Katelyn.
"Hey, we've got a treasure room over here!" One of the newcomers shouted, his voice unconditionally enthusiastic, his face bright and exuberant, blue eyes shining with all the signs of exuberant youth.
He was tall, handsome, his chin dimpled and wide, jaw princely in an almost infuriatingly perfect way... Though the thought was somewhat muted by the fact that his golden hair stuck out from beneath a rather—unflattering cap…
The rest of his attire shared much in the same air of ill-fitting awkwardness… patchwork, and composed of pieces that didn't quite mesh together but had been forced into a discordant family of armor all the same.
Some mail here, some hide there, cloth on the arms, leather on the chest, vambraces of what looked like bone…
At his hip, the youth wore what looked like a weighted club, while, on his arm, currently holding a torch high as he inspected the room, a small buckler, tarnished and bent, rested upon straps.
Two more figures emerged a moment later, each peering into the unassuming space in which she waited: one, a tall woman with sharp and somewhat harsh features and a strung bow in hand, and the other, a complete mouse of a scraggly teen who stared into the depths with squinted eyes.
"Three chests, one entrance…" The young woman mused, clicking her tongue as her dark eyes surveyed her surroundings. "Oh, hold a moment… I—swear I remember this part…"
Her two comrades shared a look with each other as the tallest of their number began rummaging away after unslinging her pack.
The handsome lad rolled his eyes as if to say, 'Do you believe this shit,' in silent conversation with his squirrely comrade, who nodded before they both stepped into the room, much to the girl's squawking annoyance.
She scowled, retrieving a leatherbound book which she promptly opened to begin scanning while voicing her annoyance to her two departing teammates. "What was the point of buying the damned guide if neither of you are ever willing to use it?"
"Ah, c'mon Rayla, really? You're going to stand there and tell us that there's anything in there worth looking at right now? It's a treasure room! You know, we fight the goblins, loot their corpses, then are rewarded as we ravage their hoard?"
"And we already looted their treasure room not five minutes ago." Rayla, the clear voice of reason, countered, her glare piercing as she spoke.
The young man glanced at his plated boots, the leather stitched with buckles that held strapped metal around their semi-armored form. The gesture itself made it seem like those had been part of the so-called—treasure.
Still, he shrugged, looking at the shorter youth for assurance, of which the other boy seemed to share in his opinion.
"Ray," The sparsely whiskered lad entreated, arms wide as he gestured at the trio of promised valuables before them. "I get you're cautious since it's your first time and all, but seriously, Cole and I have been at this for weeks now.
You were sick." He quickly amended as she grimaced at him, his arms rising in a surrendering posture, though that didn't stop him from carrying on. "It's nothing to be ashamed about. The dungeons are dangerous, even if it's domesticated, and you were right, it's no place for people not feeling their best."
"There's a but somewhere in that last sentence that hasn't arrived yet…"
"But." The young man smiled, nodding slightly at her as he did so. "Trust us for once, will you? This isn't a wild dungeon out beyond the walls that's looking to eat our souls. It's tame."
"Well, as much as a mindless monster factory can be said to be as such…" Cole admitted with a murmur just audible beneath his breath, the pauper prince brushing a stray lock of his blonde hair from his eyes. "But, I am with Ryan here; this place follows a pretty universal pattern. Fight, loot, rest. Fight, loot, rest." He chuckled, waving an arm about himself as though to prove a point.
"That's why that guidebook even exists! This place is so uniform and predictable that the guild literally commissioned every known layout that can manifest here! It just so happens that, this time, the area we can sit down for a bite to eat also has more loot!"
"I know, Cole, listen, I know. And, I feel shitty for ditching you guys—"
"You had the blue fever; it's not like it was by choice…"
"Cole?"
"Yeah?"
"Please just shut up while I try to explain why you need to listen to me."
Both boys paused halfway through the room, each loudly sighing before meeting her demands. For his part, Cole crossed his arms, an air of impatience about him, while Ryan seemed to busy himself picking at his fingernails with a dagger.
The girl sighed at her shorter companion but carried on all the same, still flicking through pages, even as she spoke. "Listen, I was sick but felt like shit for not being here, so I thought, what's the next best thing to actually exploring?"
She waited as though the others might answer her, a sculpted cheek twitching when neither seemed too interested. A moment later, and she growled at them, though moved right along with the point she was trying to make. "I studied the crap out of this stupid book, is what I'm trying to tell you! And I specifically remember there being a footnote somewhere that warned of this exact—ahah!"
She grinned victoriously as Katelyn felt her heart plummet into the pit of her agonizing stomach, screaming at the unfairness of it all that she'd be exposed not of her own volition but by a god's damned book designed to make her new existence as short as humanly possible…
The fucking cheek of her old god for sending her here… It was legendary!
And, she was very purposeful with her words!
Old god wasn't a slip of the tongue, and if she ever learned that decrepit and bearded fucker in the clouds was actually responsible for this shit then—
"Occasionally." The girl read, finger held in the air to forestall any comments while Kate tried to gauge if she could possibly move without anyone noticing. "A room will appear throughout the dungeon that, while rare, holds three chests within it. One of which is always a mimic."
That got the attention of the others, each of whom immediately began edging away and back into the previous chamber.
"It actually says that in there?" Cole asked, leaning over as he kept his eyes fixated upon the three objects before him, glancing at the open page while refusing to entirely look away.
