Chapter 296

I walked over to the neat pile of weapons that had been laid out and identified. I hadn't had many experiences in a dungeon before, but this looked like more than we received for clearing the Midnight Castle Dungeon and we hadn't even completely cleared it.

"Lilith, this is a bit ridiculous. It's like the dungeon tried to pick something out for each of us," Torien said.

"What all did we get?" I asked.

Mimi pointed to the thing closest to her. "This is called a Blackfang spear. It gives the wielder strong magic resistance and absorbs a portion of nearby magic spells and converts it to mana for the wielder. It says it's very durable as well."

Silva smiled and looked down at it. "No one else regularly uses spears, right? This would be useful to me. I don't have a lot of mana since I'm primarily a melee fighter, so this would offset that weakness."

I nodded. "Makes sense. It would be silly not to give you the spear."

Mimi pointed out the bow in Torien's hand. "Blackfang bow. It isn't as fancy as the spear, but it doubles the power of arrows released from it as if it had twice the draw strength."

Torien smiled wide. "That's plenty fancy for me. That would increase my piercing power immensely and would work with all of my class and skill abilities. I want it."

"Sure, not a problem." I looked over the rest of the items. Even at a glance, I could tell they were well-suited for us. It was as if each item was hand-picked to be an upgrade for our current weapons.

"Next up is this bead," Mimi said. "It's a staff charm that strengthens and increases the range of passive effects on the staff it's attached to. It's called the Rainbow Charm."

"Oh! That would be amazing for my Staff of Manaflow!" Morrigan said excitedly. She glanced around before taking it and attaching the crystal bead to her glass staff.

Mimi picked up a thin saber. "Blackfang sword. It's similar to the Blackfang spear. It gives magic resistance and an increase to Speed for the wielder." Mimi looked up, unsure who would claim this one.

I turned to Sibyl, the only other person who regularly used a sword. "I think you should take this one. I'm happy with my mithril sword, and you're still using that basic one that I had taken from the cult."

Sibyl hesitated for a moment before accepting it. "Alright, if you're sure."

Mimi lifted a wooden staff that looked like it had two different types of wood twisted together. "This is a Nature's Remnant staff. It empowers the strength of nature magic cast through it. It's a huge upgrade over the old nature rod Bella has been using all this time." She looked over at Bella, who happily accepted it from her.

"Thank you, this already feels comfortable in my hands... like it had been made for me," Bella said thoughtfully. "All of these items are perfect for us... it's strange."

"A pair of Shadow Flame daggers," Mimi continued. "Targets struck with these daggers take additional fire and shadow damage. I think these were meant for Lorriene?" she said while turning to Lori.

Lori took the two daggers and did a few practice swings with them. They left a trail of black fire like an after-image when they moved. Once she was satisfied, she twirled them around with a flourish and slid them back into the black leather sheathes they had come with. "These will work great for me."

"Is there something for all of us?" I asked.

Mimi laughed. "Just about. I think it's the dungeon's way of thanking us. That ritual circle you destroyed was really hurting it..."

"Having a dungeon near Traehall that doesn't spawn demons would really help the city grow. I'm sure it would get some regular traffic," Torien said.

"There's only a few things left, let's keep going," Mimi said as she grabbed the next artifact. It was another staff, but this one looked like a thin brass pole. It had some weight to it based on the reaction Nelly gave when she took it from Mimi. "This one reduces the mana cost of holy healing magic that's channeled through it. It'll make it so you can heal longer with the same amount of mana."

Nelly's eyebrows rose as she looked down at it. "That's an amazing effect for a staff... Are you sure I can have this?" she asked.

I nodded. "Of course, Nelly. None of us can use it better than you can anyway."

"But what about its worth if you sold it? I don't feel like I did enough to warrant this in that last fight..." Nelly said awkwardly.

Mimi shook her head. "Nelly, all of these items match all of us too perfectly to ignore. The dungeon wanted you to have it, and taking this will help all of us in the long run."

Torien put a hand on her shoulder. "I can honestly say that I know exactly how you feel, but it's better this way for all of us. Just take it."

Nelly frowned but nodded. "Alright."

Mimi picked up a brass colored metal bangle. "This is a powerful protection charm. It allows you to teleport to someone's side once per day within the range of about one hundred and fifty feet. I think it's for Kal'daeryn."

Kal'daeryn gratefully took the charm and looked down at it. "With this I'll be more comfortable leaving Nelly's side during a fight. I... I have trouble leaving her side. I could return to her if she needs me."

Mimi held up a kite shield next. "I think this was supposed to be for Lilith before that book dropped for her. It's a shield with magic resistance that absorbs mana the same way Silva's spear does. The Blackfang shield."

She handed it to me and I slipped my arm into its handles. It was black with a silvery blue finish that hinted at its magical properties. It felt comfortable on my arm, but it also had a strap that would allow me to sling it onto my back fairly quickly if I needed my hands free. "What does 'Blackfang' refer to?" I asked.

"I've never heard of it," Silva replied. I looked around and it seemed no one else had heard of it either.

"Last pair of items," Mimi said as she held up a book and a wand. "It's a spellbook for fire and illusion magic and a wand that reduces the cost of both."

