Chapter 192

Leah had known it was a terrible idea to head down to the dungeon’s second floor. But like the rest of her team, their success on the first had gotten to their heads. With weeks of no serious injuries, and Will and Adam even hitting level two, they’d thought themselves ready to take on the next jump in difficulty. Yes, each floor came with significant increases in danger, but if they took things slowly, then it couldn’t be that bad. Right?

Leah and her team had been swiftly disabused of that notion. The increase in challenge was even greater than they’d expected. They did manage to clear a few encounters, creeping through the underground snow forest the second floor manifested as. But then the blizzard had picked up, making it impossible to see more than a dozen feet in any direction—and then they’d been ambushed. By those monstrous ash-gray wolves, at least a dozen of them.

When the chaos had settled, it was just Leah, Adam, Elliot, and Tracy remaining. Half of their team had disappeared into the blizzard. Not killed and left on the ground—just gone. Carried away, with thick snow wolf tracks leading through the forest. Vanished in the frenzy of the fight.

Of the missing included Will, Leah’s brother. So she had understandably panicked.

Of course, they’d followed the tracks—which had led to a cave entrance. There was one thing keeping her from a full breakdown. The keys, arrayed on the outside of the cave’s yawning mouth, hung up by small, rusted iron chains. Four of them, each with a missing teammate’s name inscribed on the shaft of the respective item.

Leah nor anyone else had any clue what that meant. But it was clear the dungeon had chosen to play games with them. Leah took refuge in the fact that it meant her brother probably wasn’t dead. Why have a key with his name on it, otherwise? But they still had to save them. To go into that cave and fight their way through—or whatever else the dungeon had planned.

And how were they supposed to do that? As a team of four? Even in a group of eight, things had been difficult. Hence why the wolves had overwhelmed them in the first place. Their new harried party was only four strong, and that was a smaller party than even Tenet students went in. And Leah and her group were hardly Tenet students.

“Well,” Adam said eventually, the team having been staring at the cave entrance in silence. His voice was grim. “We ... might have to cut our losses.”

Leah jolted. She turned to him. “What? You can’t be serious.”

“I’m not saying I want to. But what are the odds of us surviving, if we go in? The dungeon is toying with us. Trying to turn four casualties into eight, by baiting us into ... this.” He gestured at the ominous cave mouth. “With four people, it’d be idiocy to tackle a second-floor challenge.”

“So we abandon them?” Leah hissed. “My brother? Your friends?”

“What are we supposed to do?” Adam asked calmly. “Throw our lives away? Because we aren’t thinking clearly?”

Leah glared at him. A small part of her acknowledged his argument—and he didn’t look happy about the suggestion. He had a valid point. Casualties were the nature of the dungeon. After losing their previous encounter, this could just be bait leading all of them into certain death, rather than the catastrophic four they already had lost. The dungeon might be seeing if their loyalty overrode their good sense. The dungeon was cruel like that; everyone knew it. Would Leah even have agreed with Adam, had Will, her brother, not been part of the four missing?

Elliot and Tracy glanced between each other, looking torn—sick with the dilemma they were in. As they all were.

She spun away, rubbing her face furiously. “That assumes we can even find an exit,” Leah said, trying to reason with them. “Maybe the ambush was so much more difficult than the other encounters because the dungeon wanted to force us into ... this ‘part two’ of the challenge, or whatever. To go into the cavern and try to find them. Maybe the encounters won’t be as difficult because of that. Easy enough for four people to handle.”

“I find that unlikely,” Adam said.

Leah did too. But it was a possibility. “So we’re just giving up?” she demanded.

“Even if it’s the hard decision, leaving might be the only smart one.”