We spent the night in silence, contemplating our situation. It just kept getting worse. Even though we went back, our position was a low Mana point after returning to the room with standard 6th layer monsters.
However, after we went back through the tunnel, everything had changed. The setup was altered, featuring a monster chamber five levels up, with greater Mana, and belonging to the 7th layer.
The dungeon had replaced our original route. After returning to the monster-filled chamber, we checked and cleared three more. The 7th layer monsters, which was deeply troubling.
"So, what are we doing?"
"I don't know," I replied while thinking about what was going on. "My Depth Sense is pointing in the same direction for the exit and entrance. Every way we go, the direction spins that way. This chamber here in the middle is the one point it is unclear."
"We can't stay here forever."
"I know that. But I am going to take time to think this through." Rushing when the dungeon was doing something weird was a bad idea. "Are we moving across layers, or is the dungeon pulling chambers from the incorrect layer?"
I wasn't expecting a reply, but I asked anyway, hoping he'd say something helpful.
"It can happen."
"What?"
"Well, I know little, but some tunnels have been closed off, and it is also how we move through layers. I talked to the cart gnomes. The beastkin did damage to the dungeon. Which caused problems long ago."
"Fighting off the forces of the Eldarin Empire, they broke dungeon entrances. But we shouldn't be close. I know the dungeon can link across the continent, but we should be attached to its entrance in the White Wastes. We didn't encounter any other teams."
"We encountered your former team member."
"Harren…he never exited. He had no exit path once we came to this continent. We could have been thrown off when descending further. It could be the cause, but you are saying we are in the part of the dungeon that the beastkin damaged?"
"Most likely. I know little about it, though. Was never good at history."
"They broke it open, and there were demons and monsters emerging. Also, a higher concentration of Mana. If we are in that part of the dungeon, why does every direction take us there?"
"Um, I don't know."
I wasn't asking him but speaking out loud so he could listen to my thought process. His life was on the line as well. I also didn't want to explain my reasoning after the fact.
"Increased Mana means lower layers of the dungeon. Let's say that something pulled up a portion of the layers, or a gap formed from the surface. No, a straight entrance downwards, punching through the spatial layers of the dungeon. And what if the dungeon doesn't determine chamber placement by layer, but Mana density? Because Mana density is higher, stronger monsters would usually appear in a lower layer."
"But that is just guesswork. The actual issue is that every direction leads to the single passage that goes up and down. No wonder the beastkin are struggling. That passage will crawl with monsters and demons."
When every direction led to a single location, I didn't have a good answer. Neither did Lanner.
The dungeon had shifted us slightly. Not as far as before, but enough that we had entered a part of the beastkin's section of the dungeon that was incredibly dangerous. Basically, a death trap unless we found a way out.
I talked little with Whiteclaw about the dungeon and the beastkin. It didn't seem too important. Neither had I done so with the gnomes. There were conversations about the dungeon, but not nearly enough about what the beastkin had done and how to avoid or get out of this situation.
"Once we go one chamber deep, and fight 7th layer monsters, we will not take the path that leads to the passage. Take another route, hoping to break out of this section of the dungeon."
"Will that even work?" Lanner asked, and I let out a sigh.
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"It is highly unlikely. I think we are stuck in this section of the dungeon, but I want to try everything before we must go to the passage between layers. Once the monsters are past level 50, I won't be able to guarantee your safety while we fight. If the monsters go past level 75 and in large numbers, I will struggle."
Skills and the type of monster mattered as well, but I knew my abilities well enough to gauge what level of monster I could handle at best. I would get worn down more quickly fighting more powerful monsters.
"That doesn't give us a lot of leeway. If the chambers keep going up, then we can only go five chambers deep, and then we will face monsters of the 11th layer."
At least he was thinking like an adventurer now. Thinking about the risk and the threats we would face.
"Yes. That is why we won't do that. We will go to one chamber and then take a tunnel that doesn't lead to the next passage."
Unfortunately, there were no skills for altering the dungeon, at least I didn't know any. With the number of skills I had, there were no luck skills or dungeon manipulation skills, since they didn't exist.
