Seeds of Discordia

[Forgotten Cathedral of Lotan. Dungeon Type – Jumbled (Puzzle and Tower). Restrictions – Only 5 Groups allowed inside Dungeon (Size of groups doesn't matter). Rules – Solve the Puzzles on each floor to reach the final floor. Kill the Raid Boss on Final Floor to complete the dungeon. 6 Floors in total.]

[Warning! Two conflicting Mana Types are currently affecting the Dungeon. Structure of dungeon is compromised. Complete dungeon within the amount of time before the dungeon completely falls apart or else all beings (Living and Dungeon Creatures) will be forcefully ejected, and the dungeon is destroyed. Time remaining: 23 Hours, 46 Minutes, 31 Seconds]

These were the last things Liam had seen before going through the portal. After appearing on the other side of the portal, Liam felt a strong and massive wave of nausea that dropped him to his knees. He breathed in hard as he tried to catch his breath and fought to not throw up. After what felt like a long time, Liam was finally able to reorient himself before standing up and taking in the room they were in.

The room he and the rest of his team were in was huge with the ceiling up pretty high. If Liam was back on earth no matter how hard he threw something it would have been impossible for him to reach it. The walls were a polished white with blue streaks and specks here and there giving the random paintings and pictures a better canvas to showcase the subjects or sceneries in them. Along both sides of the walls in between the paintings and pictures were statues of robed figures lifting a scepter, wand, or staff up pointing to the middle of the room.

In the middle of the room was a dried up fountain with a massive statue that stood almost as tall as the ceiling. As Liam stared at the statue he wasn't sure what it was. It circled around a pillar, but the body was smoothed out while parts of it, including the head of it destroyed.

Inside the dried up fountain were statues bigger than Artem sprawled out with their arms out. Liam wasn't sure if that's how they were supposed to be or if they had fallen over from some place they were once standing at. However, he didn't have enough time to comprehend that when he heard a familiar voice call out to him.

"Took you guys long enough," Jude said as he approached Liam and his group.

Liam and the others turned to look at him and were confused. It was Mercer who asked the question they all were thinking, "What are you doing here? I thought this was a Puzzle and Tower Dungeon?"

"It is," Jude replied. "However, it looks like this room is an intersecting area we can meet with the others. I'm not sure if it will be like that on each floor, but it seems that way on this first one."

"Interesting," Mercer muttered as he brought a hand to his chin. A thought suddenly occurred to him as he looked around. 'Where are the others at? Are you by yourself?"

Jude shook his head before pointing to the other side of the fountain. Everyone looked to see six doors spread out across the wall. Five of the doors were around their height and three of them were already shut.

The last door that rested in the middle of the five was almost missed as it was completely different than the others. While the five smaller doors had a wooden frame with a single door, this one looked to be made out of some sort of stone and was smoothed out making, what they could barely see, the two doors within the door frame look like a single one.

Upon further inspection, Liam was able to see that what they thought they were seeing wasn't really the case. What they had first believed to be stone was something entirely different. As they made their way closer to it Liam was even more sure it wasn't stone. As he placed a hand on the surface of it he felt a cold sensation touch his hand.

"Strange huh," Mica questioned as she approached Liam's right side.

Liam looked at her before nodding, "What is this? Ice?"

Mica shrugged before giving her guess, "It might be a higher form or application of it, but I'm not sure."

"Can we melt it?" Roman asked, curious as he stared at the weird door.

"Nope. Tried that already and didn't get a scratch," Jude stated as he glared at the door.

"As much as I'd love to solve the mystery of this door, what's up with the others ones?" Avery asked, feeling a bit anxious. "Also, where is everyone else at?"

"They already entered a door," Lacy responded. "Apparently each group is supposed to enter through a door and take on whatever puzzle lays beyond it."

"Have you done a Puzzle Dungeon before?" Mercer asked.

Lacy and Mica nodded as Lacy answered, "We've done a couple, but none at this scale before."

