“No! No throw!” Meekknuckle screeched as he sailed through the air, in what was quite an impressive arc, before he landed on top of a rotting body with a disgusting and very audible squelch.

“Ha! Just add Goblin chucking to my list of skills!” Zach boasted as he flexed his muscles and grinned.

“Aye, yer also good at makin’ a racket too!” Winifred complained. “Ye probably just woke at least a dozen beasties with that show.”

“Pfft. Do you see anything attacking the idiot?” Zach asked, waving over at Meekknuckle with a flourish. Coated in blood, and worse, the diminutive Goblin had leaped up from his disgusting landing spot and was currently trying to wipe himself down. Still, despite his scream and the noise he’d made when he landed, there was no sign of anything coming for him.

Skrakch shook his head at his idiotic companions. Despite Zach’s stupid move, it had the desired effect. With a low grumble of rumbling stone, Ornn followed his master into the cavern, impassively crushing bodies under his heavy feet as he walked and created a path through the bodies. When nothing attacked him, Skrakch followed behind with Winifred and Zacharias bringing up the rear. While a path had been cleared, the floor beneath them was still saturated with bodily fluids from the dead. Skrakch shuddered as his uncovered paws came into contact with it. It was hard not to slip and slide amongst the blood and putrid liquids.

“Mate we are gonna fucking stink after this,” Zacharias moaned.

“Then at least you’ll be more likely to take a shower!” Skrakch shot back with a smirk.

“Will the two of ye shut up!” Winifred demanded. It sounded as though she was speaking through gritted teeth. Skrakch didn’t blame her, after all, this was probably the most disgusting thing that they’d done.

But, Skrakch mused as they pushed onwards, it wasn’t without its perks. Being at the front meant that he was in the prime location for spotting any likely-looking loot. He chuckled to himself as he pulled a coin purse free and shook a decent amount of coin into his paw. They might stink to all Hells but the dead rarely complained about being robbed.

He glanced over his shoulder to see Zach helping himself as well, quick fingers plucking anything of value with ease. Winifred was watching him, looking mildly disgusted but then she grabbed a coin purse too before showing some interest in a nearby sword. Meek stayed ahead, having pulled himself up on Ornn’s broad shoulders. His scrappy clothing was stained with bodily fluids and he appeared to have no interest in the free loot, little fool that he was.

Picking and looting their way through the cavern, the group of thugs stuck to the left wall, moving slowly in the hopes it wouldn’t awaken whatever killed their predecessors.

It was a slow, nerve-wracking process, but they’d managed to clear a quarter of the distance soon enough.

Leaning down, Zach let out a thoughtful hum. The Halfling reached down and pulled out a skeletal corpse by its breastplate from the sea of decomposing corpses.

“Bastard’s been down here long enough, nothing but bones left to him.” He whispered, wiping the dust off his new friend. “And would you look at that, that’s the emblem of the Chersetra Empire, isn’t it? The Hells is it doing under Dray’Mel?”

“You’re forgetting that we’re in a magical Dungeon,” Skrakch replied. “I figure we’re just entering through one of many portals. I mean, look at the number of bodies down here. It’s quite a lot for a random Dray’Mel mausoleum. It explains the fucking armour too.”

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Skrakch couldn’t help but grin wildly. As dangerous as this room seemed to be, just thinking about all the treasures down here had him salivating. Only the bravest of souls, or the largest of fools, would risk life or limb entering a dungeon. And those brave souls usually had decent gear, all for the picking. His new scepter could do with some decent armor to set it off.

The group stayed against the left wall and continued to make their way towards the exit. They’d so far managed to remain fairly quiet aside from the initial noise of throwing Meek. They were keeping their voices low and even Ornn seemed to be moving with more care than usual.

Glancing back at the large Golem, it was then that Skrakch noticed that Meek had disappeared from his shoulder. He sighed deeply, feeling a sudden sinking feeling wash over him. Before he could say anything, however, there was a loud snapping noise from behind him. Skrakch whipped round and saw Zacharias and Winifred looking at him curiously.

“That sounded like a skull being crushed by a foot.” Zacharias mused.

“What, ye can tell it was a skull from the noise?” Winifred asked in an incredulous whisper. “I dinnae think that’s a thing,”

“Listen, love,” Zacharias replied, raising his voice ever so slightly and making Skrakch cringe at the noise. “When you’ve been in the business as long as I have, you get used to all sorts of shite. I’d bet my bottom coin that it was a skull,” He explained with a sage look on his face.

“As much as I hate to say it…” Skrakch interjected, suddenly seeing the cause of the noise. “He’s right…”

Skrakch pointed over to Meekknuckle. The Goblin was standing by a body, his left foot on the remains of a skull which he’d seemingly crushed into powder. Meek had frozen in place, his eyes wide with terror. His left hand was outstretched, reaching for a hunk of rotten cheese that was poking out of a corpse's tattered provisions bag.

“Fuckin’ hell you little-”!

Zacharias’ curses were lost when a loud rumbling noise seemed to reverberate around the cavern, causing the ground beneath them to shake. The piles of bodies began to undulate as if something underground was pressing its way through them.

Skrakch froze in place, his eyes tracking the movement. His paw instinctively reached for his new scepter, as the source of the noise and movement suddenly revealed itself. A pile of bodies burst upwards towards the ceiling as though a bomb had gone off, gore and bodily fluids started to rain down upon them as a long serpentine creature burst free.

Its body looked as though it had been crafted entirely from bones, its long spine punctuated with rib bones from tail to neck. Its skull was wide and flat and larger than a standard doorway. It had dark holes where its eyes were supposed to be, with two glowing green embers shimmering with malice. The creature’s jawbone was fully on display, revealing a set of large spiked teeth that looked capable of tearing a man limb from limb. Skrakch vaguely recognized the shape of the creature, its skull at the very least, resembled that of a Nagas, a famed underwater creature of the Chestera Empire.

Now that it had freed itself from the confining sea of bodies, the monster easily towered over them all, Ornn included. It was as tall as The Plagued Rat, easily over two stories in height and length.

“What the fuck is that?” Winifred demanded, her eyes wide with fear. The beast started to swing its massive head in her direction, its creepy eye sockets seemed to focus on her despite them being empty. It opened its huge jaw and let out a bestial roar, as the Naga began to slither sinuously towards its targets.

“It’s commonly known as a run-the-fuck-away!” Zacharias cried out as he started to bolt for the other end of the cavern.

Skrakch seemed frozen on the spot for a moment before his survival instincts kicked into high gear. Winifred certainly hadn’t needed to be told twice, she’d also started to head for the exit, looking back over her shoulder every so often at the beast.

Meekknuckle was also doing his best to escape but the Goblin was a lot slower than the others, tripping and slipping. The creature’s focus turned to him as it let out another roar. Skrakch was vaguely aware of someone, Winifred probably, urging him to help but the Ratling would not be deterred from his escape attempt. He’d always been upfront to his companions about his first golden rule of adventuring.

In case of emergencies, always bring a minion who’s slower than you.