Arriving at the exit to the tree, the party steps out to the branch.

“Hannah?”

“Yup, if we follow this branch for a while, we will eventually reach another one that we can climb down to on our left. It is a bit of a short cut. From there, it is almost a straight shot to the next staircase.”

“Got it, let’s get going.”

With Max leading the way, they walk on for some distance. Along the way, they find a number of bloody puddles and signs of fighting, but no corpses. Feathers here, bits of flesh there, maybe a broken claw or two and some bone fragments, some torn leaves and scratched-up bark. But never a body.

“You guys think that Bug girl did this?”

“She is the only other person in the area that we know of. I’m not sure how many other parties are in in this layer, so, probably. Great… keep an eye out in case she is nearby.”

While everyone is looking around, Hannah is examining some of the bloodstained feathers. “Where are the bodies?”

“Hmm? No idea, maybe she threw them over the side of the branch when she was done with them?” Sam offers.

Hmm, I don’t see any signs of her dragging or moving the bodies though… How did she get rid of them?

While Hannah is thinking this over, Jakub pipes in. “There sure are a lot of feathers here. Did she go and piss off all the birds or something?

“Oh, uhm, the Birds of Paradise are known to hunt halfling races and children. With her small size, they probably mistook her as prey. Normally, they just leave most adventurers alone, as they don’t usually attack a full-grown person unless antagonized.” Hannah informs him.

“Oh, sucks to be her I guess…”

Looking around, there are certainly not as many of the colorful birds flying around as there usually is.

Sam looks over the mess and comments, “From the mess she left behind, she must have fought of a whole flock of them… Easily over a dozen. Hard to imagine someone doing this by themself…”

Clapping his hands together, Max gets everyone’s attention. “Alright, focus guys. Come on, let’s get moving. Hannah, thanks for the info. If we need to, maybe we can use this against that girl if we end up fighting. Draw her near a bunch of birds and run while she is distracted…”

Continuing on their way, they find more and more blood stains and still no bodies. After a couple of hours of walking and drawing closer to where their turn is, they are forced to come to a stop as they find a little figure sitting on a leaf, just ahead of their path.

“Shit…” Jakub curses.

On the side of her head, one of her fluffy ears twitches and she turns to look at the party of adventurers. Recognition fills her eyes, and a smile grows on her face. Reaching one of her arms out, she waves to the group.

“Hey, hello again!”

Max turns to Hannah and quickly asks, “If we double back now, is there a-“

Hannah interrupts him as she is watching how Bug’s ears are twitching and moving.

“Shhh, she can hear us.”

“What!?”

Max turns and look towards Bug, who simply returns an even bigger smile. “Yes, I can hear you! Come on over so I don’t have to yell! I don’t bite!”

Everyone looks to each other nervously. Should they run and risk antagonizing the mysterious girl? Or should they risk it and try to talk their way out of this? The plan was originally to avoid her at all costs, but now it is a bit too late for that. They’ve been spotted, and if they try to run away, there is no guarantee that she won’t take that as a reason to chase them down and attack them.

Max has to stop himself from nervously swallowing as Bug watches in the distance. “Well, uhm, I guess we should go say hello and see what she wants…”

The group hardens their resolve and moves to approach. As they draw near, Max, Sam, and Jakub can’t help but tighten their grips on their sheathed weapons, ready to pull them out at a moment’s notice. Hannah just nervously follows from behind, her hands gripping her backpack’s straps as she is ready to turn and run as soon as any fighting breaks out.

Bug is just all smiles as they approach. On top of her leaf, she is sitting comfortably on a bed roll and some blankets with food spread out before her in some bowls, nuts and berries with deer jerky, while she sips from a steaming bowl of soup with some hard bread for dipping.

As Bug eats her food with two hands, she happily waves to the adventurers as they draw near with a third. Her fourth arm is relaxing on her scale coated thighs as she is sitting cross legged, her green and black scaled cloak laying open and hanging from her back, draping off the edge of the leaf behind her like a cape.

She is wearing a green cotton shirt, grey cotton shorts, and a form fitting leather chest guard. Hannah looks her over from behind the safety of her party member's backs.

