It still wasn’t much, but we expected more later on. After leaving the room, Shadow STEALTHed again and slipped up the corridor past the door on her right to the end. The whole corridor was six squares long, as I’d started calling them on the map I was sketching. The door sat in the fourth square from the first cross corridor.

  [Urako Sarutobi:] [PARTY] [The hallway goes about 3 meters more and turns right. Nothing in sight. Looking around the next corner.]

  [Urako Sarutobi:] [PARTY] [Goes another 9 meters and turns left. Door on right at the turn. Want me to look around that corner?]

  I looked at the rest of the party. Everyone nodded yes.

  [William of Brinsford:] [PARTY] [Do it. I have a feeling it connects up to the other end.]

  [Urako Sarutobi:] [PARTY] [It does. Another 6 meters and turns left. Door at the end. There’s a corridor on the right in the middle of this section. Nothing on the left.]

  [William of Brinsford:] [PARTY] [Head on back. We’ll go in the room on the left and work our way up.]

  She didn’t reply, but the PARTY MAP showed her heading back our way. The map now reflected the areas she’d scouted, the digital lines overlapping my pencil scratches when I looked at my graph paper.

  We moved to the next door and got ready. Shadow flickered visible for a heartbeat, then VANISHed again. I knew she wanted the extra edge that ability gave her.

  “Ready?” I asked. When they nodded, I gave the signal. “Do it.”

  The door opened, the map showing Shadow slip to the side inside. Bhaarrt stormed through, CHARGING the three Goblins waiting. They weren’t the problem. The Goblin Shaman standing behind them was.

  Blaze’s FIRE BOLT lit up the Shaman, while Ingrid’s HEAL hit Bhaarrt just as a CURSE slammed into him. Bhaarrt’s maul flattened one Goblin, then another on his backswing. I finished the third with a MANA BOLT, and Shadow slipped through the chaos to finish the Shaman starting with a BACKSTAB from behind.

  Our take was 70 Shields and a Wood Staff. Nothing unusual. The room was four blocks wide by five long, same gray stone as the rest, except this time with three torches burning along the walls. Too bad they weren’t removable. I’d tested them before…they didn’t budge, and no secret doors opened.

  “Next time I see one of them Shamen, I’m going for it first. The hell with the rest of the mobs. Even with an extra level of PAIN TOLERANCE, it still hurts,” Bhaarrt said, grumbling through his tusks.

  Ingrid patted his shoulder. “There, there. You’re a big, tough Ogre and we all love you. You know you can take it.” She hugged him tight, the smell of sweat and metal rising off his armor. “Is it better now, or should I kiss it and make it better?” she teased, barely able to keep a straight face.

  We all laughed, the sound bouncing strangely in the stone room. Bhaarrt joined in after a moment, shaking his head. Everyone knew he was fine. He was the toughest Tank in Eddington…second best armored only to Sir Andrew. Still, I knew exactly how much those CURSEs hurt. Triple stacked, they were brutal.

  “OK,” I said. “Opinion time. Do we check the door further up the corridor or go back and clear the mirrored room on the other side?”

  The vote split. Shadow and Ingrid wanted to push deeper. Blaze and Bhaarrt voted to clear the twin. I saw both sides. Finally, I put it plain: “Don’t leave occupied rooms behind us.” No one argued. Monsters might not patrol much, but all it would take was one surprise to cause us a lot of damage.

  So, back around the bottom we went, past the way out. Ingrid double-checked the door to the outside. Still there. Still shut.

  “I don’t care what you do, but I’m going for that Shaman when I CHARGE,” Bhaarrt declared, brooking no debate.

  Blaze and I agreed to handle the two outside Kobolds while Shadow circled for a BACKSTAB. Ingrid prepped her spells, calm but tight around the eyes.

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  Sometimes the plan works. Bhaarrt crushed the middle Kobold against his shield and the Shaman behind it. Blaze and I dropped the others with clean BOLTs. Ingrid’s HEAL OVER TIME wrapped Bhaarrt in green glow before the Shaman landed its CURSE. He still took it, grunting at the pain, but smashed the caster down after two swings.

  The loot was the same coins as before, but this time a ten-slot bag dropped. I dropped it in my INVENTORY it for later.

  As we stepped out, five Level 1 Kobolds rounded the corner we hadn’t fully scouted yet. Blaze’s FIRE BALL engulfed them before they even finished their charge. Five blackened corpses later, we had another 50 Shields. So far, we were over a Silver Moon each and closing on two.

  Shadow scouted again. Her report matched the symmetry we expected. Boring, maybe, but it fit the dungeon’s purpose…A training ground for low levels. She added that a corridor ran from the middle of the crossway, stretching, in her words, “a ways.”

