The passage is winding, leading us away from the central chamber. After a few minutes of walking, I notice a sound. Like someone is hacking at rock with a little miners pick. I gesture for the others to stop as I carefully sneak ahead to get a look. I notice a strong smell of sulphur in the area that makes me tune down my enhanced sense of smell. After a minute I get to a long hallway with an upwards incline. The floor is smooth except for a slight impression carved into the ground by the stream. My eyes are drawn to a rock set against the wall. A few moments go by, and it starts moving, the clicking sound steady until it stops at another spot. I carefully creep back to the others.

“So there’s a rock down there.”

They look at me like I just asserted water is wet.

“Don’t be dicks. There’s a rock that’s moving around. Some kind of elemental or golem maybe.”

Dale looks from me to Tiene.

“So… this is a dungeon, right? There was bound to be monsters. Let’s kick some ass.”

I look at him carefully. He sounds so much like a player. I shrug as I look at Tiene. She nods excitedly, despite the clear expression of fear on her face.

Skill increased: Social Perception.You are now a Beginner in the skill Social Perception....

I minimise the prompt. I can deal with that when we’re out of this place.

“Okay then. A farmer, an engineer and a…”

I look at Dale.

“A coachman?”

He shrugs.

“Close enough I guess.”

I turn towards the passage.

“Not exactly the kind of adventuring party they write ballads for. I guess it’s bouldering time.”

As one we move into the passage.

The boulder is in mid movement when we get close enough for it to spot us. Like a bunched up newspaper it unravels itself, standing to half my height. A vaguely humanoid shape, a chest, two legs, two arms but no head. It’s arms end in pick like growths, giving it’s posture a distinctly aggressive tone. We fan out, ready to attack together. Tiene takes the torch so I can use both hands on the crowbar. With an unsettling quiet, the little monster comes at us.

Dale moves first, stepping into the golem’s reach, preventing it from using it’s full strength. With a push, he topples the monster, leaving it in a heap on the floor. I circle it as Tiene stands back, giving us light. Dale looks at us with pride.

“Don’t worry guys, I got it and…”

I push him aside just as the monster is about to nail his foot to the floor. Why do people always brag before checking if the job is done. It’s Dales turn to crash to a heap as I turn towards the golem. It’s reconfigured itself to a rock on the floor, glowing eye pointing towards us, with four limbs swinging towards me. I throw myself to one side to avoid the worst, suffering a glancing blow in the process.

You have been hit for 30% damage.

I get to my feet as fast as I can, standing next to the others, now much more careful.

“What should we do? It’s not coming at us.”

Dale’s voice has a petulant twang to it now. He’s right though, the creature is taking it’s sweet time just waiting for us to attack. I guess that makes sense. We could bypass it, but then we’d have it at our backs, not knowing what’s ahead.

“My best guess is that the eye is a weak spot. Alternatively we have to disable it’s arms somehow. Can you two distract it for a moment? I’ll try to tag it when the arms are clear.”

They both acknowledge my suggestion, getting ready for the attack. With a shout, Tiene springs forward, dealing a glancing blow to two arms before jumping back out of range. The limbs both reach for her as Dale repeats the movement from the other side. For a brief moment, the critical spot is clear, and I lift the crowbar in both hands, aiming it like a spear. With all the power I can muster, I lunge. A loud crack sounds around us as I strike the target, and we’re all showered in light for a second.

Skill increased: Leadership.Skill discovered: Piercing weapons.

As the light fades, I look at the others. Tiene is nursing her arm and Dale is limping slightly. All in all a good round. I check them both out more thoroughly, but their wounds are already healing. Good thing too as I don’t have my healing magic in this world. I pat Dale on the shoulder.

“Great work buddy. Now we know how to kill those things.”

He smiles sheepishly.

“Yeah. Thanks for saving me there. It’d be embarrassing to die to the first monster in the dungeon.”

I chuckle, but Tiene looks serious.

“How can you two laugh at that? You can come back, Tee, you’re an adventurer. If either of us die, we’re gone.”

We both stop and look at her. Dale steps forwards and hugs her.

“If we die, we die. And we need to keep our wits about us. Better not to worry.”

I join the hug.

“Everyone deals with it differently. And I’ll do everything in my power to keep you both alive.”

The anger drains from her, and she hugs us back.

“Fine. Lunkheads. But that’s not an invitation for you to die, you hear me?”

I smile at her.

“Yes ma’am. Now let’s continue. I don’t know if this little guy will respawn, but best not to take any chances.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Bending over, I check out the remains before we go on.

Broken golem core (Minor)Slag

Looking closer I notice that the stone is actually hardened slag around depleted ore. That’s interesting. I pocket the core for later.

“We’ll split the loot when we get out of here.”

They nod and we move on.

Soon the cave opens up into a larger room. The ceiling here is damp earth, water slowly dripping down. In the middle of the cave is a large pile of rocks, distressingly similar to the golem’s body. I look at my companions.

