The group arrived on the 15 th floor passing the traps they’d already disarmed. The heat bore down on them as they moved further in. After an hour of travel they finally reached their previous destination. They reached a hallway with two paths left and right and 5 doors on either side. Serena motioned for Cawthorn to look with her. They peaked around the edge revealing nothing. Cawthorn extended his wing indicating it was clear. The entire group proceeded silently to the first door on the left. Jenora opened it with her shield up to another empty room. Everyone sighed and walked in closing the door. Jenora commented. “I’m almost happy it’s been so consistent back here. Nearly every room has clearly been the residence of a skeletal mage.”

  Victor paused. “Wait it’s not the same when she does it?”

  Serena raised an eyebrow. “Does what?”

  Victor rolled his eyes. “I guess.”

  Emilie tapped the bottom of the desk and finally heard a jiggle. “I found something!” She flipped over and started banging on the bottom of the wooden desk. It broke loose revealing a dusty book. “A book?” She crawled out and put the book on the desk. It was covered in red and black, painted with blood and bound to a spine. She looked at the four of them. “I say we burn it.”

  “That’s what you said last time.” Victor glared.

  “Wait! We didn’t burn that did we?” Emilie suddenly realized. “Did we sell it?”

  “No, it’s being kept at 5 Star Road until we can sell it.” Victor noted.

  Emilie grumbled. “Fine, let me burn this one though.”

  Brice leaned forward. “Can we at least read it first?”

  Emilie scoffed. “Nothing good comes from reading an evil book.”

  Brice cracked open the book as the old pages opened. At a glance he noticed. “It’s a journal.”

  Victor leaned over. “May I?”

  Brice slid it toward him. He turned the page quickly. “That was fast. I’ll let you keep at it.”

  Victor sped through the book scanning with his eyes for anything important. Most of it was merely about keeping creatures in line here and using your sphere of undeath to create and control undead. He did find something interesting about 20 pages in which he read aloud. “Linking the labyrinths is impossible for us. Only Hurava has any chance of achieving that we are simply too weak. I fear addressing it with Hurava for he is quick to anger when a slave talks back to him. Our task is doomed to failure.”

  Serena looked at them confused. “Linking the labyrinths? Like there is another labyrinth nearby they wanted to tunnel to?”

  Jenora shook her head. “Who knows! Victor take the book we’ll read it at camp for any useful information.”

  Victor put it in his pack and they finished searching the room. The group emerged and proceeded to the next door which Jenora carefully opened again. The group entered to another similar room. Emilie checked the same spot under the desk and found another journal bound to bone. “Well this is going to be a trend.” She handed it to Victor.

  Victor opened it and started scanning it. “This book is about an alchemical ritual called Blood for Gold. It says you can convert Blood to gold but it says you can only do it once a day for coins equal to your rank. This sounds horrifyingly evil.”

  Emilie clapped quickly. “He understands! Undead are horribly evil it’s in their nature.”

  Swordie noted. “It is common.”

  Victor continued reading. “Well I’ve got a guess what was going on here now.”

  “Oh this is going to be good.” Swordie quipped.

  “Whatever was in charge here was creating skeletal mages. They created them to make 1 to 3 gold a day. I don’t know why exactly they would need that much money but if they had 1,000 skeletal mages they probably made more than 2,000 gold a day for whoever was in charge.” Victor analyzed slowly.

  “That’s preposterous this place existed for at least months, probably years. They might have created a literal million gold here if it was here for a couple years.” Emilie shocked into disbelief attempted to refute it.

  Serena tapped her chin. “If that’s true, where is the gold?”

  Brice raised his hand waiting patiently. They all waited on him and eventually he answered. “They are invested in alchemy to turn blood into gold. It’s possible they needed actual gold for a circle spell.”

  Victor raised an eyebrow. “This Necropolis, is it normal for something like this to exist? Do some undead just create it as a base or do they typically do it with a purpose?”

  Jenora turned to Victor. “Generally undead typically fall into two groups, created and converted. It’s exceedingly rare for a created undead to form a necropolis. Places like this form because someone became undead and formed a massive army of undead for some purpose.”

