The search began rather tame. The first level of the dungeon had turned the entire street into a dungeon. Each house was now part of the actual level. Finding the house the kids were supposed to be in was the easy part.

“This is it.” Dale growled, staring at the hanging open door and the messed up bushes to each side of the walkway.

Dale walked up to the door and saw a small streak of dark reddish brown. He moved in closer but his eyes couldn’t focus that well close up due to laser surgery a decade ago.

“Can you guys look and see if this is blood?” Dale asked.

Xilbit and Ichnick both prodded one of the kobolds who skittishly walked over and sniffed the streak. She nodded. Dale now recognized her as one of the ‘egg layers’ of the tribe.

“It is blood.” Ichnick translated a few hissing clicks. “Human blood.”

Dale’s eyes widened and he ran into the house. The first thing he noticed was the carcass of an ogre. It didn’t stink yet, since it had only been here a few hours. The second thing he noticed was that the furniture was trashed. The couch was broken in half, a coffee table was smashed to kindling, and due to the open floor plan, a few mostly crushed dining chairs lay strewn around.

He sprinted upstairs and found two doors completely ripped off hinges. They were internal house doors meaning that it wouldn’t take Hercules to perform the feat of strength. There was more broken furniture. Also up here there were two ominous pools of blood and more blood streaks along the walls.

Dale looked over to the kobold that had sniffed the blood downstairs. She did it again and this time she smiled.

“Bugbear blood.” She remarked and pointed to a pool. Another turned out to be orc blood. Only a few of the streaks were human.

It was the master bathroom that crushed Dale. There, lying on the floor in a pool of blood, was his dog.

Bruno had been with him for ten years. After he got out of the military, the healing process he went through was incredibly difficult. Some days he’d wake up from a nightmare, thinking he was still in the desert. That’s when Bruno would wander over and lick his face, crushing that delusion and easing his spinning mind.

There were multiple stabs around Bruno’s chest and neck. His once shiny black fur was matted into clumps. The worst part were the eyes. Dale stared into those lifeless orbs and felt the accusation. “Where were you?” They asked him. “Why weren’t you here?”

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Tears blurred Dale’s vision as he stumbled out of the house and threw up on the grass. Sobs pulled at his heart and he squeezed his eyes shut against the sight of his dog’s eyes and their pleading wrath.

Dale lifted his eyes to the sky. “WHERE ARE MY KIDS YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE?!” He bellowed. “I KNOW YOU HEAR ME SHITALAZY, YOU FUCK! WHERE ARE MY FUCKING KIDS?!”

He grabbed a rock from the grass and tossed it into the uncaring dark purple night sky.

“GIVE ME BACK MY KIDS!” Dale screamed. His throat tore and his voice cracked at the end.

He collapsed to his knees and wept.

After a while, he felt a feather light touch of a small hand on his shoulder. “Mister Dale, it’ll be okay.” Anna said to him. The voice, comforting and kind, tore a massive hole into his chest and he started to sob again.

Mary came over and picked up Anna to carry her into a house next to this one that was fully intact since there hadn’t been anyone in it. Ichnick and Xilbit came over, the clicking of their toe claws echoing loud in Dale’s ears. Ichnick rested a scaled hand on Dale’s shoulder.

“We think we know what happened.” Ichnick explained.

Dale turned to stare at the little shaman with eyes filled with need for something, anything so deep it was palpable. “What?”

Ichnick motioned with his snout and Dale looked up to see the kobold with the extra sensitive nose. “Weshna is our best tracker. She guides hunts for the tribe back in our world. She recognized the scent of the bugbears. It seems Ushgub, a blood enemy of our tribe, is here in your world.”

“What would he want with my kids?” Dale asked. A new terrible thought graced his mind. “Does he eat humans?”

Xilbit and Ichnick both shook their heads. “Slaves.” Ichnick answered. “We think that is why they killed the dog. The dog was a protector?”

Dale nodded.

“It would make sense to kill the dog in front of them to break their will and remove a protector.” Ichnick explained.

Dale’s eyes were far off. “If only I’d been here.”

“No.” Xilbit’s growled response was quick and harsh. “Many fighters. Too many for tribe and Dale.”

“What are you saying?” Dale asked him.

Ichnick cleared his throat. “What my chief is saying is that even if you were here, it wouldn’t have mattered. There were too many of them.”

Weshna spoke in the guttural hissing clicks to both her tribal leaders. After she was done, Ichnick nodded.

“Also, Weshna says this happened hours ago. Even if you’d run all the way from the town to the south, you wouldn’t have made it in time. We think maybe right after the phone call, they were attacked. If they were watched, it makes sense.” Ichnick explained.

Dale nodded in agreement. Anyone keeping an eye on the house would have seen the massive use of magic and if they’d been at all ready, that would have been the perfect time to attack. A major threat had just weakened itself. Not attacking would have been a worse error.

“Also, ogre body.” Xilbit pointed into the house and then pointed at the spot where the body of the monster they’d just fought was. “The dungeon made dead ogre into monster. Hasn’t got to dead ogre in house yet.”

Dale understood what they were saying. Thinking about all this was helping him keep his mind straight. “Can she track them? Where they took them, I mean?”

Ichnick frowned. “It is nighttime, Dale. Goblin packs and predators will be hunting scraps. It would be best for us to leave the dungeon and find a place to camp for the night. If we found them now, you would have the same problem. Except orcs have low light vision. Ushgub travels with both goblins and wargs. Trying to get past wargs to free slaves at night is asking to be caught.” Reluctantly, Dale agreed with the little shaman’s logic.