Orrin pulled up [Map] and used [Trap View]. The room gleamed with yellow dots, including one on the bone pile he’d been working on.

“There must be ten traps set in this room,” Orrin murmured to himself as he used [Zoom] on the nearby trap. He stepped a few feet down to where a pile of monster skulls had been stacked. When he couldn’t get the blinking yellow cursor to get any bigger, he squatted down and peered into the empty eye sockets. “I think there is one here but I can’t figure out what it is.”

Emily put her hand on Orrin’s shoulder and motioned for him to take a step back. She closed her eyes and sank into a seated position with her legs crossed. Small rivulets of fire grew from where she sat, spreading out amongst the skulls. They crept along at a snail’s pace, but once they disappeared under the skulls, more mini lines grew up and out to each bone. They spread at an alarming pace and Orrin almost shouted for her to stop.

“Don’t worry, it’s not destructive right now,” Garret whispered, having snuck up behind Orrin. He jumped. “Emily’s fire only burns when she wants it to. She can explain it better later, but her fire has its own mana pool that she has to replenish by feeding it stuff. She could make everything that those little lava flows touch go up in flame, soaking it all up for her fire but she can also use it to get a sense of what’s in the next room or around the corner. I bet she’ll find the trap before we-“

SNAP!

A dozen razor-sharp-teeth-filled skulls that made up the middle row of the stack Orrin’s face had been inches from before suddenly snapped shut, only to reopen and slam shut again. They continued to click like a chattering-teeth toy but much more deadly. Emily’s fire flared and the moving bones were incinerated. The small avalanche of bones that fell around the party clattered loudly.

Emily stood up. “The ones I destroyed had some sort of magical trigger on them. As soon as I touched one, they all started chomping away. I felt something wooden in the middle of the pile, though.”

Digging through the bones, Daniel pulled out a chest the size of a basketball. A padlock was on the front.

“No key?” Orrin asked, kicking a few stray bones back toward the main pile.

Daniel shook his head.

Emily sighed and put her hand on the metal. Her hand flared and the metal grew red before dripping to the ground.

“Handy,” Daniel cracked. Nobody laughed. “Come on. Get it? Hand-“

“Shut up and open it, D,” Orrin commanded.

With a long-suffering sigh, Daniel placed the chest on the ground and opened it. Inside was a red velvet cushion, with a white bone about four inches long.

Orrin used [Analyze].

Bone

Come on, he thought and used the skill three more times.

Bone

Bone

Tailbone

“Tailbone,” Orrin muttered. “That’s all I can get so far.”

“If it’s a tailbone, it could be from a dragon,” Madi commented hopefully. “It was guarded.”

Orrin put the bone in his pocket, storing it in his [Dimension Hole]. “We can get it looked at later. Let’s find a few more traps.”

“Why would the Guild trap their own storeroom?” Daniel asked as they walked toward the nearest yellow spot on Orrin’s [Map]. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Pritus didn’t do that,” Garret offered. “From what I’ve gathered over the years, about thirty years back, the Guild went through so many Guildmasters in so short a time, factions started forming. Rivalries and blood feuds ran amok. The clerks were all loyal to different factions and didn’t recognize the current Guildmaster as the rightful ruler of the Guild. Pranks turned to deadly traps. There’s a reason nobody has fully explored these rooms in decades.”

Daniel and Orrin were quiet as they absorbed that information. Orrin stopped and pointed at the next trap on his blue box. “Something is behind that bookshelf, I think. Or the bookshelf itself is the trap.”

Everybody looked at Emily. She sighed, “I can’t do this ten times. It does cost mana.”

Orrin chuckled and cast a few [Increase Will] and [Increase Intelligence] on her, at a low enough increase to hopefully not trigger any side effects. “Does that help?”

Emily’s eyes widened. “You doubled my mana pool!”

“I tried to keep it low,” Orrin explained. “If I boost your stat by too much, you’ll get sick. We should try and find the sweet spot before going into the dungeon. I’m pretty sure that constitution affects it somehow, too. But we can get into those specifics later.”

Emily just shook her head and sat down again. Her fire vines grew quicker and thicker from her seated body. What had taken thirty seconds before took twenty seconds this time, and soon she pulled her vines back to her body.

“What’s up? Did you not find anything?” Daniel asked, hopping from foot to foot impatiently.

“There is something on the back of the shelf but it’s in a container of some sort,” Emily said as she stood back up and dusted her pants. “Luckily, my [Inferno Veins] didn’t trigger anything.”

Daniel glanced over at Madi. “Can I move the shelf?”

“How do you think you are going to do tha-“

“Orrin, buff me!” Daniel flexed his arms and waited.

Orrin didn’t move.

“Come on, man.” Daniel dropped his pose and frowned at his friend.

Orrin sighed and hit Daniel with a few [Increase Strength] buffs.

Daniel grinned as he double-checked his stats. Putting his hands to the side of the shelf, he pulled. The ear-deafening shriek of the heavy wood scraping along the stone floor filled the hall. Emily and Garret covered their ears, while Orrin and Madi grimaced at the sound.

Once he had moved a corner away from the wall enough to allow someone to squeeze through, Daniel dropped his hold, taking a step back. “Fucking hell, that thing is solid. Even boosted, that was a struggle.”

Orrin ignored Daniel’s whining and stepped around to investigate the back of the bookshelf. Strapped with leather and metal bands against the very middle was a cylinder that appeared to be over six feet long. Orrin started to reach for it, but Daniel yanked him back.

