With three of us and us getting levels in combat skills along the way, I dare to take us further afield to explore and try to find where we came in. We might not be able to get back up the hole we came down, but I’d like to at least pinpoint where it is, if it’s even still open.
This is a scouting mission and not a gathering mission, so we travel light, move fast, and stay as quiet as we can.
We come upon a patch of tunnel where the ground is strewn with gravel of a different color and texture than the part of the layer we’ve taken refuge in. Through the hole in the ceiling, the glowing mushrooms common to the first layer shine down. There’s no way we can climb up that far short of building a staircase ourselves. I am so going to include more rope and a grappling hook into my standard set of equipment once we get back to civilizatoin, even if I have to carry fewer tools I probably won’t need anyway.
On the way back, I spot goblins cutting us off from the dungeon. They don’t realize we’re here. I quietly direct us to hide in a narrow crevice and stay very still.
[A Heroic and three Elites,] I tell my party. [This fight is above our rank. Let’s hope they don’t notice us.]
Scarcely daring to breathe, we wait with weapons in hand as the orc scouting party avoids the crevice without glancing in.
I wait until I don’t hear them any longer to climb out of the hole, telling the others to sit tight for a few while I scout briefly.
[All clear,] I send my party. [Let’s get back to base. I don’t want to be out here if they swing by again.]
We stay inside to play it safe for the next couple days in case there’s more Heroics out there. Mostly, we hang out in the guard room unless we have reason to be somewhere else.
Rowan cries out an alarm, and I set aside my attempt to make a board game out of broken pieces of centipede carapace. I go over to the peephole and take a look to glean what I can from Clairvoyance.
“Five Basics, one Elite,” I say. “We can take them. The traps will soften them up first.”
We position ourselves on the far side of the centipede pit and make sure our baskets of throwing rocks are on hand.
A glorious onomatopoeia emerges from the entryway, though we can’t see it from here past the zig-zag. The mostly-Empty Halls echo with the sounds of Crash! Shunk! Squelch! Argh! Swish! Grunt! The rolling boulder trap opens, sending a huge rock rumbling down the hallway and triggering another yell.
A single badly wounded Elite stumbles around the corner. Small rocks pelt him as soon as he steps into sight. He growls and hefts his axe, and charges at us. The floor drops out from under him, sending him straight into the centipede pit.
That was… almost anticlimactic. I’m not going to say anything about it being easy aloud, though. Neither does anyone else, but I can sense their relief mixed with lingering anxiety.
We make sure the orcs are dead, collect their weapons and armor, and take their bodies to be absorbed for essence. That part is practically routine.
“Those traps sure did the trick,” Basalt says.
“We need more,” I say. “Hebron, can we get a trap mechanism we can stick the orc weapons into? Put it in front of the centipede pit, please.”
Rowan sighs as he looks out the peephole again for the millionth time. “It’s my naming day next week and we’re still stuck down here. All I want is to be back in my Hearth next to a warm fire and eating something that isn’t made of grapes or centipedes.”
“You haven’t even tried the centipedes,” Basalt says.
Rowan curses in alarm. “Orcs! They look well equipped. Drake, what are we looking at here?”
“Three Elites and a Heroic,” I say. “Crap, let’s get to the other side of the centipede pit.”
We hurry out past the traps and get into position. This setup could stand a better layout but I haven’t cared to spend the essence on it. The series of sounds that emerges this time is mainly accompanied by grunting rather than screams of pain.
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The Heroic comes around the corner, looking only slightly disheveled from being stabbed with poisoned spikes and run over by a boulder.
The two-meter-tall green woman looks completely unbothered as she strolls through the weapon trap, but stops at the edge of the pit. She can probably detect where the floor falls away.
“A human, a halfling, and a dwarf,” the orc Ranger says. “Curious.”
“You speak Common?” I observe.
“Of course. The name is Grishka Brenig. You must have gotten lucky and stumbled into this place and found the core room. I take it you subjugated the dungeon and reclaimed it. We send our children here to get experience in running mazes, but after two parties went missing in the area, I came to find out what happened.”
I am only left to gape at the surprisingly chatty orc woman. She’s not attacking us, and there’s no way thrown rocks would even hurt her. Rowan and Basalt are puzzled and unsure what to do themselves.
“We’re not looking for any trouble,” I say. “I’m sorry we killed your comrades.”
