"Wait, we don't know if that can affect someone else. Hera open your status, see if there is anything out of order."

Hera nodded, opening her status page while rubbing her arm.

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

Hera Kingsley — Role: Explorer — Level: 2

Mana: 126/126

Active effects:

Cleymen's Boon Ghastly Presence x 5

Stats: Increase all

Strength: 12 Endurance: 12

Agility: 12 Charisma: 12

Intelligence: 12 Luck: 12

Skills:

Pa.s.sive:

Exponential Growth

Observe

Handaxe Combat

Chakram Combat

Mapping

Active:

All in

Inspect

Hide

Local Guide

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

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

Ghastly Presence

A presence from the beyond has touched you. Your body heat was stolen by it in an attempt to return to the world of the living. The more stacks of this effect you receive, the more body heat will be lost.

Current stacks: 5

Duration: 29:12

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

"M-M-My body he-he-heat is g-g-gone," Hera said after reading the notification.

"Does it spread?" Bonnie asked.

Hera shook her head, "I-It doesn't sssay."

"Ok, so what does it say?" Bonnie asked.

"Screw that! She's s.h.i.+vering like crazy," Blue said, picking Hera up, "Leo, lead the way through the hallway. We need to take her to the fire room."

"N-No, i-it just tttakes half a ho-ho-hour," Hera said, not wanting to make the group go through all that just for her.

"Shut up! We are going," Blue scolded, already walking to the corridor.

Hera tried to use her [Pulse] and help with the invisible bridge, but was scolded by Blue once again. In a few minutes, they arrived at the fire book room. The controller sat by the open door that leads to the flame trapped hallway. It was already much warmer here, even with the fire only appearing once every several minutes. The temperature allowed Hera to feel a bit more comfortable, and the debuff had lost one stack, only 23 minutes now.

While recovering, Hera paid attention to what the group was discussing.

"Ok, so they dropped 120 gold in total, and this ghost light rock," Alex showed the drops to the group.

"So 24 gold each. Does the rock do anything?" Leo asked.

"It says it can light reveal the spirits, lighting its path. Maybe it could be used to show the bridge," Alex kept tossing the rock from one hand to another.

"Well, this would have been much more useful sooner," Blue replied.

"Yeah, I should have checked. y bad."

"Don't worry, we had other priorities," Bonnie said, looking at Hera. The explorer was getting some color back on her face, and her lips were no longer purple.

"Sorry, I should have been more careful," Hera was nested on Blue's lap. As odd as it felt, the controller's heat was very comforting.

"Don't be. You figured out how to beat them," Leo smiled at Hera. But Blue slapped the back of the explorer's head.

"Don't compliment her! She was reckless and too eager to put herself in danger because of us," Blue snapped at Leo and turned to face Hera, "You should have been more patient or told us to clear a path. We are a team, are we not?"

Hera looked away, "Yeah, I didn't think. It was a reflex."

"That's a c.r.a.ppy reflex. Seriously, what is the matter with all of you? Am I the only one who remembers what we learned? I'm sick of being the mom friend. I didn't have fun making you lot to have to be responsible for you all."

Blue kept ranting, Hera couldn't help to agree. Aside from the controller, they all had taken stupid risks. It was too big of a burden to leave on her shoulders. Alex couldn't hold anymore and let out a giggle.

"I'm serious here, Alex!" Blue yelled.

"No, I know. And you make a valid point. It's just.." she started laughing, "It's kind of hard not to think of you as the mom friend when you are literally cradling Hera."

Realizing the situation, the rest of the group couldn't help but laugh with the a.s.sa.s.sin. Even Blue joined in.

"Listen here, Hera. I'm not letting you go because you are still cold. But the second you ask for a change, I'm tossing you in the fire."

The group waited for Hera's debuff to end and walked back to the center room. It hadn't changed, there were still two blue lights, one green, one red and one yellowish-brown one.

"I guess we missed something," Bonnie was staring at the light in front of the spirit door.

"Why do you say that? Couldn't the color be the same?" Leo asked.

"Well, I guess. But the quest didn't show up saying it was over, right? I'm a.s.suming it would be like our role quests."

