Jason scans the forest as he walks, with one of his two swords resting on his shoulder. "So, you think we're good to finish this with just three people? We could go back, come back with reinforcements."

His brother shakes his head. "The prince wouldn't be happy with delays, that's why he let us hire on mercs to begin with. We should be fine, though - you got your magic swords, I got some enchanted arrows, Ruckus has got...whatever the lil bastard's got. It's enough to handle a few undead, and this floor ain't supposed to be too tough."

The disguised imp laughs at the mention of his name. "Oh, yeah, I got all sorts of tricks and goodies up my sleeves. But the floor boss is just supposed to be, like, a bigger shade, yeah? If we can handle some of the small ones, shouldn't be no issue at all."

"Alright, then, guess we'll find out cause we've got a group inbound. Ahead, to the right, look sharp!" Fletcher readies his bow, his keen eyesight having picked out the movement of monsters in the trees, although he holds his fire for a clearer shot. Ruckus is a little more proactive though and tosses a small metal orb fixed to the end of a wire, such that it wraps around one of the nearby tree trunks. He quickly ties off the other end to a second tree before giving the brothers a thumbs up, not that either of them are entirely certain what it is the imp just did.

Fletcher doesn't have time to ask, as within moments the first three rabbit-eared shades make their appearance. The man fires off one of his handful of explosive arrows, hitting his target but finding little reason to celebrate as it seems to do no apparent damage to the undead monster. It does at least knock it backwards a few feet, but if there's any actual injury to the shadowy figure, the archer can't see it. The same can't be said for the other two as they charge on forward, passing right through Ruckus's wire trap.

Or at least, they try to. Fletcher had seen the monsters pass through thin branches as if they weren't there, but somehow the two shades manage to get completely tangled up in the simple bit of metal wire their rogue had strung up. It's hard to explain given that the wire itself doesn't even seem to move with the impact of their arrival, yet the shades tumble to the ground as if they'd been caught up in an elaborate net encompassing their entire forms. The man doesn't have long to puzzle over it though before Ruckus himself shouts out. "The ghost snare ain't gonna kill em, just slow em down - so, y'know, maybe get to it?"

"Right - on it!" Jason steps forward, now wielding both of his blades, and a slight yellow light passes up their edges as the man charges them with mana. A few quick swipes turns the struggling shades into so much smoke, and soon only the possibly-injured one remains. Fletcher switches up his tactics, pulling out a lightning-enchanted arrow for his next shot, and sure enough this one seems to do far more damage to the undead. It still doesn't quite kill it, leaving it twitching and crackling in place as it hovers a few feet above the ground, but Jason is more than quick enough to duck under the snare and claim a third kill before it can recover. With the immediate threat down Fletcher searches the trees once again, but for now the forest seems to be quiet.

"Ghost snare?" Jason chuckles. "How often do you need to trap a ghost? How do you trap a ghost?"

"Trade secret! It's not like I ask you how stabbing things works, do I?"

The swordsman narrows his eyes at his shorter companion. "I feel like 'stabbing things' is pretty self-explanatory."

"Yeah, yeah, that's what every expert says about their line of work. Anyhow, seems like we can handle some ghosts pretty alright, yeah? Unless you think you're gonna run out of special arrows, Fletch?"

The archer shakes his head. "If it gets to it I can charge up some mundane arrows myself, just saving my energy. Just keep alert, though, I don't want us getting surrounded out here."

The others nod, and the party continues to search out the supposed 'altar' where they'll be able to find the key to the floor's river crossing. Two more ambushes attempt to stop the trio, one of them containing a full six shades, yet even when a monster gets past Fletcher and Ruckus they don't fail to encounter Jason's blades instead, as the man dashes back and forth to cover every angle. It's all going rather smoothly, until they reach their destination and find that the altar they were looking for is no more.

Instead, they find a rabbit-eared woman sitting on a stone table alongside a gem-encrusted treasure chest. The chest does catch their attention for a brief moment, but their focus is quickly drawn back to the smiling woman, and the fact that she's dressed only in lacy black lingerie. Spotting them, her smile grows wider as she shouts out. "Hey there, boys!"

Ruckus shakes his head. "Right. Trick, trap, mimic. Something's going on here, for sure. Shoot the lady, Fletch."

