path, and pushed onward - they had more dungeon to clear.