Alex walked towards the exit and placed her hand on the invisible wall, " Yeah, the message about giving up is still here."

"But what did we miss? Was there anything else in the room?" Hera asked.

"I'm not sure. We rushed away because of you," Leo replied, still staring at the lights.

Hera looked away. She should have been more careful.

"Wait, no, I didn't mean like that," Realizing how it sounds, the hunter rubbed the back of his neck, "We had to leave because you went down. Like we need to put you in a safe place. I mean, we didn't have time to look for anything else."

Interrupting him, Bonnie started to talk, " What he means is that we were more worried about you than about whatever we could find in there."

Leo thanked the researcher with his eyes.

"It's fine, I understand," Hera turned towards the spirit door, "Alex, you still have the light thing, right? Let's see if the path shows up with that."

The group crossed the spirit door one by one. Bonnie, who was in the back, saw that when Alex went through the door, the green light turned back to blue.

"Wait!" Bonnie commanded.

She did a few tests and confirmed that the green light only showed up when Alex was in the room. Asking people to move one by one, she also confirmed that the yellowish-brown light would appear as long as someone was inside the room. However, the researcher was the only one who didn't make the red light appear. It would only do so when one of the others was in the room.

"Ok, so with all that, we can a.s.sume that we have something in us that triggers the change of light. It wasn't something we did inside the rooms. I would say that the buff from the claymen triggers the yellow light, since is the only thing we all share. The fire element in your weapons, the red. I'm the only one who doesn't have a weapon enchanted by it. The green light is being affected by the sash that Alex is using," Bonnie concluded.

"Then why the spirit light is not working? We have the ghost light," Alex asked.

Bonnie thought for a few moments, "Maybe the ghost light doesn't actually use any spirit magic. It can be just something like an illusion. If we need the elements to trigger this, then it makes sense."

"Then all we need is to get something that has a spirit element in there, right? Maybe the torches?" Blue said.

"Maybe, we should inspect the things to figure out for sure. Oh, by the way. Does anyone have a bottle or something you are not using? It just dawned on me that we could save the red liquid to use outside," Hera said as she checked her belongings.

Checking everything, no one had a free bottle, but Bonnie suggested using her waterskin. As long as someone shared their water, she should be fine. The group went back to the fire room, grabbing more of the liquid while Bonnie stayed in the fire library and then back to the spirit room. The ghost light helped the group cross the bridge. Leo and Bonnie decided to stay behind since the hunter was too scared to go into the room again.

After a few minutes, the group returned with one of the torches. It was the only thing that they could find in the room, and according to the inspection, the torches were douses with spirit energy.

While they waited, Bonnie and Leo kept trying to understand the blueprint, but it was difficult since they weren't able to understand the language. The only thing the researcher was able to guess was that the crystal was either an energy storage or part of a generator. The design reminded her of the magic generators that are used in the outside world.

When the rest of the group arrived, they all walked back to the central room. This time the sphere in front of the spirit door changed color to a pale white. The light seemed to try to overpower the other colors, turning anything near it into black and white.

"Ok, it worked, now what?" Blue asked, holding the unlit torch.

"I have no idea. I thought that having it all changing colors it would work," Bonnie was looking around, already searching for a new clue.

After several minutes, the group was still unable to find anything else in the circular room.

"There is only one thing we haven't tried yet," Hera said, looking at the center of the room.

"I guess so. I just don't like the idea of triggering something without knowing what it is," Bonnie was staring at the lights.

"Ok then, I'll do it," Blue started walking towards the middle of the room, where the spiral started.

"Are you sure?" Alex asked while the lights moved towards the floor.

"Yep, my turn to be reckless. Besides, I'm the st.u.r.diest one among us. If anyone can survive a trap here, it's me."

As Blue got closer to the middle, the lights. .h.i.t the floor sooner than everyone was expecting. Yet, nothing happened. When the controller took another step, the lights seeped into the ground's crevices, following the spiral path towards the middle. The closer Blue got to the center of the room, the more the lights spread. When she finally stepped into the center of the spiral, all the glowing cracks shone brighter, and a rainbow light took the place of the colored glow.

