I don’t pay too much attention to Gerlfi the summoner as he leads the miners out, instead choosing to watch the other two as they try to navigate the labyrinth without the help of the brownie to point out the traps. They do better than I would have expected. The mage is able to sense when a magical trigger is nearby, and the two take time to carefully find each one they come across.

Most of the magical triggers are just proximity sensors and are basically just fancy tripwires. Of course, once they find one, they still need a way to defuse them. The very first one, they actually take a seat nearby to try to think of what to do.

“Can we just throw a rock?” asks the large bearkin, which makes the changeling shake his head.

“I don’t think it’ll hurt to try, but I think it’s a life sensor. I also don’t know what the trap will actually do. The only magic I feel is from what I’m pretty sure is the trigger.”

Wold nods and picks up a large rock. “I’ll try a rock, be ready to flee if it trips it.” He gives Vieds a few seconds to get ready, and the changeling even helps him aim for the right spot, before the bearkin chucks the rock.

Vieds is proven right when nothing happens, and Wold just nods at the setback. “What do we do then? Try to trigger it then run? Try to find a different route?”

The changeling consults the map and sighs. “I think backtracking might get us around this one, but there’s going to be more traps. We’re going to need to get a rogue or maybe even an arcane affinity mage for next time, to deal with all these traps. Meta would be even better, but most of them are crafters.”

Wold grunts at that and leads his friend away from the trap. “We should tell crafters to come along for this area, then. They already want what’s down here. They could more easily pick exactly what to bring back.”

Vieds nods at that and makes a note on the back of the map. “Well, let’s see how much we can map out before we miss a trap… and hope the dungeon doesn’t take our map as punishment.”

They wind their way through the tunnels of the labyrinth for a while, mostly backtracking around the traps, but they do find a couple that are defeated with just a thrown rock. There’s a couple motion detector magical triggers, and various mechanical ones, which can be set off with a well-placed throw. I consider trying to redesign them, but with the mana they make from just triggering them, I’m happy to leave them as is. They’re going slowly enough that they’re definitely going to bring a trap expert next time, so that’s fine by me.

They almost get defeated even trying to cheese my traps. They spot a pressure plate trigger and set it off, only for the resulting sleep gas to chase them back down the hallway. One of my wyrms even takes the chance to try to surprise attack them, too.

Wold’s eyes widen a heartbeat before the wyrm bursts from the wall, and he shoves Vieds forward before diving backwards, letting my denizen fly through the air where the bearkin was just a moment earlier. The changeling quickly gets to his feet, quietly admonishing himself as he casts a spell.

“Right, of course there are encounters in here, too. Protection from Fire!” Mana settles over the two as Wold stands there, senses alert for the next attack. I can see my denizen looking confused at the spell, uncertain what to do about it.

I spend a little mana to give it a suggestion. Just do a little probing attack, see if it’s up to handling some magma. The wyrm still looks uncertain, but decides to try giving Wold a hotfoot, rapidly heating the stone under one of his feet.

It seems that protection spell is a good one, as he seems to notice the ground going soft before he notices the heat, and he quickly steps aside and slams the area with his club. Even with all that stone between the impact and the wyrm, my denizen is a bit dazed from the force.

“Detect heat!” declares Vieds, and soon his eyes fall on the wyrm. “There you are…” he murmurs, clearly trying to figure out what to do with this information. Luckily for my wyrm, these delvers aren’t the only ones who can sling a bit of magic.

The wyrm moves quickly, and soon splits off a few blooms of heat inside the rock, forcing the changeling to try to track more than one heat signature.

“Gah, it’s trying to trick me, Wold! I don’t know exactly where it is, there’s a couple fakes around us now!”

“Where?” asks the bearkin, his heavy club ready.

“There, there, and there!” he shouts as his form shifts, taking on the shape of a ratkin and using both arms and the tail to point. He does his best to track the two fakes and the real denizen. “Be ready, they’re moving towards the surface!”

Wold simply nods, as that’s all the time he has before my wyrm makes its move. Each of the fakes bursts from a wall and the floor, one heading for each of the delvers. Vieds dodges his as a line of fire starts to trail from his hand, while Wold swats his own magma ball out of the air with his club.

A heartbeat later, the wyrm dives from the ceiling, mandibles wide as it hopes to take a bite out of the berserker.