"Now hold on, hold on. This ain't...too strange for the dungeon, right? They say they got ladies like this working in the lounge, yeah? Maybe this is just another...bonus challenge, or something?"

Jason sighs. "Maybe the guide would've known something about it, though Tizzy sure didn't say anything. But, sure - the girl's unarmed, even if she's gonna toss a fireball at us, I don't think she could do it fast enough to take us all out."

The girl in question speaks up, using a rather disarming 'country girl' accent as she does so. "Ah, sugar, I ain't gonna be tossing anything at you except these fire-hot offers, yeah? You boys are real lucky, you know - the dungeon's trying something new, and you get to be the first to take advantage of it!"

"Trick. Trick, trick, trick. Guys, I like staring at a pair of tits as much as anyone, but the dungeon is clearly using a booby trap on us." Ruckus gestures at the rabbit-woman while staring at the brothers, urging them to violence with his eyes.

"Easy, Ruckus, we'll keep our distance. So tell me, lass, what's this offer of yours?"

"Glad you asked! Since there's three of you boys, you get three prizes, and it's just up to you to decide who gets what!" She hops off of the table, and gestures towards the chest by her side. "One of you gets the contents of this genuine dungeon treasure chest! Enchanted items guaranteed, no curses involved!" The monstrous woman then moves into a second pose, with her hands on her hips and her bust puffed out. "One of you gets me! For today, and every day for the next month if you swing by Floor Five! Interested?" She waggles her eyebrows, and the three adventurers find themselves feeling rather conflicted.

Fletcher speaks up first. "That's...a very unique offer, lass. Very tempting. Doesn't sound like a dungeon to give things away for free, though. What's the third offer?"

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The woman steps aside and gestures at the stone table, and as Fletcher looks at it more closely, he notices it's not exactly a table. There's grooves carved into it, in the approximate shape of a person, and...he's pretty sure there's restraints fixed to it for arms and legs. "The third one of you gets sacrificed to the dungeon by your friends!" The trio blink at that statement for a moment, and the woman continues with her explanation. "The dungeon's decided to work smarter, not harder! Why go through all the effort of killing Challengers if we can just pay Challengers to do it for us?"

"Okay, yeah, there's the trick. One of us dies and then the dungeon just kills the other two. Obvious." Ruckus crosses his arms, frowning at his companions. "Not to mention two of us probably isn't enough to clear the floor."

"Aww, do I have to sweeten the deal?" The temptress pouts. "Well, don't tell the boss I'm offering this, but I'll also toss in a 'clear Floor Four free' token! Just show it to DEATH on your way out and you won't even need to fight! You'll even get the floor rewards!"

Jason rubs his chin. "Yeeeaahhh, I'm not sure we can trust you to hold up your end on this. Can dungeons lie?"

"Of course not! Traps, sure! Illusions, sometimes! But dungeons are tools of the gods - Worthy Dungeon, especially! Lying to Challengers would be a sin!"

Fletcher narrows his eyes at the woman. "...Have heard something about the local religions being involved with dungeons, yeah. And Worthy Dungeon's supposed to be sponsored by one of the good ones. The offer's probably real."

"Even if it was, not like someone's gonna volunteer to be third! So who'd the poor sap be to..." Ruckus looks up at his human companions, who are both looking back down at him. "Oh, come on! Fuck you! The dungeon's obviously fucking with us!"

"Literally, in a few minutes." Jason smirks at the rabbit-eared woman before glancing back down at Ruckus. "It gotta be done in any special way?"

The woman nods. "Yup, just strap him down to this sacrificial altar, and if you like I can handle the messy bit! But you gotta get him here yourself!"

The three adventurers stare at each other for a long moment of silence, not a word being spoken from their lips, but their eyes passing a realm of thought and emotion between them. Then all at once they burst into action, Ruckus and Fletcher jumping backwards as Jason leaps for the imp. The rogue is able toss out a quick bomb of pepper-laden smoke, blinding the archer and making him choke, but unfortunately for him he has no answer to the Expert-qualified swordsman well within arm's reach. His main satchel gets cut off his shoulder before he can draw a second trick from it, and when he attempts to charge a spell in his left hand, his palm gets pierced by a blade for his trouble.

