Nimzik looked around at the forest, the broken branches, fractured stalks, cigar butts, shards from an ale mug littered the forest floor. He knew this meant ogres had been through here recently, possibly as recently as last night. Their scent still lingered in the air but was fading on the breeze. The path was just about obliterated but he knew the way to her place so well, he could do it blindfolded if he had to.

As he crossed the little creek, the water just a trickle, he saw the remains of a campsite. The grass was matted from where they had slept, small wisps of smoke from a dying fire. Trash everywhere told him there had been a small gathering here. It must be the dungeon that was attracting them, just like it had him and the Ulmus kids. He breathed a sigh of relief when their trail veered off away from Daisy’s little home.

He quickened his steps, hurrying now that this part of the path was clear. He found her in her garden, where he knew she would most likely be. The little halfling was bent over a patch of singing mushrooms, gently picking up the ones that had fallen silent, careful not to break their stalks.

He watched the little halfling for a moment, admiring her petite figure in her simple smock and work boots. The breeze caught a wisp of her hair that had fallen out of her ponytail and she brushed it with the back of her hand out of her face.

Possibly sensing someone was near, she stood up and turned around. “Oh Nimzik, it’s good that you’re here, I could use your help.” She brushed the dirt off of her hands and came over to where he stood just outside of her garden patch.

“I’ve come to tell you there are ogres around, I saw evidence of them in the forest.” He said as she stepped away from him, ignoring what he said to her.

“I said,” he started again.

“You can tell me as we work, here hold this,” she said, handing him a large wicker basket before climbing a ladder up to the lowest branch of a plum tree. “I want to get these plums before they fall off the tree and the birds get them” She reached up and dropped a plum down to him,” Catch.”

He held the basket under her as she deftly plucked several ripe purple plums off the tree, within minutes the basket was almost full. As she climbed back down the ladder, he tried again. “Daisy, I need to talk to you.”

When she reached the bottom, she took the now full basket from him and walked back towards her cottage. “Come help me make jelly,” she said without turning around.

“No, Daisy, you need to stop and listen to me.” Nimzik said with as much authority as he could muster.

The little halfling turned to him now, a look of concern on her face, her dark brown eyes on the verge of tears. “I heard you earlier, there’s ogres in the area.”

“Yes,” he said as he approached her and took the basket from her. “I saw evidence of them in the forest. Their trail went to the west, a little away from here but I don’t know that they won’t be back. They might decide to head this direction soon.”

Daisy was silent for a moment, "It's the mushrooms isn’t it? I should have known better, everyone warned me not to plant singing mushrooms, ‘you’ll attract ogres’ they all said.”

“Daisy, you've had those mushrooms in your garden for three years now and nothing has happened. We all love them when you roast them for us at the fall festival. The ogres aren’t here for your mushrooms, they are here for the dungeon. Remember I told you about the new dungeon in the area?” Nimzik put the basket down and took her hand and led her to a little bench where he sat down with her.

“I don’t think it’s all ogres, the campsite made me think it might be a mix of dwarfs and ogres. I’m sure there will be more to come though. There hasn’t been a dungeon in this area in over five generations, anyone who is an adventurer or wants to be an adventurer will most likely be coming through here on their way to delve in the dungeon,” he said softly caressing her hand with his. “I didn’t come here to scare you, I came because I had an idea.”

“You do?” her voice hopeful.

“Didn’t you tell me you wanted to go see the dungeon?” he asked her.

“Oh yes, but I’m not an adventurer. What reason would I have to go?”

“I was thinking we can pick the singing mushrooms and take them to the dungeon.”

“What? You know they aren’t ready for anyone to eat yet. The only creatures that seem to like them when they are still singing is the ogres and that’s only because of the debauchery it causes.”

“The ogres call them love apples, something in them creates a reaction in their skin that tells the other ogres they are ready to mate. The ogre population would probably die out if it weren’t for those love apples. Have you ever seen an ogre? You’d have to be stoned on love apples to want to be with one.”

“Or be another ogre,” Daisy giggled. “I still don’t understand.”

“So I was thinking, you gather up a basketful of them, that gets them out of your garden and you won’t have to worry about any ogres coming through here and ruining the rest of your crops. Anyway, gather a basketful of them and maybe a few jars of your strawberry plum wine and we’ll take them to the dungeon to trade.”

“That sounds like a great idea, but what would a dungeon have that I could trade for?”

“Did I not tell you the dungeon is inside of a store? We talked about it three days ago when it first appeared.” Nimzik let go of her hand and put his arm around her. She snuggled closer to him.

“You did tell me, have you been inside?” She asked, raising her head from his shoulder to look at him.

“Yes,” he said rather sheepishly. He knew he should have told her before but he was worried she would have talked him out of it. “I’ve actually been twice, I went with the Ulmus kids.”

“Nimzik Potterfield, don’t tell me you went dungeon delving!” She stood up from the bench and faced him. “I thought we’d talked about this, you were going to wait til you had more experience.”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you before I left, I knew you’d try to talk me out of it. But how am I supposed to gain experience if I have nothing to practice on,” he said standing as well to face her. She was a few inches taller than him, but he rose up on his toes to face her eye to eye. “Aren’t you a little curious to know what’s inside?”

“I’m dying to know what’s inside, but I’m also mad that you didn’t talk to me before you left,” she pouted a little.

“Come sit down with me and I’ll tell you about it.” He said, sitting back down and patting the empty seat next to him.

“I’m sorry, I overreacted, I just wish I had known you were going delving. How was your first adventure?” She asked taking the seat next to him.. “How were the Ulmus kids, were they well behaved?”

