Ace calls a stop for a moment to let Bill catch his breath. As they wait, Jeremy saunters over to the room's exit and takes a peek through it. “Huh, there is a short hallway and it looks like a handful of goats are grazing in the next room. Though I can’t see all the room as there looks to be a pile of boulders splitting up the room. With how many ambushes we have experienced I would bet there is more behind the rocks.”

“Also, there are a few rabbits nibbling the clover and I think a lizard of some type is sunning itself on those rocks I mentioned. We already know the rabbits aren’t an actual threat, no matter how sharp that horn looks. That lizard though I don’t know. If I was to place it that would be a horned lizard but who knows.”

Ruby comes over and takes a look as well. “Yeah that looks just like a horned lizard if a little different in color and such. While we shouldn’t let our guard down, I don’t think it will be a problem. As for the rabbits, I think I will lead our entrance with some fire. While the times I have dived, we’ve gotten some rabbit meat from the kobolds. I don’t think any of my groups have killed any rabbits.”

“The rabbits hide when we enter the room after all and I have heard some groups have been successful in bagging a few. Our team might not have a ranger to provide a more stealthy attack. My fire should be able to kill at least one of them.”

Jeremy shrugs, “I could probably kill most of the rabbits without being noticed but I only have so many throwing daggers. They aren’t exactly in stock at the local sports store and I prefer to keep them for emergencies like with those ambush kobolds.”

Ace nods, “they are a suitable weapon to counter surprises with how fast you can use them. Now let me take a look at what we have to work with.” He walks over behind the other two and takes a look into the next room.

“Hmm, definitely more to this room behind the boulder wall. The rest of you come over here”, and he gestures to the other half of the group. Once they are there he points into the next room, “whatever is behind those boulders could be a significant danger to us. Because of that, I say we hug the right wall as we enter.”

“The goats should charge over and I know we have been keeping Tess in front because of her range but there is enough I want Bill leading this time. Now let’s go out there and see what we can see.”

Ruby sends out a handful of fire sparks that manage to down two of the rabbits. Then in a single file line they rush into the room while keeping to the wall. As they get further into the room, Bill shouts a couple of numbers to update them on how many goats he sees. “4, 5, 6, and okay that’s it for the goats but I see a kobold as well! It’s wielding a club of some sort.”

The last part is unheard though as he clashes with the first goat’s charge and the sound of his clubs meeting its horns head-on drowns out his words. The others see it soon enough but only the goats have charged over so they ignore it for now except for Ruby. She fires off a double-length fire ribbon at the kobold but it ducks under the spell.

As it rises up again it lets out a chittering hiss and gestures with the odd club it holds. As it does this the goats which had been charging directly at Bill curve their path and aim toward Ruby.

Tess brings her staff around low and trips up the first couple of goats before they can attack. Behind them it forces the rest of the goats to take an even wider route and it gives Jack enough time to reposition. Now behind Jack, Ruby sends out a flurry of small fire ribbons. They aren’t able to kill a goat, but the fire gives them pause once again as it burns their hides.

Behind them all, Jeremy decides to follow the other wall when he sees what is happening. Up along the boulders he moves, keeping out of sight of the kobold. Once at the edge of the barrier he surges out and brings his daggers up under the kobold’s weapon. It however is able to counter this attack with a twirl of the weapon and a back step.

Jeremy takes a closer look at the weapon and laughs, “that’s a shillelagh! Fun weapons and it looks like the kobold has a sense of how to use it too. Perfect weapon for someone herding goats.”

Then he steps past the kobold as if it wasn’t there and a line of red blossoms from the kobold’s throat. He shakes his head, “only a little bit of knowledge though.”

The others can hear what he is saying but are a bit distracted by the goats. However they notice right when the kobold dies because all the goats lose a good portion of their maneuverability. The goats are still more agile than on the first floor, but the difference is obvious. What is more obvious though is when one of the goats that had gotten hit by more than a couple fire ribbons just keels over.

Ace groans at this, “the kobolds have a leader buff! That’s annoying beyond all else. Even worse, it buffs their toughness as well. Now we are going to have to be on the lookout for any leaders in general.”

