The bad mood was still there when they packed up a few hours later and got ready to tackle the third floor, much to Crears joy.

Just have to make it to the fifth floor with them and once we're back at the Guild, they will kick me out of their party. Like everyone else did. The old man can hardly revoke my adventurer card if they kick me out, right? Then it's back to my peaceful solo days. Maybe finally move to another city and get rid of the old man.

"Everyone ready? Good, let's tackle the third floor of this thrice-cursed dungeon." Lydia was unnaturally cheerful.

Or she's trying to lighten the mood. Crear took up his usual spot at the front, leading down the stairs and into the first room of the day. The usual tori stood there, proclaiming to them that the number of challengers and the difficulty hadn't changed. Still at medium.

The fox statues now had blue eyes.

He walked past the tori and stopped straight in front of the first trap. Charming.

A thin wire spanned the width of the corridor, connecting to a tube hidden behind lichen and vanishing into the wall. On both sides.

Crear wiggled a stone above the tube loose, removing it to look where the wire went. Upwards. And then? Following the wire, he looked at the ceiling for the first time. Blank stone, except for a fox mural right after the wire. He might have snorted under his breath at the obviousness of the trap. Either arrows raining down on them, poison gas or acid. Could also be foul water, just for giggles.

Just in case, he wiggled a stone loose on the other side. Here, the wire went downwards. One trigger for two traps?

Scanning the area ahead, he couldn't see anything.

"What's taking you so long? I thought you were a trap specialist!" growled Roric behind him.

"You wanna walk into the trap or you wanna wait?" hissed Crear back. He could've kissed the man for making it even easier to be kicked out of the party. When I get out of here, I'll make sure to never join any party ever again.

He checked the tension of the wire, wrapped it around two of his left hand fingers and cut it apart. His knife fell to the ground as he grabbed for the free end of the wire, wrapping it around his right hand before the loosening tension could trigger the trap. The thin wire cut into his hands. Grabbing one of the stones, he wrapped the wire around it instead and placed the stone on the ground, doing the same with the left side of the wire. Then he listened.

Nothing clacked behind the stones. No mechanical sound was to hear. Crear let go of the breath he had unconsciously held in and continued to wrap the wire around the stones until they laid neatly against the wall.

Roric snorted behind him.

Then again, maybe I should let him walk into a trap just to make a point.

[Please don't. I'll never get the smear off of my walls.]

Crear tilted his head as he stood up. The three behind him looked at him with either expectancy or undisguised discontent. Or not at all, in the case of Thira, who currently preferred to watch their back.

It wasn't them and it weren't my thoughts either.

[Exactly right. Now get a move on,] giggled the voice.

"What are we waiting for now? You finished with that trap or not?"

Crear walked forwards again, eyes on suspicious stones, protrusions and murals.

I'm feeling a little let down. Only one trap on this whole corridor? he thought as he stood outside the room and watched Roric slaughter the pair of wolves. Same as the foxes, they disappeared without leaving a drop of blood behind. Not that I'm complaining or anything. But what's the point of a challenge if the traps are so... obvious?

[Are they now? When it took you so long to figure out the riddle on the second floor?]

He checked the tori and wandered down the left path.

[Then again, your group is a little overqualified,] sighed the voice. [It's not easy to raise the difficulty enough for you lot to actually feel challenged.]

Overqualified? He glanced back. You might be right. Could've done this all without them.

[Oh no. Without them, you would fail at the final challenge, haha!]

You sure?

[You use a bow and disable traps. Of course I'm sure, hehe.]

He shot an arrow at a protrusion ten feet ahead of him and watched as metal spears shot out from the ground, blocking the path. Closer inspection showed that they could be pulled out to clear the path again.

A blue glitter at the bottom of one slender hole caught his eye.

"You must be kidding!" he blurted out. The voice simply laughed at him.

"What's wrong?" asked Lydia from further back.

