The delvers looked at the corpse of the troll that dominated the middle of the very much ruined room. Its huge body laying still as blood still poured out of it and sunk down into the many cracks it had created in the stone floor. Bits of its stone “armor” from chunks to pebbles fell off onto the floor as the magic holding it in place slowly faded away with everything so broken apart by the withering gunfire there was no large bits left.

The delves walked around the head before finding bits of rubble to sit down on to catch their breaths and wind down. The looked at the massive beast as the reality of what they did still had not fully settled in as they were too focused on the fact they had just survived.

The humans looked at the bullet holes and took deep breaths. Their powerful guns that they had used to rip apart pretty much everything else had done so little to the massive beast. They had tools available for handling such behemoths, but they hadn’t thought to bring alont even a single use RPG due to the dungeon’s level!

Nelva was the first to speak up. “Fucking…. That shouldn’t have been here.” She sighed out as she relaxed a bit more. Sinking into a pile of rocks she was sitting on. “Trolls are usually only found at medium level dungeons or higher. Beginner level dungeons would never have something so tough in their lineup. I guess we really pissed the dungeon off.” She pointed out with a long sigh.

“Another thing is that probably nobody knew about the troll.” Tezira pointed out as she poked a huge tooth with a foot. “Think about it. The boss swap out depending on skill level AND dungeon’s choice. Anyone that would have faced this thing would have been in here as a beginner, MAYBE ready for mediums at most. Anyone in here normally would have been killed easily by that thing.” She let out a sigh. “If that happened the dungeon graders would have never known it was in the lineup so it would have never been considered. They would take the list of all the other known bosses and ranked it based on those. Shit like that happens all the time in many other kinda ways. How we dodge taxes in a few cities even.” She confessed before kicking the tooth away.

“Fuck, why us?” Zilta asked as she used a rag to slowly clean the now filthy chainsword tooth by tooth. Making sure all the skull, skin, brains, and other gore were cleaned out of it.

“Simple. We were kicking ass.” Jack pointed out as he topped off his mags. “We were ripping through the dungeon facing absolutely minimal challenge. The dungeon caught on to the point that even when it ambushed us in the best possible ways for it the dungeon couldn’t even scratch us.” He explained.

“As Nelva said while we were walking it was probably saving up points to try and hurt us. Well, what better way to try and kill us than throwing the toughest, most brutal boss it could summon at us?” He pointed out as he poked the head with his foot. “This fucker was supposed to wipe us out for giving the dungeon such problems. Even then we still managed to put it down injury free.” He added motioning to himself as proof.

“makes sense.” Nelva said with a nod. “And most experienced people that could trigger this thing would just go to one of the harder dungeons right next to us.” She pointed out.

They just looked at the troll with the new knowledge that it was a purely lethal trap. The room going cold as they all had to face the fact that the dungeon truly had pulled out its greatest move to try and kill them. They all did feel just a little bit better knowing that they could use this as a chance to save others by warning that this troll was a possibility.

“Alright. Before we look for the treasure we should go over our fuck-ups and what we did well this run.” Tezira spoke up as she hopped up. “Always good to reflect on a mission while the steel is hot! Me first: I probably should get better with main weapons. While I can tell I am super good with these bombs I should be capable of more normal combat shit.” She explained as she reflected.

“Good idea.” Jack agreed as John nodded along. “I think me and John got a little too complacent and big for ourselves. We had special tools we probably should have brought that would have made this fight easy, but we thought the dungeon would be so easy we didn’t need to bring them.”

John nodded his head in agreement. “Yeah, one RPG probably would have killed it. One is even part of the recommended loadout for boss rooms. We could have had TK deliver us one. As for what we did well we managed to suppress even the troll and keep it distracted for the rest of you to do what you do best.” He added on getting a nod from the rest of the group.

Stolen novel; please report.

“Fuck. I fucked up in the same way. Shoulda brought SOMETHING ranged. Just got too excited with this awesome sword to even pack a light crossbow. Woulda done fuck all to the big fucker but would have at least something to do rather than run and hide.” Zilta snarled out.

