‘Jhess!’ Robin—like the rest of the party—made to rush toward Jhess, but his footsteps faltered after a moment. That stop in his motion was swiftly followed by a nervous, hiccoughing giggle.

The rogue was covered with what looked to Robin like long strands of sticky pink taffy. Jhess stretched and pulled but only managed to get herself more and more tangled in the stuff. So far, there was no other indication of harm.

‘Urkhan’s squeaky bumhole!’ Jhess swore as she struggled. ‘Someone get me out of this stuff!’

‘Maybe we can freeze it off,’ Drev said as he moved to help her. ‘That should make whatever this stuff is brittle enough to break away.’

Well he’s no fun.

Robin took that to mean Drev was on the right track and would soon have Jhess free. And as he didn’t have any spells that might help with said freezing, he turned his attention to the cavern and searching it for the bits of treasure he needed to squirrel away before the rest of the party noticed.

‘Let me know if you need any help,’ he called. ‘I’m going to make a start on gathering up stuff for Drev and Savra to evaluate.’

Easy enough. Start with the things on and around the pillars. Ruprecht had told him which one was most important, as it would hold a speaking-stone they could use to communicate while Robin was in Noviel above, but the bard could hardly make a beeline for it. That would look suspicious.

Robin made his way through the cavern, zig-zagging from pillar to pillar, pausing every so often to stop and examine the contents of a chest. By the time he had retrieved most of the interesting objects (aside from the gold coins, which would interest anyone) and placed them in categories in front of Savra, Drev had managed to free Jhess.

The rogue grumbled as she went through Robin’s categories, complaining about his organisational methods.

Robin suspected she was just miffed she had missed out on being the first to sift through the treasure.

The gold would have to sit and wait a bit. Drev and Savra were going through the art and potentially magical items and no one in the party—not even Wulfram—was more interested in gold than in finding out what eldritch treasures they might have recovered.

Not that anything would be that powerful. Ruprecht, for all his exceptional talents, was still a relatively young dungeon. He lacked the reserves for magical energies and the higher-level knowledge that would enable the creation of truly unique and powerful items.

That didn’t mean there wasn’t some good stuff here, though. There was an enchanted spoon, similar in effect to the one he and the Sisters Sharp had found when adventuring beneath the mountains; a few items that all had minor storage properties attached to them (that was very thoughtful of Ruprecht—or maybe they were copies of the ones the first ill-fated adventuring party to run into him had carried); there was also a pair of boots that very minorly enhanced the wearer’s travel speed and improved footing, allowing said wearer to all but ignore rough or hazardous terrain.

There was no way they could carry away all of the coin, even with the new storage spaces, and most of it was likely forgery, anyway. Not that a clever mind couldn’t do quite a lot with fake coin of this quality.

So long as you didn’t get caught with it.

Robin slipped a few pouches worth of false gold coins into his personal storage when he was sure no one was looking.

‘There’s barely any real gold down here,’ Jhess complained.

‘What did you really expect?’ Robin let several fake coins trickle through his fingers. ‘We knew this was a young dungeon going in. There can’t have been the time or the magical energies to accumulate a dragon-level hoard like this.’

‘But wouldn’t it be nice if it were all real?’ The rogue pouted. ‘I have very expensive tastes to accommodate, you know.’

‘Everyone knows,’ Drev quipped from where he was more closely examining the magical boots they had found. ‘Though you might be right. This seems a bit scant for how large the dungeon we passed through is.’

Robin felt a spike of alarm. If they started looking too hard at those other doors in the search for more treasure, the whole plan could unravel. Ruprecht would be exposed and then he’d have to make a much harder choice between remaining an ally of the dungeon or doing as the Guildmagister had commanded.

He needed to get the party to stop thinking and start moving up and out of this place.

‘Maybe Ru—’ Robin coughed and cleared his throat. ‘Maybe the dungeon expended most of its energies on creating the premises and all of the strange hidden doors and moving walls. That strikes me as something that by rights should be fairly expensive in terms of magical energies, and weren’t you saying that a lot of the treasure is created from thin air via the expenditure of magical energies by the dungeon? Maybe this one is more concerned with the tricks than the bait. It’s not the smartest option, but sentient beings—biped or floating crystal—aren’t always the most sensical.’

‘Could be,’ Drev mused. ‘Seems short-sighed, but if the place is as young as we expect, and isn’t connected to Gyrfalcon, then maybe.’

Or perhaps the dungeon is smart enough to bait in the foolish with false coin, and few enough of them survive to carry the truth back to the surface.

