He took them from store to store, getting them clothes they liked. Even if Sarai was either too nervous or too shy to admit when she truly liked something. He just attempted to pick up on her body language to figure out what things she liked and went with that most of the time. Aziva had no such reserves, she just pointed excitedly and bounced around the things she wanted to try on. Jace smiled as he spoiled the duo, he bought them some food from one of the street vendors, it reminded him of kebab, one of his favourite foods back home.

Slowly but surely Weira was getting into the shopping spree herself and start buying her own clothing, seeing her wearing a dress was an eyeopener. After spending so much time with her he had forgotten that she was such a beautiful woman. You’d think he’d notice something like that, but he had truly come to accept her as his sister and hadn’t really thought about it lately. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and got some clothes for himself as well. He nearly always wore his armour but that was due for an upgrade, it would have to wait till he had some more funds saved up. He would have to refrain from any crazy expenditure for now.

After shopping for clothing they went looking for furniture, he got a nice sturdy wooden table that could fit a decent amount of people and bought the chairs to match. Weira bought a few pillows for in the chairs and got some curtains that she thought would fit. Next up on the list were beds, he bought a sizeable two-person bed for Sarai, and perhaps eventually himself. He bought a cute looking single person bed for Aziva, he made sure it was large enough that she would be able to grow into it. Next up was mattresses, he spent another decent sum of money to get some good mattresses. He also bought a pillow for himself, he missed having his own pillow. They had to be puffy, something he could sink his head in. After nodding to himself with a smile as he got the pillow he thought about what else they needed.

Kitchen stuff, he nodded to himself and went out to buy the pots, pans, plates and utensils they would need. He also got a small fridge that used small enchantments and a mana core to function, it would allow them to save up some food. He nodded to himself, a toilet and a bathtub or shower were also essential. He bought another enchanted toilet similar to the one in the inn and got a shower to match. Once they finally finished their shopping spree they had everything shipped towards their house. They stood in front of their new place, Jace nodded to himself while Sarai tentively looked at the building. It was a two story building, consisting of a main room, kitchen and dining room on the bottom floor, the hallway upon entry led straight to the stairs which curved up to the second floor. Which had three rooms. One he would furnish as the main bedroom one of the others would be for Aziva. The last would become a guest room once he had some more funds for decoration.

He turned to Sarai and smiled, “There we go, a house for the both of you. I’ll make sure to stop by regularly, we should also look into getting Aziva into a school.” Sarai stared at him and started tearing up. Aziva stopped babbling and looked worriedly at her mother, she stepped forward and grabbed her mother’s hand. Looking up at her with big eyes.

Sarai stepped towards him and sweeped him up in a hug, she held him close to her as she softly sobbed. Jace awkwardly patted her on the back in an attempt to console her. It took a minute orso for Sarai to gather her wits and wipe away her tears. The salty streaks slightly staining her beautifull face. She smiled at him, the first sincere smile he had seen. His heart shook as he looked at her. “Thank you, truly. I...I, just thank you.”

Jace smiled at her, “Lets get that life back on track. We’ve only just gotten started.” She seemed slightly confused at the back on track part but got the gist of it and nodded, wiping away some watery remnants.

The next few days Jace helped them settle in, he cleared the seventh layer of the dungeon by himself a few more times to gather funds for some decorations and other furniture. He started looking at schools he could send Aziva to for a while. The new school semesters had already started so he took it upon himself to give her some home schooling. To make sure she was caught up when the new year started. Of course this required him to do some research. The studies here were vastly different to what he was taught back home, the rest of his team happily pitched in. Teaching Aziva in whatever their best subjects happened to be. Sarai watched it all happen with a smile, she finally had people to depend on. A protective layer that surrounded both her and her daughter.

A few months passed and Jace grew ever closer to them, he eventually moved in, started becoming a true part of the family. Aziva had already started calling him dad, something that made his heart flutter and brought a bright grin to his face. He made sure to continue progressing in the dungeon with the others. The new layers were simply slightly more armed and armored ogres, since they had already gotten used to fighting the creatures, it did not take them long before they got used to it and could clear the dungeon on their own. They still made sure to take two months or so before they cleared the layer. They had just cleared the ninth layer and today they were preparing to challenge the barrier. Jace took a deep breath and looked back at his team.

They had grown, Plip had gained a couple of inches in height and Qyra had matured somewhat. They had made some changes to their equipment. Their weapons remained the same although they had increased in quality. They refused to use enchanted weapons as the enchantments got in the way of their own mana manipulation. Armour wise Jace and Floris had both changed to half plate, the armour was heavier and unlike their weapons was enchanted. It was a minor enchantment that helped cushion blows and increased its durability. It was made from red iron, a metal that looked almost rusty once forged. Jerard and Weira wore scale mail, they needed a bit extra flexibility to be able to dart in and out of combat. Plip and Qyra had settled on leather and mail armour. It was slightly heavier than leather armour but offered more protection. If the rest did their job properly they wouldn’t get hit at all, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Jace turned to them and lowered his brows, “Next up is the barrier, the enemy will have their first traits and it will make for a large difference in power. If we let our guard down we will get ourselves killed. Stay sharp, stay frosty. Watch each others back and check your corners.”