“Flame Lash!” shouts the pyromancer, the trail of fire from his hand quickly coalescing into a flexible line of fire. He swings it forward to catch and close the mouth of the wyrm, giving Wold the time to plant his feet properly and bring his club to bear on the momentarily-immobilized wyrm.

“Rock Crusher!” he bellows as the blow hits home, and it looks to me like that attack is fine for crushing wyrms as well as rocks. Still, good work with the decoys, little wyrm. Good way to keep them on their toes. I also didn’t expect the fire mage to be able to help that much against a wyrm. A fireball wouldn’t do much, but that fire whip was pretty effective. The fire part didn’t do anything, but being able to actually tangle up a wyrm with it is a use I wouldn’t have expected.

The pair manage to get past a couple more traps, as well as another encounter with two wyrms this time, before their luck finally runs out. Perhaps ironically, it’s a heat detector that dooms their delve. The pyromancer easily spots it, and manages to trick it so they can get past, but unluckily for them, Nova is in the area.

The shy scion waits for them to be in the perfect spot before she simply surfaces near enough to the sensor for it to trip, causing bars at both ends of the section of tunnel to slam down, trapping the two.

They both stare at her for a few moments, before she timidly slips back beneath the surface. I’m laughing the entire time, proud of Nova’s little trick! The two delvers sigh and look at the bars.

“Can you smash them Wold?”

The bearkin runs his hands along the thick steel bars. “...maybe, but I’d damage my club. Can you melt them?”

Vieds frowns as he considers. “Also maybe, but it’d take enough of my mana that I’d be more or less useless for the rest of the delve.”

They pace and explore the impromptu cell for a few more minutes, before Wold breaks the silence.

“Should we simply surrender, then?”

The changeling winces at that, before sighing and nodding. “I think so. Even if we could get out of this, the map indicates we’re nowhere near the exit yet. At best, we’d just get defeated by the next trap or wyrm. We should just save the time and get out. We might be able to do a quest more towards the surface before dinner, if we’re quick.”

Wold nods and takes a seat, curiously looking around their prison. “How do we actually surrender?”

Vieds looks stumped, but the answer soon manifests itself at the bars. One of my magmyrm slipped out of a shortcut just out of sight, and has two small vials in its arms. It reaches through the bars and sets them to the ground before backing up, and the two delvers consider the situation.

“Do we drink these to surrender?” asks the changeling, and my magmyrm nods. He and Wold both examine the vials for a few long seconds.

“What do you think it is?” rumbles the bearkin, looking like he’s not sure the small vial will even be enough of a dose to work on him.

“I’m not an alchemist, but the color reminds me of that cloud we ran from earlier. But we don’t really know what that did, either…” he trails off, trying to think. The magmyrm waves its arms to get the attention of the delvers, and tries to explain what it does.

The denizen mimes drinking the potion, then lays down and closes its eyes. It even makes an adorable snoring sound, which gets Wold to smile.

“A sleeping potion. We really will be putting ourselves at the mercy of the dungeon if we drink.”

Vieds nods. “It’s not like we aren’t already at its mercy.” He pulls the cork and raises it to Wold in a toast, and the bearkin mirrors him. They each quickly drink the potion and set the vials aside. They each look like they’re about to ask if it’s working, before Wold gives out a large yawn.

The changeling chuckles as he lays down, looking exhausted. “At least it works quickly…” he mutters before closing his eyes, and Wold follows not long after. My magmyrm gives them a couple minutes before going to gather up about a dozen others, and they retract one of the sets of bars before taking the defeated delvers through a shortcut. They decide to take a pair of nice daggers from the duo before continuing on their way. Before long, the two are laying on the grass, just in time for Gerlfi and the miners to exit the manor.

The goblin laughs and gets the miners to help him haul the two adventurers away, and I’m enjoying the nice chunk of mana from defeating the delvers. They’re not the only ones to fall to the labyrinth today, either. Only the few groups that went for more shallow journeys inside manage to get out with any ore. I’ll need to ask someone if I should make it a bit easier, or if this is just right. The ones that made it out successfully are looking like they just won the lotto, though, so it might be too easy. I’ll leave it as it is, at least for now. This has been quite the uptick in my mana generation, and if I can have that and also not crash the market for special metals, this will be a huge success.