The light grew brighter and brighter. Suddenly it turned back to a soft glow. A clanging noise echoed in the chamber, and a circular area near Blue started to descend. Leo, Bonnie, and Alex were already on the platform. Realizing she would be left behind, Hera rushed toward the elevator and jumped to it. Leo and Blue saw her coming and helped the explorer not to fall from the edge. Now that they were going down, she could see how high the floors were. They could easily be on the fifth floor of a building.

The only source of light they had was the glow from the platform. Yet, it was enough to make them see an enormous blue crystal in the back of the room. It was easily three meters tall. Around it, there were four other crystals, one red, one green, one white and one yellow, all in the same disposition as the doors on the other floor.

"We just have to break this, right?" Leo asked.

"Really? You see something you don't understand, and your first instinct is to break it?" Bonnie asked.

"What, it was the quest. Find whatever is making this place go nuts and destroy it."

Hera shook her head, "Not quite. The quest said we needed to deactivate it. Yes, destroying could be an option, but we don't have to."

The platform reached its destination, connecting perfectly in a hole in the middle of the room. After a small noise, the lights on the platform spread around and covered the entire floor.

"Ok then, what should we do?" Alex asked.

"Let's look around first. Then we can make a decision," Hera suggested.

Searching around, the group didn't find any door or anything aside from the crystals until Alex used the ghost light in one of the jewels.

"Guys over here!"

The group rushed to the a.s.sa.s.sin and saw an intricate magic circle around not only each of the crystals but also a larger one that encompa.s.sed them. After a.n.a.lyzing the array, Bonnie grabbed her tabled and scrolled through her notes.

"Here, this one looks like the one we found in the fire room. It has the same pattern in the blueprint."

"Ok, what does that mean?" Blue asked.

"A spell that requires this kind of setup lives and dies by the magic circle. If it is broken, then the spell fades," the researcher explained.

"But can't explode or something?" Alex asked.

"It depends on the amount of mana that the spell uses," Bonnie turned to Hera," Can you check with you pulse how much mana is around us?"

Hera nodded and used the spell. She felt very little mana coming from the magic circles. But the crystals were something different. The small ones seemed to be gathering mana from the area and then sending it to the big one. When her pulse reached the blue crystal, Hera was taken aback. The gem felt like a water battle of sorts. It was filled to the brim with mana, and the mana inside it was weird. It didn't feel normal, almost as if it was changing all the time. She wasn't able to tell the type of mana that was inside it.

Explaining what she saw, Bonnie nodded and asked for Blue's dagger.

"Ok, so if I'm right, this magic circle is just here to direct the mana. If we break the connection, it should just stop."

"What if it lets the mana out? Won't we be in danger?" Hera asked.

"I don't think it would let it out, not all at once, at least. If that is the same type of crystal used in generators, the mana will start to leave it as if it was a wet towel put out to dry."

Alex stared at the researcher with a puzzled expression, "How do you know that?"

Bonnie took a deep breath and replied without looking up, "My father's company makes industrial-grade magic generators. I had to learn how they worked. That was my summer camp."

Hera asked if Bonnie was sure about that. The amount of mana she felt inside the crystal was staggering.

"Not completely, but it is the best idea I had. If anyone has another suggestion, I'm all ears. As long as it is not hitting that," she replied, looking at Leo.

Having no other ideas, the group just nodded and stood by her while Bonnie broke the mana circle. According to her, this wasn't difficult. The array had been drawn on top of the grey stone, so it was away from its protective barrier. This was apparent since Hera could feel the circle. Bonnie scratched the outer layer of the magic circle and proceeded to remove the first set of runes, making a line towards the central crystal. When she reached the first internal circle, the entire array shone with a soft sparkling light and faded now revealed even without the ghost light.

At the same time, a bright multicolored glow covered Blue, Alex, Bonnie, and Hera. That was followed by a notification that appeared in front of every member of the party.

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

You have completed the Dungeon Quest inside the Arcanist Lookout.

By deactivating the mana gathering array, the mutation will stop without harming the tower.

Rewards:

5 000 gold

Basic Arcanist Lookout compendium

Bonus Rewards:

Minor Elemental Essence Select

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

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

Level Up

Current Level: 3

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

Please go to to read the latest chapters for free