Victor woke up first an hour before dawn and began exercising. He knew he wouldn’t be able to accomplish all the exercise before starting his day but his bags of rocks felt lighter this morning. He also didn’t wake up sore as he had every day before. Emilie woke up a few minutes later and joined him carrying Jenora’s Armor. Clarissa woke up and stared at them before asking quietly. “What are the two of you doing?”

  Victor replied curtly. “Working out.”

  She looked at him and put her hands up to say ‘what?’ when it was clear Victor wouldn’t answer to that she asked. “Why? You’re a mage and she’s a priest right?”

  Emilie shot back. “Every stat point helps.”

  Clarissa scoffed confused. “Useless! You’re not front liners.”

  Victor countered. “I am. I’m a spellsword.”

  She let up. “Oh, well at least that makes sense for you. She’s a cleric wearing cloth robes so she’s probably a priest.”

  Emilie stuck her tongue out at her. “If you aren’t going to join keep quiet.”

  Clarissa sighed and started stoking a fire. “Fire bolt.” A small fire bolt leapt from her hand igniting their camp fire.

  After a while the remaining group members woke up. Jim stretched. “Breakfast!”

  Cawthorn proclaimed. “BREAKFAST!”

  Jim chuckled. “I like your familiar he gets it.”

  Teresa smiled donning her green cloak and hood. “What a delightful bird.”

  “I AM THE MOST DELIGHTFUL BIRD IN ALL OF VERDAN!” Cawthorn crowed.

  The groups ate breakfast together and Jim asked. “What floor did your group decide on?”

  “We’ll go to floor 15.” Victor nodded.

  “We’ll show you the way down but once down you’re on your own.” Jim nodded. “I can’t ask my party to help you.”

  Victor grimly agreed. “I understand. We appreciate you showing us the way down.”

  The group finished it’s breakfast and approached the cave. As they stepped into the cave the dull glow reminded them of the lab they had investigated earlier with the same dull magical torches along the walls only in far greater quantity. Jim nodded. “Stay close there are a ton of traps in this place.” They went deeper into the stone hallway filled with wooden doors ripped off their hinges. As they went deeper the cave warmed up significantly becoming almost hot.

  Emilie complained. “Good grief why is it so hot down here?”

  “It’s the alchemy fumes on the lowest level.” Clarissa noted. “They heat the entire labyrinth.”

  Stan commented. “It gets hotter as you get further down. It’s miserable clearing this out. It’ll take us at least an hour to reach the floor. The first 5 floors are what you’d expect. Rooms with long hallways and dead ends are common. Don’t get lost everywhere on the first 5 floors looks exactly the same and these torches seem to inhibit sounds beyond some short distance.”

  Victor just asked. “Why can’t we just take the torches? I’m sure they are worth a lot.”

  Jim chuckled. “Well you’re free to try. We tried and so have others. They break as soon as you take them off the wall.”

  Victor nodded. “That makes sense. Are there any monsters between here and the 15 th and 16 th floor?”

  Clarissa shook her head. “Your guess is as good as ours. Most of the time we encounter a few skeletons, just random mindless trash but we did encounter a skeletal mage on the 12 th floor once.”

  Jim smiled. “That was an entertaining one. We got some gold rings out of it.”

  Clarissa rolled her eyes. “Yeah but they’ll probably only sell for 10 gold a piece. They had spent spell stones which could have been worth a fortune.”

  Victor grimaced. “I know we are stronger but I am not looking forward to fighting another skeletal mage.”

  Jenora flexed. “Don’t worry you’ve got me this time around.”

  Emilie smiled. “We’re safe with her.”

  The group traveled to the end of a hallway to a dead end. Victor raised an eyebrow slowly pulling his hand out of his pocket. “Aren’t we going to the stairs?”

  Jim started pressing on the wall. “We are. Honestly I can’t ever remember where this one is.” A stone slide in turning the wall and exposing a doublewide staircase downward. “There it is.” They continued and encountered a single skeleton at the bottom of the staircase. It lunged for Jim exploding from an axe to the head. He didn’t even pause. “There’s likely thousands of rabble like that around. Hopefully your group is at least tier 2 or high tier 1.”

