Nobody spoke again while Merrick finished chipping away at the vein of ore. James was busy looking for branches that could be fletched into good arrow shafts, thankful that Merrick’s ‘wood polish’ helped vastly improve the quality of the product being worked on. It was only due to this that he was able to find a few of barely passable quality. Rod was scouting for enemies, already at the other side of the room and peering down the tunnel that would lead deeper into the dungeon.

  Mary was quietly picking berries, looking every bit the innocent farmer’s daughter frolicking through a field of flowers. Merrick forced his eyes away from admiring her and back to finishing up collecting the minor ore vein spawn in front of him.

  It was some variety of potash ore if the coloration could be believed, a good source of potassium which a few recipes Merrick was experimenting with called for. More importantly, it also had a very high salt content and was therefore always in demand and could be sold with a quick turnaround. Even if he didn’t sell it, and he didn’t think he would if he could get away with it, the salt would be a godsend while he was caravanning to the frontier. Salt could cover many gamey flavors that would otherwise upset his stomach.

  He finished scooping the mineral rich ore into his pack and spun, deciding the silence was awkward because he wasn’t sure if they were all judging him.

  “So, I haven’t delved with anyone here before. I’ve got a basic understanding of everyone’s combat abilities, is there anything else that we should be expecting from each other? I’ve got basic gathering abilities for just about anything..” Merrick trailed off.

  “As far as gathering goes, we should Mary handle any plant harvests. She has a passive ability that seals more medicinal energy and magicka when she's the one that personally harvests it. I can dress any beastial spawns we run into and am fairly adept at spotting ambushes and hidden caches due to my father’s training.” Rod pitched in quickly. He’d wanted to have a pre-delve conversation to start with, but couldn’t help but be annoyed with James which prevented him from wanting to talk to the man. Merrick offering to lead the conversation was well enough for him.

  “I can also scout most floranids. They aren’t entirely plants, but enough of them are that I can still feel them through my Sense Plants ability, which I can channel through the brambles since they travel between rooms. Theoretically, I should be able to detect anything that isn’t a sapient but I’d be wary to say so. You catch them all until you don’t, after all. Unfortunately, my plant based magic isn’t very effective against the Bramblekin that are common on the first few levels, and my staff’s bludgeoning damage isn’t much to speak of.” Mary offered up.

  It was truly unfortunate that her class paired up poorly against floranids, plant-based beasts. Like Rod stated, however, she was better equipped to extract value out of both the flora and the floranids which helped to balance her risk versus reward for the dungeon.

  “My blade is effective enough against all enemies so I shall guard while you harvest. Just make sure you don’t try to cheat me out of my split.” James puffed himself up.

  “Are you going to be able to see them if you’re too busy picking up twigs? Don’t forget my split of those, might want to make a flower crown later or something.” Rod poked at his ego, instantly deflating him.

  “Rod.”

  “Sorry, Mary. Can’t help it, I get worked up when people imply that I’d be dishonest or cheat them just because they’d do the same if they could get away with it.”

  “Say that again and we’ll find out just what I can get away with, wildling.” Both James and Rod were gripping their respective weapons with white knuckles. James using a slur usually reserved for the humans who lived outside the walls of a Stronghold or its immediate area only served to heighten the tension.

  Since Merrick was done picking the room for anything he thought he’d be able to experiment with, he suggested that he and Rod scouted ahead a bit. Mary had already confirmed there were no floranids nearby it was up to Rod to watch for beasts instead. Most common for this area of the Mulberry Grove, the name of the dungeon they were delving, were aggressive boars and giant squirrels. Both were very dangerous on their own, but were very deadly when encountered alongside certain floranids like grasping vines or pewlips.

  “How exactly did James manage to convince you to come help him out today, Rod?” Merrick whispered quietly enough that only Rod would hear him, James was aways back being chewed out for Mary due to his social faux pas. She, unlike Merrick, was loud enough for everyone to hear.

  As much as he enjoyed watching James shrink farther and farther into his chainmail to flee accusations of un-knightly behavior, he also needed to know why the three of them were there together.

  “He didn’t. He managed to beggar help from Mary, you know she has a hard time saying no to a sob story. She was still going to tell him to bugger off, before he gave her a sob story about over-trading his wares to help out you. Made it sound like your debtors were coming for your head and you needed to make a payment quickly. Sorry, I know you don’t like to talk about the debt.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Anyways, that was enough to get her on board. She wouldn’t mind letting James hang himself with his own actions, but she also couldn’t stomach letting someone down for helping the only suitor she's given the time of the day to since getting to Steelhearth. Naturally that meant she came straight to me, because the alternative was a dungeon date with one of her more annoying pursuers.” Rod finished.

