SPELLCRAFT: Reincarnation Of A Magic Scholar

As Neron predicted, it was a trap.

Immediately they advanced deeper into the corridor, a huge net swooped down to entrap them.

Fortunately, Neron had been on the lookout for something like that and he sliced the net with his sword immediately it came near them.

"Look out!" He shouted out, warning the others.

~FWOOSHHHHHHH!~

~SLICEEEE!~

~RIPPPPP~

More nets shot from the ceiling, springing to life as if triggered by their presence.

Thick ropes twisted through the air, falling fast towards them.

Lily darted forward, her daggers flashing as she slashed through the nearest net. "They really don't want us going any further!" she muttered, her voice tight with frustration.

Davis cursed as he narrowly avoided one of the traps, rolling out of the way before slicing through the ropes.

The rest of his team struggled, several getting caught as the nets tightened around their limbs, dragging them back toward the walls.

"Help them!" Neron barked, his attention split between cutting through another wave of ropes and keeping an eye on their surroundings.

Lily darted toward one of the fallen adventurers, freeing him with a quick flick of her wrist.

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"This is ridiculous!" she spat, her eyes scanning the area for where the next trap was going to come from.

"We're almost through!" Neron shouted as he spotted the faint outline of a doorway ahead of them.

With one final swing, he cut through the last net blocking their path. "Move! Before more traps spring!"

They all ran towards the doorway barely making it through before the area was completely encircled with traps.

"Is that everyone?" Lily asked Davis looking at his people to be sure that they all got through.

"Uhmm…" Davis muttered as he did a quick headcount. "Yes, that's all of them."

"Your people are dead weight, they can't handle themselves," Neron spat out.

"Why do you say that?" Davis asked, feeling offended by his words.

"If it wasn't for the rest of us, they would have been dead. You know it."

"I wonder if they'll fight now," Lily wondered, looking between the two of them.

She was curious to see how he would handle it though her money was on Neron to win.

"Yeah I suppose. Good thing nobody was killed though," Davis said, throwing his hands up in the air in defeat.

"Yeah. I suppose," Neron said with a shrug.

"Huh! No fighting, how boring," Lily said, shocked at how the situation had quickly diffused without any incident.

As they caught their breath, the tension slowly eased, but Lily's curiosity remained piqued.

"So, you've been here longer than us. Seen anything strange?"

Davis shook his head. "No monsters, no creatures. Just traps and more traps. It's like someone cleared this place out before we got here."

Neron narrowed his eyes. "That doesn't make sense. Dungeons like this are supposed to be crawling with creatures."

"It's too clean," Lily agreed, glancing around. "Feels like someone—or something—is controlling this place."

Davis nodded. "We've only encountered golems and corpses. No sign of any living adventurers since the first floor."

Neron frowned. "No monsters, just golems and traps… almost like someone wants us to keep going deeper."

Lily shifted uneasily. "But why? What's waiting for us at the bottom?"

"Whatever it is," Neron said, eyes darkening, "it's no accident. We're being led somewhere."

Davis and his group exchanged wary glances, the eerie silence settling around them once more.

"Well, there's no turning back now," Davis muttered. "We keep moving. But stay sharp."

They moved cautiously after that, descending the dungeon's floors in silence.

The deeper they went, the darker and colder the air became, as if the very walls were closing in on them.

No monsters had emerged since the traps—only the unsettling presence of death surrounded them now.

As they got to lower floors, the area had a new addition to the landscape.

Bodies of fallen adventurers littered their path.

Some were sprawled in grotesque positions, others slumped against the stone walls with weapons still in hand.

Their faces were all frozen in terror, as if they had been scared out of their wits right before they died.

Lily stopped to examine one of the corpses, kneeling down to inspect the tattered gear.

"Its surprisingly looking old," she muttered, running her hand across the adventurer's broken chest plate. "Maybe a week, give or take. But that's impossible right? We only just got here and this is a new dungeon."

Davis sighed, glancing around uneasily. "I don't even know what to think but we are not in the dungeon anymore. We don't know enough about this place to draw conclusions. Looks like nobody's made it out of here in a long time."

Neron said nothing, his focus on the path ahead. The deeper they went, the more corpses they found, each one a reminder of the dungeon's dangers but like Davis said, he didn't want to draw conclusions just yet.

Something didn't sit right with him. The bodies seemed too... random.

No signs of what had killed them, no monsters, only traps—and now death. It felt deliberate, as if they were being herded.

"Let's keep moving," Neron ordered, his tone sharper than before. "There's something wrong with this place."

As they stepped through another archway, they found themselves in a massive chamber.

Yet again, stone pillars lined the walls, towering high into the shadows above.

The air felt heavier here, thick with an unnatural stillness that made every breath feel labored.

"Is this it?" Lily asked, her voice barely a whisper as she glanced around the vast room.

They were situated in the last floor of the place.

"I don't like this," Davis muttered. "Feels so familiar like we're walking right into another trap."

"We've had that feeling ever since we found ourselves in this place. It's nothing new—"

Before he could finish, the ground beneath them trembled and a low rumble echoed through the chamber, followed by the sound of stone grinding against stone.

The faint light of their torches flickered as the room seemed to shift.

"Get ready," Neron warned, drawing his sword.

"We're not leaving until we get through it."