We teleported into a room that was filled with tables and chairs. At one end of the room was a large chalkboard that had the word SILENCE written in big capital letters.

  Challenge 7: Complete the test and obey the rules.

  We touched down around the back of the room. I walked around the room, the walls were bare stone, other than the chalkboard, tables, and chairs. There were pencils and papers on the desks.

  Item: Entrance Examination Paper for West Brooke

  Type: Rare

  Weight: 0.1lb

  Description: A standard entrance examination paper designed to test one's knowledge. The paper is unique to each person and self-marking.

  Restrictions: Must be over 16 years old.

  The examination paper was held together with some sort of metal clip I hadn't seen before. Clair waved at me and motioned to the paper.

  "Do it, worst is no prize." She gestured in our team's sign language.

  I nodded and sat down at the closest desk. I hadn't done an exam since I left the Mage's college. I looked at the paper and saw that it was the rules for the exam. No conferring with other participants, no communication crystals, and no leaving until the exam is finished and marked. The exam can be stopped at any time by handing the paper into the chalkboard. Writing utensils will be provided until the exam is finished. There is no time limit, unless you consider a lifetime to be a time limit. Do not copy other people's answers, as they will have different questions. If you do not know an answer, just write 'I do not know' and you can move on.

  I turned to the first page. At first it was blank, then words began to appear across the page.

  Question 1: Name 3 uses of the Light spell.

  A simple enough question, I picked up the pencil from the table and looked around. Clair was already a few pages in, and Elle was floating around the room. I looked and thought about talking to her, but decided against it; it might break the rules of the challenge. I looked back at the paper and answered the first question. I wrote '1) illumination, 2) Mana battery, 3) Unstable mana bomb.' As I finished writing the answer, the next question appeared.

  Question 2: What is the major difference between a skeleton and a zombie?

  Again, a simple enough question, it continued like this for a while. Simple questions designed to test general knowledge. I turned each page as I filled it up with answer after answer. The questions started to become harder, some leaning towards history, some were class-related, but others were about alchemy and crafting. There were even questions about combat, weapons, and tactics. I was on question 250 when I stopped to swallow.

  My throat was so dry it broke me out of my stupor. I grabbed for my water skin in my bag, and I felt as if a group of ants was taking up residence in my throat. I greedily drank down the precious liquid, washing all the bad feelings away. I stopped and looked over at Clair. She was still scrubbing furiously, but she wasn't looking so good. Her hand bled from where she held the pencil, and her head almost touched the desk; her eyes looked sunken.

  I dropped a bit of water on my fingers and flicked it at Clair. She completely ignored me and carried on furiously scribbling down answers. I cast Mage Hand and gave her a none-too-gentle nudge. She jolted a little and stopped writing. She looked as if she was about to speak, but I passed her the water skin and gestured to her.

  "Drink. Then we hand in test."

  Clair nodded and drank greedily from the water skin. I cast Regeneration on her to fix up her bleeding hands before we both held it to the chalkboard. An unseen force yanked the paper out of my hand, and it was drawn to the board. The pages started to flip through, and green ticks or red crosses appeared next to my answers. After a few seconds, the pages flipped back to the front, and a large red C appeared on the paper. The papers then began to hover in the air. I took them and added them to my bag. I would look at the answers I got wrong later. Clair was holding up her stack of papers that had a large red B written on it.

  Challenge 7 has been completed. Please collect your rewards and enter the next door.

  The reward pedestal rose out of the ground; there was a C and a B on it, underneath the letters were a bronze and a silver box, respectively. The blackboard disappeared, turning into the portal to the next Challenge.

  "I didn't like that challenge," Clair said out loud, having been silent for so long her words sounded like a thunderclap, making me jump.

  "Yeah, that sucked." I agreed. “Kinda insidious as well, I didn’t realise that I’d slipped into a trance till I couldn’t swallow.”

  Clair nodded and rubbed at her hands that were still in the process of recovering.

  "I dunno, it seemed kinda fun, you guys were so busy answering the questions," Elle said. She floated around on an unseen wind, still in her duck form. "You weren't in any real danger; you would have gone until you fell asleep."

  I didn’t really agree with her, but I kept quiet.

  "Did you find anything interesting in your wanderings?" I asked.

  "Nah, Detect Hidden Traps and Doors didn't pick anything up." She replied.

  "Let's get the loot then," I said, opening my bronze box.

  Item: Bronze Ring

  Rarity: Common

  Weight 1.5lb

  Description: This simple bronze ring gives +1 wisdom so they may comprehend their mistakes.

