We've reached the 5th floor. If I'm sure of anything, this byrinth is not as low ranked as the Guild said it was. I'm gonna make sure we get some sort of compensation for this. Once we descended, we took a short break in what looked to be a safe spot.

  "Luci, try to shave down some of your arrows to make them blunt. I bet we'll be seeing more of these skeletons."

  "Good idea, I'll get started on that. Help me out here Rick."

  As the two picked up rocks off the ground and got to work on making about half of Luci's arrows blunt, I had my own pn. I had learned Earth magic already, but now it's about time I actually used it. The only spells I know are Earth Shape and Throw, but they'll be perfect for fighting skeletons down here. Using Earth Shape, I created stone balls that were a little bigger than my fist. I stored them in a satchel on my waist.

  After about an hour of waiting, we took up formation again, this time with me in front. After only about 20 steps, we turned a corner and already had to fight again. This time a Skeleton Knight and four regur skeletons.

  "Luci! Get the one on the right!"

  An arrow flew and knocked the skull off of one as I took down the one next to it with the ft side of my bde. Another fell to Luci's marksmanship and the st one was kicked to a second death by Rick. Before the Knight could reach anyone, I took out one of the stone balls I created and held it towards the charging skeleton. After using Throw to unch the projectile, I used Burst to increase its speed and watched as the Skeleton Knight exploded and scattered bones everywhere.

  "Damn, Mira! That's one hell of an attack! I'd hate to be on your bad side!" Rick seemed to find something amusing, as he started ughing as soon as he finished talking.

  "Right, thanks... I don't see what's so funny, but we need to keep moving. Let's go."

  The dwarf calmed down pretty quickly from his random fit of ughter, and we kept moving. There were no traces of any enemies from the higher floors, there were only skeletons, and they all came in groups like the st one. Eventually, there was a group of six Skeleton Knights, and just behind them, a door that I could easily tell belonged to the final room of the dungeon, where the guardian resided.

  The fight was the same as every other; Luci sniped a few with her blunt arrows, I bashed some with the ft of my sword and occasionally used one of my stone orbs, and Rick stayed back and helped when he could. We had no idea what the guardian could be, so we camped outside the door to rest and regenerate mana. At st, we were about to clear the byrinth.

  "You two ready? It's a C rank byrinth so the guardian could be a lot more powerful than we expect. We could leave if you don't think we can do it."

  "We've made it this far, I don't think my pride as royalty will allow me to turn back now."

  "She's right you know. The two of us aren't going to give up, so you sure as hell aren't going to either!"

  "Then give it your best in there. Stay safe, and let's win!"

  As soon as I got those words out, I kicked open the door and we ran in.

  "Wha-?!"

  It was... empty. There was nothing in this room. It was a rge, circur room, with what looked to be a stone coffin in the back. On the wall behind the coffin, I could see a glowing mana crystal.

  "Do we just... walk up and ta-"

  Suddenly, panels burst off of the walls, and skeletons crawled out. There must've been 20 of them. The door closed behind us, and more wall panels fell, revealing about 10 Skeleton Knights. Finally, the coffin opened, and out came a-

  "Lich! Mira, it's a Lich!!"

  "What!? Aren't those B ranked!?" The Lich shot a spear of ice towards me and I dodged to the side. "Shit! It can use 4th tier spells!"

  "We can't do anything with those Knights guarding it! We'll focus the other skeletons Mira! Use your stone things and try to take out the Knights!"

  Luci shot a glowing arrow into a group of skeletons. The first one hit lost its skull and colpsed, the rest of the group was destroyed by rge roots that emerged and smashed them. There were still more than half of the skeletons left, but I had another goal. After dodging more Ice Spears, I countered with my Throw/Burst combo and took out two Knights in one shot. 8 left. Half of them stayed back, the other half moved towards me. I ran straight past the group approaching me.

  "Luci!"

  "Got it!"