“Dude, what are you thinking?” Daniel pushed Orrin behind him. “You just said that thing is trapped. Think.”

Orrin turned red as he realized his bone-headedness. “What do you think we should do then? It’s strapped to the shelf but the leather looks a bit worn. Maybe we could just cut that bit?”

Daniel disappeared behind the shelf and then popped back out. “The metal runs down the entire side of the straps. We might need Emily to burn the metal again like she did with the lock.”

Emily groaned but stepped forward.

“Wait,” Orrin said, putting a [Ward] on the mage. “Okay, you’re good to go now.”

“What was that?” Emily asked curiously. “I saw you cast something on me, but I didn’t take any sort of damage or alert. That’s odd.”

Orrin shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve got a spell [Ward] that creates an extra layer of protection on you when I cast it. You should be able to take about,” Orrin paused and double-checked his mana point pool. “a little less than four hundred damage before something deals actual damage to your health.”

Emily raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

“He’s serious,” Madi interjected. “Still be careful though, we don’t know what kind of trap we’re dealing with.”

Emily took a peek around the corner and stared at the metal canister. “I’m seeing very strong fire magic on that thing. It might be best for everyone to back up a bit.”

Madi, Daniel, and Garrett crept back along the makeshift path, standing a few dozen yards away. Orrin cast a [Ward] on himself and ducked behind a small chest close by. Emily gave him a very unimpressed look and pointed toward the group.

“I can heal you if it does too much damage,” he answered the unspoken question.

“Fire does a lot less damage to me than it would to you,” Emily retorted but didn’t argue further. She stepped behind the shelf and starting at the top strap, began to burn away the metal and leather with a glowing finger.

When the fifth and penultimate strap fell away, the canister tilted and slipped down through the last fastener. Emily reached out her hand to grab it, but the metal bottom struck the stone floor before her fingers closed around the container.

BOOM!

Orrin couldn’t see anything over the dust cloud that settled over the room. He heard coughing from Emily and assumed she wasn’t dead yet, at least. He darted from behind his perch and began readying a [Heal Small Wounds] at level three.

The bookshelf had been shattered into four pieces and sent flying. The various books and small boxes on the shelves had been propelled off like so many pieces of detritus. Small avalanches of weapons, extra supplies, and small furniture tumbled all around them. A darkened patch of soot in a five-foot radius around Emily showed the level of explosion from the trap.

The front of her robe had burnt away in patches, giving Orrin a brief glimpse of her body underneath before she turned her back to him.

“Please step away for a moment, Orrin,” Madi asked with a slight cough.

“I can heal yo-“

“I’m fine, I just need a minute for my robe to mend itself.”

Orrin nodded at her back and went to check on the rest of the party.

“Dude!” Daniel was practically bouncing. “That was amazing. The bookcase just exploded and sent shit flying everywhere. Is Emily alright?”

Madi and Garret stood well behind Daniel. Garret’s eyes were wide and for once he didn’t have anything to say.

“She’s fine,” Orrin answered loud enough that everyone could hear. “She just needs a minute, her robe took some damage.”

Madi immediately pointed back toward the first room. “There were some old robes and clothing near the other door. Should I go get something for her to wear?”

“She said her robe can mend,” Orrin said with a shrug.

“What did we find?” Daniel asked, trying to peer over Orrin’s shoulder.

“We’ll find out when Emily is ready,” Orrin said, putting his hand on his friend’s chest. “Let’s try and be patient, yeah?”

A few minutes later, Emily returned with her dress still in tatters but with more coverage. She held the canister gingerly and placed it on the ground.

“I didn’t want to open it until we were all here,” she explained. “The magic it was giving off is gone but I thought maybe Orrin should examine it for traps again.”

With a nod, he brought up his [Map]. “Nothing showing up anymore,” he confirmed.

Emily carefully ran her finger along the bottom of the cylinder. The metal dripped and the lid fell with a clang to the ground. She looked inside and frowned.

“It’s just a bow,” she said dejectedly.

However, as she pulled it out of the container, Garret let out an excited squeak.

“That’s not just a bow,” he gasped. “That’s an elven Citrandish longbow.”

The archer reached out and caressed the wood, pulling it from Emily’s hands. Holding it horizontally to the ground, he inspected every inch. Orrin thought it looked the same as the bow on the man’s back, but decided to keep his mouth shut.

“It’s just a piece of wood,” Daniel opened his big mouth instead. “It doesn’t even have a string attached to it.”

Garret rocked the bow in his arms. “Elves use the hair of a loved one to string their bows. If this one was stringed, it would mean it was stolen. OF course, it still could be but it’s supposed to be near impossible to snap an elven hair bowstring.”

“Won’t the elves want it back?” Orrin asked, remembering the passage from their research about the consequences of being caught with a stolen Citrandish bow.

Garret nodded. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t try it right? Maybe even take it to the dungeon?” He glanced up at Daniel. “Just holding this is a dream come true.”

Daniel shrugged. “Give it to Orrin. He can store it where nobody can see it until we get to the dungeon.”

Orrin reached his hand out to take it, but Garret recoiled. “Maybe I can hold it until we leave?”

Orrin noticed Madi’s grin in the background. This was exactly what she had been hoping for.

“All right,” Madi said as she clapped her hands. ”We’ve got a few more traps to disarm. Hopefully, with fewer explosions this time?”