“I cannot believe you have dragged me into this…” Damon said. He was a young man, wearing casual clothing. He had spiky red hair and wore a very grumpy face.
   “Oh, it’s not so bad. Besides, it pays well,” Liam replied. “Besides, barely anyone visits this old dungeon anymore.” This man had obviously been unable to keep his hands off the snacks throughout his life so far. He too wore everyday clothing as well as a very optimistic smile unlike his companion. He was bald and had a small beard.
   “There have been 23 different adventuring parties all throughout yesterday,” Damon said sarcastically.
   “Well yes, but most of them didn’t even get past the first room,” Liam said.
   “I don’t CARE how far they get! All this counting down is driving me crazy!” Damon ranted. The two men were lifelong friends and they have always wanted to travel around the world. However, they were in dire need of cash to start doing that and so they went job hunting. They ended up being employed by one of the many churches of New Stepolis. This church handed out quests for adventurers to explore and clear dungeons. However, since the two men were considered NPC’s, they could not go and explore these dungeons themselves. Instead, the church had hired them to be dungeon masters of a relatively old dungeon located some 20 miles east of New Stepolis.
   “Well… we don’t have to do this all that long anymore,” Liam said.
   “Two weeks! Two whole weeks of this!” Damon retorted.
   Liam sighed. He had always been a positive thinker, but it was sometimes just hard to get his friend to think the same way…
   That’s when the rusty old doors started moving.
   “Ah, here we go, new people!” Liam said excitedly.
   “More counting…” Damon muttered. Regardless, the two went to stand in position to great whatever was about to come through this door. What they saw however baffled them. The woman who entered almost seemed like she was two people, torn in half and then smashed together. Her left half had long, white hair. Her skin was quite pale here and her arm and leg were covered in latex. The emblem of the moon were visible here and there as well. Her other half on the other hand exposed the skin of her arm and leg, and she had shorter black hair here. This half sported the emblem of the sun instead. She was seemingly pushing the heavy old doors open all by herself.
   “Almost… there… whew!” the woman said as the doors were now open enough for her to enter. She clapped her hands together and breathed out calmly. It sounded like she hadn’t even broken a sweat doing that on her own.
   Liam looked stunned, and he could tell that Damon next to him was as well. “Wow,” he muttered.
   “Oh, hello there,” the woman said as she now noticed the two men staring at her. “Didn’t expect to find people in here…”
   “Uh… well… we uh…” Liam stammered.
   “We’re… the dunge-” Damon started but he was interrupted by another female voice.
   “Who is that,” “you’re talking to,” “Julia?” it said. It sounded like one voice, but it seemed to come from two different people for some reason.
   “There’s two guys in here, ZX,” the woman named Julia said.
   “Two,” “guys?” the voices said. Only now did they enter through the door and what the men saw was somehow even more mysterious than Julia’s appearance. In came two women, completely identical in appearance yet differing in the colours of their skin. One of them was completely silver with golden seams covering her dress while the other woman was the exact other way around. Both of them though had long, straight hair reaching mid-back, and they wore white dresses with numerals lining the bottom of their skirts from one to twelve. The golden twin also seemed to have some sort of unicorn-like horn and carried with her a black staff. On its end, there was a glowing ball of warm light that reminded Liam of the sun. The golden woman’s horn seemed to cast a shadow over her dress from this light source that reached down to somewhere between the numbers twelve and one. It was all a very peculiar display alright, and they looked a little bit displeased.
   “Wow…” Liam heard Damon whisper next to him.
   “Who are,” “you two?” the twins asked. When one of them spoke, the other seemed to finish the sentence.
   “We uh… “ Liam stammered again but Damon interrupted.
   “We’re the dungeon masters,” he said firmly. Looking over, Liam saw that he had closed his eyes to try and not get distracted.
   The twins simply looked at each-other while Julia turned to face them again. “I don’t think we’ve ever come across a dungeon that required caretakers.”