  “How did he know she would still help me? Seems to me he’s a little surprised by the fact that Mary and I are still on speaking terms.” Merrick asked, slowing to inspect some strange scratching on the wall. He determined it wasn’t a hint or any variety of thieves cant that he was familiar with and Rod’s eyes darting to the markings and then back forward without any remarks confirmed that in his eyes.

  “I imagine it wasn’t about that to him. He likely thought he was showing off how generous he was helping her previous charity case. Didn’t realize he’d look like a greedy buffoon taking advantage of someone’s hardships instead. Slow down real quick, I feel a weird draft in the air.” Rod was most likely right in his assessment.

  James’ eyes lit up after seeing Rod’s hand signals and he used them as an excuse to escape his berating. ‘If she was going to nag me like a wife, she could at least play the part,’ he thought to himself.

  “What do you see with your ranger-eyes, Rod? Something for me to hit, maybe?” James ducked under a root that extended down from the ceiling of the tunnel and peeked around the bend in front of them. It appeared that there had once been a branching path ahead of them, but the tunnel on the right had a collapsed entrance.

  Thin vines growing over the rubble told a story of a collapse that wasn’t recent, but it wasn’t safe to trust assumptions like that in a dungeon. Wherever power had control over those mystic locations tended to warp things in ways that defied common understanding. The party wandered forward as a group and Rod stood in the center of what would have once been a three-way intersection in the tunnels.

  “I could have sworn I felt a draft here, but I guess not. The airflow feels normal now that we’re closer, must have been a trick on the senses due to the closed path.” Rod frowned and prepared to travel down the path.

  Merrick wasn’t so sure. Rod was very rarely wrong about things like that, or at least he had been spot on every time he made a call out in the wilds around the Stronghold during his Exploratory Apprenticeship with Rod’s father. Regardless, Merrick decided to inspect the rubble more closely since a collapse could have dislodged various valuable minerals from inside the tunnel walls. It was a well known fact that not all dungeon ore spawns were visible on the surface, one of the many reasons competent miners with detection skills were often hired as porters.

  “Don’t go digging around there, potion boy. I’m not in the mood to try and survive a secondary tunnel collapse.” James spat before getting his ear tugged by Mary. Merrick rolled his eyes, he was holding a hand spade, not his hand pick. Digging a little dirt away wouldn’t kill anyone. Unfortunately, Mary jumping to his defense just meant that James was going to get even more obnoxious.

  ‘One more day until I’m gone,’ he repeated his new mantra alongside ‘Girlfriends are too expensive.’ There were certain things about Steelhearth he’d miss, but James was certainly not one of them. Even if his fletching products yielded more dust than his counterparts, Merrick intended to start a hot streak of Merge successes anyways. He’d, ideally, only be doing enough alchemy to fulfill the contract he signed to secure his ticket westwards.

  “Something about the vines is bothering me, that's all.” Merrick decided to voice his suspicion. He probably wouldn’t notice a single thing amiss if Rod hadn’t put him on alert for anomalies, but now that he was looking he decided there was something weird about the plant growth there. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he knew it was more than general dungeon weirdness.

  “Bullshit, Mary would say something if there was. Stick to your lane and let her cover the plants.” James spat after twisting out of Mary’s grip. He quickly took an elbow to the side from Rod. Theoretically the chainmail should have made the hit hurt Rod more than James, but he only stood there with a stoic look on his face as James stumbled with wide eyes.

  “Quit being a dick or we can turn around right now, Rod. We’re only here because you came crawling on your hands and knees to Mary to help her spare you your master’s wrath.” Rod was ready for a falling out, apparently.

  He’d been looking for an excuse to do something else. Were he to waste his time delving a tamed dungeon instead of helping fight back the beasts that surrounded the Stronghold, as was his job, he’d have chosen an entrance that posed more of a challenge than the Noobhole. It was only James’ instance than there was better quality saplings and accessible branches here that had them delving that particular Arch. ‘Bluster and cowardice,’ Rod couldn’t help but think to himself.

  It was then that Rod and James both seemed to notice, at the same moment, that Mary wasn’t interjecting herself between them as she usually would. Instead she was staring at the vines with furrowed brows and a pondering expression.

  “I think I see what you mean, Merrick. Those are the same vines from the landing zone, no? Fully grown Honeysuckles. Where are their flowers?” Mary finally put into words what was subconsciously bothering Merrick.

  The plant was fully grown, easily one and a half times as thick around the vine as the flowering specimen they’d seen in the previous room some 100 yards back. There were, however, no flowers. There weren’t even dead bulbs from where they may have withered off the vines. That wouldn’t look so odd, were the leaves yellowing and brittle as one would expect from an unhealthy Honeysuckle.

  It was then that he’d realized that there was an oddly triangular patch of the rubble wall that had no vines covering it. There were plenty of gaps in vine coverage, but none so geometrically clean as that spot.

  Before James could stop him, Merrick stepped forward with his trowel in hand and stabbed it into the muddy bulwark.