There had not been a trap where Quin was. Rafe was sure of that at least. There had not been any mana he could sense, so where had the flamethrower come from. Rafe reached her a second after it hit, and he could only watch in horror as the flames caught.

She started to scream and tear at her clothes. Rafe suddenly found himself freezing.

"Let me through!" Devila shouted, and suddenly she was there helping Quin out of her clothes.

Rafe looked away. He frowned toward the darkness, trying to find the source of the spell or whatever was shooting those crossbows at them. Whether it was wall mounted crossbows like the map had shown or something else entirely, Rafe could not be sure. One thing he was sure of was that he was wasting his time and that it should be alright to look down now.

It was not alright. It was worse. And somehow Aska that fool was there with Devila, helping Quin. Yeah, Rafe didn't care about the damn rules of the floor. He knew it wasn't the right moment to be having these kinds of thoughts but he couldn't help it.

"Rafael!" Devila yelled at him. "She can't heal herself! I've given her a mana potion but she can't heal herself!"

The dreaded red time warning came up again. Rafe cursed as he went to join the others and study the shocked, catatonic girl.

He grabbed one of his health potions from a hidden compartment on his robes. He forced it down her throat.

She was lying on her side, her body exposed, her back badly charred. Her eyes were empty, and her mouth kept moving with whispered cries.

"Aska! Carry her. I think that was our thirty seconds warning," Rafe said to the mage.

"No…I… I think I can cast a spatial barrier on us for at least thirty seconds. I will need both my hands for that though," Aska said.

Rafe looked at Devila with what he hoped were hopefilled eyes. There was no hope in his heart though.

"You'll have to carry her, Rafael. We probably won't need scouting for this leg of the journey anyway."

They didn't know how far they were from the door. All they could do was run now.

As her skin grew back, Rafe grabbed the still non-responsive woman. He couldn't keep his eyes from not straying, though he tried. He really tried. He tried to make sure not to touch her still healing lower back and that meant to lift her he had to hold her—

"Faster, Rafael! We don't have time for this."

"Fine," Rafe said, grabbing the unconscious girl and slinging her onto his shoulder. "Let's go."

He felt a tightness come over him when Aska finished his spell.

He tried to focus on running. On keeping up with the two in the lead. The soft weight on his shoulders though, the view just in front of his eyes. She was injured, Rafe tried to chastise himself.

The red light returned, then again, then again. Counting down for them. At the fifth flash they finally sighted the door.

Aska was sweating. They had thought they would be dealing with a few crossbows every few seconds, but they were dealing with five a second instead.

If they'd tried to run while dodging those, Rafe knew they wouldn't have made it. He also knew Aska was overdrawing himself. He could see his mana pool. But they had no choice.

Rafe was only three feet from the door when Aska's spell ran out of juice. Devila touched the door. Time seemed to slow down as the barrage died down. Then a storm of sounds, of thrums and whooshes, announced the approaching death.

Perhaps the room hadn't liked their cheating approach? Or this was just how difficult things got at the end for everyone. Rafe doubted that somehow.

He pushed the big man ahead of him. Then, in one smooth motion he withdrew his sword for the first time on this floor.

He took his hands off Quin's body. She wouldn't fall immediately. He kept running, now applying his stats to their maximum. He only needed a few moments to perform a sword barrage in response to the onrushing storm of death. He cut through ten bolts, an icicle lance, three stone bullets, and a flame spell headed for Devila's hair.

Her eyes widened as she saw the sword send the fire spell soaring above their heads. Rafe bumped into her and Aska at the door, which was refusing to budge.

The red light made its final, glaring warning, but Rafe was already swinging. And the door fell in with their weights pressed up against it. He leaped up immediately, leaving the others in a heap at his feet. He fought the still approaching attacks. They seemed endless. Until they didn't.

He stood there in front of the door, panting and grazed and injured in many places but still alive. The others were alive as well. He turned from the room, closed his eyes and allowed himself to get to his knees.

"Is…Is she alright?" Aska asked, looking towards Quin who Rafe had dropped in his bid to fight against the previous room.

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Rafe looked toward—

"Shit!" he yelped as he jumped away from the girl.

Somehow he'd ended up in a position above her. Like they'd been in the middle of something just then.

"She is still catatonic," Devila confirmed while she studied the new tender skin on the back of the girl's left arm.

"You're still good to carry her Rafael?"

Rafe wanted to ask why Aska couldn't do it, but then he looked at the pale and sweating man. And he knew why.

"At least cover her up or something. You have a spacial storage."

