5.45 - Freed (Patreon)

Despite being ready for it, Natalie couldn't help but be surprised as Malice disintegrated into pink motes of light. The energy drifted into the [Capture Core], sucking the wolf-girl into a magical pocket dimension, as if she were any old dungeon item.

At making their decision, Natalie and the rest of the team looked around the cavern, bracing themselves for something to happen. For the dungeon to announce its displeasure, and promptly vent it on them. But only silence hung in the large ash-covered room.

"I'd almost rather something did jump out at us," Jordan said, after a long second of nothing happening.

"Don't give it any ideas," Sofia muttered. "The plan is the same. Get moving. I don't trust this."

"Agreed," Ana said.

"Should I summon her back?" Natalie asked. "Or, actually, someone else? So they get the experience?"

"I don't see why not," Sofia said. "Capturing her is what should've annoyed the dungeon, not using her. We might need her help."

Natalie tossed the capture core at Liz, who caught it somewhat clumsily, surprised at the action.

"Why me?"

"No reason. We'll rotate."

Liz held the orb up and furrowed her brow. A second later, pink light poured outward, taking the shape of a busty wolfgirl.

Malice looked around, then grinned at seeing them again. She rolled her shoulders. "Alright. Angry Crypt Keeper?"

"Not yet," Sofia said. "But I can't imagine it'll be long. Natalie, please?" She gestured impatiently at the throne, which supposedly hid the trapdoor leading into the loot room.

Natalie jogged over. Indeed, she found the fixture on the ground behind the towering, ornate throne. She gripped the metal handle and heaved upward. A short ladder led into a tunnel. She took the fast path: she jumped down, grunting as she hit the ground. Scanning for threats revealed nothing, instead, she found exactly what she'd been expecting. A loot chest as well as four cages.

Four cages. Each with a person trapped inside. Leah's teammates.

Two of them were conscious, a man and a woman, and two were not—two more men. They stared at Natalie with shock, eyes flicking down her body, and Natalie's skin prickled at the obvious, surprised once-over they gave her. And despite the circumstances, clearly not of a fully professional nature. It was going to take some getting used to, running around in this bikini armor.

"All clear," Natalie called up to the entrance of the trapdoor. Sofia was already in the process of jumping down after her—then Jordan next. The rest of her team clambered down in short order.

"Who are you people?" the woman in the nearest cage asked.

Natalie grunted, pulling out the keys she'd been carrying around. The first one with a woman's name didn't work, but the second did; it slid into the door's lock. "Leah sent us," she said, tugging the door open. "But we're in a hurry, so explanations can happen later."

"A hurry? Why?"

"We think something's about to happen," Natalie said. "But we're not sure what."

"Uh," the woman said. "Sorry? What do you mean?"

But Natalie ignored her. Even if there were no obvious indicators of danger, her skin was crawling. They'd taken a risk by capturing Malice. Angering the dungeon, whatever came from that, wasn't going to be pleasant.

She quickly went around the room and unlocked the four cages. The sleeping individuals were woken after some urgent, mildly violent shaking. Sofia, in the meantime, had thrown open the loot chest and was, without ceremony, dumping the contents of their victory into monster cores. Normally, they would make a show of inspecting the loot as it came out, but this time, they would appraise their haul after they escaped the dungeon.

And the rush was shortly proved warranted.

A howl went up from the cavern above them, joined by a second, then a third, and more. Everyone's gazes flicked to the trapdoor entrance—the four delvers they'd rescued all going pale. According to Leah's story, they'd been defeated and captured by those creatures, so it was fair that they reacted in such a dramatic way.

At the cacophony of howling mixing together above them, Malice started cackling wildly.

Sofia, on her part, sighed. Though strangely, it sounded like relief. "Honestly," she said. "At least it'll be a fight, and not something else."

Yeah. Better than having a trap sprung on them or otherwise some impossible-to-deal-with shenanigans.

"We have everything?" Natalie asked, looking at Sofia, who stood by an empty chest.

"Yes," Sofia said.

"And you four are ready to move?" she asked the strangers. They nodded, eyes wide. "You have weapons?" They shook their heads. "Great," Natalie muttered. They'd be mostly dead weight, then. Two of them looked like mages. At least everyone would be some use; maybe not enormously so, if the fighters weren't trained in hand-to-hand, but it was something. "Anyone see any other way out, besides up?" Natalie scanned the walls of the hidden loot room.

"Doesn't seem like it."

Natalie cursed. "Alright." The howls were growing in volume. "We didn't see an exit portal, up there?" Most boss rooms came with them.

"If there was, I bet the dungeon promptly hid it," Sofia said dryly. "Retracing our steps might be our best bet. Back the way we came."

Natalie didn't know if escaping the ash cavern home of the hellhounds would be enough to break them free of the dungeon's wrath, but it was clearly their first step. Rolling her hammer in her grip, she approached the ladder. She made it halfway up when, suddenly, a snarling wolf head popped through the opening. Natalie responded to the shock in her traditional way: she smashed the massive stone block of her hammer into its skull. Whimpering, the wolf retreated.

Natalie hung there, halfway up the ladder, warily peering around the limited viewport, trying to see what was going on.

"I'm gonna send a distraction through," Natalie said. "We need to get up and out fast, on our feet, so we can fight."

"Ready when you are," Jordan said.

They executed the plan. Natalie sent an illusion of herself scrambling up and through the trapdoor, sprinting at full break in the opposite direction of the cavern's entrance—hopefully leading the monsters away. Bursting up and back into the open space, Natalie nearly choked at what she saw.

Five of them. Five [Hellhounds]. And not the smaller, weaker kind they'd killed so many of out in the lead-up to the bossroom, but full-fledged, enormous, obsidian black wolves, as had accompanied Malice's boss fight. Sofia and them had struggled—not overly so, but still struggled—against just two.

So five?

They were fucked.

The dungeon tended to be mostly fair. It created encounters feasible for the level they were on. But five? Natalie enjoyed a good fight, but that might not be a fight at all.

She gestured wildly for the train of people to hurry up as they climbed out of the loot room. Meanwhile, Natalie's illusion had been torn to shreds; the five wolves looked around, confused—thankfully as stupid as most dungeon monsters—then faced back to the trapdoor, seeing their true prey emerge.

They howled. To Natalie's side, Malice also howled—but in delight. An unhinged, bloodthirsty sound.

"Let's see how you all play," Malice grinned, shooting a wild look at Natalie. "This'll be a good introduction to the team, I think."