Multiple days later, Vlasfimia was back on the first floor, right on time to see the expedition starting to take down their camp and preparing to leave for the second floor, Vlas was simply waiting casually, waiting for the sound they made to die down before following after them.
This was when he heard somebody call out his name, a known but not quite yet familiar voice.
"Thank the gods you're here Vlasfimia!" exclaimed Meydil looking slightly panicked but also relieved.
"What's the matter?" questionned Vlas as the cyclop searched for the simplest way to explain his problem.
Strangely enough, the awkward young man was having much less difficulty communicating right now, at least with Vlas.
"Well, you know, you gave me lots of tips and I tried them" started explaining Meydil.
"You did? How did it go?" asked Vlas with curiosity.
"Horribly and I don't mean like I got rejected, it worked, it worked too well!" he said looking over his shoulder in fear.
"She follows me everywhere now and obstacles can not stop her, they only slow her down" he added.
"Okay? That doesn't sound like a problem to me" spoke Vlas turning his head to the side in a questionning manner.
"You don't understand, she's super dangerous, she had mantis sickles and is not careful at all with them, I already almost bled out!" he explained, cold sweat running down his face as he remembered the experience.
"Does she only have the sickles or not?" asked Vlas.
"No, she had four arms two with sickles and two with hands" responded Meydil.
"Then there is no problem just tell her to be careful, I'm sure you didn't even do that yet" said Vlas.
"And you think just talking to her will solve the stalking issues?" asked the cyclop.
"Of course, listen here Meydil, you need to be confident and be at least a little bit domineering to get the point across, if you fidget around and don't look at the person you're talking to in the eyes, you can not hope to be taken seriously" explained Vlas, noticing that the sounds of the expedition were starting to lower.
"You know what, go to Bcoudnege and ask for a certain Agios, you two can work together, I'm certain of it" he said before starting to walk away.
Meydil was left alone for a bit before he decided to get back out.
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Multiple more days passed as the expedition were under the watchful eye of Vlas, they didn't seemvery shook about the group he had inflicted with his flame and sent to them, they were focused on their missions and kept searching everywhere, testing each bosses, first a large group would fight the boss multiple times, trying to find any weakness and documenting their moves and only after all that would someone attempt the boss by themselves.
As the expedition moved from the second to third floor, Malmiere, who was at the front was met with the sight of an unusual minotaur.
Its fur was an ashen grey and its horns seeemingly made of blue crystal, it bellowed the moment it noticed the humans, the flame in its left eye brightening as it did, the minotaurs body was covered in orange flames and it charged.
"Mage, shoot him down" commanded Malmiere and a mage stepped forward and shot out a compressed air bullet aiming for the minotaur's head, however, when it got close to him the bullet dissipated.
The mage was left agape but Malmiere remained calm and signlaled the people behind him to step back a bit, he readied his shield and moments before the minotaur crashed into his shield it shined brightly and the minotaur was stopped as if he had crashed against an iron wall, breaking its own neck and dying like that.
"Someone gather the material on this minotaur" he ordered.
'There aren't supposed to be minotaurs on this floor' he thought as Imiril showed up next to him from nowhere.
"I sense the presence again" she whispered to him.
"Can you determine its position?" he whispered back.
"All I know is that he is close by" she murmured in answer.
Malmiere stayed silent as he observed his surroundings, after a bit, he once again felt like the strange presence was here again but just like last time, it vasnished as soon as he turned to its direction.
"Mmmmh" the elf rubbed his chin in thought as people were taking apart the body of the minotaur before it disappeared.
This situation repeated multiple times almost on every floor, Malmiere would have preferred to take care of this issue sooner but he simply couldn't get his end on the owner of this split presence and since he couldn't just slow down the opearation, they kept going, delving deeper and deeper into the dungeon, it seemed like he was the only one who felt the split presence clearly at all, Imiril just felt a presence without being able to tell much about it, EOTHO-1A said that he had not noticed anything, the space mage was too preocuppied about not caring about anything to pay attention and Lando wasn't even able to notice the presence of monsters right next to him.
It seemed like the split presence was simply focused on him for some reason and that unnerved him, as they were now arriving on the twentieth floor and the monsters present from here started to get a bit strange.
While the 'classic' monsters could still be found, although mostly in unusual forms, they were also strange monsters who were original to the world dungeon, even if some of them could now be found outside, it was only due to them going out and spreading, these monster tend to have an humanoid shape but sometime simply missing what a humanoid shape needs to funtion and yet they still behaved as if they possessed it.
The being facing the expedition was a great example of this, it's shape was hard to describe even though it was just in front of them, it had a slightly long neck and its face seemed to be made of bones and somewhat reminded Malmiere of the skull of a goat, it had four red eyes, two on each sides of its face, like many of these monsters it was garbed in dark clothing that were actually part of it, the creature had an upper chest, two arms and a head, that was all it truly possessed and yet, the sounds of footsteps could be heard as it advanced toward the group.
These monsters were all refered as the same thing, nameless figures.