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  [Sigurd]

  Soon the group reached the end of the rainforest, and it was a huge relief. It had worn their nerves down and ripped their composure to shreds; the peace of the stairwell was a welcome opportunity to rest. The group took a good 20 minute break on the stair, thankful that they only needed to keep watch in two directions. That was unbelievably comforting.

  “God, its hard staying alert all around us.” Lorelei commented.

  “I know, I’m so mentally tired that I needed this break” Jenna replied. Sigurd felt the same but wasn’t going to say it.

  “Gonna sleep well tonight.”

  Soon enough the break was over and they continued down the staircase.

  Floor five was much smaller and simpler than the previous floors and as they looked over the level from the doorway, the opposite stairwell was clearly visible.

  The floor was very sparse, and the empty ground seemed somehow ominous. It was most likely trapped somehow. Sigurd seriously doubted the floor would be this simple. Sebastien seemed to agree, and they advanced out with measured steps, Kael leading the way as he would be most likely to spot and avoid any traps.

  As they stepped fully into the room, the floor seemed to quiver in anticipation. The room was circular and only about a stone’s throw in diameter. Large trees grew around the circumference and their reaching branches clasped like hands where they almost met in the middle.

  The entwined and interlocking branches hid the wall and Sigurd wondered if that was where the enemies were. It seemed like an odd way of hiding the fight, but the enemies had hidden well from them last time and it had worked. Perhaps they would all spring out at once and we would fight on all fronts? He wondered.

  Everyone else seemed just as perplexed by the room as Sigurd, it just didn’t fit the ethos of the dungeon. Perhaps it was a boss floor? He didn’t know.

  They hadn’t had a boss fight yet and that was unusual. Most of the dungeons that Sigurd had delved had had boss fights at the end of each and every floor. But then again, nothing about this place was normal. He thought that since it hadn’t had a boss fight at the end of floor one or two then perhaps it wasn’t going to have one at all.

  But if there was to be one, then this was giving him those vibes.

  “I think this might be a boss fight,” he said, giving voice to his suspicions.

  “Yeah, I think you’re right,” Seb replied. “The floor is too small and there are no traps or anything of interest.”

  “But how do we trigger its attack? And what is it?” Jackson questioned.

  “It’s probably some giant bug, where else would the dungeon hide a boss? It’s probably under our feet right now. Lurking, waiting for us to fall prey to its clutches.”

  Sigurd looked down warily, what a way to induce panic.

  “Thanks for that image, Kael, it’s already tense enough without you adding to it. I didn’t want to have to consider that,” Jenna retorted, glaring at him. She couldn’t manage the look and a smile forced its way-out moments later.

  He cackled evilly.

  “I guess we just continue then, if there’s a boss it’s most likely not just going to let us walk straight past. Right?” Said Lorelei.

  “Probably not” He replied, looking back at Lore. “Let’s continue then.”

  “Jenna, Lore: the centre, Jackson: front, Sigurd: you take left, I’ve got right flank. Kael: follow tight. We may get ambushed and I’d rather you two weren’t out of our protection.” Seb commanded, focusing on the mages and snapping into leader mode once again.

  “No problem” the group echoed back.

  In the new formation, they advanced, crossing the centre with no issues. As the exit stairs neared, Sigurd began looking over his shoulder more frequently. With the short space in front of us, attacks were most likely going to come from behind us.

  “Switch” Sebastien called, indicating the group should shuffle around so that Jackson still faced the centre of the room.

  A few more backward steps towards the exit and the trap sprung. Sigurd wasn’t that surprised to be honest.

  The floor rumbled, and the doorway slid closed, the rock flowing to cover the staircase. In a flash, they were locked from progressing, presumably until the boss had been defeated. That was new.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Glancing back at the entrance from the floor Sigurd saw it remained open. They weren’t locked in, that was good. The entrance stairs were still accessible, retreat possible. Whew.

  With a cacophonous crash, something jumped down from the canopy, sending up clouds of dust and gravel from the floor as it landed and obscuring the monster, and the stairs conveniently located on the other side of it. Tricky, dungeon, tricky.

