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Most of the four people in the Dungeon hung back in the salt room with the Dark One while the smaller woman moved up a bit and looked down the steps for a moment. Then the Scout grinned in anticipation as she crept back to report to her commander.

“It’s another trap Sir. Says so right on the wall down on the landing. Should I go check it out?”

The Porter muttered something about Tutorial dungeons that got him a sharp look from his Captain.

With a nod from Addams, the scout was sent forward with the rest following along behind her. All of them settled in at the top of the stairs to see what the Scout would find.

The Porter looked around as the Scout slowly checked the stairs. “Sir?”

Addams glanced over his shoulder. “What is it Zucker?”

The grimaced. “The measurements aren’t adding up. I don’t think the stairs are inside the space the Entity should be able to affect. They’re outside what its radius should be.”

That got everyone, including the scout looking back at him. The Captain gave him an inquiring look. “Explain, and use small words.”

The Porter dry swallowed. "The Zug island entity Sir. It was like a pancake with its core right in the middle of the top floor, the outer edges were all an equal distance around it.”

“The areas it dug out below it were all at the same distance from the center of the top floor. All the chambers, the flooded pits, everything went no more than the twenty feet from the core, sideways or down at an angle."

Huh. A twenty foot reach. That put that core at Copper Two without a guiding spirit, right around the same time as me. It had been doing pretty good for itself, other than killing children.

Must have been because it was on the water.

The Captain looked down at the angle people used when remembering things. "And the ground penetrating radar put the next level down at sixty feet across. Which would make Tark’s Hole larger and maybe more powerful than the Zug Island Entity."

He shot the Porter a questioning look. “Good insight Zucker, but I don’t see how it makes much difference.”

The Porter began to seem agitated. "That's just it sir. If the Entity is in the middle of the next level, then these stairs and the ones one level up would be further out than the widest part of the dungeon. So either the Dungeon could be building out farther but didn't, or…"

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Captain Addams finished up for him, “Or it can operate farther out than we thought it could from the radar. Dammit.”

I wished I could clue them in here. No, I can't operate outside of my reach, but I can create minions that can. Oh well. They'll figure it out one day.

The scout returned to scouting as the Captain and the other began whispering back and forth about the implications and their theory. The common consensus is that I was messing with people.

Which to be fair was entirely true, just not in the context of how much of an area I could affect. They simply didn’t have enough information to figure things out on their own.

They kept this up until the Scout announced she had cleared the steps and that a long tunnel at the bottom of the steps ended in a curtain of plants with what looked like natural sunlight behind it along with the sounds of birds singing.

Singing. Lady, you would not call it that after a Naturalist cast Beast Speech on you. I assure you that the filth and threats coming out of those beaks don't even rhyme.

Twice the tiny woman had walked over the stairs without noticing the entire block was a separate slab of stone instead of being cut out of the wall. I think she just may not be thinking in terms of a sixteen by eight foot sized trigger.

And she was too light to arm it.

The larger man who blew up my door armed it with his weight, and it was the Dark One who was halfway across and Addams who had just taken the first step off the stairs when the spring loaded launch platform went off.

Addams was thrown up the full two feet and fell backwards onto the Porter, fully sprawled out on top of the smaller man. While the Dark One went up into the air and kept going.

I could see her wings holding her up a few feet above the ground, a panicked look on her face quickly becoming one of anger. The people in her group just saw her floating in the air, her body lifting up and down with each unseen wingbeat.

Before the Captain could even begin bellowing out "Report!" the counterweights and teams of Kobolds were already pulling the stone slab down again.

The Dark One floated down to the slab as it was being pulled down with a grinding noise. Before it could return to its starting level she was off of it and stomped down five steps past the big man to backhand the scout. Hard.

“You stupid whore, you’re supposed to find the traps. That is the only reason a weakling like you was allowed on this team!”

The Scout's face went pale with anger and she had her hand on her the nonfunctional handgun at her side as the big man leaned forward to whisper in the Dark One's ear. "No Cameras down here Special Agent, and teams don't tell no tales."

Their Captain came around the corner too late and too far away to hear any of that, but in plenty of time to see the Dark One's cold stare. "I will keep that in mind Specialist, and I will remember your kind words of advice.”

Then she smiled or perhaps bared her teeth.

“Oh man, if you know anything, you know you are a dead man if she lives to walk out of here.”

The Dark One’s eyes shot over towards the core. Did she hear me?

"Oh, I am not going to pass up this chance. Prepare yourself dung worm."

The Dark One frowned as her team began moving forward.

“Ohhhhhhhh. The hound sniffed around with his nose on the ground. The hound sniffed around with his nose on the ground. The hound sniffed around with his nose on the ground. The hound sniffed around with his nose on the ground.”

She gradually lowered her head as her shoulders rose to try to blot out my singing. I decided to give her a break as the Captain looked between the weeds blocking the view at the end of the room. "Zucker, the room is eighty feet across, you got a theory on that?"

The Porter looked at a folded up piece of paper. “The scan was a little blurry on the edge Sir, either it’s spoofing us somehow, or it has areas that aren't showing up on Radar.”

The Captain nodded. "Either way we got hostiles in there. All of them are up high and behind cover. If we can pin them down, can you go high Lucia?”

The Dark one started to answer him. But…

“Second verse. Same as the first. But a whole lot louder for the song you’ll curse.”

“Ohhhhhhhh! The hound sniffed around with his nose on the ground! The hound sniffed around…”

You know, I think she might find my singing a little distracting. It had always made the monsters I used the Taunt ability on a little more eager to try to kill me. Alelan felt the same way even without me using the ability.

And it appeared the Dark One could hear it when she was even just past the edges of the Dungeon. Imagine how much she is going to hate it when she steps into my reach.