The only way to get answers was to keep heading down the dungeon. There were several times I considered teleporting to the fifth floor and trying to go back up. The only reason that I didn’t was that I had a sinking feeling that Celeste wouldn’t join me. Until we reached the end of this journey, Celeste would continue to be a mystery.

That mystery was currently sitting on my shoulder humming to herself without a care in the world. I let out a sigh, looking through the map. We were making progress very quickly now. We were on the 19th floor. The last 4 floors had taken a day each. The next boss was the second to last for this dungeon. It filled me with a bit of dread. We were barely able to defeat the last both, and truth be known the mobs here were getting kind of tough just for the two of us. Even my cheat skills and her high level weren’t enough to handle this floor.

We were fighting a Maligned Manananggal, which was a flying creature that wasn’t really ethereal at all and was more like a vampire bat with arms. The Bloody Poltergeist was just what it sounded like. They both took a lot of concentration to fight, and we were forced to run away several times.

“Should we start grinding now?”historical

I had managed to avoid too much grinding by taking shortcuts up until now. However, it was a staple of games to grind. My levels seemed to meet what was safe for our abilities. Furthermore, the bosses were always a lot more difficult than the mobs. I wasn’t sure if we’d survive fighting this boss. A few of the previous ones had been close calls.

“Gr-grinding?” Celeste blushed, floating off my shoulder and backing up a few feet while touching her index fingers together. “M-master.. if you insist..”

I shook my head, “Let’s find the last library and then decide what to do there.”

Celeste remained frigidity, but I ignored her behavior. I was very used to her oddities by now. Instead, I focused on the map and finding the pathways we hadn’t explored yet. We continued to map out the floor, only knocking out monsters when we absolutely had to. Suddenly, I stepped on a stone and it glowed.

“A trap!” I let out a cry of surprise.

Up until that point, I had not run into any traps. This had given me the impression that this dungeon didn’t have traps. Apparently, that was a mistake. I should have kept checking every level. This was also the familiar teleportation trap. I was being taken to some other part of the dungeon again! I barely had a moment to glance back at Celeste’s surprised face as I was teleported away somewhere else.

Well, teleportation wasn’t a lethal death trap. There were some traps with endless pits, spikes, or poisonous gas. Those were much scarier. I could even call this trap to be somewhat lucky.

After the teleportation finished, I glanced around the room cautiously. I immediately checked my map to realize I wasn’t on a level at all. I was on a boss floor!

”Screeee!”

Wait, that sounded familiar. I looked up to see the Shrieking Wraith! I had been teleported back up to the tenth floor! This was the tenth-floor boss! Last time I fought him, he had almost killed Celeste! This time, I may be slightly stronger, but I was all on my own!