Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower, or a-a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences long forgotten. Books smell musty and-and-and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer is a ...it, uh, it has no-no texture, no-no context. It's - It's there and then it's gone. If it's to last, then-then the getting of knowledge should be, uh, tangible. It should be, um, smelly.

  Lugrub’s caution was fairly transparent, and I gave her even odds of noticing the secondary trap behind the obvious dummy pressure plate. Ironically, she seemed relieved to spot the trap, and I thought for a second that she had identified the real pressure plate on the far side of the fake.

  She looked back over her shoulder, the five lesser skeletons not yet having noticed her, having silenced the hinges with some lubrication before opening the door. She whispered, “five skeletons and a pressure plate trap by the door – jump and run!”

  She put action to her words, with unfortunate results – leaping directly into the secondary pressure plate and triggering the trap with an appalled look flashing across her face as her boot sank the bare half inch required.

  She had just enough time to start swearing, before the consequences of her mistake hit – quite literally. Sadly, or humorously depending on your perspective, that meant her mouth was open as the stink trap released its contents directly over her head. The combination of elk urine, badger musk, and pine tar wasn’t toxic, even if consumed, but it was pungent and highly disruptive to her refined senses.

  Not even her brother laughed at this one, eyeing her carefully as he leaped past – verifying that she was uninjured if at least temporarily out of the fight – sticky and stinking, spitting and wiping gunk from her eyes as she swore.

  The others avoided the mess for the most part and closed with the skeletons, who were now obviously alerted and approaching. The exception was Orbul who again used her magic missiles to take down the nearest of the skeletons. That left two each for Lazgar and Ushug, and each was successful in putting down one in the initial exchanges. Lazgar’s wasn’t entirely destroyed, but it had been disarmed in a very literal fashion; Ushug’s had taken an axe blow to its upper torso that pulverized its spinal column above the butcher’s apron, leaving it incapable of further combat.

  The remaining two skeletons did a little better – having gotten in attacks in the initial charge. Those attacks had done relatively little damage – with Ushug picking up a shallow cut on his left arm and Lazgar’s shield gaining a long scratch in its paintwork.

  They didn’t last much longer, though, and by the time Lugrub had cleared her face enough to join in, the others simply waved her back. I wasn’t sure if it was because they didn’t need her help or because they didn’t want her getting too close, but either way, the two fighters finished off their foes with no issue.

  Shuzug carefully forbore from any “I told you so,” but I could see him biting his tongue – and so could Lugrub. She channeled her embarrassment into anger, both at me and at him. Even Ushug could tell this wasn’t the time to make jokes, and Lazgar opted to inspect his sword and shield for apparently non-existent damage.

  Sir Milback snorted at the carefully discreet party of orcs but offered only a sympathetic shake of his head. “Ah lass, happens to us all sometimes... That decoy pressure plate’s pretty sneaky – and not something you’ll encounter in most dungeons.”

  She snarled wordlessly but visibly started to calm down. At least until her brother chimed in. “Yeah, Lugrub, it’s unfortunate, but no permanent damage. No harm, no foul, right?”

  She turned on him. “Is that supposed to be a joke, you ass! No foul?! This is clearly foul!”

  I wasn’t actually sure if he’d intended a joke, or if he’d just chosen his words poorly, but his sister didn’t seem to have any doubts on the issue. She marched over to her brother, who was quickly backpedaling away from his angry, befouled sister, hands raised.

  She gave him a snarling grin and approached him with arms outstretched. “No hard feelings, brother. How about a hug?”

  Ushug held his axe out in front of himself to block her approach, all while trying to placate her. “Not the time or the place, sis. We haven’t even checked for any traps – I mean, additional traps!”

  Her snarl lost its grin, as she took his words as a critique, but a discreet cough from Lazgar refocused her attention on the observers, and she stiffened, let out a deep breath, and through clenched teeth, gritted out, “Quite right, brother. There will be time for us to DISCUSS this later. Right now, we should focus on finishing up the floor and getting back to those showers on the first floor. The stench is going to noticeably degrade my ability to both sneak up on monsters and detect their presence.”

