Knocked away from his spell, Ace’s vine field fades away and releases not only the kobold leader but the four goats as well. His vines did enough though and the rest of the party is ready. Bill and Tess have backed up to guard Ruby and Jeremy has met up with Jack to press the offensive.

Then the kobold leader throws the group for a loop. She points at Jack and shouts an unintelligible hiss. This causes all the goats and the two melee kobolds to focus on him and attack.

Jeremy covers for Jack as he retreats under the pressure. On his way through, he slips a knife between the kobold mage’s ribs. It doesn’t kill the mage, but without the healer it debilitates them enough to give Ruby a chance to help as well.

Without the kobold mage casting spells that she has to counter, Ruby has a chance to use some offensive spells. The first one is her favorite, the fire ribbon, and she sends it careening towards the goats. It drops the goat that was already in the room while the level two goats are only injured.

The two melee kobolds jump at Jack and swing their maces wildly. What they lack in weapons training is made up for by their enthusiasm. Jack blocks one side with his maces handle but from the other a nasty hit slams into his braced arm and he yells out. Jeremy is there though and prevents the follow up swing through the expedient measure of killing the kobold.

Jack knocks over the kobold he blocked by shoving the head of his mace up into the kobold’s legs. He continues the swing up and then brings his concrete mace down on the monster and smashes it apart.

Off to the side the leader is being held down by Ace. After experiencing the first hit he has kept to deflecting and dodging. Though he notices that the mace has lost its hard shadows and isn’t hitting as hard. This gives him an idea and he waits for the kobold to use whatever that skill is again. He doesn’t have to wait long as the mace takes on that unearthly shading again and the kobold takes an exaggerated swing at him again.

This time, Ace was expecting it. He dodges in under the blow and tackles her. The mace slams into the ground blasting a hole and the kobold gets pinned up against the wall. Ace slams his palm onto her head. The helmet she is wearing protects from the blunt damage, but that isn’t what Ace is depending on. Instead, his actual attack comes from his magic which bursts out as a giant thorn which pierces through the helmet’s leather and kills the leader. As this happens one of the remaining goats falls over as it can no longer keep going from the serious burn across its throat.

At this point only three of the level two goats and the injured kobold mage are left. These enemies are easy enough for the team to clean up and they don’t notice that the monsters all have gotten weaker without their leader.

With the current room clear, Jeremy takes a peek into the next one. Turning to the others he shrugs, “that looks to be all the monsters on the floor. I don’t know about the rest of you but now is an excellent time to take a quick break.”

Jack nods, “that definitely is on my agenda. That blow broke nothing, but my arm still feels numb. Going to have to get Doc to look at it after the run. Though I just realized something. Did we actually confirm there is a second floor? Be kind of stupid to just wait here only to find out we are done. We even killed that vine monster, which hardly anyone bothers with.”

Jeremy opens his mouth but pauses, then looks to the side and whistles. Ace rolls his eyes at this, “well let’s go take a look. Will be easy enough to tell if there is more for us to do.”

With that said he walked into the last room followed closely behind by Jeremy and Bill. With some effort on the trios part, they open the stone door. Beyond it instead of the purple crystal they find another portal into a new region. After they let the door roll back into place the three join the others.

Ace gestures towards the other room, “looks like we’re going to be taking that break. The core is gone and instead another portal is there. More door-shaped than the original one but I guess that happens.”

Some of the tension they all felt goes away as they confirm the change. New things happening in a dungeon isn’t strange but if it doesn’t include a new floor, that would be worrying. With that out of the way they all settle in. Ace counts their drops as Jeremy gets even more food by pillaging the olive tree. Jack is laid out on the floor, though he puts some space between him and the couple who are aggressively snuggling in one of the corners. Finally Ruby mediates to recover her mental strength.

After the group has rested up, they gather and move into the next room. The three open the door up again and they move into the portal room as behind them the stone door rolls back into place. Ruby looks back with a frown, “so I guess this is a one-way trip? We should probably try and open that up again just in case.”

Ace face palms, “should have seen that coming. I can probably prop it back open with some magic, but we need to make sure people know about it. You could almost call it a gear check. Can’t lift the giant stone? Don’t bother trying to proceed. Either have the magic, might, or mind to proceed or get out.”

Ace and the other two brace against the door. With a shove it rolls back, but the difficulty is much higher from this side. Though just the fact they can leave relaxes the group and they turn back to the portal.

Jeremy scratches his head, “so do we want to go through all at once or send one person through first? I could totally see us being trapped on the second floor.”

Ace shakes his head, “we all go at once. I won’t leave it to chance. We don’t need one of us stuck on the second floor. Everyone ready?” A round of nods and they all step through the portal.

