Everyone stood around the dungeon for a few moments, breathing  a little heavy from all the excitement, and, in Michaus's and S's case, strenuous magical and physical activity. 

For the first time, I took a good look around the room. It was a little hard to earlier, because, y'know, giant stone monster men. 

The room we were in now was basically a large cube, and a little bigger than the tavern. Despite the size, it was largely empty, sans the mostly destroyed remains of a couple stone dudes. 

There were 4 obvious exits. The one we came in from the stairs, obviously, and another at every side of the room, around the middle of the wall. They seemed to split off into smaller, dome like rooms. Couldn't quite tell what was in them, though. As bright as I currently am (literally), I couldn't quite see entire into them.

"Right, so, uh... What's next?" S asked Michaus. 

Michaus stretched for a bit before answering. Y'know that one where you reach one arm to the sky and have the other across your head. Not sure what it actually stretches, or if it's even helpful at all, but it's a classic, for sure.

"Well... Nothing, probably." Michaus said, shrugging. He lacked his usual enthusiasm. 

Eh?

B-but the dungeon crawl... What about the- I dunno, pit traps! Spiders- eh, actually, pass on that one... Swinging, blood soaked blade- Oh, ew. Actually, that's kinda cool, but... Uhhh... Boss monsters? Oh! And treasure! Yeah! Treasure! What about that? 

"Whadduyoumean?" S said, sounding defeated, like a child after being told that there's no ice cream left in the freezer. Or anyone being told that, honestly. That sucks. He's probably having a similar thought process as I was. 

"Well, this place's pretty small. This is all there is." 

S pointed to one of the unexplored rooms. "Whaddabout in there?" 

Michaus shrugged again. "Usually nothing. Guess it doesn't hurt to check."

"Right!" S said, heading over to the room on the right of the room.  

Yeah! Dungeon crawl! 

I took a swig of my drink and grabbed my sickle once more, as I jogged over to S to also check out the room.

We stepped in one after the other, and looked around the room. The entrances to the rooms were too small for the golems to fit through, so the floors were in good repair in this room. Except for that oddly shaped little crack there, but that's probably just wear and tear. 

We looked  around, up, down... around again... 

"Nothin'" I said.

"Wait!" S blurted out, making sure to stand near the wall. "There's a pressure plate!

OH! Traps! Dungeon-y! I looked down floor once again. Oh, that's what that was! "What do you think it does?" 

S looked around the room, confused. I noticed his nose twitching. "I don't know... It doesn't seem like-" He began.

"This." Michaus said, running in and jumping on the plate. 

AH! WHAT THE- 

I ended up crouching down a bit and raising my sickle around my head. Bit of a weird fight or flight response, brain. We gotta work on that. 

...

Nothings happening.

"What did that do?" I asked.

He shrugged, again. "No idea. These rooms are always here, always have pressure plates, or a lever, maybe a button or something. They don't do anything, though." 

It varies?

"... Nothing?" S said, quietly. He looked skeptical. He continued looking around the room suspiciously, his nose still twitching. "...Nothing?" he repeated in the same was as before.

"The other rooms should be the same. You may as well check those too, if you like." 

Y'know, it's kinda weird hearing Michaus without the incredible enthusiasm. 

"R-right. Let's do that."

Thus, we checked the other rooms. 

Sure enough, they were all just the same was that one room. Entirely empty, except for the same, seemingly useless pressure plate. Still, S spent a few minutes in each room, still scanning around, looking for something I'm not sure exists. His nose twitching the whole time. That's odd, right? Earlier I just assumed it was dust or something and thought nothing of it, but at this point, it's weird. 

...

Looks like he'll be at this for a while.

...

I wonder, where the heck did that golem come from? The one I warped away earlier, I mean. It came from the stairs, right? But I only heard it coming once it was almost down, and those things are crazy loud. Did it... 'appear' on the stairs? Is that how that works? I dunno, something about that doesn't quite sit right with me. 

"Is this the whole place?" I asked Michaus. Maybe it, I dunno wandered in from somewhere?

"Pretty sure. Never found anything else, at least. Sometimes there's a 3rd golem, but I guess it didn't appear this time." He said.

"Haha, yeah, g-guess not." I said. 

"Right..." S said, finishing up whatever it is he was doing. "What if... Maybe we all press them at the same time? Maybe that's it?" 

Oh yeah, that might be it! "Okay." I said.

"I've tried that before, but I'm down to give it another go." Michaus said, plainly. Ah. That's probably not it. 

"R-right... Well, it might work this time!" S sounded a little desperate, at this point.

The 3 of us split off into separate rooms. I took the room at the north end, S on the left, and Michaus on the right. Being alone scared me a little bit, but everyone's close by, I'm sure it'll be fine. 

Just in case... I'll ready the holes. Oh, while I'm doing that, I'll check on the golem. 

Oh, wow. That's a lot of bits. Dang. Yeah, safe to say that's dealt with. 

"RIGHT!" I heard S shout from his room. "STEP ON THEM... NOW!"

I did. I felt the ground sink just a little, as pressure was put on the plate. 

Nothing happened.

"NO CHANGES OVER HERE. HOW 'BOUT YOU GUYS?" Michaus said.

"Nothin' over here, either." I shouted. 

...

"S?" I shouted. "You good?"

"OH, UH, RIGHT. NOTHING." S shouted. 

Everyone stepped out back into the main room. S was looking around profusely, his nose twitching more than ever.

"Still nothing, huh..." Michaus said. He was a little disappointed, too. 

Yeah, that's unfortunate.

"Nothing..?" S said, quietly. "What was..." 

"S, you good?" I couldn't help but ask, at risk of sounding redundant. 

"Oh, right, yeah, sorry. I just... I thought I heard a click..." S said. Then he sighed. "Guess... I was hearing things. Ah well. Guess this is it, huh."

"Well, it's not so bad that this place is small." Michaus said, before stretching the same way he did earlier. "Just means that the towns safer!" He said, his enthusiasm returned. It was a little jarring. "It'd be bad if any big dungeon nasties leaked into our little town, after all!"

"Right. Guess that's true." S conceded, sighing a little. "Guess... We should head out, then?"

"Yeah."  I said. Probably wasn't a great idea to go dungeon crawling while injured anyways...

After a short while, the 3 of us left the ruins, victorious. If a little disappointed. On our way up the stairs, S stopped for a moment like he did when we were coming down, but, other than us minding the tripwire, that was all our trip back up the stairs consisted of. 

I think I'm more confused about these ruins than ever. What was that place? A lab, or something? Maybe an arena? I dunno. 

"I'm gonna go on ahead!" Michaus said as we made our way through the woods. "I wanna check on the boar! Thanks for coming with, guys! It was fun!" 

"Right. Thanks for showing us." S said. 

"Yeah, thanks." I said. 

"Uhuh! See you guys later!" Michaus said, running off towards town, waving back at us. 

I stared out at the plains, feeling a little worried. "Hope he doesn't run into the golem..." I said. Well, what's left of the golem, at least.

"Right, did ya drop it around here?" S said. Seems he pieced together my plan from earlier.

"Might have. Don't really know exactly."  In all the excitement, I just kinda picked a place. 

"Right..." S looked up at the sky, as did I. We just stared up there, for a short while. "What now?" 

"We should probably clean up what's left of that golem."

"Right."