This particular dungeon is a two-and-a-half hour drive from Sydney, but her party members are not from there so she'll meet them there. It's a new one, only noticed when a couple of hikers in Wollemi National Park saw and reported a monster last week. After scouting the area, the entrance was found hidden in a grotto, and Elisabel's party will be doing the initial recon.

She and her party meet up where Putty Valley Road meets Putty Road, them having come from Newcastle together, and from there they're being driven in a truck to the dungeon location.

"Hi! Nice to meet you, I'm Chris," says a muscular woman who had been leaning on an axe as tall as she is just before Elisabel arrived. She extends her hand for Elisabel to shake.

"Elisabel." Shake shake. "I'm the witch." She pats her binder of scrolls and pouches.

"I'm the tank!" she replies, cheerfully.

"I'm phys. ranged, hi, Tom," says a mousy guy in a white shirt with two holstered guns, offering a hand to shake.

Shake shake. "You look the part." She will pull out her hat so she can too.

"And I think it's just us, right, we're not getting a healer for this one?"

"I don't know about you but I'm not shooting for dungeons that need those yet."

"I am! Let's hop on, then, and share our tragic backstories with our witch while we ride the rest of the way."

Onto the truck.

"I'm not a dedicated healer but I can hold you together long enough to get to a hospital. Tragic backstories?"

"Don't ask me."

"I'm just joking, we've had time to get to know each other on the way here but you're new. But I'll start! I'm from Newcastle, I got a super-strength personal which I discovered when I accidentally bruised a boy who was bullying me five years ago, and I wouldn't have thought I liked this but actually I do! Oh also I'm nineteen and my parents wouldn't let me out for dungeons until I was eighteen otherwise I totally would be going to dungeons that need dedicated healers."

"I guess that's a little bit tragic for the boy you bruised, now that I think about it."

"Nah, he deserved it."

Charming. "And I started studying magic the instant that became a thing and I'm in the research department at U Sydney but sometimes I itch for more MP."

"Research? Like... inventing potions and stuff?"

"And spells, and enchantments, and improving existing ones, and doing language analyses on the scrolls... I hear U Sydney's magic dept is pretty good."

"Yeah! And electronic sigil display, that was what I did my thesis on."

"Thesis? Like, Ph.D. stuff? How old are you, you look barely older than me—"

"22 but if you're very fast and magic has only just started existing you can get a jump on some things. The distinguishing characteristic of a Ph.D. is the original research requirement."

"Yo shit our party's witch is a genius that's awesome. Uh, pardon my French."

"What were you guys doing when you saw the vid?"

"'The vid'?"

"You know, the one five years ago. That went viral, the first one that everyone saw that was on TV all the time."

"Oh. I dunno, I think I was having dinner with the fam?"

"How do you not know, it was the most important moment of the century—I remember every minute—"

"I was doing my homework and my mom came in my room to show me."

"My friends and I were raiding—uh, we used to play online games, raiding is when—it's kind of like us doing dungeons here? And I was like no way. No fucking way. We stopped playing for the night just to watch other videos of this shit and it was like, what the fuck?? And then it turns out we get powers? And then it turns out that when people say that they wish they could do RPG stuff in real life most of them don't actually mean it. But I did."

"So you didn't start from scratch, you got some personal magic?"

"Oh, no, not at all, I just went, I can be an RPG character in real life and they also said the same thing and then it turns out I meant it and they didn't mean it. So now I'm here being an RPG character in real life. But I didn't get the powers lottery."

"Gotcha. Me either, I just started by ducking in and dropping what I was able to scrape together on two MP and pocket lint and then I didn't even spend my first advances on more magic, I had a balance problem."

"Balance problem?"

"Dyspraxia if you want the fancy word. I fell over a lot."

"Oh. Yeah that'd be a problem in dungeons."

"What power would you guys have wanted if you could have one?"

Tom chews on his bottom lip. "If it's only powers that people, like, really do have, I guess maybe teekay? It's rare but not super rare."

"There are fewer than two hundred thousand people with powers and we've only been taking data for five years, we don't know what's actually impossible and what's merely vanishingly uncommon. I'd like to fly, that's hard to do safely with spells."

"...flying would be so cool. Is that even possible?"

"Yeah there's a handful of people who can do it. ...I'm scared of heights, I don't think I'd do well with flight."

"I'm not scared of heights but I'm scared of my spell running out of oomph because it unexpectedly draws down whatever I put into my sigils faster at a certain altitude or something," she sighs.

"Well when I get stronger I'll be able to fall from pretty tall heights," Chris says consideringly. "That'd be... so cool."

"Like, in a squirrelsuit or just - absorbing it."

"Like just tank it. I think I could do, like, ten metres now just fine? Twenty would bruise."

"Dang, okay. How do you even gauge that without jumping off things you might not be able to walk away from?"

"Who said I didn't do that?" she asks innocently.

"...I'm calling your bluff, if you had you wouldn't have given us an uncertain estimate like that."

Chris rolls her eyes, grinning. "Well I guess I don't know about falling but I've had boss monsters throw me around a lot, I know what I can take," she says, flexing her right bicep.

"What, do you wear an accelerometer so you know how hard you get flung into a wall?"

"A what now?"

"A device that measures your acceleration at any given time."

"Uh... no...?"

"Maybe you should."

"Phones nowadays have those, you can probably just install an app for it."

She grabs her phone from the zippered pocket and starts tapping at it.

"...no 5g."

"We're in the middle of nowhere, unless you've got satellite internet of course you won't have internet."

Pout.

"I think it's worth getting if you do dungeons regularly."

"What would I... do with one?"

"Look things up? Price loot so you know what to prioritize?"

"Oh! Internet! Right, I thought you meant the acceleration thing."

"You could also download an accelerometer app! But that will probably only come up once."

Their destination is still somewhat short of the edge of the dungeon's influence, demarcated by yellow tape. There's already a team there of military who are much too high level for the dungeon, only stationed temporarily to keep an eye on anything abnormal or concerning that might crop up. So far nothing has, and Elisabel and her party are estimated to be the correct power level for the monsters that have been found outside the dungeon.

"Based on the escaped monsters, the first level of the dungeon seems to be mostly large reptiles and amphibians, so you should be aware of the possibility of a swamp level," says the soldier briefing them as he offers each of them an electromagnetic cage for their phones plus a smaller electronic device that's meant to detect whether the dungeon is the type that fries electronics without risking their personal belongings. "We do not know if it has a second level, but it's unlikely to have a third.

"We'll give you a map to the rough area where the entrance is, but its precise shape and location have not been determined. Do you have any questions?"

