529 Watch Your Step In This Dungeon

"That's an enchanted bag?" Riklan asked as he watched me stuff the parts of the spider into it.

"Yup, so you don't need to worry about me being slowed down by the monster parts," I assured him.

He looked at my bag with interest, "That is… Quite amazing. Is it possible for us to get one as well?"

I gave him a wry smile, "Sorry, but this one was made for me specifically and I'm not sure where else you could get one."

Well… It was half a lie since I'm not sure if Mother could actually enchant something like this but since I got this one from the gods, I don't actually know where they could obtain one for themselves.

"Pity," Riklan sighed but said nothing more as he waited for me to finish stuffing the rest of the monster materials into the bag.

Once I was done, we continued on our way again, slipping back into our formation to advance through the tunnels.

This time, we managed to reach the stairs without coming across any other monsters.

When we descended down to the next level, we were once again faced with three tunnels, two on each side and one going straight ahead.

Riklan turned to me, "Things are going to be a bit more troublesome on this floor… There's going to be a lot of pressure plates, trip wires and other concealed traps. Though they aren't fatal, almost all of them would cause some kind of status effect when triggered."

Kaelin then moved up, "That's why we'll go ahead, Aster. You stay at the back and if we trigger one, we'll be depending on you to heal us."

I nodded, prompting them to shuffle the formations around with me taking the rear of the party this time.

Kaelin took out a roll of parchment and unfurled it, revealing it to be an incomplete map. I'm guessing that's supposed to be a map of the Dungeon and Kaelin is the one that's keeping track of it.

Riklan turned to the rogue, "Which way, Kaelin?"

The rogue in question scratched his head with the pencil in his hand, "Hmm… Last time we went right and that was mostly dead ends… The left side is still incomplete but we encountered a lot of traps… And we have not explored the front passage yet."

Riklan frowned, "Should we try and complete the left passage then? Or shall we just try the unexplored path?"

"Hmm… I'm in favour of attempting the left path again. At least we know where most of the traps are so we can avoid those that we already know. Plus, I think the stairs to the next level should be in this direction since there's suspiciously more traps as compared to the other one."

Eita nudged him with her staff, "We don't even know if the front passage has more or less traps yet… But I am also in favour of exploring the left side first, just in case… Erm… No offence Aster… But just in case for whatever reason your healing magic is not effective in curing status effects."

I shook my head, "None taken. It's good to be cautious."

Riklan turned towards the left tunnel, "Then we are all in agreement. Kaelin, lead the way."

Our rogue took the lead and started walking down the left tunnel while consulting his hand drawn map. Riklan followed behind him with Eita watching his back before finally ending up with me at the very back of the party.

When we arrived at a particular spot of the tunnel, Kaelin stopped and pointed at a spot on the ground.

"Careful over there, there's a spot on the ground there that's a pressure plate."

I squinted at the spot he pointed out and found no discernable markings that would mark that spot as a trap.

At least if I used [Screened] it did show up in my view identified as a trap so I know he's not mistaken.

I wondered how accurately he must have drawn the map to scale if he was able to pinpoint the exact location of the trap?

Then I realised that he seemed to be muttering to himself as he walked and I understood he was counting out his paces and matching it to the number he had drawn on the map.

So that's how the Adventurers draw their maps? Or is it unique to him? Who knows.

About a minute of walking later, we came to a T junction and Kaelin stopped to look at the path that diverged to the right.

"We haven't gone down this way yet, watch your steps."

All of us made noises of affirmation before he took a step in that direction.

'Click'

Kaelin reacted immediately by jumping back, a movement that was imitated by the other two the moment they heard the sound.

Not even a split second later, a dart was shot out from one of the walls and passed through where Kaelin had been just a moment ago.

And just as I thought he was in the clear, a plume of white smoke burst out from the ground beneath him, completely enveloping him inside the gas.

The rogue covered his mouth and nose with his hands while still trying to back away, only managing to take a step before his whole body went limp and he collapsed onto the ground.

He then started to snore quietly, revealing the smoke to be a sleeping gas.

"At least it was just a sleeping gas trap…" Eita muttered, making me wonder just what other kinds of traps they had encountered for this to be considered to be the better choice.

I pointed at the sleeping Kaelin, "Should I… Wake him?"

The other two nodded at me.

I stretched my hand towards him, "Return yourself to your pristine condition. Your body, mind and soul shall be renewed, may your ailments cease and disappear. [Cleanse]."

His body glowed for a moment before the light subsided, the rogue snorting before suddenly leaping to his feet as though he got shocked.

He had even unsheathed one of his swords and was frantically looking around, prepared to fight.

The other two barely reacted to that display like they had already seen this reaction from him before.

It took Kaelin a moment before he realised where he was and finally calmed down, the rogue letting out a deep sigh.

"Sleeping gas?" He asked.

All of us nodded.

"Ugh… And I take it that Aster's healing worked?"

We nodded again.

"Alright, that's some good news at least… Just don't get caught in a trap yourself Aster… Last time all three of us got caught in a trap like this and we wasted an entire day sleeping…"

Ah… No wonder they were still stuck on the second floor despite being here for several days.

Kaelin picked up the map he had dropped and scribbled something on it, presumably to record the location of the trap.

He then made the exaggerated action of stepping over the pressure plate trap, giving it a scowl when he got over to the other side.

"Trap over here guys, watch your step."

I see he's trying to pretend like the previous event never happened.

None of us said anything and simply played along, all of us making sure not to step on the trap he had warned us about.

"Out of curiosity… What's the most troublesome trap that you've encountered here?"

The three of them sighed almost simultaneously.

"Please don't ask," Riklan pleaded, showing an unusually emotive side of him when he had been straight faced all this while.

Eita then turned to grab my hands, "Just please… If you see a pink coloured smoke or anything like that… Get away from it as fast as you can. Then cleanse everyone with your magic immediately, regardless of whether they were actually hit by the cloud or not. Please…"

I could already see the desperation in her eyes without even hearing it, which only made me wonder what exactly does that cloud do?

If I were to guess… Pink could be equated to lust so… A lust type trap? Probably some kind of aphrodisiac gas? And if they were hit by it… Ah…

I looked at Eita with sympathy.

She seemed to have realised what I was thinking about and quickly shook her head before nodding in the direction of Riklan and Kaelin, the two men obviously avoiding looking at each other.

Oh… Oh… Ooohhhh…

Oh fuck… Well… You two have my condolences then. I'll make sure you two don't have to suffer through the same thing this time while I'm here.

Still… To think there's those sorts of traps in these Dungeons as well… I wonder why I have not encountered them so far? Everything else that I've seen has just been trying to kill me all the time.

I guess it's a good thing that I didn't bring Lisa here because I know for sure my Infrid would willingly jump into that trap if she knew what it did…

… And I'll also freely admit that I'll probably let the lust effect carry out its course instead of cleansing her of it.

Hey, what can I say? It's Lisa after all.

Ahem… Let's just move on, shall we?