AN: First chapter since start of opt-in, 7/1/23.
If it wasn't for the knight the party would have been in serious trouble.
Before Diana could react beyond the realisation that there was something behind them, he had already turned to place himself between the party and their attackers.
Three crabs had unfolded in the middle of the room.
She glimpsed their shells, as they scrabbled against the knights shield, which matched the stones in the room.
"They can hide themselves in the open," she commented quietly, trying to find a clear shot.
There wasn't one, not while she was trapped against the door.
"Hide in the open? What nonsense is this?"
"They pretended to be rocks," she snapped at the priestess. "Now if you don't mind, can we focus on killing them?"
A task easier said than done.
They were out of position, archer and mages too close to the front to attack, while the rogues were stuck against the door.
The only people positioned for their role were the priestess and knight, her in the middle of the party where she was safe to heal, and him at the front between the monsters and the rest of them.
Except the knight was stuck on defense, the three crabs timing their attacks so that he didn't have time to strike at them between bracing his shield.
Diana's thoughts raced.
In theory she or one of the mages could break from cover behind the knight, get the space to attack.
But that would leave them out of cover, and neither mage had much to defend themselves if the crabs went after them.
The fire mage would get healing without too much fuss, but it was best to hold his magic in reserve if possible.
Just in case.
Which left…
Diana sighed as she slid her bow into her quiver, an action that drew the priestesses attention.
"You're disarming yourself? Your job, the entire reason you're even here, is so you can at least kill some of the Dungeon Masters creatures before your death."
"And there isn't any space to use my bow," she answered, drawing her daggers. "But there's more than one way to skin a wolf."
It was an almost instinctive motion to check the balance of her daggers, even after how long it was since she had to rely on them.
Something people often forgot was how many similarities there were between non-magical (martial, as she had heard people call them) classes, often sharing at least a few skill trees with each other.
And rangers shared the rogue knife skills.
Even if, technically, they all used daggers rather than knives.
It was often assumed that all rangers relied entirely upon the bow, as it was that which set them apart from the other martial classes, but Diana had spent some time as a solo Adventurer when she started out.
Bows, archery, was all well and good when you had space between you and your targets, but let them get close and your best option was to be ready to get up close and personal yourself.
"[Moon Dance]," she intoned, flickering forward, slashing through the crabs as she passed.
It would be easy to condemn her for using a full skill against just three normal enemies, but Diana didn't particularly care.
She wasn't practiced with her daggers enough to fight normally, and it wasn't like she would be using them again unless things went seriously wrong.
There was a moments stillness as she stood at the end of the attack.
Then came the first cries of rage she'd ever heard from crabs, causing her to turn just in time to see the knight bisect them with his sword, using the way they had turned on her as an opening.
"A wise choice, keeping ready to fight in melee if needed," he commented, lowering his weapons.
"Not really," Diana admitted, switching back to her bow. "I haven't kept in practice, having a party to provide space."
"Doors open," one of the rogues interjected, having turned back to see if they could proceed as soon as the crabs were dead. "Ready to keep moving?"
{}
All things considered, the ambush hadn't done as much damage as it could have.
If they hadn't been able to let the poison disperse however…
But there was no use questioning 'what if'.
He might as well ask 'what if they had trustworthy priestesses' while he was at it.
Sir Jacob shook the thought out of his head as he led the party through the corridor.
It wasn't a particularly long one, leading soon enough to another door.
He stepped aside to let the rogue examine it.
"There's something moving in there," she noted as she reached the door to start the examination.
"Monsters?"
"No, they wouldn't make this sort of constant noise. More like… I don't know."
"Is it dangerous?"
"It's in a Dungeon."
Fair enough.
He had heard rumours of what could be found in some Dungeons, such as the 'Monster House' or 'Gazebo of Death', depending on who was talking about it.
A room made out of monsters.
Which was why you were always particularly careful about any rooms without an obvious threat.
"Will it be an immediate threat," he corrected his question.
"Doubtful," the rogue decided after a moment. "There's no pressure on the door, or any sign of a trigger."
Doubtful wasn't the same as definitely not.
"I'll take the lead, just in case," Sir Jacob declared, readying his shield.
"Ready when you are," came the rangers voice behind him, and he glanced over his shoulder to see her knocking an arrow.
