It took a good hour for our reinforcements in the form of Jacky and Hayden to arrive. To our surprise, none of the bandits in the dungeon had bothered to come out and see what was going on. We assumed they were in one of the deeper levels of the dungeon.
"Aren't you supposed to get five big steel plates out of this dungeon?" Jacky burst out laughing as soon as she saw me, and Hayden had to bite her lower lip to keep from laughing at me too.
"Go ahead and make fun of me," I replied a little miffed, "My life seems to hate me so much that I can't even complete the simplest quest without incident."
Jacky stood beside me for a moment and put her arm around my shoulder, "How about one of you giving us a quick update?" 
"I think it would make sense for Em to take care of this. It's her quest after all," Cáit grinned mischievously and Hayden nodded, "Sounds like a good plan. Don't stress yourself. We have time - the Adventurers' Guild still needs to mobilise some experienced people. They should start to realise that quantity isn't always better than quality."
"They should dare to send us a bunch of useless low-ranked adventurers. It wouldn't do anyone any good," Jacky muttered, "Even Em could beat most of them without even using a weapon.” Her dislike for the Adventurers' Guild was unmistakable. I looked back and forth between the two of them for a moment, confused, and then summed up what we had gotten out of the peasants.

"You actually let the peasants go?" asked Hayden in surprise.
"They even willingly left their armour behind?" I said, "I don't think there's any danger from them."
"You can turn that stuff over to the city guards later. Looks like it belongs to them anyway," Jacky muttered, "I don't see how it's going to help us.”
"You really are far too gullible," Hayden said to me suddenly, "But I'm actually a bit proud of you two for not going in alone."
For a moment I wasn't sure if the twin was pulling my leg or if she meant it. Since my arrival in this world, I'd spent most of my time either licking my wounds or sleeping. It would have been foolish to rush into the dungeon with Cáit and take on ten or more armed bandits. 
"I don't feel like listening to another lecture from Sara," I said briefly, causing Jacky to burst out laughing again. 

Meanwhile, the first group of adventurers had arrived.

"Kelly McWilliam," the leader of the group introduced herself, "C-rank adventurer and officially responsible for this quest on behalf of our guild." At first glance, Kelly was a rather unremarkable woman. Long black hair, brown eyes and otherwise quite ordinary - like me. The only sign that she was of higher rank was her fine leather armour with small steel plates sewn into it. She also carried a knife - which looked rather expensive - in a small pouch around her waist. This world was really very simple in that respect.
"Your guild couldn't find a higher rank oso quickly, could they?" Jacky muttered in annoyance - to which Kelly angrily replied, "My group should be qualified enough to take care of a few simple bandits.”
It's fair to say we didn't get all the information until after we'd sent the men off with the horses. Jacky eyed the woman briefly, but then seemed to lose interest in her, muttering, "Those two girls are your contacts," before provocatively sitting down in the shade with Hayden. "She's joking, isn't she?" the woman asked confusedly, looking back and forth between Cáit and me.
"Obviously not," I grumbled angrily, "They've all made it their business to drive me mad today."
I then briefly informed Kelly of the situation and with the words "ten most likely heavily armed bandits" you could see the original arrogance slowly but surely disappearing.
"Do you really think we wouldn't have gone in without you for ten ordinary bandits? The only reason we asked for backup in the first place is because these riffraff aren't our responsibility," Jacky groaned and Kelly mumbled "I'm sorry."
You could tell she was struggling with the half-hearted apology. 

"What ranks are the other three?" Hayden asked suddenly and Jacky's mood worsened at the answer, for Kelly was the only adventurer with a rank higher than E. To be honest, you could tell from their equipment without too much effort. 
"Actually, I wanted to leave Em here, because she's been through enough the last few days," Jacky cursed suddenly, "But she'll probably be more useful in there than three adventurers who were just allowed to gather herbs alone in the forest."
"We're not complete beginners," one of the three suddenly said angrily, but Jacky simply interrupted him, "Have you ever had to kill a person in your life?" 
The question overwhelmed the man and he replied hesitantly, "Not that. But we've been on some escort missions and we've had to deal with wolves and spiders. And we had to kill them."
"That's not the same. Killing people is different. If you hesitate in there, you're probably dead," Jacky muttered and slapped her forehead several times in annoyance, "Kelly. Tell me... what am I supposed to do with those three jumping jacks in there? They are dead weight..."
"Clearly a mistake on our part..." Kelly said with surprising insight, "But I'm afraid we're all the support you've got at the moment."
Cáit watched the whole thing from the sidelines, amused, as she prepared for the mission and strapped some of her grenades from the item bag to her belt. 
"So are you done with your very reasonable bickering?" I asked sarcastically, "I still have to deliver those five steel plates today. And I have a group of bandits standing in my way." Cáit chuckled, "She's right. We should get this over with, slowly but surely. Em still owes me an ice cream and I really deserve it."

