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Using light manipulation I convert the already cast [Light Orb] into a [Fireflies] spell to spread out the light evenly rather than having a single lantern light. With my current magic force I’m able to spread the lights out about 16 feet from myself at a decently bright strength without it creating a strain on my magic regeneration. I don’t really need to use magic for anything else right now so I can keep this out indefinitely without any issues.

Morrigan’s eyebrows rose a little when she saw the extent of my ability to project my light magic, as well as the brightness of the light. She probably picked up on the fact that I had plenty more than the base 10 magic power you get from unlocking the stat.

“I didn’t know you were a mage Lilith,” said Morrigan.

“I’m not much of one really, all I can really use is light magic, ritual magic, and one illusion spell.”

“It seems you have some magic power though, I wouldn’t have really expected that.”

Torien cut in, “Lets focus. This is the first room sure, but we’re still in an unexplored dungeon.”

“You’re right, we should be taking this more seriously. Alright, I’m going to go in the front. You two in the middle and Torien in the back.”

“Wait, shouldn’t I be in the front to check for traps?”

Ah… right. I feel a little conflicted on this. On one hand Torien supposedly has some skill at spotting traps, on the other, because of my class I have 400 luck. I don’t know how that really equates to finding traps but I still feel more comfortable being in front. Still, she trained for this and I haven’t.

“You’re right. In that case, Morrigan you’re the rearguard. Bella your job is the same as normal. Torien go first but stay within my [Fireflies] spell as much as possible. I’ll follow you at a short distance so I can grab you or pull you back if needed.”

I got an “Understood!” in unison from the group. Now that we’re finally on the same page we decide to start walking towards the open portcullis. Torien proceeds forward in a pretty uncomfortable looking crouch walk that leaves her close to the ground. In that moment I had the odd sensation of recalling the words of a friend I couldn’t remember, “Nobody ever looks up.” naturally the odd thought made me pay more attention to the ramparts and ceilings above us as we proceeded.

Every now and then I peek back at the girls and they seem alert and ready to intercept anything that will come. As we’re about to enter the inner courtyard I see something strange. “Everyone wait!” Everyone stops and starts searching their surroundings but my eyes are locked on one spot. I see something akin to a human face with dark eyes blending into the stones in a shadowy corner inside the gatehouse.

“[Light Orb]!” I create a ball of light and throw it at the face in the wall. I don’t really know what I was expecting but it wasn’t the horrible screech I got in return. The wail was so loud that everyone except for Morrigan covered her ears in shock.

Morrigan’s face twisted in discomfort but it didn’t disrupt her from sending the spikes of ice that had been circling her staff from shooting forward into the hideous monstrosity that landed in front of us.

The creature was a four legged monster with limbs that were bent back at weird angles. The forelimbs looked like human arms bent in the wrong direction but with metal blades protruding out of the fingers of its hand. Its back looked like the back of an emaciated old man with visible bones showing through its wrinkly skin and its legs were long, thin, and insect like, giving it the impression of a praying mantis. The most disturbing part of this monster was its face however.

Its head was turned upside down despite the creature being on all fours. It had black hollow looking eyes with dark fluid leaking down its forehead. The face had a mouth that was open showing a set of rotting teeth in the humanlike mouth with a tongue that was dry and shriveled. When I shot the light orb it had burned a mark into its shoulder after the monster avoided taking a shot to the face.

In a split second the monster jumped forward lunging at Torien who was still in the lead so I jumped forward to intercept. My sword slashed toward those metal claws and when the two collided it created the wail of metal on metal. Torien took the chance to jump back closer to the rest of the group before starting to nock an arrow.

The monster started to pull its arm back away from me but somehow my sword had caught its hand in an awkward way that tangled in its claws. The monster was impatient however and it violently ripped its hand away losing a finger and a chunk of flesh. I was sprayed with its blood while desperately trying to keep hold of my weapon. The creature stumbled back from the self-inflicted pain and screeched that horrible scream at us again.

I winced but I was somewhat more ready for the awful sound this time. I lunged forward while slashing at its face but it pulled back in time to only receive a shallow scratch across its grotesque face. The creature was now more wary of me and began to scan my allies perhaps to locate a more suitable enemy. However at that momentary distraction my instincts screamed at me to strike. I slashed forward as I drew in closer and managed to lop off its left hand, the formerly undamaged one.

The creature screamed and began to rise up onto it’s hind legs as another volley of icicles stabbed into its chest. Immediately after which, an arrow hit it dead on in its left eye. It lurched back and tried to grab the arrow with the stump where its hand used to be and instead hit itself in the face knocking it back against the wall.