  Shuzug nodded his agreement at her analysis. “True enough. Skeletons aren’t really known for their sense of smell, but no living creature is going to miss your presence. Nonlethal, as traps go, but still potentially problematic – as well as likely to enrage and distract, I’m afraid.”

  I got the sense that Lugrub was more upset about the stories her brother was going to be telling, as they didn’t reflect well on her but would find an amused audience in any orcish tavern.

  They reformed after Lugrub had rather tensely searched the room for additional traps or loot, finding the limited materials in the room rather underwhelming for the annoyance level. I suspected that she, at least, wasn’t about to give me high ratings, or at least would have some less than pleasant commentary to include. I decided that I should start thinking about what kind of prizes I could issue for completion of the dungeon – with an eye towards appeasing the angry orcish rogue and establishing positive connections with the orcs more generally.

  In any event, they were moving on to the final part of my second floor – the barn. I wasn’t entirely sure how well the warhorse skeletons would do in a more enclosed space, but they’d done right by me in the farrier’s space. I also debated whether or not to have the lesser skeletons in the hayloft come down, but I decided to keep them as two separate engagements.

  It started off well enough for the orcs; I think they’d started to get accustomed to the attacks of the warhorse skeletons. Lazgar was picking up some additional dents on his shield, and Ushug had adopted a more cautious, evasive style to avoid the lashing forehooves of the skeletons. Lazgar’s attempt to turn the undead had failed, and Orbul’s magic missiles seemed rather less effective on the larger targets. She had met with limited success once she targeted the legs, and one of the warhorse skeletons was soon down a foreleg. It didn’t seem to slow it too much, though it wasn’t moving quite as quickly or as agilely.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Lugrub had abandoned her daggers as mostly futile and had seized a simple steel scythe from the rack by the door and was attempting to take out the rear legs of the skeletons as her brother and party leader held their attention.

  I decided that the skeletons in the hayloft had been alerted by the clatter, and I moved them to wait by the ladder to the hayloft with their pitchforks at the ready. They wouldn’t join the fight, but they might well surprise anyone opting to explore the upper level.

  Lugrub clearly hadn’t had a lot of practice with a scythe, but she was rapidly working out the basic knee-level swing the tool had been designed for. The skeletons were aware of her presence, but weren’t really able to react well to her approach as the frontline fighters were pressing them fairly hard.

  Lazgar’s shield was starting to look a bit battered, and Ushug had caught a glancing kick to his left leg that left him limping, but in exchange, the three-legged warhorse skeleton was soon down to two legs, as Lugrub took one off at the knee. That sent it crashing to the ground, and unable to effectively defend itself as Ushug’s axe crashed into its neck, finishing it off. The remaining skeletal horse got in a solid kick to Lazgar’s left leg that left him limping as well, but with the three of them focused on a lone skeleton, it wasn’t long before the creature was down and dispatched.

  A quick inspection of the main floor of the barn turned up no loot, given their lack of interest in farming implements. They had a brief discussion about whether or not to check out the hayloft, but decided they should do so, if just to be thorough for the inspection.

  Lugrub offered to do the honors, presumably looking to recover some of her credibility as a scout. It was an unfortunate decision on her part, as after she’d climbed about the first three rungs of the ladder, the two lesser skeletons ambushed her with their pitchforks. She was alert enough to avoid the worst possible outcomes but received nasty puncture wounds to her right hand and arm in blocking the thrusts aimed at her face.

  She fell back to the floor with an angry curse, not falling far, but landing rather ungracefully and bleeding profusely. Her brother pulled her back swiftly while Lazgar moved in with his battered shield to prevent further attacks.

  Lugrub was gifted a healing potion by Orbul which at least stopped the bleeding, but left her with wounds that looked like they’d been healing for a week or two at least. Lazgar and the skeletons were essentially at an impasse. They couldn’t get past his shield, but neither could he effectively climb the ladder and block at the same time.

  Instead, the party leader backed up a few steps, out of range of pitchfork thrusts, and tried turning undead one more time. It was effective enough, this time that both skeletons backed away from the ladder, and Ushug swarmed up it and quickly dispatched the confused undead.