  Restrictions: None.

  I reluctantly put the ring on, while the description was mocking me; magic rings were expensive, especially ones that boosted characteristics. I looked over at the slim book that Clair pulled out of her silver box.

  Item: Book of Knowledge

  Rarity: Rare

  Weight: 10lb

  Description: This thick tome is packed with knowledge, some basic and some forgotten, but all are kept within. Once per day, the holder of the tome may use the book to train one skill for 1 hour.

  Restrictions: None.

  "I need a little rest before we move on, whatever that was, almost drained my stamina," Clair said after she asked me to put the book of knowledge into my bag.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  I nodded, and she sat down to meditate. I spent the time talking with Elle; she was very inquisitive for a wisp. We talked about skills outside of combat, and when I pulled out an old statue of a water hag we had killed, she beamed. The black robes and duck form disappeared, and she took on the form of the water hag. I pulled out a few other statues, and she mimicked the forms of the creatures. I helped her correct the movements when she tried moving around.

  By the time Clair had finished meditating, Elle had a bunch of monster forms she could take, and they moved quite realistically. The only problem was that they were all a pastel green colour; no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't change the colour. When Clair was ready, we made sure everything was looted before we stepped through the portal.

  We appeared in a long hallway that stretched about 700 feet. At the far end, it looked like the portal was waiting for us.

  Challenge 8: Run the gauntlet.

  "Nope," I said right away. "I'm not running a gauntlet."

  "We need to move forward, Luca." Clair said, "We have to complete the challenge."

  "I could set off every trap, and we make our way through that," Elle suggested.

  "That might set off a pitfall trap with no way to cross it." Clair shook her head.

  "No, we don't have to complete it because I have cookies," I replied, pulling out 2 of the Escape Room Cookies.

  I showed them to her, and her eyes went wide; she eagerly grabbed one, revealing she also did not want to run the gauntlet. The fact that it was just a solid wall all the way down meant there was nothing but traps between us and the exit.

  "Beasts be praised, you have blessed cookies." She said and smiled. "Should we still hold hands?"

  "I think so, also probably have the last bite at the same time," I added. I had no idea if any of it would work, but I wasn’t going to turn down holding her hand.

  We stood holding hands while eating the cookies, and Elle made a light-hearted joke about getting a room that we both shrugged off. When we ate the last bite at the same time, something strange happened. We started to teleport like normal, and as we began to appear in the next room, there was a sucking sound and the room vanished. We appeared in a different room entirely.

  We appeared in a large room, which looked like a storage room, but nothing was labelled. There were large shelves lined up in rows that held boxes upon boxes. Near us, there were open boxes that were lined up, and they contained various different coloured liquids. Right in front of us, drawing our attention, there was a plank of wood with 6 evenly spaced nails in it. A dagger was stabbed into the side of the wood that held a piece of paper in place. Just like every other challenge, instructions appeared in front of us.

  Challenge 10: Find the letters and complete the task.

  "What do you think, eat a cookie or do the challenge?" I asked.

  "Do you not want to figure out what happened just now?" Clair asked.

  "Not really, I suspect that we accidentally jumped 2 challenges which the Dungeon didn't plan for." I said, "I'm just going to move on and pretend we didn't almost break a Dungeon."

  Clair eyed me dubiously before she shook her head and spoke.

  "Maybe we should do the challenge then."

  We walked over to the note stuck to the plank of wood, which read 'I'm famed, I'm funny, I was painted by Antione Murry. Find me with your next clue.' We decided against touching the knife and left the note attached to the plank, in case it did something.

  "Sounds like we are looking for a painting," I said.

  "Yeah, split up and look, or stick together?" Clair asked.

  "Since this is Challenge 10, it'll be a long one like Challenge 5. I say we stick together in case there is something nasty in the boxes." I rationed, Clair nodded, and we got to searching.

  The warehouse was laid out like a sideways T. The main bulk of the area was about 100 feet by 50 feet. Halfway along the middle on the right side was an adjoining room that looked like a wet room. It even had a drain in the middle; there were massive openings that looked like you could get a foot stuck in the drain cover. The boxes were stacked into 4 main rows and were 4 boxes high. There was a metal brace that separated the tall stacks in half.

  We started looking through boxes, ruling out the wet area completely. We worked our way through the boxes, opening them one by one and looking through the contents. Most of the boxes were crafting supplies, 100 stacks of leather, 30 bolts of fabric, 6 large logs; the list was endless. We talked about stealing everything we found, but decided against it in case it was meant to be part of the hunt.

