“Fug run!” Bandit shouted, rag dowh as a low rumble followed him. The others just stared at him as he darted past and leaped over the small ledge leading down to the ptform below where they’d been standing. Firestorm scratched his head and gnced over at Bluestar who gave him a frustrated look, Lifesaver was already silently hopping over the side behind Bandit, not b to wait for them.

  “What?” He asked.

  “You just had to say it,” Bluestar said, “You knew he was going to do it if you said something like that.”

  He flushed as the rumbling grew louder, “Now, In my defe is a good movie.”

  She threw her head bad groaned, “You know that’s not the point!” She sighed and stalked towards the edge o him, the noise now nearly deafening. She casually threw a hand bad muttered something, a blue fsh of light erupting behind them followed by the sound of numerous fleshy objects striking something very hard, very fast. Firestorm decided not to gnce back at the hideous mess created by the raging horde of high speed mohat had been turned into windshield sptters. She gestured at the ledge and a blue glowing staircase took shape, “We had no idea what that lever did.”

  “And now we do, so when the eam es in to clear out the monsters, they won’t make the same mistake!” Firestorm said with a grin.

  She rolled her eyes, “You’re impossible.”

  “And yrumpy today,” Firestorm shot back, “e on, we’re in a magic extradimensional dungeon surrounded by monsters and hidden passages and treasure sometimes. Doesn’t that inspire childlike glee in you?”

  She kept walking doweps o him, her arms crossed, but a small smile pyed on her lips. She sighed and shook her head befrinning at him, “her of you said ‘wrong lever’.” She pointed out.

  He spped himself, “Oh shit! You’re right!” He leaned forward a bit as they approached Bandit and Lifesaver. “Bandit! We didn’t say ‘wrong lever’!”

  Bandit poked his head out from behind a rge fallen piece of stone wall or debris and stared at him, “Are you kidding me? We ruihe joke!” He groaned and hopped up, putting his hands on his hips and shaking his head. “We ’t do it again in this dungeon, it’ll seem forced.”

  Firestorm alighted oform and put a hand on his friends shoulder, “ime, buddy.”

  “You two are not throwing another ued lever, without warning, just to make sure you get a jht,” Bluestar protested, uo hide the amusement from her face at this point. “You are ridiculous!”

  “I thought it was funny,” Lifesaver finally spoke up, his voice utterly deadpan. They all looked at him, bnk faced as the healer hero just returheir gazes, “What?”

  Bandit shrugged and sat down on the debris he and Lifesaver had been hiding behind, crossing his arms and stretg his legs out, “Look, this whole dungeon is some M C Escher bullshit, none of the stairs make sehere are passages that go nowhere, and I swear we were walking upside down at one point. It doesn’t help that the monsters are basically cartoon characters. You guys heard that spt up there like I did. A little humor helps smooth over the existential dread.”

  Bluestar gnced back up at the otherwise inaccessible ledge as the stairs she made vanished and made a face, “Okay, you’ve got a point. What the hell are those things anyway?”

  “They looked like bald goats with eyes like dies,” Bandit said with a shudder, “Oh and they totally had little tiny wings,” He said, gesturing to his shoulders. “Freaky.”

  A low thump on the ground nearby sounded out just as he finished speaking a out a groan of annoyahe others did as well as they turowards the most annoying part of this entire god forsake was about two feet tall and looked like it had been made by someone just starting to experiment with three dimensional art on a puter. It was vaguely remi of a certain ouse with its big ears and far too wide smile. Its knees bounced and bobbed as its tail whipped left and right. It held a mallet in one hand.

  “Who’s up?” Bluestar asked with a sigh.

  “I think you ar-” Firestorm started to say only for a blue fsh of light to erupt from her fiip and burn a hole straight through the things head. It dropped and dissolved into an inky bck puddle before sliding away, making whimpering sounds. “Right,” He grunted.

  The nonsensical entity had been following them sihey arrived in the dungeon, attag out of nowhere and only after very btantly announg itself and making a show of its prese was by no means strong or dangerous. The only problem was that no matter what they did to it, it wouldn’t die or at least stay dead. At one point Firestorm had tried iing the bck ooze it turo when it was killed but it only deformed into a crispy burger-like puck for a moment before bursting into a cloud of bck smoke. It came back about an hour ter.

  “Do we have any jars or anything?” Lifesaver asked as they watched the bck sludge disappear into a wall.

  “You want to catch it?” Bandit asked with disgust.

  “We ’t kill it,” Lifesaver pointed out with a shrug, “Might as well keep it tained. I’d hate to actually be in a dangerous spot a hit with that hammer by surprise.”

  “Look at those arms!” Bandit protested, “It ’t swing that thing for shit!”

  Lifesaver crossed his arms and tilted his head, “Expin to me how you’re able to puncture stoh an arrow with your tiny arms?” He asked, flexing his own muscles beh his e.

  Bandit opened his mouth to protest and quickly closed it, frowning and looking at the ground. Lifesaver chuckled and owards the passage they hadn’t gone dow and Firestorm walked past Bandit, patting his shoulder again and joining the healer. Bandit shook his head, giving his two anipons a rueful look from behind only to get a squeeze on the arm from Bluestar.

  “I happen to like your noodle arms,” She said with a wink a walking.

  He grinned for a moment, just a moment, before her ent sank in, “They aren’t noodles!” He shouted, chasing after her aering the passage with the others as they ughed. Ahead of their little group they found themselves i another long overdesigunnel urly pced ns and doors ihat served no purpose other than to give them a headache. To make matters worse, the entire hallway seemed to twist like a corkscrew ahead of them until it stopped at another door that was now upside down from their perspective.

  “I hate this pce,” Bandit said, sounding a little ed.

  “Oh this is kinda cool,” Firestorm ented almost at the same time.

  “Watch the doors, boys,” Bluestar said, nodding to the doors that were actually embedded in the walls. She poi one of them and fired a tiny bolt of her azure magic at it. The bolt bent slightly in the air as it passed into the tunnel and struck off-ter, still hitting the door but clearly not where she’d inteo hit it. The door shuddered and opened before smming again as a low growl of pain rumbled out from within. She frowned hard, “I k.”

  Both Bandit and Firestorm looked back at her with a mixture of and disbelief.

  “What? This pce is weird, those doors had to be traps or monsters or something,” She protested.

  They both nodded, “Right, yeah, that’s what you meant,” Firestorm said and turned back towards the hall before rubbing his hands together, “Alright I got this,” He said and the others took the cue to back off all the way to the entrance of the hallway. He reached for his belt where the treasure of their very first dungeon hung from his hip. It was an almost onyx-bck double headed axe with e red cracks running through its surface that glowed brightly. It wasn’t overly long , small enough to hang fortably from his belt, but boy did it help.

  He raised it over his head and his hand began to glow white hot, soon the e cracks turned white a began to billow off of him as he took a step forward and swung. A cascade of fire ripped out from the on, washing through the hallway like a tidal wave as the creatures ihe doors screamed, roared, and burned. A momehe pristine passage was nothing but bed surfaces and ash, the door at the far e unscathed.

  “Done!” Firestorm called, slinging the on miss Sonya had described as some kind of ‘elemental focus’ over his shoulder and grinning back at them. The others made their way forward, nodding and voig their approval as they stepped into the twisted hall.

  Somewhere behind them, a dollop of bess appeared in the air and began to swirl, densing into a semi-solid shape that broke into a manic grin.