Despite Hannah’s initial concerns that she might find some inhuman creature beneath that cloak, Bug’s body is actually very much human in appearance, giving much credence to her initial assumptions of Bug being originally a Dwarf of a Hobbit, or perhaps even a very tall Gnome. Regardless, besides the extra pair of arms, her body shape is very much human, even down to her legs that end with perfectly shaped feet and cute little toes. A bit too perfect though. They are the kind of feet that you would expect to see on Nobles or rich merchants. The kind that has worn the best shoes since infancy and have never seen a day of fieldwork or suffered through a harsh winter. Despite this, Bug’s body doesn’t suggest a lazy life of luxury, but of instead one of strength and purpose. Her arms and legs, and what can be gleamed through her figure under her clothes, is a healthy body of muscle and fats that seems to have developed in exactly the right way to make her body perfect in form, function, and appearance. Almost as if her body had been sculpted to look as perfect as possible by a higher power. Her thighs and rear are full, her stomach is tight, and while strong, her arms are thin and almost dainty in appearance with slender fingers and soft looking palms.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Overall, her form is amazing, like that of a warrior and a dancer mixed in perfect union, contrary to how most halfling races, like the Dwarves, tend to be stocky and thick. If she were to be a couple feet taller, she could easily be considered as the ideal body shape for most human woman. The inhuman parts of her, the scales and claws, the horns that tops her head like a Queens crown, they add more than they take, the scales in particular only seem to accentuate the curves of her thighs as they reflect the light and seem to almost glow with some kind of magic. In a single word, she is beautiful…

...

So, it’s not just her arms that have scales and fur, but also her legs. I wonder if the rest of her body is covered in scales?

Looking her over, Hannah’s eyes can’t help but to land on Bug’s chest.

Goddess, for someone so short, she has some big breasts…

Bug’s head snaps to look towards Hannah, who quickly turns to look away, her face turning crimson as she hopes that she didn’t just get caught staring. Turning to peek back at Bug, she sees Bug put down her bowl of hot soup as two of her arms move to pull her scaled cloak around her front, hiding her body.

“I don’t much like being looked at.” Bug says at Hannah, a slight threat in her voice.

Max turns to look back at Hannah before quickly turning back to Bug. “Apologies. Uhm, our friend here is just a scholarly type and was probably just interested in your Body Magic. I’m sure she meant no harm. Right?” He asks over his shoulder.

“Uh, umm, right. Yes, sorry! I’ve never seen a Body Mage before, so I was just interested in the changes that you made to your body. I’m sorry…”

“Hmmmm…” Bug hums as she extends an arm from her cloak to retrieve her bowl of soup and drinks from it. It is still hot, and steam is even visibly coming off of it.

Huh? How does she have hot soup? She doesn’t have a fire or even a cooking pot out here.

Bug continues to watch Hannah with skeptical eyes as she drinks from her soup, eventually, she turns her attention back to Max and shrugs.

“Fine. So. Where are you hu- people going?”

“We uh, are working on getting to the next floor…”

“Oh?” Bug turns her head, her ears twitching, and looks down the direction that the adventurers were heading, further past her leaf. “So, the stairs to the next floor are this way, then?”

“Yes, they are…”

“You been to the lower floors before?”

“Uhm, no. No, this is our first time heading deeper than the sixth floor.”

“But yet you know where to go and how to get to there. How?” Bug asks with a slight tilt of her head, her eyes moving slowly over everyone and slightly unnerving them.

Max swallows back his words as Bug looks over the group, her gaze eventually settling on Hannah in the back. Everyone shifts slightly to block her, but Bug doesn’t move from her spot. Instead, she simply drinks from her soup until it is empty.

“Haaah… That tasted good~”

Pulling the bowl under her cloak, Bug picks up a piece of jerky to chew on as she looks Hannah over.

“Hmm, so it’s you that knows how to get to the lower floors then?”

Hannah feels the urge to back up, but she forces herself to stop. If she runs, that might just tempt Bug into chasing her. Depending on how much she wants what Hannah has, murder might even be possible. People have killed for less in the Dungeon before…

“I uh, yes, I do. I’ve been as far as the nineth floor before.”