I didn’t want to get any closer to the rampaging monster so I tried casting light magic at it again, counting on the magic to burn it once more. “[Light Orb]!” I yelled as I cast the spell. It moved about as fast as a softball but when it hit, the creatures skin melted as if it had been splashed with boiling water. A moment later another arrow buried itself into the creature’s chest, about where a heart might be, assuming it even had one.

It was unclear if Torien had actually dealt the final blow or if it was a combination of our efforts but the hideous monster fell forward and landed with a loud thud accompanied by the snapping of arrow shafts that broke against the stone ground.

“I don’t see any more threats but I didn’t see that one in the first place Lilith!” Bella yelled out.

I cast another light orb and moved it across the ceiling of the building looking for any more discrepancies but found nothing. After a few moments of everyone searching the area in all directions we finally relaxed enough to decide we were no longer under attack. Just afterwards a notification came through.

[Your party has defeated a Shadow Horror]

[Black Cat has increased from level 1 to level 2]

[Light Magic has increased from level 2 to level 3]

“What the FUCK was that thing?” I yelled in disgust.

Morrigan of all people was the one that was inspecting the corpse of the monster this time, the girl seems shy about talking but not about messing with corpses. There was a tense silence in the air until she finally revealed her findings.

“It is a shadow-type demon.”

“That fucking thing is a demon?!”

There is no way I’m a demon if that creature is what demons look like here.

[Origin of Succubi] alters Race: Succubus (Demon) to Race: Succubus]

Bella turned to me with a shocked look on her face. I quickly link to her using [Soultouched Connection].

-- “I just thought about how there was no way I could be a demon if that thing is what demons are like in this world and [Origin of Succubi] altered my race.” --

-- “Okay wow, hearing you talking in my head feels really strange. Anyway, not having demon plastered on our status will be useful if we’re ever appraised by someone with a high enough appraisal skill. It’ll still look suspicious but they won’t jump to demon this way.” --

“What are you two staring at each other silently for?” Torien asked puzzled.

I drop the link and respond, “Ah, nothing. We've just talked about what demons might look like in the past and we were really shocked now that we’ve encountered one for the first time.”

Morrigan had finished digging a fist sized blood red crystal out of the chest of the demon before walking away from the grotesque creature. “This crystal will be plenty enough to prove we ran into demons. They’ll automatically count our original quest a success if we take this back to them. Demon subjugations, especially with a dungeon that likely spawns them are super high priority information.”

I nod. “I’d rather not fight another one of those things if we can avoid it, lets get out of here.”

We return to formation and head back the way we came only to discover a haunting sight. The portcullis we walked through when we entered the gatehouse had lowered itself some point after we came in. Even worse, it looks like the chains that are normally used on a pulley system to open and close the gate were now destroyed. A pile of rusted chains now lie in a heap next to the shut gate that was trapping us inside of this demon infested dungeon.

“Fucking hell.” I said looking at the broken chains and the heavy portcullis.

Torien looked at us with a grim expression. “I guess our only option now is to find another way out or defeat the dungeon.”

I sigh. “That monster was large but none of us got hurt. Still I wouldn’t want to try to fight more than one of those things.”

Morrigan scratched the back of her head before adding, “Normally in dungeons there is one or two individual monsters early on that later show up in groups. There’s no way of knowing for sure that we’ll be fighting multiple of those things later but the chances are high.”

“Can we go out of the gatehouse and scale the outer wall to get out?” I ask.

“It’s possible but very dangerous to do that. Sometimes the dungeon allows for that, sometimes the dungeon takes that as ‘cheating’ and spawns hordes of monsters or some other threat to retaliate,” Torien replied with her grim expression.

Morrigan cut in, “The gate locking behind us might be the dungeon’s doing, in which case trying to scale the wall would definitely be cheating. I think we should give up on that idea.”

I nod in response. From the sound of it, it’s not worth the risk. We brought our rations so we shouldn’t be worried about food. In fact Bella and I don’t actually need to eat so our rations would likely last twice as long. The problem is that we didn’t bring bed rolls or anything since we didn’t expect to be trapped here.

“I think our only real option is to try and clear the dungeon.” I only got silence in response but looking around everyone seemed to agree.

"This is all my fault," I thought to myself. I just want to get a look at a dungeon and now we're trapped here. The handle of my sword tightens in my grip.

“Well there is some good news,” Morrigan said. “This dungeon is probably a pretty young one. Even if the monsters are difficult it might actually not be that large. It might not be too difficult to clear in a day or two assuming we can handle the monsters we come across okay.”

“Okay, at least that. As much as I’d like to keep procrastinating we should move forward.” I recast [Fireflies] so we could have somewhat consistent light but now I was being extra vigilant since the shadow horror hid so well in the environment.

We walked past the rapidly deteriorating corpse of the shadow horror and into the first bailey.