Egbert chortled to himself as he “munched on his popcorn.” Everything was going to shit spectacularly, as it tended to. Ben was lowering a rope down towards Joe at the bottom of the pit. Joe had his shield up, braced, and mana flaring as he solidified his stance. Across from him, Bully loomed out from the castle. “HUU, Huuu…huuu.” Bully circled almost cautiously, like he recognized that Joe represented a real threat.

  Bully exploded forward, nailing Joe’s shield with the sound of a hammer against a gong. White sparks erupted off of Joe's shield as he staggered back, his skill eating much of the force but still blasting through enough to nearly topple him. Joe flashed forward off his back foot, clumsily shield-bashing Bully to the side as he grabbed the dangling rope with his free hand.

  “Holy shit, Ben, pull me up! I don’t want to try and solo this thing!” Joe said while savagely booting bully away from him. It tumbled away, but it managed to steal his boot as it sailed off victoriously, clicking the metal shoe onto its shell as its newest addition.

  Ben was struggling, both legs braced against the pillar and heaving with a red face for all he was worth. “I’m fucking trying, man; you are so goddamn heavy!” Oof, I don’t think Ben’s going to get him out of there; he looks a bit noodly.

  Egbert switched from the bruiser vs. bruiser duel happening in the pit over to Carter and Randy. Contempt had chased them onto the nearest platforms with its swirling display of mana. It hadn’t actually done anything yet other than be really fucking angry, but that was enough to send them running. Carter still clutched the leaking mana stone in his fist. That one hundred percent is going to cause a tragedy in the near future.

  Wait…. Egbert watched in growing excitement as the treasure chest nearest to Carter slowly started growing arms and reaching out towards him on the nearby ledge. He was too busy squaring off against Contempt to notice the ambush. Contempt did, though, hissing out laughter as his mana started swirling even faster into a form that hung in the air in front of his opponents. Oh shit, I never thought about the fact that his illusion doesn't need to walk. Yikes, that reaper has a lot of advantages fighting people on the platforms.

  Everything happened at once. The treasure chest mimic grabbed Carter by the back of his hair and the scruff of his neck, yanking him off the platform and roughly stuffing his top half into the suddenly very toothy treasure chest. Contempt materialized the golden reaper in the air in front of Randy, the lootbugs all around the room beginning the Gregorian chant once again. Okay, I'm really starting to think this might actually be a ritual and not just a cute bug threat display.

  The world almost seemed to slow as Egbert watched the mana crystal fall from Carter's hand. He was far too busy pulling daggers out and stabbing wildly at the mimic in the middle of trying to get all of him to fit in its maw to worry about his expensive rock. Its beautiful purplish light illuminated the pitfall trap as it descended like a falling star straight onto the floor behind Joe.

  The world turned to a shimmering purple as the explosion rocked the dungeon, all of it. Blooming purple fire launched Joe bonelessly from the pit all the way back to the lootbug playground, where he hit the ceiling with a metallic clang.

  “AGGGHH…. Oh my god, guys, I think I’m…” Gravity took over, and he fell straight down onto one of the loot bug spires. Egbert could practically hear the whimpering cry of his family line being snuffed out as his family jewels caught the full force of his considerable weight. Joe didn’t even try and stand up, simply lying on the floor after his tumble, holding his nethers with a swirling maelstrom of emotions across his face that could be summed up as regretting his life choices. Damnation! His family line didn’t deserve to be ended; he had at least a lick of common sense!

  Randy was battling the illusionary reaper with expert slashes of his flaming sword. He caught Egbert and Contempt off guard with the sheer precision of his slashes—perfect diagonal lines that trailed fire with each sweep. He deftly batted the scythe aside as it swung for his head and then crouched slightly before stabbing his sword forward, fiery mana compressing around him so tightly the stone platform started glowing brightly.

  A jet of fire plumed from the tip of his sword, washing over the reaper. It tried to back away, the magic starting to burn away the edges of its form, but Randy pushed his brief advantage, leaping straight at the reaper with his sword extended dramatically in front of him once again. Egbert had to give it to him; the whole leaping over a chasm while shooting fire thing was pretty epic. Doubly so when the sword took the reaper in the bony eye socket, and they tumbled into the alcove together in a ball of fire and golden-black mana.

  Randy rolled free, a bit singed but still kicking. The reaper was struggling to pull itself back together, giving Randy the time to find where contempt was perched on the ceiling. “There you are, you little shit! Get down here and fight!” Contemp hissed back with such force Egbert was shocked it didn’t spatter spittle across the room. Then started gathering mana again since just the reaper wasn’t quite doing the job today.

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  Randy realized Contempt was about to pull some new bullshit and shouted for help, “Hey, anyone who isn’t actively dying, help me kill the demon bug; it’s doing more random shit!” He pointed at the ceiling.

  Carter’s only answer was incoherent screaming as he stabbed the mimic actively chewing on his armor over and over again while trying to pry himself out with his free hand.

  Joe cried quietly while crawling towards the exit; he stopped briefly to pour a health potion down his trousers. Yeah, fair; salvage what you can. It's got to be a mess down there after that.

