Shae awoke feeling a bit better. Nothing had triggered her soft cover ability while she napped. ‘Small mercies.’ She thought.

She then went over her fight with the goblins in her mind. She had executed well she thought, however there were a few things she felt she could have done better at. Instead of just trusting her shield to catch the two goblins that came after the first, she felt she could have been a bit more offensive. She was being too trusting in her absorption ability, as Ms. Fell, warned her not to become complacent. If she misjudged the weight of an incoming attack by too much, she would end up eating a part of it. It was always better safe than sorry.

Also, she could have started off the fight on better footing, instead of being purely defensive. Sure, she had taken it to the sneaking goblin, but he also had not been an aggressor right away. She had left him be too long.

Shae also ran through her feelings. She felt it was unreasonable for her to lose her shit like that just from seeing a little blood. Well in this case brain matter, but still. She knew that was going to happen at some point, and when of it shouldn’t have mattered. First fight or fiftieth. She was just protecting her innocence in a way. Rebelling against the idea she was being forced into this situation. And doing it in a bad way. She had lost control and nearly ripped the two kicked goblins apart in anger. Wasting magic and her combat control. Over her sensibilities. She had downed animals hunting with her uncle before. This was no different. The animals were just trying to kill her back for once. That’s fair.

With determination and a bit of steel in her eyes Shae made her way back to the goblin room. When she got near, she let own light die down a bit and slowly stalked her way toward the entrance. The fire inside of the room was still burning, but not as brightly. It had burned down to mostly hot embers, with still a bit of low flame. This told Shae she had been asleep for about three hours, based on the amount of wood burned.

The little scaled doglike creature was still tussled up close to the fire. It was struggling to free itself and had moved around a bit in it’s fight for freedom. The noise had not attracted more goblins or anything else, and as bait, the dog was doing a good job. This told her the room was mostly a safe place. Though a pretty disgusting one.

Her first chance to fully examine the room showed her a decently large area. Well, large for a solo person and five small critters anyway. It was no massive cave, like the first room she had seen upon entering this dungeon. The space itself was squarish on the left side, and more rounded on the right. Roughly fifteen meters square in area. The walls were rough, the floor was smoothened down by foot traffic a bit. It smelled like shit with overtones of urine. Sure enough, there was a corner to her left from her place in the entryway that was used as a bathroom. So, it looked like goblins were not even as smart as most animals. They shit where they ate. She felt as if her skin was crawling. But it was only bugs moving about the room.

Across the room, along the left wall, was what might be the bedding area. There was a pile of very poorly torn pelts laid out. As if the goblins had just pulled the skin off their kills with their small, clawed hands. Shae shuddered at the thought and hoped the animals had been dead first. Knowing the goblins, it could have gone either way. Shae was surer of herself now that they were a scourge that needed to be put down. The rest of the room was bare. The firepit being the central item. Shae wondered if the goblin had built the fire pit or if it was left over from a previous incarnation of the dungeon. Likely the latter. Now how did they… Just as the fire was about to become nothing more than embers, it flared back to like, the wood renewing itself magically. The little scaled dog stiffened at this. Well, that explains how something with the I.Q. of two could build a fire.

With the new light, there were a few more details to be shown in the areas that were used for sleeping and shitting unfortunately. Bugs crawled about both areas, with small bones still laying about the sleeping area. Like dog’s chew bones.

Seeing nothing new Shae moved into the room. The little dog laid still and eyed her back. Sweeping the room again now that she had shown herself showed no sighs of any surprises. First order of business the pup. It would stand about mid-calf high. Head closer to knee height. It did look exactly like a bull terrier but with scaley skin instead of fur. Not for petting then… Would that mean you couldn’t call it a pet if it was tame?

With a small grin Shae made her way over to the dog. She pulled a small bit of cured meat out of her pack then held it before the dog’s nose waiting. It began to sniff at the meat and then opened its mouth to receive the meal. The dog twisted its head as it worked to chew on the meat. Shae not trusting the (animal… monster?) dog just yet she looked over to the refuse piles.

She first went over to the bug infested bedding. The bugs were little black elongated beetles, that were the size of a baby’s pinky nail. There were hundreds of them between here and the shit pile.

How big would that pile have gotten if the dungeon was left to age longer?

Shaking that stray thought out of her head Shae pondered what to do.

She could freeze everything and... no that would require touching things.