After resting for the night, we continued going through the dungeon chamber by chamber. Heading towards the passage for both the way up and down, the Mana density in the air increased. Going away reduced the ambient Mana and the threat of monsters.
This continued day after day, with monsters never going below those found on the 7th layer. There was only a single option that we could move towards, and around us, there was an invisible wall. When we crossed from the chambers with 7th layer monsters, we would arrive at another chamber with similar monsters, but the passage would flip directions.
It was the same situation as before, but there was no single 6th layer chamber, which was the layer we were supposed to be on. The only other option was attempting a ritual. I didn't want to do that. The risk was far too high in my mind.
I had heard enough warnings about rituals that I knew I had gotten lucky in the past. It was the reason the Harren had walked away. I knew my mother used a ritual to conceive me, but I hadn't realized how negatively people viewed rituals until recently.
Messing about with the dungeon seemed like a bad idea if we didn't need to do that. I didn't want to end up in a worse location.
The chambers were also slightly messed up. The floors were more uneven, and they appeared more unpolished. Like water spilling across the entire floor instead of a pool or a stream. Or a snow chamber where the wind came in fits and bursts.
"I don't like it," Lanner said after he listened to my proposal to go deeper into the bad part of the dungeon.
"We can get back, but we need to control the depth of our descent through passages, not whatever is happening in this part of the dungeon. Anyway, we also need to fight stronger monsters. We've fought enough monsters on the 7th and 8th layer."
"And if we can't go back?"
"We can. With Depths Sense you should be able to sense the location of the passage. Since they are in the same place, it is even easier. We can head towards it, away from it, or sideways. We have three options. Heading away from it flips us towards it. Heading sideways keeps it oriented in the same general direction."
That was the weird part of traveling perpendicular to the passage between layers. There was no curve. No one could map out the dungeon. It changed constantly and had weird geometry on a larger scale. While I wasn't the best at math, I understood such concepts from my time at the College.
"The only option is to head towards it. Can't we wait this far away until we find another solution?"
"When, how?" I asked and shook my head. "There are no Champions either. That is a major problem for getting Mana cores and improving. We will have to go slower, but going deeper will level us up more quickly. That was always the plan. A slow descent to get you acclimated all the way to the 11th layer."
"I…I can do it."
I shook my head. "You can't. I will handle most of the battles. Your job is to protect yourself in the fights. Your wands should be more than enough for that. Don't get greedy. If the monsters swarm you, countering them will be difficult for me. Also, what do you need to remember?"
"Always keep moving. A slow Lanner is a dead Lanner," he said, and I nodded.
"Good. With your smaller size, it's harder, but that makes it even more important. You can't block attacks, so you must dodge," I said with a touch of pride that my lessons were being hammered home into his brain.
"Will it really help me improve? Fighting more difficult monsters?"
"You need more stats, more levels. It isn't the absolute best way to go about things, I will be honest, but it is the best solution with our situation and for you. The higher stats will let you get higher skills, creating synergy. Hard work can counter a major downside, which is long-term growth. Also, you need a bare level of fighting ability, so I am not constantly worried about you."
Lanner slowly nodded because of my explanation.
While the gnome might want to do everything perfectly, he was no son of the Supreme Warlady. If he wanted to change his fate, then he needed to work harder, smarter, and most importantly, he needed to survive.
The situation was far direr than I was telling him. The fact that we were in the passage created a risk for anyone coming through. Though improbable, it was still feasible. Demons and monsters would only cross our path.
I could handle monsters, but after my last fight with a demon, I knew I was lacking against someone at the caliber of a legend. If the demon I had fought had just been smarter and less aggressive, I would have died. That wasn't even a question in my mind. That was how close I came to death. Not from anything lacking on my part, but a mistake of my enemy.
Even worse, the demon wasn't dead. It would return, looking for revenge most likely. If I were stronger and lost like that, I knew I would come back for revenge. The demon would know what I could do as well.
Going deeper into this messed-up part of the dungeon to get a better idea of what was going on was something we had to do to evaluate the level of risk.