She cages her phone. "What do the reptiles and amphibans do, just be large or do they breathe fire or anything?"

"The ones that have escaped just be large and more agile than they look. It's not unheard of for them to have extra abilities they don't display out of their dungeons, though, especially the boss monster, so you must stay on your toes." He says this with the boring airs of someone who's probably said that exact sentence hundreds of times in their life.

Yes, of course, she knows the drill. She adjusts her ponytail and her hat, opens her binder and does the checklist in the front pocket, and says, "You guys want some buffs before we walk in?"

"Yes, please."

"Whatchu got? I only have the standard tank stuff."

"If we think there's a swamp level, contingent air bubble for if you go splash? Shield specifically for your six, for anything sneaky or bouncy. Also if either of you skipped your coffee I have a thing for that."

"Contingent? Hell yeah that sounds fancy."

"...is that, like, practical? I've never heard of that. And yes on the coffee, please."

"I wouldn't cast it inside, it's going to take a while and a couple spice jars, but yes, a guy at the University of Florida figured it out a couple months ago." She gets underway on prep.

"Okay that sounds super cool."

Chris does the standard tank stuff.

It is a widespread belief that dungeons possess some kind of intelligence. From taking monsters away from dungeons and observing their behaviour away from their parent dungeon to the way their layouts are set up (especially on subsequent runs of any individual dungeon), it seems pretty likely that there is some kind of mind running the show, making decisions about what to do and how.

And this is the reason why the concept of a "tank" makes sense. If the monsters were mere animals with the level of intelligence they demonstrate on their own, they would probably just attack all members of a raiding party, but the dungeon does notice that there are often advantages to focusing on that one specific party member: they are the anchor to a handful of buffs that, should they no longer be in effect, would make taking out the other party members a lot easier. So the "standard tank stuff", here, consists of buffs that redirect most damage Elisabel and Tom take to Chris, and also reduce the amount of said damage that they take in the first place. They're reasonably MP-efficient, and their main cost is in the tank's lifeforce when active, so tanks don't need to invest too much in MP for them.

There are other, more specialised tank skills that depend on the specific situation, but these buffs are pretty generally useful for the vast majority of dungeons.

And eventually they can all, smelling somewhat herbal, step into the magical radius of the dungeon, heading for the entrance.

Past the yellow tape, carrying maps that lead the way to where the dungeon entrance is thought to be, they don't need to walk very far for the magical effects to start appearing. Elisabel, being a trained witch, is able to feel it earlier and more keenly than the other two, but any adventurer who's gone on more than a couple of dungeon raids can recognise the feeling of magic in the air. It feels... nice. Quite unlike anything else, of course, but people who have tried to describe the feeling relate it to stepping out into the late spring sun after spending a while in a cold house, or taking a deep breath after your nose was blocked for two weeks, or waking up refreshed without an alarm to a day off work. It's relaxing, and it feels a bit like you're more alive, like this is where you're meant to be, that you're getting into your element.

And the environment agrees. Even before they're magical, the plants and animals in the periphery of dungeon entrances are more alive, healthier, more energetic, their colours more vibrant, their smells crisper, even the sounds are clearer. In a new and presumably-small dungeon like this, it's not overwhelming, but many adventurers report not wanting to leave the vicinity of the more powerful dungeons because the rest of the world just feels kind of drab by comparison.

Then the magic starts. A single tulip, which should not exist here, grows almost as tall as the trees around it. A pair of green and golden bell frogs looking at each other, both as big as a poodle, occasionally chirping at each other and calmly ignoring the party. A little pond whose water glows faintly where a couple of fairies no bigger than thumbs that from a distance look like balls of golden light with butterfly wings. Things that didn't use to exist on Earth, five years ago, but which now do.

She takes a couple pictures on her caged phone. That tulip is gonna be hers on the way out, it'll be amazing for spells.

And finally, the monsters, differing from the merely fantastical fauna and flora by not being, well, any existing fauna or flora.

(Technically the fairies are monsters, too? But they are typically harmless outside dungeons, and often travel so far from their parent dungeon that they're no longer being controlled by it at all, and they're nowadays considered to be magical animals rather than monsters.)

But take that frog over there, for example. It looks at a glance like a regular frog, kind of, other than the fact that it is as tall as Chris. But then you look at it again and you realise it has an extra pair of feet, a third eye in the middle of its forehead, and when it notices them and starts to open its mouth they can see a set of very sharp teeth.

Right before it shoots its tongue right at them, the bulbous part at the edge the size of a basketball.

"Look out!" calls Chris, jumping to intercept the attack and blocking it with her axe. It's enchanted to resist most forms of taking it from Chris's person nonconsensually, but she still has to hold fast onto it to not be pulled towards the frog when it pulls its tongue back, making a wet squelching sound as it gets detached from the metal.

Elisabel got up to "not disabled any more", with the Dexterity upgrades, and then she got magic.

Mostly.

She drops under the path of the tongue and sketches a sigil in the air and she's up again as soon as the tongue - well, most of the tongue - retracts.

Tom's got substantially more Dex than that, and more specialised besides. He jumps up high enough to grab onto a tree branch with one hand while unholstering one of his pistols with the other, and when he's up and has enough visibility he shoots one bullet per eye.

The frog can dodge the bullets fast enough that they hit its thick hide rather than its eyes, which still hurts it but far less than it would.

What it can't do is dodge Elisabel's spell at the same time, once she completes her sigils, and the lightning bolt that strikes it from out of nowhere doesn't fry it but does paralyse it, at least for the moment.

A moment is all Chris needs to press the advantage and jump ahead with an overhead swing of the axe, a single leap covering the fifteen or so metres between her and it and landing a cut in the middle of its head.

Which also connects, sinking three inches into its skin. It oozes black ichor but doesn't quite die yet, and starts recovering its ability to move as it tries to shake her off and open its mouth.

Elisabel doesn't really want to go for another lightning strike with Chris in such close quarters. How about a brief slowdown, enough to let Chris press the advantage -

Works, too, and Chris can pull the axe free from the frog's head and stomp on it so it doesn't get to open its mouth—

"Move!"

—she kicks off the frog into the air.

And Tom, who has spent the last couple of seconds firing a few rounds into the air where they stopped in their tracks and hovered in front of him, releases them all at once into the hole opened by Chris's axe.

And that's enough DPS that it starts to die.

"Parts?" Chris calls to Elisabel as she unsheathes a sharp-looking blade from her hip.

"Solid chunk of skin off the back, any teeth you can knock out, and toes."