   “That’s… because this is an old dungeon, and uh… it’s not been updated in a while,” Liam said, finally finding his voice again.
   “How,” “peculiar,” the twins said. “And what,” “does a dungeon,” “master do exactly?”
   “We count…” Damon muttered.
   “Count?” Julia asked, raising an eyebrow.
   “Ah yes! Timers haven’t really been installed here, and so we have to do that manually. I count up to see how long you take and my buddy here counts down from 30 minutes until the final boss here enrages,” Liam explained.
   “Yeah… and we clean up afterwards,” Damon said.
   The twins looked at them and then at each-other again before bursting out in haughty laughter together. Oddly enough, throughout all of their movements, the golden twin always kept her staff in such a position that her horn always cast its shadow on the same position on her dress.
   “That sounds… like a very annoying job to perform,” Julia said.
   “It is…” Damon grunted. The man still had his eyes closed it seems.
   “It’s only for two weeks, then we’re off to travel the world,” Liam said.
   “We don’t,” “require your counting,” the twins said when they were finished laughing. “We are,” “priestesses,” “of time.” “Disciples of” “the Goddess Alinavious.”
   “R-really?” Liam asked, surprised. He knew that the Goddess of time had perished a thousand years ago, and yet, here were two of her priestesses.
   The twins nodded, a devious smile appearing on their faces. “I am Zexa…” the golden one began. “... Xeza,” the silver one finished. “Priestess of the sun,” “and moon dials.” “We know exactly how,” “long we are taking,” “and how long we still,” “have left.”
   “... and I am Julia, their girlfriend,” Julia said with a chuckle.
   “Wow… so you’re time elementals?” Liam said as he realized the implications. He could have been surprised and confused about the fact that Julia was both of their girlfriends at the same time but this was probably a bit less confusing to ask about.
   “They are, yeah, but I’m not,” Julia shrugged.
   “You poor things,” “having to count up,” “and down for so long,” Zexa Xeza said, their gazes filled with amused pity.
   “Well, it is what it is…” Damon blurted out. Just moments earlier he was whining so much about this job but now, it was obvious he was trying to play it cool in front of these ladies, even if it seemed like they were already taken.
   “We shall give,” “you the blessing,” “of Alinavious, to,” “lend you a,” “helping hand,” Zexa Xeza said. They then nodded to each-other moved forwards, passing by Julia on either side and approaching the men. The golden skinned Zexa approached Liam while Damon was approached by the silver skinned Xeza. What happened next surprised them tremendously. Zexa gave Liam a soft kiss on his left cheek, causing him to blush madly. Next to him, Xeza had given Damon a kiss on his right cheek. Behind them, Julia looked somewhat uneasy as she frowned at the twins.
   Liam placed his hand on his cheek where Zexa had kissed him. Though it was only a short moment, it felt warm and almost divine. He could only guess that Damon next to him was going through similar feelings.
   “Let us,” “begin,” Zexa Xeza said, now standing on either side of Julia and slowly moving over to the door behind Damon and Liam.
   “Was there really no other way to give them your blessings?” Julia asked them, her voice trembling a little bit.
   The twins simply chuckled. “We are,” “sorry Julia.” “We will make,” “it up to you,” “in bed tonight,” they said as they approached this next gateway. Julia just giggled when she heard that promise.
   The men simply stood there, dumbfounded. They looked at each-other and Liam could see that Damon, too, was beet red. However, they couldn’t really think about this all too much as they had a job to do! The moment the three women would step through the next door, they would have to start counting. Thus, they moved over to a stone pedestal situated in the middle of the room and stood on either side. Here, Liam pressed a button which opened the first door. “G-good luck!” he shouted after them as they vanished through the door. However, as they entered the dungeon, the old pedestal lit up in magic. Here, they could see a 3D miniature hologram of the first room, where Zexa Xeza and Julia were now looking around. The hologram was silent sadly. This, too, had yet to get an upgrade. Luckily though, they didn’t need sound. They could simply see what was going on. It was here that they began counting.
