The Ruby Magician

Draugr Shield - A tower bone shield composed from a magically empowered skeleton that belonged to a temple guardian. Provides major resistance to bladed attacks, minor resistant to blunt attacks, and major resistance to magical attacks. Gives the ability to summon two Specters up to two hours a day. Empowers skills focused on harming enemies by a minor amount.

*Cursed - if the wielder of this shield takes a hit while wielding it, has a moderate chance to summon a skeleton that will attack anything, whether friend or foe.

Wyn stared at the shield Cal held along with the rest of the group. After Cal read the description, the realization of the item was… concerning.

Wyn was immediately reminded of the Faceless Four and their masks. They had curses on them from what his lantern revealed. Was theirs something similar to this? They had to be worse, though, based on their power. If they provided the group with the strength of gods, maybe it gave a curse due to them being mortal. Would it go away if they somehow gained the strength of a god?

The thought made Wyn shiver. He shook his head to expel that line of thinking.

"This is… a very unique shield," Cedric said, running his hands over the bone. The item was nearly as tall as him.

"I wouldn't want to use it," John said. "Summoning some ghostly allies sounds helpful, but man that curse is extreme. Every time you were hit there's a chance of summoning a skeleton? That would be absolute chaos!"

"Unless you had a means to control skeletons," Marcy added. Then she shrugged. "Though if that were the case it would likely be a Magician class that couldn't use it."

"There are ways around that," Wyn said. "I'm a walking example. I say we add it to the guild vault for now. I'm not even sure if we should look into selling it."

Agreeing with him, the others were satisfied with examining the shield and let Cal take it to the vault. They were in the war room in the guild, taking it easy the day after clearing the eleventh floor. After a full dinner from Cal in which the group, Lance, Daniel, and a few others were fortune enough to partake, they rested to ready themselves for the twelfth floor. Identifying the shield was on their list to do after dinner, wanting to see what the item held. There weren't many items dropped from the undead season, so having the shield added to the vault was a nice bonus.

Then it was time to continue, and they made their way to Alistair to continue pursuing the third tier.

Floor Twelve

Group: 6/6

Quest: The underground caverns are treacherous and vast. Without any sort of direction you could wander until your end, your fate sealed by the strange magics found within. Something calls from the depths. Something ancient and powerful. Willhelm was drawn to its power - will you succumb, as well? Or will you resist as you continue to discover what lies beneath?

The portal opened up into a large chamber that seemed to the entrance to whatever underground temple was buried under the castle. Wyn didn't understand how the environment was crafted so well, but it followed a pretty straightforward path. The third tier seemed to be an exploration of the dangerous caverns from the eleventh floor, and the area looked to be the same. Random pockets of candles and some torches set on the walls dimly lit the area around them while the same light stone that looked like packed sand made up every surface.

Outside of their starting area was only one possibility to advance - a lone hallway of average size that looked like only two or three of them would be comfortable walking side by side. It was impossible to tell how far the floor would be that way, but Wyn could see at least fifty feet into the hall and it all looked the same.

Moving towards the singular path ahead, Marcy stopped everyone about thirty feet away. Carefully stepping forward, she knelt down to the ground and pushed a piece of stone a few inches down.

A series of stones suddenly fell from the ground in front of them, dropping into some vast expanse. Wyn tried to listen for anything that told him how deep it was, but he heard nothing. It either meant the stones were fakes, like magical illusions, or they fell into a hole so deep he couldn't hear the bottom.

Either possibility being the truth was bad. The entire area past the hallway in front of them was littered with holes the size of platters. At least half of the surface area was just gone. There was either a turn or a noticeable lack of light that prevented Wyn from seeing further, but from what he could see it was all missing ground in the same manner.

"Well, shit," Wyn said, stepping up beside Marcy. "At least we can fly, right?"

Marcy shrugged. "That's one resource down that we might need later. And how far does it go?"

It was impossible to know, but to be safe Wyn went ahead and told the group to activate their flying abilities. He thought briefly whether to use the levitate ability on his boots or the flying, but they both required two charges to activate and flying was more versatile. Levitating allowed him to run faster and cover more ground, but he had a hunch that they weren't going to be moving quickly enough for that to matter.

With everyone flying, they advanced over the patchy stone with Marcy still at front to keep watch for more traps.

Wyn was relieved he decided on flying as the trap extended far, far beyond the entrance of the floor. It would have taken them three times as long to traverse the patchy floor, and even then it would have been treacherous. They were still flying over holes in the stone when they encountered their first group of monsters ten minutes down the one path.

