Things had started going better in recent days. The rogues and others tasked with their death by the varying factions in the underworld had laid off a little and given them some breathing room for future operations. It was not what they would have liked to spend their time dealing with but it was what fate had decided to throw their way. Time would test their metal when tomorrow came but for today they just had to go forwards one step at a time.

Now was the opportunity to strike and get things done. It was the smallest of margins but they had to take what they could get. They needed a smokescreen and one may have just fallen into their laps. There was a rumor of a dungeon being discovered, one that this lot of ne'er-do-wells did not create. Such a thing would be an opportunity for profit and a massive boon if they could claim even a fraction of the treasure within.

The only problem with that was a simple fact that no one that had gone inside had come out alive. They had cast familiar spells on birds and sent them into the breach. Watched through the eyes of even the smallest of insects and come to a single conclusion. This place was made for killing. To house treasure like the bait on a fishing hook and kill all that it could before being conquered.

It held the signature of a mad wizard from long ago whose dark shadow was still blocking out the light. He had found great joy in making everything twisted in his mad image, laid wast to entire kingdoms, killed tyrants as well as the common man. Then when he was old and gray and even his best spells of longevity could no longer sustain his decrepitated body he died. Not with a whisper or even a roar. He just faded out and watched with a sad smile while his own body turned to dust.

He was mourned by his friends and family but few others thought everyone agreed that with his passing passed an age where nothing was impossible so long as one person was willing to try and do it. It is agreed by all that he was a good mage, a grand wizard, and a very shit man. But he did leave some things behind in the form of these dungeons, treasures that he had created over the centuries that he lived. Artifacts that could bend the laws of the world and make it rain fire, make the stone under your feet flow like mist. Make the sky dark and allow the long light to seep into the world. 

The measure of what he left behind can be measured by how deadly the dungeon is, if it kills every one that comes at it for a hundred years then you know it has the best things inside. If even knowing what kind of death awaited you inside could not give you a chance and luck alone finally saw the place broken then you knew that it could allow you to ascend to godhood. It had happened before and would likely happen again. For now, all they knew was that whatever was inside the place had killed without being seen. It was not a ghost or any poison-laced into the very air.

It was something darker and more sinister. One mage that had watched said only one thing. He had delt with golems before and this place was filled with them. It was even possible that the entire dungeon was one big golem filled with countless more. He was sure that the very air was enchanted to come alive and attack whatever dared to make it past the traps and lesser monsters. It was rather telling that after seeing it through the eyes of a familiar he had declared that not even the gods themselves could get him to step foot inside. 

It was not even all that strange for him to feel that way, what kind of golem artificer wanted to die in a place like that. What other horrors had the mad wizard put in there to kill everything that moved? Finding out would be the perfect distraction for Drassisa to get started. They just had to time it right and everything would fall into place. The hardest part would be passing along the word without Drassisa being present at the meetings. 

If she was away from the group while they messed around with a dungeon then certain interested parties would stop at nothing to ruin it. They may not even try and kill her, just make it so her reputation would be forever tainted. A social plague the likes of which would eat at her for the rest of her life. However long or short it made her life when no one would have anything to do with her.

"So this is the message that you need me to send? Is there anything else that you will need me to do when everything is over?" Neka asked her friends before they headed out. With any luck, they would finally be off of her couches. She liked her friends but even with their protections, she could not risk letting loose the curses embedded inside her body. 

They could be killed if something slipped through and those wretched things would never stop trying to find a grasping place on those around her if she did not do the magical equivalent of holding her breath and sucking in her gut all the time. It was rather draining in her own personal opinion, that was for sure. At least she would have some time to unwind and maybe get some actual work done. Not like she could not do anything with them here but it gave her a chance to work without worrying about killing everyone if she unleashed a plague.

Sure she could survive something like that and just tank the damage but not many others could. Though she did wonder if they were going to get her anything from this dungeon. If she could get her hands onto some really good, old cursed gear made by the mad one himself it would be a great day. She had read about a curse he had made to separate water from salt killing whoever it was used on in that way. 

It had been repurposed to separate salt from the water and bought by a sea-side port city. It had created the biggest salt exporter in the world overnight by doing just that.

with their little cursed orb, it was just a matter of keeping people out of the range of the light it gave off and collecting the salt before exporting a lot of the freshwater to a nearby desert. Two titanic industry based on that one artifact and it had been studied. Though it could not be reproduced on the level that the original had because of material scarcity it did allow them to set up more than one warehouse for the job.

She hoped she would get something half as good.

"I can do that and more, just make sure that whatever you do is flashy. Really draw the attention away and make sure they all look at what you want. I want the business to pick up soon and that won't happen if everyone is afraid of rogues taking their items three feet from my door." she said to her friends good-naturedly.