You could tell by the look on Cáit's face that something had happened to her, for whereas all day long you could tell she was just trying to annoy me with her ranting, now she was suddenly serious. With Jacky's mood at its lowest ebb, Hayden, the most battle-hardened of the combined group of treasure hunters and adventurers, took command - whether that was wise, given the unpredictability of the twins, is another story. However, I got the strong feeling that Hayden would have preferred to hand over the command to Cáit. But that was probably the best solution, as after the previous arguments, I doubt that any of the adventurers present would take orders from an 18-year-old.

We headed straight for the dungeon.
Hayden led the way, followed by Cáit and her sister. As expected, I couldn't keep up with them as they set a good pace and made no effort to slow down. But as I wasn't the only one who couldn't follow them, I got the feeling that it was on purpose. Of the group of adventurers, only Kelly managed to keep up - her three companions were already struggling with my pace. To be honest, it's a shame, considering I couldn't even walk without help until three days ago.

"Did they really put me in charge of babysitting?" I muttered in annoyance as I had to stop for a moment to make sure the men didn't lose sight of me. I have to admit that the whole situation pissed me off so much at that moment that I just snapped at the three guys, "Can you move your arse a bit faster?"
"We're going as fast as we can," one of the guys grumbled back, "This is our first time in this dungeon. This is new territory for us. Unlike you, we've got better things to do than looting dungeons all day."
"Like beating up innocent little girls like me?" I snapped at the guy, who jumped and stammered, "Wait a minute. You're not the girl Shane beat up so badly, are you?"
My icy stare was apparently enough of an answer for the three of them. They were silent from then on.

By the third level we had caught up with the group around Cáit. They were waiting near the entrance, telling us to keep quiet. There were nine people ahead of us on the other side of the massive room, some in heavy leather armour, searching the room for something. "Looks like they're all ahead of us," I muttered, "But we should be careful. The peasants couldn't tell us the real number. They said something about ten men."
"Good point," Jacky nodded, "It's a shame you can't sense human garbage."

"There's nothing on this wall either," we heard one of the bandits shout, causing one of the others to react rather angrily and pull a young boy out by the hair, "Where's the damn switch? We're wasting our time again."
"On the third floor somewhere in one of the dungeons in Yorkchester," the boy sobbed, "That's all my parents told me."
Then he added, surprisingly defiantly, "Perhaps you should have killed me instead of them? Then you would have found your stupid treasure long ago".
"Would have been a better option," the man confirmed as he aimed a large hammer at the boy's head, "But the difference is... we would have killed them anyway. They were completely useless to us. You still have a talent we can use elsewhere. That's the only reason we haven't removed you yet."
"Did you ever think that maybe you've already found the switch and it's just broken? Or maybe it's hidden under a pile of junk?" the boy asked, getting a kick from one of the bandits. 

The whole thing gave me an idea, though, and I searched the area for broken things - 'Analyse'. It took a while, but I could see a small red mark in the distance.
"Well?" Jacky asked, "Can you see anything?"
I didn’t want to share a possible find with the adventurers, so I thought it would be better to lie this time, so I replied a little cryptically, "Well, I can't see anything at first glance."
But the truth was that there was a broken switch about 50 feet away from the little boy - buried under a mountain of scrap metal.

"Listen Abe," said one of the men, "This is getting annoying. This is the sixth dungeon we've searched in vain."
"I know," roared the man who had kicked the boy earlier, "But I really want that treasure. It could bring us enough money to take it easy for a while."

"If there was a treasure here, we'd know about it," Cáit muttered, before suddenly saying sternly, "Em. You stay here for now. You are definitely not experienced enough for this."
"Do I have to remind you that I'm not a fighter? And that you more or less promised to bring me home unharmed?" I winked at Cáit, "I won't complain if I don't have to get involved."
"What's the plan?" asked Kelly and Jacky suddenly grinned, "We go in now, try to rescue the boy and then we all deal with the bandits. Anyone who' doesn't want to get their hands dirty can leave the dungeon now. Just to be clear - if any of you go down, it's your own fault.”