She could use fire magic. That would risk lowering the oxygen though. And without knowing how much of a flow she had, the risk was too big.

‘Guess this won’t make a good base then.’

The pup, or was it fully grown? Had finished it’s treat and whined once. Shae looked into its pleading eyes. ‘Smarter than a goblin.’

Shae pulled another piece of meat from her pack sitting at the entry way. A bit warry Shae moved to the dog, while she still suffered from the room’s stench. Bending down she layered herself in her force armor, her soft cover was still running, her skin still feeling like it was crawling, though she was getting used to it a bit. If only she could get used to the smell.

She offered the scaled pup another piece. While it was occupied, she cut its bonds. Kicking itself to its feet, it ate the tidbit Shae had given it, then looked to her for more.

“Sorry pup, that’s all I have for now.”

The dog creature turned its head a bit when she spoke, just like a dog. Then giving up seeing no more treats coming, it went to sniff out the bedding. Brave thing.

It retrieved a small bone that had not been gnawed on yet and took it away out of the room. It headed to the only other exit.

“Right, time to get out of this stench. Smart dog.”

Feeling a bit peckish Shae retrieved her pack and moved the way the dog had gone. She ate a bit of dried fruit then rekindled the flame in her hand after shouldering her pack. She then moved into the darkness of the new tunnel following in the dog’s example. Ahead she saw small red eyes close to the floor and the shadowy form of the dog. It had laid down a bit outside of the room and was working on cracking open and eating the bone it had stolen.

Shae slowly moved past the animal monster creature thing and continued down her path. She moved through twists and turns. The tunnel getting tighter and in other cases getting wider. It never got too wide for her soft cover though. Or too high.

Then she came to another less gradual opening. Meaning a room eight meters ahead. She lowered the flame, then sat listening. No noise could be heard. After more than a few minutes Shae made her way slowly into the room. So far everything down here had glowing eyes when met with fire light. She saw none of that in this room. Not that she could see the entire room, and it spaced out farther than her soft cover both ways, and up higher too. She noticed a bit of reflected light to her left. There was a vein of gold in the wall. As she moved closer to it she saw it was layered into the surface of the wall just sitting there as it pleased. Like a gift, yet upon touch, unmoving. No gift then. Shae had no way to remove… oh she did.

Shae dropped her pack and concentrated on the ring on her right index finger.

There… a hammer pick. Shae could break the gold out of the wall using that. But should she? The noise… but if this was a gatherer’s room, maybe it was safe to harvest in? Nobody had said it would be. Or that it wouldn’t be. Shit, should she chance it?

The gold vein was four inches tall, and a little over two meters long. Not a straight line or anything, it was like a golden wave or worm in the wall.

Greed was getting the better of her.

First things first. She knew the way from the goblin room was safe enough. So, she went around the room taking in its details. The room itself was roughly hewn. No smooth walls, more natural cave. It was about the size of a hockey or football arena around. There were four other gold veins for a total of five. She could not see or feel the ceiling. The unknown factor was there were three other exits from this room, not counting the one she came from. She was still drawing her path out in her journal. Would she be safe to remove the gold? She really wanted to. It was as if it was calling to her.

With a force of will she decided it would be safer to search the tunnels first.

That day… or rather that waking cycle saw Shae searching down the three other tunnels for quite a distance. One dead ended, while two others went on like most tunnels had so far, quite a ways between open rooms. She felt herself safe enough to go back and start her excavation. After a short rest and quick bite, she got to work. The walls themselves were not overly hard, but swinging a pick was grueling work on her muscles. By the time she had extracted all the gold, the pup had come to see what the commotion was, making her feel better in a few ways. One, nothing else had come to look in on her, two the pup could act as an alarm, so she had stopped to feed it in hopes it stayed around. Which it did. ‘Trusting things aren’t you.’

By the end of it, Shae was beat. She needed sleep badly. But could she trust the dog while she slept? It had shown no aggression so far. Ok then…

Shae took out a larger piece of meat, lamenting she was using her own rations too fast. Still, it could be worth it. She fed the pup, making it full as possible before she felt safe enough to sleep. She pulled her bedding out and laid down keeping an eye on the dog for a bit. It actually moved itself on top of her bedding at her feet. “Fucking smart dog’

Shae couldn’t keep awake any longer. Her soft cover running to give her some warning, as well as a dog it seemed. Then she fell off to sleep.