“If that thing starts moving or glowing, run. I’ll distract it. There’s no way we can kill something that big.”

When I stop talking, there’s an echo around us.

“thing that big… that big… big…”

We carefully approach the massive heap, seeing the striations clearly. The roof here is thin, and when there’s been rain, the water has carried pollutants with it further down the mine, into the groundwater. With my enhanced sense of smell, the odours here are terrible. All around us are puddles of brackish water, with various kinds of mushrooms growing floor to ceiling.

“So what are we doing here? Is there anything we can do?”

Dale is poking at the slag heap with his foot. At least it’s not waking up to eat us.

“Spread out and search the room. If anything moves, shout and we’ll meet by the entrance.”

I hand out torches to the others and we begin investigating.

I’m certain there’s something wrong in this room, but I can’t put my finger on it. I go to the furthest corner to check out a deeper puddle against the wall. There are rainbows on the surface, indicating either metal or oil, but there’s nothing down there when I root around with my stick. I’m about to return to the others when I notice something green growing from a crevice.

Skill increased: Perception.

I get closer to investigate, finding a small vine attached to a fat pod like growth, green with pulsating purple streaks. I reach out to check it’s stats when I hear a voice behind me.

“I wouldn’t touch that.”

The voice is cold and hard, but tries to be playful. I spin around, but there’s nothing there but a puddle of water, rippling. For a moment I channel Dale, considering putting my face closer to the surface, but I ignore the impulse, heading towards the others. The room is big enough for the others to be out of sight in small side passages and crevices, but when I get to the centre of the room I realise I can see three torches.

“Guys, meet up at the entrance. I think there’s trouble.”

My voice echoes back at me, followed by the grating voice giggling at me. None of the lights are moving. In high alert, I move towards the furthest one, watching my steps as I go. When I’m about halfway, a spray of water hits me from the side. I manage to cover the torch with my body to prevent it from going out, but whatever is playing with me has found a new favourite game.

I get to the side cavern in for Tiene to look at me. A spray of water drenches me from behind, finally extinguishing my torch when she runs towards me. I hold my hands up to stop her.

“Don’t get too close. We need to keep distance between us to keep it from putting out our torches. Quickly, light another one and hand it to me.”

She freezes for a moment from the conflicting command, then catches my thrown torch. As soon as she returns it we hear movement from behind me. We turn as one to see Dale coming towards us looking like a drowned cat. Tiene lets out a laugh as she looks at his miserable expression. I’m about to meet him when a stray thought catches me off guard. I reactivate my enhanced sense of smell, ignoring the overwhelming sulfurous stench. I realise I can tell exactly where Tiene is. But the Dale in front of me smells no different from his surroundings. I raise the crowbar, gesturing for him to stop.

“What are you doing?”

Tiene sounds surprised. The thing that might not be Dale stops, taking a step back.

“If you’re Dale, turn around and go towards the exit. We’ll be right behind you.”

It complies, walking backwards out of the cavern. We follow as close as we dare. In the central chamber, there are twelve separate torchlights glowing, all in different places. I groan quietly as I see several copies of all of us wandering around the cave. Some meeting each other, others attacking. I address the room at large.

“Look, I get that you want to play with your guests, but can we just drop the theatrics? We’re kind of in a hurry here.”

Every creature in the cavern stops for a moment except one, two caves down from us, who looks around in apparent confusion. Dale. I smile, taking a step forwards. With all my weight I whack the thing in front of us, and it explodes, showering me with reeking, stagnant water, extinguishing another torch. Tiene gasps. Then the one I think is the real Dale looks towards us and seems to make up his mind, dashing towards us.

“No, you idiot, we’re coming to you. Don’t…”

He’s already reached us by the time I finish my sentence, and I get my confirmation. This guy smells like a farmer.

“What the hell is going on? Those people over there tried to get me to put out the torch, and I found this weird plantlike thing in the cave.”

He seems to be slightly unnerved by the excitement.

“I think this is the first level boss, but I haven’t seen it’s physical form yet, just these copies.”

We relight our torches and form a wide triangle, making our way carefully towards the exit.

“That plant thing you found, do you think that could be the weak spot?”

I look at Dale.

“I considered it. I found one too. As soon as I was about to touch it I was interrupted. We’d better come back when we’re better prepared though. We can’t defeat anything we can’t see.”

We reach the main entrance, dashing out as soon as we get there. We make it five metres before we reach a dead end.

“Wait, this isn’t where we came in.”

Tiene looks at me.

“Of course it was. There’s the…”

She points at the floor, but the stream isn’t there anymore.

“Shit, it tricked us.”

We turn back towards the cavern to find several of the copies standing there, looking at us. I turn to Dale.

“I think we need to fight our way out.”

He shrugs, drawing his long dagger.

“Hold my torch.”