She peels as solid a chunk of skin off the frog's back as she can while the frog dissolves into nothing but she only manages to get two teeth before it's too insubstantial for her to be able to cut anything more. The pieces she cut don't dissolve, though, and also a small crystal the size of a grape is lying on the grass where the frog was just a moment ago. It's a clear yellow and looks almost like it's a liquid that forgot it was meant to spread out and spill.

"Ew," Tom observes of the body part cutting.

"Yeah, it's not great." She's got sample bags.

"Gotta take our opportunities when we can, probably have too many critters inside to grab anything from most," Chris says, grinning from ear to ear.

"Sometimes I get lucky but yeah." Bag bag bag.

"This part is much better in video games. The disgusting body parts just neatly appear in your inventory pre-cut and don't actually make any messes."

Chris grabs the crystal, then, and peers at it. "I think that's one of yours," she says to Tom.

He looks. "Oh, neat, thanks," he says, accepting it and pocketing it. "Didn't even see it, it's so tiny."

"I think the grotto the entrance's in should be right over there," she says, pointing in the direction of a stream that gets lost in the foliage—except for the places that look like they've seen recent trampling, which indicates she's probably right. The dungeon hasn't had enough time to cover the tracks of whoever's most recently explored the place, apparently.

Elisabel, bags stowed, follows along, enjoying a nice no-falling-down walk through a gorgeous magical wonderland. It'd be cool if there were a dungeon that just stuck to fairies and giant tulips and no homicidal frogs and you could just live by one, but alas.

The dungeon entrance is actually fairly obvious once they're in the grotto, a crack in the wall wide enough for one person at a time to slip through across the cave from where they walk in. There's a two-headed alligator hanging out in the water when they walk in but rather than engage it quickly slips in through the entrance when it spots them.

"That was pretty chill. A bit... too chill."

"Was it?"

Shrug. "Dunno. Maybe the dungeon's just weak. But let's get ready for an ambush, it's not impossible.

"Ready?"

"Might be going for backup? Ready."

"Ready."

Chris walks in first, as the party's tank.

Tom follows. While inside, Elisabel will walk between him and Chris since it's better for the magical combatant to be between the two physical ones who have more mobility and ability to defend her, but since nothing here can get to them from behind she's safest at the back of the group.

Is the dungeon allowing normal flashlights or does she need to spend magic on it?

The transition space between the outside world and the dungeon at least isn't frying her flashlight, at least, so it's unlikely the dungeon proper will. Unfortunately the corridor seems to just be a straight, slightly down-sloped line of cramped rock that slowly gives the way to wood on either side of her, and stone that slowly gives the way to damp earth under her feet. There is not much else for her flashlight to reveal at first.

And then they emerge out of an opening in an enormous tree's trunk.

It turns out the dungeon's first level is themed around wetlands of a kind, but not exactly a swamp. More like the edge between a swamp and a forest, with solid ground giving way to the flooded areas. It also doesn't have walls; instead, the room they're in is separated from the rest of the dungeon by congregations of trees too close together to step through on one end and a misty fog the flooded area disappears into on the other. There's no sign of the two-headed alligator, but it could be hiding in the water or have slipped into another room.

The dungeon also pretends there's an open sky above their heads, but it's almost entirely covered in clouds except for a hint of moonlight in the distance. Elisabel will definitely need her flashlight here.

"Ugh I hate dungeons that don't have walls."

"Why?"

"You always gotta check for like, what if that's actually a passage to another room? What if that's a hallway? Always makes me anxious I'm missing stuff."

Flashlight on, great bright floodlight dealie hanging from her belt except when she wants to spot-check something. "A wall can hide a passage too."

"Yeah but it's a lot rarer and, like, I can go punching walls. Here if I walk into the mist I might just keep walking and then end up back where I started!"

"Assuming you'd walk. That water looks like it gets deep fast, you might need to swim."

"Augh!"

"Don't swim, the air bubble isn't that smart and will go off the first time your chin goes underwater."

"Yeah, yeah. Hope there's some real good loot here, though, this is looking like it'll be a pain."

"Agreed." But she is not at particularly elevated risk of falling into the water! Yay!

One of the strange things about how dungeons work that makes some people think they must be artificially created is the way they're selective about who or what they let through. They can completely prevent entry by anything or anyone, creating a forcefield of sorts on their doors, but it does not seem like they can prevent exit, and those forcefields are one-way only. They also seem able to gauge the power level of adventurers trying to go in, which in practice means that they only let you in if they think they can take you, or something along those lines. Very high-powered adventurers who could curbstomp a dungeon are, by and large, not allowed inside.

This dungeon, it seems, has decided that Elisabel and her party are about all it can take, and so after a couple more seconds they hear the telltale buzz of the forcefield that means that no one else can enter the dungeon even if they try.

"Well, that's our cue, then. Time to get wet."

"I will get your picture standing triumphant with one foot on the back of a two headed gator before it dissolves if I can."

"Hell yeah! Let's rumble."

They proceed, and the dungeon is, indeed: a pain. It's organised in a very simple basic pattern lots of new dungeons tend to follow before they grow and specialise and get smarter, of a number of different "rooms" connected by short hallways. Some rooms look like the should've been visible through the fog from other rooms, but of course they weren't because that's not how any of this works. Some of the hallways are hidden by fog, like Chris feared. Chris, Elisabel, and Tom are not aquatic reptiles or amphibians, which means that the terrain is working in favour of their enemy.

Their enemy uses this fact to its advantage.

They're attacked by frogs and alligators and snakes, harrassed by giant fireflies and mosquitoes, and this is even one of the dungeons that has the occasional group of hostile fairies (although those are more annoying and inconvenient with small irritating spells than properly dangerous on their own). As Chris predicted, they don't get a lot of time to collect monster parts from any specific wave of monsters. The dungeon seems to favour crowd control strategies, trying to either split the three of them up or conversely box them in and pin them down.

The loot compensates for it a little bit. Tom finds some enchanted cartridges in one of the loot chests that don't fit his current pistols but he has a bunch at home, and this isn't one of the dungeons that's gotten the Good News Of Fiat Currency yet so they find a few golden coins of the peculiar currency new dungeons occasionally reward people with.

(Why do dungeons reward people with loot chests at the same time as they relentlessly try to kill them? Add it to the pile of mysteries.)

Yeah it's weird. Elisabel toasts bugs and lightnings monster-infested pools and breezes aside mist. She reports when she's down to fifty percent MP.

Eventually they reach the entrance to the boss room, a large set of double doors framed by enormous trees to either side. There's something engraved in a similar script to the sigils used by magic on an arch above the door, which lots of people take to be the name of the boss monster. Since no one knows how to read those sigils out loud, there are many interpretations of how one would pronounce those names, but it doesn't matter for any practical reason.