  Victor pulled out Swordie. “What spells cost the most gold?”

  Portal Rank 10

  Rarity: Divine

  Requirements: 1,000,000 Gold, Cost ????

  Circle Spell

  Mana Cost: 2900 Mana

  Draw a circle associated with another realm. This portal reaches other realms and allows free traversal while active. It deactivates normally reactivating at the cost of 1,000 gold for 1 minute of activation.

  Resurrection Rank 15

  Rarity: Ancient

  Requirements: 10,000,000 Gold, Level 141, Cost 320,000 stat points.

  Circle Spell

  Mana Cost: 10,000,000 Mana

  Cooldown: 100 years.

  Any life which has been ended in the past 100 years can be restored with at least a part of the creatures body or a possession which houses its soul.

  Victor stared at the page in disbelief for so long Brice looked over his shoulder. Brice also stood there in silence as Jenora went wide eyed over his shoulder. Serena tried to see with Emilie but it was above their eye line. Emilie irritatingly insisted. “What are you all looking at!?”

  Victor lowered the book. Both Serena and Emilie dropped their jaws completely silently. “People can be brought back from the dead?”

  Serena looked up at Victor. “That’s impossible right? There’s no way that’s true.”

  Swordie calmly and clearly noted. “It exists in slightly lower level forms as well however the limitations increase significantly as you reach lower rank versions of the spell.”

  “WHAT IS THE LOWEST RANK VERSION OF THE SPELL?” Emilie grabbed the book and shook Swordie violently. “SHOW ME!” Swordie brought it up.

  Return to Life Rank 11

  Rarity: Divine

  Requirements: 1,000,000 Gold, Level 101, Cost 10,000 stat points

  Circle Spell

  Mana Cost: 500,000 Mana

  Cooldown: 10000 Years.

  Any life ended in the past year may be returned to life provided you have the body. They will be returned to life in the state the body is currently in.

  Emilie sank to her knees. “It’s like he was ripped away from me all over again. Teasing me sadistically. What a sadistic angel.” A tear ran down her cheek.

  Brice somberly added. “We should have known that magic would be in the realm of the gods”

  Emilie frantically asked. “How do you reach level 101?” Swordie waited for a moment before bringing up the skill.

  Level Breaker Unranked

  Rarity: Ancient

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Requirements: Reach level 100, available for 24 hours after reaching level 100, Legendary Foe . Cost: 5 levels.

  Passive skill

  Allows you to surpass level 100. While you have this skill your experience gain is decreased significantly. If you lose this skill your level returns to 100.

  Emilie turned to Jenora with a tear still on her face. “All I have to do is reach level 141.”

  Jenora knelt down and hugged her. “Sorry dear. I know you want your mom and dad back.”

  Victor came to a sudden realization. “With this you could kill an undead and resurrect them back to life.”

  Serena put her hand to her mouth covering a gasp. “I couldn’t get my family back. I have no mana.”

  Brice said nothing causing Victor to turn to him. “Don’t you have someone you want to resurrect?”

  Brice smiled. “Elves that die have earned their long rest. I’ve never experienced that kind of loss.”

  Swordie noted. “Even if you achieved this skill you’d need the stats to actually activate it. Regardless this spell is not likely able to be cast by any of you in a hundred years, much less by all of you. Even if one of you reach that level and achieve it at most those of you who qualify would be able to reach a single cast, you couldn’t cast it again. Who would you chose? It is best not to dwell on resurrection and treat it as impossible.”

  Emilie didn’t have an answer. Jenora snapped at Swordie. “How can you ask her that.”

  “I ask because I must. Anyone else here raising the issue would hurt her. I am merely a book. It’s a question she must ask herself and even now she ponders it.” Swordie noted.

  Victor shook his head and looked at them. “We can ponder the existence of resurrections later. The other spell is what we should consider as a possibility. If they had 1000 skeletons for 2 years they’d undoubtedly have enough gold to create a portal . What realms would an undead want to go to?”

  Swordie noted. “There are other possible spells but these are the ones most expensive that may possibly relate to what the undead here was after.”

  Brice tapped his chin. “Well the most commonly traveled to realms are Heaven, Hell, and for cultists the Void.”

