You press onward.

...

The walls are smooth.

Metal sticks out of them.

...

There are obstacles.

Not doors.

Broken hallways.

You eliminate them.

You press onward

...

You step on a string.

The roof begins to fall.

You press onward and remain unscathed.

Noise comes from in front of you.

“The hell was that?”

“Probably one of those Skull Rats. You know how they are. Ravenous little fuckers.”

“Didn’t see any XP. Might be a swarm. Might see you shit yourself on command again.”

“That’s not funny, asshole. And you know that’s not what happened.”

You press onward.

--------------------------------

Kamong hated guard duty. He also hated working with Oriza. So today was starting to be a shit day, and likely to get worse now that the tunnel trap was just activated.

He couldn’t see how everyone else clamored to be around her or be put on guard duty. Shure, she was pretty, for a hellspawn, but that didn’t fix a rude personality. The purple bitch always insulting him with every other sentence whenever he was around. The fact it was just him who got this treatment made it all

Guard duty? Now that he could understand a bit better. Any easy access to free XP had people frothing at the mouth at any given time. More experience meant more levels, which meant better chances at survival. Damn shame Kamong was a cook first and a fighter second.

He’d be the first to admit he was a coward. He’d seen one too many friends die due to an overestimation of their abilities. Better numbers meant shit against a wall of arrows raining down at you all at once.

Unfortunately, being a coward made you a liability in other ways. Such as having too low a level to fight back. Every spare body may be another potential sword arm. It was worth truly little if they went down after just a feather touch, unfortunately. Which made him a prime candidate for guard duty out here in the backline of the underground.

How he constantly found himself paired with Oriza was just the icing on the shit cake.

“You sure? Real hard to forget the smell.”

Kamong just sighed and grabbed the flamebelcher. A fancy piece of tech, if it didn’t have the poor habit of blowing up every time someone hit it too hard. Just because hellspawn was fire resistant didn’t mean it was a fun experience.

“Keep your jokes to yourself. I’ll take care of the scraps then.”

Rising from the chair he was at, he reached for the door leading to the abandoned tunnels. While he knew no significant threats would be coming through here, it paid never to let your guard down. One mistake was all it took to lose your life.

He then opened the door and found a Skeleton staring him dead in the face.

He froze up when he saw a children’s horror story of an undead walking in front of him. Staring dumbly, he watched as the undead tried to push past him into the room. More out of reflex than conscious thought, he put his arm up to stop them from coming in. It did little as it just slid under his arm and made its way in.

Oriza, from her perspective at least, only saw Kamong open the door and then lean on the door frame suddenly. Her short-lived quip died in her throat when a walking skeleton brushed past him and headed her way. Being taken entirely surprised by this bizarre situation, it took his mind a second to catch up.

A smart person would have sounded the alarm, calling for backup. Another equally intelligent one would have used Kamong to flank the undead in melee. A more cowardly individual would have just turned tail and run, seeing as it was far enough away to not even reach her.

Oriza, instead, made the tactical decisions to pick up her flamebelcher and burn it to a crisp.

To her benefit, she saw the skeleton fall to the ground, easily defeated. Her emotions plummeted when she looked up from the ash pile in front of her and saw a partially scorched Kamong. He did not look the least bit pleased as he was putting the few embers on his clothing.

“Well, I, you know I’ve always thought you were hot stuff you know?”

Her poor joke, and a vague attempt at flirting only earned her a truly unamused face. Oriza could only shrivel up inside while she tried to hide her discomfort with mildly hostile jokes. And all the while that both hellspawn were distracted by a strained relationship, the scorched skeleton appeared to be defeated.