  Ben, to his credit, had managed to not be flung from the platform by the explosion and tracked where Randy was pointing, spotting Contempt immediately. “Well, I was saving this for the bullshit grabby claws, but I can use one on you!” He pulled a stick with a purple crystal on the tip from his side. Oh ho, is that a wand? I didn’t take Ben for a spellcaster, although anyone can use a wand normally.

  Whatever nefarious plans Contempt had were dashed as Ben flung an absolute shitload of small glimmering magic missiles from the tip of his wand. Contempt tried to dodge, but the missiles curved after him, knocking him from the roof and utterly misting his buggy glory as missile after missile hit his already dead remains midair. Aww damn, I wanted to see what trick he was trying to pull. Have to give it to these guys, though; overall, they are very competent when they aren’t at Max’s bartending levels of drunk.

  Randy didn’t miss a step leaping to Carter's aid. It wasn’t pretty since he didn’t have a good way to cleanly stab the mimic, but he managed to yank Carter from its mouth by his foot back onto one of the platforms. His breastplate was chewed to shit, and he had some very tooth-shaped holes in his hands and face, but overall he was more mad than hurt.

  “I’m going to turn you into a fucking satchel!” Carter screamed at the disappointed-looking mimic. The mimic gave a slight huff and sedately clambered along the ropes to get farther away before morphing back into a treasure chest with a gesture that looked shockingly rude. That just made Carter even more livid but Randy Smacked the shit out of the side of his head, stopping him from doing anything catastrophically stupid.

  “Holy hell, is everyone good? Anyone still fighting anything? Squad check in!” He barked out with an impressive amount of calm, all things considered. There we go. I finally have you guys really taking this seriously. Oh, it brings a tear to my eye. I feel like a real dungeon now.

  Everyone grumbled back some form of assent except Joe, who just cursed spiritedly. Randy looked pissed for a moment before once again barking out, “Squad check in!”

  “Scout light wounds combat ready,” Carter finally replied in the manner he was obviously supposed to.

  “Skirmisher unwounded, ready.” Ben said.

  Eventually Joe hauled himself to his feet a few strides from the others. “Defender, moderate wounds, technically combat ready.”

  “Great, the first room is cleared, ish. Gather all the gold you can find hidden on this side of the pit. Someone give Joe another healing potion. Stay the fuck away from the angry ass thing in the pit, and let’s move on to the next room.” Egbert threw some more “popcorn” into his “mouth” happily. See, this is the kind of scene I expected to see: my carefully crafted challenges surmounted with an epic struggle, a good handful of gold thrown my way, and everyone mostly intact.

  The squad assembled in the chamber that held the difficulty switch, all of them looking at it in obvious concern.

  “Maybe it turns the grabbers off?” Ben asked hopefully.

  “I really doubt it’s that simple…” Joe said with a grimace.

  Randy pushed up and threw open the next door to see what the hard mode looked like. All of them took an involuntary step back from the wave of heat that washed through the room as the oil within the loot pit burned hatefully. A fireball exploded across the floor a few strides in front of the door. Mr. Stealy was wandering around amidst the hellish scene, mumbling to himself about the stingy youth of today.

  Randy slowly closed the door again without a single word. Ben opened his coin purse and slotted in the five silver as fast as he could, switching the easy mode on. Carter squinted at the closed door. “Was it this fucking bad last time? I don’t remember a hell room.”

  Joe looked at him. “I mean, you also don’t remember a tied-up mimic eating your pinkie, but no, no, it wasn’t quite this bad…pretty damn close though.”

  The knights advanced into the loot pit room with an obvious plan. Ben was right behind Joe, wand in hand. Joe’s amulet had a searing beam of holy light swinging from it like a lantern, and he had one of the thick-looking loops of rope in his hands.

  Randy had another thick loop of ropes in his hands ready to go, and Carter took up the rear, eyes scouring every inch of the room for new surprises.

  My stealy wandered towards them immediately, begging for coins. Joe aimed the amulet's beam of light towards him with a malicious grin. The moment it crossed over the ghost's form, it was like the ghost was simultaneously being turned to dust and banished into the nether, flying back to his cursed object in a cloud of scattered ethereal mana with an audible WHUMP sound.

  “Worth every fucking copper,” Joe grumbled. Alright, Mr. Stealy is easily countered by people with prep time and a grudge. Good to know.

  Right as Ben and Joe made it to the edge, someone else crossed onto Egbert's porch. He stayed for just a moment longer. Joe was staggering under the sheer force of the grabbers as the claws pinged off his shield, but he held without budging. Ben started methodically unleashing an irresponsible amount of wand charges into the man grabbers in the pit. Reducing them to twisted scrap one by one in a shower of magic missiles.

  Egbert pulled himself away to see who else had chosen this moment to show up. Bah, it better not just be the fish lovers. I was really enjoying this knight run, lucrative as well. Instead, Thrognar was standing there in all his glory, axe held high with a contagious grin across his face.

  “Hi dungeon, Thrognar’s back! I brought food for scrawngly door!” Thrognar proudly waved around what had to be half a very poorly gutted deer in his left hand; it was still dripping blood, and he was almost certain Thrognar had tried to skin it and just given up. Ha, welcome back, buddy! Wait, shit, the knights—you are friends with the knights, right?