“Life is a lot more pleasant when you learn from other people’s mistakes.” ― Wayne Gerard Trotman

  The orcs had flushed with embarrassment – quite the sight on a pack of muscular, 2-meter, green-skinned adventurers – but had quickly recovered once it became apparent that Sir Milback wasn’t actually offended by his treatment. As a veteran of several centuries of expeditions, this hadn’t even made his top ten list of strangest places he’d woken in. His critiques were more practical in nature.

  “Ach, you can’t really have expected a paladin to sleep through a battle, could you? Without any sort of sound dampening? Or even a lid on the pot?”

  Shuzug and the others were amused by his sarcasm and conceded his point.

  The bulky dungeon inspector laid out the basic arguments prosaically. “Well, we didn’t know how long you’d be out, and we have at least some pressure to finish up quickly. The longer this takes, the harder it will be to get back to our tribal lands. We didn’t want to leave you asleep and undefended in the middle of a dungeon – even a sapient dungeon that’s been pretty cooperative. And from Lugrub’s telling, you’d basically collapsed from exhaustion, so we didn’t want to wake you unnecessarily either.”

  The gnome readily admitted his exhaustion. “I DO wish I was still asleep, but in that situation, always best to try to wake me, I think. Needed a Greater Stamina potion just to make it back, so I’m not going to be up to much for hours yet.” He winced and shook out his shoulders. “More climbing than I’d like, especially in full armor. I’m going to feel that for a few days, I fear. Still, the mission was completed successfully; I can’t share all of it, but there were some sights along the way I’ll be remembering ‘til I pass on.” He smiled wistfully, mind clearly going back over his recent explorations.

  Lugrub grinned at his pensive musing. “We’ve got our own stories to share – though they’re mostly heavier on the slapstick humor! Picture Ushug there smashing a skeleton with his axe – while flopping on the ground covered in olive oil and wrestling with Lazgar!”

  Her brother growled warningly at his sister, who ignored him in the way that sisters will. “Maybe he’d rather picture YOU covered head to toe in wet, red clay with grit in your eyes flailing about with your daggers!”

  She just laughed at him. “Like you weren’t ALSO covered in clay with grit in your eyes! At least I didn’t manage to cut myself with my own weapon!”

  Sir Milback grinned wryly at the siblings’ antics before turning to Lazgar and Shuzug. “Sounds like I missed out... Dungeon kept up with the traps, I take it? Nothing too dangerous, I hope?”

  Shuzug nodded in affirmation before shaking his head. “Yeah. The dungeon’s been pretty good at combining traps with creatures to nudge the party into them. The traps have been pretty nonlethal, and the monsters mostly aren’t that difficult – but the combination’s likely to result in some serious injuries and some deaths for lower leveled parties. ‘Course if the dungeon had wanted us dead, it might have managed it. Several of the traps we ran into were clearly the toned-down version. And Ushug had a close call yesterday – caught a skeletal warhorse’s hoof with his forehead. Helmet took the worst of it, but it was a near thing.”

  The gnome shook his head. “Skeletal warhorse, huh? Those’re nasty – especially for us shorter types... Blow like that would have sent me flying if it didn’t just flatten me. Well, I suppose we can catch up later, and I’ll share what I can. Right now, I’d say you still have the rest of the building here to clear. I see at least one more room and an upstairs yet to go.”

  Ironically enough, storming the manor house was considerably easier for the party than the paddock had been. Having encountered the mimic on the first floor of the dungeon, they were not fooled by the lesser mimics in the dining room or the upstairs bedroom. As ambush predators, they weren’t hard to handle if you knew they were there.

  Lugrub handled the looting, and she didn’t really miss much. She’d left behind the majolica, apparently having no interest in packing around fragile items. That made sense to me, given their means of transport – but the silverware, nuggets of silver, books, and mana lamp all made it into her storage. I made a mental note to use mimics on only a limited basis; they weren’t really worth the mana cost if they weren’t going to be able to surprise anyone.

  That just left the child’s bedroom. They, obviously, didn’t have any trouble dispatching the lone skeleton; I’d wondered if making it child sized would daunt them at all, but either they weren’t sentimental that way, or a dungeon skeleton just wasn’t a sympathetic enough creature to elicit their concern. Either way, they put it down quickly and without comment.