"Finally." Tom hasn't been actively complaining per se but it's very, very clear he's quite over fighting in the muck. "If there's a second level it better be dry."

"Wouldn't count on it." She snaps a picture of the sigils.

Chris renews the tank buffs on herself and the party, drinks a strength potion and, when the other two have done whatever pre-battle preparations they may have, she pushes open the door to the boss room.

The boss monster is an enormous two-headed serpent—no, not like that, both ends are heads. One of the heads has smoke coming out of its nostrils and the other's mouth is slightly frosted.

"Oh, fuck me," curses Chris.

The snake(s) look(s) up and charge(s).

As a necessary secondary superpower, at least the heads are resistant to at least their own temperature of choice; safest to assume the whole thing can shrug off both. But that leaves lots of options. It moves kind of unpredictably, being as it's a snake coming and going - that seems like it wouldn't work yet here it is - and she'd like it to do less of the moving around. Slow spell to kick things off.

The version of the spell Elisabel is using, modified to be effective against opponents as large as this snake, takes longer to cast, and the dungeon is by now wiser to her tricks. The snake targets her, if only to interrupt the cast.

But this is nothing out of the ordinary, and Chris is already standing between her and the snake and calling, "Bulwark!" as she causes a barrier of energy to appear in front of her. Saying the word doesn't actually do anything by itself, but many adventurers take to picking something to do or say associated with their skills in order to create a subconscious association that strengthens the mental state they need to occupy to use skills that aren't regular wizard spells.

Also, it makes it sound like you're in a video game, which a sizeable minority of adventurers consider a plus.

Tom has no defensive capabilities to speak of, as his survival strategy is mobility. Since he can't help with this, while Elisabel casts he focuses fire on the head that isn't taking point in this particular attack, as usual aiming for the eyes.

The snake crashes against the forcefield, shattering it, but its momentum is sufficiently halted that it does not get close to Elisabel at all. The other head—the ice one—engages Tom, trying to dodge his bullets as it casts some kind of ability at him.

"Fuck," he cries in response, dodging... nothing at all, apparently? Or at least, it's not obvious what made him curse and run the way he just did.

...get the slow spell off FIRST ask questions about that LATER.

It goes off, and the snake obligingly slows.

But Tom is on the move again, looking kind of like he's in pain but not letting that stop him as he continues to try to harass the ice head.

Chris... also looks kind of like she's in pain? She's panting a lot more heavily than it looks like it makes sense, given how fit she is and her performance in the rest of the dungeon, and even as she also starts to attack the snake directly she seems—clumsier, somehow.

"What is it doing to you two?" Elisabel demands, taking advantage of the slowed snake to take up a slightly better position to aim a lightning bolt.

"It's—"

Spitting fire in Chris's direction is what it's!

Hopefully Chris can tank that or at least turn around to get the rear-shield to absorb it. Elisabel gets underway on a lightning spell.

She blocks it with the flat side of her axe, which somehow manages to block all of the fire, but it seems to be taking quite a lot more out of her than it by rights ought to.

"Watch out!" Tom calls to her.

She looks in the direction he's pointing and startles and dodge rolls away. From, uh, again, nothing at all.

The snake takes the opportunity of both of their distractions to body slam both of them. A lot more weakly than it would've were it not slowed, granted, but it's still huge.

"How many fucking heads does this thing have," she growls.

The lightning bolt goes off, though, and the snake gets paralysed and starts to twitch in place.

"It only has two fucking heads! Are you both high? Chris, bisect the damn thing now!"

"...right, just two, why..."

"Chris!"

She blocks.

This time it's a real blow.

"Stun!" she yells, hitting the snake with the flat side of her axe on the head.

It gets obligingly stunned.

Alright, she'll try to bisect—

She can sure fucking try but this snake's hide is not any less thick than that of the other monsters in this dungeon. Which means she gets a few inches in and might get further with more hits.

Elisabel is gonna get on drawing up an oomphier lightning bolt. It's spendy but she was expecting slightly more help. What is Tom even doing?

Limping, mostly, but at the same time he seems to be channeling something into his two pistols, muttering under his breath as he does.

The monster starts recovering its ability to move.

Chris jumps to the side as if something just startled her then turns back to the snake to keep hacking at the same location.

"Are you seeing things?" Elisabel exclaims, zapping the monster again.

"—fuck I am—except—not seeing—"

One particular violent spasm by the monster sends her flying at the nearest tree trunk, hard enough to crack it and bend it a bit.

"Fuck you!" Tom cries, and something that looks like a barrage of laser bullets shoots from both of his pistols at the weak spot Chris has been creating.

(The thing you say out loud when using a skill doesn't need to sound like a skill name, after all.)

It starts stirring way more quickly than after the first lightning bolt, though, and its heads start to cast things menacingly.

"Fucking—ow—" Chris peels herself off the tree and tries leaping towards the monster again, but the leap is noticeably underpowered.

Why did the second larger bolt not last as long, does it have some kind of adaptive shit. She will try a force effect instead this time.

It probably does, boss monsters are bullshit like that. The ice head starts shooting icicles conjured out of thin air at Tom, and the fire head summons a big fireball above its head that it starts making grow slowly. The force effect does hurt it, and it clearly is hurt, but monsters operate more under an HP paradigm than a "has a body" paradigm, so that's not hindering it anywhere near as much as it would the party.

"Shit. Elisabel, do you have Wither?"

"I have it but you guys are having some kind of problem and it takes a while where I can't duck!"

"I can park in front of you and stop stuff, it's just—Tom I'll ignore you—"

"Absofuckinglutely legit, ignore me, I don't know what the fuck is happening or why Elisabel is immune."

Chris leaps back, standing between Elisabel and the monster again, and slams the butt of her axe onto the floor. Unfortunately this is still damp earth so it makes a squelching sound rather than a satisfying clang, but the oval forcefield materializes around the two of them nevertheless. "Tom, distract it!"

"Aye aye, cap'n."

"Okay."

Wither takes a while and anything with a sneeze of magic will fight back the whole time so you can't set it and forget it, but she spent the first months of magic being available in a self-made goddamn immersion program. She breathes it. She draws the sigils and whispers her way through it to eat away at the already-sliced portion of the snake.

The snake realises what's happening quickly, or the dungeon does. Fire head lobs its half-formed fireball at the forcefield and then starts trying to slam against it, using its enchanted poisoned fangs, while ice head switches targets to the shield, too.