“Well you know how they can be. You’ve heard the twins, Tisha and Elred get into it sometimes. This time was no different. I swear I think Elred doesn’t give his sister enough credit. He acts like she would be running off with the first goon who made eyes at her if he didn’t step in and do something. I think they were more interested in fighting with each other than anything in the dungeon.”

“I thought they were really looking forward to this delve, wasn’t Rydel there?”

“He was and he did what he could to calm them. It doesn't help that he’s four years older and has been away at school for the last two years so they don’t always listen to him now,” the gnome shifted in his seat, he reached his hand into his pocket, taking the small bundle of tissue paper in his hand and making a fist around it.

“So tell me about the dungeon, what did it look like?” Daisy asked, snuggling closer to him.

“It is the strangest dungeon I’ve ever seen,” Nimzik started.

“I thought this was the first one you’ve ever been in,” she raised her head slightly to look at him.

“It was, that is, I meant it was the strangest I’ve ever heard of. There’s lots of stories about dungeons and adventurers, and I’ve heard so many of them. I haven’t heard any about a dungeon that spawned inside of a store. The whole building is a store or was, the dungeon’s added rooms, rearranged some of the things inside. I’ve been there twice now and the place is changing. I don’t think the two people running the place have realized all of the changes yet. I’ve seen the faint glow around the pair, the place is changing them as well.”

“Tell me,” Daisy squeezed his arm, “I’m dying to know all about it.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll tell you,” he said with a slight giggle in his voice. The tissue wrapped stone in his fist.

“So we went into the dungeon. Before we went in the tall man, Nate, asked us what we were and we explained our positions. The short one, Dan, he was more interested in looking at Tisha from behind than he was in any of us. That’s what sparked the fight between her and Elred by the way. I’m certain Tisha wouldn’t be interested in the dwarf even if her brother wasn’t there.

Anyway, the dungeon is in the very back of the store. You have to pass by all manner of magical items before you get to the dungeon. We passed through this large metal door that said ‘ Lager’ on the outside of it.”

“What does “Lager” mean?”

“I think it is an ancient language meaning dungeon. You know the humans speak many languages, I think this is what these words mean. Anyway, inside the dungeon, the opening is very cold, it has stone walls and metal shelving that has nothing on it.”

“Maybe that is where they plan to place the trophies of the fallen heroes?” Daisy said with a slight shudder. “I don’t know if I would want to see that kind of display.”

“I don’t know, but we did not leave anything for them to display from us.” Nimzik pulled his arm free from her and put it around her. “We left there as heroes.”

“I kinda figured that,” she giggled, “please continue telling me about the battle.”

“So inside a few feet in, there’s an archway leading into another room, this one not as cold and the walls have a weird slime all over them. In front of us stood three large gelatinous bears, one was red, one was yellow and one was purple. They were taller than I am. As I told you before, the twins were standing there bickering with each other when we first got in the room, they stopped talking when the yellow bear swayed a little bit and then fell over. It kinda reminded me of your Aunt Jen, remember the time she got into the wine at that picnic with the dwarves? The bear fell over, face first, just like she did. At least she fell into the patch of clover, this bear fell onto a stone floor.”

“That picnic last year was a lot of fun, but Aunt Jen hates it when anyone brings up that story. She sure did look funny with the clover blossoms all over her face when she woke up.” Daisy said, laughing at the memory.

“Rydel readied his arrow and Elred and Tisha ran towards the two upright bears. Elred struck first, you know how impulsive that boy can be. He doesn’t take time to assess the situation. His knife went through the beast like butter. The beast split into smaller bears the size of my hand. When he tried to stomp on one of them, the bears split again into smaller bears and this time there were at least a hundred. All of the bears were bouncing off of everything. They bounced off each other like kids at a birthday party allowed to play on the large mushroom caps. Anyway, when the bears bounced off of us, they burned anything they touched. It wasn’t terrible, kind of like when a bit of water splashes out of the pot and catches your hand while you are stirring it.”

So far, this doesn’t sound like much of a fight, ” she said with her head on his chest.

“I wish I could say it gets better,” he said. “The bears acted like they were drunk on dwarven wine. I think any that managed to hurt us at all only did so by accident. The little purple bears made little sizzling noises when they touched Elred’s armor and left little burn holes where they hit. The red bears burst into small fire balls when they hit anything. I don’t even think they noticed us there, we only got hit from walking through them. We managed to kill them mostly by stepping on them. I didn’t even have to use magic.”

“Oh honey, I knew you were so looking forward to being able to try out your spells in a dungeon.”

“It’s okay, there will be other opportunities. Til then I can continue practicing on the squirrels”

“So what kind of loot did the dungeon drop?” she said, sitting up and looking at him.

He stood up now and faced her. “Tisha and Elred got a magical hat, they were fighting over who gets to wear it when, Rydel got some kind of elixir, it had that ancient language written on it like the words on the door. It said “Coors”. I don’t know what it does.”

‘And what did you get? “ she stared up at him from her seat.

“I got this,” he said, pulling the crumpled tissue paper out of his pocket. He unwrapped it carefully to show her a small clear stone.

“It looks like glass,” she said softly.

“It’s dungeon glass, here feel it.” he said putting it in her hand.

“It feels like ice,” she said as she turned it around in her hands looking at it from all angles. The stone caught the light and little rainbows bounced off the small stone. “It’s beautiful” she whispered softly.

“I got it for you,” he said. “If you like we can get it put into a ring or another piece of jewelry or we can hang it in the garden. Whatever you’d like to do with it.”

“Now Nimzik, you tease, you know I don’t wear jewelry, why would I want a ring?”

“I thought maybe you’d want an engagement ring,” he said, smiling at her.

She faced him, her deep brown eyes looked at him, “Is that a proposal?”

“Only if you want it to be. If you're not ready…” his voice trailed off as she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him.

“What do you mean, not ready? I thought you’d never ask,” she squealed.