  The dust settled slowly, revealing the monster that hid behind it like a performer behind a dropping curtain. Where once was nothing, now was something.

  And what a something it was. It roared with a low, throaty growl, baring its huge dagger like teeth and wide-open jaw, fit to swallow a man. Sigurd cringed at the assault on his ears, thoroughly intimidated.

  Four metres tall, with arms and legs a half metre around, this brute was an imposing figure. It looked like a gorilla, hunched over, with thick bone protrusions from its knuckles digging into the ground, as if furrowing it.

  As the monstrous head lowered from the roar, Sigurd stared in awe at the two large, wicked looking teeth that protruded from its jaw. Now those were not the teeth of a herbivore but of a predator. Some kind of giant muscle-bound monkey predator.

  Shit!

  Like a drake, there were a series of sharp plate like spines tracking along its back. Green in colour, they blended in with the long fur that coated its body. Like bushes growing out of its back they disguised its shape and hid the danger.

  It slammed its brutish club like hands into the floor with ferine, destructive glee, showering them with dirt before charging.

  It was quick, far too quick for its size. Its whole presence implied a slow, powerful creature, not a quick, agile one.

  Only just managing to scramble out of the way before it crashed through the group, they were now split.

  It skidded to a halt before the wall, receiving a lashing of fire from Lore on its back as it came to a stop. Under the stream of fire, the hairs crisped up, blackening and falling off, releasing a sulphurous smell as they did so.

  The spell ended shortly before the skin was hit, unfortunately. But the exposed area would be a weak point they could hopefully exploit, the matted fur across its body looked like it would block arrows and blunt strikes.

  Seeing how tough the beast was, Kael, Jenna and Lorelei retreated back aways closer to the fourth-floor stairs and fired spells and arrows from the relative safety.

  Jackson, Sebastien and Sigurd spread out around the room drawing its attention to three points and hopefully splitting its focus.

  As luck would have it, the creature lunged for Jackson, reaching out with its stocky arms. He ducked the blow, rotated around its legs as it tumbled forward and slammed his shield into its legs. It growled at him as it spun around.

  Jackson ducked and tried jumping clear of its swinging arm, getting caught - just barely – by it on his shield.

  He slid backwards coming to a stop beside Sigurd.

  Charging forwards once more it attacked, its blow spinning Sigurd around, knocking the axe from his hands as he attacked with it. The axe tumbled to the floor, clinking as the metal scraped over the gravel as it slid away.

  The beast tried to stomp on him, but he rolled away from the blow, putting himself further from the axe and the creature in between, but dodging the danger. It lunged again, and Sigurd circled away leading it back towards Jackson.

  “Jenna, heals if you can. Lore, can you target its legs? Burn away the fur if you can.” Sigurd shouted in a clear moment as he brought the beast to bear.

  It swung a punch, but Jackson managed to deflect it into the wall of trees with his shield, dropping to his knees at the impact.

  With a bone-shaking crash, the monster’s fist impacted. The trees cracking slightly at the force, and chunks of wooden pulp fell away as the monster pulled back its hand.

  The bony protrusions slamming through the trunks. God damn, that was a tough blow. Sigurd thought that had he been between the two he would have been crushed to a paste.

  It roared in pain at the damage, before taking a well-placed fireball to the side of the mouth from Lore. Sigurd took its distraction as a chance to recover his axe.

  It took another minute of hacking, slashing and burning the beast as it focused on one of the group before its fury took hold and any restraint or planning went out of the window.

  It charged around recklessly, swinging its fists like wrecking balls, breaking through the rocks and mud and trees as Sigurd, Sebastien and Jackson danced away from it, taking any opportunity to hack at its legs as they dodged or braced its attacks.

  If they could manage to take out a leg, then they would take out its mobility. After that, it would be a sitting duck that they could take down with relative ease.

