Going deeper

Not only had the layout changed and our original plan for the day failed, the other room doors we went into were far from bountiful. All in all we only managed to acquire 3x E ranked crystals, that's it.

Though the question remained if we happened to be very unlucky today or extraordinarily lucky yesterday. I hoped for the former else our plans to travel home soon would fall in vain. We decided to acquire more intel on the dungeon itself first, before we would make a more concrete plan.

So for the next couple days we headed into the dungeon and came across all sorts of different doors. Most of them only had a single monster at the end of them, if any at all. For the bigger rooms, we only found an empty one and we also couldn't find another resting area. However we noticed that the rooms became more bountiful the further we got into the dungeon.

Although we didn't fight too many monster, we still managed to gather another two D grade crystals and 10 E grade crystals. We nearly had the needed amount for our mission, now we just needed to find more C grade monsters. Those seemed to be rather rare as stronger monster only appeared in big rooms. They were kind of like the mini bosses for this floor.

And so we came to the decision to finally go deeper and stay inside the dungeon overnight. Sleeping inside there wasn't as scary as it sounds. Once we defeated the monsters in a room, no more would spawn for a while. One of us just had to stay up as guard in case anything unexpected happens.

For the first day we mostly travelled only. We were a bit slower than usually however, since we had to carry more equipment with us like our sleeping bags and our cooking utensils. Once we came upon the split in path from the first day, we once again went for the right one. Following this path for a while took us to another split and so on. We travelled for nearly a whole day and then chose to look for a room to stay in for the night.

We dropped our baggage right at the spot, so it wouldn't hinder us while fighting. The monster around here should be stronger than the ones we had gotten used to the last couple days. Our equipment should be safe around here, after all monsters only appear in the passages behind these trap doors. Taking the nearest one, we went forward and hoped for an empty room. We planned not to fight any more today since we had gotten tired from carrying our stuff all day long.

Unexpectedly we happened to be in luck. At the end was a single E rank monster only which had been taken care of swiftly by Iris upon contact. After having inspected the room for anymore trap doors, we headed back to the entrance leaving only Iris behind. She wanted to be extra confident that there really wasn't any danger which could befall us upon sleeping.

Sure it felt weird finding a rather easy room this far back, so I could understand the reason for her cautiousness. Maybe we would have to travel for another day to get even deeper into the dungeon to make sure we would encounter stronger enemies. Although I wondered how much farther back the dungeon really goes, at some point we would have to stumble upon the stairs to the deeper floors.

Down there we could obviously hunt much stronger monsters but Mr. Black lectured us for a solid while on the many ways we would die down there. Apparently, unlike up here, there were traps everywhere and if you are unfamiliar with them, dying a stupid death was quite likely. Those traps came in all sort of varieties, from simple cages falling down from the ceiling to actual teleport traps which transport you somewhere else randomly. I would have loved to find out how those worked, if you could teleport to a location travelling could be much smoother.

Of course the stronger monsters couldn't be neglected either. Not many had journeyed to the deeper floors of this dungeon, so not much was known about them. Just another reason for avoiding them. Lisa's book might have some details on them but not as elaborate as the weaker monsters.

Once we all came back with the baggage, we settled down in the room. Iris hadn't found anything, so we were safe. Now we realized we had one more problem: how to cook the meat we brought with us. Lighting up a fire in this confined space could hardly be described as a great idea. Well, eating it raw certainly wasn't much of a better choice.

The only option left seemed to be cooking it in another room or the corridor we came from. At least with that, we wouldn't ruin the air in our sleeping room. Next time we should probably pre-cook some reserves as this new option could also pollute the air too much.

Luckily my worries were for nothing and the two boys could roast a bunch of meat just fine in the corridor. It seemed like air circulated from there towards the entrance, which also carried the smoke with it.

Having eaten our dinner we went to sleep. Everyone took their turns as guards but nothing noteworthy happened.

And so the next morning arrived.

Since the monsters around here didn't seem more lucrative, we chose to check two more rooms and then head deeper. Just as expected those also didn't give us much loot. One of them was empty, while the other only inhibited a single monster.

With that in mind we headed even deeper into the dungeon. Our journey continued on for another half a day until we came across a dead end with an open door. I took a look in there and turned around immediately. Blood had drained from my head and I was white like a feather.

We arrived at the stairs to the lower floor…