"No you don't," says Tom, shooting charged bullets at, again, the eyes. It'll either have to dodge his shots or keep attacking the shield, it can't do both.

Clearly it has decided that Elisabel is the bigger threat right now because it only halfheartedly tries to dodge, and consequently loses an eye. But that's nowhere near as bad as the way the wound Chris started and Tom widened is starting to dissolve like there's acid being poured into it from all directions.

Each hit to the shield makes Chris gasp, but she's holding on, eyes locked on the wound.

Hopefully Chris is with-it enough to tell her when to drop it and bail out of this fucking place with its fucking invisible miasma that takes out nonwitches, or something. Withering, withering withering withering.

It takes a whole minute but then "Ready, Tom—"

"On it!" He grabs a gummy from his pocket, swallows it whole, and then suddenly speeds up like crazy and shoots hard and fast enough that the snake physically can't keep bashing against the forcefield.

Wow, cool. Withering is ongoing over here.

"Elisabel, run in three, two, one—" The forcefield goes down.

She's picked a direction by "two" and interrupted her casting when she's not going to be able to get another push off before that. She bolts.

Chris doesn't give the snake time to react. With a scream she jumps again, somersaults off one of the rearing heads, then lands the final blow on the withered part of the snake, slicing it clean in half.

At which point it starts dissolving from the wound.

"Thank fuck—"

"Parts?" wonders Tom.

"—right, parts, that." She straightens up and grabs the enchanted dagger for monster body parts. Just this last thing and then they're done. She can do this. She can do it.

"I want some scales and the thermal sensing pits if you can dig those out."

"On it."

Scales are easy. Thermal sensing pits are unfortunately not. And then it vanishes, leaving behind a single, jewelled snake eye the size of a pomegranate behind.

A moment after that, the doors they walked through to get into this room open, as well as another, less obtrusive door across the room from them.

"Are you guys still... fucked up, or do you wanna press on?"

"Need a minute, or five," Chris says, panting and sitting on the floor.

"What was that. What was that." He hugs himself. "It was, it, it felt so—"

"Yeah. I know." She shivers.

"It was like—like there was something everywhere I looked—only there wasn't and I knew there wasn't—but my brain was convinced there was, like—"

"Like my shadow was about to become a monster or something—"

"Yeah! Or, or, or like—I don't know—I was just shitting my pants I was so scared."

"Why did it skip me??"

"Fucked if I know, man, I'm just. I think I need five, too." He sits on the floor, legs crossed, and leans into his hands, trying to control his breathing. "There wasn't even anything scary, it was just like—like I was being made to feel scared, of nothing at all."

"Very jealous of you right now," Chris says to Elisabel. "Fuck you're so lucky."

"Definitely feeling that right now, yeah."

"Is there a, like, chest somewhere, I didn't check, I mean there must be, right...?"

"I'll look." Since they don't seem in any condition.

Yeah, right by the other, unobtrusive door. Inside it, there's a suit of enchanted chainmail, some golden coins, a sapphire the size of a chicken egg, a red mana crystal half the size of a fist, and a spell scroll.

"The loot is way shiny," she reports, hefting the sapphire. "Mana crystal will keep me going through the next room, most likely, but if you two want to head back we can."

"Whyyyyy is there a next room, this should be the end," Chris whines, lifting her head up to look.

...then she squints. "You're pulling our leg."

Tom looks in the same direction and huffs out a laugh.

"No, there's a door there." Is there like a rock or something on the ground she can huck at it.

Yeah she can do that. Rock goes through open door just fine.

She blinks. "Uhhhhh."

"Is this place still messing with our heads. And still not messing with yours. What the fuck."

"Inveighs against going on to the next room, I guess."

"No, I refuse to be messed with, this is stupid." He gets to his feet and strides in the rough direction of where he thinks the door should be. "Why is the dungeon psychic, this is stupid, so unaesthetic," he mutters to himself as he does. When he reaches the approximately correct location, between some trees, he starts trying to feel his way to the door and then steps through.

And immediately steps back out. "Augh that was awful."

"Did it... fear-effect you again?"

"No, it did, like, content warning this title contains flashing lights that might trigger epileptic seizures, kinda thing. You know. Just. Lights and sounds and awful stuff."

"...weird. And... impairing, sounds like? I don't really wanna try to solo a room of this thing."

"Yeah. Legit. You don't have a, like, psychic blocking spell or something?"

"Aren't those like super MP expensive and hard and stuff?"

"Yeah I guess."

"I've looked into it but yeah I can't swing it yet."

"Psychic dungeons are rare anyway and usually not very good, I bet next time this one is gonna have something different."

"Why? Worked really fucking well this time didn't it."

"We still won."

"Hell yeah we did. We're bad bitches. ...and Tom."

He rolls his eyes. "Dungeons aren't usually good enough with psychic stuff to get very fancy, it's usually just blunt stuff like this, and if it's expensive to them just like it is for humans it's probably not worth it? I dunno, all I know is that most dungeons that experiment with psychic stuff eventually give up. Not all, though."

"You're kind of a dungeon nerd, huh?"

"Proudly."

"Mood. But yeah. We should take the snake swag and get out of here, tempted though I am to have a peek."

"Could always have a peek and then run back here if there's anything there. Be good to know how much bigger this floor is anyway, if it's just one more room or..."

"You are further tempting me..."

She hops onto her feet. "I got your back, if anything walks through that door that's apparently there I'll smack it good."

"All right. I'll go look. But this was your idea, remember that if something charges out and makes you remember the most embarrassing thing you did in high school."

To the door.

Anticlimactically, there's not much of interest. It's the smallest room she's been in in this dungeon, and all it contains is the pedestal in the center—a tree stump growing to about chest height with sigils engraved in front along the edge near the top—and the floating white orb that's the core of the dungeon. The room seems to have no protections for it beyond the ineffectual psychic attacks it might presumably be attempting to throw at her.

"Nothing much," she calls over her shoulder. She takes a picture of the sigils and another of the core. Anything decipherable, on the tree?

She could try to take a stab at guessing the meanings but the sigils on core pedestals aren't ever exactly quite the same ones used for magic so it's unclear if the visual similarity is meaningful. If she were to guess using the magic sigils she knows that are most similar to these this would mean something like "cold still rock sky".

Huh. Well. Data.

She walks back out. "Got some pictures but I think it's not done with that room yet or something."

Chris checks out the pictures. "Ohhhh was it trying to use the psychic stuff to protect the core? Valid, honestly, sorry Ms. Dungeon we didn't mean to intrude."

"Ms. Dungeon?"

"This dungeon just gives me a girl vibe, you know?"