  Sigurd had been slowly working at its right calf and several chunks of flesh had been hacked away with his axe. With the thick muscles it had though, it took a lot of work to get through them.

  Working in tandem with Jackson was key to this fight, as he could, if not block, at least redirect a blow, to give Sigurd or Sebastien the opportunity to strike. Once it locked onto Jackson he would lead it to either Sigurd or Sebastien and the other would strike at the leg, ripping through the muscle on its calves with the huge sword or battle-axe.

  After one particularly savage strike, the monster stepped back onto the weakened leg only for it to buckle under its weight. It slipped and collapsed falling to the floor and roaring its protest.

  The fight was over now. They closed in on it and as Sigurd slashed at its torso, dodging around its fist, Sebastien mounted the creature from behind and ended the fight with a sword thrust to the eye. It flailed around briefly as it died, nearly striking them, but eventually it lay still.

  The charred, smoking corpse, lay bleeding over the floor in waves as its heart finally ceased pumping.

  Sigurd sighed in relief. It was a tough monster and though it hadn’t been a particularly hard fight it was still nerve wracking to jump back into such a tough boss fight. With the mages backing them up, it was fairly easy as Lore could deal damage and Jena could heal them as they took it down.

  It didn’t take long to collect the loot, dissect it and advance. There wasn’t much of interest here and the loot the beast carried was lacking.

  Certainly not balanced with how tough the boss had been. The group complained about it a bit but moved on regardless. There was nothing they could do about it anyway.

  “That’s going to be a problem for people.” Sebastien said.

  “Yeah?” Sigurd asked interested in his thoughts.

  “No warm-up fights, no direct approaches so far in the dungeon and then a big monster in limited space that has speed and power. Although the rage is certainly easy to handle.”

  “Right.” Sigurd replied thinking about it. “Most dungeons have a few caverns where you see the monsters, plan your approach, and get stuck into a fight. This one has you exploring a big cavern, you may fight something, you may not, you need to be aware of approaches from all angles and its very tense and then when your nerves are shot and you aren’t in that flow state you get stuck into a fight with a behemoth that can punish you for a mistake. Deadly.”

  “Exactly.” Seb replied, nodding along at his words. The praise made Sigurd proud.

  “We’re really going to have to train newbies up on this dungeon if we let them in, it is nasty in all sorts of ways that others are not. If it just had better rewards to tempt more people, then I would guess this would become one of the best but most dangerous dungeons we have.” Seb continued.

  “Here’s hoping, besides we won’t know the true value until the alchemists get some samples of the plants and animals. There seems to be a lot of prey animals and plants that I’ve not seen before. They could hold good value.” Kael added.

  The group moved to the staircase – now re-opened after defeating the boss - and stepped out onto the stairs.

  A flash of golden light took them by surprise as they walked, and Sigurd stumbled backwards in shock. The others were likewise taken by surprise.

  “What was that?”

  “No idea, be careful though.”

  He agreed with the sentiment.

  They descended the stairs and walked along a small corridor before exiting into a nice room, it was larger than the boss room by a lot, but it was open and calming, there was no sense of boding danger.

  Sigurd liked this room.

  It took the group a while, but they eventually realised that it was supposed to be a saferoom. Often new dungeons didn’t include saferooms until they got much larger. It seemed this one was breaking the trend yet again.

  They were extremely thankful that that was the case though as they had been delving for a long time now and a long rest was in order.

  Planning to explore the area better tomorrow, sleep prevailed and the group decided to rest.

  Behind where the corridor had exited there appeared to be buildings. A short investigation revealed them to be rooms and Sigurd decided to try his luck in them.

  The rest followed his example.

  He trudged up the stairs of the building, axe dragging behind him, it had come on suddenly, but the tiredness was bone deep, and it had caught up to him now.

  The rooms themselves were fairly sparse, but what was he expecting? A royal suite? No, of course not. It was better than many of the inns he had stayed in, so that was a plus.

  He shoved his gear in the chest, unrolled a sleeping mat and climbed onto the mattress with it.

  Sleep wasn’t long in coming.