"Are you shittin' me, boy?"

Grizza winces as he looks at the men and women sitting on the opposite side of his table at the Lucky Bastard - a human, a pair of unusually dark-skinned elves, and the speaker of the question, a half-orc with an intimidating-looking scar across his cheek. Roxxy and Ashley are both at his side, backing him up, and he's fairly certain he's not about to be attacked in public, but the young Mage still finds himself having to struggle to avoid a stammer in his reply.

"I'm afraid not, sir. It was a brand new trap, never seen before in the dungeon - a massive sinkhole in the upper section of Floor Four, you see. Water elementals at the bottom of it. By time we caught up to them, all three of them had already drowned."

One of the elves leans forward at the last comment. "'Caught up', you say? Why were you not with them?"

When Grizza takes a moment too long to answer, Roxxy steps in. "You'd have to ask them that - they said they wanted to walk ahead for a moment, talk about something. First sign we knew anything was wrong was when we heard the ground open up."

The human of the group grumbles. "Likely story. Well...maybe. Ruckus was always a schemer. But sounds to me like this lot here just wanted to steal their gear, say the dungeon did it. Probably makes up half their 'business', yeah?"

That accusation manages to make the relatively-quiet Ashley raise his voice in response. "Slander! Our record is perfect, you know...uh, I mean, well, not anymore, I guess. But before! We've never lost a party member until yesterday! ...Uh, besides, we couldn't even get down to their bodies, or their gear, that was what killed them, after all."

The half-orc growls and refocuses the conversation. "Fine, fine - though if I see sign of Jason's swords around town or something, we'll be having more than words about it, believe you me. Is there anything else you can tell us about this trap, though? Our squad went through Floor Four like an hour beforehand and didn't run into any of these damn 'sinkholes'."

Grizza shakes his head. "I'm afraid not. Ah, I can tell you that in general the dungeon doesn't often risk the water elementals in open attacks, as they're not actually dungeon monsters, just, well...residents? If a party had a way to fight them off, they'd probably retreat quickly."

The man brushes that off. "Doesn't really matter, ain't gonna be hitting Floor Four again ourselves."

Licking his lips, Grizza leans forward and makes his best attempt at upselling. "Moving on to Floor Six soon, then? If you need our services, the Rough Gems are willing to provide, erm, a hefty discount considering recent - "

That attempt is interrupted by a boisterous laugh. "The balls on you, spider! No. Actually, correction. Fuck no. In fact, get the fuck out of here before I decide to start prying diamonds out of your friends here as a refund on behalf of my former associates."

Roxxy begins moving to pull the enchanted rabbit ears out of a bag, but Grizza stops her with a hand on her arm. "Quite understandable, sir. Ah...good luck in your future challenges. Until next time!"

The four adventurers sit in silence as they watch the Gems beat a hasty retreat out of the tavern, and then they all begin to speak at once. The human manages to make himself heard the clearest, though. "Well, ain't gonna miss that little im-goblin, I mean, but the brothers were a good pair in a scrap. Your squad didn't see anything weird on that floor, Norlash?"

Norlash, the orc, grunts a negative. "Was just like Tizzy said it was for us. You and your kid find anything odd when your squad went through, Lyman?"

The human returns the negative. "Reed and I and the rest of us just ran into shades and weak little vampire things. Weren't anything compared to Liani, of course."

One of the elves picks up the conversation as it trails off. "Tad's not going to like it either way. I said we should have just all stuck together in a group from here on, I don't know why we're still going in there in fours and fives and acting like we're still doing normal dungeon runs."

"Cause apparently some dungeons can trigger special modes or some shit when a massive group comes through, and nobody wants to go through five floors of hellfire in a single run, Hylii! It's gonna be bad enough starting it at Floor Seven or Eight! That's assuming the rest of us make it through Floor Six, at least. You're right though, that shit was targeted. The dungeon definitely knows who we all are by now, I'd say."

Lyman rubs his chin. "This change how we're going to do things for the next go? Other than not hiring more mercs."

"Well, don't let ourselves get split up, that's for sure. I don't know why Ruckus or the boys wanted to get away from their guides for a minute, but it could've cost them their lives. Also, keep an eye out for anything different from how Tizzy described it. Anything changed, it probably changed just for us."

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Hylii, the male of the dark elf pair, nods in agreement. "Shall we make any changes to the group setup for Floor Six, do you think?"

Norlash begins counting off on his fingers. "Assuming we don't get the boss or his girls to help us out, we're down to me and Nalain, you and Gerliari, Lyman and his kid, Tannis, Liani, and Violetta. Tizzy's research says 'raid mechanics' can start kicking in at eight people in a group, so we still gotta split up. So no, same groups, I think. Nalain and I will take Tannis and Violetta, and that leaves the rest of you with Lyman's party."

"Fair enough. Floor Six tomorrow, then?"

"Too late to climb up there and run a floor today, or I would. I don't like the idea of giving the dungeon more time to get some clever ideas about how to fuck with us. So yeah, tomorrow." Norlash bares his teeth at the thought of the dungeon designing traps specifically for him. "And then we'll pay the dungeon back for everyone it's killed."

