The group found themselves in an empty room with two squared off exits leading further into the dungeon. Mickey walked towards one exit, then the other before returning to the group. He pointed at the left exit.

‘Violence.’

He pointed at the other exit.

‘Exhaustion.’

Shrugging calmly he said

‘I sense something of a theme developing here.’

Agent brown nodded.

‘I wonder if it’s giving us an actual choice or merely the illusion of choice. We can’t really make informed decisions if we don’t know which door goes where.’

‘Possibly lower floors will have clues of some kind on the doors.This floor looks more refined than the first one. The doorways are squared off and the floor seems smoother. Perhaps the next floor will be even more polished? ’

Mused the Professor.

‘Well, regardless we still need to scout it out. Are we going for the violence room first again?’

Asked agent Brown, looking at Cargo.

He shrugged.

‘The reasons are still the same. Better to get into a fight when as fresh as possible.’

The group cautiously advanced into the combat room with Laminae leading the way.

The second combat room was a flat circular chamber occupied by two wet spherical creatures orbiting the centre of the room. As the party approached the closest slimeball curved towards them gaining speed.

Without hesitation Laminae stepped forwards and extended a horizontal wedge from her leg throwing the slimeball over her head.

With a force blade from her arm she swung a powerful overhand chop as it passed overhead, using its own weight and momentum against it. The bisected slime landed behind her with a pair of splats. As she started moving to intercept the second slimeball she heard two gunshots and Officer Strathpine swearing viciously. Looking back she saw that the slime had reformed itself from the puddles leaving only some of its vital liquid behind. However just as she began moving to assist them, the second slime charged at her.

Now knowing that cutting was ineffective Laminae elected to crush the slime instead.

First she stopped the slimeball with a waist high forcefield wall slanted outwards to stop the creature's momentum.

After the Slimeball was halted she extended more shields around it, encasing it in a box made of hard light force fields. Leaving a small opening to vent pressure, laminae started bending and compressing the box.

Shortly the fluid that made most of the slime's body started oozing out of the opening, similar to toothpaste being squeezed from a tube.

When the force box encountered more resistance than she expected she looked inside and found rough sphere of palerock, honeycombed with enough hole to resemble a sponge,

Is this made of coral?

She thought to herself.

Well, Whatever. The scientists wanted samples anyway.

Returning to the rest of the group she took note of the scientists gathering around a piece of coral like her own, broken into pieces in a puddle. Meanwhile the rest of the party was tending to Agent Brown who appeared to be injured in some way.