   “30 minutes… 59… 58… 57...56…” Damon started softly. He always counted out loud, for he feared that he would lose track otherwise.
   ‘5… 6… 7… 8… 9…’ Liam counted up mentally. Not wanting to confuse his friend, he had learned to count mentally instead. Something felt off to him though. Usually, Liam would quickly start to lose track and only really remembered where to continue on from by simply tallying the amount of time as counted out loud by Damon. Now however, he found that he was able to focus clearly. In fact, it almost felt like he didn’t really need to focus at all on counting. Was this the blessing of the priestesses at play?
   In the hologram, the three women were inspecting their surroundings. It was a standard looking hallway with another door on the other side. Curiously, Julia stepped forwards, but she stepped on a pressure plate. This caused an arrow to zoom eerily close to her head. The twins rushed to her side to aid her, but Julia stopped them. Instead, she looked to be charging up something. Two half circles then appeared in light on the backs of her arms. They were almost bigger than she was, but she lifted them with ease. She then beckoned for the twins to come close as the three now slowly moved to the end of the hallway. Every now and then, they would step on a pressure plate, but the resulting arrows would simply bounce off of Julia’s shield. It wasn’t long before they reached the next door.
   “Well, they’re no beginners alright,” Liam chuckled as he pressed the button that would open the next door. He could still remember quite clearly how much time had passed, even as he was slightly distracted by the hologram. They had only been going now for about 2:03 minutes.
   “Focus on counting,” Damon muttered before carrying on his counting. He, too, seemed to have no problem to carry on from where he left off this time. This blessing was making their job a whole lot less tedious alright.
   In the second room, the three women encountered a rather large ettin. This two headed creature carried with it a large club and a rather foul mood as it roared at the party so loudly that even Damon and Liam were able to hear it. This was the fearsome ettin Sul’Gar. Few would escape his wrath and even fewer would manage to get past him. In reality though, the two men knew the ettin well. Whenever there was a lack of new adventurers, Sul’Gar would come out of his room and play a game of cards with them. Something that usually went quite well, except for when Sul tried to peek at Gar’s cards.
   Julia was the first to act. Still carrying her shield, she combined both halves into one. Now one whole, the men could see that there was a clock face visible on it. The brawler then charged forwards, only to be met with the ettin’s club. There was simply too much force behind its smash that it sent Julia and her shield flying backwards. Zexa Xeza seemed to gasp and helped up their girlfriend, making sure she was fine before facing the hulking beast themselves. They then held up their hands and summoned two orbs of magic. One golden and one silver. Next, they sent these orbs flying forwards, one to each head. However, rather than hitting them, the orbs flew past them, confusing the ettin quite a lot. Each head followed an orb as both of them started flying around in circles. Sul’Gar got quite confused by all of this. He even started trying to smash them with his club until both orbs halted just above Sul’s head. Gar took this opportunity to swing the club at them. However, that’s when the orbs dissipated again, causing Gar to smash Sul in the head instead. What happened next was arguably quite amusing, as the ettin’s heads started arguing with each-other. They even started bumping each-other’s heads with their own. Zexa Xeza and Julia simply took this opportunity to slip past the ettin and onto the next door.
   “Amazing,” Liam said. He was quite astonished by the party’s ingenuity. So far, he had only seen three other parties make it past Sul’Gar, and all of them did so by defeating the ettin in combat.
   “Yeah… gotta admit, they’re good. It’s actually fun to watch for a change,” Damon said. He had stopped counting out loud it seems as he too by now must have realized the blessings at work.
   “Indeed!” Liam chuckled as he pressed the button to open up the next door. He hadn’t even really thought about counting since they entered the ettin room, but he simply knew that they had been inside now for 7:21 minutes. He scratched his left cheek then. It had gotten to be quite itchy for some reason.
