“I hope nobody’s gotten this one yet…” I muttered to myself as I followed along behind my party. My hand reached up to clasp the brooch at my breast, a silver medallion in the shape of a bow and arrow. This was my token as a Priestess of Accalia, and also where I stored my weapons for ease of movement.

“It’s fine, Jenna. I told you, I found this dungeon by chance, and it should be an undiscovered one!” Our party leader Dolan assured us, smiling back towards me. He was a handsome human male with short blonde hair and hazel eyes. This was our first time working together, but it was clear that he was a warrior from the sword and shield strapped to his back.

Along with Dolan and myself, there were two other party members. One was a female elven mage name Jeza, with slim curves similar to my own, although she was a bit taller. Her ashen hair flowed down her back while her body was hugged by thin leather armor. Her expression seemed cold, distant, as if she hadn’t fully accepted me on the team.

The other was a halfling boy, or maybe man… it’s hard to tell their age by appearances. His name was Guile, and he twirled his daggers in his hands, making no effort to hide the fact that he was the party’s rogue. “That’s right!” He said with a bright face. “We’ve just gotta hurry back before anyone takes it!”

At first, I was confused why they had wanted to bring my along. Although a lycan archer such as myself was quite useful in open terrain, we often experienced shortcomings when it came to a dungeon crawl. Our range advantage became too restricted in the tight corridors of most dungeons.

However, my concerns had been alleviated when they told me that they were mostly interested in me for two reasons. First of all, as a priestess of Accalia I had the ability to analyze monsters that we encountered to help determine their weaknesses. Secondly, and perhaps the most important reason, the dungeon required a four person party to advance past one of its trials, no more or less.

If the first reason wasn’t enough to convince me, the second surely would. There were many cases where dungeons had been reported to have certain requirements on those who entered, especially with the recent start of the Dungeon Master Trials. Some asked for members of certain races, others demanded a solo clear, and some like this required a party.

For those in a party, the core was reported to monitor the party members and select the most outstanding member to be its master. To prevent infighting after the selection, the master gained the protection of the dungeon. Because of this, I was determined to do my best, even if I was at a disadvantage in such enclosed spaces.

Then again, maybe the third reason that they wanted me was because of that disadvantage, hoping that I wouldn’t be able to steal the spotlight from the core party members. Well, if that’s what they were expecting, they had another thing coming!

It took us about an hour after we entered a thick forest before we came across a cave opening, embedded within a small hill. Twisted vines covered the opening, making it hard to spot if someone wasn’t directly looking for it. No doubt it was Guile the originally discovered this dungeon, not Dolan.

Sniffing at the air, I furrowed my brow slightly. There was an unmistakable stench within the dungeon, one which caused me to immediately retrieve my shortbow and quiver from my badge. The bow itself was carved with ornate patterns, adorned with green leaves. “This is a goblin den?”

“That’s right.” Dolan nodded his head, drawing his sword and shield. “Shouldn’t be any trouble for us, right?”

His words weren’t wrong. Although there were rare cases of goblins entering the triple digits in level, such cases were few and far between. Even if we did encounter one such champion, any one of the gathered party members would be able to readily dispatch them.

But that didn’t make sense… the rules of the trials specifically stated that the team aiming to conquer the dungeon couldn’t be too far above the dungeon’s own level, or they would be disqualified. Closing my eyes, I focused on retrieving the knowledge I had stored over the course of my studies.

A goblin den did not mean that the only monsters present would be goblins… According to what I knew, there should be cave beasts as well, wolves with jagged spines along their bodies. Assuming that this dungeon was truly near our level, the goblins would be led by a group of blight ogres or deep trolls. Either way, this wasn’t going to exactly be a ‘fun’ trip.

Clearly, the others already knew about the monsters deeper in the den, or else we wouldn’t be here. There was just no point in us conquering a weaker dungeon, after all. And judging by the increasingly serious expressions on Dolan and Guile’s faces, my guess wasn’t far off the mark.

Once we entered the dungeon, the stench became almost unbearable. If not for me needing my sense of smell to warn me of possible dangers, I would have beseeched the Goddess’s aid to sweep away the odor. Surely that wouldn’t be a misuse of divine powers, right? Right?!

Soon after we entered, Guile left the group to begin scouting ahead. It didn’t take us long before we began to encounter the freshly killed goblin corpses, along with a few scattered cave beasts. The rogue himself was enough to take care of such enemies, so he probably saw no reason to report back to us and make it into a louder fight.

“Should be just up ahead.” Dolan muttered, and I could catch a trace of expectation flashing over Jeza’s face. Whatever Dolan was talking about, the elven mage was clearly excited for it.