  In a happy enough coincidence, the brief struggle had taken place in the same corner where I’d set up the skeletons’ card game, and Ushug quickly looted the pot and the dwarven whiskey, pocketing the small nuggets I’d substituted for coinage. I’d really prefer to use coinage, but I understand the economic concerns that come from unregulated minting of coinage. I’d hate to get destroyed for something as boring as upsetting the local economy by providing coins of better quality than the usual circulating currency.

  That left them with just one, final fight in the tack room – unless I decided to put them up against the wizard’s cat or the spectral librarian, or if they decided to force their way towards the mana gathering array or attack Hakdrilda or the Redcrests. None of that seemed likely, though, so one final Greater Cavalry Skeleton would be the finale of this inaugural run.

  Probably I need a floor boss here or something, but it was too late to do that now. They paused for a few more minutes, arguing whether to press on or stop for a meal. I think it was clear to them that they must be nearing the end of the floor – partly that was due to their mapping efforts, and partly from referencing the limited descriptions provided by the earlier inspectors. I had the sense that given where I’d been with Norfoth a few weeks ago, and factoring in whatever I’d been up to that required a paladin’s services, and the reported dungeon visitor, I simply couldn’t have that much more to go. In the end, they decided to press on; I think the deciding factor was that none of them really wanted to eat with Lugrub smelling the way she did. i felt a little bad about that, but not too much – possibly because as a dungeon I couldn’t actually smell her.

  It was clearly affecting her though, as she was both highly irritable and rather sullen about the whole thing – to the point where even her brother was being very careful not to give her any reason to take her ill humor out on him.

  In the end, it was the cavalry skeleton that caught the brunt of her peevishness. I’d left him ignorant of their presence, and with no sense of smell, Lugrub was able to sneak up on him effectively enough to line up a disabling strike, severing his spinal column a bit above the pelvis (roughly at the L1 vertebra, I thought.) Looting his remains seemed to help her mood a bit, and I got the sense she was looking forward to some of the dwarven whiskey once things were settled.

  I let Hakdrilda know they were coming with a prearranged signal on the mana lights, but she was already aware given the variety of clashes in the adjoining area. She wasn’t expecting any trouble, but she still backed up to the wall of the room farthest from the main entry – just to give the adventurers time to identify her as a fellow adventurer, rather than the final floor boss.

  The orcs entered cautiously, having checked the door for traps only to note a posted letter for them pinned to the door. It had identified the resident of the room as a non-combatant researcher from one of the great dwarven academies of Daekar, as well as a black iron badged mage (indicating she was roughly a match for their levels). Norfoth’s report had mentioned her, so it wasn’t a true surprise, after all. Still, they hadn’t wanted to take too much on faith, and both sides responded a bit nervously as the loud knocking on her door had startled Hakdrilda. The mana lights had let her know they were on the way, but the exact timing still managed to be a surprise.

  She’d called out a polite, if rather stiff, invitation, and the orcs had entered slowly with their weapons sheathed, but still in a position to be reached quickly if the need arose.

  The tension bled away rather quickly, though, in the end as Hakdrilda spotted the bottle of dwarven whiskey still dangling from Ushug’s grasp.

  “You brought whiskey! Come in! Come in! Make yourselves at home! I’ll get cups!”

  It was about at that time that the smell rolling off Lugrub hit her, and she blanched unwillingly. “Ah... Perhaps you’d care to wash up first! There’s a shower and facilities in the corner yonder.” She jerked her head in the correct direction.

  Lugrub literally said nothing, simply darting to the waiting shower, as the men snorted and shook their heads. Her brother called after her retreating form. “I’ll just lay out your change of clothes for you and pass them over when you’re ready. Maybe you just want to have the dungeon absorb your current clothes. Not the armor obviously, but I think maybe he could clean them for you once you’re not actively wearing them?”

  He glanced over at Shuzug, who nodded. “Well, he certainly CAN, don’t know if he WILL? Your call, Lugrub.”

  There was no response, simply the sound of water pouring from the shower head, and a happy groan.

  Hakdrilda just snorted and looked over the party. “I’m guessing that Vay had a few surprises for you? Pull up a seat and tell me a story. I’ve been on my own for longer than I’m really comfortable with!”

  The orcs shared some quick glances, but then just shrugged and seated themselves carefully – the chairs not really built for beings their size...