   The third room was a treasure room. There was one treasure chest, surrounded by candles and a singular key on a pedestal. Of course, the two dungeon masters knew what were to happen in this room if they decided to pick up the key. It would activate a trap that would cause spikes to appear on the ceiling and it would slowly start coming down. One party was led astray here by their greed while the others simply skipped the chest.
Julia, too, initially wanted to just move on to the next door but Zexa Xeza seemed to be looking longingly at the chest. After a little bit of arguing, the twins convinced Julia to stay just a little bit longer.
“Hmm, a shame,” Damon said when he saw this, and Liam too felt disappointed. This would be the end of their adventure.
The three women, however, did not instantly go for the key. Instead, they inspected the chest. Zexa Xeza cast some sort of spell, possibly to check for traps. When this came up with nothing, Julia grinned, balled her fist and smashed down into the top of the chest with great force, shattering the lid.
“Well, that’s quite effective,” Liam chuckled.
Pleased with herself, Julia felt around inside the chest and retrieved from it a ring as well as several gems. The gems they put into a bag of holding carried by Xeza while the twins decided that Julia should wear the ring. With that, the three women went over to the next door.
“Heh, so far so good,” Damon said. Something that Liam was just about to say as well himself. He too seemed to be itching his cheek, where Xeza had kissed him.
“Let’s see how they handle room four,” Liam said as he pressed a button that opened the next door, just as Damon reached for the button as well. This prompted Liam to look over at his friend and he gasped by what he saw. There, on the red-haired man’s right cheek, some kind of black spiral had formed. At the same time, Damon mimicked his bald friend. Obviously, that meant that a similar thing must be going on on Liam’s left cheek.
“This… is not normal,” Damon said.
“It’s not… no,” Liam replied, quite uncertain about what to do now. “At least it’s not painful or anything.”
“I guess…” Damon said.
From the corner of their eyes, they then noticed a flash of light that caused them to look at the hologram again. The fourth room of the dungeon was filled with dire rats that carried with them all sorts of status effects. Only one party got through here before while the other succumbed to the rats. Not permanently of course, since the typical adventurers had classes, meaning that they would respawn again the following day. What the two men could see was the fact that Julia had broken apart her shield again, which now seemingly floated behind her. Instead, she had summoned two blades. One was silver and the other was gold. They were of differing sizes, and they looked a whole lot like clock hands. Obviously, these two would combine with her shield. Using her blades, she was cutting down rats like they were nothing, while the twin priestesses cast spells left and right, causing bright flashes of light. Much like the adventurers, these rats would return again in due time. It was a good thing too, because the rats had a lot of mouths to feed back at home.
“What a show,” Liam said excitedly. However, he also heard these words come out of Damon’s mouth.
“You can say that again,” Damon replied, yet the words were spoken by Liam as well. There was definitely something very strange going on here. The two looked at each-other again and saw that the black markings were slowly spreading out. Liam could see that a clock’s face appeared above Damon’s right cheek. It wasn’t a full circle though, being broken by his eye. The rest of his tattoos were spreading out down the skin of his neck and crawling behind Damon’s clothes. Liam could only guess that the same thing was happening on his left side.
“What… is this?” Damon and Liam said in perfect synchronization. Liam lifted his left hand to feel his face, and this prompted Damon to do the same. Then when Damon used his other hand to lift up his shirt, Liam felt like he was forced to do the same thing as well. Sure enough, the markings simply continued to spread downwards. The pattern swirled and created various different clock designs here and there all over the skins of their chests and midriffs.
However, they could not really stare at these mysterious changes for too long as they could see that the last dire rat had just been torn in half by Julia. The next door had to be opened. Hurriedly, both Damon and Liam reached for the button and both of them pressed it at the same time. There was no doubt about it. They were forced to mimic each-other’s movements by some kind of magic. Was this blessing really a blessing? Liam couldn’t really make up his mind about it.