"What do you mean by this scale?" Gimmel questioned as he approached the group.

Lacy gestured to the room around them and the doors. "The couple of Puzzle Dungeons we have done didn't have groups appear and have to take part of something I'm starting to think is connected."

"What makes you think that?" Avery inquired as she stared at the woman.

"Well, like I said the couple of Puzzle Dungeons we did didn't have groups appear in them. Other than that…It's all just guesswork," Lacy stated as she looked at the ground.

"I, for one, am hoping everything is connected," Mica said as she narrowed her eyes while turning her head enough to side eye Jude, Theodore, Henry, and Mia. Jude noticed Mica, Liam, Mercer, and Avery staring at him. "Those four aren't any help unless there's something that needs to be moved…"

"Or destroyed," Jude added with a giant grin. "I'm really good at destroying things when they need to be."

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A teasing grin formed on Liam's face as soon as Jude finished his sentence. The grin caused Jude to look at Liam with some suspicion. Liam let him wonder for a few seconds to figure it out and when he saw the realization on his face, Liam swiftly jabbed, "Which is strange for someone with a Harmony Seed."

"Dude," Jude said while dragging the word out some. "Seriously?"

"What's a Harmony Seed?" Artem asked as he looked at the two.

Avery, Blair, Mercer, and Roman shook their heads along with Mica and Lacy as the six said together, "Don't worry about it."

"Um, I don't mean to butt in on your fun, but…," Ariyana started as she hesitated for a moment. "But I think we should hurry and not waste any time. We have a time limit, and I don't want to waste any more time that could be used on getting to that sleezeball elf."

Liam's grin quickly faded as he remembered why they were there in the first place. She was right. Now wasn't the time to be making fun of Jude. Although he had a stronger than usual urge to do it, he knew he needed to focus. He looked back at Lacy and Mica and asked, "So we're supposed to go through one of these doors?"

"A door that is open," Lacy corrected. "We tried to open the door that Kala and her team went through and its completely locked and won't budge."

Mercer and Liam nodded as Avery asked, "Okay. Have you guys picked one out?"

"We're taking the one on the end," Jude announced as he started for it. He turned his head enough to be able to see Liam. Liam could see that he had a serious look in his eye as he said, "You better make it through. I still need to have a proper fight with you."

Liam shook his head as he thought about the man's words. Even though they were in another Forgotten Realm type dungeon. One that made the difficulty harder than it should be, this guy was still thinking about fighting him. The thought made his blood start to boil. He would be lying if he said he didn't want to fight him again.

Liam frowned as the feeling disappeared after the last member of Jude's group walked through the door and it shut closed behind them. He wasn't sure why he had that thought nor why he felt excited to fight Jude. If anything he really wanted to avoid Jude. He let out a sigh as the others urged him to hurry up. He needed to focus on the task at hand. And that task was to get passed the first floor of this Puzzle Tower Dungeon.

Before the group made it to the only door left, Mercer stopped everyone and said, "I know we're in a hurry, but I think before we go through…we need to discuss our formation and make sure we have all of our supplies ready."

Everyone looked at Mercer and nodded in agreement. Everyone but Ariyana. She stared at the door for a long moment and was about to step forward not caring if she didn't listen to what Mercer was trying to say but stopped as Blair grabbed her wrist. She turned her head to stare at the woman and was about to say something, but stopped as Mercer explained, "I know you want to hurry and try to get to Omira. I get that. However, we don't know what to expect in this dungeon. We haven't done a proper Puzzle Dungeon before and now that we have one it's also a Jumbled one with a Tower type mixed in. That's double the trouble for us."

Mercer paused for a brief moment as he waited to see if Ariyana was going to say something. When she didn't, he continued, "The more prepared we are the better and faster we will get to her. We will save her. Okay?"

