Moving up the spiral staircase that began narrowing the higher up they went, it didn’t take longe before the two crossed the thousand-meter threshold that had made Scaly afraid of crossing not long ago. The fear she had instinctively felt back then having seemingly vanished now that she wasn’t flying around within the space between dungeon floors, something she herself silently noted down for potential future exploration of the space between dungeon floors, as she had a feeling this wouldn’t be her last time visiting this unique space.
However, though she wasn’t feeling any fear of continuing upwards following the spiral staircase upwards, one thing she did find increasingly troublesome as she continued upwards, was the fact that the spiral staircase became smaller over time. Not taking long before reaching a point where she had to lower her head to avoid hitting the section of the staircase above her.
Something that made her feel jealous of the small dwarf walking beside her for the first time, causing her to once again wish for some kind of ability to adjust her size to better navigate narrow spaces that clearly weren’t designed for a dragon her size to fit through.
Still, even though it became increasingly uncomfortable for her to continue forward, she didn’t slow down and ended up following behind Verdell, who had taken the lead because of how the smaller space had inevitable caused her to slow down somewhat.
In the end, during the silent journey up the stairs with only the little light provided by the flame conjured by Verdell walking ahead, Scaly took the chance to examine the walls that protected them from the empty space she knew existed on the other side. Finding out thanks to the living torch that was Verdell, that the walls weren’t just boring walls with nothing on them, but instead had several carvings of both adventurers and monsters fighting with each other.
Among these carvings, she even spotted one heroically depicting a massive dragon easily dwarfing any of the other beings carved into the walls. Standing upright with wings unfurled in a clear display of dominance that made Scaly feel a sense of admiration towards the one behind this dragon carving, as that kind of dominant posture in absolute control was exactly what she thought of when she thought about a dragon.
If anything, she felt it was a pity that there was only this one single depiction of a dragon and wished there was more dragon carvings, a silent prayer that wasn’t heard, as after that one epic dragon carving, the rest devolved back into carvings of other monsters in the midst of battle against adventurers... And because of how she had been spoilt by the epic dragon carving, she slowly found herself losing interest in these other carvings along the ascend.
Luckily, it was just as her attention shifted away from these carvings and the ceiling above was about to push her down to the point where she would have to squeeze her way forward through the narrow upwards tunnel that the spiral staircase had slowly transformed into, that the spiral staircase finally came to an end with a bright light clearly visible in the distance. Beckoning her and Verdell forward towards the light.
"Wait... We shouldn’t recklessly rush forward. This spiral staircase has been going upwards for far too long without reaching the first floor of the dungeon, so I have a feeling what awaits us on the other side isn’t the first floor of the dungeon, but another floor or something completely different."
But before she could rush forward and free herself from the narrow space that was the cone-shaped spiral staircase, Verdell stepped out in front of her and stopped her from recklessly rushing forward towards the light that had emerged just a few dozen meters away from where the two of them were standing.
What he says... Does make some sense...
And even though she wanted nothing more than to rush forward and get out of the narrow tunnel that the cone-shaped spiral staircase had turned into, she had to admit what Verdell said made sense. Recklessly rushing out wouldn’t be the best idea, as it might result in her ending up in the middle of a massive city run by adventurers, something she had already ended up experiencing far more than she had ever wanted.
To avoid another such situation of accidentally ending up in the middle of another adventurer city, she could only silently hold herself back and listen to what Verdell told her.
Of course, it didn’t mean she would just be standing still and not move forward. Instead, it just meant she would be slowly approaching the blinding light and not rush forward recklessly like she had originally intended to do upon seeing a way out of her current troublesome situation.
Great... I really thought I was going to be flattened just then...
Unaware of her internal thoughts, Verdell silently let out a breath of relief as he saw how she had stopped what she was about to do before taking the role of leading the two of them forward in a slow approach.
His intentions behind calling out to stop her just now and warn her about the potential danger of recklessly rushing forward weren’t so much about warning about potential danger, but more so to stop her before she ended up turning him into a dwarf pancake. After all, the space of the spiral staircase was barely enough to fit the current Scaly and had she really rushed forward, he would have been smushed beneath her in the process, something he wanted to avoid if possible.
Not to say he didn’t worry about any potential danger, it was just that he prioritized his own survival at the moment and taking into account potential dangers up ahead could be considered him killing two birds with one stone. Ensuring both future and immediate safety with a single sentence.
With everything sorted out, it didn’t take long before the two finally crossed through the seemingly impenetrable barrier of light that had formed at what both considered the end of the spiral staircase.
"More... Stairs...?"
But contrary to what the two of them had expected to encounter upon passing through the barrier of light, be it hordes of monsters or the seemingly endless desert of the first floor of the dungeon. Neither of them expected to see more stairs.
No... What the two of them saw wasn’t just more stairs, but hundreds if not thousands of stairs of all kinds and configurations leading into doors of differing sizes leading to who knows where. All encased in what could only be described as a giant cube made of stone.
"This... What in the world is this place?" Calming himself down as he faced the strange stairs that now surrounded the two of them, Verdell went through everything he knew about the swirling sands dungeon along with any and all information he had learnt about regarding dungeons during his long career as an adventurer.
Yet... No matter how hard he searched through his memories, he couldn’t find anything that would be helpful in understanding the current situation that the two of them had found themselves in. If anything, his already vast knowledge of dungeons built up through years of experience made the situation even harder to comprehend for Verdell compared to Scaly, who looked around the strange stair cube she found herself in and just thought it was a rather strange dungeon floor she had ended up on.
Not just that, but as Verdell was still in a state of shock trying to understand the strangeness of the space, he had found himself in, Scaly had already flapped her wings and flown over to one of the doors that existed at the end of every stair within the space.
"..."
But as she wanted to open the door and go through it, she was suddenly faced with the fact that the door was far smaller than what it had looked like from afar- or in more simple words, it was too small for her to go through at her current size. Meaning she could only awkwardly turn back and look towards Verdell for assistance when it came to seeing what was hidden behind the door.
"I get it, I get it, I will help see what is on the other side..." Feeling the burning gaze of the curious dragon who wanted to figure out what was behind the door she had flown up to, Verdell was forced out of his somewhat dazed state and made his way up the somewhat narrow stairs leading up to the door in question before slowly pushing it open. Preparing himself for potential combat, as he had no clue what he might end up encountering on the other side of the door.
After all, the current situation was not even something he had heard about within the guild and might be a first when it came to dungeon exploration. Caution was a given.