Once I had absorbed the information about the item, I opened my eyes again, impressed at its long life span. This was a lot better than any flashlight I could ever get in the Cosmos but, then again, every single magic item in the Apocosmos was many times better than its mundane counterparts.
"If ye like this one," Rory said, "ye can take it. I bought all three of them during a sale."
"Let's talk about it later," I said, trying to push questions about magical sales and where to find them out of my mind for now and refocus on our goal. "The apartment's layout is the same as it ever was, even if it's larger on the inside now. At least we can count on what we know."
The fact that we'd found ourselves in a dungeon filled with monsters rather than facing Abrathion's henchmen confirmed that he didn't have any intention of doing the trade with us. He just wanted to kill us and take back everything we had stolen from him, including his precious stupid book.
Trying to think of what we still had ahead of us, I glanced at one of my buffs and checked if we were due for a refresh.
Name: Might
Type: Buff
Level: 1
Effect: Boosts Physical Attack by 8%
Time Left: 9 minutes 41 seconds
Description : The recipient's muscles are infused with mana, providing a significant strength boost.
"We've still got time on our buffs," I noted. "I say we move on."
"Aye," the dwarf said, and stepped toward the open door of the bathroom.
The room smelled horrible and was covered with thousands of specks of what looked like brown rice. Of course, it wasn't rice at all, but the result of all those flying rats shitting in there.
"Fucking disgusting, eh?" Rory said and pulled the door shut before moving to the one next to it.
The bedroom door was closed and this was enough of a reason for the dwarf to engage in his favorite pastime when confronted with such a problem. He shifted his long hammer to his left hand, moved a couple steps back, and rushed at the door, smashing it with his right shoulder. As it turned out, the door wasn't even locked. Instead, the hinges snapped and the door hit the wall as it swung inward with force.
We all moved into the room ready to spring into action, but there were no enemies to counter. As a matter of fact, there was nothing in the room at all apart from a wooden chair at its center and the faint outline of a purple portal behind it.
"Man, I hate layers," Louie said. "Same tactics again?"
"I got a different idea," Rory suggested. "Let me go in and clear the floor. I'll come back if I need--"
"Out of the question, old man," I interrupted. "This is not just your problem to deal with."
"Yeah," Louie agreed. "This is why we trained after all. We're coming with you for sure. You'll need healing and Alex can assist you. You just witnessed it."
"Alright, alright," Rory gave in. "I go in, ye wait three seconds and then follow me."
"Louie, you come in last so Rory and I can take the brunt and you can heal us," I said.
"Okay," he said and let out a little bark. "I'll check your HP bar before crossing."
Rory nodded, determination and focus in his eyes, before he crossed the portal and his body disappeared through it.
"One little corgi," I counted, "two little corgis, three little corgis."
I saw Rory's HP bar go down to around 75% in our party window right as I jumped through. I found myself at the entrance of the apartment again.
"Duck!" Rory shouted.
A large tree trunk suspended from the ceiling on thick gray chains was coming right at my chest. Fortunately for me, the fact I had seen Rory's HP drop, combined with his warning and my trained reflexes, meant I was able jump out of harm's way. Just barely.
The log grazed my side and its force accelerated the twisting of my body in the same way that a basketball keeps spinning on a finger. I fell to the ground, right next to Rory, and saw the huge trap reset immediately, the smooth tree trunk raising to the ceiling again and staying there. That is, until Louie stepped in.
Looking like he didn't have a single worry in the world, Louie turned his back to the trap and started casting a healing spell on Rory. Before I had the chance to react, the large piece of wood swung down and swished over Louie, barely touching his hat as warm light traveled from him to Rory.
He didn't even blink. I could have sworn that sometimes he used his newfound intelligence just to look cool. I couldn't blame him though. That did look badass.
"Thank ye, boy," Rory said, standing up. "Fucking hells, I hate trap layers."
"You mean there will be more of them?" I asked.
"Most probably," he replied.
"But we're safe from monsters for now?" Louie asked in turn.
"Some dungeons floors have both monsters and traps," Rory explained. "Knowing the layout and size of this place though, I doubt monsters could coexist with traps. The monsters would only trigger and jam them, or the traps would kill the wandering monsters. I think we don't have to worry about any creatures for now."
"Well, I think I like traps even less than monsters," I said. "Are you good at identifying them?"
"There's no such thing, lad. We just need to move carefully is all. Maybe try the floor in front of us with something other than our foot before we walk on it, check for strings that might trigger traps, holes in the walls, things like that."
"Should we move straight to the bedroom then?" Louie asked.
"Yes, but not that way," Rory replied, pointing toward the narrow corridor leading to
