Weekend Trip

"No affinity? How's that possible? Doesn't everyone born with even the slightest lean towards one element?"

Sophia's question made Katherine sigh. Her face started to regret telling them the answer, as she didn't really know how to explain it.

"That's why I didn't want to tell you this..."

As Katherine stopped answering Sophia's question, Mary suddenly chimed in with a question.

"Does brother know about this?"

"Of course he does... You two don't notice him working so much harder than usual?"

Both girls silently nodded, thinking back to the amount of time they had seen him meditating in the middle of the night.

Just as Katherine was about to say something, Alex finally exited meditation as he opened his eyes back up.

"Whew, I think I finally reached the early peek now," Alex murmured out loud as he felt more refreshed than ever.

"That was ten minutes, not the five minutes. And we already packed up your bags." Sophia pointed out as she handed him his backpack.

"Thank you..."

Seeing all three kids put on their backpacks and fully ready for the trip, Katherine finally got up from the bed.

"Okay. Everyone just stands in this circle. I'm going to use teleportation magic this time for this trip."

A glowing circle suddenly appeared on the ground, and all three of the kids' faces were full of excitement as they stepped inside.

With the light appearing stronger and stronger, they could feel the burst of dark energy breaking into the room.

"Don't move. Just stay in the circle, and everything will be fine."

All three of them remained still, watching Katherine continue to cast her spell until she finally stepped in herself.

"Bang!"

Before the three could blink, the space around them turned dark right in front of their eyes.

A second later, they were now on a dirt road in the middle of a forest, surrounded by trees and grass.

"That's teleportation magic?" Sophia asked in shock, with the other two still recovering from the sudden change.

"Teleportation magic, specifically intra-dimensional drift with dark energy as a proxy for a wormhole... You three will learn it one day if you guys decide to pick dimensional magic."

"Huh?"

All three wondered in confusion, unable to understand all the technical terms Katherine had mentioned.

"Ahem, it looks like the teleport anchor still hasn't changed a bit... Come on, follow me."

The three of them quickly followed Katherine, walking down the dirt path as they examined their surroundings with curiosity.

Everywhere was filled with overgrown vegetation, including branches and rocks, which Katherine had to clear in the front.

"Mom, where are we at?" Alex asked curiously.

"In the middle of a forest! We are going to explore a long-lost dungeon. Aren't you all excited?"

"A dungeon!" Mary immediately yelled in excitement, with the other two looking just as excited.

All three of them had heard of all kinds of dungeon exploration in Katherine's bedtime stories.

They all had a dream of exploring a dungeon themselves, which was now coming to fruition.

"Now I need you all to be extra careful and don't yell, okay? Or else I'll never do this again."

With all three of the kids nodding in agreement, Katherine continued leading in the front.

The path soon became an uphill walk, forcing the three of them to hand their backpacks over to Katherine instead.

At the same time, the forest they were in started to disappear as they approached a stone hill in the distance.

Slowly, the sun went from sunrise in the east all the way to the middle of noon.

Even though none of the kids complained, Katherine could tell the three of them were starting to get a little tired from all the walking.

"Okay, let's take a lunch break here... Here's your water and sandwiches."

As soon as Katherine announced the break, all three of them immediately sat down on the floor before accepting the food and water.

---

After the short lunch break, the four of them resumed walking on the dirt path before arriving at a staircase up the hill.

As the sun had set all the way to the west end of the horizon. They finally reached the top of the hill.

Looking back, they could see the giant forest that they had just left, with no end in sight.

They could also see the steep hill they had traveled, with a deadly cliff on both sides of the stairs they had come from.

"Wow... We traveled so much today." Sophia murmured as they couldn't even see where they started from anymore.

"Yeah, and my legs are dying. Are we done walking?"

Mary complained the same line she had been repeating the whole time since they started walking uphill.

"Yep. The dungeon is right in front of us now."

As the three of them followed Katherine down a flat path ahead, they finally saw what she was talking about.

It was a cave with an aged stone sign on the side that had become unreadable. Right next to it was a single tree that had grown much taller than any other tree in the forest earlier.