Maybe Robin shouldn’t be pushing the narrative that Ruprecht was foolish and young and that is why it wasn’t worth looking for more treasure. No reason to needlessly antagonise the dungeon. Not when there were an unknown number of shapeshifters in the adjacent caverns.

‘So maybe we pack up and head back to Noviel,’ he said.

‘I still think it’s worth having a look at those other two hidden doors,’ Jhess said. ‘Even if it’s not much, we might be able to find some more treasure. We’re at the centre of the dungeon after all. Even if it’s less than this central room, there might be some good stuff.’

‘It does make logical sense,’ Drev agreed.

Not good. This was not the direction Robin needed everyone to be heading!

‘Is it worth the potential danger?’ he asked. ‘There are still traps, after all, and who knows what shapeshifting monsters might be lurking about still.’

‘We’ve already handled the worst this place can throw at us,’ Jhess said. ‘We survived.’

‘Not all of us!’ Robin shot back. ‘And the one we lost was our strongest fighter—strongest acting fighter.’ He made the amendment after catching a glimpse of Wulfram’s slight frown at the mention of Khavren’s (former) prowess.

That put a slight crimp in Jhess’s enthusiasm. Of course such a reprieve was too good to last and in no time the rogue was talking herself—and the rest of the party—around.

‘That’s true, but we know to be more careful than Khavren, and most of the monsters and traps have been dealt with. If we’re careful it can’t hurt to at least have a look in the other rooms. If things are too dangerous we can retreat, but if they aren’t, well, I’d hate to just leave any treasure lying around down here when it might be happier in our pockets.’

‘That’s a good point.’ Drev’s eyes gleamed. ‘It would be wasteful to just leave it all down here to gather dust if we don’t have to.’

This wasn’t working! Why was Drev so greedy all of a sudden? Wasn’t his father one of the richest men in Noviel as it was? Robin needed a new reasoning. Something plausible and time sensitive and…aha! His [Bardic Lore] pinged.

‘Well,’ he said, with exaggerated casualness, ‘so long as you’re confident that the magically powered secret passages we used to get here won’t suddenly stop working now that the dungeon core has been shattered, I suppose we’re safe to explore a bit more.’

The party froze.

‘Can that happen?’ Jhess asked Drev.

‘It depends how much of the dungeon’s magical energies it was consciously channelling to support the structure, but yes,’ Drev answered.

‘Now that you mention it, doesn’t The Ballad of Thrangar the Barbarian have something like that happen? And only the mage escapes because she was a specialist in magics dealing with the ethereal plane?’ Robin let some nerves creep into his voice. It wasn’t hard. He was certainly very nervous that the party might not leave right away!

‘Maybe we should get out while we still can,’ the rogue said slowly, still clearly torn. It wasn’t going to be easy to tear Jhess away from even the possibility of more treasure.

‘I think it would be prudent,’ Savra said firmly, finally adding her voice to the debate.

Even with that, Jhess, and to a much lesser extent, Drev, seemed unconvinced. They needed just a little more of a push. And it wasn’t going to come from Wulfram, so that left it down to the party’s bard.

Robin subtly twisted his hand through the gestures for [Lesser Phantasm] and the faint sound of stone grinding on stone seemed to drift into the cavern they were in.

That did it.

‘Let’s go,’ Jhess said.

Drev nodded. The rest of the party gathered up what they could and headed out, back through the cavern they initially entered and down the long and twisting passages of the access tunnels.

Retracing their steps was incredibly monotonous, especially without the frisson of danger and exploration. Robin almost began to miss the threat of attack. Almost.

He definitely didn’t say anything out loud. No reason to tempt Fate, or worse, tempt Ruprecht.

Soon enough, however, they made their way to the dungeon entrance Khavren had first fallen through. Robin fell back to have one last word with Ruprecht while Jhess used her skills to get them a rope in place to climb out on.

‘Talk to you soon. Try not to eat too many adventurers or draw too much attention to yourself until we can figure out the best way to secure our futures, long-term.’

Don’t get yourself killed. And don’t forget to check in via the speaking stone at least once a day. I’m going to be very bored with this whole laying low thing. I expect regular updates. For entertainment if nothing else.

Robin was sure there was an ulterior motive there, but he didn’t have time to suss it out. Their exit was ready.

‘Take care,’ he whispered as he headed to climb the rope.

The rest of the journey was simple. They moved through the undercity and into the sewers and eventually passed back into the basement of his tavern. As they did so, Robin heard the tell-tale ding of a level-up notification.

Was there any sound lovelier?

Here Endeth the Tale of What Lies Beneath