  After an hour, we had covered a third of the boxes, and we had yet to come across any art. We took a little break to stretch and drink some water before we got back to it.

  Let me tell you something, being an adventurer was not an easy job, but everyone who signed up to be one knew what that meant. It meant we would go out into the wild and defend the innocent from monsters, so they could live a peaceful life. We did NOT sign up to work as warehouse employees.

  Alas, Clair and I continued to do the arduous job of opening box after box. We tried to turn it into a game and guess what was in the next box. It was fun for a while, but as we came to the last row, we were both exhausted. The constant up and down had left us both physically drained, but I did receive something for my troubles though.

  For perform an intensive physical workout that has pushed your limits, you have gained +1 Strength and +1 Constitution.

  The last box we opened was nearly the last one in the warehouse. It contained 24 little boxes that were all the size of paintings.

  "Not more boxes!" I moaned in despair.

  "Only a few more and we will have the first clue," Clair said unenthusiastically.

  Each of the boxes contained a painting, and we opened 8 of them before we found the right one. The painting was of a man standing on a stage; the foreground had shadows of people laughing. In the bottom right corner was the signature of Antoine Murry. It was a really nice painting, and I wish I had spent more time admiring it, but we were so tired that I turned the painting around, grabbed the clue, and sat down. I heard Clair collapse next to me, and we both fell asleep with our backs against the box.

  I don't know how long I slept for, but when I woke up, I was sore and stiff. I also realised how dangerous both Clair and I sleeping was. I turned quickly to see Clair lying next to me. I sighed in relief when I saw her chest rise and fall.

  I looked at the piece of paper I had taken from the painting. It read 'In a shell I hide, in the water I should reside, but a cabinet is where I will sit'. I read it a few times and put the paper back down. I tried to focus on the clue, but my mind was foggy and I couldn't put ideas together.

  I began to meditate to try and clear my mind. Mentally, I began pushing large metal blocks off a ledge in my mind; each block was a different size and had a different worry written on the side. Slowly, the fog around my mind began to disappear. When I was ready to continue the hunt, I stopped meditating and woke Clair. She had a similar reaction when she woke up and asked to meditate before continuing.

  "So it sounds like we are looking for something you'd display," Clair said 20 minutes later, after I showed her the clue.

  "I think we open the last of the boxes before we go back to anything we've already opened," I suggested, pointing down the line.

  "I was worried you'd suggest that." Clair sighed. "At least we can be on the lookout for possibilities."

  We went back to the tedious task of opening the boxes. Thankfully, this only took 30 minutes, and now we had all the boxes open, 1 item from the box displaying the contents for speedy navigation. I had a satisfied feeling come over me looking back along the row and seeing the opened boxes, now we just needed to figure out the clue.

  “Okay, so we are looking for some sort of sea creature.” I reasoned. “It also sounds like it might be a statue or a representation.”

  “I think I remember finding some statues in one of the boxes.” Clair said, biting her lip, “I’m not sure which row it was on.”

  “Let's start walking then.”

  The box was in the middle of the 2nd row. It had the statue of a deer head next to the box; thankfully, it was on the lower half of the stack. I stood on the top of the first box and began sorting through the statues. There was a surprising number of statues in the box; they were lying in small crates of straw. I took out the crates one by one and passed them to Clair.

  The first few boxes contained busts of people. Clair piled them up in a stack before standing one of the figures up. The next group of crates contained curious creatures; some were land, others were air or water creatures. Claire set them to the side. The next few contained objects, which looked like a rod, a cube, a staff, things like that. Claire also stacked them up together. The next set was of buildings, followed by a small set of towns. The last few boxes were of larger creatures, and a single statue took up the box.

  It took about 20 minutes to pull all 20 crates out of a box that should have only held 5 crates at most. I wondered if it was possible to loot a crate like this, but it was too big to fit in my bag of holding.

  We ruled out anything land or air-based due to obvious reasons. That still left us with a lot of statues, though. Nex,t we ruled out anything without a shell; almost ? of the statues were rolled out immediately. There were only 4 statues that remained as options.

  The first statue was of a deep trap fish; it looked like a regular fish with sea urchin-like spikes on a shell around it that it used to trap its prey. The next statue was of a simple sea turtle; it looked like it was just swimming along. The next statue was a shelled crustacean, but I didn't know the name of the monster. We debated each of the statues before picking one. After 20 minutes, I picked up the statue of the turtle and smashed it. A small orange plastic letter T with a cord or leather tied to it and a piece of paper lay among the pieces of broken pottery.

  "Oh, that doesn't sound good," I said, looking at the next clue.