Of any Dungeon Diver teams who ever dived into a dungeon, our group could have been considered one of the most relaxed and least stressful groups. After all, I could open Portals. We never needed to continue down the dungeon in a single go. I would always leave and we could rest in a nice bed every night. As a support, I had an assortment of skills that could fit our needs and keep us fed. I could cook our food, heal our wounds, make our fires, supply our light, and even refresh our spirits.
If things became too much, we could take a break and play around Chalm, enjoy our hot spring, or relax in the mansion. We could always return right where we left off. Even at its worst, we could always make the safe room our cozy little nest allowing us to lay back and rest in an environment free of conflicting miasma.
On this particular day, we had been forced into a wet, dank safe room, and then forced to abandon it all too quickly. After our boss fight, we set up camp and had to spend the night out among the monsters. Despite Terra building walls and Celeste diverting the wind so our scents weren’t transmitted, we still ended up getting attacked twice during the night.
To a normal Dungeon Diver, this might just be considered par for the course. To us, this was probably about as bad as we have had it for a while. Lydia, Celeste, and Terra seemed to be doing better than the rest of us. Perhaps, they had roughed it during their weeks-long expedition in the wilderness. As for Miki, Shao, and I… perhaps we had grown a bit too comfortable with a soft bed.
We started working our way down to the 15th floor. The monsters were stronger once again, and everyone had bags under their eyes.
If I Portaled, or overused White Mage spells, then our cover would be blown. I had to continue to act only passively while the girls defended me. It felt like fighting with a hand behind my back, and it was growing increasingly frustrating as the dungeon grew more and more difficult.
“How much longer is this dungeon?” I asked in irritation.
“It should only be twenty levels,” Lydia explained. “That’s what Calypso told us.”
We were on day three. At this pace, we should be able to break through to the final boss room in seven days. Although I complained about that, any other Dungeon Diver would consider that pace beyond belief. The first dungeon I had ever been in took nearly two weeks, and the second took over a month. This was a testament to how much better the girls were. Even with my support only being passive, we were able to progress this quickly.
We spent one more night sleeping on the floor before we reach level 15. Remarkably, we found the safe room before we had stumbled on the boss or the exit.
“You have to be kidding me,” I said, my mouth falling open at the sight.
Calypso had done it again. This safe room was both accessible and findable, but its location was completely unreasonable. A tree had grown out from the side of a cliff, a dead tree. The safe room was embedded in the tree, hanging a dozen meters over a bottomless fall. The tree creaked and groaned under the weight of a single person. In short, if we tried to stay there, the safe room would fall, and we would all perish.
Was this really a trial to improve the levels of Bandits?