Oh, this was personal, now.
Threadbare's little girl had grown up to become a Steam Knight. She wore a giant suit of mechanical armor, animated by a combination of magic and engineering. She'd named her armor Reason. After a complicated series of events, Threadbare and Celia had decided to turn reason into an armor golem, and give her sapience.
Now they were fighting copies of her. Which meant that someone had managed to control or fool Reason into walking into one of the dungeon's enemy control pillars.
But Threadbare had neither time nor inclination to vocalize any of this, because Reason's copies were attacking him with everything they had.
Fortunately they didn't have much.
“They're level nine!” Called Graves, once he could see through the steam. “Flagged as mid-bosses!” He threw a few more mana bolts at the increasingly-battered and scratched up suits of armor. The magical attacks blew open one of their cockpits, revealing nothing inside.
There wasn't much point to armor piercing attacks, when your target was nothing but armor, really.
“Also the floor is still opening up!” the Mousewife screamed. “Oh oh oh, there goes my Portmantel!”
“Portmanteau,” Threadbare corrected, dodging nimbly between the legs of the bolt-throwing Reason duplicate, and slashing at the cables in its ankles.
CRITICAL HIT!
The armor toppled, as Threadbare sent the last of his animi forward, trying to distract the remaining golem. “Hurry! Get past,” he told his friends as he put his arms to the fallen Reason and pushed, pushed with all of his bear-like strength, plowing the twitching armor into its twin and forcing the two of them against the wall. He couldn't look back, dodging the blade as it dipped low, slashing and trying to behead him, but he caught the sweat-and-bone-dust scent of Graves and the lilac-and-cinnamon smell that was the Mousewife as they surged past him. Only then did he spare a glance at the far corridor to find that yes, it was opening up over the lava pit below, and no, he didn't have much time left before it got to them.
So he cut and ran, taking a hit on his arm that spilled stuffing as he fled after his friends.
The last of Graves' animi leaped past him as he went, battering and slowing the sword-wielding midboss until the floor opened beneath it as well, and the two midbosses fell in a heap of dark oak splinters, disappearing beneath the lava.
Threadbare glanced back in time to see both of them shoot their arms up from under the lava and give him dual thumbs up, and though he couldn't figure out why, the motion made him sad.
But the golems that died had not the true Reason, and he pushed the worry from his mind. The real Reason was sitting safely... well, somewhat safely... in the Core Chamber.
It was still the principle of the thing. And Threadbare was now fairly convinced that whoever was doing this was either too callous to care that they were having friends fight each other, or cruel enough to enjoy the torment they were causing.
The bear found himself getting angry. And when they made it to the T-junction, he stopped the others. Taking a breath for a long sentence, he pushed down his distaste for taking the lead as he spoke. “I think... I think we need to end this quickly,” Threadbare told them. “Whoever is doing this seems to like fooling people and using traps. The more we search and explore, the more chances they have to kill us with a nasty trick. We should find the end boss and the core chamber and end this, instead of triggering every trap we come across.”
“But what about the children?” the Mousewife asked, hugging her tail to her.
“I've been giving that some thought,” Graves said. “We might be better served by pressing ahead. I think there are one of two possibilities here... either our foe doesn't care about the children, and has them tucked away in a non-risky situation, or they will be used as bait or the stakes for one of our later challenges.”
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“But even if it's the first one, they're not entirely safe,” Threadbare said. “They might be tucked away in a non-risky situation, but they're children. If they go exploring they could trip a trap or wander into something meant for us.”
There was a long pause as each of them thought of the golem juveniles trying to handle the lava room, or the Mimic Mimics.
“We need to go kill that guy! Quick!” the Mousewife screeched, hopping up and down. “Those poor babies don't know any better!”
“We don't know it's a guy,” Graves cautioned.
“I have a feeling it is,” the Mouswife sniffed. She pulled a long hat pin from her bonnet, and strode down toward the dark hallway. “And I'm going to give him such a poke!”
Hastily, Threadbare got in front of her, and Graves scrambled to keep up with the little toys. “Glowgleam,” he muttered, holding up a glass device that cast beams in all directions through metal-bounded panes as he held it aloft.