"Want to guess the chances of us having to find blue stones this time around?" He could hear Lydia groan despite the bulky Roric standing between them. "Another question: Can anyone fit their arm through that hole?"

They clustered around the trap, gazing down at the glittering stone.

"Maybe we can push it into a pouch? You know, similar to fishing," suggested Lydia. "Or-"

"Or we could simply smash it open." Roric had his shield removed and hurtling towards the ground before anyone could stop him.

"No!" Crear scooted back from the impact zone and against the spears he hadn't removed yet.

The shield crashed into the ground without a reaction.

"Huh. This stone must be harder than I thought." Roric raised his shield again, when they heard the unmistakable sound of a trap mechanic going to work. An instinctive step backwards brought him out of danger.

Crear slipped out of his backpack and threw it to the far side of the trap, turned about and squeezed his body into the spears standing behind him, hoping that the space between the spears would be big enough to keep him alive. At the last moment, he turned his head sideways and closed his eyes tightly.

He heard spears whooshing upwards. Breathing shallow, he hoped they would miss him entirely. His bow clattered onto the stone as his backpack landed... somewhere. He screamed as sharp pain throbbed through his left leg.

His ears roared as he fought to stay awake, drowning out his surroundings for a brief moment.

A horrified gasp brought him around to open his eyes. And instantly closing them again with a sharp hiss. Too bright!

Silence followed the gasp, giving him the chance to listen to the mechanics below him. For any further clacking.

Not even the soft whir of a wire getting rolled up or the grating of cogs. Fumbling about, he found himself entirely trapped by spears. One went cleanly through the flesh of his left leg, if the pain was any indication. Another one had barely missed his lower and upper body, but had grazed his temple. Blood flowed down his cheek. Must've cut through the blindfold, too.

"I hadn't thought you wanted to kill me that bad, Roric. Gee, thanks," he said drily.

[You look horrible,] remarked the voice with a playful tone.

"Son of a moulting gallow bird," he added, addressing both Roric and the voice in his head.

"What happened to your eyes?" was the horrified question he got back. Thira by the voice.

"Never seen burn marks after five years? Lucky you," was his dry, derisive answer.

"We... should remove the... the spears. Carefully," squeaked Lydia.

Yes, you should! He rolled his eyes, then stopped as light-headedness set in.

Thira asked him something and he latched onto the words to keep from drowning in the unending darkness.

Everything happened too fast. One moment, he was smashing his shield down on the ground, venting at least a tiny bit of the frustration he felt, the next, he stumbled backwards from the distinct sound of a trap.

Crear did... something. It looked like dancing. The boy slipped out of his backpack, threw it away and squeezed out of harms way with a speed that looked unreal. At least to Roric. Then more spears whooshed out of the ground where Crear had previously removed the spears.

He heard the sickening squelch as a spear pushed through flesh more than he saw it. What caught his attention was the marred flesh around Crears eyes, as a spear grazed past his head. Blood flowed down his cheek.

The short moment that he did open his eyes to look around, before shutting them tightly, he could glimpse only white. He felt ashamed of his previous behavior, and the dry remark about wanting to kill Crear made him want to crawl into a hole.

He grabbed the first spear and pulled it out carefully, handing it to Lydia. Then the second spear. The third.

There were 15 rows of tightly clustered spears to the center where the ranger was entrapped. 30 rows from one side of the corridor to the other. He would need to remove at least half to get a wide enough path to retrieve the wounded man.

Roric didn't register the voices at first, too immersed in removing the spears from the ground without triggering the trap anew.

"..an accident? You could say that."

"What happened?" asked Thira.

"A burning house happened. Didn't get out of the way fast enough," mumbled Crear. His face was rapidly turning pale.

"Do you have siblings? Do you get along with them?" asked Thira quickly.

"Naah. Had a sister, once. But she died. An accident, I was told. Dunno if I got along with her. Didn't see her that often."