  “We’re tier 2.” Victor nodded.

  “We’re all high tier 2 except for me. I’m tier 3.” Jim smiled.

  “You should be fine then as long as you don’t get killed by traps.” He stopped before a long corridor with no doors on either side. “Do any of you see it?”

  Serena nodded. “About 10 feet in front of us is a trigger. It’s strange I see another trigger beyond that as well. I think it’s the entire hallway.”

  Clarissa nodded. “You’ll all be fine. We have been mapping out the traps we’ve seen on the first 10 floors and she just sees it.”

  Serena put a hand on her hip. “There’s another trap too. On the left wall, it’s a blade of some kind.”

  Jim stopped. “Really?”

  Serena nodded going to the left wall and digging a stone out of the wall revealing a small switch. She dug out the switch and sliced a wire on it. “I doubt that was intended to be triggered by accident. It was probably for a disposable skeleton based on the position.

  Clarissa seemed alarmed. “We missed that every day for a month.”

  Jim laughed heartily while leaving. “If it hits me it’ll break and we’ll stop for the day.”

  Teresa smugly noted. “Not if it cuts you in half.”

  Jim noted. “Nothing has done so yet!”

  The group continued down through the floors with Serena occasionally disarming a trap as they passed by. A number of small chalk marks with arrows deeper and an X on each pathway that ended in a dead end. Victor asked. “Did you mark the paths?”

  Stan shook his head. “They were marked that way when we got here but the marking stop at the 10 th floor. We tried going deeper but the traps slow you down even if you spot them all.”

  Victor tilted his head. “Why not just find a room and lock it up so you don’t have as long a trip down?”

  Jim looked at him like he was insane. He then looked to Serena. “Is he serious?”

  Serena agreed. “He is, he’s not familiar with a lot of things. Victor camping in dungeons isn’t typically done if there is any possibility of attack. It’s unsafe just to save some time.”

  Victor paused. “Oh.”

  Jim looked at him confused. “Is he going to be alright down here? I know we said we wouldn’t come to your rescue but seeing another group disappear down here isn’t something we look forward to.”

  “I’ll live. Hopefully you will too.” Victor snapped back.

  Clarissa glared at him. “Your overconfidence is going to kill you.”

  “It might.” Victor agreed.

  Swordie cheerfully added. “I will make sure to cut his ego down to size.”

  “Why must you undercut my ego at every turn Swordie?” Victor asked.

  Stolen story; please report.

  “You massively overestimate or underestimate yourself constantly. It’s not like I could swing and miss your ego.” Swordie noted.

  The group continued through the labyrinths floor after floor until reaching floor 11. “Now for the part that sucks.” Jim sighed and turned to Clarissa. “We’re going to need your help Clarissa.”

  She raised her hand. “ Spirit Summons: Fox .” In front of her a small transparent blue fox popped into existence. Jim opened the large door to the 11 th floor. “Go forth straight ahead.” The creature pranced ahead on the tile ground no longer stone. Eventually walking straight forward it was crushed by a pillar shooting out from the wall. “The 9 th tile. Center row.”

  Serena turned to them confused. “Why is she doing this?”

  “These traps are reset every day. We can’t find them any other way unless you can.” Clarissa turned.

  Serena nodded. “I see four triggers. Let me disable them.” Serena walked forward 8 tiles and unseated the 9 th tile pulling out the device with some rope. She proceeded to do the same to three more tiles. She looked at their group. “I can see why you’ve been struggling here.” Serena kept looking and cleared out several more mechanical traps. Jim lead the way doing much the same for the next 2 floors until they reached floor 13. Serena stopped dead and turned to Cawthorn. “Cawthorn, is that what I think it is?”

  They both looked at a nearly transparent crystal in the ceiling. Cawthorn answered quietly. “It’s a rune trap. Currently it’s inactive.”

