The witch surrendered her pride, although it took Royath a couple of more rounds of convincing. Finally giving in, she explained that the dungeon had additional tunnels, leading out through secret exits and entrances. She was willing to show them one, and exactly just one such exit. The elves confiscated her magic items; Arrovani taking her wand, while Udevi took the broom which now had a little crack in it after the crash.

The party walked out into the hallway, Alkiath and Veish first, along with 2 elven warriors who’d taken up the job of closely escorting their prisoner. Before they left, they first went back to the big battle at The Deathtrap, where the elves picked out the most valuable weapons and armor left by the defeated skeletons.

“This trip should be worth it, after all” Udevi said, “can’t nearly die for nothing.” The woman knelt down and grabbed a sharp-looking finely decorated short-sword to carry together with the broom.

As they finished up and continued on, their flickering torches casting light down the hallway revealed but sidetunnels looking all too much the same, making the elves and Rum a little confused, and consequently a little worried about whether they were all being lost. Perhaps purposively being made lost too. While nobody said anything, a few of the elves did give Veish some distrustful glances. The witch though seemed to have no problems with their heading. Not exactly happy with the situation, at least she seemed adequately sure of herself. An attitude, Rum thought, with multiple interpretations.

As they came across one rather insignificant-looking sidetunnel, the witch simply turned and started walking inside, mumbling “here”, but her choice appearing completely arbitrary. There was little the party could do however, than to follow.

“Why this way?” Alkiath questioned.

“This is the way out.” The reply was simple and matter-of-factly.

“But how do you know?” Alkiath pressed.

“I know the shape, and I count tunnels.” The follow-up reply was not much more helpful. Sure it was an answer of some information, but to tunnels mostly all looked the same to every elf and human wizard present, and so they had little choice but to merely trust their prisoner.

The next 10 minutes along the new path was an agonizing experience to most of the party. Pretty much everyone had to actively resist the encroaching feelings of claustrophobia and nervous expectations. Everyone that is, except Urvanom. The old elf just continued on smiling like a lunatic experiencing a dreamland totally different to what everyone else were having.

“I want some of what he’s having.” An elf warrior mumbled, and gestured at the smiling lunatic.

“You do?” Rum said, surprised. “Well just come here and I can–“

“–NO!” The elf warrior backed off and put his loot loaded hands up as best he could. “I didn’t mean it literally! Just... You know. This walk is so unnerving.”

“I’m not sure I do know. Do you mean to say you were exaggerating?”

“Eeeh, yeah. Let’s say that.” Rum shrugged and continued on walking. The elf mumbled after him. “If it was something else than a totally mind-altering spell, then maybe.”

The crowd of elven warriors, a human witch and a human wizard, hiked through a never-ending hole that went up and down with confusing frequency, necessitating repeated small climbs over and down steep and slippery rock. And as if that wasn’t enough, the tunnel was just small and tight enough that the elves sometimes had to crouch before the ceiling, and Rum’s horizontal disadvantage necessitated that he twice had to step sideways through some rather narrow passages, where the shield elves also had to do a bit of manoeuvering, as well as couple of elves that had brought perhaps too much loot. Furthermore, the tunnel went left and right haphazardly, the whole constructed pathway rapidly coming to a screaming display of its makers’ indecisions. Who decided to make something like this?

Throughout the whole journey the party also couldn’t help but fear that they were walking into another trap. Like an actual dungeon trap, or another hoard of skeletons coming to ambush them, or perhaps a full platoon of veteran witches, stronger and more numerous than any of what they’d yet come up against. At which point we’d probably be thoroughly beaten and killed. Rum reasoned. Although, if worst comes to worst, Veish could play the role of hostage. A temporary hostage. Just for emergency’s sake.

It was because of all these fears, that when the party soon rounded a corner and then came to an abrupt deadend, all the elves became instantly alert, while confused worried glances were exchanged. Fortunately though, everyone soon picked up on the actual situation. One after another, they noticed a faint light breaking through the cracks in the rock in front of them. It soon dawned on each one that they were now standing right next to an escape. The news spread backwards through the line, in a quiet but excited rumour. The elves, in turn, then went from worry to smiles, a new hope shining in their faces.

“That’s out?” Alkiath asked, most hopeful of them all, omitting Urvanom.

