“I apologised already… can’t you just let it go?” Lance said, aggrieved.

“You shot me in my ass!” Sarah snarled. “If it scars…”

“Why do you care if it scars your ass? I mean, you’ve got wounds all along your arms and even along your face…” Lance said, puzzled.

“Because I like my ass! Do you know how many damn Bulgarian Squats I had to do to get them? How much weight and lunges I had to work?” Sarah said, slapping her own ass. The other cheek, though she winced. Lance had to admit, it was quite well shaped.

“Look, the fletching was bad. I’m sure I got it right now.” He held up his newly conjured arrow, grinning back at her. “So there’s no need to worry about me missing. I mean, I’m not Yanesh.”

“Hey!”

“Nope. You’re staying behind Neil.” Sarah said. “And you’re going to pay, once we finish this dungeon.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Lance sighed. “Fine.”

“Don’t I get a say at that?” Neil complained.

“No!” Lance and Sarah said in unison.

“Why not?” Neil said.

“Because you don’t lunge as much as I do! Those damn skirts ride up too high.” Sarah rubbed her back again, before returning her hand back to her spear.

“Cingulum,” Yanesh supplied, under his breath. Not that the trio missed it, though they all chose to ignore him. “And it really wasn’t the skirt riding high…”

“Can we stop talking about my ass?”

“You were the one who…” Lance trailed off at the death glare and held his bow-filled hands up. “Right, right.” He nodded to the giant pair of doors ahead of them. “So, you think that’s it?”

“If it’s not, it’s one hell of a red herring,” Yanesh said.

“What do you think we’ll be facing? And what do you think we need to do?” Neil said, frowning.

“Go in. Stab it lots. The end,” Sarah said, with a yawn.

“That’s… not helpful,” Neil replied.

“She’s right. There’s no telling what is in there, other than a Boss of some sort. It’ll be a hard fight, and Yanesh is going to have to be on top of the ball. But we should be able to kill it,” Lance said reassuringly. “We’ve done well enough so far. Upgraded enough that the fight should be fine.”

“Should be is kind of wishy-washy for something that is about our deaths,” Neil muttered.

“Well, not as though I know what’s in there.” Lance shrugged. “We doing this?”

The group was silent for a second more before Sarah threw her hands up, muttering something about having ore balls than the rest of the team together and shoved the doors open with one hand. The men in her team just glared at her, but chose not to reply.

Not when there might be problems within.

The room itself was circular, with multiple tall columns in the center. Lighting, like much of the dungeon was good – diffused light seeming to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. Did weird things to shadows, but meant that it was easy to see. The columns were huge too, nearly too big for Lance to put his hands across. Just about large enough to hide behind without getting shot at.

The floor was simple tile, but what was most interesting about it was the design inlay. Instead of some esoteric rune series or summoning circle, it actually depicted a hobgoblin. Except, instead of being dressed in rags, this one had a breastplate and was carrying a massive, two-handed sword.

“That’s a claymore right?” Yanesh said, frowning. “Or are those just two-handed weapons? I can never remember the right designations.”

“Don’t care. Where’s the boss?” Sarah said, bouncing on her feet lightly as she hefted her spear. “Here monster, monster, monster.”

“You’re insane,” Neil muttered. Still, he was craning his head from side-to-side, peering through the slits in his helm. “I don’t like this. Door still open?”

“Not closed,” Lance said, checking that it had stayed open. “Let’s head in.” He paused, then added for Sarah’s sake more than anything else. “Carefully.”

The group nodded, even the impulsive and aggressive woman treating this with care. Together, the group approached the center of the building, searching for the boss. Nothing happened, until they went past the first column.

And then the doors behind them slammed shut and a light started infusing the center of the room.

Startled yelps and shouts echoed among the group while Lance let out a long sigh.

“I’d say oops, but really… this was kind of expected.”