Bug tilts her head to the other side inquisitively, seemingly confused. “How is it that you have been to the lower floors, but they haven’t, when you are clearly weaker than these three?”

“You can tell how strong we are?” Hannah asks.

“Yes. You are about the same as some of the people I’ve seen on the first couple floors. And these three are about the same as the strongest group I had seen up there so far, but these three are easily twice your strength.”

“Uhm, I’m a Guide… I don’t participate in fights. My job is to guide parties down safe paths, disarm traps, read maps, provide information about different creatures…”

“Oh, so that’s why… Hey, could you guide me to the lower floors? I am trying to get the next boss, and I would like to get there quickly.” Bug asks nicely, her voice sounding like she is asking a friend for a simple favor.

“I… I, I uhm…”

Max cuts in by stepping further in front of Hannah, blocking Bug's view of the nervous girl. “She is currently signed on with us. I’m sorry, but she is already paid for.”

“Hmm… Ah! So, people pay for your services then- Uh, what was your name again?”

“Hannah…”

“Ah, Hannah! So, if I pay for you to guide me, then will you?” Bug asks again with a pleasant smile.

“Mhr… Like Max said, I am currently working for them…” Hannah responds from behind Max, like a child being offered candy by a stranger, becoming more and more certain that she is about to be kidnapped.

“Hmmmmm…… But you guys are also heading to the lower floors, right?” Bug asks Max as she tilts her head ever so slightly to the side again, her fluffy ears twitching a bit as her eyes narrow a little and her smiling face takes on a slightly darker expression.

Max can’t help but take half a step back. “W-we are only heading down to the eighth floor to do some gathering. Then we are heading back up top…”

“Oh, well, I would really recommend against doing that.” She says as her smile grows, exposing her perfectly straight white teeth and her sharp canines that are noticeably longer than most people’s, almost as if they are ready and waiting a chance to sink into someone’s soft neck.

Everyone finds themselves taking a step back at that, with Max slowly working up his next question. Is this where she is going to give her demands? What is she going to ask for? Will she tell them to hand over Hannah?

“Why would you recommend against it?”

“So, you don’t know then? Honestly, I was pretty surprised when you didn’t mention it at the Safe Room. It is sort of a big deal.”

Max can’t help but turn his head at this. Even Hannah is curious about it.

“Don’t know about what?”

“Well, the Undead of course. What else would it be?” Bug asks as if she is asking a question so obvious that it shouldn't even need to be spoken.

“Undead! What!?” Max asks in surprise.

“Yeah. The first four floors are currently filled with Undead and highly poisonous mushrooms. For the past two days, everything up there has been dead. You didn’t run into any before facing the first boss?”

“No, we didn’t. How could there possibly be Undead in the Dungeon. The nearest Dungeon with Undead is months away and is sealed by the Church.”

Hannah calls out while peeking out from behind Max, “You don’t seem to be lying… How could there be Undead. We just entered the Dungeon two days ago and there were no signs of any.”

“A necromancer is in the Dungeon. Might have come in after you guys did. They spent quite a while killing and raising everything on the first layer to delay their pursuers, so you probably just never ran into them.”

“How would you know that there is a necromancer here? Who are they?” Max asks.

“They have a bounty on their head. Some woman that pissed off a Noble girl by killing her guards. Last I heard, the bounty was ten gold coins.” Bug says with disinterest, like the bounty is below her.

Jakub can’t help but curse at this. “Ten gold! That’s almost enough to retire on!”

Max raises his hand and waves for Jakub to calm down.

“So, if the Undead are on the first layer, then why are you down here? Shouldn’t you be searching for the necromancer?”

“She is not up there anymore. I have seen wild Undead down here already. But not as many as the on the first layer. She is probably trying to get deeper into the Dungeon to get away from her pursuers. With the first layer turned into a death trap, she has gotten herself a window of safety to make some distance.”

“And you’re hunting her?”

Bug just simply throws another piece of jerky in her mouth and smiles.