“Now.”

  At Joscelin’s command, Taryn activated the trap.

  Her adventurer’s stick extended ten feet, a five-pound iron weight secured to its tip. She stood twenty feet ahead of the group, Maph directly behind her with a rope looped around her waist, braced to yank her clear at the first sign of danger.

  Franco crouched, expecting the ceiling to collapse.

  Instead, the walls detonated inward.

  Stone slammed together with surprising force. Taryn barely reacted in time, the weighted head of her stick was crushed between the converging slabs before she could retract it. The corridor was closed off to them and remained sealed for several long seconds before the stone withdrew, grinding back into place with a deep, resonant groan.

  “Well. I didn’t expect that,” Franco muttered.

  It was their first full day clearing their corridor, and it was proving as tedious as predicted. Just past midday, they had advanced only a few hundred feet from the entrance.

  “I thought it would be spikes,” Maph said. “It looked like spikes.”

  Franco watched Taryn reel in the mangled pole. She detached the ruined section without complaint, movements economical and practiced, then collapsed the remaining length.

  “Did you see how it activated?” Faye asked from the rear, satisfaction unmistakable in her tone.

  “I saw it, Mage,” Taryn replied dryly.

  Oaken grinned at Taryn’s irritation. When he noticed Franco watching him, he trilled innocently.

  “Do you need help?” Joscelin asked.

  “Just keep watch. I’ll have it disarmed in a few minutes.”

  She unrolled a leather wrap of tools a foot from the pressure plate and began pulling tools out before she started working to dismantle the trap.

  Silence stretched on as they watched her work. Franco found it strange to see such a large person move with such grace and dexterity as Taryn did.

  After a few minutes the silence was broken.

  “I’m convinced now, Joscelin,” Faye said after a minute.

  “Yeah,” Oaken added, glancing at their captain. “You might be right.”

  Joscelin had argued the previous night and again that morning that the traps were too simple. Too predictable. They were clearing them faster than the Gold teams that had opened their doors weeks ago. That alone was suspicious.

  Franco hadn’t given it much weight until the last hour. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  “How far are we?” he asked.

  “Five hundred feet from the entrance,” Oaken said after checking his notes. “Exactly.”

  Exactly five hundred feet.

  That precision felt wrong.

  Taryn lifted her horned head and looked back at them.

  “Should I stop?”

  The team exchanged glances before settling on Joscelin.

  She sighed. “Do it. Everyone get ready.”

  Franco drew his Jade saber in his right hand and pulled his shock bolt wand free with his left. Around him, steel rasped and magic hummed as the others prepared.

  “Go,” Joscelin ordered.

  Taryn slid her tools beneath the massive pressure plate. After creating enough clearance, she inserted a thin enchanted blade—designed to sever magical conduits and sharp enough to shear metal. She sawed carefully.

  A sharp snap echoed down the hall.

  Franco flinched, scanning for immediate danger. Seeing none, he refocused. The plate now sat an inch higher. Taryn methodically lifted and disconnected the internal mechanism.

  Ten minutes later, she stood and nodded.

  “Let me test it. It should be inert.”

  She reassembled her adventurer’s stick and methodically struck the floor, walls, and ceiling. She applied weight across different sections. Then she attached a heavy mana coin to the tip and repeated the process.

  Nothing triggered.

  Satisfied, she shortened the pole to five feet and advanced.

  The team followed in slow formation, Maph keeping the rope slack but ready.

  Taryn stepped squarely into the center of the disabled trap and paused. After a long breath through her nostrils, she probed the floor beyond it.

  Her right foot hovered mid-step in the air as she moved forward when the walls ahead shifted and a flash of blue light pulsed in front of her.

  Taryn was ripped off her feet as Maph hauled her backward with a surge of strength, dragging her fifteen feet down the corridor.

  “Movement!” she shouted as she slid.

  “Franco forward. Light,” Joscelin commanded.

  He was already moving. By the time Taryn regained her footing, Franco stood beside Maph as the Scout moved behind them as part of the second line.

  The corridor ahead exploded from dim afternoon gloom into blinding noon brightness.

