Chapter 44

Level eight consisted of skeletons only. However, it had two different types of skeleton. One was a swordsman much like Lydia. These fights would have been dangerous, as Lydia fought at about the same level as a single skeleton. However, after adding my Divine Aura, attacking with Harm Undead, and/or switching to get Party Status Up, Lydia was more than capable of taking them out. The second type of skeletons wore a robe and chanted magic. These guys actually fell quicker if you could get to them, but if they were allowed to fight from a distance, their spells were scary and dangerous.

I made sure to use Cook with both of them, but neither dropped anything considered food. Fortunately, we had several weeks’ worth of drumsticks. As long as I remembered to cast Purify Food on them daily, they also remained fresh. They were just as tasty as the moment they were made. Were they even real food, or were they magic? I decided not to ask any questions. It’d only give me a headache.

Both skeletons dropped bone dust. I picked it up and had a pretty large stockpile that kept growing. I considered learning alchemy, but with only two ingredients so far, I really doubted I’d be able to accomplish anything. Thus, instead, we just kept killing and working towards the next floor.

Lydia’s Swordsman had increased to 13 now, and I was a level eleven White Mage. My new White Mage spell was Detect Magic. It was an active skill, not passive, unfortunately.

“Detect Magic,” I muttered to myself.

Usually, detect magic was met with a dead ping. Rather, I felt nothing except a faint impression of magic when it came to my backpack and Lydia’s sword. They were the only items with any magic properties, and they weren’t strong either.

The reason I was casting Detect Magic regularly was that I was looking for some kind of portal to lead us back up to the surface. We had been down here for nearly a week now, and we were almost certainly left for dead. Although they’d eventually send a group down to whip out this place, that could be another month or more before that happened. Neither of us wanted to wait down here for another month.

“A ping!’ I let out a cry as I felt an abnormal magical resonance.

“Master?”

I let out a cough. “Ah…I mean… we have something that is showing magic. It may be a portal out of here.”

The pair of us headed in the direction of the magic, and it got stronger the closer we got to it. It also seemed to attract skeletons, and the last few batches were difficult to take out. I had to cast Group Heal in order to distract the mages while she took out skeleton after skeleton. When everything was said and done, I was looking down at a platform.

“It’s a trap,” I said, mostly muttering to myself.

“Yes, Master… it does resemble a magical trap.”

“If we trigger it, it could be a portal to send us somewhere else in the dungeon. Or… it could conjure up a fire, or spikes, or something else to kill us.”

“Would Master like me to test it?”

“No… it’ll probably be one use. We’d need to go together or risk being split up.” I sighed.

This was a literal life or death decision. If I was wrong about this trap, death was almost a certainty. Even if I was right and it transported, who knew where we would end up. It could put us down deeper, in a harder section of the dungeon.

“Should we do it?” She asked.

I sighed, grabbing her and pulling her close and stepping onto the trap. “If I don’t go, I’ll never know,” I said.

Light sprung up around us, and I was delighted to feel something akin to the teleportation from before. The room we appeared in… was another cathedral with yet a third mural. We had managed to travel even deeper into the dungeon. Damn.