Dungeon Annihilation 3 - 10

Good morning!

Louella

We filled the mana stone as far as we could, but only got it to twenty-seven percent. Nazir told us that it would record our level if we had to leave. I was happy about that little feature and motion for the others to head back into the Envy workshops. Since we were blocked from heading to the next floor, we would have to settle for cultivating here and doing some window shopping.

“Lady Louella?”

Turning at the voice, I spotted Ioa heading toward us with her party. They were fully decked out making me wonder if they had also found the passage to the next floor. They were more advanced when it came to dungeon diving.

“Ioa! Good to see you. I believe its your turn to guard me tomorrow,” I said once she got closer.

“Yes.” She glanced my party over. “Have you perchance found the entrance to the next floor?”

I realized almost instantly that she was still searching. That gave me a good idea since it was still early in the morning, my party could rest and fill up another chunk of the stone then Ioa’s party could do the other half. Then both parties will be able to move on to the next floor. It was a win-win situation.

I motioned for her to bend down so I could whisper in her ear. She was almost a head or two taller than I was and I was tall for a woman. I quickly explained my plan to her and she agreed wholeheartedly. If I had been a profession adventurer, then something like this would never have happened. The fastest parties were the ones that got the most profit after all.

We had to rejoin the que to get into the building, but it was only a signal party by this point. Obvsersing the people leaving, I noticed that none of them came out with new weapons or armor. While this was common given that people could pay in mana over a set amount of time, the fact that so many parties had been here this morning told me they might have been onto the passage.

As we waited, I noticed that Ioa coughed several times. “Are you feeling well?”

“I’m alright. I’ve had a cough since coming into the dungeon this morning.”

“Should I have our healer take a look?”

“That won’t be necessary, we almost all have light magic. Healing is something we excel at even without Lelune’s blessing.”

“I see. Let me know if it gets worse.”

I heard a few coughs from other people that were walking through the dungeon. Some were complaining about nasua or headaches. I drew in a sharp breath before grabbing Cassie.

“Excuse us for a minute. I need to discuss something with her,” I told the others and pulled her into the alley next to the shop. I made sure we were alone. “Can you make a barrier against sound?”

“Sure, one of the first things people with air mana learn,” she replied then waved her hand. The low whistle of the wind soon entered my ears. Just to be safe, I grabbed her shoulders and leaned in close. It was just that important that no one overhear us. My time as a noble taught me that plenty of people learned how to read lips and it was never safe to trust even silencing magic. “Countess Louella! I’m not sure this is wise! We’re in public!”

“Quiet. Have you noticed that people are having issues when they come into the dungeon?”

“Huh? I mean sure, I’ve noticed people complaining about this or that, but nothing too serious. I find it hard to blame the dungeon for headaches and some slight coughing.”

“Tell me, you don’t think the dungeon might be poisoning people?”

Cassie instantly grew serious as she considered it. “I… I really doubt it. If it were poisoning more people in each group would be getting sick. At the moment, only a few people have gotten sick and there have been entire parties that didn’t show any signs of illness. Not to mention the symptoms are all over the place.”

“That’s true.” Mary had gotten nauseous while Ioa had a cough. The other person I heard mentioned a headache. While I had noticed other people coughing, it was never continuous and thus hard to say it was for the same reason. They might have just choked on some spit. Even I had done that before. “Maybe I’m just overreacting.”

“No. Its good to be cautious. Especially with this dungeon, but like I said the facts just don’t add up.”

“Alright.” I sighed, not sure if I was happy to be told I was wrong or upset that I was wrong. “Let’s get back to the others.”

“Everything okay?” Ezal asked once we rejoined the group.

“Yeah. Cassie was helping me put to bed a stupid worry.”

We went back to waiting for the party in front of us to be done in the shop. “Hey! So how far have you and Flin gone?” Raven asked Mary with her arm slung around her like they were best friends. She had been all over the girl since we came into the dungeon. Or at least since Flin let it slip that the two might as well be a couple.

Mary had a large blush and was trying to turn her head away while Flin looked to the side awkwardly. “You know… the usual,” she replied her voice barely going above a whisper.

“Ehh… You’re no fun!” Raven cried throwing her hands up before she set her eyes on me. With an almost devilish grin she slid up next to me. “And how about you? How far have you gone with the good old marquis?”

I narrowed my eyes at her. She knew that I was technically seeing her boss. “Well… about as far as one would expect of our positions.”

“Huh. So nothing here,” she retorted before she moved onto to Cassie, where she got several levels more touchy-feely. She might as well have been groping the cat-kin.

