As water gushed forth from the waterfall, Adon looked, fascinated, back and forth between the source of the flow, at ceiling height, and the ground level, where the overflow was flooding the canyon.

  There were so many questions running through his mind at this sudden turn of events.

  Is this something that happens periodically in level two, or is it something that the dungeon triggered just now? Something that our side triggered? If it happens periodically, how is it survivable? Is it something that stops on its own? How high is that water going to go? How often does this place flood? How does the water affect these winged creatures’ ability to hunt?

  These were the essential questions, in Adon’s mind, that would affect how he and his allies handled the flooding on this level.

  As he watched, the creatures at ground level began altering their behavior in response to the slowly rising water level. The griffin stirred, rose to its feet, and then flapped its wings and took to the air, turning its back on the strixes without apparent hesitation and flying back toward the area of the cliffside from which it had emerged. Adon observed it duck into one of the larger caves that dotted the cliffside.

  So that’s where it came from.

  The moment the griffin landed was when the strixes took off from the ground, all moving at the same time as if in response to a common signal—though the butterfly definitely would have noticed if they were using Telepathy. Adon detected relief from them that the griffin had left its position first. There was some apprehension of danger if they had to flee from the space while the griffin was still positioned to strike quickly. They flew back up out of harm’s way before the water was deep enough to do more than moisten their legs. The wounded bird flew in an ungainly fashion, dripping precious red pearls of liquid from its abdomen, but it still flew. And its bleeding was noticeably less pronounced than it had been several minutes earlier.

  Adon continued watching the ground, waiting to see if any other creatures made their moves.

  But it took another couple of minutes before the true consequences of the flood revealed themselves.

  The water began to rise high enough to place the smaller sized dens near the ground mostly underwater, and finally, desperate and fearful goblins emerged from the little holes they hid in—barely indentations in the two cliffsides in some cases—to crawl up the craggy rock faces and try to seek shelter elsewhere.

  Naturally, in those moments of exposure, the strixes and griffins struck.

  While the goblins were out in the open, Adon saw the stronger two species of monster come out in what appeared—from the memories he had spied on—to be full force. Over a dozen griffins and fifty to sixty strixes emerged from mid-sized and larger caves that were more common above ground level, and they dove at the goblins, tore them from the walls, and either ate them on the spot or carried them back to their own caves—the former being more common methodology from the griffins, the latter more common among the strixes which seemed to prefer slow death for their prey.

  Adon was wondering how there were any goblins left alive at all, if this flood had ever happened before, after the first handful of goblins were captured and killed.

  Then the strixes and griffins began fighting over the remaining specimens. A strix would set down next to a goblin only to be batted aside—perhaps even into the rising water!—by a griffin. Or a griffin would swoop down to grab a goblin only to be mobbed by a half dozen strixes, firing mana balls that forced the griffin to take evasive action.

  As skirmishes unfolded, it became obvious that the two rival species were more concerned with stopping their rivals from preying on the vulnerable goblins than they were with capturing food for themselves. It felt like an unnatural equilibrium to Adon, but he guessed that it was part of the deliberate design of the dungeon, because this dynamic was what allowed the vast majority of the goblins to reach safety above the flood waters.

  The flood waters rose to a certain level—not very high, to Adon’s surprise—around the height of an average man’s waist. Then they slowly began to recede. Interestingly, the waterfall did not appear to slow its flow by much until a minute after the water level had stabilized and started to fall. As best as Adon could tell, the many caves at waist height and below were a sort of drainage system, and the water had somewhere else to go rather than simply sitting in the little underground chambers. That almost had to be the case, because as soon as the waters drew near their normal level, the goblins quickly abandoned their new caves and began climbing back down the cliffside toward their points of origin.

  Adon knew why without needing to put much thought into it; the holes the goblins had hidden in above ground level were mostly too large for them. That might make them more comfortable, but it would also make it easier for their predators to enter and kill them. The height also took them further away from the mushrooms that appeared to be their only source of sustenance, which only grew at ground level within the chamber. The ceiling and cliff face had glowing moss growing on them, but there was no indicator to Adon that the goblins could or did eat that.

  As the green, miniature-human-like creatures descended, the griffins and strixes continued picking them off, but half-heartedly now and in smaller numbers. Almost all of them were exhausted on each side from the fierce but inconclusive fighting earlier.

  This is the strangest place I’ve ever been, Adon thought. This artificial balance is all just to make sure there are enough monsters to kill any humans that try to invade, I guess. But it’s just so complicated. How does the dungeon figure something like this out? Trial and error? Are there templates it follows?

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  More important than those questions into the capacities of the dungeon, Adon had observed that the flood lasted around fifteen minutes. Long enough that he suspected it could be deadly for humans caught in the water, but that depended on how willing to approach prey at the water level these winged monsters were. That had not truly been tested this time. The goblins wanted to be as far away from water level as possible during the flooding, so their predators could simply pick them off from the goblins’ positions on the cliffsides.

