Ling refitted her beret as it came slightly off, Mic grumbled a little from being suddenly awakened. Alin brushed off his robes, bits of dirt and stone persisted and would take much more time to remove possibly even a few repairs. Ling looked up the hole they just made, and it was completely dark, the boulder must’ve rolled over the top, not like they could go back up that way anyway.
Bull whistled, “Must’ve fallen to the fifth floor with a hole that long.”
“Actually,” Alin interjected. “We’re on the seventh floor.” Alin fumbled with the dungeon map, turning it upside down and to the sides.
“What!” Bull yelled.
“We’ve probably hit an abandoned tunnel that took us even further.” Alin rolled the map up putting it inside his robe.
Bull readied his hammer and declared. “New objective, team. We’re backtracking till we get out.” Bull picked a random direction and began heading that way.
Ling was about to follow but was stopped by a hand, turning around it was Rue, her red eyes made unyielding eye contact, yet showed a hint of sincerity. “Look, I’m sorry that I thought you were going to slow us down,” she apologized, “but, where did you learn to check for something like that?”
Ling smiled giving the small flat chested girl a much-needed hug. “I totally forgive you!” She shouted swinging the struggling girl in between her cleavage. Eventually, the cleric let go of her allowing her to breathe. “This isn’t the first dungeon I’ve been in!”
Rue gasped in between breaths she said, “Just because you saved us once, doesn’t mean I fully trust you.”
“You probably right not to trust me.” Ling shrugged. “I don’t blame you.” she turned away from the witch and headed into the same direction that bull went.
When they were a reasonable distance in between each other, the mimic on her waist grumbled. “Hmm?” She hummed listening to its words. “‘Blending in?’ Yeah, I’m doing that.” The mimic’s series of noises continued. “I swear I am! Humans are really dumb creatures! This is something called reverse psychology.” Mic made a noise of confusion. “You see since she doesn’t trust me already, by telling her not to trust me. I’m making her trust me.”
Mic made an alerting sound. “Hm?” Ling hummed, “Monsters?” she peeked the corner that bull had went. Two kobolds who were slightly taller than Bull where pinning him against the wall hissing at each other. Ling removed Mic from around her chest. She was holding it out in front of her. Its single eye was looking right back at her. “Mic, ready?” she whispered. The mimic made a noise of confusion before it was launched at a speed comparable to the force of a trebuchet into the face of a kobold.
-15HP Damage dealt to target.
While the other kobold was distracted trying to figure out what was going on with its partner, Ling approached from behind readying her dagger to make a critical strike at the beast’s neck. Unfortunately, its superior hearing alerted it to her presence. It let go of the unconscious Bull to tail whip her into the wall. She yelped in pain the moment she came into contact.
-28HP Damage taken
“Alright…” she spoke struggling to regain her balance after flying for a few feet, “we gotta do this the hard way.” she flipped her dagger to her main hand after dropping her staff. The kobold hissed at her dual wielding both swords that the two monsters had brought along. Unbeknownst to the creature, a fleshy tentacle wrapped itself around its leg, and the creature was thrown off balance landing on its stomach. It clawed on the floor trying to stop its current fast track to the mimic’s maw. Ling stood straight losing her combat stance as she watched the kobold get dragged into the now vicious chest. “You know, you kinda ruined that whole moment for me,” she said approaching her party mate.
She flipped him over on his back. His eyes were wide open and were the only things that were moving. It seemed the kobolds didn’t get the better hand over him in a fight; they merely used some form of paralysis poisons.
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“Oh.” she said slightly shocked, “you’re still alive? I guess you know I’m not a cleric now.” She stopped for a second and thought deeply. “Actually, you wouldn’t have known until I told you since you probably didn’t even see the mimic.” The two stared at each other for a long time Until she said, “Shut up.”
She picked up the dropped kobold sword and hacked at Bull’s neck.
-30HP Damage dealt to target
Due to the Kobold’s mistreatment towards their weapons, the edge was dull and was only good for being a blunt object.