Gerliari, the other dark elf, chuckles. "Even Ruckus?"

"...Even Ruckus."

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

Ruckus looks around nervously as he sits in his chair, his goblin illusion long since been dissolved. The man was good at telling time even when underground, so he knew for a fact that he'd been kept in his small cell for almost a full twenty-four hours. He'd been briefly escorted out of the dungeon by Trush, with a blade held close to his throat, so that the dungeon could 'close' his party's intrusion, but his sight of the sun had lasted only a minute before he'd been forced back in through a shortcut portal. He wasn't sure which floor he'd been taken to from there, but given the rough setup of the cell he was in he suspected the place had been crafted just for him. Another thing he was good at was breaking out of cells, so for the first twenty minutes or so of that he hadn't been too worried. After he popped his cuffs open and jimmied the lock of his door however, he'd realized that a cell within a dungeon was an entirely different beast than any mortal prison the imp had ever been locked within.

Like the others, he'd had the 'Intro to Dungeons' lecture from Tizzy, including the rules that dungeons had to follow when it came to their Challengers. A Challenger had to always have a path to the core, as well as at least one path to exit the dungeon. They didn't have to be safe paths, but a path had to exist, and a sneaky fellow like Ruckus could find his way out of anything, or so he'd like to think. The problem was that unlike with a normal prison, a dungeon could see every single thing you do within it, a fact that was made clear when Trush and Sevastion both showed up outside his cell to ask what he was doing. They did have to ask twice, given that Ruckus was a little gobsmacked to say the least to see that Sevastion was now sporting mandibles and a few extra legs, but the pair actually accepted his excuse of 'testing the locks', and even seemed somewhat pleased about it for some reason.

They did tell him - with a few pointy weapons being brandished for emphasis - not to do it again, and Ruckus quickly agreed. Apparently the dungeon's rules didn't allow it to simply seal him up within a tomb of stone, but it didn't stop his 'path' out from being littered with a few more dungeon guardians than he'd ever care to try and challenge on his own.

After that he'd had little to do but to count the hours, and it was almost a relief to find himself dragged out of there and into a portal ring. He isn't entirely sure if he should still be relieved though, given that the man's fairly certain he's now standing in the seat of the dungeon spirit's power. Not her core chamber, she'd surely not be that foolish, but instead, an office and trophy chamber. A heavy wooden desk fills up most of the space, and one of the walls is occupied by a truly massive and evil-looking mirror, but much of the rest is occupied with the other kind of dungeon loot. Items that fallen Challengers had left behind when they died - enchanted weapons, family crests, a few small pieces of jewelry and crafted artwork.

It's a set of trophies being added to even now, as a human woman with striped black-and-white hair stands a few feet away, facing the wall as she admires a sword in her hands. She tests it a few times, restrained by the size of the office, but she's confident enough with her movements to tell Ruckus that the lady knows what she's doing with a blade. After a few half-swings she comes to a halt and places the sword on a new display next to its twin, and Ruckus feels the need to break the silence at the sight of it.

"Jason's blades, yeah? Good enough for you to keep around? I know he liked em, didn't think they'd be much compared to what a dungeon could make at will, though."

The woman crosses her arms and answers without turning to face her guest. "Starting a new collection, apparently. Do you recognize that, over there?" She gestures at a bare frame containing what seems to be a collection of rags, and Ruckus has to peer at it for a moment to figure out what he's looking at.

"...Oh! That uh, that'd be Lei's fist wraps, yeah? You kept those too?"

"Iron Palm fist wraps and Twin Fang blades. Seems like Xenia finds herself in a bit of a rut, repeating old habits. This isn't the first time she's had a collection of Champion's artifacts, you know. Although she didn't kill the original owners of these particular two."

Ruckus swallows as it's somewhat confirmed for him just who it is he's speaking to. "So...that would be you, yeah? Prince Xenon, or...Xenia, or whatever you want me to call you, I'm flexible!"

The woman finally turns to look at him, and to Ruckus's surprise there's a grin on her face. "Call me...Emma."

"...Sure, Lady Emma, Dungeon Spirit Emma, Your Majesty, whatever you want. I uh...ain't got a fancy inheritance to offer you if you're lookin', sorry, not that you didn't already take all my stuff yesterday."

"Aside from some lockpicks even a dungeon has a hard time finding, apparently. But you're lucky, Ruckus. ...Is that even your real name, while we're on the topic?"

"Well, my full name is Barruck Thanliel Lionus Lionus Dodanus Alanie Dullspoon, but you can call me Ruckus, it's cool. When folks tried giving me nicknames as a kid it was either Ruckus or Anus, so you can guess which one I leaned towards."

"...Right, I think she asked for an imp's full name once and then never did that again. To get on track though, Ruckus, we don't want you for your gear. We don't even want you for your intel, although I am going to take anything you've got."

Ruckus tries his best to put a smile on his lips as he nods along. "Sure, sure - what can I do for you, then?"

"For starters...you're going to listen to a story."