The rogue finally escaped the dungeon, and kept running until he reached the center of the gathering. He went straight to the guild leader who’d been managing everything and reported the near full party wipe.
Dominik listened and watched through his crows which, if they seemed suspicious, should only be thought as the druid’s spies, rather than his own. The elf was frantic, explaining the death of his party, and the fight.
“There was nothing on the second floor, all the way through the sixth?” The guild manager asked.
“No, I told you, it was like it wanted us to go through. There was no maze, it was almost a straight path through the walls, all the way to each floor.” The rogue repeated.
“Do you think it just wanted to test out these new monsters, and it was getting tired of waiting for someone to make it down there?”
“Yes. I think it might’ve been because we were stronger than the rest too. We never saw the reported troglodytes. The dungeon didn’t bother with it, that’s my guess.” The rogue took another drink and tried to calm down. The guild manager’s assistant continued to write everything down, and the manager began writing as well.
After they’d taken in all the details of the monsters on the seventh floor, the floor guardians of the seventh floor, this information was spread by members of the guild to warn others. Either to tell them not to go down to the seventh floor, or to allow them the chance to create some sort of strategy, if they thought they were strong enough to defeat them.
By now, the troglodytes in the warrior party, and the rogue party, were resting. He had his backup team ready to gather any supplies from slain adventurers, and he’d made some last minute adjustments to a couple of traps. There were no more powerful parties like the previous team, and no one approaching their strength was stepping forth.
Instead, some seemingly average adventurers were the first to enter after the carnage of the last party’s foray into the dungeon. Dominik allowed them into the third floor, not bothering to offer any resistance. He wanted to try out his newest creations.
The party was all human, and quite large. Eight people. They stepped into the third floor and were greeted with a large open area. Large comfortable looking chairs made of strange leather sat there. All around a large table, inviting them to set their things down and relax. Further away, down a hallway, they could see an outhouse.
They all looked reluctant to try sitting down, and they felt no need to, considering it had been a short walk to this floor with no resistance. Except for one man who had eaten far too much from the vendors, gorging himself while he waited for their turn. He enjoyed the sort of fair they’d made a bit too much. The thought of going on like this for several more floors seemed daunting. As he clenched his cheeks and made his decision, their fate was sealed.
He convinced his party to let him use the restroom. He’d told them it might take a while, and encouraged them to sit down and relax while they waited for him. They finally did as he said. When they sat down, cautiously at first, they soon realized these were very comfortable large chairs. They sank into them and relaxed. With his party pleased, and assured that they wouldn’t leave him, the man made his way down the hallway to the outhouse.
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When he approached the outhouse, he realized it was a well treated wooden restroom. The dark brown wood shined, almost like a sort of mahogany. Almost a sort of fleshy color. The man thought it must have been very expensive.
He opened the door and it clicked shut behind him as he sat down on the seat over the dark chasm of the latrine. It was strangely soft for a wooden seat.
Just after he’d sat down, tentacles shot out from under the seat and below it, wrapping around his legs. They were thin and hard like fishing wire. They were jagged though, and they dug into his legs. As soon as that happened, more tentacles came out from between the “wood” panels at the back of the outhouse and wrapped around his body and his neck. Just an instant after that, a tentacle came out of the toilet and plunged into his backside.
It was a long, strong tentacle covered in spikes. The spikes were facing back to allow it to slide in and stay in if he tried to get off the toilet. The top of the tenacle was narrow, and sharp. It tore into him and tunneled up into his stomach, tearing him apart from the inside out. It quickly tore up into his throat and out of his open mouth, cutting off a scream that began coming out of his throat being strangled by the other tentacles.
The man had taken off his armor to sit down, leaving his backside with neither cloth, chain, or plate to protect him from the tentacle. As he was torn apart from the inside, he was dragged down into the opening of the toilet seat, which spread open and pulled him into the maw of the monster. Its huge teeth tore him apart, biting and grinding, consuming him whole. It devoured him in under a minute. The outhouse shook as it consumed him.
Even the wall themselves could come in and crush its prey if they tried to run, but it wasn’t necessary this time. Better to leave its form mostly unchanged, in case anyone else needed to rest. It deposited the armor, weapon, and most of the clothes that hadn’t been totally destroyed into an empty spot under the floor, to be recovered later.
While this was happening, the chairs struck. These chairs had sensed the outhouse had attacked, and they did the same, before they missed their opportunity to consume them.
Unfortunately the adventurers in the chairs hadn’t removed their clothing, but only one was heavily armored, sporting chainmail, while one man chose to stand. Fortunately he was standing on a very soft, almost fleshy, rug.
The large chairs opened their mouths between the seat and the back, allowing their prey to sink in, and they quickly bit into the backside of their food, holding them in place with long, sharp, jagged teeth. The chairs folded down onto them and began crushing them. Even the chainmail the man’s back didn’t protect him from the teeth piercing into him with such force.
One man sat on a chair with an ottoman. The chair folded down and started eating his torso, while the ottoman opened it’s maw and started eating his legs. Eventually his legs snapped off and were eaten completely by the ottoman while the chair got the rest of him, including his thighs.
The man who had been standing had the rug swirl up around him. The coils of the rug wrapped around him and started to tear into his legs with tendrils. It began crushing his legs. He fell and tried to drag himself to the table where he’d set down his sword. But as his hand reached the table, the table snapped shut on his hand and wrist.
The table’s maw at the center began to open up, and it began eating his hand as it crushed his arm. The coiled rug was crushing his legs and tearing the meat off of them, eating it with tiny mouths all over, biting and tearing, traveling further up his legs. As the rug did this, the table continued to travel down his arm, crushing more and more of him. Soon he had bled out, and his body was eaten by the rug and the table.
The chairs had finished eating their meals first however. They spit out the inedible materials, and began licking themselves clean with long tongues coming out from between the seat and the back where the mouth was. They licked the blood and gore from off of themselves, leaving a nice shining leather look.
Soon the troglodytes came to collect the materials left by the adventurers, and brought everything to the treasure room, or to a scrap pile. The rugs at the last bits of blood and meat left on the floor, leaving it clean. It looked like well polished stone floors. Perhaps cleaner than the rest of the dungeon really.