  Sections of the wall had retracted and four massive fire salamanders spilled into the twenty-foot hallway, crawling over one another in seeming confusion. Their hides looked like cracked obsidian veined with molten orange

  The closest one was easily twelve feet long and took a heartbeat to register Franco and his team. Then it hissed.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “Hit it!” someone yelled.

  Franco unleashed a rapid volley of shock bolts as he advanced. The spells struck the massive salamander across its head and neck, sizzling across scaled flesh, painful but no serious damage dealt.

  The lead salamander reared back, throat swelling with internal flame. Then it spat.

  A burning glob of semi-liquid fire slammed into Maph’s shield with concussive force. Flame splashed outward in molten fragments, splattering across the stone hallway and armor. Heat detonated across the corridor with it.

  Maph staggered a step as fire licked up his greaves.

  He roared, ripped the burning shield free, and flung it aside before it fused to his arm.

  Franco moved past him without looking back.

  Kill the threat first he thought.

  Closing the distance, he channeled Soul Lance through his saber. The spectral strike drove eight inches into the salamander’s shoulder. The monster tore itself free from the impaling spike, widening the wound as it recoiled back

  He’d aimed for the head but missed. He now left the wounded beast to his teammates and lunged at the second salamander as it prepared to spit.

  He triggered [Blade Echo] as he slashed the fire salamander across its body. The spectral blade mimicked his attack within a second and carved deeper into its flank. As the creature twisted to avoid the attack and to bite him the returning arc sliced across its face piecing an eye.

  It reeled back in shock and hissed fire and flame as it staggered.

  Maph was suddenly there, greatsword descending in a single ability-charged arc.

  The salamander’s head separated cleanly as the tall elf in his gleaming breastplate stepped forward to continue his attack into the next salamander.

  Franco moved to support him and realized the fight was already over.

  The salamander he had wounded lay impaled with two javelins. The others were blasted apart by crossbow bolts and magic.

  “Nice block,” Franco said.

  “That shield’s gone,” Maph replied. “But it did its job.”

  “Magic’s building ahead,” Oaken warned.

  Franco looked up.

  Fifty feet down the hall, both walls withdrew deeper into the walls again and three golems stepped out.

  Two were made of stone, massive and crude and looked like Kimbers with their three arms. The third, positioned behind them, was bronze. Humanoid. Armed with a sword and axe. At least six feet tall.

  “Faye, message the floor boss and tell them we are dealing with a monster wave,” Joscelin ordered, voice tight. “Standard formation. Taryn stays behind Franco.”

  “Fall back,” Maph added. “Use the salamander corpses as barricades.”

  They repositioned, anchoring the twenty-foot corridor between the two of them.

  The golems advanced into a storm of magic. Shock and Magic bolts. Fireballs and Joscelin’s infused crossbow bolts slammed into the two stone golemes. Chunks exploded from the stone constructs. Cracks spider-webbed across their torsos as spellfire hammered them. They accelerated, now coming forward at a slow jog.

  Franco adjusted his stance as pangs of fear and half remembered memories washed over him but he pushed them aside. This was nothing like when he had gotten his fiance killed and he didn't have time to dwell on them anyway.

  The first stone golem reached Maph’s side and slowed just enough to step over the dead salamander at its feet. It was already slowed by the damage dealt to it on its approach but Maph moved to finish it as it was mid step. It brought up both its right arms to hit the elf but Maph stepped into the blow dodging the slow swings before he activated his new level 8 [Charge] ability and moved forward in a sudden flash of speed. His sword held up at a slight angle. He had aimed his [Charge] well and took the single left arm of the stone golem off at the shoulder and set the golem stumbling from the blow.

  Franco knew that Maph was still moving on the attack now going after the bronze golem while the others would deal with the wounded golem he had left behind him but he had no time to dwell on that as the stone golem facing him was swing out with its single left arm while its two right ones seemed to try and grab him over the body of a dead Fire Salamander.

