Despite being ready for it, Natalie couldn't help but be surprised as Malice disied into pink motes of light. The energy drifted into the [Capture Core], sug the wolf-girl into a magical pocket dimension, as if she were any old dungeon item.

  At making their decision, Natalie and the rest of the team looked around the cavern, brag themselves for something to happen. For the duo annous displeasure, and promptly vent it on them. But only silence hung in the rge ash-covered room.

  "I'd almost rather something did jump out at us," Jordan said, after a long sed of nothing happening.

  "Don't give it any ideas," Sofia muttered. "The pn is the same. Get moving. I don't trust this."

  "Agreed," Ana said.

  "Should I summon her back?" Natalie asked. "Or, actually, someone else? So they get the experience?"

  "I don't see why not," Sofia said. "Capturing her is what should've ahe dungeon, not using her. We might need her help."

  Natalie tossed the capture core at Liz, who caught it somewhat clumsily, surprised at the a.

  "Why me?"

  "No reason. We'll rotate."

  Liz held the orb up and furrowed her brow. A sed ter, pink light poured outward, taking the shape of a busty wolfgirl.

  Malice looked around, then gri seeing them again. She rolled her shoulders. "Alright. Angry Crypt Keeper?"

  "Not yet," Sofia said. "But I 't imagi'll be long. Natalie, please?" She gestured impatiently at the throne, which supposedly hid the trapdoor leading into the loot room.

  Natalie jogged over. Indeed, she found the fixture on the ground behind the t, orhrone. She gripped the metal handle and heaved upward. A short dder led into a tunnel. She took the fast path: she jumped down, grunting as she hit the ground. Sing for threats revealed nothing, instead, she fouly what she'd been expeg. A loot chest as well as fes.

  Fes. Each with a person trapped inside. Leah's teammates.

  Two of them were scious, a man and a woman, and two were not—two more men. They stared at Natalie with shock, eyes flig down her body, and Natalie's skin prickled at the obvious, surprised once-over they gave her. Ae the circumstances, clearly not of a fully professional nature. It was going to take some getting used to, running around in this bikini armor.

  "All clear," Natalie called up to the entrance of the trapdoor. Sofia was already in the process of jumping down after her—then Jorda. The rest of her team cmbered down in short order.

  "Who are you people?" the woman in the cage asked.

  Natalie grunted, pulling out the keys she'd been carrying around. The first oh a woman's name didn't work, but the sed did; it slid into the door's lock. "Leah sent us," she said, tugging the door open. "But we're in a hurry, so expnations happen ter."

  "A hurry? Why?"

  "We think something's about to happen," Natalie said. "But we're not sure what."

  "Uh," the woman said. "Sorry? What do you mean?"

  But Natalie ignored her. Even if there were no obvious indicators of danger, her skin was crawling. They'd taken a risk by capturing Malice. Angering the dungeon, whatever came from that, wasn't going to be pleasant.

  She quickly went around the room and unlocked the fes. The sleeping individuals were woken after some urgent, mildly violent shaking. Sofia, in the meantime, had throwhe loot chest and was, without ceremony, dumping the tents of their victory into monster cores. Normally, they would make a show of iing the loot as it came out, but this time, they would appraise their haul after they escaped the dungeon.

  And the rush was shortly proved warranted.

  A howl went up from the cavern above them, joined by a sed, then a third, and more. Everyone's gazes flicked to the trapdoor entrahe four delvers they'd rescued all going pale. Acc to Leah's story, they'd beeed and captured by those creatures, so it was fair that they reacted in such a dramatic way.

  At the cacophony of howling mixing together above them, Malice started cag wildly.

  Sofia, on her part, sighed. Though strangely, it sounded like relief. "Holy," she said. "At least it'll be a fight, and not something else."

  Yeah. Better than having a trap sprung on them or otherwise some impossible-to-deal-with shenanigans.

  "We have everything?" Natalie asked, looking at Sofia, who stood by ay chest.

  "Yes," Sofia said.

  "And you four are ready to move?" she asked the strangers. They nodded, eyes wide. "You have ons?" They shook their heads. "Great," Natalie muttered. They'd be mostly dead weight, then. Two of them looked like mages. At least everyone would be some use; maybe not enormously so, if the fighters weren't trained in hand-to-hand, but it was something. "Anyone see any other way out, besides up?" Natalie sed the walls of the hidden loot room.

  "Doesn't seem like it."

  Natalie cursed. "Alright." The howls were growing in volume. "We didn't see a portal, up there?" Most boss rooms came with them.

  "If there was, I bet the dungeon promptly hid it," Sofia said dryly. "Retrag our steps might be our best bet. Back the way we came."

  Natalie didn't know if esg the ash cavern home of the hellhounds would be enough to break them free of the dungeon's wrath, but it was clearly their first step. Rolling her hammer in her grip, she approached the dder. She made it half when, suddenly, a snarling wolf head popped through the opening. Natalie respoo the sho her traditional way: she smashed the massive stone block of her hammer into its skull. Whimpering, the wolf retreated.

  Natalie hung there, half the dder, warily peering around the limited viewport, trying to see what was going on.

  "I'm gonna send a distra through," Natalie said. "We o get up and out fast, on our feet, so we fight."

  "Ready when you are," Jordan said.

  They executed the pn. Natalie sent an illusion of herself scrambling up and through the trapdoor, sprinting at full break in the opposite dire of the caverrance—hopefully leading the monsters away. Bursting up and bato the open spaatalie nearly choked at what she saw.

  Five of them. Five [Hellhounds]. And not the smaller, weaker kind they'd killed so many of out in the lead-up to the bossroom, but full-fledged, enormous, obsidian bck wolves, as had apanied Malice's boss fight. Sofia and them had struggled—not overly so, but still struggled—against just two.

  So five?

  They were fucked.

  The dueo be mostly fair. It created enters feasible for the level they were on. But five? Natalie enjoyed a good fight, but that might not be a fight at all.

  She gestured wildly for the train of people to hurry up as they climbed out of the loot room. Meanwhile, Natalie's illusion had been torn to shreds; the five wolves looked around, fused—thankfully as stupid as most dungeon mohen faced back to the trapdoor, seeing their true prey emerge.

  They howled. To Natalie's side, Malice also howled—but in delight. An unhinged, bloodthirsty sound.

  "Let's see how you all py," Malice grinned, shooting a wild look at Natalie. "This'll be a good introdu to the team, I think."