"She could've just asked politely, didn't need to try to split my head in two."

"She's not very smart."

"Anyway I think we're done here? Divvy up loot and go? I'm usually a completionist but I gotta tell you I am not in the mood to try to look for any other rooms we might've missed, loot be damned."

"With you there. Let's haul everything out and figure out how to split it outside, I don't like being hunched over a pile of gold coins in a swamp when I could be doing it in a fairy garden, yanno?"

"Mood. Let's go."

Chris leads the way, since even though there are not gonna be any monsters she's still the tank.

"You think you got a personal after all? Like a psychic barrier?"

"Maybe! It would have been pretty hidey but I guess I cannot think of a time when I definitively ought to have noticed such a thing."

"You know, I bet there's a ton of people with personals like that who just never even find out. Like if someone's not an adventurer and has that personal how would they even tell?"

"There could be some but I would bet not a ton - no reason to expect it to be concentrated outside of the would-be adventurer population and you don't hear about something like this every day."

"I guess not but there's a lot more people who aren't adventurers than people who are."

"Psychic defense is kind of lame as a personal, though. ...uh, no offense."

"Woulda really liked it just now," Chris mumbles.

"...yeah, better than having nothing. But, I don't know, there's just not really enough psychic dungeons that it's super useful like your thing is."

"Hey, I can get on a plane like everybody else and go sweep 'em."

"If that sounds like your idea of a good time I'm not gonna rain on your parade," he says, grinning.

"It'll cut into my research hours but think of the MP."

"Godspeed."

They divide their spoils, collecting anything they left behind on the way due to being too annoying to carry while they were still actively clearing the dungeon, and report on their findings. The high-power soldier who takes their report agrees with Tom's assessment that it's likely the dungeon will no longer have these psychic effects once it's done reconfiguring itself and reopens but this is good information. They exchange contact information, since that's always good to do at least when you don't hate your random party members, and return to their respective homes.

She posts her pictures. She comes up with a spell set that she might want if she walks into a psychic dungeon that is suddenly more scared of her than she is of it.

She inquires into who's managing entry into the "Protean" Dungeon? They think it's psychic, right?

The Protean Dungeon is one of the oldest dungeons on record, and it's sufficiently unlike other dungeons in many aspects that the more narratively-minded people around sometimes speculate that it might be the first, and perhaps even something like other dungeons' "progenitor", if that's something that makes sense. It was not the first dungeon found, because it's in the middle of the Australian Outback so that took a bit, but it's extremely big, extremely powerful, and, most importantly, it changes.

Now, every dungeon does to some extent, of course. Right after it's cleared, every dungeon closes for a bit, and the next time people go in it's different than last time. Sometimes it's minor, a moved hallway, an extra room, slightly different and more powerful monsters, and other times it can even include entirely new levels and bosses. But the Protean Dungeon changes more, much much more, than any other dungeon does, and much more quickly. A regular dungeon whose first level is themed around wetlands like the one Elisabel just visited would very rarely change that theme; the Protean Dungeon's first level has seen such variations as deserts, jungles, ancient temples, ruins, office buildings, labyrinths, pyramids, tombs, graveyards, the surface of the Moon, mazes of impossible geometry, underwater caves, post-apocalyptic cities, volcano lairs, and much more. Its monsters are just as varied, naturally, always keeping in theme with the dungeon itself.

Furthermore, no one has actually ever beat it. A few parties have managed to explore past the first level, and some even past the second, but no one has defeated any iteration of its third level's boss, and no one has much reason to expect the third is the last. Trips into it are proper camping trips, lasting multiple days and requiring a lot of preparation.

And no one understands how.

People's best understanding of dungeons is that they need to spend mana, or at least something like mana, just as much as humans do. They must have access to different kinds of magic and maybe different resources, seeing as there is no known spell to create monsters or pocket dimensions, but it does seem like there is some cost to changing, and some way the dungeons have of acquiring or regenerating those resources. Statistically, dungeons that change their layout too much (such as by changing the theme of a level) tend to change into a less powerful alternative before powering up again; new floors are almost always easier and smaller than existing ones when they first appear; and the biggest changes occur whenever people die inside, suggesting that they "consume" those they kill, somehow. By all accounts, the Protean Dungeon is breaking the scales set by every other dungeon on record.

Now the thing about psychic powers is that, if the psychic attacker is sufficiently more powerful or skilled than the psychic defender, the defender can't even notice the attack at all. As the difference in power between attacker and defender shrinks, it's possible for the defender to notice the attack even if they can't stop it or dodge it. And a bit over two months ago, a powerful adventurer party that went into the Protean Dungeon included a psychic who was powerful enough in its formation, and they noticed something. Only for a moment, and then the feeling was gone, but they're adamant that that dungeon was doing something psychic to them.

Now people have a guess about how exactly it is that the Protean Dungeon may be accomplishing the feat of looking different every time. If that's how it does it, it's terrifying. That's a degree of psychic ability and control no human and certainly no other dungeon currently has.

So, yeah, some people think the Protean Dungeon might be psychic, although no other adventurer has managed to detect that effect again.

That said... one big difference between personal powers and powers you can acquire somehow else is that personal powers are absolute, in one way or another. Superstrength that is acquired through magic can be sapped or cursed, but Chris's superstrength is probably immune to any strength-reducing effects. Further improvements to it may be affected, but the minimum amount of strength Chris will have will always be capped by her personal power. And it's not out of the question that Elisabel, if she does have a psychic barrier personal, might just categorically nope whatever effect that one psychic felt, if it was real.

But regardless of anything it's still an incredibly high-level dungeon, and Elisabel is not, herself, a super experienced adventurer, so the people in charge are wondering why exactly it is that she's applying.

She doesn't really expect to clear it if it turns out to be at all scary to her.

She would kind of really like to just - stick her head in, though. It can't stop her from going out. Dungeons can't do that. She could just tag along with whoever's going next, and bail and visit her dad instead if her hunch is actually nothing.

So she wants to just... walk in with another party and... do what, exactly?

Check if it's mostly doing psychic stuff, by seeing if it can't do it to her! ...it's possible she should check another psychic dungeon first but they're rare and this is actually the one she can get to in the least travel time if you factor in getting a visa.

Would she be willing to check against a psychic human first, just so they don't waste any time? The psychic who found the effect two months ago would actually be pretty willing to work with her, it turns out, since that day they've been working on their stuff and they visited Protean once more and didn't feel the ping anymore and if you read between the lines this is slightly driving them nuts and they'd love to have some closure.

Sure, sounds great, can they come to Sydney or should she make a trip?