"Mom, you explored inside this dungeon before, right?" Alex asked, noticing Katherine's familiarity with the surroundings.

"Of course. A few of my friends and I have already cleared it in the past."

The answer immediately made all three of them disappointed, but Katherine raised their spirit with her next line.

"But that's like twenty... No, thirty years ago. So the dungeon could very well be inhabited by new monsters."

All three of their faces immediately shifted into excitement as they followed Katherine all the way to the entrance.

"Wait, let me check the inside first."

As Katherine closed her eyes and put her hand on the cave's wall, a dark, glowing light appeared. By the time she opened her eyes back, her face looked a little confused.

"Huh... There's a chest inside. I don't remember that being there. How weird."

After a short silence, Katherine finally took the first step into the cave before the three walked inside.

"Ahem, I'm going to let you all explore this yourself. You three are going to deal with the challenges ahead, okay?"

All three of the kids nodded in agreement, moving in front of Katherine as Sophia cast a simple light spell to illuminate their path.

There was nothing besides rocks and more rocks as the cave led them down a steep path that was barely walkable.

Soon, they couldn't even see the exit. They were now surrounded by darkness, with only a small light showing where they were going.

After walking for a bit, they finally saw something other than rocks: a bunch of bats hanging on the ceiling.

"Ah!"

Mary and Sophia both screamed in panic as one of the bats flew almost right into their faces, causing all of the bats to fly towards the exit.

"Geez, my ear hurts..." Alex murmured, rubbing his ear as the bat's noise was even louder from all the echoing.

"Sorry..."

As the three of them continued walking down the path, they finally saw the first challenge.

It was a giant rock door with some sort of puzzle lock on the side.

"What's this?" Mary curiously asked as they walked a little closer.

Before their eyes were ten stone statues, each having a unique shape. The first one was a bear, and the second one was a horse.

The other eight were just different kinds of animals. They were all in different poses, seemingly dancing or celebrating something.

"You three have to solve it yourself. I can't spoil the fun." Katherine's voice suddenly appeared from the back.

The three kids started thinking in silence as they tried to understand what each meant.

They could lift the statues, revealing a small bump on the bottom that allowed it to be connected to the lock below.

All the bumps had the same hole as the one below the statue's leg, which made it confusing to determine which went to which.

"Let's take all of them down first... Do you guys have any idea for this?"

Alex asked as he put them side by side above a flat rock nearby, trying to think of a solution inside his head.

"These are what those churches worshipped in the capital, right?"

Sophia asked, remembering all the different holy animals that the churches in the capital worshiped.

"Yeah... What does any of these gods mean, though?"

As Alex tried to move the statues around to create a pattern, Mary suddenly suggested an idea.

"Maybe it's the sizes of the statue?"

Alex immediately took that idea as he put all the statues back onto the rock ledge.

After securing them onto the small bump from the smallest statue to the biggest statue, they were a little disappointed as nothing happened.

Changing it from biggest to smallest also did nothing, much to their disappointment.

"How about we just keep trying a combination? It eventually solves itself, right?"

Sophia took control as she began switching the statues one by one, hoping that they would do something.

"That would take over at least a thousand tries. It's going to take forever if we try to brute force it."

Alex quickly pointed out, remembering the calculation inside his head to be two to the power of ten.

"Better than just sitting there——Wait, I have an idea."

Sophia suddenly stopped as she started casting a spell in her head. As light appeared out of her hand, the horse statue suddenly lit up as well.

More importantly, the bump that was meant to attach to the statue also started glowing up.

"You're a genius! Why didn't we think of that!"

Alex and Mary both started casting different elemental spells, matching the statues that lit up with the same bump.

However, after casting all six basic elements, they were stuck with four statues that didn't seem to glow no matter what.

Even as they tried more complex magic with ice, it still didn't work at all.

"Mom, why don't these glow up at all?" Alex curiously asked as he began to just brute force the last four.

"That's because you guys haven't learned that kind of magic yet. Anyway, you three did a good job."

As Katherine replied, the massive stone door finally began to slide open as they finally got the right combination.

All four of them quickly took a step back as the entire cave started to shake.

"You three ready to officially enter the dungeon?"

"Hell yes!"