He has time to go over this because the fight wraps itself up soon after the kobold dies. Even if the goats are a higher level they aren’t that hard to kill without the constitution buff. Though before the last goat dies Jeremy is already bouncing around the room as he harvests the mint and sage. Ruby rolls her eyes at this though once she remembers the rabbits she took down joins in on the gathering.

That taken care of, Jeremy walks over to the wall the others had followed in and taps it near the back of the room. “There’s a hidden door of some sort here. I can’t see any mechanism to open it though. Let me take a closer look around the room.”

Worried about this discovery, the others let him take all the time he needs. However in the end all he finds is another hidden door which can’t be opened. Jeremy shakes his head, “without any way to open them I would guess these are a method the dungeon uses to move monsters around. I bet this second door has a matching one in that first kobold ambush room. At the very least they aren’t meant as traps to take us by surprise. While I can’t see how to open them, I can tell that when they do open the doors will make a horribly loud noise. Also, I just looked in the next room and that is one strange bird.”

The others gather up on him and take a look as well. The rest of them are stunned at what they see. Jack shakes his head, “looks like someone mixed an ostrich and one of those drinking bird desk toy things then strapped an axe to its face.”

Ace raises a single eyebrow at this description but shrugs, “while odd, what is more worrying is that the room continues out of sight to the right. That one probably isn’t the only one so we need to be ready for more. I actually want you to lead, Jack. Your mace has enough oomph behind it to stop one of those dead in its tracks. Now lets see if they taste like chicken.”

Most of the group groans at this, though Jeremy has a good chuckle. With that out of their system, Jack raises his concrete mace onto his shoulder and charges in. One well-placed swing into the belly of the bird they could see is enough to end any chance of it contributing to the fight. On the other hand, the other three birds the party can now see are charging over at a much faster speed than expected.

The first two get an appreciable amount of speed up before they hit. One is stopped dead in its tracks as Jack gets another swing in. Though he drops his mace from the impact. The other bird rams into Ace with its face axe and shears through his buckler. Across his shoulder it carves a large angry wound as the bird’s momentum keeps it going on past him and into the wall at a bone-breaking speed.

Right after it the last bird in the hallway arrives but everyone is ready for it and those who are in its way all dodge to the side. Unable to stop in time, the last bird pancakes into the wall like the one that had hurt Ace. Only the very first one is left alive. Though even if they don’t help it along that likely won’t be the case for long as it twitches on the floor while gasping for breath. Unwilling to get close to a cornered animal, Jeremy throws a couple daggers to finish it.

Fight over, everyone turns to Ace. There is an angry red wound across his shoulder that should be pumping out blood like crazy. It isn’t though as he has broken one of his emergency charms on it. The stored spell coats his wound with layer after layer of sap, which hardens into a flexible amber substance.

Ace shakes his head, “well that’s the closest I’ve gotten to death in a while. Nature bless that I was ready for this sort of thing. I had planned to only carry stuff for broken bones because of the prevalence of blunt damage in here. This could have gone a lot worse too. If we hadn’t been right up on this wall, who knows how much damage the birds could have done.”

Tess shakes her head, “I honestly don’t know if it would have been. These birds must be a high quality of stupid to kill themselves by charging into a wall. I could probably have taken them just with trip attacks.”

Jeremy nods, “they don’t seem ready for the amount of speed they built up. Now I noticed that there is a decent slope here, but that shouldn’t be enough. Just look at the walls of the room. Along with some primitive carvings of them, there are also a ton of speed lines. I think this entire room might have some form of enhancement on it.”

Bill takes a closer look at the carvings and nods, “that is possible. Here, let me test it.”

Before the others can disagree, he jogs towards the back of the room. About halfway, he turns around and jogs back to the group. That second part of the journey though proves that something is going on as he travels noticeably faster despite not trying to do so.

Ruby sighs at this, “I can’t detect any active magic going on so whatever is causing that is weird. I’ve noticed that there are carvings tucked away all around the dungeon. That could have just been some decoration, but this points towards another possibility. Though of course the other carvings could be red herrings to distract from the real ones.”

Ace shrugs, “just another bit of evidence to throw on the growing pile of proof that we have an awakened dungeon on our hands.” He looks up at the ceiling. “And I don’t want to deal with that right now.” Nothing answers him but there is a palpable release of tension as if two people had just been in a stare down only to both back down.

Akhier

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