  Also, the two or three strixes that had been knocked into the water during the skirmishes had been noticeably slowed down afterward, suggesting that soaked feathers were not good for them. They lacked the Adaptations and Skills to act as aquatic birds.

  So maybe the flood would be the best time to descend…

  Adon wanted to gather a bit more information, so he fluttered, still invisible, after a strix as it glided into a cave where Adon guessed it made its home. Hopefully observing the creatures a bit more when they were in their dens would reveal some additional weaknesses or behavior patterns that would help his group make it through this floor.

  Adon’s current belief was that the trek could not be made without losses.

  The geography was the main reason why. The steep cliffsides, coupled with the flooding, meant there were too many moments where the knights would be guaranteed to be placed in vulnerable positions by the dungeon’s very design. Adon was also just guessing at how strong the griffins and strixes were relative to human magic wielders, but considering that the strixes used mana, and the griffins were nevertheless definitely stronger than them on an individual level, Adon was not optimistic about how well the knights would fare.

  And this is only level two, Adon thought. Shouldn’t it slowly get progressively harder? Did we skip a level or something? The last one was feeble lizardfolk, and this one is these avian monsters.

  As he reached the end of the cave, Adon saw the strix return to its nest, a bed of gently glowing moss. There was a single juvenile strix there, to Adon’s surprise—the small proportion of the strixes that he had identified had been female, so he had assumed that the dungeon simply spawned them as adults rather than the strixes laying eggs.

  The adult strix leaned over its young, which let out an ugly miniature version of the adult shriek. Then the fully grown version spat up some of the guts that it had apparently eaten earlier. The little bird opened wide to receive the bounty from its mother.

  And Adon just wished he was somewhere else.

  I kind of forgot that was a thing birds do…

  Still, he stood and watched, hoping and waiting for some weakness to show itself.

  The adult strix finished feeding the young one and then settled into its nest beside the juvenile. Adon continued waiting.

  The adult strix fell asleep, and Adon considered just killing it, then decided it was pointless. There were scores more of these things, he was on a stealth mission that would probably be compromised if he started trying to kill strixes, and he could not even be certain it would benefit his party.

  After all, the strixes and griffins were clearly hostile—perhaps more hostile to each other than they would ever be to any prey or outside groups. Who was to say that disrupting the balance between them by starting to kill off members of one group would be a good thing? It might just make it easier for the surviving group to go after the knights.

  With those thoughts in mind, and seeing that he would get no new information from the strixes in front of him, Adon returned to the entrance of the cave.

  Let’s try spying on the griffins instead, he thought.

  Adon fluttered out of the darkness and back into the light, but only stayed there for long enough to spot a large opening—the sort of larger opening that would lead to a space where he imagined only the griffins would live, since they were the largest and most in charge of the creatures in this level.

  He floated into that cavern, and he immediately saw a griffin stalking down the path just a few feet in front of him, moving deeper into this cave that was easily more than large enough even for human habitation. It held a dead goblin in its jaws, though it seemed in no hurry to swallow the creature. Identify confirmed that the griffin was a male.

  And Adon flapped after him without hesitation.

  The griffin continued walking, without much apparent sense of urgency, until it came to a place where the cave opened up completely. Suddenly, Adon and the monster were no longer in an isolated tunnel-like space. No, there was a large openness behind the cave, and as Adon looked around, he realized that other large caves emptied into this large space too.

  Adon saw a group of seven griffins all gathered together, which the griffin he followed moved to approach.

  Some of the griffins lived in the other cliffside, Adon recalled. The total number of them is higher than I had realized. So, some of these guys didn’t bother coming out to fight before, despite being pretty outnumbered…

  It took him only a moment of observing to understand why.

  As Adon watched, the griffin that he had been following approached another griffin that was lying on the ground near the back of the cavern. The other griffin twisted her body around to turn toward the griffin Adon was following. The male griffin dropped its goblin beside the other’s body, and then the two monsters nuzzled each other affectionately.

  They were clearly a mated pair, and even if Adon had not Identified the male earlier, he would not have needed it to figure out which one was the male and which was the female. The one that had been lying down, by twisting her body position, had revealed to Adon’s gaze that she was heavily pregnant. As Adon watched the two parents necking, the unborn creature in the mothers’ womb seemed to twist and writhe inside of the female’s body.

  The butterfly looked around and located another female who was also pregnant. That explained why not all of the griffins’ forces had made it to the battle. Some of them were busy with more long term work.

  Both sides are fighting for their young, Adon thought. Their young or their pregnant mates. This situation keeps being less and less what I would expect from a bunch of mindless monsters just created to prey on humans…