"Aww. I only have Roric, my older brother. He's overprotective and stubborn and we often squabble. But that's family. I know he means well," Thira was keeping him busy and awake. Roric smiled a little.

"Ssstubborn as a mule? Yeah, knew someone like that. Taugh' me th' bow. Did all kindss o' crasy. Bu' argue back an' he turned in'o a mule, sayin' 'twas for me own good..." his words started to slur badly. "Ss...say... wha' kinda ssorcsseress are ye tha' yoou get carried 'round all the time, eh? Can' be mush with tha' goblin pish inc'ntation..."

"I have you know that I'm already a very good sorceress!" huffed Thira loudly. Then added weakly: "I just wasn't at the magic school long enough to learn more than the basics."

"Kicked ye out 'cause ye're a commoner, eh? Sp'ritess, my head hurtss. Sstop naggin' ye fartin'... fox... iff yee wanna keep yer floor c...clean then.. urrg... juss make it vanissh..."

"He's starting to speak gibberish. Can't you hurry?" Thira grabbed at his shoulders.

"Don't wanna start the trap anew," mumbled Roric, but he was pulling the spears away a little bit faster.

The next moment, the spears vanished. Including the one he held in his hands. Roric crossed the last bit of distance and caught Crear before he could hit the ground. His left leg spurted blood like a fountain.

"Get him out of the trap and put him on the ground! We have to stop the bleeding immediately!" hurried Thira from his back. Roric followed her lead, walking away from the trap with big steps before putting Crear down. Then he arranged Thira and their pack around him.

"I'll get his stuff," said Lydia, carefully navigating through the trap.

Thira tightly wrapped a rope around his upper leg and tied it off before she retrieved their medic-kit from the pack and rolled up the pants leg. Fibers clung to the wound. A red hole, maybe two fingers wide.

She gulped at the bloody mess. No time to feel disgusted.

Gulping, she conjured a ball of water around the wound and whirled it about until it was a deep red. Removing the water, the wound looked a little less gruesome. The surrounding skin had turned a ghastly white and the blood flow had declined to a dribble.

But what can I do to heal a Spirits forsaken bloody hole in his leg? It didn't hit the bones, as far as I can see. But just wrapping it with bandages won't heal it! I wish I had more training with magic! Tears spilled from her eyes as she threaded a sinew through a thin needle.

Fine stitches pulled the skin over the wound closed, but it wouldn't help with the missing flesh beneath.

Healing balm went over the stitches, followed by thick cloth pads and a tightly wrapped bandage. Only then did she loosen the rope on his upper leg slightly, to allow the blood to circulate once more. Blood seeped through the stitches and into the bandage. But for the moment, it held.

"I wish I had more training," sniveled Thira as she put more healing balm on the scratch at his temple. "Then I could've healed his wound immediately."

"No, it's my fault. I acted rashly and triggered the trap," whispered Roric.

"Stop with the blame and get him back to the stairs. I don't want to stay on this floor longer than necessary." Lydia came back, a second backpack slung over her shoulder.

Taking point, she prodded around the corridor with her spear and led the way back to the stairs. Thankfully, no trap got triggered by her ignorant fumbling about. It had looked so easy when Crear had done the testing.

Setting up camp once more, she said: "Our provisions should keep for another week. Hope he wakes up before that. Or we'll try our luck with finishing this dungeon."

"He lost much blood. But if the wound doesn't infect, he should come around in a day or two," answered Thira, dripping water into Crears mouth.

"It's all my fault," whispered Roric dejected. Lydia hit him on the head.

"Damn right it is. But that's no reason to run around like a beaten dog. Once he's awake, you apologize. And if he wants to yell at you, you'll accept it. End of this discussion. We're in an unexplored dungeon, guys. Tell me, when did you two shut down your brains and left the thinking to me? The second floor? Or already on the first floor?" She sighed. "It's unfortunate, yes. But we're all still alive. Now get a grip!"