Swoosh.
With a flash of a strange bright light pillar, three figures appeared in an underground room.
Dustin took a quick look around. The room was quite large. Its walls were made of rock and the ceiling was incredibly high. In fact, it was almost fifty meters high.
The room had three doors, one on each wall, while the fourth wall was empty. Each door had strange symbols carved into them. Every single door was huge and covered almost half the length of the wall it was built into.
Dustin and the others were amazed just by the sheer size of the room. The space was quite dark, but somehow they were able to see everything clearly.
DING.
[ You have entered a Special Dungeon ]
[ You must pass all 4 layers of this Dungeon to clear it and get the rewards. ]
[ Rewards: 12000 points per person who clears this Dungeon, and experience based on your performance. ]
[ Note: There is a rare grade weapon hidden somewhere in Layer 4. Whoever finds it gets it. ]
"Twelve thousand points? That much?" Dustin exclaimed after seeing the massive rewards.
"I thought you knew about puzzle dungeons. Did you not also tell me that you get more points and less experience in these puzzle types?" Zac questioned Dustin while laughing.
"Well, uh... that was entirely second-hand information to be honest. Haha," Dustin laughed awkwardly while rubbing the back of his neck.
DING.
[ Task: To clear Layer 1 of the dungeon and move to Layer 2, you must get out of this room using any one of the three doors. The path you choose here will also decide the Layer 2 you will be in. ]
Dustin looked at the massive doors. They looked quite similar, except the glowing markings on them were entirely different.
[ You are free to choose whichever you like, but you must reach Layer 2 before the sand in the sand clock fully pours down. ]
Suddenly, small glass sand clocks appeared in the hands of each of them. The sand inside the clock was pouring down quite slowly, which meant they had at least a few hours left.
Dustin turned his sand clock upside down, but surprisingly, the sand did not return to the bottom. Instead, the sand kept moving upward as if gravity had absolutely no effect on it.
"It seems this thing is also made with magic," the young woman spoke up. She had been very quiet the entire time.
"Should that not be obvious?" Zac replied. He then scrolled his system screen to read ahead.
[ After choosing your desired path, you must find your way out and reach Layer 2 or you will fail the dungeon. If you fail, you will be thrown out and will not be allowed to enter any Dungeon in this region for 10 days. ]
"Ten days? Are you kidding me?" Zac shouted. "In ten days, all the dungeons will get cleared by the other participants. We will be totally screwed."
"At least it is not killing us instantly, and there are other regions we can travel to anyway," Dustin pointed out calmly. "But we really must clear this one, or how are we going to clear our main tasks? If we fail the main task, it would not be a very good death to just drop dead because your bug died. Hahaha."
Dustin laughed heartily at his own dark joke.
"Yeah, yeah. You are exactly right," the others laughed awkwardly as well.
[ Note: You can choose to leave this Dungeon voluntarily, but you cannot leave after you take part in any layer. ]
[ For example: You can leave now since you have not taken any steps in Layer 1. But once you start, you cannot leave until you reach Layer 2. This is applicable for each layer. ]
[ You must pay a fee for leaving. The fee for Layer 1 will be 3000 points. For Layer 2, it will be 5000 points. For Layer 3, it will be 7000 points. For Layer 4, it will be 10000 points. ]
"So basically, we cannot leave," Dustin quickly analyzed the situation. None of them had three thousand points to waste.
The screen vanished.
Dustin and Zac discussed a few things quietly before turning back to the girl.
"I am Dustin, and you can call him Zac," Dustin said. He pointed toward Zac while looking at the girl. "May we know your name, since we are stuck together in this mess?"
"Sure. Call me Saya, and it is nice to meet you both," the girl replied sweetly. "And I am also sorry for coming into your group without asking first."
"No need to apologize. We were actually looking for someone to come into our group so that we could finally enter the dungeon," Zac said. He turned toward Dustin, but Dustin was already busy analyzing the giant gates.
"They all look quite similar in color and dimensions. It is just that these markings are different on each one," Dustin lifted his hand from the one of the gates and turned toward the other two. "Even if we choose one, how are we going to open it? There is no knob, handle, or lever."