The monsters that appeared were more flying, ethereal undead, only they weren't the same ghosts like the minions from the previous floor. These were larger and more stout, with complete bodies instead of only torsos, and all holding weapons. They zipped around the air with impressive speed and interacted with the stone floor and wall as though physical beings. It looked to be a small group of four monsters.

Except Wyn's spear passed through one as he tried to fight it despite being enhanced by John and Cal'a Auras. Previously his strikes at least affected the ghosts and could harm them, but his current attempts were all fruitless. The monster he tried to hit wasn't even deterred, not trying to dodge or block in the slightest. It retaliated with a fast swing of its mace, forcing Wyn to activate his shield on his left arm while still dodging to make sure he didn't get hit.

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Twisting out of the strike in midair, the blow glanced off his shield harshly, throwing Wyn's weight off and making him careen off towards the ground. The strength behind the hit surprised Wyn. These weren't enemies to treat lightly.

"My arrows are doing shit!" Marcy called, kneeling against the stone wall high up towards the tall ceiling. "The only one that worked was a spell!"

Wyn flew away from his current opponent and watched as Cedric blasted two of the creatures with wind and water, knocking them back against the wall. Instead of actually hitting the wall, they passed right through it, disappearing completely.

John rose up and attacked the monster that Wyn was fighting, his greatsword slicing through the monster with surprising effectiveness. The specter actually tried to dodge, but was cut on the side of its body, its left arm cutting off and wisping away like smoke. It opened its mouth to scream but no sound came out. Instead, it retaliated with a strike of its sword, which John parried and avoided.

Wyn looked for the other creatures but didn't find them. Not at first, at least. After a few seconds, he saw them emerge from the walls like the ghosts they were, honing in on Marcy. She fired an arrow laced with a red aura, and the projectile slammed into the nearby monster and exploded in a fiery heap. The specter came through the explosion riddled with holes, though still alive. Marcy flew away quickly but wasn't fast enough.

Thankfully Cal was nearby, moving to intercept the creatures to take on their focus. By the time he reached them Marcy had taken a few hits, dodging most of the attacks but being cut on her legs from the ghost that wielded two swords. Tasha flew to her to heal her while Cedric helped Cal handle the ghosts. The Storm Sage had already destroyed the fourth creature just moments before.

Wyn saw that John was handling his opponent well so he moved to support Tasha and Marcy. The ranged Climber was grunting with each fired arrow, obviously annoyed at being hit. Her bow glowed with a soft white light, and her arrows launched towards the creatures like streaks of light similar to Tasha's spells.

Soon the monsters destroyed, everyone whole and intact. Only two of the monsters dropped loot, and one of them fell through an open hole on the ground, angering everyone. The other was picked up though the contents were lacking, per usual with their undead foes.

The seven of them met in the air to reconvene.

"That was far more frustrating than I imagined," Marcy said. "Hunter's Gaze completely lost them after they went through the walls. I don't know why that happened and I don't know how they can move that way."

"At least we know now they have an ability to move outside the limits of what we can interact with," Cedric said. "They didn't seem too deadly past their high physical defense and insane movement capabilities."

The others nodded in agreement. Wyn realized he was going to need to rely more on his magic for those monsters, and decided that Drain could be a solid option as well as Frostsnap. The other spells he had wouldn't likely be as useful, though Elemental Weapon could be helpful to make his weapon actually cause damage and his healing spells could be useful, too.

After getting his class upgrade and the Tower's Blessing upgrade, he had a few more higher spell options for his class, but he didn't need a lot of others. He typically cast his usual spells at a higher tier as needed, or had some emergency healing spells on reserve, like Improved Regen. He had added basic elemental spells that Cedric didn't use for coverage, like fire and ice, though he didn't use them often. Especially this month with undead monsters being the enemy type. But two spells he added specially for the third tier when the enemies would be difficult enough to warrant them.

The first was Snow Swarm, which was the spell they found while climbing. They had decided it would be worth adding to Wyn's list as he was making good use of ice spells to slow and freeze enemies for crowd control. He used it to great effect on the sixth floor facing the army, alongside Frostsnap that was useful around him.