A moment later, he was grunting, sucking at his teeth while his beanpole of a bitch companion smiled triumphantly at Katelyn as though catching her red-handed and in the act of something entirely damning…
"Well, does it say which one it is?" Ryan asked, also having retreated but not yet giving up on the potential gains within.
"It's entirely random. However, it does warn that mimics are incredibly violent and resistant to most forms of physical attacks…"
"Actually says it's a sort of mini-boss…" Cole added, now outright reading at Rayla's side. "I mean, we've not actually tried to fight a boss yet…" He admitted, somewhat nervously. "But, we are accumulating levels rather fast…"
"And we've got some enchanted gear," Ryan noted helpfully.
"You can't be serious right now… Really? Do you both want to fight it? Even though none of us have magic?"
"I mean, we've got the fireball scroll still, right?"
Ryan nodded. "And, the guide said skeletons were resistant to piercing damage, yet Ray still managed to bag a few with her arrows back in the crypts… So…"
"I vote no," Rayla barked, shoving the book back into her pack and slinging it over her shoulder.
"Did it—say anything about the kind of loot?" Cole inquired, his tone musingly conversational.
"Low tier, high rank." Rayla cleared her throat, huffing slightly as she continued, "Some of the—best to be found actually… the room is quite rare..."
"So it's good then…" The warrior purred, fingers rubbing at his chin with clear avarice...
"I say we go for it," Ryan muttered, tongue licking at his lips. "I bet we don't even have to fight for it… All the good stuff's always in the chests, right? That means all we need to do is figure out which is which and then avoid the bad one, right?"
"Ray! Pop open the guide again and see what it has to say about mimics."
"Read your own damned guide if you're so interested."
Cole glared at his companion but, nevertheless, slipped from his own pack and began searching through it. He rummaged around for no insignificant span of time before he inevitably sighed and glanced upwards. "Can't—you just do it? I don't even know where mine is…"
"Fucking typical!" Still, the girl bent to the pressure of her peers, complaining all the while before she was skimming again, this time stopping on a page nearer the rear of the book.
With how far away they stood, Kate was just a few meters out of range from being able to take a little sneak peek at the book herself. Not with her box body, of course, but her spiritual one.
She was earnestly intensely curious, despite the situation, of what it said.
Annoyingly, the group grew frustratingly quiet as, instead of reading it aloud, they all crowded in to do it in their heads.
With how careful they were all being, she suspected she couldn't get away with so much as a rattle, needing to browbeat the intensifying hunger she felt as well as the salivation that threatened to practically flood her interior.
It was—concerning that she should feel so eager to eat the supposed food present before her, the reasons for which she felt were fairly obvious... However, the hunger was nigh overwhelming at this stage, and it was all she could do but clamp down on the urge and remain quiet...
She focused instead on being as still and inanimate as she possibly could. Not at all obtuse to the understanding of her new existence particulars vis a vis the handful of times she'd boredly watched Brandon play his Souls series...
"Says they always respond to immediate proximity, but also typically give themselves away if attacked from a distance…" Cole whispered, glancing in Katelyn's general direction as he spoke.
"Will that—aggro it to us?"
"Probably not… They don't have eyes, and react more based on smell… Lower level ones don't have legs or arms anyways, so it's not like it can really chase us…"
"Like the spiders couldn't chase us?" Ryan asked a hesitant chuckle to his words betraying a sort of story behind his comment.
"Okay, a bad call, but they actually had legs. What's this thing going to do to us, shuffle towards us menacingly?"
"Eat one of you two?" Ray suggested wearily.
"I mean, not if you hit each chest with an arrow and… show us which one is our silent ambusher and which is full of gold."
"Fat chance on the gold…" Cole complained. "Probably just more copper."
"Oh, I don't know; if it is a mini-boss, there might be one or two little surprises in there worth all the effort."
The trio stood there for a time, thinking it all over. None of them were willing to act first before the archer abruptly plucked two arrows from her quiver. "Could use the money honestly…" She admitted, somewhat bitterly.
"We all can, Ray. It's not like we're risking our lives here for the jollies…"
The girl ignored her short associate, instead standing taller as she drew, her posture practiced and efficient, long limbs allowing her to bend the curving wood with deceptive strength before, with a twang, Kate felt something punch into her form!
It took everything she had not to react in the way her body so desired.
To shift.
To readjust to her proper place and fix the subtle deviation that had assailed her hidden position.
She fought tooth and nail to stop so much as a spasm from manifesting, even as she offhandedly noted how—painless being struck by an arrow was for her.
She felt it most certainly. However, it had more been akin to being shot in the arm by a nerf-dart at maximum range.
A tap.
Not harmful for her wooden hide, if the wood was indeed what it was made of despite its… twisty abilities… Thus, maintaining the ruse proved—manageable.
There was an audible gasp from the adventurers as, with another twang, the second arrow landed, punking into the wooden exterior of the next chest at her side as though it struck a tree…
"So, the odd one out is our big bad, is it?" The weasley rogue-like fellow asked, his voice tentative, as though he didn't trust his own eyes.
"Looks like it… So, what then, we draw straws to see who heads in first?"
Frowning, the archer didn't reply, instead knocking a third arrow before she pulled, losing her charge into the final chest, which, unsurprisingly for Katelyn but, to the clear dismay of the others, didn't so much as cause a stir...
"And what the hell does that mean?"
Rayla glanced at the fighter beside her, clearly considering what he asked before finding herself at a loss for an answer...