“Yes” Veish said, a little bit of defeat on her face.

“How do we get past the rock?” Arrovani questioned, and everyone stared at the witch, expectant.

She turned towards the rock, and opened her mouth: “Password!” To everyone present’s astonishment, the rock moved! Through an act that could only be magic: multiple gnome-sized rocks began rising up in the air, then outwards, then evacuating to the sides. There they stopped, hovering in place, and emitting the low humming sound of working magic. Few elves spent more than a second staring at the completed magical scene though, as the relocated rocks revealed a human-sized exit; an escape out and into the open sky, to the forest, out of the mountain; out of Jorteg’s Dungeon. Not waiting any more than they had to, every elf – except for the 2 guarding the witch – streamed out, mumbling and shouting with happiness and relief. They tasted the fresh air, some inhaling deeply as if they’d never tasted fresh air before, while many others merely stood there, letting the late afternoon sun bath their faces in a warm radiance.

Rum turned to Veish, raising an eyebrow. “Your password is–“

“–yes.” Veish retorted quickly. She sighed and barely failed to contain an eyeroll. “Don’t ask, just don’t. I don’t have a good answer. Lord Jorteg is simply, sometimes, quite busy.”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Rum didn’t press the oddity. Instead, he just stepped outside with the other elves, the elven warrior escort giving Veish a gentle push to follow. Of course those elves, too, wanted to taste air and -sun.

“Truly” Alkiath said, and sighed happily with a smile, “rarely have I more missed the outdoors.”

After a long moment of enjoying themselves, the party decided to continue on. They wanted back to their camp. However, when they finally figured out where it was and arrived; they came upon a rather disturbing sight. Stepping out of the bushes and into their camp area, they were met by the bloodied and sweaty bodies of their elven cook and herbalist. They sat, together, leaning half-conscious next to the largest tree of their camp. The 4 four half-conscious eyes each fixed with fear upon the quiet idle figure of White Rose, who stood meters away, watching them, silently.

“Careful!” the elf cook shouted. “That person is dangerous!” With a shaking finger, the cook pointed over at White Rose.

Rum stepped forward, confusion on his face. “What’s going on here?”

“It’s that White Rose” the herbalist responded, shivering in pain and looking generally to be in an awful state.

“What’s wrong with White Rose?” Rum gave his disguised skeleton a curious quick look-over.

“Ze’s mean, brutal!” The cook shouted. “Out of nowhere, ze attacked us!”

“Ze destroyed my arm” the herbalist complained, less energy left to exclaim.

Rum took in a breath, and then sighed. I feel like I can guess half of what happened here. Rum stepped forward to the shivering, broken elves, who just stared with fear at White Rose as the mage came over. Rum dropped what he’d been carrying, took a knee, and laid his left hand on the cook. “Trinity of Healing.” He followed by laying his right hand on the herbalist. “Trinity of Healing.” As the shoulders of the elves started to patch up, and reliefs of pain came, along with the other pains of healing, the 2 elves looked back at Rum, with grateful though hurt expressions.

“But why are you sitting here?” Rum questioned. “There are healing supplies in the wagon.”

“The tree...” the herbalist began.

“It protects us. It keeps ze away” the cook finished.

Rum glanced up at the big tree. Yeah, sure, a tree of that size would stop someone even as strong as White Rose.

“Let me guess” Rum began, “ze punched your shoulders.”

“Yes!” The cook quickly responded.

“Yes” agreed the herbalist.

“And could you tell me, exactly, what happened before that?”

“Well...” the cook looked to think back, a little unsure. “I was talking to him–“ the elf gestured at the herbalist, “–about some flavour leaves he’d found. And I was telling him how nice it was, and I gave him a clap on the back for it.”

“Was it a big clap?” Rum interrupted.

“Well. I guess. Does it matter?”

“Hmm. I think White Rose might’ve thought you attacked your friend here.”

“Hah!? But that’s preposterous!” The cook exclaimed.

“I’m very sorry.” Rum continued. “My White Rose doesn’t know many things, and I just realized ze don’t really know what it means to harm someone.”

Alkiath and Udevi stepped up to Rum’s side, and looked down at him as he finished talking to the cook.

“How can someone not know that?” Udevi joined in, sounding confused. “And what did ze even do?”