He'll definitely come to Sydney, if she turns out to be legit he wants to be in the party that goes in with her.

Nice. Here's where to find her office on the campus.

So about one month after Elisabel's trip to that one dungeon this French adventurer shows up on her doorstep.

She doesn't speak a lick of French (she took Chinese in school and can pronounce some eight words of Hindi in her now-dead grandmother's accent) so hopefully it's fine for the conversation to be conducted in English. "Come in, come in, have a seat. Shouldn't have any students pop in to bother us, I'm very heavy on the research over the teaching."

He does. "Hello, Dr. Swan, I'm Philippe Montigneaux," says an unassuming man in accented but understandable English. "Very surprised to find an adventurer who is also a researcher," he adds.

"Well, if I want to experiment, I need the mana, and if I want mana..." Shrug. "Usually I go less than once a quarter, but this last time there was the surprise psychic immunity. I didn't feel anything, it looked more like my party members had been targeted and it had just skipped me."

"And you'd never encountered psychic phenomena to have had it tested before?"

"If I did, they weren't so noticeable in their absence."

"I see. Well, if you would be okay with it, I could try some effects on you and see if you resist them?"

"Whaddaya got?"

"Emotions, illusions, mind reading, and mind control. ...that last one has never been tested on humans, it was developed for monsters, I don't know if it even would work."

"...start with illusions, I guess, I don't want any of this to land and will be more willing to try spookier things as other things fail."

"Very well. May I?"

"Ready."

"I will start with something small, then." He first casts a spell that allows him to temporarily draw sigils in the air with floating magic lights, then he draws some more sigils to cast something that Elisabel might recognise as using sigils that are plausibly for illusion spells (at least if the fact that they're mirrored from her perspective doesn't impede understanding too much).

Once the sigils for the actual illusion spell vanish from the air, nothing happens, as far as Elisabel can tell.

...except there is a little feeling, now that she's paying attention, like someone's knocking on the metaphorical door...

"I don't see anything but I'm getting a - ping, is that what you called it -"

"Well, it was more like a, what is it called, un bélier... battering ram? Right before it overwhelmed my defences."

"It did not feel overwhelming, but I guess I can imagine the sensation getting that way if it were a loooooot stronger?"

"It ought not have felt like anything at all, really, even if you had a defence up... Normally if you had defences up it would simply fail to register, it was not shaped as an attack. This is peculiar."

"The field is young!" she chirps.

"Shall I move on to a more powerful illusion?"

"Yeah."

For this one he places the suitcase he brought with on the table and grabs a couple of coloured crystals as well as a little focus.

It takes somewhat longer casting and the crystals are consumed, but again she feels nothing but the knock on her metaphorical door, no stronger than before.

"It doesn't feel any stronger to me. ...I could maybe let myself see it, if I wanted?"

"—really! I'm so curious, could you try it?"

"Sure..." Can she open the door just a lil bit or is it all or nothing.

She can! Seems like she might be able to pick individual senses and intensities within each of them and if she thinks a little bit she can even customise more deeply than that, like seeing only brightness or overall shape, or hearing the "loudness" but not any detail of the sound.

"Oooooooh I can be so picky about this actually." What is the loose shape and location of this illusion?

"Picky?"

It seems to be encompassing the whole room.

"I can decide what of it I want to let through. I can see you're covering the whole room, but haven't let through any colors or anything yet." Colors on.

It's proooooobably replacing the room with some other room, which has mostly off-whites and some blues in the distance.

"Interesting..."

"White'n'blue. Is there more to this than visuals... don't tell me..." Sounds?

Wind, mostly. Philippe looks fascinated.

"I've let the sound through, you've got wind effects in here." Is she missing any visuals, what if she allows that - can she close off the sound again now that she's let it in -

She can close off the sound again. She's missing the actual specific shapes of individual objects, i.e. where the colours are, but that's all.

If she allows it through, she seems to be in the Greek Parthenon. The off-white is the marble and the blue is the sky.

"Oh, it's the Parthenon, pretty." Are there smells? Textural anything?

Textures yes, she can touch the Parthenon, but no smells.

"It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been," he says, smiling.

She pets a column. Does it actually resist her hand if she pushes it - can she allow it to -

It does not resist her hand, no. "There is a more complex illusion that would feel solid but it was not the one I cast."

"What would happen, do you suppose, if I ignored one of those, stuck my arm into it, and then stopped ignoring it - I guess I'd want to try with my fingernail first -"

"Oh, the resistance would still be illusory, merely the spell telling your mind that it cannot go past this point even though it can. It would not hurt you, I don't think."

"The Protean does kill people sometimes, doesn't it?"

"It does, yes, but I presume not through illusions."

"I wonder how, then... if I'm right, which, I suppose this is evidence that I'm not. Anybody ever been pulled out and autopsied?"

"I don't think so. It is... If a party has had enough trouble so as to lose a member, it does not surprise me that they would not have the ability to bring their body back. The dungeon can be very overwhelming, very fast."

Nod.

The illusion runs out, and she is back in her office. "Should I attempt other effects? Stronger ones, perhaps?"

"If you don't mind, though I think I will probably not experiment with letting them through."

"Understandable. Any preferences?"

"...lemme get a song stuck in my head and then you can try reading me, and save mind control for last."

"Very well, I will prepare the materials." He switches spell focus, grabs a few different crystals including a couple of mana ones, and grabs a piece of paper with a spell diagram written on it then places some of the materials onto it in specific places.

She hums to herself tensely and gives the thumbs up when he's ready.

And he casts the spell.

The crystals vanish or turn to dust, and then once again Elisabel feels that same ping.

"...nothing at all," he says, after a second, wonderingly.

"Yeah. ...sorry about your crystals."

"Think nothing of it, this is incredible. You will almost certainly be able to resist anything the dungeon throws at you." He stops the spell. "Should I try the last one?"

"...if you think it's worth it."

"From a material cost perspective? Yes. If you can resist that spell as easily as you did everything else I can think of no psychic effect that could touch you, it is more sophisticated than anything else I have ever encountered. But it would just be a confirmation of what I already think is true."

"Go for it, then. Something - minor."

He nods and switches spell diagrams.

This one is monstrously complicated, and requires lots of crystals as well as some herbs. As he casts, the spell consumes the materials on the diagram one by one in sequence while Philippe moves his focus to be directly above each of them with one hand and draws sigils in the air with the other, and Elisabel can feel the buildup of magic in the air. It feels almost like being near a dungeon does, if more locally concentrated, and is reminiscent of the more advanced spells she's seen in other people's experiments.

