++ Feran ++

Arilla is still close behind me as I lead her and the enemies through the dungeon. This rush towards the boss arena is tense from our attackers screaming at us with both threats and demands. Although I'm worried the boss may not let us pass, it’s our only real choice to gain the advantage. The dungeon’s regular rooms are too small to fight well inside of, and there's very little light due to the lack of torches.

I spot the entrance to the boss arena shortly and begin to pick up my pace. The moment I cross into the boss room I break to the right and ready my weapons towards the entrance. And just as Arilla enters the arena the boss speaks up from behind me. “You’re back? I'm surprised only the two of you are left.” I glance back and attempt to respond but I’m not given the time to do so as the five of our pursuers dash into the room in a tight group.

As they come to a stop most of them stop paying much attention to myself and Arilla. Now being far more concerned with the dungeon's first floor boss. I spot Arilla slowly backing away, towards the large knight, with her eyes still set on the five at the entrance. A short glance behind me and I notice the knight’s helmet dip down for a moment in a short nod. With that I start backing away as well.

While I move towards the other end of the room, one of the ambushers speaks up. They’re looking at me with their weapon brandished and a fury filled glare, seemingly ignoring the dungeon boss for the moment.

“Hey! We aren’t done here! You think you can just run after killing two of our own? Hiding behind this thing won’t do you any good! If you give up and hand over all yer stuff, then we’ll kick you out of here without much more than a couple of bruises…”

The man at the head of the group talks with enough confidence to get his allies to grin and smirk at myself and Arilla. Realistically speaking their offer is just foolish to accept. Even if they did let us live it would be without any of our belongings, and with nearly lethal injuries. However it is just as likely that they are lying to make things simpler for themselves, and plan to kill us as soon as we surrender. It isn’t like they tried to demand a surrender earlier.

The group speaker takes note of the lack of any response from either of us and scowls before taking a step forward, his weapon aimed towards me. All of his allies start to do the same, but everyone in the room freezes when the boss begins to speak. The knight seems to be speaking with high intensity and a clear authority. “Stop moving or lose your heads! The five of you are new to my home and as such I will offer you the same choices that were offered to others. You have three options: the first is to surrender and leave immediately, retaining your lives in the process. The second is that you and your group all sign contracts stating---” The boss is cut off by one of the bandits shouting at him, which also puts a grin on my face.

“The hell is this? I’ve never heard of a dungeon making excuses before!” He looks back at the rest of his group and all five of them prepare their weapons and charge at the arena’s owner. The boss simply shakes their head and readies the great-sword as Arilla glances over at me and nods. These men have no clue how dangerous a sentient boss can be apparently, as they passed up what I imagine was their only chance to walk away peacefully.

While I'm caught up in my thoughts, a loud metallic ‘clunk’ echoes around the room. The knight lunged toward a bandit while they were readying a battle-axe for a wide swing. The boss isn’t moving faster than one would expect but the bandit was certainly not ready for such a direct attack so early. As the knight closes in, their target loses his footing slightly and takes a short step backwards. Just before reaching the bandit, the boss swings his great-sword in a short diagonal arc.

It impacts with the target’s weapon, and prevents any wounds from being created. The person receiving that impact however is sent flying into the nearby wall resulting in a hard secondary impact. By the time the bandit falls to the floor, Arilla is already firing arrows at the other four. Honestly speaking? I want to help but I want to observe the boss’s fighting style more. And I highly doubt these guys can kill this thing, even if it’s only the first floor boss. With a team prepared for a sentient first floor boss, things would have been risky but plausible. With a rag-tag group of gutter fighters barely prepared for a regular dungeon boss? Well if it's any indicator how one sided this is, another bandit was just picked up and summarily thrown into the arena walls by the knight’s hand.

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The fight continues for a minute or two without anything exciting happening. However, eventually the mood changes as a bandit is disarmed by Arilla landing an arrow in his wrist. The dungeon boss doesn’t hesitate for long before slicing straight through his torso with their blade. Arilla seems to flinch at the sight of the now two halves of one of our assailants. But she doesn’t take more than a moment to recover and keep up her side of the fight.

Unfortunately I can’t observe for much longer as one of the three still conscious bandit’s tries to run me through with his sword. Not being focussed on the attack my only choice is to block it with my shield and attempt to counter attack. This however, doesn’t go as planned as the bandit follows his failed strike with a heavy forward kick into the shield. This knocks me back a few steps and I almost lose my footing. My immediate reaction is to slash diagonally at his outstretched leg but nothing connects.

I see another attack coming and brace myself behind my shield again before I hear a soft thud. Looking past my shield briefly shows me my attacker falling to the floor with an arrow in the side of his neck. I lower my shield completely and look for the rest of the bandits, only to see that none of them are still alive. Even the two that were thrown against the wall have been eliminated completely. I lower my equipment and let out a short breath after processing the fact that the battle is over…

Several minutes of quiet go by as Arilla and I rest and finally catch our breath. The boss seems to be somewhat lost in thought and occasionally talks in a very quiet tone. They say some things I certainly can’t hear well enough to understand so I just decide to leave it be. After some time passes, I stand up with Arilla following suit. We both begin to walk towards the bandit corpses so we can gather anything we want from them but we’re stopped by the dungeon boss. “You may not take anything from them. I won’t force you to give up anything you gathered in the dungeon, but all the stuff they own is my duty to collect.”

The knight looks at the hallway that leads to the core from their arena for just a moment before continuing. “This is the consequence of ignoring my offers. Had you and your party not chosen to sign my contract. You would have taken their place. It pays to be open minded, yes?” Arilla glances at me and all I can do is shake my head a bit before moving to leave the dungeon. We almost leave the boss arena before we hear the boss one more time. “Be warned. There is one more person entering the dungeon at this moment. We believe it is those fools’ leader.”

Arilla responds faster than I can, simply raising one arm and putting on a smile. “We can handle one guy! Five might have been a bit more than we were able to deal with but leader or not, this guy won’t get us!” The knight nods and returns to its usual position in the center of the room, with us heading to the room where our party members fell. The two of us walk in silence for a while, as we process the day's events.

A sentient dungeon boss, A group of roaming bandits, and one of our party members abandoning us…

These thoughts start to make me a little anxious about the report to the guild we’ll have to put in once we get back home. I can only hope that the notes and information that Domun and Alaine documented are still intact from the fight. During the walk Arilla asks a question. “Soooo… How do we explain all of this to Emwyn? She’s probably going to be really mad that two of our party members are dead and one is absent.”

“Well… I'm pretty sure she’ll send another party out here to actually attempt the dungeon entirely. And I have no idea how we explain the ambush outside of the fact that unknown attackers tried to kill us and died for their trouble.” I tell her what I can but ultimately we don’t have any real context for why they attacked us in the first place. The guild is probably going to talk to the knight brigade and tell them that the dungeon entrance was the location of seven, and soon to be one more, dead bandits.

“Hah! You think she might end up obsessed by the prospect of a dungeon that can do diplomacy? I’ll bet there’s no chance she overlooks that. I’m just pissed that the Vern guy you brought with us left us to die… I hope he chokes.” Arilla seems pretty angry at him but I imagine he didn’t get far after abandoning us. Even if he did survive he’s sure to be excommunicated from the adventurers guild for leaving fellow runners to die inside of a dungeon, on an official mission no less.

Soon enough we come across Domun and Alaine’s bodies. Walking up to them we, with great care, gather the dungeon information they gathered and prop their bodies up against a nearby wall. All that's left before we leave is to wait for the supposed leader to show his face.