  The elf stopped targeting the weak skeletons and instead shot another arrow with nature magic into the group of Knights that left the Lich. Rick was still doing his own thing and beating the skeletons to death. I took out two more of my magically created stones and tried to shoot them again but the Lich shot one down. The other met its mark and two of the Knights were destroyed. Another was promptly defeated as it took a blunt arrow to the face. The rest of the skeletons had been defeated. Rick managed to engage the st Knight and draw it away. It was only the Lich left, and if I didn't already know that undead couldn't show emotion, I would've sworn I could see the fear on its rotting face.

  The Lich continued firing off Ice Spears as it tried to float around me to the center of the room. Luci shot at it, and when it was forced to dodge I ran straight at it. Like a cornered beast, it started throwing everything it could at me. When I was close enough, I jumped over one of its projectiles, and when it shot another at me, it was too te, and I sliced through the spell, along with the rest of the Lich. It fell to the ground in two very uneven halves, we had won. Strangely enough, the Lich had a very expensive looking staff, but instead of using it, it only cast spells from its hand.

  "Mira!" Luci ran up behind me and put her hand my shoulder. "We won! I knew you could do it!"

  "Yeah... Something feels off about the whole thing though... Why did it have a staff? Don't they usually have nothing so they could use both hands? And why didn't it use the staff it did have? It might've won if it had..."

  It was Rick that spoke next.

  "Does it matter? Because of your efforts we jusy cleared a C rank byrinth with a B rank guardian! And we're only E rank!! Our reward from the Guild is gonna be huge! It's all thanks to you leader, so just rex already!"

  "I guess so..." I picked up the staff and sheathed my katana as I stood. "Wait, 'leader?'"

  "He's right Mira. You are basically our party leader."

  "Right... I guess I am. In any case, gather anything you can that seems valuable, well probably also want the Lich's head as proof for the Guild. Don't take too much though in case we have to fight on the way out."

  "Hey Mira. You do know that taking the mana crystal will teleport us outside the entrance and the byrinth will dissapear, right?"

  "Oh. Um... I guess I know now then."

  "Heh. It never get boring with you around. Let's hurry up so we can get out of here."

  It only took a quarter of an hour to gather everything, and after that we left. It was nearly sundown by the time we returned.

  "Luci, you can go ahead and take the valuables back to our room, we can deal with it tomorrow. Rick, we won't be questing tomorrow, go ahead and take a break. I'll go ahead and check in with the Guild."

  Rick nodded and left to his own pce, and Luci gave me a quick "See you ter" as she left. I walked to the Guild with the mana crystal and the Lich head wrapped in cloth. I turned everything in and receptionist left to a room in the back. She returned after a short while with a calm smile.

  "The Guildmaster would like to personally speak with your party. I'm sure you must be tired, so rest up tomorrow and come back here the next morning to discuss your compensation. I'd expect at least one rank-up and a decent sum of gold."

  "Thank you ma'am. I'll be back with the rest of my party then."

  That trip to the Guild took longer than I expected, and the sun had fully set now. I returned to the Moon-Fork for dinner. I didn't see Luci anywhere, so assuming she was already in bed, I had a quick meal and went up to our room.

  "Hey."

  Luci was sitting on the bed and greeted me when I entered.

  "Ah, hey. I thought you were already asleep. We're you waiting for me?"

  "Yes. I got something for you."

  "Oh? What for? Is there some kind of cele-"

  "Shh. I just saw this on the way back and thought I'd get it for you." She reached into her pocket and pulled out something silver colored. She handed it to me. "Here. It's supposed to be a hair decoration you can use to put your hair up if you wanted."

  "Oh, thanks." I looked at its design for a moment before setting it down on the nightstand. It was a beautiful, silver, ring-shaped object with a couple of dragon wings spread out and ready for flight on top of it. "I'll try it on tomorrow. Do you want me to pay you back for it?"

  "No no no. It's a gift, Mira, you don't need to pay me. Hehe. Seriously... Anyway, how did it go with the Guild?"

  "Right. We have a meeting with the Guildmaster the day after tomorrow to discuss compensation. The receptionists said to expect at least one rank-up and a lot of gold, so things are looking good for us."

  "The Guildmaster himself. Now that's something to think about." She id down on her bed. "Goodnight Mira."

  "Goodnight." I took off my cloak and belts and id down on my own bed before drifting off to sleep.

  Alpy376