Thorne joined him, pulling out a collection box lined with what looked like lead. "We take one sample first, carefully. If there's no reaction, we extract as much as we can carry."
I remained at the entrance, my unease growing by the second. My eyes kept drifting upward, toward the darkness above. What was up there? Why couldn't I see the ceiling, even with our light sources?
Dain positioned his extraction tool against one of the smaller crystal branches. "Ready. On three."
"Wait," I said suddenly, as my skill finally identified what was setting off my internal alarms. "The floor around the crystal—it's not solid. It's a membrane."
Too late. Dain had already begun his extraction process, tapping the crystal carefully with his tool. A small fragment broke away cleanly, falling into Thorne's collection box.
For a moment, nothing happened. Thorne closed the box, a triumphant smile spreading across his face.
Then the floor around the crystal began to ripple.
"Move!" I shouted. "Now!"
The ripples expanded outward, the previously solid-looking floor becoming unmistakably fluid. The crystal formation shuddered, then began to sink into the suddenly liquid surface.
Dain scrambled backward but wasn't fast enough. The liquid floor reached him first, clinging to his boots like tar. He shrieked as it began to pull him downward.
Thorne, closer to the edge of the phenomenon, managed to leap clear, tucking the precious collection box into his jacket as he ran for the entrance.
Kira hesitated, torn between self-preservation and helping Dain. In the end, she lunged toward him, extending her hammer for him to grab. "Take it!"
Dain clutched the hammer's shaft desperately as Kira braced herself, trying to pull him free. But the liquid floor only pulled harder, now up to Dain's knees and still rising.
"It's dissolving me!" he screamed, his voice raw with pain. "Gods, it's eating through—"
His words cut off in a gurgle as the fluid suddenly surged upward, engulfing him to the chest. Kira strained, muscles standing out on her arms as she tried to maintain her grip on the hammer, but Dain's hands were slipping, his gloves dissolving in the caustic liquid.
"Let go," Thorne yelled from the passage entrance beside me. "Kira, let go! It'll take you too!"
For once, I agreed with him. Whatever that fluid was, it was consuming Dain alive. I could see it now—his lower body dissolving into the increasingly reddish liquid, feeding the crystal formation that continued to sink into what was obviously a digestive pool of some kind.
With a curse, Kira released the hammer, leaping back as the fluid surged toward her. Dain's final scream echoed through the chamber as he disappeared completely beneath the surface, only a few bubbles marking where he'd been.
The entire floor was liquid now, rippling and advancing toward the chamber entrance where the three of us now stood. Above, something massive shifted in the darkness—something that had been waiting patiently while its trap did its work.
"Run," Thorne ordered, already turning to flee.
We didn't need to be told twice.
The passage seemed longer on the return journey, the walls pulsing faster around us as if the entire structure had been awakened by the violence in the chamber. We ran without caution now, no longer concerned with hidden traps or pressure plates—only with escape.
Behind us came a sound like rushing water. I risked a glance back to see the liquid floor pursuing us up the passage, flowing like a sentient river.
"Faster!" I gasped, though we were all already running at our limits.
We burst into the central chamber, immediately heading for our entrance passage without discussion. The liquid slowed at the junction, momentarily confused by the multiple paths, then continued its pursuit.
My lungs burned. My legs trembled with exhaustion. But the sight of that consuming red tide behind us drove me forward with renewed energy.
Daylight appeared ahead—the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. We emerged from the Crimson Labyrinth at a dead sprint, not stopping until we'd put a hundred yards between ourselves and the entrance.
Only then did we collapse, gasping for breath, watching to see if the liquid would follow us into the sunlight.
It didn't. At the very threshold of the entrance, it stopped, pulsing angrily before gradually receding back into the darkness.
"Dain," Kira said between heaving breaths. "He's..."
"Gone," Thorne finished grimly. "Like Taddeo last time. Like all the others."
I said nothing, waiting for the familiar glow of a dungeon receipt to appear. One death. How many points would that be worth in a level 3 dungeon?
But nothing appeared. No receipt. No points. No reward for Dain's horrific demise.
"Let's get back to Ravengate," Thorne said finally, climbing to his feet. He patted his jacket where the collection box was secured. "At least we got what we came for."
Kira stared at him in disbelief. "That's what you care about? Dain just died for your precious crystal, and you're counting it a success?"
"We all knew the risks," Thorne replied, though he had the decency to look slightly ashamed. "This is what we came for." He pulled out the collection box, opening it carefully to reveal the crimson fragment nestled inside. "Enough to pay my debts, with some left over to split between us."
I wasn't listening. My mind was racing, trying to understand why no receipt had appeared. Was it because we'd escaped the dungeon? Did I need to be inside when death occurred? Or was there some other requirement I didn't understand?
As we began the long walk back to Ravengate, my disappointment gradually gave way to a different feeling—relief. I'd been ready to profit from Dain's death, to convert his suffering into points for my personal gain. The fact that it hadn't worked felt like a reprieve, a chance to step back from the moral event horizon I'd been approaching.
Maybe there were limits to this power after all. Limits that might keep me from becoming a complete monster.
Then again, maybe I just needed to try a different dungeon.