“I hear someone talking... no, shouting,” Threadbare said, and hurried down into what was definitely a natural cavern.
“I recognize the walls. This is the danger room for Dungeon Delving 101,” Graves said, glancing around. “Parts of it, anyway. It's been rearranged and expanded. Be careful, watch your step!”
But no sooner had he said that than Threadbare found the tripwire the hard way. He really didn't have an excuse, either. The wire that was at shin level to a human caught him straight in the face, and bounced him back a foot.
Fortunately the blade that scythed out of the corridor next to him was well above his height, and it whistled by harmlessly.
That gave the team pause. But another shout rang out of the darkness ahead, and Graaves cursed. “Give me a moment,” he said, and drew out a bag of marbles. “Glow Gleam!”
The bag glowed, and when he opened it and threw the marbles out into the darkness, the glow transferred and split between the tiny orbs.
It revealed quite a few things.
Firstly, that the tunnel they'd descended opened up and turned into a proper cavern, with stalactites and stalagmites and other things that ended in -ite.
Secondly, that there were tripwires strewn all over the place, ranging from a latticework at foot level, to a few nasty looking ones at head level, and a few crazy diagonal ones zig-zagging between stalactites and stalagmites.
Thirdly, that there were a whole bunch of wooden mannequins crowding around a pair of figures defending one of the exits out of the cavern.
And fourthly, (as the marbles rolled closer,) that the two figures were quite familiar.
One, wearing a full-face helm with a glowing red visor, was Proctor Tane. He wore no other armor, and he wielded a saber two handed, battering back the wooden foes as they swung at him with wooden swords, stabbed at him with wooden knives, and snapped at him with wooden teeth.
The other figure, frantically waving its arms and summoning tiny, pointy-hatted figures made of stone out of the rock floor, was Daffodil Copperfield.
The stone gnomes were holding their own against the current group of mannequins, but as Threadbare and his friends watched, more dropped from the ceiling, rattling on the floor around the two defenders.
“We have to help them!” the Mousewife squeaked.
“Gift for stating the obvious,” Graves muttered, and Threadbare was glad she didn't seem to notice that. It seemed rather rude. Then Graves raised his voice. “Can't cross the floor without setting off the traps, but we don't have to. Same tactic as the Mimic Mimic fight?”
“Oh, that would work!” Threadbare nodded. He focused his will on one of the enemies and stated, “Command Mannequin, work for me! Invite Mannequin to party!”
The other two joined in the recitation. These were made of slightly sterner stuff than the Mimic Mimics, and the Mousewife failed her spells a few times, but in the space of moments they had turned the bulk of the mannequins to their side and used them to knock the uncontrolled animi to pieces.
After a few confused bellows back and forth, Tane and Copperfield understood what was going on, and fell back into a full defense, focusing their ire and steel on the few that strayed out of the tangle of wood and savagery that was the Mannequin murder pile.
Finally when the dust had cleared, and the trio of friends had picked their way through and around the triplines to stand before the two rescued men, Tane pulled off his helmet in a shower of sweat, his hair matted and his breath coming in great heaves.
“This is all your... fault somehow... isn't it?” he gasped, glaring down at Threadbare.
“I don't think so, but I can't discount the possibility,” Threadbare replied. “Have you seen the children?”
“Yeah. They're safe for the moment but we can't reach them,” Daffodil said, as his stone gnomes sunk back into the ground. Which was a pity, but Threadbare knew that was a Conjuror trick, and Conjurors had access to all sorts of powerful summoned monsters... but none of them lasted that long.
“How are you doing?” Daffodil asked, drawing a wooden hand across his face, before he caught the gesture and put his hand down, embarassed.
Threadbare shook his head. “There's nothing here we couldn't handle, but it's been a bit draining. Fortunately whoever's doing this is using animi, and we're all animators.”
“Great,” Tane groused. “Can you animate your way through an obvious deathtrap? Because that's what we'll need to save the children without burning them to scrap and ashes...”