  With his new [Spellsword] Class he had gained a Class Ability, Skill and Enhancement. He put his Deadly Grace enhancement to work as he moved with both speed and finesse avoiding the swinging club of the left hook while stepping past the grasping right arms to bring the edge of his saber to where its featureless chin would be as he cut deep into its stone head while he stabbed it with his shock bolt before unleashing two shock bolts into its stone torso.

  The golem seized up for a second, just enough time for Franco to bring his Jade saber down again on its head and this time cutting the top third of it off at an angle. Franco didn't stop there but hit it again with more shocks, bolts and blade cuts as he avoided its increasingly clumsy swings before it finally stopped moving.

  Swinging around the now disabled golem he saw the continuing fight Maph and Taryn were having with the bronze golem. Joseclin and Oaken were giving them support while Faye was staying near him and watching their backs.

  With the other stone golem already dead Franco swept the hallways with his eyes for any other threats and he saw that a complex symbol that he didn't recognize was glowing a faint but pulsing yellow on the wall next to him just a few feet further down the hallway…about where the Fire Salamanders had appeared.

  “Faye, whats this?” Franco asked.

  “What?” she asked as she moved up to him.

  He pointed the symbol out to her and then the other one he had just seen on the opposite wall.

  “It’s an active Ward and it's counting down it looks like” Faye said as she grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back.

  “Joseclin we have an active Ward about to go off” Faye shouted as she moved backwards away from the Ward.

  “Fallback now” Joseclin yelled as everyone started to move back towards their entrance door.

  Maph finished off the bronze golem with a quick thrust of his longsword. He drove it into a gaping wound in the chest of the golem before he started to move back.

  Franco shook off Faye’s hand and let Maph catch up to him before the two of them started to move backwards in step with the rest of the team behind them. They made it back another ten feet before the glowing Wards on the walls flashed bright and two giant Fire Salamanders appeared out of the side of the walls where the Wards had been.

  “It's active teleportation! Incredible! We have to break them to stop them, probably” Oaken said.

  The two Fire Salamanders were confused and one was facing the wrong direction but Maph and him were not about to give them time to orient themselves. Franco rushed forward towards the salamander that was just now turning to face them while Oakens [Light Arrows] hit the other in the face.

  Two infused crossbow bolts took his salamander in the side as it turned before he got there and with it confused and in pain he brought down his saber in a [Cleaving Strike] and decapitated the twelve foot long salamander before it knew what was going on.

  The other salamander died just as fast as the Mages went to work on the wards. Oaken went to Maph's side while Faye went to his.

  “What are we looking at?” Franco asked.

  “A pretty complex Ward Franco but that's about all I can say” Faye said as she pointed a wand at it.

  She cast a [Magic Bolt] that took a small pebble sized check of the wall out but didn't stop the Ward from glowing.

  “What are you waiting for, break it” She said, looking at him.

  “Oh, alright” he said as he free cast Soul Lance into the Ward engraved onto the wall.

  Between both of them they broke the Ward enough that it stopped glowing and Franco felt a sense of relief as the light in it suddenly winked out.

  “It's a gauntlet type” Oaken said happily as the group saw two new bronze golems appear down the hallway where the other golems had appeared before.

  “Dont sound too happy about it” Maph said as he readied himself for another fight.

  “Faye, send a message to the floor boss and tell him that it's a Gauntlet type and to keep that group on stand-by for help. The rest of you move forward, this hallway is already too crowded with bodies. We need to break those golem summoning Wards and see what comes next” Joscelin said as she loaded a new magazine of bolts into her auto crossbow.

  “Oh and Faye see if there is a team willing to do monster salvaging for a 20% cut of everything they salvage”

  “Good idea, I hate skinning things” Oaken said as he loosed a few Light Arrows at the approaching golems. Trilling in amusement.

  “Like you ever do it” Josceline said.

  Franco smiled as he looked over his team and then walked forward to stand next to Maph. He used [Instant Recharge: Wands] on his Shock Bolt wand to start its cool down. Today was going to be a fun day it seemed and he would probably need that again, sooner rather than later.

  “Better than traps” Taryn said as she tossed her horned head in amusement as she hefted her short spear.

  “You are definitely one of us,” Franco said as he moved forward with Maph into the fight.