Thrognar trundled on into the dungeon, excitedly throwing the door open to find Buyer's Remorse. His face sank when the third door frame was simply empty. The haunch of deer fell from his grasp loosely. His features darkened into sorrow. “Oh no, did scrawngly door starve? Did Thrognar take too long? I’m sorry, scrawngly door, I should have murdered the deer faster!” Thrognar got down on a knee and mournfully patted the door frame. Are you shitting me? You really think I'd let my mimic starve, Thrognar? That actually hurts a surprising amount…

  Egbert couldn’t let this ridiculous scene play out any longer. “Thrognar the mimic is fine! He moved deeper into the dungeon.” Egbert hissed from the pet rock.

  The change to Thrognar’s mood was jarring as he wiped away a single tear and stood quickly. “Oh good, I’ll go feed him!” He quickly snatched the deer carcass off the ground and jogged straight on towards the loot pit room. He stopped in his tracks as a faint “HU…huu…huuu…” echoed from the pit. Oh, this should be good.

  “Dats not normal angry bug noise.” Thrognar’s hulking form carefully crept through the playground towards the pit and peeked in. Bully was sitting there in the dead center of the floor playing with a broken chunk of mana crystal and then started zooming around with it like he was pushing a misshapen ball. Thrognar’s eyes went wide. Ha, how will you approach this new challenge the dungeon has to offer you?

  Egbert waited for Thrognar to look up and see the platforms leading to the glowing dispenser or the myriad of hanging treasure chests. He did not look up; he, in fact, made some kind of excited inhaling sound that reminded Egbert of when someone saw an unreasonably cute puppy and gasped from the sheer adorable overload. Thrognar just straight up stepped off the edge and dropped into the pit like a hulking green log. Or that, I guess, you could do that too.

  His landing was neither stealthy nor smooth, but he was unfazed, rushing towards Bully with a manic grin. “Barbarian Loot Bug!” He shouted in excitement, “You like Thrognar!” he added as he crushed the distance between them with his long strides.

  Bully, for the first time that Egbert had seen, reacted with something other than overt aggression at an interloper in his domain. He made a slightly nervous-sounding “Huu…?” and tried to back away too slowly. Thrognar’s giant fist closed around him, ripping him from the stone floor.

  Egbert broke away briefly to make sure that nothing absurd had happened with the knights. Unfortunately, those bastards had everything well in hand still. The ghost was busy being banished. The grabbers were piles of twitching scrap courtesy of Ben. And the well-prepared bastards had looped the rope around the chest a half dozen times and were setting up a full-on pulley system attached to the boulder with the key. As in Joe and Randy were literally mooring pulleys to the sides of the boulder and feeding rope through.

  Well, touche. That's honestly a damned practical solution. Ebert was certain the boulder would hold too since he spite-fused it with the floor after Thrognar yeeted the damn thing into the pit last time. He zoomed back to Thrognar and Bully, and at the same time, the knight began heave-hoing the chest on up to the boulder.

  Hoooollyy seven hells, what in the name of the hallowed one is happening here? Egberrt watched stunned. Thrognar was trying to hold Bully like a damned chicken under his arm; Bully was fighting like a cat you threatened to bathe. Except it was orders of magnitude more forceful than any cat could be. Thrognar was rocked nearly from his feet as Bully headbutted him in the chest with enough oomph to make the ropes above whoosh in the displaced air. The whole while, the bully’s normally intimidating sounds had devolved to a panicked fast “HU..HU..HUU. hu.huhuhuhu.” Like he was calling out for help.

  Thrognar wrestled him back into his hands as Bully nearly climbed his shoulder. “No, don’t run! YOU WILL BE MY FAMILIAR, ANGRY, STRONG BUG IS BEAUTIFUL!!” Thrognar screamed at Bully, holding him with white knuckles.

  “HUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!” Bully screamed in response, flailing madly; he finally managed to get a good purchase on Thrognar’s hand and rocketed off Thrognar’s arm and straight into his face with a sound like thunder.

  Thrognar’s head snapped back, and he stumbled a few steps, gingerly reaching up to touch his quickly blackening eye. “Oww, okay, I understand. I must tame you! Will be back; must feed door before it starves!” What on earth just happened? That blow would have beheaded most low-level warriors, and Thrognar is leaving with a headache and slightly hurt feelings.

  Thrognar paid for one of the extendable ladders and made his way up and out towards the loot pit room, a strange crooked smile on his face despite his swelling cheek. Bully was backed up in a corner making sounds that would best be described as aggressive wailing while shaking his limbs around in a threat display until Thrognar was well out of sight. Bully finally calmed down after a few seconds and shuffled back into his castle quickly, the drawbridge desperately reeling closed behind him.

  The knights Had very successfully removed the chest with some elbow grease and exploitation of physics, and we're currently shoveling coins into a bag Randy carried merrily. You know, I still don’t think they have broken even if we count their last trip and the mana crystal that exploded on them, but I guess as long as they are happy, and they probably leveled up from fighting contempt—well, at least Randy must have.

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  The knights all jerked in surprise and defensively circled around the small pile of coins on the ground as Thrognar’s voice echoed throughout the room. “Scrawngly Door! Where did you go? I brought food!” Thrognar walked in, axe held in one hand, a bloody carcass in the other, slowly drawing his gaze across the room looking for Remorse.