The fifth room was a seemingly empty room. That is until Zexa Xeza took one step further. The floor rumbled for a moment before most of it started to fall down into a pool of lava down below. This spooked the twin priestesses quite a lot as they backed down again. While this looked like a cool trap, resetting the trap was a huge pain in the ass. There had only been one group here before, who did unfortunately not make it to the end, but still. First they had to bring in new stones and then they had to carefully balance the stones on the steel bars that supported them without dropping them into the lava below. All of that while being careful not to accidentally fall into the lava themselves. Damon had often ranted about the pool. Sure, it looked scary, but keeping up a lava pool was highly impractical and time consuming, not to mention the fact that it made no sense for anyone to keep a lava pool. What was wrong with spikes in the floor?
As Julia assessed their situation, she saw that there were a handful of pillars still standing. Getting to the other side would require them to jump from platform to platform, and some of the jumps were quite tricky. Sure, the nimble Julia might be able to make the jumps but Liam wasn’t so certain about the twins. It looked like they too knew that jumping wasn’t their strongest suit. However, that’s when Julia bowed to her lovers and it looked like there was an apologetic look on her face. Next, she did something quite unexpected. She wrapped her arms around Zexa Xeza’s waists, lifted them both off the ground and made the first jump like that. The priestesses wrapped their arms tightly around Julia and by the looks of it, they were quite scared, yet they trusted Julia. It took them only five more jumps before they made it to the final platform, which is where the brawler put down her lovers again. Even though they were now save, they still held onto their lover for a solid minute before finally getting ready at the door. In all, they had now been going at it for 18:49 minutes now. Of course, that meant that they had only 11:11 minutes left.
“Nicely done,” Damon and Liam said at the same time while simultaneously pressing the button that opened the next door, only for them to gasp loudly. Their voices sounded so much higher in pitch… and a lot more similar to each-other. Looking at each-other, the two saw that their bodies had changed as well. The short Damon had grown to be about as tall as Damon now. Liam’s beard had vanished and spiky red hair had grown on his head, similar to that of Damon. The strangest thing though was the fact that both of them seemed to have become a lot more androgynous. Liam’s chubby belly had shrunken to the point where he was now quite slender, as was Damon. Liam’s left arm and Damon’s right arm were covered in swirling black tattoos that reached all the way down to their hands. The markings almost seemed alive, like snakes slithering across their bodies and leaving clocks behind everywhere.
The hologram now showed the party of three as they entered the final room of the dungeon. That of the final boss: a huge fire elemental. Damon and Liam knew her as Lucia and she was the mistress of horrible puns. She always managed to sneak in a pun involving fire in every sentence she spoke, and the two were sure that she was doing that to the current party as well right now. Lucia seemed especially happy to see the party though. That was probably because no party had reached her room in quite some time, only ever getting Damon and Liam as the occasional visitors.
Staying focussed on what was going on in the boss room was quite difficult though as the bodies of the two dungeon masters continued to change. Their entire body had become a lot softer. Their arms and legs were slender and feminine, and completely caught within the grasp of the black tattoos. Their chests had slowly started expanding as two modestly sized breasts formed. As the two finally realized what was going on, they both felt for their crotches, only to realize that there was nothing there anymore, save for a vagina. They looked at each-other with horror.
“This can’t be happening,” they said in unison. Their voices were now melodious and feminine, sounding exactly alike. It almost sounded like they were one person. In fact, they were even starting to look like one person. Their clothes were morphing too. Their shirts had started turning into a scarlet top that exposed their midriffs as well as one of their shoulders. For Liam, this was his left shoulder, while Damon’s right shoulder was the one that was exposed. Here, a very clear tattoo of what looked like a stopwatch had appeared, and it was moving. Liam’s clock was counting up. Damon’s clock was counting down. Their pants morphed into skirts that looked like they were a continuation of their tops, with only the midriff cut out. Their shoes had turned into heels, yet they did not lose their balance funnily enough.