  Clarissa looked carefully. “I can’t see it.”

  Teresa noted. “I see it but it just looks like a clear crystal to me.”

  Serena took a deep breath. “Rune traps like that can be disabled or suppressed. We should dig it out and smash it before we continue.”

  Jim looked at her confused. “We’ve gone past this every week for a month. It should be fine.”

  She shook her head. “Not if it’s rearm time is 30 days. We have to destroy that. I have no idea what it will do when it rearms.”

  Clarissa groaned. “That’ll take hours!”

  Emilie squinted. “Yeah I don’t see why we should bother.”

  Brice chimed in. “It’s a fireball rune.”

  Suddenly everyone seemed to take it more seriously as Teresa turned to Jim. “You better get swinging.”

  Jim sighed and began chipping away at the stone ceiling. Jenora took her mace and began to do the same. Emilie cast “Strength Boost” on Jenora. Serena wanted to help but was clearly not tall enough to take a swing.

  Stan leaned against the wall. “Thanks for that. Sorry if I was cold yesterday. The truth is that saving people isn’t really why we do this. We do it for money. You seem like good people especially the angelic knight.”

  Victor accepted his apology. “I understand, not everyone can be heroic. You’re good people too. Everyone needs money to eat right?” Victor gave him a knowing nod.

  “And for gear, and housing, and the list goes on and on.” Stan shook his head.

  Emilie agreed. “Praise the Golden Goddess to that. Things are expensive and gold never comes easy but it sure goes easy.”

  “Right! People think artifact hunting makes your rich but it’s only true if you’re really high level. Otherwise it just makes you better off than ordinary people who work all day.” Stan protested to the sound of clattering stone.

  Brice noted. “That’s not true for higher tier artifacts though. A tier 2 artifact is exponentially cheaper than a tier 7 one. Tier 3 and lower artifacts are significantly cheaper cost wise than the high tier artifacts.”

  The crystal clattered to the ground chipping at the edges. “Smash it.” Both of them brought their weapons down on it breaking it into shards of glass. Serena breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m not trying to tell you how your group should operate but we need to disable any rune traps no matter what. They’re extremely dangerous because they could contain virtually any spell.”

  Clarissa walked up to Brice and looked way up to him. “How did you know that? Do you have the Rune Reading skill?”

  “Uh yes! I took the skill for it. It’s not an innate racial skill I promise.” Brice nodded quickly backing away.

  “You’re a fucking elf.” Clarissa proclaimed angrily.

  Stan snapped up his shield. Jim pulled out his axe and Teresa pulled out her bow. “Step away from the elf.”

  Brice immediately cast. “ Barrier Shield .”

  Victor put up his hands. “Whoa calm down. Please.”

  Jim looked down at Victor. “He’ll leave you to die down here, best to kill him before he stabs you in the back to loot your corpse.”

  Jenora stood between them and slowly raised her shield. Emilie sighed joining her. Serena pulled out her daggers. Victor glared. “Leave him be. He only hides his identity to avoid this kind of racism.”

  “Elves are thieves, murderers, and tyrants. No matter how good you think he is that elf is going to be the death of you.” Jim readied a swing.

  “Seems to me right now the only one threatening to be the death of me is you.” Victor snapped back.

  Jim growled. “Do you have any idea how much damage elves have done you sheltered na?ve mage?”

  Victor walked up to him and looked up at him. “What did this elf do?”

  “It doesn’t matter if he’s one of the few elves who hasn’t done something abjectly evil yet. Elves live forever and they always turn evil. It might be illegal to outright murder them in a town but down here no one will ever know. Just let us finish him off and save you the trouble.” Jim insisted.

  Emilie angrily growled as Victor looked back at Brice who stood there terrified like a tiny animal searching for a hole to crawl into. “If you want to partake in 5 murders you’re free to try, but I was hoping we’d at least have a cordial working relationship. You don’t have to help us, you can leave us to die, but the second you attack us you’re digging at least 4 graves.”