The team nodded and rolled shoulders and checked equipment one last time before they collectively stepped through the arch and entered the dungeon.

Jace and Floris stepped forward carefully, shields raised and the mana to reinforce it ready to act. They turned each corner carefully and made sure to check every niche for monsters. Jace heard a rustle and held his hand up causing the rest to freeze, he had sword drawn and checked for movement but saw nothing. He narrowed his eyes and stepped forward to draw its attention, something moved to the left and he dove to the side. Narrowly dodging a claw that appeared out of the dark. He rolled to his knees and raised his shield Floris rushed in to guard his back, both of their eyes shooting around the dark looking for their opponent. Jace could hear a soft murmur from Qyra. He turned his back to her and light flooded the tunnel, there! Somehow hidden from the lights of their torches was a feline looking creature with six legs, two slimmer front legs with four powerful legs behind it. It clung to the wall and scuttled back into the shadows.

Jace cursed, “So from strength types we go to agility focused assassins. Qyra can you keep that light up?”

“Not a problem.”

“Jerard take position behind Qyra and keep an eye to the rear, Weira move between and slightly behind me and Floris. Plip, if you see something with those eyes of yours, shoot it.”

A brief moment of movement and everyone had taken positions, Jace continued forward, his eyes looking at the border between light and dark for movement. He was worried the light would herd the creatures into one spot, and that they would try to overrun them to get to the squishies. But he had to leave Jerard at the rear, he couldn’t risk those things getting to Qyra and Plip. He murmured a bit to himself before rolling his shoulders and taking slow steps forward, Floris mirrored his movements to his left and had his shield at the ready. Green eyes peeled for movement.

Soon enough he saw a sliver of dark fur and brandished his shield in that direction. A black blur crashed into his shield. Jace caught it and pinned it to the floor with his shield. He thrust at it, only to have it twist and dodge. Not far enough, a halberd swung down and smashed into its side. Causing the creature shriek, an arrow zipped past and the creature collapsed. Jace hopped back and turned his eyes back upfront. “Qyra, your on drop duty.”

“Okidoki!” He heard the girl step forward and start searching for drops and skinning the creature for its fur. This world was odd in that way, creatures could be skinned and deboned for items. Once that was done it would disperse and leave behind a little money or something different. He made Qyra do the work because her spells while powerful and extremely useful took time to use. The rest could react a lot faster and would protect her while she skinned it. Another reason was that Qyra was by far the best at skinning creatures of the lot of them. Her father had been a leatherworker after all.

Once she was finished they pushed further down the dark, shadowy cavern. Here and there another of the felines would jump at them and attempt to catch them by surprise. To no succes. There was one dangerous moment when one of the things had snuck up behind them and had pounced on Jerard. He had made it out with a minor scratch, but the boy made sure to stay extra attentive after that.

Eventually they reached a larger cavern it was somehow even darker than the hallways that led to it. An oppressive inky darkness surrounded the cavern, pushing in on the light created by their mage light. A magical darkness then, the area they could see shrunk. They could now see a bare fifteen feet around them. The cavern was at least two hundred feet in diameter. “Diamond formation.” Jace told the others.

He got in front, Floris took up the rear and Weira and Jerard the sides, Qyra and Plip in the middle. Jace hesitated for a moment, something felt off. Something itched at the back of his mind, he suddenly spun around and jumped towards Qyra who looked at him with wide eyes, he tackled her to the ground and felt claws rake his armour, piercing through and leaving bloody cuts. He rolled back to his feet, “Keep an eye above! The freaking thing is a climber!” It had vanished back into the shadows before he had gotten a good look at it. He ignored the flaming feeling from his back and ordered the group to tighten up. The thing had clawed through his armour like it was leather, Qyra and Plip might as well be wearing no armour.

Jace made a decision, “We’re retreating start moving back to the hall. Keep your eyes and ears open, the thing tears through metal like paper.” They made a quick but organised retreat, whatever the creature was that inhabited the cavern, it let them go and was not interested in pursuit. They made their way out of the dungeon, the rest eying Jace with worry. He took his armour off and Weira saw to his wound, she poured some healing potion on it and he felt his skin start knitting itself back together. He grimaced, it hurt like a bitch.

He eyed the others, “I don’t think we are ready for this layer yet, we need to figure out some new methods of detecting things like that. Our normal senses aren’t near enough. We almost lost Qyra there.”

Qyra shook a little but nodded, she bit her lip and stared at him. “Thanks for that.”

Jace smiled at her, “Tis my job after all.” He scratched his beard a bit. “We should also learn something that improves our defenses, we did fine with the ogres because they were so slow, but taking a hit from them would have turned us to paste. This thing is much faster, and its penetrative power is dangerous. We need to learn some form of permanent mana armour, it’ll take a while before we are ready to tackle this layer again.”

The rest nodded and started thinking off ideas that would help them in the fight. Jace meanwhile was lost in his own thoughts. He had underestimated the difference a trait would make, the creature was nearly undetectable. It was several times stronger than the boss of the previous floor. He had started to think that this path of mastery wasn’t as hard as it was made out to be, his arrogance had almost cost Qyra her life.

He muttered to himself, his eyes downcast. “Can’t forget. Arrogance is the mother of all fuck-ups.”