Devila's eyes went wide as she stared at the naked girl and then at Rafe.

Rafe threw his hands up. "You cannot blame me for that. It was not my fault."

Just then, the ladder made an appearance, saving Rafe from having to hear Devila's reply.

They were at the bottom of the barrel. Three teams had been completely eliminated in the dark room. There were only five left and even with their points from the first room they were not being very competitive.

"All the other teams except ours and Andragoth's lost at least one member," Rafe commented.

"Let's be honest," Devila said. "We've lost her. At least for the length of this trial of murder."

She started to put a dress on the sleeping girl.

If she could, Rafe knew Devila would have abandoned the other girl then and there. Too bad for her this trial had rules against abandoning a teammate.

"How long do we have for this room?" she asked as she continued to dress the other girl.

"Huh…six hours it says," Rafe said uncertainly.

Devila's eyebrows rose and she went to look at her own ladder screen. Then she nodded and seemed to accept it.

"Good," she said. "We should use at least ten minutes for rest. I need to meditate and get my resource pools in order. Do you need a mana potion Aska?"

Devila was suddenly very generous, and that scared Rafe a little.

"No, a potion won't do me any good now. I…just need rest."

Rafe and Devila shared a look. Since when had he and Devila developed some kind of understanding? She hated him, for all he knew.

Ten minutes turned into thirty. Aska was still no better. Quin was now sleeping instead of staring dead ahead and seeing nothing.

"I think I'll go scout ahead a bit," Rafe told a still meditating Devila.

She woke from her trance, which hadn't been very deep apparently.

"You don't have the meditate skill?" she asked.

Rafe shrugged. "It's not for me. I tried to meditate once. I tried for days but never could get myself to stay that inactive for long."

"Hmm? Just so you know, the skill is important for anyone hoping to lead a life of adventure. Not only because of the help with your resources and everything. This kind of life can be hard on the psyche."

Rafe looked at the girl. She was staring at him intently, seemingly absorbed in the conversation. Rafe decided his scouting trip could be pushed back a few minutes. He did have a floor objective of getting close enough to his teammates that they'd open up to him after all.

****

Sitting in the little cave-like foyer they'd hidden in after all the running, Rafe had been able to hear the waterfall. His imagination was nothing compared to what he saw though. There was a steep rise in front of him. It was made of soft enough earth that he supposed he and the others could climb it safely.

Well, he and Devila could. Aska was a toss up. Quin would have to be carried. None of the other teams except Andragoth's were going to finish the trial totally intact. Even Andragoth's team might not. Their team was more than likely to lose two members on this floor. Not like he was going to let that stop him from trying to help them.

'Ding' Room objectives obtained.

1) Ascend in less than six hours.

2) Ascend in less than four hours.

3)Ascend in less than one hour.

Rafe's eyebrows shot up. There were people, whole teams who could scale the cliff in less than one hour? That sounded scary.

Hidden objective: Dive into the pool of near perfection.

"Pool of near perfection, huh? Wonder what that means."

"Who are you talking to?" someone asked from behind him.

Rafe whirled around with a surprised shout.

"Devi! Don't…" he was interrupted by a heavy breath. "Don't do that. I'm excitable."

Especially since he was supposed to have an ability that did not allow his private space to be invaded like this. The ability was still very restricted though, and Devila had stopped right out of his effective range, but still.

"Devi?" she arched a brow.

Rafe was ready for her to tear into him, but she just shook her head and seemed content to let that fade into the background.

"This might be bad," she said as she looked at the steep climb. "You saw all this from the map?"

"I mean…there was a symbol of what looked like a mountain. I assumed we might have to climb something or other. And I've come to realise that most things in a place like this are put here for a reason."

He didn't need to tell her he'd discovered a new function of his map ability that had let him understand all the obscure tidbits on the framed map. No normal person - and Rafe was strictly normal, intellectually speaking of course - could have deciphered those things that early.

"Anyway, you said something about a pond of near perfection?" Devila asked.

"Yeah…" Rafe frowned at the pond. "That's what this little pond is called apparently."

"Huh. No wonder the water is all sparkly and pinkish. It's a magic pond?" she asked.

"Yeah," Rafe scratched the side of his head as he answered. "Explains how it's this tiny despite receiving water from that gigantic waterfall."

The waterfall seemed to come from a cave or something under the soil of the slope of the cliff. It started not at the top but somewhere near the middle of the slope. It was still strong, the waterfall, spewing out a torrent of water that thundered as it reached the water in the pond.

"Wait, how did you know it was called a pond of near perfection?"

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