The other two also walked up to analyze the other gates and quickly came to the exact same conclusion. They started looking closely for some abnormal things or anything that could give them a clue. They searched the walls in silence for some time.
After a few minutes, the trio came back to the center of the room and started discussing their findings with each other.
"I just found three sets of hand indentations near the carvings," Saya said. "They are recessed into the stone. I think we will have to place our hands in them to open the doors."
"I noticed that too, but they were quite peculiar. That gate over there has places meant to hold two left hands together, and some of the hand indentations are spread far apart," Dustin said, pointing toward the rightmost gate.
"Do you mean we have to put our hands in some kind of specific pattern or something like that to unlock it?" Zac asked after thinking for a while.
"Yeah, it seems so," Saya replied. "But again, which door or path should we even choose to move ahead?"
"I was also wondering about that," Dustin said. He walked toward the middle door. "These patterns are not much different from each other. Should we just pick any of these randomly and go with it?"
"Since we cannot figure anything out and we are also running out of time, why do we not each pick one of the doors and then play Rock, Paper, Scissors to decide which path to take?" Zac offered his master plan.
"Seems like a pretty good idea to me," Dustin agreed with a shrug.
"What? Are you two just absolute idiots?" Saya yelled. She quickly rejected Zac's master plan. "Our lives are on the line, and you are going to choose a path on the basis of a children's game?"
"So do you have any better ideas?" Zac asked defensively. He pointed toward his sand clock. "We have already lost ten percent of our total time."
"Do you not want to complete your tasks as soon as possible, or do you plan to die along with your little bug?"
"Whatever we do, if something bad happens down there, it will all be your fault. Understand?" Saya shot back.
"My fault? How would that be my fault? Why do you not choose a door then and take the blame if anything happens?" Zac argued, starting a loud fight with her.
"Enough, guys. We are already short on time here. Stop fighting and let us just go with Zac's plan for now," Dustin said, stepping between them to resolve the argument.
"Rock. Paper. Scissors."
Zac finally won the game, and the team decided to go through the door that he had originally chosen.
"Hell yeah! I am a total master of this game," Zac claimed his victory proudly.
They all went near that specific door. They studied the deep hand indentations and then put their hands into the stone in many weird combinations. They had to cross their arms over one another and stretch awkwardly. After many failures, they finally heard a heavy click inside the stone. They succeeded.
Crack.
A tiny crack appeared directly down the center of the door. They all took their hands off the stone impressions and backed down a few steps. The gap grew bigger and bigger, and finally, the doors opened completely.
The path ahead was pitch dark. Even though they could see things clearly in the darkness of the main room, the darkness inside this tunnel was far too thick to see anything.
"I am definitely getting a feeling that we are going to die in here. Haha," Dustin said and looked at Zac.
"If you really feel that way, then why do we not try to open the other doors as well and see if they are any better?" Zac asked. He turned around to look at the main room.
The other doors had mysteriously vanished, leaving only smooth, stone walls behind them.
"There is nothing we can do now, can we?" Zac muttered. He looked closely at Saya's nervous face. He took a deep breath and took the first step into the darkness like a man.
Dustin took out his two daggers and activated them. The daggers started glowing with faint crimson light. The fire affinity slightly illuminated the surrounding area, providing just enough light to see in a small circle of few feet around them.
"Let us keep going. What can stop us now? Let us get to Layer 2 before the time runs out," Zac said, trying to encourage the other two.
The trio started moving down the dark, twisting path as time passed quickly.
"Just how many turns are we going to take? It feels like we have been walking forever," Saya complained. She sighed as they took another sharp left turn just after taking a right turn.
"There is nothing to worry about. We are just about to reach our destination, I am pretty sure of it. I am getting a very strong feeling," Zac said. He fastened his pace. Behind him, Dustin and Saya also started moving faster to keep up with the faint light.
After taking another ten or so turns in the labyrinth, a faint glow appeared far ahead of them. They quickly rushed forward toward the light.
It was not actually appropriate to say it was a glow. It was more like a slightly less darkened area compared to the pitch-black tunnel they were currently walking in.
After walking for a while longer, they finally reached a large, open room. As they stepped inside, the confident smile over Zac's face completely vanished.
"So, what kind of feeling were you getting again?" Dustin asked calmly after looking at Zac's shocked expression.