"Shut up, do you want to give us to the fucking doll on a plate?"

Gram looked at the babbling idiots behind him. Normally, he'd be just like them, laughing, joking coarsely, talking about their last visit to the brothel and how kind the ladies were, keeping morale high while being alert. But this time, he wasn't amused, and he wasn't happy.

This wasn't how A ranks hunted when there was something they knew was dangerous. Maybe they felt no sense of danger because it was small, because they were well armed, and well armoured. The guild had paid for some of it, like Bren's plate, but mostly, their armour and weapons had been made from monster materials and strong ores, that they had earned through battle.

"Sorry, Gram." At least Storm apologised, while the others looked a little resentful. So Gram decided to point out a few things, looking round with hammer ready the whole time.

"Why have we gotten so far and so strong?" He could feel the resentment subsiding a little, but he wasn't finished. "We got this far because we didn't overestimate ourselves. Slow and steady, make sure you're stronger. They sent us in, and they stopped anyone but us from going to the 5th, and only B ranks to the 4th with a warning that it was on their own damn hides, because one of those dolls, the little shits we all love to hate, can apparently leap fast enough to make a horned rabbit look like a sloth. And unlike a horned rabbit, said little shit has a nice, sharp knife, and claws, and is just like the other little shits, in that they don't bother going anywhere they can't cut, but do go for where it hurts the most."

Silence. Briefly, Gram looked back, and everyone was focused again. Good. He knew that inside, they were a little ashamed and angry, but better that than dead. They knew that. They'd been together since they were stupid little kids who thought that adventuring was play, and, to a man, shit their pants and almost died the first time they faced a real threat.

Still, he would check around this corner, an-

"Everyone, be ready. Bren, Storm, cover the sides. Alto, spear down and ready." They nodded and spread into formation smoothly, making their way forwards. Gram's eyes were firmly ahead, staring at the bodies on the ground, and piles of dust that he had seen once before.

"Bookshelves. What are bookshelves doing here?"

"We can worry about that later. Same with the chest in the corner. Bodies first, and we can report back that there's a Gorgon somewhere here too, maybe a mage. Shit..." Gram was angry. Not least because he recognised some of these bodies. If he'd known, if he'd come here earlier...

He shook the thoughts out of his head. Nobody had come down this way in recent years. There wasn't any point, since everything past here was a maze of dead ends, and nothing but dead ends. From the first, guild mappers called this area "The Pointless Annex", and the name very quickly stuck. And the Reavers had been digging as deeply as they could into the Altane Dungeon for those past few years too. The 5th floor was... A stopping off point. They were much more focused on the 8th to 12th (The 12th being the one that currently halted their progress.)

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Shaking his head again. Losing focus, annoying. Bodies. First, the wounds. The seven piles of dust, he disregarded. Nothing to be returned, and the cause of death was clear. The rest, though...

Aleen. Shanoa. Grint. Smiling Jack. Lind. They'd all gone missing, but people had assumed they'd gone missing from lower floors than this, so that's where the search focused. Smiling Jack had been missing the longest, followed by Lind, Aleen, Shanoa, and, most recently (Gram thought... A year? Yeah, a year) Grint.

And so, Smiling Jack was the worst to Gram, even though Grint had the most serious injuries, with both their legs lying a little behind where they fell, and a larger hole than the others in the back of their skull. Because Jack wasn't smiling. He wasn't shocked, or frightened, or dazed like the others.

No, his expression was slack, and Gram could tell that even before his throat had been cut, his mind had been completely broken.

Six years. Six years of being a statue. Gram couldn't imagine it, and Gram didn't want to imagine it. Silently, he searched through their pouches, taking the money (it would be used well when drinking solemnly later), and their guild cards. None of them had any family or surviving friends, to Gram's knowledge, and they certainly had nothing that looked like keepsakes. Standing, he looked at the rest.

Everyone was shaken. They wouldn't let it break them, but they'd heard stories about gorgons too, and they could easily put the picture together. Nobody here was as stupid as they looked. Nobody survives this long if they aren't at least cunning.

And, to prove this, Alto began with the smartest statement.

"Those aren't claws, although Grint's legs might be due to wind magic. Looks like that one time Cedric, y'know, that asshole mage with the blue hair? Looks like the time they took down saurids. Went for the legs first."

Gram nodded. "Petrified, then released, and killed. We'll never know who the other seven were, but this makes for a really shitty report. A Gorgon mage and this weird Doll, working together. That's my read. Anyone disagree?"

Nobody shook their head. Nobody said a word. But everyone's gazes were flickering in the same direction, and Gram chuckled.

"Yeah, yeah, I get you. A chest. Stay formed up, stay ready. You know what happens to people who aren't careful around chests." They all nodded, and everyone except Bren turned toward the chest. Bren watched behind them.

Looking closer, Gram could see it was a pretty shabby chest. Not that good things couldn't come from the shabby ones, but he-

A loud roar, a flash of teeth, a gigantic tongue and a flash of Gram's hammer, Storm's short sword, and Alto's spear all striking as Gram leapt back

"SHIT, MIMIC!"

Looking behind them wasn't the highest priority anymore. Battle was.

----------------------------------------

Afterwards, it was Storm who noticed the most important thing first.

"Hey... Where did those shelves go?"

They searched, but nothing was found. No more Mimics. And no Doll. And no Gorgon.

They even searched the floor three times, before they grudgingly went back.