  Ben went a bit white in the face, and Joe whispered to the others, “Is that a fucking full-blooded Orc? He’s goddamn massive, and is he carrying a corpse?”

  Randy shrugged. “I don’t know, but be on your guard; he might be a dungeon boss.” Joe looked at Randy like he was stupid.

  “It’s an orc shouting about a door, not a gold-colored drake; he’s probably just another adventurer.” Joe said after his disappointed stare at Randy.

  “Don’t look at me like that; this dungeon is weird, okay! It’s best to be on our guard.” Randy shot back in a tense whisper.

  Thrognar’s gaze locked onto them. His fangs glistened with spittle in the sharp light cast from Joe's lantern. He raised the corpse towards them. “Have you seen skinny door?” He shook the dripping carcass threateningly. “He needs his protein!”

  “What the fuck?” Carter mumbled under his breath, slowly setting a handful of coins down to adopt defensive stances like the rest of his squad.

  Randy took charge of the situation quickly, whispering to Carter, “I don’t fucking know either, man; he has to be talking about that shitty mimic,” before standing up straight and addressing Thrognar, “There wasn’t any mimic door here.” There was an awkward pause as they looked at each other, the only sound the clicking whir of the broken grabbers.

  Thrognar sighed, “To the next room den” And walked briskly past them with a friendly wave, climbing down the oil-slick steps towards the other side of the pit. He paused by the broken grabbers. “Greed cheap, he still not fix dis?” Oh shush, Thrognar, I've fixed them like three times now. All of you heathens keep resorting to violence to solve the loot pit. Can’t just pay the turn-off toll, nooooo, we have to break the shiny things, Egbert groused inwardly.

  Egbert paused for a moment, thinking about his random bitching fit. You know what? Complaining does nothing to help me; some strategic and overkill reinforcing or upgrading of the man grabbers, however, might accomplish a whole lot. Egbert zoomed over to the broken man grabber. I mean, upgrading remorse was as easy as can be. What can I do with this? I have another fat chunk after my wonderful piggy banks in shiny armor paid their due to get this far.

  [Copper 5] [Silver 8] [Gold 3]

  Egbert imagined upgrading the man grabber, a familiar sight popped up in his vision.

  [Man Grabber]

  [Reinforce 1 Silver]

  [Upgrade 5 Silver]

  Egbert slapped reinforce a few times on both of the grabbers farthest from the chest, flinching a bit at the fact the cost doubled each time. He left it at reinforcing those two two times each. Hopefully THAT makes them a bit more Thrognar and cheap magic missile wand proof. I don’t think there’s a damn thing I can do against Brom’s tier-2 bullcrap yet.

  [Copper 5] [Silver 2] [Gold 3]

  The knights paused as the tinkle of metal raining away from two new shimmering man grabbers made a racket in the pit. Both of them turned with noticeably more fluidity now, and the amount of wooden parts had drastically reduced, making most of the grabber turret a single piece of forged metal other than the gears and pulleys as well as the limbs that threw the grabber itself.

  Randy peeked down at the new grabbers and ducked quickly as they both fired impressively fast, nearly clipping him even with his caution. “Yep, time to go. We cleared this room; the orc is heading into the next area. I say we call this a win and bail with our pockets full of gold and a level or two under our belts. The dungeon is getting squirrely again.” Rude! I'm making improvements to account for your rather impressive preplanning. It's called adaptability, Randy. Now before Throngar gets murdered by the world's least friendly shitter, let's see what five whole silver gets me on a man grabber.

  [Man Grabber]

  [Upgrade 5 Silver]

  Bwoop Egbert really enjoyed making sound effects lately when he navigated the menus, it was a sorely lacking optional feature. Although if it was an option he could purchase, he knew he probably wouldn't. No need to spend gold that frivolously when he was already getting so good at the sound effects.

  [Deadly Man Grabber]

  Alright, this one is almost certainly not for you unless you stick it in some future murder room that you hide your precious core in, but somehow I don’t think that’s the vibe you are going for hells, I bet you would let people fondle your core if offered enough coin. It's the same as the normal grabber except the grabby hand has serrated claws and a murder spike that shoots into the victims it has clamped on too.

  Alright, not okay, snarky greed god, that one was flat-out rude. I would not let someone fondle my core for money. There isn't enough coin in the world for that. Well, I mean, there probably actually is; coin is coin, after all, but...MOVING ON.

  [Homing Grabber]

  Now this grabby hand still fires slow, turns slower, and has a truly abysmal reload rate, but it does have something going for it. Goblin-engineered explosives will fire off mid-flight on this grabby hand to give it that “little” bit of extra nudge it needs to catch someone who has dodged to the side. The bane of rogues everywhere, sometimes literally.

  [Many Clawed Grabber]

  Accuracy is for losers and math majors. This version skips the whole precision shots style of grabbing in favor of “That direction holds foes.” The entire firing assembly is changed from a ballista with a grabby claw to more of a catapult with hundreds of grabby claws attached to a net. Dodging doesn’t really do much when what you are trying to dodge encompasses all of up. It is easier to break free from, though.

  Huh, neat choices. Obviously not getting the murder claw; let's grab the homing grabber! Heh. And check on if Thrognar’s head has exploded yet.

  [Copper 5] [Silver 7] [Gold 2]