“Oi!” Guile spoke up, appearing next to Dolan with a grin. “Cleared the way to the gate. And it looks like the dungeon left a bit of a surprise for us. Found a treasure chest near the door. Good few haram and a couple of gems.” His hand flashed and he tossed a pair of red and blue gemstones towards Jeza, who caught them expressionlessly.

“Alright, we’ll split the coins once we get out of here.” Dolan decided, leading the way forward. As Guile had said, the path ahead had already been cleared by him, so we quickly arrived at our destination.

The corridor opened up to a large room, what most would compare to a boss room in other dungeons, yet it was empty of enemies. Along the far right wall, there was an open chest, clearly what Guile had previously mentioned. And then, on the wall opposite of our entry, there was a tall door.

The door was heavy, made of thick stone, with an engraving on it. The engraving was that of four figures, three of which were standing in circles surrounding a fourth. I felt an odd sense of foreboding, but that might have just been the cool pain of metal sticking into my side.

The dim light of the room flashed briefly, and I could see the other three members of the party smirking towards me. Looking down, I clearly saw one of Guile’s daggers sticking out of my side. “Nothing personal.” He said, yanking it out. “We really did need a fourth for the dungeon, we just didn’t need to keep you the entire way.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but no sound came. My hand went down to cover the wound as I felt a warm light appearing behind me. Turning my head, I saw a ball of fire hovering over Jeza’s head. “Do us a favor and die, will you?” She asked, that same smirk still on her face as she threw the fire directly at me. Was the dagger poisoned? I felt like I couldn’t move from where I was even as the flames enveloped me.

Finally, I heard a scream that sounded distinctly like my own. Yet… it wasn’t coming from me? And the fire oddly didn’t burn. Opening my eyes, I saw my body writhing within red flames, calling out for help.

“Am I dead…?” I asked slowly, watching as my ‘body’ was slowly turned into ash. The wound on my side was still present, the pain making me feel like I was certainly alive.

“That depends on you.” A voice echoed in the room, one which the other three didn’t seem to hear. All they saw was the door of the room slowly opening to allow them to pass through.

“Heh, dumb girl thought we needed her help?” The halfling asked with a grin. “All we needed was a sacrifice. Shame, she was kinda cute.”

“You’re into dogs?” Dolan asked, his previous handsome smile now showing disgust at Guile’s words. Now that I wasn’t ‘around’, Jeza’s expression softened, and she moved over to stand closer to Dolan.

“Oh, don’t be like that.” Guile rolled his eyes. “I hear lycans are pretty good if you know how to handle them.”

Hearing their conversation made me even more nauseous than the wound that was still open in my side! “What do you mean, it depends?” I asked, trying anything to focus on neither the wound nor my former party.

“Do you wish to live, after being betrayed by those you thought your friends?” The voice asked as the other three began to walk through the heavy door. Once they had passed it, the door closed, and my vision of the room changed. Now, I was standing in a darker room, the only visible light offered by a glowing blue sphere stuck in a nearby wall.

I took a moment to think about his words, about what the rest of my party had said after betraying me. Clearly, it had been a test of a sort, though the contents of the test was something that they didn’t know. They truly thought that they were killing me, and everything that they said afterwards would have reflected their true thoughts.

Anger began to well up inside of me the more I looked back on what happened. They brought me here as a tool, just wanting to discard me to pass through a door. “I want… to live.” I muttered, and immediately felt a cool sensation wrap around my wound. More than that, I wanted to pay them back for what they did.

“Good.” Finally, I was able to identify the source of the voice, which seemed to be the blue sphere itself. “Then please, observe.”

I noticed a shift in the light behind myself, and turned to look at it. A projection was being displayed on the wall, like a window to watch them. I barely even registered that my wound was healing as I saw the group coordinating to fight against packs of cave beasts.

There were relaxed expressions on the three faces as they easily dispatched the enemies. “We should be seeing the deep trolls soon, right?” Jeza asked, cracking her knuckles as she followed behind the other two.

“If we’re going by the usual pattern, yeah.” Guile responded with a casual shrug. “Lemme go check ahead for traps. Now that we finally got this far, it’s all unexplored.”

The projection followed Guile as he raced ahead, keeping his body pressed against the wall while he moved. It didn’t take long to figure out that there weren’t any traps in this dungeon. There didn’t need to be. When Guile entered the next room, his eyes went wide with shock.

The halfling had entered another wide room with a large stone door. However, this time there was a slightly different engraving. There were only three figures on the door, and only two of them were within circles. Following the pattern of the room where I ‘died’, this meant that they were supposed to sacrifice yet another member of their party.

Guile hesitated, though it was immediately clear that it wasn’t because he was thinking of stopping the dungeon crawl. No, I was good enough at reading lips to figure out what he was muttering to himself, even without my lycan ears. ‘Dolan or Jeza…’