She would definitely not be able to cast this one, herself, yet.

And again, ping. No stronger than before.

"Same as ever."

"Incroyable..." For a moment he looks genuinely excited for the first time since he arrived, though he quickly schools his reaction. "Yes, I believe you are the most likely person to be able to entirely resist whatever psychic effects that dungeon has out of anyone I've ever met."

"Great. And you wanted to come along, right? Anyone else you know of who should be in on it?"

"I have a party, they all agreed that this would be important enough for us to try to go again.

"If you do turn out to be immune to everything... I mean to say, do you have plans to attempt to help us clear the entire dungeon? It is above your usual paygrade, but I trust Tristan to be able to keep you safe."

"I think that might depend on what I... see... when I walk into it, you know? But in principle I'm willing."

"It would take two to three days to reach the end of the third level, so you will need to prepare accordingly."

"Yeah. My dad lives by Alice Springs, I'll stop there and gear up."

"Very well. I... believe this is all, then?"

"Unless you wanna talk shop. I don't have your oomph but I'm an academic witch."

"'Talk shop'? Sure, we can talk shop," he says, grinning.

Great! What's the latest in France that hasn't been translated, does he subscribe to the Australian Journal of Witchcraft, does he wanna see her most recent preprints -

The party schedules a time with Elisabel, taking into account her newness and the necessity for preparation time—as well as a schedule opening in the dungeon. It is one of the most famous dungeons in the world, after all. The main limiting factor, though, is the number of adventurers who can actually do anything safely in it at all, so two weekends from meeting Philippe, Elisabel finds herself driving to the middle of the Australian Outback.

She checks her GPS a lot. There's not a ton to go on otherwise. Camp stuff bounces in the backseat. She's got an audiobook on.

The radius affected by the Protean Dungeon is much, much wider than that of any other dungeons Elisabel has been to. The incongruous, storybook-like patch of dense forested woods is visible from a distance, and even after she reaches its edge, there is a while of walking to get to the entrance.

And it feels amazing. The magic in the air is so strong it actually has proper physical effects on her, directly. If her nose was kinda blocked, no it's not; if she slept badly, no she didn't; if she had any aches or pains, no she doesn't. She can feel herself think more clearly, not because she's thinking any differently but just because the little distractions are gone, she has more energy, more raw executive function. That's not to mention the senses, how everything is clearer and sharper and more understandable. It's like she's lived in a badly lit, underwater cave her whole life, and now she's finally swum out to the surface under the sun.

Plus, the area itself is friendly. Despite being some sort of forest, there is a clearly-demarcated beaten path for her to follow, which manages to simultaneously look like it emerged naturally from usage and yet be entirely clear of annoying stubborn tree roots or rocks or patches of dry earth that might make the way treacherous at all. The oppressive desert sun gives way to a gentle morning light counterbalanced by a soft, cool breeze carrying a sweet smell reminiscent of oranges but ineffably different, somehow. On top of that, there are no monsters, or at least no hostile ones; fairies, yes, and butterflies with iridescent wings and a small herd of jackalopes bounding past her and will-o'-the-wisps that chime like a choir of bells singing in harmony, but nothing that will ever attack her.

It's an open invitation, and it's so, so tempting.

It iiiiiiiis she wishes she could liiiiive heeeere where is her party?

Right by the entrance! In addition to Philippe there's another DPS, a tank, and a dedicated healer (because, lest the magical woods make Elisabel forget, this is a dungeon that has killed people and where you expect to be routinely injured and need healing).

Speaking of the entrance, another way in which this dungeon is "protean" is, in fact, the entrance itself, which often changes. Today it seems to have taken the shape of a cute little abandoned cottage, the kind that could be used in a horror setting but with the local lighting conditions looks more like the kind of place the main character might sleep in to recharge after a long hike in the woods, safe in the knowledge that the rules of hospitality mean that they won't be attacked inside.

"Elisabel, welcome!" says Philippe, with one kiss on each cheek. "Tout le monde, this is Elisabel," he tells his party. "Elisabel, tout le monde."

She's not enamored of the cheek kiss thing but she doesn't make a fuss about it. "Hello everyone."

"Bonjour."

"Simone, you have English better than mine."

"Sue me."

"Salut. So our plan today is to do business as usual unless Dr. Swan says something to change it, yes? Except we will be focusing on protecting her, of course."

"Right, and I'll be reporting to you on what-all I see in there. Hopefully the air isn't an illusion."

"...would that... work?"

"No, it was a joke." Pause. Then, nervously, "It was a joke, right? Only if you tell me there's been some research breakthrough about illusion air or something..."

"As far as I know that would not work."

"Right, then. Water, prefight snacks and potions, then we buff and go."

Water. Checklist. Poptarts.

Tristan's tank loadout is more sophisticated than Chris's was, but the fundamentals are the same.

And Philippe has some very nifty buffs. Haste, protection, stability, and he pre-prepares some contingencies in case the dungeon throws a curveball at them like deciding to be underwater or something.

It's sort of redundant for her to cast anything but she'll do a couple of her faves on herself anyway.

And then in they go.

The inside of the abandoned cottage looks unremarkable, or about as unremarkable as anything here does. Vines artfully climb over the wall in pretty patterns, a section of the ceiling is missing in a way that catches the rays of sun and reflects off the motes of dust in the air, an abandoned garden overgrew but rather than being covered in weeds it is covered in flowers.

But the way down into the dungeon itself turns out to be in the kitchen, where a trapdoor has a ladder leading down into the darkness.

"Connard. Philippe, portes mon sac, ce fils de pute va nous tendre une embuscade."

"...s'enculer..." he grumbles, but yes he'll accept Tristan's bag so the tank will be able to face whatever ambush will inevitably be waiting for them downladder.

"Do I need to understand any of that."

"Oh, euh, he thinks the dungeon will definitely have an ambush waiting for us so he shouldn't be weighted down by our bag of supplies. A ladder, really..."

"Mm-hm." She proceeds down in her position in the lineup.

She'll go in the middle, between both DPSs, with the healer going last.

The ladder goes down... way deeper than a ladder ought to go down. Naturally, this doesn't mean anything, since dungeons don't really occupy physical space as such. It's probably just psychological.

And then, after a while of climbing...

Knock knock.

"I'm getting pung, what am I missing."

"Pung?"

"Her personal barrier. It's still pitch black for me, though. And I don't feel anything. Anyone else feel any different?"

"Non."

"Well, uh, look alive, but you were already doing that."

"I look dead by preference."

"Har har."

"—ah, putain—!" Tristan exclaims, right before jumping off the ladder.