  “We check the corridors before the next door,” I told them. “I think the rooms will scale harder as we move deeper. We stick to one side, then the other. And… there’s that boxed-off area we haven’t reached yet. Could be a three-by-four room with a nine-meter hall to it.”

  “Saw that,” Shadow replied. “Looks like I’m a gonna have to take more Thief skills. I can FIND TRAPS but not secret doors. I’ll get that next level.”

  “Good. We’ll need it eventually. Until then, if we miss something, we miss it. I don’t know how deep this goes, but let’s map all we can. Call a break when you need one.”

  The corridor went five squares beyond, then turned right. My little laser measurer earned its keep again, neat red lines cutting across the gray stone. And it fit nicely with all the other junk I’d stuffed in my belt pouch.

  “Shadow,” I said, “peek around the corner.”

  “Roger that.” She VANISHed into the air.

  [Urako Sarutobi:] [PARTY] [It goes up to a T intersection. Could be the same cross corridor I saw before. Two doors, one on each side about halfway up. Want me to check the intersection?]

  [William of Brinsford:] [PARTY] [Do it. We’ll watch for wandering mobs.]

  The PARTY MAP filled in as she scouted, but it couldn’t be copied like you could with a computer game. My paper map, our bodycams, and notes were the only records for whoever came after us.

  [Urako Sarutobi:] [PARTY] [Looking left, it goes a short ways and turns left. Looking right, it stretches far and looks like it meets the other corridor I saw. You were right. Same on each side. Want me to check the last corner? No doors so far.]

  [William of Brinsford:] [PARTY] [Might as well unless someone objects.]

  No one did. We watched her marker move, pause, then push ahead.

  [Urako Sarutobi:] [PARTY] [It turns back towards you and there’s a door at the end on the right. Now what?]

  If we didn’t want to leave anything behind, we had to push past the rooms and clear the far one, then work back. After some back-and-forth in chat, we agreed.

  The map suggested a nine-by-fifteen-meter room. We stopped before it, and my sketch put it at 6 by 12 meters with three-meter extensions at each end. One extension was obviously the entry.

  We set up as usual. Shadow and Bhaarrt took the lead, Blaze and I behind. Everyone inside this time…no sightlines from the doorway.

  The instant Shadow slipped in, Bhaarrt barreled through after her.

  Shadow and Bhaarrt rushed in as fast as they could, and Blaze and I followed. It looked like my estimation was mostly correct.

  “Shit, three Shamen!” he bellowed, then let loose his trademark “Bhaarrt Smash!” and CHARGEd.

  Two Hobgoblins flanked the Shamen. They took the brunt of his charge, barely staggered. Worst thing was they kept Bhaarrt from reaching the Shamen.

  “Shadow, back!” I yelled, hurling a MANA BLAST at the nearest Shaman. Blaze struck another with FIRE BOLT, but they were tougher than the previous casters. Pain twisted through me as a CURSE hit. Blaze screamed a moment later from her own CURSE.

  I gambled. Tried CHARM Monster. One Shaman’s status flickered on the map…then shifted. Success. “CURSE the Hobgoblins!” I ordered.

  The air snapped with spell energy. One Hobgoblin roared as the spell slammed into it from behind. It turned on the Shaman.

  The center Shaman shrieked in pain as Shadow materialized behind it, sword buried deep in its back. I took a second round of CURSE, my health dropping, until Ingrid’s HEAL OVER TIME pulsed through me. Blaze hammered her target again and dropped it after three FIRE BOLTS.

  The charmed Shaman’s curse doubled on its Hobgoblin ally with a second cast. Cumulative. It collapsed screaming.

  Shadow cursed aloud as another CURSE slammed her, then responded by lopping the caster’s head clean off. Blood spattered the stones, hot and coppery in the air. Blaze felled her last Shaman, and Bhaarrt’s maul ended the second Hobgoblin with a wet crunch that echoed through the chamber.

  Close to fifty pounds of steel hits pretty hard no matter who swings it. Ogres hit hard. Very hard.

  Our loot was generous. 140 Shields from the Shamen, 100 more from the Hobgoblins. A staff, a pouch, three leather ponchos with 10 Defense, a Poor Sword, and a Buckler with +5 Defense. Not bad. But survival mattered more.

  The room itself was 12 by 6 meters, plus the 3-meter entry. Three torches lit the space with steady blue light. One odd thing bothered me…a section on the left side of the far wall. Three meters square, mapped but unreachable. Solid stone, maybe. Or not.

  “Rest break,” I called, voice rough. “Make it a food break too. We’ve got plenty. Let’s eat, then figure out how to avoid getting smacked so hard next time.”

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61sdvxPRAT0

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