“Thank you, my mother gave it to me.”

“Robert, just how long have you been in this room?”

There was a long pause as they waited for Robert to think about this. “Today I think I’ve been in here for around twelve hours.”

“That’s quite a long shift,” Calista said with some sympathy.

“Not really. I quite like it in here.”

“So is this your room then?”

“No, this is the spare bedroom.”

“Ah, I see. It’s quite the place.”

“It is. As I said, I like it in here.”

“And judging by all the resistances you listed off, you’re probably quite the monster.”

“Who says I’m a monster?”

“Well, I was assuming that if you’re guarding a bedroom in this place that you’d more than likely be a monster of some sort.”

“I prefer the term non-standard NPC.”

“Of course,” nodded Calista, “and just how much are you getting paid to guard this place?”

“I’m not.”

“Well if you’re an NPC, then you really should be getting paid. Otherwise, you’re more than likely someone else’s property.” There was another long silence as Calista waited for Robert to think about this. When he didn’t reply, she continued, “I don’t mean to upset you, but I think the facts speak for themselves.”

There was no answer for quite a while, but Calista waited until finally Robert let out a long, angst-filled sigh. “Well, when you put it like that … but you don’t know what kind of deal I have here.”

“Have a lot of friends, do you?” Calista asked.

“Not really.”

“Get to take vacations, then? A week off here and there.”

“Not so much.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Extra grog on the weekends? Maybe an extra dessert on Wednesdays to get you through the week?”

Silence again.

“Look,” Calista said, “just tell me whatever it is you want in order to let us out of here and I’ll let you know if I can do it.”

“I’m not supposed to do that,” Robert replied.

“Yes, I get that, but if your master isn’t really treating you well, then what reason do you have to serve him so blindly?”

There was some nervous shuffling in the corner by the dresser. Calista thought she heard something like scales scrape against the wood. Whatever it is, it doesn’t sound like it’s lying about the resistances. She shot a look back at Lefty as the mage mouthed the word ‘sleep spell.’ She gave him a nod while holding up her hand as a signal to wait until she had finished negotiating. He nodded back.

Robert said, “I don’t know how me letting you go helps me in any way, though. If I get fired, I don’t have any place else to go.”

“How about this then,” she said, “what if we take you with us and we all escape the dungeon together? We’ve been having trouble finding the exit. Since you’re from here, perhaps you can help us with that.”

“Well …”

There were more shuffling feet. Whatever it was, it sounded very heavy and much larger than she was. Behind her, Calista could see Lefty making signs in the air as he prepared the spell.

Robert’s voice came back a bit timid this time. “… I guess if you don’t mind having someone with you, then I guess I haven’t been outside this dungeon really … like … ever.”

“Great! Then welcome to the team, Robert!” Calista smiled brightly as she held her hand to her chest. “My name is Calista and I’m a delver class.” She turned and touched Lefty’s shoulder. “This is Lefty, he’s a mage if you couldn’t tell. He does most of the magic for us.” She then touched a pouch on her belt. “I also have a Voorlock with me, but I don’t have him summoned at the moment.”

Robert’s voice became curious. “Does the Voorlock have a name?”

“No, I stopped naming my mounts as it turned out to be bad luck,” she replied.

“Ah, I see.”

Calista aimed her smile at the corner again. “So, just how do we get out of here?”

“Yeah … let me see here …” A door in the closet opened and shut itself as a key floated through the air. “If I can find the slot over here. Let me see …” The key floated over to the wall behind the bed. “… You know, it’s really nice of you guys to take me in like this. I don’t mind being by myself, but it really is nice to have someone to talk to you know. If you guys want, I could bring you up to my room where I have my insect collection. It’s really special. I’ve been working on it for a long, long time and I have a lot of insects that I think a lot of people would be interested in if they just saw them. I don’t know how many species are here down in this dungeon, but I think it’s a lot. Like, probably a lot of them are like undiscovered species and stuff and …”

“Robert,” Lefty interjected, “we need to get going …”

There was a disappointed sigh from behind the bed.

Calista spoke up. “What he means is that we’d love to get going so we can see your insect collection. It sounds really interesting. Isn’t that right, Lefty?”

“Er … yeah.” Lefty nodded vigorously.

Robert’s voice perked up. “Great! Like I said, a lot of them are pretty unique.” The key floated along the wall as its wielder searched. “You see a lot of weird stuff down here in the caves, especially the insects, which is why I started collecting them. I remember the first insect I collected, the one that got me started, it was a red and black beetle that I found crawling along the edge of the marsh … ah, there it is …” The key pushed itself into a slot in the wall and turned. The bars over the doorways rose with a ‘clank’ and Calista heard the latches unlock. “… As I was saying, this beetle was just this weird-looking red and black thing that had these long mandibles …”

Calista walked straight over to the other doorway and turned the latch. When it opened, she breathed a quick sigh of relief as she let Lefty through. Then she felt the heavily muscled scales of Robert brush past her.

“… and it was just crawling along the water’s edge like this … thing!”

Calista walked through and pulled the door shut. As she turned around, she could see Lefty bite his lip in concentration as he waved a series of magical signals in the air.

Robert’s voice continued, “And then I looked at it, and …”

There was a sound like a distant lullaby as Robert’s voice cut off. Then, half a beat later, the floor shook with a loud ‘thud.’

Lefty let out a sound of relief. “I think we can all agree that went far enough.”

Calista looked down at where she had heard the monster land. There was an invisible snore.

“Agreed,” she said.