-35HP damage dealt to target. Target inflicted with bleed -5HP/s
-40HP damage dealt to target. Target killed! 40EXP gained.
Bull’s head rolled on the floor. Ling dropped the sword and wiped the sweat off her face. Exhausted she sat on the ground. “So uncivilized.” she joked. Mic at some point already changed back into its handbag form and crawled onto Ling’s lap.
“What the hell happened here!?” Rue yelled with Alin at her side covering his mouth. The whole area looked like some sort of blood orgy. There was not one area that wasn’t covered. The mimic left whole halves of kobolds. Limbs scattered about, Bull beheaded on the ground, and Ling splattered with a copious amount of bull’s blood.
Ling sat up and hysterically started to cry, “T-there were so many kobolds here!” she continued to sob, “I-I couldn’t heal Bull enough times, so I had to defend myself!”
She got up and hugged the nearest person, which so happened to be Alin, the height difference was very well known by how she had to hunch over trying to embrace him. She balled even harder, in between gasps she spoke, “I was….sooo… scareed!”
Alin looked to Rue, who shrugged. He awkwardly put his hands around her back. “It’s alright?” he said, trailing it like a question, “We are adventurers stuff like this is bound to happen. We are all prepared for this.”
Ling wiped the tears away from her face and sniffled. “You’re right. I guess I’m just not used to it, yet.” she agreed.
Alin broke the embrace and smiled holding the girl by the shoulders and shouted, “Then let's do our best and get out here!”
Rue coughed, “But first, no more solo traveling or else we’ll end up the same way Bull did.” The group synchronized nods.
Alin looked around, four different paths were open to them, two down the middle, and one each on both the left and right. “Uhhh.”
Rue and Alin both took to a passage trying to peer into the darkness that awaited their
Mic extended a piece of its body, a tentacle with a mouth it whispered into Ling’s ear. “Really?” she whispered back. “‘Something interesting?’ Alright, I’ll try it.” Ling walked to the leftmost center corridor. “Hey!” She yelled, “Can we go down this one?”
Rue and Alin gathered at the entrance, and Rue was the first to speak.
“Why this one?”
Ling shrugged. “I don’t know, it just feels right?”
“‘It just feels right?’ What the hell is that suppose to mean?”
Ling shrugged again. “I can’t explain it; it just feels right.”
Rue lifted up hand and scrunched her face, “I know it wasn’t said, but we can’t bet our lives on a feeling.”
Alin held up a hand to signify his interjection. “Actually, Ling might be onto something.”
“You can’t be seriously considering what she’s thinking.” Rue scoffed.
“We made it this far because of Ling’s intuition. Perhaps following it further might be worth it.”
Rue sighed. “Fine, Ling, lead the way.”
Ling’s face lit up with excitement as she embraced the small witch. “Hey!” Rue shouted in irritation, “get the hell off of me!”
***
“Look, I’m happy that we haven’t seen a single monster…” Rue changed her pitch of voice, “We’ve been walking for a bloody hour!” The trio stopped walking while Rue continued to shout, “I don’t even think the dungeon is this long!”
Alin slid down the side of the wall and sighed, “We can’t just look at all the negatives, at least we know we can rest here to regain our ener-.” Alin stopped speaking as the floor beneath him began depressing until it became a pit sending the three of them falling to the floor underneath.
They crashed into a pool of water, the splash they created sent the most of the water onto the land.
Three wet adventurers now stood in the middle of a dark and dank dungeon. Alin wrung his robe out and looked up at the two soaked girls. Two mountains and four peaks each clinging to the cloth that bound them from the prying eyes of the world. His face began flushing with redness. The two girls looked over in his direction with wide eyes.
“Uhm. Alin” Rue said, “Turn around.”
He stuck his hands out and shouted in embarrassment, “I’m so sorry, I swear!”
Rue sighed, “Turn around, genius.”
“Alright!” He shouted. Immediately he came face to face with a sword impaled in the ground. It was encrusted with jewels and surrounded by coins as far as the base.