5.32 – Saviors

Leah had known it was a terrible idea to head down to the dungeon's second floor. But like the rest of her team, their success on the first had gotten to their heads. With weeks of no serious injuries, and Will and Adam even hitting level two, they'd thought themselves ready to take on the next jump in difficulty. Yes, each floor came with significant increases in danger, but if they took things slowly, then it couldn't be that bad. Right?

Leah and her team had been swiftly disabused of that notion. The increase in challenge was even greater than they'd expected. They did manage to clear a few encounters, creeping through the underground snow forest the second floor manifested as. But then the blizzard had picked up, making it impossible to see more than a dozen feet in any direction—and then they'd been ambushed. By those monstrous ash-gray wolves, at least a dozen of them.

When the chaos had settled, it was just Leah, Adam, Elliot, and Tracy remaining. Half of their team had disappeared into the blizzard. Not killed and left on the ground—just gone. Carried away, with thick snow wolf tracks leading through the forest. Vanished in the frenzy of the fight.

Of the missing included Will, Leah's brother. So she had understandably panicked.

Of course, they'd followed the tracks—which had led to a cave entrance. There was one thing keeping her from a full breakdown. The keys, arrayed on the outside of the cave's yawning mouth, hung up by small, rusted iron chains. Four of them, each with a missing teammate's name inscribed on the shaft of the respective item.

Leah nor anyone else had any clue what that meant. But it was clear the dungeon had chosen to play games with them. Leah took refuge in the fact that it meant her brother probably wasn't dead. Why have a key with his name on it, otherwise? But they still had to save them. To go into that cave and fight their way through—or whatever else the dungeon had planned.

And how were they supposed to do that? As a team of four? Even in a group of eight, things had been difficult. Hence why the wolves had overwhelmed them in the first place. Their new harried party was only four strong, and that was a smaller party than even Tenet students went in. And Leah and her group were hardly Tenet students.

"Well," Adam said eventually, the team having been staring at the cave entrance in silence. His voice was grim. "We … might have to cut our losses."

Leah jolted. She turned to him. "What? You can't be serious."

"I'm not saying I want to. But what are the odds of us surviving, if we go in? The dungeon is toying with us. Trying to turn four casualties into eight, by baiting us into … this." He gestured at the ominous cave mouth. "With four people, it'd be idiocy to tackle a second-floor challenge."

"So we abandon them?" Leah hissed. "My brother? Your friends?"

"What are we supposed to do?" Adam asked calmly. "Throw our lives away? Because we aren't thinking clearly?"

Leah glared at him. A small part of her acknowledged his argument—and he didn't look happy about the suggestion. He had a valid point. Casualties were the nature of the dungeon. After losing their previous encounter, this could just be bait leading all of them into certain death, rather than the catastrophic four they already had lost. The dungeon might be seeing if their loyalty overrode their good sense. The dungeon was cruel like that; everyone knew it. Would Leah even have agreed with Adam, had Will, her brother, not been part of the four missing?

Elliot and Tracy glanced between each other, looking torn—sick with the dilemma they were in. As they all were.

She spun away, rubbing her face furiously. "That assumes we can even find an exit," Leah said, trying to reason with them. "Maybe the ambush was so much more difficult than the other encounters because the dungeon wanted to force us into … this 'part two' of the challenge, or whatever. To go into the cavern and try to find them. Maybe the encounters won't be as difficult because of that. Easy enough for four people to handle."

"I find that unlikely," Adam said.

Leah did too. But it was a possibility. "So we're just giving up?" she demanded.

"Even if it's the hard decision, leaving might be the only smart one."

"I don't care," Leah spat. "I'm not leaving Will."

"We have to think about this clearly—" Adam insisted.

But he was interrupted halfway through. "Uh … guys?" Elliot said. Both of them turned to face the dark-haired boy, then at the patch of forest Elliot was staring at. "Do you hear that?"

The team went silent, the snow-draped forest almost eerily quiet in the absence of their voices. Only wind whistling through pine leaves filled the air. Leah's eyes flicked across the tree line as she strained to listen.

It took only a moment to hear it. Shuffling. Crunching snow. Faint voices, in the not-so-far distance.

Another party was approaching.

Leah's eyes went wide. It was just their luck. Another crisis. Not that another delving group necessarily meant a crisis, but it easily could. Down away from the surface, from the order of law or any means of retribution in general, people's true nature tended to reveal itself. Especially when nearly every person was carrying around some of the most valuable items they owned. Magical gear wasn't cheap, even the worst of it. That was one of the biggest reasons why people came down into the dungeon in the first place—the potential riches to be found. And what easier way to scoop up a bunch of loot than from another team?

Leah's party looked amongst each other, a mixture of emotions. They hissed out a brief, quiet argument on what to do. Whether to run, or stand their ground and hope for the best.

It turned out they didn't have much choice in the matter, since the sound of crunching snow slowed, then stopped. The other party was closer than Leah had assumed—or had heard them sooner.

"Who's there?" a woman's voice called out.

Leah looked between her teammates one more time. Sneaking around or refusing to reply would only make them seem hostile. At this point, it was best to take their chances.

"Hello?" Leah called back. "We're over this way. Friendly?"

"Friendly," the voice called back, though obviously, the claim didn't mean much.

A handful of moments later, figures emerged from the dense pine trees and into the clearing holding the cave entrance.

Leah ... blinked.

It was a team of five highly equipped delvers, competent by the way they carried themselves, probably Tenet students, immediate intuition told her. But that wasn't what she focused on. Instead, it was what their front liner was wearing.

Maybe the high tensions and stress of Leah's situation made her doubly unprepared, but her brain nearly broke as she took the woman in. Short red hair, blue eyes, tall, with strong arms, and sporting a defined six-pack—which was visible because of her choice of armor.

Armor? Was that even the right word? Her large breasts were squeezed in by tiny cups of metal, not even fully covering herself, and her stomach, arms, and thighs were also fully on display. But most importantly, Leah's eyes were drawn to the cup at her crotch.

Holding in a bulge. A sizable bulge.

On ... a woman?

What?

Did she have … one of those?

Their mage was wearing something nearly as scandalous: robes with ribbons of fabric that barely covered both her chest and her crotch, and would certainly show far too much if the wind picked up. She held no visible weapon, which Leah might normally have noted as odd, but she was too focused on everything else.

Even the rest of the team was dressed somewhat ... immodestly ... compared to a typical team. As if they'd gone out of their way to show as much skin as possible, for reasons unknown. Especially in a cold environment like this.

Though the tank and the mage were by far the most brazen.

Seriously—what in the world?

The red-haired woman carried herself confidently, expression cautious but unconcerned as she sized up the four of them. She wielded an enormous two-handed hammer, which rested face-down in the snow, her hand wrapped around the wide shaft. How did she swing that thing around? A skill, certainly, unless these five were much higher level than she assumed, for being on the second floor of the dungeon.

"Hey," the woman said in a casual greeting, far more unconcerned with the situation than Leah's tense team was. "You all from Tenet?"