  I’d held the two horned rabbits on the bed, partially burrowed under the rag pony, until Lugrub had gone to search the chest at the foot of the bed. I let them choose their moment, and they did a better job with the timing than I would have – launching a springing attack right at the instant when Lugrub had knelt by the chest to inspect it for traps and before raising the lid. That put her head and neck more or less level with the top of the bed, and the look on her face was a priceless one – shock and dismay fighting for dominance.

  I’ll give her this much, though. Her reflexes were top notch, with one hand sweeping up to bat one of the vicious bunnies across the room. She also threw herself backwards, and the other bunny only managed to rake its horn across her cheek in passing as it rocketed by. After that, the fight was over quickly, with Ushug meeting the first rabbit’s charge with a hobnailed boot that took all the fight out of it before carefully squishing its head and neck. Lazgar got the second one with a shield bash and a precise stab in its neck.

  Lugrub regained her feet with the studied poise of a cat that had just missed its landing and was casually pretending that her clattering fall had been a deliberate ruse. That sent Orbul over the edge, and the older mage was shaking with laughter – as much at Lugrub’s nonchalance as the initial ambush.

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  Lugrub just shot her a look of betrayal, and the older woman tried to recover her own poise. “S-sorry, Lugrub. You should have seen the look on your face, though! I swear, you weren’t worried about the danger, you just immediately looked appalled by the stories your brother’s going to tell!”

  Shuzug and Sir Milback both snorted, then shared a look, while Lugrub muttered “That IS the danger. Horned rabbits are only a pest. Like Ushug.”

  Ushug looked over and grinned at his sister. “I can hear it now... Gather round, children. Let me tell you the cautionary tale of Lugrub and the Ambush Rabbits...”

  She snarled at him. “I WILL cut you. Besides, who’s going to let YOU tell stories to their children! You’re not exactly a storyteller – at least not ones for kids! If anything, you’re going to be the weird bachelor uncle to MY kids.”

  He feigned a wounded expression. “Well, then, I’ll just have to get in their good graces by sharing embarrassing stories of their mother’s ill-spent youth.”

  Lugrub lapsed into muttering under her breath as she opened the chest and gave it a quick search – taking the two books with a curious glance. “Wonder where the dungeon got these from? They’re old, but local enough, so they can’t be from wherever he came from. And I can’t imagine why anyone would give him 300-year-old children’s books. Hmm.”

  Lazgar peered over her shoulder to take a look. “That IS odd. Perhaps they’re relevant to his divine mission somehow?” He glanced over at Sir Milback, “I have been learning that divine missions take a bunch of odd configurations – it's not all smiting evil cultists and extraplanar monsters.”

  Sir Milback nodded his agreement. “Aye, true enough. Though, to be fair, they USUALLY involve smiting evil cultists and extraplanar monsters... Still, a dungeon can have a divine patron, but it’s still no paladin. I’d imagine their jobs look somewhat different from our own. Not sure how children’s books would factor in, though. Perhaps we’ll find out some day.”

  While I was enjoying being mysterious, it also struck me as a hazard of the paladin profession – to see the hand of a deity in every odd coincidence. I suppose if you’re a divine hammer, then everything might look like an infernal nail. As far as I knew, those books were just a lucky find and not at all relevant to my mission – though perhaps I was the one being naive.

  They left the manor house shortly thereafter, and I got the sense they’d found it interesting, but a bit underwhelming. I might need to explore some options for bumping up both its challenges and its rewards at some point. They hadn’t really bothered with searching the grounds, beyond checking to make sure the cavern didn’t continue further on. They’d missed the hidden cache of kid’s treasures, which, to be fair, I hadn’t really left clear clues for. It didn’t seem worth making a fuss over, but if Shuzug inquired later, I’d let him know something had been missed.

  That left them backtracking through the stonecutter’s shop and the rest to hit the few remaining rooms of the second floor – namely the chandlery and the tannery.