“Feh. If they could get taken out by a starved dungeon and a couple of Basics, they wouldn’t have cut it as true warriors anyway. And fortunately for you, the amount of experience I’d get from killing you isn’t worth depriving the kids of it if they catch you out in the open. Do be sure to add more traps, puzzles, and monsters. And hide in the core room or the younguns will kill you.”
She casually turns around and walks back out past the weapon trap without a scratch.
“Dude…” Basalt breathes.
We proceed to take her advice and valiantly hide in the core room.
Thanks, I hate it.
“That was terrifying,” Rowan says. “I thought for sure she would crush us like centipedes.”
“Will we be safe in here?” Basalt asks.
[No one went to the trouble of finding the core room for over 600 years,] Hebron speaks in our minds. [They will not find it now.]
“They didn’t seem interested in subjugating the dungeon, just using it as a training ground,” I say thoughtfully. “Which means it’s to their benefit to keep us alive, so long as we’re making improvements to the place.”
Rowan sighs. “Their reasoning makes sense but I still hate it. And I hate hiding in here instead of defending the place.”
[Your dedication is admirable but your deaths would not help me. Withdrawing to the core room as a last defense against a superior foe is not cowardice. You are still ensuring that if they decide to search for the core room, you will be standing between them and me.]
“Hebron, is it possible to extend your territory into the next layer up?” I ask.
[I’m afraid not.]
“Well, you’re able to go a bit further up, at least, given the ceiling tunnel. Can you put in a shaft as high up as you can go, with stairs?”
“What are you planning?” Rowan asks.
“We’re going to dig a hole.”
“Digging straight up sounds like a terrible idea,” Basalt says. “What if there’s a lake up there?”
[I can include a drain and absorb any excess materials that fall.]
“Still sounds stupid. Bah, whatever, dude. Let’s see what sort of dwarfy digging skills I can learn.”
“I’ll… just keep watch while you’re doing that,” Rowan says.
Without any decent means of reworking the orcs’ bronze weapons into mining equipment, I bring out the stone tools again. I did not commit any of my limited bag space to a pickaxe. I didn’t exactly plan to fall down a hole and have to dig my way out. It seems like I should have expected that I couldn’t have a nice hot springs vacation without an adventure, though.
“Dude,” Basalt says. “Barely a few taps with this chisel and I’ve already unlocked Enhanced Hands (Stone Communion) and Enhanced Senses (Stone Sense). That’s definitely dwarfy.”
“This also qualifies as a home improvement project,” I add.
“Well, I’m no longer worried about what I might be blindly digging into. [Stone Sense] lets me sense thiings about the stone. You know, exactly what it says on the tin. It’s pretty cool. And [Stone Communion] helps me figure out the right spot to hit.”
We settle into a routine with Rowan keeping watch, Basalt digging, and me keeping everyone fed and supplied. For Rowan, this is mostly just bringing him raw grapes and water. For Basalt, this is running up and down a tight spiral staircase that gets longer by the hour, hauling food and tools.
Basalt’s mining ability is positively inhuman. One might even say that it’s dwarven. He makes no complaint about carving a stairway into nothing. When given the chance, he tries to regale me with tales of all the things he helped build in one video game or another.
The orcs show up every other day. We hide in the core room until they’re gone, but I’m already wishing this place had a better layout. This truncated core section would have been the Hearth in a normal village, but Hebron had contracted it as small as it would go when he went into hiding. Fortunately, aether cores can reshape matter, so this will be fixable at least.
I set up two entrances to the shaft, one leading into the trapped hallway to direct intruders into and a hidden door so Basalt doesn’t have to go running through traps every time orcs show up.
Rowan has unlocked Enhanced Senses (Tireless Vigil) but still looks like he could sleep for a week in his own bed in his Hearth. Basalt has unlocked its crafty counterpart, Enhanced Hands (Tireless Labor). I don’t have that one yet, either, but I haven’t spent 14 hour days just digging. While singing about being a dwarf that’s digging a hole.
I have to admit, “bonus experience for acting like a stereotypical dwarf” isn’t the worst way to convince people to get in character.
I’m elbows deep in grapes when Basalt comes running into the kitchen. “I made it! I broke through! There’s a tunnel full of glowing blue mushrooms up top. I only poked my head out and came to get you and Rowan.”
“Fantastic!” I say. “I’ll grab some gear and meet you there.” I pause, looking at my magenta sticky hands. “And wash my hands first.”