The others were also prepared, so Sir Jacob steeled himself and kicked open the door, bracing his shield for any incoming attack.
There wasn't one, so he carefully lowered his shield.
The second thing he noticed was the size of the room.
It was larger by far than even the throne room in which he was knighted.
The first thing, however, was definitely the castle of sand that all but filled the space.
It was quite clear what the rogue had heard.
The sand that formed the castle was in constant motion, granules rubbing against each other as they cycled through the structure.
"Well," came the voice of one of the mages behind him, "that is most unexpected."
"Just ignore it," the priestess declared, pushing past him to head for the other door, almost hidden next to the castle.
She tried the door straight away, without waiting for someone to check it for traps, but the door wouldn't open.
"It would never be so easy," Sir Jacob told her in a cold voice. "The room would not be here otherwise."
She glared at him as though it was his fault.
"What do you suggest then?"
"It's simple," he answered, readying his sword. "We storm the castle."
{}
The castle had many rooms within, each barely large enough for them to fight in, each with a number of crabs weak enough to not be a true threat to the party and each possessing multiple exits.
But something felt wrong, a feeling that grew as the number of rooms they cleared rose into the teens.
"Stop, there's something wrong," Artemis finally declared as they were choosing which path to take.
"Why?"
"I've been trying to map the castle in my head, but it doesn't work."
The priestess snorted.
"Clearly you overestimate your mental abilities."
"No, he's right," Diana spoke up. "Some of these passages lead back to where we've already been. And yet…"
"Each room still has it's complement of monsters," Artemis finished, adjusting his glasses in a manner to put an end to any questions.
"So what? It's just a trick?"
"Normally the purpose of a castle would be to protect a king, or their treasure," the knight affirmed. "Some have magicians ensure they aren't so easy for intruders to locate."
"So we need to find the throne or treasure room while the castle fights back? How do you propose we do that?"
"I… might have an idea," the fire mage put forward. "But we'd need to get out of the castle first, and I'll be pretty much useless after."
"If I'm right, this path should be the exit," Artemis determined, stepping towards it.
"So we just abandon the expedition rather than finish it?"
"Do you have any idea how to find the path to an unknown destination? Especially when the paths shift?"
"We shall see whether the plan can work before committing to wandering a shifting maze," the knight declared, ending the argument as he followed Artemis's recommendation.
In the end the entire party followed suit, if not without grumbling from the priestess.
The path indeed led outside, through the front entrance, proving that the rooms reset at the very least.
They gathered before it, and the mage stepped forward.
"Everybody stay back," he instructed, rolling up his sleeves nervously. "Now, there are certain things we were always told never to do, and here's one of them."
He acted before they could respond, thrusting his hands forwards, a wave of blue fire pouring from them over the castle.
He maintained the stream for a number of seconds, before they abruptly dropped to red and then yellow, before dropping entirely.
There was a frozen moment as the party saw what he had done.
Where before there had stood a castle of sand, there was instead a castle of glass.
There was a slight touch of yellow throughout the structure, but deep within was a red orb, seeming to pulse with light.
The moment was broken as the mage swayed, then collapsed completely.
Artemis, Diana and the knight rushed forward, to check him for injuries.
"No magic," he instead informed them, barely able to even speak.
"You sacrificed the rest of your magic into a single spell?"
It wasn't clear if Artemis's tone was impressed or horrified.
"Only way… to be sure…"
The mage passed out completely.
"That's us done for the day then," the priestess grumbled, earning glares from the group.
"Not quite, there's still one more thing we need to do."
The knights words drew their attention back to the castle.
The glass nearest the core was starting to crumble back into sand, and it looked as though a crab was within, trying to dig its way out.
"Right," Diana declared, readying her bow.
The exploration was finished for the day anyway, so there was no need to hold back.
She released the arrow with a cry of "[Power Shot]!"
The arrow shone with an internal light as it cleaved through wall after wall of the castle, shattering the glass and finally sinking into the core.
There was a frozen moment.
And then the core burst.
A wave of concussive force destroyed the walls the arrow hadn't, reducing all the glass back into sand.
For a moment there was the vague shape of a castle before them once more, then it collapsed, a heap of sand soon spreading across the Dungeon floor.