After about a minute where Lucia probably drove them mad with puns, Julia and Zexa Xeza had opened their attack with 9:46 minutes left on the clock. Julia had her shield drawn again while her two blades had now attached themselves on its front. Much like Damon and Liam had suspected, the shield and blades together formed a clock. The shield was large and powerful enough that it could block the fireballs that Lucia had started throwing at them. As the three hid behind the shield, they looked to be discussing their next move.
The two dungeon masters looked from the hologram to each-other constantly. They wanted to see how the two priestesses and the brawler were faring against Lucia, but they couldn’t simply ignore their own predicament. Their bodies were by now fully female and completely identical. Their hair, their eyes, their height, even their postures were exactly the same. The twins had turned them into twins as well… only slightly different from the average twins. They could not hear each-other’s thoughts or the like, yet they were still bound to one another. Anything one of them did, the other was forced to mimic. If one of them said something, the other would say the same thing at the exact same time, using the exact same tone of voice. If one of them raised their hand to scratch their nose, the other would do the exact same thing.
“Are you okay Da...Lia…?” they asked each-other. They tried saying each-other’s names, but that felt almost impossible. Or was it? After all, they were called Dalia, weren’t they? The two women grabbed their heads as confusion settled in. Their whole bodies were now entirely covered in the swirling tattoos that had originated from their cheeks. They were now complete copies of one another. But… that had always been the case, right? They weren’t just any sort of twin. They were mirror entities. They were Dalia. They had only one name. Of course, when they were simply incapable of deviating from one another, they could only ever introduce themselves as one. How this came to be, they did not actually know, but they never questioned it. It was simply a fact of life, like the sun rising at dawn, and the river flowing down to sea. Their breathing was perfectly synchronized. Their poses were exactly the same. Some would consider their situation to be a curse, but Dalia thought of it as a blessing. A blessing of Alinavious, Goddess of Time. Sure, they had wondered to themselves what it would be like to not be tied to each-other, but there was simply no changing their fates as far as they knew.
“I am fine,” Dalia said to herself. Or well, her other self. Why would they not be fine? They were completely normal. The markings of Alinavious were displayed proudly all over their bodies as per usual. As such, this gave them the ability to tap into and feel the flow of time. Because they were each-other’s mirror images, one of them would always be the one to count up, while the other counted down. Something that helped them out tremendously at any job that required a stopwatch. In fact, the two were feeling better than just fine, as today was quite exciting. Julia and Zexa Xeza were the first to reach the final boss since they had gotten here after all, and the fight that was going on was quite exciting.
Julia’s shield proved invaluable, but simply blocking Lucia’s attacks weren’t going to win them the fight, especially considering there was only 6:22 minutes left on the clock. Zexa Xeza knew this as well as they started creating an orb of magic between the two of them. The power of the moon and the power of the sun combined together into an ever growing orb. Then, when it was massive enough, Julia let down her shield and the twins shot their orb of magic directly at Lucia. The fire elemental was shocked to see this counter attack and when she got hit, she was blown back against the wall and fell to the floor. The party started cheering, but Dalia knew that this wasn’t the end of it. Ever since Dalia got here, Lucia had been bragging about how no-one got to see her second phase. Now, however, it was time. She stood up again and looked to be charging up, much to the party’s surprise. Julia tried to charge in and endit before Lucia could finish, but her shield slam simply had no effect. Of course, that was simply because of the fact that Lucia had an invulnerability buff while she charged. Dalia had often questioned why she didn’t just have this buff at all times, but the fire elemental would simply laugh it off.
As Lucia charged up, Dalia could feel the cavern shaking slightly, and the magic that kept up the pedestal’s hologram was flickering somewhat. When she was finally done charging, where there was once a woman made of fire, there was now a huge, swirling inferno that engulfed half of the boss room. Her fires burned with such intensity that the party had to take their distance. Fireballs were spraying out all over the room and Julia’s shield could only barely protect her lovers and herself. With only 3:14 minutes left on the clock, the situation looked quite dire. When the clock ran out, Lucia would enrage, meaning that her attacks would be absolutely devastating. Something that not even Julia’s shield could withstand.
