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Red tapped its bony fingers on Jay’s shoulder, tenderly nudging him awake.

“Mm?” Jay grunted bitterly and cracked his eyes open, quickly remembering where he was.

“… thanks.” He nodded, stashing his pillow away. The first thing he saw was his skeleton, staring at him with its glowing, beady, dark-green eyes - yet he felt a warm familiarity rather than an icy fear.

While standing up, he smiled at the luminous jar sitting on the altar. It made Jay feel a little silly with how he had reacted, but glad, too. His paranoid self had over-reacted, but he would not have changed a thing. Jay left the jar there, not even laying a finger on it in case it was a test or a trap. It would be pretty obvious if it went missing, as it was the only light source in the room.

“Alright, let’s head deeper.” He nodded, glad that he had got some rest for his eyes and legs.

“Can’t be much further now… right?” he thought, and marched down the stairs.

As Jay made it to the passage connecting the upper and lower staircases, he had another snack as he walked through.

However, as he went to find some meat in his inventory, he found a serious problem.

“Ah… shit. Out of food.” He pursed his lips.

“Well, I can’t get more down here, and there’s not much up above either. I’ll just have to go hungry and finish this damn thing. I guess this dungeon has a time limit after all… finish it before the roots cover everything and the food runs out…”

“… Or, before the knights convert everyone to nutrients.” He shrugged.

Reaching the lower staircase, Jay listened quietly at the top. Hearing no marching echoes or clinking armor, he began the journey down, making sure not to step on the pulsating root he had been following.

The lower staircase was much shorter than the upper one, and Jay made his way down it in no time, though it peculiarly descended out of the ceiling and ended in the middle of a large room. A single luminous jar waited at the bottom of the stairs and was the only source of light.

Apart from the pulsating root and the staircase, Jay could see multiple large pillars around, which disappeared into the darkness in different directions. Red took a few steps off the staircase, causing an echo in the pitch-black, silent room, and it made it easy to tell that it’s more like an enormous cave than a room.

(Red, wait here a moment.)

Seeing the cavernous room, Jay thought to summon his spare skeletons.

“Dammit.” he thought as he walked up the stairs until it went into the ceiling again. This was to shield the glow of his necrotic mana from anything which may be watching within the darkness.

After dumping a few skeletons on the staircase, the bones floated and formed two skeletons - Lamp and Sweeper.

“So, it must just be Blue and Handy up there…” he looked up.

Jay expected Handy to be one of the fallen skeletons, though it was a level four skeleton now, so it held its own against the knights, as well as any of the others.

“Lamp, Sweeper. Welcome back.” Jay whispered, “craft yourselves some weapons.”

Both of the skeletons grabbed some bones and got to work. Normally, Jay would have crafted them some, but this time, he saved his mana for summoning.

It surprised Jay as he watched Lamp form an ossein sword for itself.

“I guess the gut knife and shepherd’s crook aren’t the right weapons for dealing with the knights.” Jay shrugged, glad to see its skeleton learning.

Lamp gave its new sword a few practice swings, however, it turned back to the bone pile and formed another weapon.

A long, slender pole with a curved end. It was crafting another shepherd’s crook.

“Ah… I guess some things never change.”

Sweeper crafted itself a sword too, but even though it wanted to, it restrained itself from crafting defensive spikes. It is the rear guard, after all.

“Alright. Head downstairs.” Jay whispered, then added the remaining bones to his inventory and followed them down.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs again, Jay felt more comfortable with three skeletons around him, and so followed the root along. Each of them could see perfectly in the dark, and their vision covered all angles. Death-walker’s sentry added a fourth set of eyes as Jay equipped it too.

The party moved cautiously, yet quickly. Jay held one hand on the back of Red’s squire armor, completely trusting in his skeletons.

“They’re kind of like an extension of myself. In a way. I’m simply relying on my own powers.”

“One adventurer may use a spell to give themselves vision. I use a spell to give guidance.” He thought, “not that different to a normal adventurer… a normal person.”

Of course, the ‘spell’ Jay was referring to could also slaughter an entire village, cull forests and mercilessly torture his enemies.

“I could also use the host spell and see through their eyes, but it would consume too much mana.”

After walking for a few minutes, Jay’s eyes adjusted to the dark and some other lights revealed themselves in the room.

“More luminous jars?” He wondered, “there must be more staircases going up to the surface?”

*Burrrr~*

Suddenly, a deep creaking echoed throughout the room. A torrent of light flowed into the darkness as a grand door cracked open.

The door was as tall as a three-story building made of metal and stone.

(Move to a pillar and hide!) Jay commanded.

The light didn’t fill the room, but covered most of it, which caused Jay to feel exposed. He and the skeletons dashed to a nearby pillar and waited behind it, vigilantly watching.

Under the light of the grand door, he could clearly see numerous roots all meeting and leading somewhere near the side of the door. All the roots came from their own staircases, though there were some staircases with two sets of roots.

More sounds of marching rolled into the room as multiple knights appeared, leaving the grand doors carrying rusted swords and luminous jars.

“Where are they getting all these fucking jars from?” Jay wondered.

The knights made a long line as they orderly followed one root towards one of the other staircases, which Jay soon thought looked like a line of mana-ants.

“At least they’re not coming this way.” He crept around the pillar, staying out of their vision.

The giant door slowly closed again and darkness washed back through the room, leaving only the glowing line of knights.

Jay patiently waited for them to leave before turning to the skeletons.

“Looks like we’re the only ones here.” He whispered, “Explore the room, don’t touch the roots, remain hidden when the door opens, and bring back whatever you find.”

In the meantime, Jay walked further away from the root. Guiding himself by the light of his own luminous jar, he went to another pillar to hide behind; a precaution in case more knights came along the root he was closest to.

While waiting for the skeletons to search the room, he took a moment to think things through.

“I wonder how that door opens and closes, what kind of mechanism it uses. Surely it’s not simply pushed open..?” he scratched his chin; it was simply too big.

“… I wonder how often knights leave this area, and how often they come back. It’s hard to know if they’re patrols or a response force to my skeletons.”

“If these large groups of knights are patrols, then some will come back soon, so I can’t just keep watch on the door… but I can’t stay here for too long, either. It will only be a matter of time before they find the dead knights and naked bodies on that breeding floor…”

“… Ugh,” Jay frowned in disgust, remembering the things he saw there.

“I’ll see what the skeletons find, then we’ll make a move on the next room…”

“… If I can’t open the door, and they don’t open it,” his eyes glanced over the roots, “I’ll just have to force them out.” he smiled mischievously.