  Victor thought for a moment. “Is there a realm associated with a labyrinth?”

  Brice snapped his fingers. “The abyssal labyrinth! It connects the various realms as a sort of connective tissue. Why would Hurava create a necropolis to do that?”

  Victor started to think back to Zolvorn. “Zolvorn might have something to do with it. He said Gizixil was really angry at Lightbringer Luke for some reason, Kokoxol too. I think we might have stumbled on something huge but I’ve no idea what we’re supposed to do about it.”

  Emilie bolted to her feet and cracked her back stretching. “WE LEVEL.” She proclaimed louder than Cawthorn ever had before.

  Cawthorn concurred. “WE LEVEL! WE WILL BE THE HIGHEST LEVEL PARTY OF ALL TIME!”

  “Agreed.” Serena nodded. “We have to level up to accomplish anything.”

  Victor asked. “Is there anyone important we can tell about this?”

  Emilie clapped. “The token! Luke gave you a token, he said to meet someone who was it?”

  “Vanor I believe was the name, the leader of the Great Golden Guild in Kival.” Victor pulled out the coin. “We can go to Kival after we return anything we find her to the guild hall.”

  “Do we continue exploring here?” Brice asked.

  Emilie wiped away her tears. “Hell yes we do! I’m not coming out of here with no gold or artifacts! If they didn’t finish the circle they should have a massive truly colossal pile of gold somewhere.”

  Jenora nodded. “We should move to the next room soon.” They finished searching that room and proceeded to the room at the end of the hallway. She raised her shield and opened the door. A sudden blast met by a “Barrier Shield!” as fire washed around all of them igniting the door and scorching all of them.

  -53 Health

  “Regenerate! Regenerate! Regenerate!” Emilie quickly started each of them regenerating as Brice brought up his own barrier.

  Within the room a crystal block with a rune on it pointed directly at the door. “Barrier Shield!” Jenora charged at the block and everyone filtered in the room behind her. Another fireball hit just her. Everyone stepped out of the way and then Jenora did too. The rune stopped firing from atop its pillar. The rune glowed bright before glow dimming and then stopped. Emilie scrambled healing everyone up as they scanned the empty room.

  Cawthorn proclaimed “AN ARTIFACT!”

  Brice breathed deep. “It definitely is that.”

  Jenora sat down seemingly having taken very little damage. “Everyone alright?”

  Victor nodded and so did Serena. He turned to Cawthorn. “Well how are we supposed to carry something blasting us with fireballs all the time?”

  Serena sighed. “Everyone stand back.” Everyone backed to the edges of the luxurious wide room filled with similar tools and books. Serena threw a dagger over the cube with a rune etched in it. Nothing happened, she tried again throwing a dagger in front of it, and nothing happened once again. After that she dashed over and waved her hand above it leaping away immediately after. Nothing happened. “It only seems to fire when a living creature is directly in front of it.”

  Victor pulled out Swordie. “Swordie can you evaluate the item in front of us and let us know if there is anything we can do with it?”

  Crystal Rune Stone Fireball Rank 3

  Rarity: Rare

  Permanent Artifact

  Casts fireball at living targets in front of the Crystal Rune stone. After 5 casts for the day stops casting until the next day.

  “It wouldn’t be hard to carry the rune out of this place if we trigger it 3 more times then we just face it to the ground while it’s in a bag.” Brice mused.

  Serena sighed. “Give me speed boost and vitality boost.”

  Victor and Emilie did the same with Emilie adding regenerate. She walked to the door and ran to the other side then back again and again until it threw its last 3 fireballs. She tried once more and it clearly had gone dull. She walked up to it and picked it up. “Well we got one.” Serena smiled.

  Victor threw his arms up. “Our first artifact!”

  Jenora outstretched her arms and Emilie rushed to hug her. “We got one! We actually found one! It didn’t take weeks either!”

  Serena smiled at Victor with the artifact in hand. “One down, thousands to go, lets search the room.”

  The group began searching the room and unlike the dozens of rooms before these this room contained something more interesting and significantly different. The size and scale of the lab equipment was significantly bigger. Emilie upon inspection picked up a vial almost her size. “It’s got gold in it!”

