"Malmiere, we're going to slow down on the exploration" spoke Imiril matter of factly.
"Why is that?" asked the elf, feeling that something had happened.
"A group just got ambushed by infected goblins that broke through a wall, one of the members got wounded pretty badly and won't be operational for a while" she informed him.
"They bursted out of a wall? That's unusual, the monsters shouldn't be able to destroy dungeon walls or even elaborate this kind of strategy" he remarked.
"Also, a group disappeared completely, we should increase the amount of people per groups" she recommended, casually mentioning the disappearance of a whole group of people.
"Disappeared? Was there no trace left at all?" questionned Malmiere.
"Not at all, what should we tell everyone?" asked Imiril.
Malmiere debated in his head what do do for a bit before answering.
"Just tell them the truth, they can handle it" he told her.
The true truth however was that three of the member of that group had been killed through brutal means and the last one was currenrtly serving as a test subject for Vlasfimia, what could be achieved thanks to the flame truly was limitless.
The next day, when exploration once again started, the groups had went from being four men squad to eight men squads, however it made no difference in the eye of the one that lurked in the dungeon, as a group of eight inspected the walls of the dungeon, trying to find if anything could be found in the cracks that decorated the first floor of the dungeon, so far, their efforts had been fruitless, no such things as a hidden lever, button or any contraption of the sort had been found, all they had gotten were insects bites.
The monsters, despite their increased strength posed no issues to them at all, they did not have the time to use any of their attacks involving the flame in their left eye, sensing no monsters around, one of said groups started checking their surroundings, failing to notice the shape that seemingly appeared at the end of the hallway they were in, the figure approached the group, trying to get as close as possible, once everyone seemed to be in range for what the humanoid figure wanted to do, it brought its hand to the left side of its face and suddenly started screaming.
The group was startled by the sudden noise so close to them but they didn't have enough time to get out of the range of the attack it was using, around the figure, who turned out to just be a human wearing dark clothes and a grey, featureless mask.
Around him, some sort of orange aura formed, every member of the group was inside of this and they immediately felt their left eyes burning and they all instinctively covered their left eyes, the pain brought all of them to their knees as the figure kept yelling, all of them soon fell over, their left eye burning.
"Wrong choice" commented Vlasfimia as he watched the now afflicted members rising again, their mind now fully consumed.
Despite all his effort, Vlas couldn't command the afflicted at all, all he could do was slightly push them in a direction, which is what he did, directing them toward their camp.
"Hey, don't you think it's unfair that you have to burn but the other don't? Why don't you go show them your discontentment?" spoke Vlas to them, none of them answered but they agreed and started moving toward the camp.
They most certainly wouldn't be able to do much since they were clearly infected, the flame could be seen from far away and when humans were infected with it, they tended to act stranger than infected monsters and of course the screaming didn't help with stealth.
He could attack more groups but Vlas wanted them to be able to continue their exploration deeper, after all with such a large group around exploring deeper floors would be easier as they attracted a lot of attention.
As such, Vlas would now cease attacks on the first floor and maybe second, he took one of his passages to his home and went through tunnels to the fifth floor and from there descended through the normal way to the sixth floor.
He traversed a few floors down to the eighth, he had yet to fully explore this one yet, so while the expedition was busy searching the first floor he would do his own exploration.
Stopping at what seemed like a ravine with some sort of bridge linking both sides, he inspected the area and the first thing that he noticed was the strangeness of the bridge, it was just a stone pillar on which manoeuvering seemed slightly difficult.
On the side, Vlas found a small lever that one could easily miss if they weren't careful and after a bit of messing around he found out that it made the pillar rotate or move from side to side depending on which side you pushed the lever.
On the side opposite to him, a chest was clear to see, it was a wooden chest with golden decorations on it, from what Vlas could see from his position the chest was not breathing so it probably was not a mimic but it could still be trapped, however, seeing the contraption before the chest, he could guess that it was but a normal chest.
"Hello?" he heard the voice of a man calling out to him.
"Yes?" said Vlas back as he turned to the man, he was alone and wore a white robe with armor on top of it.
"Ah, you must be an adventurer like me!" spoke Vlas.
"Well you see, I found a what seems to be a chest, however, the bridge leading to it looks like a trap" he added afterwards, the man in white robes raised an eyebrow, wondering why he was telling him all that.
"Simply running through it would most likely be enough to avoit but I got hurt earlier and am unable to run as of now, so why not make a deal" he then said.
"You are a cleric, no?" he suddenly asked.
"I am indeed" responded the man.
"Then, since I told you all this, I offer you the treasure for yourself if you accept to heal my small injury" he said.
The man in robes stayed silent for a moment, the man in front of him certainly seemed strange with his mask but he had met many adventurers with strange senses of fashion in the past and they had turned out to be friendly enough and as a cleric, he wouldn't have minded to heal a small injury anyways.
"Alright" he simply answered and then he started testing the bridge for a bit before traversing it, however the moment he was too commited to his action to backtrack and also not quite yet in range to make it to the other side, the bridge suddenly spinned on itself making the cleric fall to the darkness beneath, unable to understand that he had been tricked before falling to his death.
Vlas chuckled for a bit before going himself and taking the contents of the chest for himself.