"Now we can set up camp," she declared, lowering her bow.
{}
It was unusual to set up camp in a Dungeon, Artemis mused, and yet here they were for a second time in the same Dungeon.
Once again the priestess had failed to do anything useful, contenting herself with barely looking over the fire mage, while Diana had commandeered the one armed rogue to help with cooking, which left the over three of them to erect tents.
Not for shelter, as the people who raised an eyebrow at the idea tended to believe, but rather privacy.
Some parties, particularly those who had been through a lot together, would go with two big tents, a male/female divide.
Here, there wasn't that trust.
In all fairness, Artemis could state that there wasn't too much of a problem there on the male side, only the rogue would serve to make him uncomfortable.
And as they had lost an arm, that wasn't a particular issue.
But given the attitude of the priestess, it was a good thing that they had four, two person tents in their supplies.
The priestess and female rogue were getting one, when they got around to putting it up, while Diana was getting the one he was putting up to herself.
He was with the knight in the third tent while the fire mage and other rogue got the last.
So different to when the party had camped on the road.
He adjusted his glasses from underneath, and checked the tent.
There weren't any obvious problems, but he wanted to make sure.
Not just to delay putting up the last tent.
"Foods ready," Diana called, and he turned his attention back from his work.
To his surprise, the other mage seemed to have woken up, and was leaning against some bags that had been set up as a makeshift rest.
Which he definitely needed, magic exhaustion taking a heavy toll on the body until it could recover.
Just one reason why you never sacrificed it all unless you had no other choice.
Artemis shook his head and approached the makeshift fire, accepting his dish from Diana.
"It won't be as hot as lunch," she warned, before settling next to the mage to help him eat.
The prospect of a cold meal wasn't why Artemis only dug in slowly.
Rather, the situation was wearing on him.
He had expected, with their prior experience of the Dungeon and a party chosen to fill the required roles, for them to have cleared the Dungeon, or at the very least the first floor, already, that he would be sitting down to dinner with his name cleared.
With their names cleared.
He didn't really care too much what people thought about him.
But to distrust his party?
The people who were more family than those that shared his blood?
"We should be able to clear the rest of the floor tomorrow," he ended up saying.
"What makes you so sure?"
"There were seven rooms total," he answered between mouthfuls. "We can likely assume the number of rooms have to be at least close to the same. So far we've cleared four rooms, and we know where the Boss is. That leaves two or three more before we can get in. We already know what we're facing, so we should be able to reach the Boss without too much trouble."
"Unless there's another castle," Diana pointed out.
"Not that likely," he shook his head. "You only ever seem to hear about one such… unique… room per floor. I guess there could be one…"
"It is equally possible the floor has more rooms than you think," the knight pointed out. "We can't let our guard down."
Artemis nodded slowly.
"That's what got us last time. I let down my guard and…"
"Nobody would suspect the floor itself being a trap," Diana comforted him.
"What do you mean about the floor being a trap?"
They flinched at the voice of the priestess.
"Um, the Boss room had a floor consisting of slabs of rock, some of which were suspended by webbing, a persons weight enough to send them falling free… did we… not mention it?"
The knight shook his head slowly.
"I do not believe that general Jeremiah would have sent us in without mentioning this fact if you had."
"It… must have slipped our minds…"
"We need to send someone out to tell him," Artemis declared. "Maybe… tomorrow, when we reach the entrance again, we send you," he indicated the one armed rogue, "back, to pass the information on."
"But-"
"He's right," the knight declared. "It wouldn't be safe sending you against a Boss with only one arm anyway, at least this way you get to still provide a valuable service, even if you can't help us fight directly."
The rogue visibly struggled to come up with an argument, but went limp when he failed, picking at the food in the dish he was holding between his legs.
AN: So there are probably going to be people annoyed at the way I mostly skipped over the castle, but there would have been other people annoyed at going through the same rooms over and over, so I think this was still the best solution.
And hopefully next chapter, which should be next week with any luck, will reach the Boss!
As a bonus fun fact, this chapter was written nearly entirely while wearing my 'NaNoWriMo winners shirt'. Turns out the burnout lasts about a month, before I reach a point I have to start writing again rather than being unable to write.