On the other side they are greeted by a barren stone room. The lighting is diffuse and the only way forward is through a vine covered opening. After the group has soaked in the area as one they turn back towards the portal which gently glows behind them.

Bill glances at the others, “so we should probably test what happens when someone travels back through.”

Ace nods, “true enough. Everyone form up again and back through.”

As a group they go to step through but stumble when Jack is unable to just walk through. The others are worried about this but he tells them all to calm down. “It isn’t what you think. I can go through, but there is a twist. The portal is giving me an option to go back to the first floor or just leave the dungeon entirely.”

The others all sigh in relief. Ace is especially relieved. When the others look at him in confusion he explains, “even if it just spat us out on the first floor we currently can get out easily. However what happens if a party makes it this far but loses most of their members on the second floor? What if Ruby was the only one left from our group and she tried to leave the dungeon by herself? How would she lift up that stone door by herself?”

“Because it allows us to just leave the dungeon that can’t happen. Even someone who was brought along just to harvest herbs can now leave by themselves. Gods above and below, this might even allow an easy shortcut to later floors. Once we leave that is something to test. It would be nice if we could just skip right to the second floor.”

When the others hear this they realize exactly what this discovery means and it takes them all some time to think about it. In the end Jack shakes his head, “that’s all well and good, but we have a dungeon to dive. Our path of retreat is safe so we can go ahead with a sense of security.”

Ace shrugs, “true enough. Bill and Tess to the front, me and Ruby behind them, and Jack and Jeremy can flank us and roam around as needed. Now move out. We need all the skill ups and paths we can get for what is coming.”

They get into formation and head through the vines. As the group enters the next room most of them relax a little. The barren stone room had them on edge after the rest of the dungeon had been covered in clovers. This room went back to being green even if there are a few boulders breaking it up.

After a glance around the room everyone is ready to move on but Jeremy holds his hand up to stop them. “I smell mint. Let me check around real quick. A new plant would be an amazing find and my wife will be so jealous that I got it first.”

The others have nothing against this and so wait near the room's exit as he sweeps around from the entrance. However as he reaches the back right corner, he turns around and shouts a warning. Almost too late for the others to react, two kobolds wielding daggers jump out from the boulder closest to the exit.

Jeremy whips out a throwing dagger, which takes the kobold closer to him in the shoulder. The kobold’s arm goes limp as it drops the dagger and Jack is able to knock it away with the handle of his mace.

The other kobold’s attack is more successful but still a failure. It comes down on Bill, but he crosses his clubs, blocking the blow. He still receives a scratch from the dagger as he can’t stop all the kobolds momentum. Angered at this Tess takes an overhead swing at it as Bill keeps it in place. A bone cracking smash comes down and finishes the kobold off. At the same time the other kobold is finished off by Ruby before it can recover its dagger. A double dose of fire ribbons being enough to burn through the kobold’s throat.

They all stand ready in case anything else attacks until Jeremy breaks the tension. “Oh hey, there’s the mint!” And he kneels down next to the boulder he is by and harvests the herb.

Ace shakes his head, “well that’s a thing. Not only are there traps but ambushes. Though I guess those technically happened in the vine room. Still, this was more of an actual threat for some reason?”

Ruby shrugs, “The vine room kobolds seem to be more focused on getting people trapped in the assassin vine. These here are instead focused on being the assassin.”

No one else has an opinion on it and so once Jeremy is done they gather up again and move on. They don’t get far though as Bill is wrapped up just as he enters the next room. An assassin vine having been hidden just to the left of the entrance. The rest of the party try to charge into the room but have a hard time joining in because of the proximity.

Bill is lucky though as the monster doesn’t get a firm grip around his neck. After the ambush in the last room he had kept his clubs up and they were wrapped up as well. With the clubs able to hold off the vines from his throat the attacks aren’t as serious but he also doesn’t have a good way to counterattack.

Tess who was right next to him tries her best to free him, but her staff’s reach means nothing when the vines have an even longer range. Still she beats at the vines, both distracting the vine assassin and protecting herself from being grabbed.

Jack squeezes past her and brings his mace up in an underhand swing. He doesn’t have as much wind up time but still pulps a number of vines that moved in to protect the core. In the end though, his attack was never meant to be more than a distraction. Ruby used this cover to send one fire ribbon after another into the center mass. Vine after vine falls from the monsters body until she can’t fire off anymore without fear of burning Bill.

Then the core of the plant monster bursts open. At some point Jeremy had gotten in close and with a cross slice from his double daggers has opened up the core. One last stab from him is enough to finish off the assassin vine and Bill is released from the vines. His fall to the floor is less than graceful, but it will likely only result in a few bruises.

Akhier

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