Carmine let out a cry and raced for the door. She slammed her fist on it, eliciting a dull thud. Behind her, I spun around to face the bandits. We were completely trapped. Well, that was my thought until I noticed the door on the other side was slamming shut too. I barely met the eyes of a surprised bandit as the door shut closed with a slam.

“Hey!” I heard banging on the door as it closed.

Once we were completely sealed in, all sound from the outside world cut off. We were now in a dark boss room. Carmine finally turned back, a strange expression on her face now that her chasers had been temporarily interrupted. As for the other three girls, they had drawn their weapons and were in a formation that they had come up with on their own. They looked quite dangerous, but there didn’t appear to be any monster suddenly materializing or swooping down. I stared across the dark hall for a few moments, confusion starting to build on my face.

“Is there a boss, after all?” I offered.

“Impossible…” Carmine shook her head. “The bosses should all be dead.”

“Stay by the door.” I instructed, “Our only chance is to get out of here as soon as the door opens. If we can empty the room without them reaching the door, it’ll reshut, and they’ll be forced to wait another hour. However, if they get past the door, we’ll definitely be in some bad straights.”

I was just speaking as I saw it, but the girls all nodded. Even Carmine, who had turned into a bit of a bossy betty since she entered the place nodded demurely. It looked like the visible threat of her would-be captors had caused her to settle down a bit. Survival was what was important right now.

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“Can we force our way through the rock, maybe?” I asked, eyeing the escape.

“D-d-don’t you dare!” A small voice shouted out.

The girls all gripped their weapons. I even noticed Carmine fingering something hidden by her robes. I looked around trying to find the source of the voice. It was a high-pitched young sounding voice of a girl. It certainly wasn’t what I expected to hear if a bandit had broken through. No, we were locked in the boss room now. That meant that this voice had to be coming from this dungeon’s boss. However, this dungeon had no boss. That was enough to confuse me horribly.

“Where are you? What do you want? Show yourself!” I let out the typical lines, meanwhile keeping my eyes open.

“You can’t hold us here!” Carmine spoke up. “If you have a challenge, then give it, otherwise, let us be on our way.”

”O-of course… I have a challenge!” The voice finally spoke back.

“Your dungeon is nearly dead. You couldn’t summon a boss who could challenge us even if you wanted to!” Carmine sniffed. “You’re stalling dungeon because you’re afraid your lore will be destroyed!”

“N-no! D-don’t kill me!” Suddenly, the ground rose up like a small pillar.

The dirt fell away, and like a flower with dark petals unfurling, it revealed a young maiden girl inside. She had short hair that didn’t go passed her ears. It was dark brown, as were her eyes. She had a small heart-shaped face, a flat chest, She was wearing a strangely dirty dress. There were also various markings of dirt all over her cheeks and arms. It looked like she had literally crawled out of the ground.

“Please…” She said, her eyes tearing. “I am Terra… do not kill me!”