Being disarmed doesn't mean Ruckus goes quietly, of course, the imp got his name for a reason and struggles, squirms, and utters every obscenity he can think of as Jason slashes at him repeatedly. In a few seconds the disguised imp's fallen to the ground, his limbs and joints bleeding, but even that doesn't stop him from trying to bite his former ally as Jason grabs him in a restraining hold. A bleary-eyed Fletcher appears before him before long though and silences the smaller man with a punch to the gut - or at least reduces the volume, as a trickle of muttered curses continues to drip from Ruckus's lips.

"Honestly, Ruckus, been thinkin' of doin' this for months anyhow. Gods, you're one annoying son of a bitch, you know that? How many times you tried to cheat us at cards? Stolen shit from our rooms? You think that just because we didn't catch you in the act, we didn't know it was you? Only thing keeping a dagger out of your gut was no one wanted to piss off the boss. But hey...accidents happen in a dungeon, right?" Fletcher gives the imp an ugly grin before nodding at Jason. "Get the sack of shit onto the table, yeah?"

"Oh yeah, lookin' forward to this almost as much as Miss Legs over here..." Jason's grin matches Fletcher's as he hefts the imp over one shoulder, and brings him to the sacrificial altar. Fortunately the dungeon master had the foresight to install a number of sets of restraints on the item, and even with his short height it's not hard for the brothers to get the injured man strapped down within a minute or so. Ruckus never shuts up, but Fletcher does his best to ignore him as he turns towards the rabbit woman. "So, that's good, then? We bleed the shit, and get...what you offered?"

"Sure enough! There is one other step, though. You see the chest here?" She gestures at the container in question, and the brothers both glance at it - Jason perhaps needing an extra moment to refocus his attention from the other sort of chest on display. "Before you open it, you'll need to - now!" The brothers barely have time to blink before the signal is received, and neither Fletcher nor Jason have time to even register the sensation of the arrows landing in the back of their skulls, fired from the treeline at the edge of the clearing. As the men tumble to the ground Ruckus begins swearing again, but for an entirely different reason, as he spies a squad of rabbit-folk make their way out of the trees.

"Good work, Ashadi! Hope it wasn't too disturbing, having to get up close to those thugs like that."

Squire Ashadi smiles brightly as Trush approaches, surrounded by the rest of his squires. "Hells no, that was fun! I mean, gods...they were so. Dumb." Ashadi shakes her head before leaning down over the restrained Ruckus and adding a comment. "Seriously. 'Dungeons can't lie.' They actually believed that?"

Ruckus groans. "Can, sadly enough. But why bother with all that 'offer' shit? Why not just fight like a normal monster, huh?"

Trush answers that question. "Because this was a test of morality, rogue, not combat skill. Worthy wanted to see what types of folks you were - if there's decency to you, or if you'd turn on each other as easily as we'd heard." Trush snorts at the two corpses lying at his feet. "Pretty obvious how that went for these two."

"But - but not me, right?! I didn't try and kill em! They were the ones that made a move on me!"

"True enough." Trush's expression is not a positive one, despite his words. "That didn't exactly apply to those hirelings you brought along though, did it?"

The imp sighs. "Fuck. They talk before the water elementals or whatever got em?"

"One, wouldn't need em to - Worthy saw the whole thing. Two, they're fine, just got a free bath. Worthy was just gettin' em out of the way while we played our little game, they're not involved in this."

"Oh, well...good for them, then. Yay. Yippee." Ruckus sighs again. "Guess I'm pretty fucked then though, huh?"

"Not looking good for you, no." Trush kneels down next to the altar, so that he can speak into the false goblin's ear. "Worthy's seen you work though, and seems to think you've got some useful skills. What do you think?"

Trying not to hope too much, Ruckus turns his head to look into Trush's eyes. "...I know a trick or two, sure."

"Well then. How about this offer..."

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INTRUSION SCORE:

MORTALS SLAIN: 2

MORTALS ESCAPED: 4

LIMITED ITEMS OBTAINED:

TWIN FANG BLADES (2)

MORTAL SOULS: 2

MANA CAP INCREASED BY 9 TO 443

KNOWLEDGE OBTAINED:

HEAVY COMBAT SKILLS: DUAL BLADESMAN (UNRANKED)

LIGHT COMBAT SKILLS: ARCANE ARCHER (UNRANKED)

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