  ************************************************

  Having cut back through the warehouse space, Lugrub led the way, stopping at the southern door that led to the chandlery, tannery, and eventually, the barn and Hakdrilda’s living space. That first door led just a simple hallway before the door to the chandlery, and I’d continued my pattern of not trapping the hallway spaces between rooms on this level.

  The chandlery door WAS trapped, with a fairly simple and very traditional pot of liquid poised above the door in a manner such that it would be tipped onto the head of anyone entering. In my not especially thought out way, I’d made the liquid hot wax – hot enough to burn – but kept the pot small enough that the burns shouldn’t be too damaging. It kind of made sense from a theme perspective, but it would have to indicate that the skeletons knew the party was coming. I’d have to change it out for something more plausible but didn’t have the time at the moment.

  Lugrub was cautious in opening the door, though, so it was kind of a moot point – the splashing wax and falling vessel missed her entirely, as she’d simply pushed the door open without entering – presumably to inspect the residents of the room first. The door swung open silently enough but the falling liquid and especially the clanging noise generated by the heated pot caught the immediate attention of all three lesser skeletons as Lugrub swore viciously.

  “Fuck! Some sort of hot liquid on the floor and three skeletons coming fast!” She leaped into the room, aiming left of the not so large puddle of wax, knives already drawn. She clashed directly with one of the two knife-wielding skeletons, and it was clear she had both greater reach and better technique. What she didn’t have was the willingness to accept wounds that the skeleton did. I was interested to note that it rather put her on the defensive, though the skeleton was taking damage in its attempts to close with the slippery rogue.

  Lazgar and Ushug came through the door in a rapid, but careful manner, clearly not intending to repeat the olive oil debacle. The wax was considerably less sticky and there was less of it, at least until the skeleton responsible for hurling more at them got started.

  Orbul took pity on the frontliners and used a carefully targeted magic missile to take down the wax hurling one – rightly judging that the knife wielding skeletons were the lesser hazard.

  That was made eminently clear by the brutal takedown administered by Ushug, whose massive axe and reach advantage gave the skeleton no chance at all to close to striking range. His first swing took off the skeletons knife-wielding arm and smashed most of the ribs on its right side as a bonus. The backswing finished the job, as he directed it back through the cranium of the skeleton.

  Lazgar took advantage of the lack of awareness that Lugrub’s skeleton was showing to take it from behind, removing its skull with a tightly measured blow that didn’t risk interfering with Lugrub’s attacks.

  The wax wielding skeleton was trying to get back up, having been damaged but not destroyed by the center mass shot that had sent it to the floor. Ushug put a quick end to its struggles, opting to simply punt its skull into the nearby wall.

  Shuzug and Sir Milback nodded appreciatively at the improvement in the party’s co-ordination and adaptive response. Shuzug went so far as to issue an approving, “Very nice. That’s how to do it.”

  Lugrub eyed him carefully for indications of sarcasm, but nodded slowly, then grinned. “That was one of our better showings, I’ll admit. Now we just need to work on consistency. It helps that the trap in this room was less effectively designed – though I’d be surprised if the dungeon doesn’t correct that.” She shot a quick, not entirely serious glare in the direction of my mana lights. “He may be rather cooperative, but I’m seeing some signs of a evil mind. Probably good for training up youngsters, though. Teach them some careful habits.”

  Shuzug just chuckled. “True, true. You realize, of course, that you’ve just set yourself up for a fall, right? It may be that the dungeon still has a lesson or two for you.”

  **GREEN**

  She blanched. “Fuck! You’re right. Need to learn to keep my mouth shut – especially in a sapient dungeon! No offense intended.”

  Ushug laughed, “I’ve been telling you that your whole life, sis!”

  I was amused by their antics, and while I was going to revamp the trap in this room into something both more appropriate and more effective, that would be something for later. I wasn’t planning to raise the difficulty on them particularly. They were, frankly, nearly done with my traps – though I had some hopes to catch them with the last one.

  They spent some time searching the room for portable goods, but didn’t find a lot worth taking, though Orbul did collect a few of the scented temple candles while Lugrub picked up the limited loot on the skeletons themselves.

  After that, they regrouped and headed for the final leg of the dungeon – the tannery, the barn, and the safe area where Hakdrilda had set up shop.