With those shenanigans happening, it was finally our turn to enter the shop again. Nazir glanced up. “Back so soon?”

“Yep. Same as earlier. Is it possible to add these people to our mana stone?”

“Sure. I don’t care,” he replied before he went back to hammering. For all intents and purposes, I felt we ceased to exist to him.

With all the members of the two parties pouring in their mana, we just barely had enough to fill the stone. A slot under the stone opened, and a token dropped out. We cheered before we went back to teleport matrix. It was hard to not rush since we’d be the first to see a brand new floor. I felt particularly excited since when I looked up at the lights on the outside of the tower, I’ll know that they moved up due to me.

With everyone piled onto the platform, I tapped the rune and there was a flash like usual before we found ourselves in the middle of a jungle. The amount of color was simply amazing. I couldn’t stop my gaze from wandering.

“And here I thought the dark and grim theme was going to last forever,” Ioa commented as she also looked around. The profoundness I was getting seemed to pale in comparison to Ioa’s and her party’s. They were all elves. You usually had to look pretty hard to find an elf that didn’t love nature. To find it in the middle of this murder tower must have made them a bit happier.

“What should we do? Stick together or split up?” Tez asked Ioa. We were technically two parties.

“We should scout the immediate area then meet back up here in case anything dangerous is found. It would take a fool to rush into the unknown without any preparations.”

“Sounds good. We’ll take the south, if you’ll take the north, swing around clockwise then meet back in the center?” Tez proposed.

“Sounds good.”

~~~

“AH! This is worth a thousand gold in the capital! How the hell did it find its way here?!” Cassie shouted. “These are so rare that there is a queue for them!”

Her hands were shaking as they hovered over a purple petaled flower that was partially hidden by a bush. Taking a closer look, I could definitely feel the mana washing off the flower. Cassie looked like she wanted to take it, but I was sure that we couldn’t just pick something like this without specialized knowledge to prevent damaging.

“Forget the capital. The mage’s guild here in town has a request out for these. We can get ten gold per flower!” Cane shouted back pointing to a field of flowers. They looked relatively normal with brown petals. “We can take these without worrying about getting them to a distance city in one piece.”

He didn’t wait for us to reply and reached out to take one of the flowers. A few seconds later, he yelled as his arm was wrapped in vines that started to drag him into the field of flowers. “Cane!” we all shouted.

Ezal threw a fireball just passed Cane in the confusion. “Wait!” Cassie shouted but it was too late.

The fireball hit the brown petaled flowers which proceeded to exploded with tremendous force throwing us all back several meters. My head and ears ringing, I coughed as dust filled the area. The areas of my body that had exposed skin felt like they had a bad sunburn. Sitting up, I tried to find everyone.

It looked like everyone that was outside the flower field was fine. I saw that Cassie, who barely wore much in the terms of armor, had fairly pink skin now. “Where’s Cane!?” I demanded in between coughs. Cassie used some wind to clear the area of debris.

Before we could find the man, I felt a pulse of mana from next to me. Ezal who was laying prone, had a red glow around her. The pulses grew in intensity as I watched. I tsked and quickly crawled over to her. “Ezal!” I slapped her across the face. It was dangerous to breakthrough while unconscious. There was a chance that your pool could explode.

“EZAL!” I put a little more strength into it and slapped her again. She snapped awake with a hilarious expression for the situation but quickly grew serious as she realized that she was undergoing a breakthrough. I turned back to the others. “Leave her to me. Find Cane!”

I was worried by the fact that there hadn’t been any noise from the man. The explosion was enough to throw us all several meters. Him being point blank like that… I feared the worse. The others would have to find him, my attention was on Ezal.

She knelt on the ground breathing heavily as the pusling grew rapidly. Fire mages had the most violatitoal of breakthroughs. Once people breakthrough, the universe fills their mana pool. With the case of fire mages, this usually meant that everything around them started to burn including the air they needed to breath.

I focused and used my lightning to block some of the fire mana to create a small hole for air to reach Ezal. If it went on for too long then it might not be enough but that usually never happened. “Mistress!” I turned to see Tez carrying Cane that was missing an arm, part of his torso, and all of his hair. I was frankly amazed that he was still alive. Mary was channeling her healing into him as fast as she could.

“Take him to the teleport matrix! We’ll be fine!”

“But we can’t leave you completely unguarded this deep in the dungeon!” Tez argued. Cane started coughing completely covering Tez’s front in blood.

“Just do it! Inform Ioa if you see her!”

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