  The group gathered around. Brice looked at it carefully. “I’m not sure how we get it out though. It’s a thin coating on the bottom, probably around 50 gold all said and done.”

  Serena sliced the glass cleanly immediately sheathing her blade after. Jenora formed a fist and pressed down on the gold breaking it into fragments. She gathered it. “We can exchange it for coins later in town. I’d say this confirms they were making gold for some reason. They melted it down afterward probably for a magic circle.”

  Victor gave Serena a hi-five. “This is great! Cawthorn do you see anything else?”

  Cawthorn flapped off his shoulder to a bookcase. He looked at one of the books and flopped it onto the floor and then another. He nuzzled his head into it and pecked at the back of the bookcase. “BEHOLD! MY SUPERIOR VISION” He pronounced as he pulled his head out from the bookcase.

  Behind it a number of vials of unopened liquids and items lay before them. “Swordie I’m just going to ask you to shortcut us through identifying the disgusting stuff we don’t need. If you would.”

  Victor held Swordie up to the various shelves. “This is mostly garbage, however one thing interesting on the second shelf from the bottom, dragon scale powder.”

  Jenora picked it up. “That’s rare. We could get a good amount of money for it.” She put it in her pack. “Is there anything else of value?”

  “Various crushed bones on the third shelf should be worth something to a shop. On the fourth shelf there is a substance which is horribly evil and dangerous. Do not touch the vial filled with black liquid.” Swordie cautioned.

  Almost if as suffering from compulsion Victor asked. “What is it?”

  “It’s exact composition is unclear but it will melt through substances other than glass. It’s extremely potent acid.” Swordie explained. “Do not touch it as the cork is just for show or possibly to stop the fumes.”

  “What about the top shelf?” Victor held him up. A single box sat there intricate and ornate amongst the other ingredients.

  “I cannot see it. Unfortunately you’ll need to open that box.” Swordie carefully instructed. “I’d recommend opening it cautiously.”

  Everyone stepped back besides Victor. “Barrier Wall.” Brice and Emilie put up barriers. Victor cracked open the box containing a single golden ball the size of Victors fist.”

  Victor held it up. “It has to be solid gold. It’s really heavy.”

  Emilie squeaked leaping into Jenora’s arms. “YES! That’s got to be worth at least 1,000 gold! We’ve won! We’ve hit the jackpot!”

  “It’s been really easy too! We’ve barely had any difficulties and it’s only been 2 days!” Victor cheered.

  Swordie wished he could shake his head. “Victor do you know what tempting fate is?”

  “Isn’t that like saying ‘it could be worse it could be raining’ then it rains on the character?” Victor asked.

  “Yes. Yes it is.” Swordie answered deadpan.

  “What does that have to do with me?” Victor tilted his head.

  Serena reached up to pat his head with a disappointed face. “I love you dear.”

  “I love you too. What’s wrong?” Victor asked.

  “Please don’t comment on how easy things are. It’s exactly that.” Serena explained.

  “Alright dear. I won’t talk about how easy or hard we’ve had it.” Victor agreed.

  Jenora turned to them. “Do we just leave now?”

  All of them paused clearly thinking and sweating in the hot underground. Emilie turned to her. “We’re already here. We should at least clear as much of this floor as we can. It’ll take a long time to travel back to town more than a week to be precise. We should spend at least a week here.”

  Serena looked at her. “We might not want to get greedy.”

  Jenora went along. “I think staying might be risky we just got hit by two fireballs by opening a door which wasn’t even trapped.”

  Brice noted. “Yes but we’re fine. We’ve been really careful and we’ve got a good skill set for dealing with traps. I’d vote to stay for the week.”

  Serena looked to Victor to break the tie. Victor nodded. “We should stay. If we don’t we’ll need to find another possibly better guarded artifact somewhere else. The enemies left here are lower level seemingly and we’ve been lucky finding stuff here. It’s boring and tedious but it’s not bad. We stay for the week. What harm could come from 5 more days?” Serena slapped her face as he said that and the group returned to the surface since these three rooms took so much time to reach and search.