“You look like a rooster” Elrith blunty told Electroblade, as they sat around for their first break of the road. She pointed at the top of the gnome. “Your hair.”

“Cooo-co-cooow!” Electroblade crowed like a rooster in response, before smiling. “Is that what you expect of me? Will I from here on need to remind you my gnomanity?”

“Mecha-gnomes are usually very strict about their hairstyles” Gilda interjected, “how come you look like that?”

“Oh yes” Electroblade rolled her eyes, “we’re having that conversation” she sighed deeply. “You know, when you’ve faced death straight on as many times as I have, you kinda stop caring about the little things in life. Like whether your employer thinks you’re proper, or mom approves of your table manners, or the neighbour thinks you’re unseemly, or any such nonsense. I’m not working for those moneyfolk running the businesses of Iron City anyways, I don’t have to pretend to be okay with them deciding how I look or how I act. I made my own money adventuring!” She paused to give everyone a serious and assertive face. “Until adventuring demanded near everything I had.” She glanced over at her own stump of a missing arm. “When that point arrived, those damned people didn’t want to hire me anyways. So, I don’t want to care, and I don’t need to care. Also, I look awesome! And Heart-Piercer” she stared directly at the human, “if I look like a rooster, then it’s only because roosters are unfathomably awesome.” The gnome ended the explanation with the slightest of smiles.

“Well, you are cocky” Rum began, and suddenly every eye was on him. “I think there’s a certain fittingness to it. Like a rooster defending its chickens, you have a lot of guts.” He smiled at Electroblade.

“Well, thank you” she responded, accepting the comparison.

They all continued resting their legs for a bit, Rulli and Gilda sharing some dry nuts and biscuits, while Amez drank some grapejuice from a flask. Darmon lay splayed on the ground with his helmet off, and had been in that position for some time. The helmet, recently polished, reflected the morning sun brightly in the silence, and the man had his eyes closed in something like half-sleep or meditation.

“By the way” Elrith restarted, “did you hear about the zerg?” She looked over at Rum sitting there on a magic blanket.

Rum raised an eyebrow. “No?”

“It was announced in Iron City. The Revenge is marching on Jorteg’s dungeon in 3 days. Because of that we are in a bit of a rush.” She nodded at the road beside them. “We need to get to the dungeon, fight it, and loot it, before that army arrives. Because after they’re done with the place, they’ll strip it clean of anything valuable. And then we’ll have to shift to an entirely new dungeon.”

“They’ll move slowly though” Rulli added, shifting his dwarven buttocks on the grassy ground, and giving his small bag of nuts over to Gilda who put it in her backpack. “It’s an army, but we’re a small group. We’ll have a bit more than 3 days of headstart, I think. Maybe 4” he counted with his fingers, “or even 5. They’ll need to set up camp, and prepare everything, and coordinate. But we travel light.” He gestured to all of them.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“A zerg” Rum mumbled, as his eyes absentmindedly fell to the ground, and his hand touched his beard.

“A zerg?” Amez looked surprised. “I’ve heard about those. If that’s happening, why don’t we join the zerg? Isn’t there supposed to be a lot of upsides to being in a zerg?” He darted his eyes to everyone, except for the ground-splayed Darmon.

Rulli shook his head. “For you, maybe, it’d be less risky, since you’re so inexperienced. Although you wouldn’t make much money from the loot. But for us” he pointed at each of the original 4, “it’s lost opportunity. We didn’t nearly reach level 40 just to be put on the sidelines and receive coppers and silver for our trouble. We want gold” he emphasized.

“And to break into the 40s” Elrith added with a ground-staring nod, before looking up and at Amez, and then to Rum.

“Hmm” the wizard sounded, stroking his beard. “We’ll have to enter the dungeon pretty soon upon arrival then.”

“Indeed” Elrith agreed.

Rum glanced from dwarf to other dwarf, and to Elrith. “You want this last operation to be a big win? Is that what you plan?”

“Indeed” Elrith repeated.

“And, does that mean you want to try to break through that metal door we ignored last time?”

“In-deed” she gave a big nod.

“How?” Rum looked curious, raising an eyebrow ever so slightly.

The short human picked up the large crossbow which’d sat beside her on the grass, and put its top half over her lap. “Martin” she answered, patting her weapon, and then glanced over at Amez, “and your little brother’s enchantment.”

“Will that be enough?” Rum eyed the crossbow skeptically. “Splintering wood is not the same as blasting open a metal door.” He too gave his little brother a glance. The latter, after all, was the expert on this enchantment. Though the handsome one hadn’t seen the metal door in question.

“I don’t know” Amez responded to their glances, “it’s possible it’ll work. I made a similar enchantment for an archer, and that woman used it to shatter a rock, she said. So, maybe?”

“Some rocks are solid, others are brittle” Rum commented, “we can’t know from that if the door will break open or not.” He met eyes with Elrith, not judging her decision, as much as voicing his immediate thoughts.

She shrugged. “Either it’ll work, or it won’t. Anyways, I’ve bought a couple of enchanted bolts as well that explode on impact.”

“What is behind the metal door?” Amez asked, glancing from Elrith to his big brother.

Rum shrugged.

“A vault, if we’re lucky.” Elrith answered.

“Almost every dungeon lord keeps a hoard of valuables in their dungeon” Rulli explained. “Weapons of great craftswork, enchanted armor, books of magic, loads of gold coins, potions, rare ingredients. Why have a thick metal door there, if not to stop people from entering? Must be something important inside.”

“What if it’s a trap?” Amez asked.

“That’s always a risk when you’re a dungeoneer” Elrith replied.

“If it’s a trap” Darmon suddenly spoke from his splayed position in the grass, “then we’ll have to try not to spring it.”

“Even if it’s not just a trap” Rulli said, “there’ll still likely be traps inside. No dungeon lord would leave a vault unguarded.”

Elrith and Rum both nodded, and the party of 6 went quiet for a while.

Finally, after a few minutes, Gilda decided to stand up. She dusted her pants of compressed grass bits using her hands, and strapped on her backpack. “Well, should we get going again? As has been mentioned, we’re in a race against a zerg, after all.”

Slowly, the others stirred to stand.