[While on a rescue mission gone crazed, a holy warrior and a rogue fight bandits, demons, and the urge to rip each other's clothes off.]
The mission, rescuing a princess, could be going better.
Séa is an earnest paladin, honest and gullible. Tash is...
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The trio stared down the bare hallway leading from the pillar room. An iron-banded wooden door ended the short passage, only twenty yards distant. A faint, magical shimmer glistened upon the door's surface.
"Princess, ho? Forward we go?" Séa scrunched up half her face in skepticism.
"With an abundance of caution," Ghomarck replied. "I can't imagine demons constructing an untrapped hallway to assist invaders in reaching the princess swiftly and safely."
"Smart, Master Ghomarck, smart." Honestly, if there are traps and if I were alone, I'd have blundered through them already. I'm learning so much on this journey.
"I see a pit cover already," Tash said. "What did you call those smaller demons? Yotches? They're not so super smart if I can see the edges of the trap door. Give me that lever handle."
Séa tried opening her eyes wider, then squinting, but whatever Tash had spotted remained beyond her sensory perception.
Ghomarck's bemused expression echoed Séa's feelings as the rogue flopped on her belly and wriggled forward, iron stick in hand. After each inch of forward progress, the rogue tapped the floor and listened for subterranean echoes. Eventually, Tash extended her arm, aimed, and whapped at a spot. With a stony scrape, a square of floor dropped away. The rogue stiffened her body and stared into yawning black depths. Though her hips and legs were safe on solid stone floor, her center of gravity almost hung over empty space.
Séa's stomach clenched in alarm. "Oi! Careful, Tash. We don't want to lose you. Maybe we should tie a rope around your ankle." She inhaled to settle her gut and chattered on, "Do we have rope?"
Ghomarck emitted a gusty grunt. "Not I, alas. If there were such a thing as a dungeoneering license, ours would be revoked."
"Oh, wait." Séa's expression cleared. "I packed a whole coil."
"Now she tells us." From ground level, Tash glared back over her shoulder. Ghomarck's glance was equally annoyed.
Séa sighed.
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Three pits formerly covered by trap doors trailed in a ragged line behind the trio. Tash stowed the coil of rope back in Séa's pack and they faced the shimmery surface of the end door with foreheads furrowed.