The other spell was Firebeam, which was the tier two version of Fireblast. It created a beam of magical, concentrated fire that scorched and ignited enemies at a greater rate and damage. Wyn was curious to use it as he could duplicate the beam to make a second one with Ability Link, excited to see how it performed against higher tier enemies. The secondary effect was creating a burning status that weakened enemies and caused continuous damage as affected enemies burned continuously. It's downfall was it ate mana at an alarming rate even for him. Wyn hadn't used it yet as he relied on his other, more practiced spells, but with stronger and more frequent enemies came the need for more tools in his spell toolkit.

"We'll burn through more mana potions this floor, it seems," Cal said. "We have a couple dozen in reserve but may need more."

"Whatever it takes," Wyn said. "Cal, take point with Marcy as we keep going. Cedric can stay in the back with John and hit the specters as needed. I'll be in the middle with Tasha and Lance."

Their positions made, they kept advancing through the floor on the ground. The trap ended shortly after the enemies were killed, and the floor continued like a normal cavern. Well, as normal as a cavern lit by melted wax candles and nearly-red torchlights could be. The entire environment screamed eerie and unsettling to Wyn.

To his relief, the monsters that showed up as they progressed were the same kinds of creatures, called Spectral Knights, their name found from some purple rarity monster drops. To his anguish, they showed up in greater numbers the further they pressed into the floor. The first group felt like scouts compared to the later ones, and they were stronger, too.

After an hour of progressing, they were on their fifth monster group, which had almost eight monsters. Wyn's breaths were ragged as he took a rare moment to gather himself as John and Cal kept the attention of some of the Spectral Knights that fought in close quarters. The others were dealing with ranged, magical users of the monsters, all trying to manage from the ground.

The monsters flew around the caverns easily, while the group was stationed to the ground. Wyn had them stay landlocked until they found another of the floor disappearing traps. Their flying magic was limited, after all.

Marcy tumbled on the ground beside him, growling in anger. "Damn ghost!" She rose and fired an arrow at the monster that hit her from close range, the arrow head glowing with a green light. Leaves and rocks exploded from the ghost in a shower of elemental magic as the creature lost its entire torso.

Wyn trudged over to her and inspected her. She looked fine, but cast Regen on her anyway. She could use the healing in case there was something he missed, and the spell would partly recover some of her spent mana, too from his class ability.

Marcy nodded her head in thanks. "These monsters are manageable but trouble. I ran through mana like crazy trying to hit them."

Wyn understood. John and Cal both took hits from the creatures with far more regularity than the other monsters they've faced, except for the boss encounter on the 9th floor. The Spectral Knights were challenging enemies in new ways.

The floor itself continued with various paths, though nothing quite like the previous winding floors. Which was odd considering it was the second floor of a tier, which traditionally was a maze floor. There were still dead ends and wrong turns, but it didn't seem as expansive as before.

Wyn understood why when they found a second area of the floor after another two hours of fighting and progressing that was far, far more open space. It was easily a hundred feet tall where the cavern exited, with two different paths leading in opposite directions from their point around a large open area like a massive hole. One of the paths went uphill, and one went downhill. The paths wound around the hole as though carved out a mountain, and looking down and up showed some levels had platforms in various areas, making the middle not completely void of space. It was as strange a layout as Wyn had ever seen.

"Well, which way should we try?" John asked.

Wyn looked to others, though no one had an answer. He then looked to Lance and asked his opinion. The constantly positive man smiled broadly and pointed down. "This season's layout is progressing underground, so why don't we keep following that direction?"

It was as good a choice as any, Wyn supposed, and the group was off downhill.

After rounding the corner of the exposed area going down, they came to the first of the platforms. Marcy froze at the front and everyone followed her lead. Wyn wondered why she had stopped, then looked at the platform that rested in the middle of the cavern, connected by thin bridges made of stone in several directions. What he saw made his breath catch in his throat.

There was a small building, like a temple, resting in the middle of the space with a lone creature resting in front of the lone door. It was shrouded in what appeared to be black smoke, though the few bits of its body Wyn could make out made the creature's type very clear.

It was a dragon.

No one dared to move or speak. Marcy started to slowly creep forward, like a hunter stalking its prey, never taking her eyes off the creature. Then the sound of stone grinding on stone echoed through the large cavern.

Stones started falling from their path, and Wyn yelled at everyone to activate their flying enchantments. As one the seven people started floating in the air while stone crumbled and disappeared all around them.

Worse, though, was the sound of wingbeats stirring up dust. Then a large groan came from the lumbering dragon as its wings spread out terrifyingly wide, its black body rising within the smoke looking like a demon rising from the ashes.