Nelva was last. She thought for awhile before leaning back with a long sigh. “My spellcraft was on point and I was very good at tripping up enemies, but its clear I need to start learning more spells that can go in the air. Its something I knew I needed to work on, but this trip made it clear.” She explained.

Once they worked through their goods and bads they got up and started to poke around the troll’s body. Tezira carved off an ear with the help of Zilta to take to the guards to prove that a troll could spawn in the dungeon. The rest managed to find the thing’s magical gem and once more got Zilta to carefully carve it out of the beast’s back so that the two humans could send it to their own dimension.

With the very large gem carried between the two humans they went through the small door at the back of the boss room that had slowly opened once the boss had been defeated. On the other side was a table with a rather nice pile of silver and copper coins. On the sides of the room were six chests with one already opened and empty since there was only five members of their group.

It was crystal clear what had to be done, so the humans rested their gem on the table before each person picked a chest and opened it to see what their own loot was.

Tezira opened up her chest and found a black leather hood. She let out a sigh and slipped it on, only to happily chirp once she found out that it had room for her horns. Something so rare that most kobolds never bothered with headwear due to the annoyance.

Zilta would find a nice drinking horn. It was made out of a fine horn from an unknown beast with a fine stopper made of cork and silver at the end. The whole thing would normally be a bit too big and heavy but for the gnoll woman it was just the right size.

Jack found a fine dagger waiting for him. He lifted it up and examined the folded iron blade with an elegant handle before stashing it in one of his armor’s pouches. He was all too familiar with how to handle a knife after all.

Nelva found an elegant red dress made of silk. She ribbited in confusion as she held it up, examining the slit in the side before she saw Jack eyeing it with excitement in his eyes. She grinned knowing full well why she had gotten it and stashed it in her pack for later. She was a bit weirded out the reward system was helping her in a goal she had decided she finally wanted to pursue as they went through the dungeon, but she wasn’t going to complain.

John would get a fine pair of boots. He smiled wide under his helmet as he examined the fine leather and craftsmanship having always wanted a pair of nice leather boots. Sure the insole wasn’t that great, but the rest was so well made he couldn’t wait to wear them while walking about. Out of everyone he was the most aware of how good a nice pair of boots could be.

With their newfound goods packed up, the coins divided up, and the gem held by the two humans with the power armor handling the weight they walked out of the boss room and stepped onto the teleporter. They all felt their bodies tingle and smelled flowers in the air as the magic warmed up before popping them right up to a small room by the entrance to the dungeon.

The humans lugged the gem to the clearing getting some odd looks as few these days bothered to carry such large gems out of the dungeon while Nelva and Tezira went to report the troll. As they feared the guards at first refused to believe that their simple beginner dungeon was capable of spawning such a tough and fearsome beast. That was until the still bleeding ear was plunked on the desk.

“Ah shit.” A guard grunted out as he looked it over. “Yep. Fresh troll ear. Will take a day for it to be able to spawn, but that means we gotta let the dungeon guild get in here and try to mark the door.” He groaned. “That is going to take awhile if the thing spawns this rare. Means no delvers till we get it marked. That thing is party wipes waiting to happen.” He looked over the ear. “Does explain some of the party losses though. Had a few groups go in just last week that shoulda made it out easy. At least we know what happened to em’. Thanks for the heads up.” He slid a few silver coins to the duo. “Payment for the info.”

John walked up to the desk next and handed the tag and letter to the guard. The guard took them and brought out the huge book, quickly finding the group inside whose names matched the information on the tag and letter. After a few basic questions on where the bodies were to help in retrieval and a thank you for the information John stepped away.

With that the delvers regrouped and started to go back to the ship. On the way out a few groups stopped them and asked them for advice having seen the troll ear, and each one got basic tips with the delvers always admitting that they were pretty new at the whole thing. However they did manage to convince one group of three that it was indeed a bad idea to go in without a single bow and someone trained to use it.

Now that all their tasks were done they picked up the gem one last time and returned to their new flying home.