Ariyana turned her head and gave Mercer a frustrated look, but after looking at Artem, Blair, Avery, Gimmel, Val, and Liam she understood why they were doing this. They needed to go into this prepared instead of rushing ahead like they did back in the Tutorial Area. They may still be new to this world, but they aren't complete beginners anymore and they needed to start acting like it.

She let out a breath before finally saying to Mercer with a half-smile, "Alright. What do we need to start with?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Liam and the others stepped through the door one by one. Blair and Artem took to the front like they always do, however this time Blair stood a bit further in the front than Artem. This was so if there was a sudden surprise attack, he could throw a healing spell onto Blair to regain the missing health before joining in on the defending.

Avery and Roman were the next to walk through. Avery on the outside of Artem and Roman on the inside. Their job was to assess whether or not they needed to rush in and start attacking after Blair and Artem secured their positions. Liam and Gimmel walked in the middle of the two not too far behind.

Like most of the fights they've been practicing inside dungeons, he was taking on the role of a Wild Card. He would assess where he was needed and help there. He had his Perception of the Control Tower on so he could keep an eye out on everyone's health and mana. As they would discuss he wouldn't voice anything unless something was going on and Mercer and Ariyana, who were in control of Health, Mana, and Stamina management didn't say anything. He was to also convey any information Gimmel couldn't see or didn't catch, like sudden movements or abilities that a creature was about to use.

Gimmel's role was the scout and backline defender. He was to use his puppets as scouts to keep an eye on the creatures around them to make sure no new ones were appearing as well as any changes to the area or hidden things they wouldn't normally see. He was also tasked to use any of his Illusioned puppets to create any diversions in case any creatures were to diverge from the path they wanted them to or if any went to attack someone off guard. His other role was to also protect the three behind him in case any monster made it past the frontline.

The last three to come out were Val on the left side, Ariyana in the middle, and Mercer on the right side. Val and Mercer were to rotate using their instruments unless there was a wave of monsters while Ariyana kept an eye out on their teammates and use her plant, charm, illusions, and even her tamed pets. Val would use her voice to create buffs and debuffs when she wasn't using her instruments while Mercer would attack using his bow.

Mercer and Ariyana agreed that he would make the calls on health, mana, and stamina checks first when he attacked with his bow and she would do it while he used his instruments. After they all had agreed to the plan, Artem passed out his Mana Bars. As they ate the tasty treats, Liam also did an inventory check on all the different potions they all had.

After confirming the stock and everyone finishing the buff snacks, they felt they were ready. The room was dimly lit, not allowing everyone, except for Liam, Blair, and Roman to get a full look at the room. From what they were able to see, the floor was made of a polished white stone that dipped down into steps a few feet into the room. After a few of steps they noticed the floor had just completely disappeared.

That was what everyone except for the three who had better sight than the others. The three weren't looking down though. They were looking up. From what Blair and Roman were able to see, giant pipes that were four feet tall ran along the sides of the wall, up and down, left, and right, from one wall to the other. There were also some that had a certain pattern going on. The pipes looked to be made out of some, what looked like, ice-like metal. As they stared at the pipes they noticed there were some that didn't connect to anything, which confused them.

That was as far as what Blair and Roman was able to see. Liam on the other hand, thanks to his Dark Sight, saw something else. A lot of something else. When he spotted them he froze before finally muttering, "Are you fucking kidding me?"

His words prompted the others to stop and look at him. Mercer was the one to ask the question they were all dreading to hear the answer to. "What is it? What do you see?"

Before he could answer, the last person entered the room causing the door swiftly slammed shut. The moment the door shut the entire room's lighting grew brighter. Everyone turned to look in the direction Liam was staring at. Their eyes widened as they got a good look at the skeletal creatures that were wrapped around the pipes above them. These skeletons weren't like the ones they had fought against back in the Tutorial Dungeon. Those skeletons had two legs and feet. These ones however…they were Naga shaped skeletal creatures. And judging by the weapons they were holding as well as the fact they were able to hug the pipes so tightly. They were stronger.