They all stood before the large, looming church.
At least, that was what the others had called it.
To Beatris, it was a tall building made of white stone, covered in little ornate details and fitted with a set of enormous wooden doors at the front.
The building had been cleared out because, apparently, there was a dungeon that led out through the back and down into a sprawling labyrinth.
Something Beatris would probably have been more worried about if she were not actively struggling to walk.
She staggered forward, fighting against the padded armor she had been wrapped in while Thalia and Liora continued giving her worried looks.
Beatris panted.
"Okay," Liora said, turning to Thalia, "so we have physical defense covered, but what if mobility comes into play?"
Thalia began weaving more strings.
"No," Beatris managed between breaths. "More. Layers."
Then she flopped to the ground.
Her four legs gave way beneath the fatigue and lack of breath as she lay there, struggling to breathe.
Part of her understood their concern.
She was several levels below everyone else, and as such, she was much easier to kill than they were.
Despite that, from her own observations, she had thirty-three HP.
One more point than Thalia.
At the same time, Beatris would rather be uncomfortable than dead.
"I think you're going to smother her before she even sees a skeleton," Jax said, rolling his eyes as he walked over and looked her over to check if she was still breathing.
Jax had come back with Aiden yesterday and told them about their meeting with Todis.
Beatris did not know who Todis was.
She did not know why everyone seemed so worried about things.
But she understood the basics.
They were going to enter and destroy a dungeon by grabbing a special item thing at the very end.
Trying to stop them was a group of people called necromancers.
Aiden had said they could use magic like Thalia and Liora, but their magic was about summoning the dead to fight as skeletons or zombies.
They had to find the bone pile things being used for some ritual and break them.
Kill the necromancers before the necromancers killed them.
Break some altar thing the necromancers were using.
Get out.
Then seal the church with some stuff that was supposed to make dungeons not form as often in that spot.
Simple.
Probably.
Maybe.
Thalia fussed with the armor Beatris had been given, shifting it as Beatris looked to the others.
While she was still dealing with her thoughts on Jax, she found herself watching him, trying to look him over as if she might suddenly be able to read his mind.
She had yet to develop psychic powers.
But she had noticed a few things about Jax today.
Mainly that he seemed nervous.
If anything, everyone did.
That did not bode well.
Beatris had seen the size of the creature Aiden, Thalia, and Liora had taken down together.
So anything that worried them should probably have her running in the opposite direction at top speed.
Regardless, after around an hour of Aiden brewing last-minute potions, and Liora and Jax arguing over how much armor was too much armor, they finally decided mobility would be more important than heavy, heavy armor.
As someone who had never been to a dungeon before, the feeling of shifting and changing as she was taken inside was extremely strange.
Watching her paws dissolve into light before reforming with everything intact terrified her for a moment.
Then she was fully back.
"G-Gods," Selene said, an unconscious shiver running up her spine along with the rest of them. "I am never going to get used to that feeling."
Beatris took a moment to check over everything as Thalia and Liora brought out torches and lit them.
The sudden light caused a twinge of pain in her eyes.
She squinted until her vision adjusted.
The place they had arrived in was a simple hallway made of some kind of cut dark stone.
Aside from the torches, no light shone.
Before them stretched a hallway that continued past where the light reached. Several passages led to the right, and at the very edge of the torchlight, one led to the left.
Beatris glanced back at the others, taking a moment to assess what they had brought with them.
Jax.
Check.
Liora.
Check.
Thalia.
Check.
Selene.
Check.
Thalia's backpack thing.
Check.
The little water spirit.
Check.
Aiden with a bucket on his head.
Che—
Wait a moment.
Beatris stared at Aiden.
After a moment, Aiden asked, "Sooooo, why did one of you put a bucket on my head?"
Everyone turned back to him.
Aiden stood unmoving as the bucket shifted slightly on his head.
Selene reached over, grabbed it, and pulled it off.
Aiden looked around in confusion before bending down and picking up the glasses that had fallen from his face onto the dungeon floor.
As they all stood there, Thalia held out her free hand.
Strings extended and flowed outward, snaking down the hallway.
"Uh," Beatris asked, watching as Sera and Malt floated after the strings with intrigued expressions, "what are you doing?"
Ironically enough, the two had been excited when she gave them shorter names because their original names were too long to say effectively.
"She's scanning in case people are waiting around the corner for us," Jax said. "She can feel things like that through her strings."
As if on cue, Thalia tapped her foot on the ground ahead of her.
She closed her eyes.
Her face tightened with tension.
"We have a problem here," Thalia said. "I think they set traps."
"I don't think a bucket falling on my head counts as a trap," Aiden said, looking up.
Sure enough, a small hook mechanism with a string had released the bucket in question.
Thalia did not reply.
Instead, she walked over to the first right-hand hallway.
She moved down a short distance, far enough that they could see a room illuminated ahead, before coming to a stop and going to one knee.
She held her torch over a small wire stretched half a foot off the ground.
The wire was so thin Beatris only saw it when the torchlight caught it.
Thalia quietly stepped over it.
On the other side of the doorway, she gestured toward something.
They took care to step over the wire.
There, a bag seemed to be filled with various metal utensils and plates, all tied to the string.
"I-It's a soldier's quick alarm," Selene said, looking the bag over.
Everyone turned to her.
She took a moment to observe it more closely before explaining.
"It's an alarm created by placing random metal objects, like utensils and plates, in a bag. When shaken, they clatter and make noise."
She swallowed.
"It's rudimentary, but effective. We should be careful not t—"
Thalia cut her off with a raised hand.
Everyone froze.
Not even a breath left their lips.
Then they heard it.
A sound.
Wet.
Heavy.
Like someone in armor walking through marshland.
But in a dungeon, sounds like that meant one thing.
They quickly made their way back through the doorway, jumping over the tripwire.
Beatris began to move.
Then she stepped on Selene's foot in the dark.
Both of them stumbled and fell into the wire.
Jax's paw whipped back.
One claw slashed the wire as the bag rose, but not enough to rattle loudly.
Selene grabbed the remaining wire to prevent it from landing with a loud noise.
Everyone froze again.
The footsteps stopped too.
As if waiting.
For one long moment, there was nothing.
Then the sound started up again.
Closer.
Louder.
Jax hissed a curse under his breath.
"Shit," he said. "Weapons out, everyone."