By the end of the 14th floor, it had finally returned to a normal temperature. We were moving very rapidly now. Of course, Map had also been extended this far through the use of provided dungeon maps. If we had to stumble around without a map, the floors would likely take four times as long to navigate. Even when it came to fighting, I couldn’t stress how valuable a map was. You could plan your encounters, and when mixed with sense life, I could avoid things like getting trapped in an area without an escape.

In this respect, you had to think of dungeons less like in a video game. For example, when I reached an intersection, and one direction went to a dead-end, while the other continued on deeper, which direction should I go? The gamer in me would say that I should head the direction of the dead end. There is probably a treasure down there and at the very least, you want to complete as much as possible.

However, a dungeon is filled with living creatures, and it even has a will of its own. You could travel down that dead-end path, and then find all of the creatures on the level have blocked off your path and trapped you against a wall. It was rare, but dungeons can even set up traps over spots you had just walked by. That’s why it was important to always be vigilant.

The more threatened a dungeon felt by your presence, the more violently it could react. Incidents like the flood I had experienced when I entered my first dungeon, Mina’s Dungeon, still can happen. Mina’s dungeon was young and was pushed into panic mode. I eventually found out that Tibult had been trying to use a method similar to Terra’s Dungeon. That is to say, he was setting up a barrier that was going to strangle the dungeon and drain it of mana.

For a weakling like him, it wasn’t a bad strategy. He put up special mana invocations he had prepared for himself around and inside the dungeon. Then, give it a year to desiccate, and then come in to save the day. The problem was that the dungeon had reacted violently to his presence, which led to it attacking the city of Chalm. He realized that Chalm was going to send out a request for a dungeon diver to resolve the dungeon, destroying his chance. So, he first came to town declaring he’d defeat it, and then he tried to forcefully close the dungeon.

To do that, he had to set up something on the fifth floor, but the dungeon attacked him, and the result was Lydia was abandoned and my party was attacked viciously on the first floor. Interestingly enough, while dungeons will react violently to those who wish to destroy them, they seem to welcome those that they believe with complete the lore. Mina’s Dungeon saw my relationship with Lydia and ultimately stopped hindering our progress. One could even say that it helped us reach the bottom.

This was the event that ultimately led to me becoming a Dungeon Diver. Of course, I didn’t find out any of this from Lord Tibult himself. The princess had dropped this information to me during one of our conversations.

That led to the question, did this dungeon see us as a threat or an ally? As we got closer to the 30th and final floor, we’d know the answer. It would either act violently, trying to repel us through any means necessary, or it would go easy on us. Either way, we could only remain vigilant, because, by the time we were certain of that answer, it could be too late.

This was the life of a Dungeon Diver. We continued on through the ivy-walled labyrinth, getting ever closer to the bottom, and the location of the King.