“Well.” Rum stood up. The elves resting on the tree looked to be getting fully healed up. “I thought ze how to punch today, and ze is incredibly, immensely strong. So I recon ze crushed their shoulders with the force of zes impact. And, as I told you, ze has some developmental issues. Or, perhaps it’s more honest to say ze has major development issues. I told ze to protect everyone here with punches if anyone came to attack, and ze didn’t know how to tell friend from foe it seems.”

“Ze can crush a shoulder by punching it with zes fist!?” Alkiath looked at Rum with wide eyes.

“Yes.”

“Can this happen again? Should we be worried?” Udevi followed.

“No. I’ll tell ze to not punch anyone anymore. Ze will stop. That’s the positive side, ze understands simple, blunt instructions quite well.”

“With a single punch? That’s unbelievably powerful.” Alkiath said, not quite capable of letting that information go. “I might even had doubted you if you told me that before, but this, with 2 bloodied witnesses.” He gestured down at the now fully healed cook and herbalist, which were ready to stand up. Safe to say, Alkiath continued asking Rum about how exactly someone becomes that strong, unless they were an adventurer already. Rum just said there were “magical enchantments” involved, and sidestepped any further interrogation of the subject.

And if it wasn’t for the exhaustion of the elves, who all longed for a proper meal and a rest, this White Rose incident could’ve kept the party up all night with the elves curious and afraid. Fortunately for Rum and White Rose however, the skeleton was only given a modest amount of curious glances as the afternoon descended into evening, and then late evening. The party having decided to stay camped at the same spot, and to rather get up early the next day to head back home.

Rum dealt with the whole affair by first simply giving White Rose an instruction not to use punches anymore. He further waited until the late evening to explain. At that time, all the elves sat around the campfire, except for 2, who stood a few meters away keeping guard over their sulking witch. Rum and White Rose, meanwhile, had arranged a space with their sleeping spots some trees away. Far enough that Rum could whisper to his skeletal friend in private.

“People sometime slap each other on their backs as a way of communicating, friendly. It’s like a congratulation, or a way to emphasize that one is joking, or well... it can mean many things.” Rum eyed the skeleton under the last tiny remnants of sunlight, the sky slowly turning into full night. White Rose returned but a blank stare. “I guess it’s difficult for you to understand. It requires a lot of socializing to know such things, and empathy is important too; to understand each other’s feelings and realize that getting slapped doesn’t necessarily feel bad, just surprising. You have no sense of pain, or so I think. And so you wouldn’t know much about how people can tolerate some sensations and not others. Also, it’s about knowing cultures and people. The more different people you experience, the more tolerant, or mentally prepared, you tend to become of the little things, like somebody hitting your back.”

Rum sighed. “You’re never going to know exactly what pain is. But I believe you know what bad is, and what good is. To you, my White Rose, I think bad and good is best understood as a bad or good story. The bad stories are the ones were there is no room for White Rose. It’s where White Rose have to reject the world ze has absorbed – the aboutness by which you have become and by which you now are. The good stories, meanwhile, are the ones where the forces spewing from your aboutness, the vectors of impulse generated by your culturation – or put another way: it is where the direction of you and your potential, align with direction of the story being made around you, and with you. Everything that has become something in this world generates further becomings, you included. And everything living wants to generate new becomings, and what, one may say, even makes them living to begin with, is that they reject that which conflicts with these new becomings of theirs. They exist to select and control their world. You are undead, alive in the technical sense. I’m sure you can understand, if not the badness of pain, nor immediately the triviality of a smack on the back among friends, at least you can understand a bad story. So I want you to do this, my White Rose, so that you may learn: think about the stories of the lives of the people that you meet. Think about what makes their life a good story, and what makes their life a bad story. And then think how you can make a good story for your friends, and their friends, and how you can make a bad story for your enemies, and the enemies of your friends. Perhaps that is how you will come to understand this. Although, ultimately of course, we want to make the story that is good for everyone. Enemies are but friends not yet made.”

Rum whispered a “Softify” on the ground beneath him, and then lay his back down, looking up at the darkening sky. He conjured a “Magical Blanket” before him twice, one for himself, and one which he threw over at the skeleton. “Cover yourself with the blanket. I have to sleep, and you my White Rose, you need to make that story: the one where everyone else thinks that you, too, are asleep.”