  Teresa spoke up slightly relaxing her bowstring. “We don’t even know how strong those are. We don’t have to protect them from their own party member. Let’s just leave it.”

  Clarissa angrily protested. “HE’S AN ELF! Elves killed me entire fucking village just to pillage the gold! All elves deserve to die!”

  Emilie looked her dead in the eyes. “I’m sorry you’re just wrong. While this guy might be almost as socially inept as our other mage he’s not a bad elf. He’s only out of an enclave because he was banished.”

  Teresa relaxed her bow and put her arrow up. “I’m not doing it Jim.”

  Clarissa angrily raised her hand and opened her mouth to speak as Stan grabbed her wrist. Stan glared at her. “Unless you want to do this alone, wait.”

  Jim looked to Stan and Teresa. “Fine, let them die to their own elf. We’ve only got 1 more floor left anyway before we reach your stop.” Clarissa enraged at Jim clutched her fists punching his leg ineffectually. “Feel better?”

  “NO! HE’S STILL ALIVE!” Clarissa angrily protested.

  Brice spoke up. “Sorry all of that happened to you but I didn’t do it.”

  “You’ll destroy the home of someone else some day. All elves conquer, rule, and enslave.” She furiously insisted.

  Brice shook his head. “Enclaves expel elves that don’t live by elven values. Most elves wandering the world are the worst of elven society. I’m so sorry.”

  Clarissa glared at him. “If that was true that would be even worse! They’re just expelling their criminals out into the world for the rest of us to deal with.”

  Brice acknowledged her. “I agree with you. I’ve never thought it was right for elves to use exile as the main method of punishment for serious violations. I’m not sure what to say other than you are right. It’s horrible. They should change it but I’m in no position to change it.”

  Clarissa slightly calmed down. “Fine, the hell with it. If you trust him you can be the one who asks himself ‘why did I trust the elf? I should have listened to the short girl.’ As you bleed or burn to death.”

  Emilie chuckled. “He always listens to Serena.”

  Serena giggled. “That’s not true, sometimes he listens to you.”

  “I’m not that short!” Emilie yelled back.

  Clarissa shook her head. “Whatever. Let them die I don’t care about their lives anymore. They aren’t worth the effort to kill if Teresa refuses to help.”

  Brice turned to Teresa. “Thank you.”

  Victor sighed. “I really wish this land wasn’t so racist.”

  Serena looked at him. “You’re kidding me right? Most of us hate elves because every elf we’ve ever encountered has been a monster.”

  Clarissa angrily shot back. “Why are you traveling with one then!?” She put a hand on her hip and leaned toward Victor. “Oh your man doesn’t want to kill him.”

  Victor protested. “It’s not like we can do anything about the actions of others. He’s not responsible for what they did in the same way you’re not responsible for the bandits that kidnapped her just because you share a race.”

  “Humans aren’t immortal.” Clarissa angrily growled. “To them we are little more than dogs. Our suffering is temporary to them, fleeting and immaterial because mortals don’t deserve consideration.”

  Serena put a finger to Victor’s lips. “Sweetie you’re not going to convince her, and you’re not going to convince me at least today. Let Brice do the talking.”

  Brice almost shocked he got to say something cheerfully put down his wall. “Well that went well!”

  Swordie added in disbelief. “Why are mages like this?”

  Brice cheerfully added. “Mage brothers! Thanks for having my back Victor.” He leaned down to hug him.

  Cawthorn screamed. “MY MAGE BROTHERS STICK TOGETHER! MAGE BROTHERS STICK WITH ME!”

  As they walked on Emilie tugged on Victor’s shoulder and slowed him slightly to speak to him whispering. “You really are something else you know that. You would have fought them if we had to wouldn’t you?” Victor smiled knowingly. “That brought back some unpleasant memories and I was ready to fight. I’m glad you were too.”

  “I’d fight Zolvorn again before I’d give up any member of the Stars of Verdan.” Victor held out his fist for her to bump. She did smiling and trying not to tear up, while failing and wiping away her failure with her elegant white priestess dress.