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The boy had never bothered with any kind of shield since he either just didn’t think of it or had decided that it was seldom as useful as having his offhand free to take a two-handed grip on his weapon or to pull fury animals off of people.

He had run into a few kobolds using scalpel spears but they hadn’t been that much of an issue for him. Four copper one kobolds firing the quickly reloadable toothpick crossbows on the other hand proved the value of his foresight in the eye protectors all four of them wore.

And the marksmen… markskobolds? Either way, they pretty much brought the party's advance to a halt as Ernesto was hesitating to take the leap from the first platform to the second with a constant barrage of sharp wooden things in his face.

Buttercup raced past him, but the cat had no way to get up high enough to get to the kobolds. Not that he didn’t try, but he could not quite leap up high enough. One of the kobolds stopped shooting for a moment to wiggle his thumbs at the cat as if mocking it.

“Let me get down there! Nesto, duck!” Bee forced her way down and had to be grabbed by her aunt to keep from taking a fall as she fired her flame ray over the boy’s head and fanned across the top of the battlements.

Since she didn’t have time to hold it in place on any of them it wasn’t nearly as damaging as when she hosed down a single squirrel. But the wave of flame did hurt them enough to make them duck. Which gave the boy enough time to charge across the platform and smash into the door. He even managed to keep on his feet which allowed the cat to half jump, half claw its way up him to leap onto the kobolds battlements from the boy's shoulder.

The three women arrived just in time to help finish off the last of them.

Hey. Molly is a bit too young to be the mother, but the girl and the old woman have the maiden and the hag positions covered. And Bee has a mother keeping an eye on her. It’s always nice to have a triumvirate around.

On the boy's advice, Bee used her shovel in the fighting room to save some of her spells for later. Her use of the digging tool was, was kind of successful. She didn't do any damage to the rats but she did make them focus more on not getting smacked than running her down, and she didn’t even come close to hitting anyone on her own side.

Molly was very unhappy about the rats. "Did you really need to use those Tark? Rats are nasty and disgusting. They carry diseases!”

I never liked having women of any age mad at me. Alelan had always gotten angry with me about it which had always seemed unfair since I had some female mad at me no matter what I did. But I guess I was going to have to tough this out. Molly had to be able to be effective even when something gross was trying to kill her. Her life might depend on it one day.

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The resting room had iced drinks and fruit as normal. But I added an envelope addressed to Beyonce with a stack of one, five, and ten dollar bills suitable for her to make small purchases for her new home while being sufficiently small denominations to not be noticed as fake money. At least that was my hope.

And once again I had a female mad at me as the boy read the name on the envelope out loud and Bee’s face went first pale then red. “Why is that name on there? Did you tell it that name Aunt Iris?”

So as it turns out the girl hated the name her mother gave her, that of a famous singer who the internet called you tube showed to be an attractive and talented singer. Or at least the Kobolds liked her, her music didn't appeal to me even if her appearance did.

After a chance to rest, and allow the two teenagers to calm down, they pushed onto the next floor.

After various attempts to conceal or otherwise workaround their shoving of a cardboard box into the summoning room on their side of a balance beam, I had just decided to let it go and let them have it as a win.

So crossing the balance beam, as usual, involved Ernesto crossing halfway across and jumping the rest of the way, while Buttercup did the same except to the side where the potatoes throwing, now upgraded to egg throwers, would come running out.

I had missed a change in their plans.

Buttercup stopped halfway across while Bee leaned out to fan her ray of flame on the four kobolds as they came running out. Or at least the first two while the other ones decided that staying in their summoning room seemed a good idea.

Then the cat jumped across while the boy finished off the spiked kobolds on the other side of the beam and then joined the cat before the burnt kobolds could recover.

I think I would let them have their win for the rest of this week then change this room up again. Maybe a protective wall for the tossers to hide behind which would also make it harder for the cat to jump over.

I had restored the salt room to let the Mage deal with foes coming out of the ground instead of letting her burn them at a distance, but again there had been some planning. Bee and Molly stayed back while Ernesto and Iris went into the room to spring the ambush, and only then did the two younger girls head in to help out with the fight.

The plant room was still set to slug slime filled and covered pits with four kobolds running from around the corner as the boy began to probe the ground. Two with a set of scalpel spears while the other two had a set of toothpick crossbows. They got met by a barrage of half bricks as the boys checked the ground in front of him as quickly as he could, and Iris just took two steps in behind him and then jumped the rest of the way.

Landing with one foot in slime and down on one knee.

Which turned out to work well for her since for once it was easy for her to punch the knee high creatures she had been fighting for weeks. And as it turned out Iris the Pirate was even better at punching than kicking.

I wonder if the you tube internet had any of her fights on it?

Finally, they reached the riddle door. Molly got the riddle about the priest being the one who had been the one to marry many without being married. But seeing Bee struggling to figure it out the healer let her have the win.

Inside the resting room, a tall section of wooden support beam shaped down to a round staff and stained with red ink with a copper cap on each end awaited them as a reward for the door. Not something I had planned on the whole thing was something I rigged up, but still pretty nice.

Bee seemed overjoyed. “Is that magic? What does it do?”

Molly looked up at the ceiling. "I don't know, but someone owes me a free identification, and considering how many toothpicks Nesto took to the face today, I think I can cash it in."