Zexa Xeza focused on channeling magic again, shooting out several orbs of solar and lunar magic, but Lucia’s raging inferno showed no signs of stopping. Julia however did not want to just be relegatedto merely shielding her allies. After all, she also had her blades. As such, she detached the blades from her shield and made her shield hover over her lovers while she herself dashed off towards the middle. Zexa Xeza seemed horrified by this move yet they did not stop their magical barrage. The brawler dashed towards the middle of the inferno, where the temperature was at its hottest. However, because Lucia was so preoccupied by Zexa Xeza’s magic, she did not expect Julia’s charge. She took a fierce slash right through her core, finally taking her out. Her inferno extinguished, Lucia shrank down to the size of a small woman made of fire again before dropping to the floor. The fire elemental would inevitably respawn to face the next challengers who could make it through her dungeon, but she was defeated for now with only 1:36 minutes to spare.
“Bravo!” Dalia cheered in unison.
However, Julia too had fallen to the floor. Zexa Xeza hurried on over to their lover, making sure that she was fine. Thankfully though, Julia only seemed to have a few singed hairs and some scorch marks on her clothes. It was likely because of her speed that she did not get herself burned, but the rush must have gotten too much for her at the end. When she stood up again, the three hugged each-other closely.
“How sweet,” Dalia said. Because of their predicament, they had sadly never felt what it would be like to hug each-other. After all, there may as well have been an invisible wall between them. Or rather, an invisible mirror. She shrugged and pressed a button at the same time that would spawn the final chest.
From the floor of the boss room, a rather large chest appeared. Smiling broadly, Julia opened it eagerly and looked at whatever goodies were inside. Something that not even Dalia knew since Lucia liked keeping it a secret. There in the chest was the Heart of Fire. It was a powerful artifact that could give its wielder the power to summon Lucia’s aid.
Dalia looked at herself. That seemed highly impractical on the fire elemental’s part. She could be in the middle of a boss battle while getting summoned, or two different adventuring parties could summon her at the same time. Was Lucia really so self confident that she did not expect anyone to defeat her?
Regardless, the three women were happy with their loot. After they had gotten their artifact, a crystal appeared, floating behind them. When they touched the crystal, the three were teleported out of the room and into the room where Dalia was.
“Whoah, ugh, why does teleportation always feel so… stomach churning?” Julia chuckled
“You just get,” “used to it,” “when your sisters,” “make you do it,” “all the time,” Zexa Xeza replied, chuckling.
“Congratulations,” Dalia said, approaching the party simultaneously. “You have defeated Lucia and gotten through the dungeon.”
“Yes… yes we did!” Julia said, hesitating for a moment. She eyed the mirror entities over and obviously inspected their tattoo patterns.
“Thank you,” “Dalia,” Zexa Xeza said, chuckling amongst themselves for some reason.
“You took 28:24 minutes and had 1:36 minutes left,” Dalia said.
“We,” “know,” Zexa Xeza replied with another chuckle.
“Have a pleasant day out there,” Dalia said finally, bowing to the adventurers and moving over to the side.
“I… hope we get to see each-other again someday!” Julia said, still sounding a bit uncertain.
“I am sure,” “that we will,” Zexa Xeza said before moving over to the door.
“Wow you two, that is just uncanny,” Dalia could hear Julia whisper right as they were leaving.
It was something that Dalia did not fully understand. Regardless, the two felt happy. For the first time, they had seen an adventuring party be successful in their dungeon. Perhaps this job could be made fun after all. That’s when they remembered something that caused them to sigh. There was a lot of preparation work to be done before the next party would arrive, and that included restocking stones for the lava room.