I looked over at Raya, who had a shocked look on her face. "What? That's... so specific. They're perfect... I'm not complaining, but to have a spellbook and wand that matches my needs exactly..."

I nodded and looked vaguely up at the dungeon's walls. "Each of these items is more or less perfect for us... I think the intelligence of dungeons is a little understated... This shows a lot more understanding than I thought possible."

Mimi nodded. "Yeah... I think dungeons are kind of like intelligent monsters... Like me. I'm pretty sure they're a lot smarter than everyone thinks."

Silva began to help Lori and Torien sort out the mass of silver coins into eleven piles. "While you guys were looking through these items, Lilith and I had a conversation about safely copying the ritual circle. During our conversation, the dungeon dropped a soulbound notebook for Lilith. It lets her write things into it and tear out additional copies of her notes for others to look at, but it's also destroyed if she dies. It was listening to our conversation and gave us the perfect item to help us. And that's after giving us a chest full of items that fit us perfectly. The dungeon would have had to analyze our fights to figure out which things would suit us best. This goes beyond any rumors I've heard about dungeons being intelligent."

"Mimi, did you get the sense that the Midnight Castle dungeon was intelligent like this?" I asked.

Mimi shook her head. "If it was, I never heard anything from it, so I don't know. I'm not even sure why I can hear this one."

I frowned and nodded. "Well, for now, it'll be a mystery. Let's get back to Traehall and see how they're doing. I guess our mission here is done for now."

Silva, Lori, and Torien handed out a pile of eighty-eight silver to each of us. It was a pretty good amount of money for how short our dungeon dive was. After some consideration, Mimi agreed to hold onto it for all of us. I offered to keep a running tally of everyone's gold, but Mimi declined the help. She was apparently able to remember precisely how much everyone had, as well as what was in everyone's chest that she was storing for all of us. Mimi had a perfect memory for the things she held inside of her.

Once all of us were packed up and ready to go, we started heading out the way we came. After a few steps, Lori held up a hand and we could hear a bunch of odd noises coming from the path we were taking.

"What's wrong?" I whispered.

There was a long pause before Lori slowly lowered her hand. "The traps... the ones I marked without disabling are disarming themselves. I've never heard of that happening in a dungeon before."

"Is the dungeon trying to make things easier on us while we leave?" I asked.

"I don't know," Lori replied after a long pause.

"Let's keep moving. We'll avoid the traps anyway, just in case," I said.

Lori nodded and continued forward with Torien, leading us back through the hallways. This dungeon was a lot more plain looking than the Midnight Castle dungeon was, but there were a lot more traps. We continued through the hallways and all of the traps continued to loudly disarm themselves as we walked forward.

"This is surreal," Torien commented after we turned a corner and the next hallway of traps began to make the same noises.

Mimi sighed. "You didn't hear how much pain it was in. It was awful."

"I didn't even know dungeons, could be grateful... or feel pain for that matter," Torien replied.

"What should we do when we get back to the surface?" Silva asked.

"I guess we should find our way back to Traehall, right? Unless you think we should attempt to hold the area around the dungeon instead. We can't let the cultists regain control of this place," as I finished my comment, the walls shook and all of us froze from the unexpected trembling.

"I don't think the dungeon liked that idea either," Silva said.

Mimi slid her hand against the wall. "You should be able to better protect yourself now that you know what to look out for."

There wasn't any more rumbling as we approached the exit to the dungeon. Before we reached the end, Torien stopped. "Hey... I just had a thought."

I turned around. "What's up?"

"I've heard stories of dungeons closing their entrances before. It's not something that dungeons do often, but it's something that I've heard can happen occasionally. Mimi, maybe you should tell it to close its entrance for a few days, maybe even a week after we leave. The only people who would probably attempt to come in here in that time would be the cultists. If the dungeon wanted to protect itself, it should seal itself off once we leave," Torien explained.

Mimi rested her hand against the wall. "I think that's a good idea, but I don't need to tell the dungeon to do that, you already did," she said with a giggle. "The dungeon can understand all of us, I think."

Torien pursed her lips. "Well, let's get out of here then. I don't want to be trapped in here if it takes our advice."

Mimi retook her place around my neck so she could prepare to keep the smoke away from us as we climbed the stairs. I kind of held my breath as we crested the top of the steps, but luckily, it seemed there was no more danger outside. The remains of the camp were left here, but none of the cultists had come back during the time that we were inside. It was too early to completely discard the chance of an ambush, but it seemed safe for now.

Once all of us had left the dungeon's stairs, we could feel a subtle rumbling from under our feet as a solid slab of dark stone raised from inside the dungeon and walled it off.

"You're welcome," Mimi said with her disembodied voice.

It still wasn't safe in the woods surrounding Traehall. Many of the trees were on fire, and there was still a lot of smoke. There were even some loose demons still running around, but even if we didn't completely wipe out the hordes attacking Traehall, we had severely reduced the rate that new demons would be attacking. I hoped this would be enough to turn things around, but there was a feeling in my gut that told me that this had been too easy. I had a bad feeling despite our victory here.

"Let's get back. Something doesn't feel right," I said.