The the surprise of absolutely fucking no one the quickfangs notice and rush you at the worst possible moment. Efforts to carefully pinch off, prepare, and wire up detonators to little parts of your plastic explosive are greatly complicated by the crack and whine of rifle rounds going over your head. You don't breathe again until big Sam comes out from the mouth of the cavern, hoisting his shield off his back and planting it in front of you. His boots grip the crumbling rock, his muscles ripple under the skin in the exposed parts of his garish battle dress. You can't see past the shield, but he can, and a staccato set of three-round bursts leave the clever beasts scampering for cover and reassessing.
"Good shit, LB," you yell over the sound of gunfire. "Charges set! Fall back!"
You're a rather bulky person, with a pretty bulky set of kit, even after tossing your spent rocket launcher. You aren't breaking any records over Olympic race distances. But you'll run right over the top of Usain Bolt over fifty-metres after you've set charges. And even though LB is bulky, too, that ex-linebacker can really move when he sets himself to it. You know what they say, when you see a demolitions guy running, try to keep up. You both pile into cover with your employees as they keep up a desultory rain of single-fire shots.
"Fire in the hole!" you cry and then trigger the detonators. A deafening clap of thunder rolls through the air, the shockwave bumping you off the rocky floor. Blinking back tears and dust you look for the sign of the cavern entrance ... and find it neatly sealed. Banging it out like Goldilocks, not too heavy, not too light, just the right amount of boom. "Hoo, sometimes I do love this job," you say as you sit up and pat your satchel of plastic explosive.
"No one's coming through there in a hurry," says Duck, your old employee. Tom Li by his proper name, he's the only man alive who loves making things explode half as much as you do. You admire that about him, to be honest. Only person you'd ever trust with the Javelin shot against that Great Wyrm. Actually, considering how much insurance costs for those things, the only person you'd trust handling a Javelin at all. There's trusting someone, and then there's trusting someone to carry the cost of a car on their shoulder.
"We might be able to blast our way back out, but I'd rather not try it if we don't have to," you admit. Together you turn back to the group, only to find Ayumi back in her Magnum Ai persona, nattering at her phone, no doubt talking about this like you were facing the long night of goddamn Moria, not the Cleveland Dungeon. The situation is dangerous enough as it is, no need to gild the claymore.
"Come on, Unicorns, let's go find our next bout of mayhem," you declare before pointing down the cave. "Move out!"
-
Level 3 Fork Challenge
A Mysterious Altar
4 SN
Possible Drops
~it is a mystery~
Assorted Monsters - 3 SM
-
The rocky cave corridors soon give way to more masonry, which results in a strange, peculiar room with a high vaulted ceiling and many nooks and crannies. In the centre is a dais upon with a low bier like an altar is sat. And on that bier is a treasure chest, at least in the fashion that this dungeon likes to give. Of course, the quirks of this dungeon are well known. The thing is booby trapped. You have to find a release or disarming mechanism before disturbing the treasure chest or Something Unpleasant will occur.
"Hmph," you grumble as you stand at the top of the stairs leading down to the dais. Shawn the doc takes a knee next to you and rather smoothly dispatches one of the milling kobolds near the altar. As that Kobold tumbles off the bier, and another rocks back onto the altar, the rest begin to rush, only to meet a controlled series of rapid two-round bursts from Andres that conveniently causes them all to fall on either side of the steps without blocking their way.
"Want us to get the quadcopters going and see if we can unlock that treasure chest?" asks Andres as he turns back to you.
[ ][SEARCH] I don't have a clue where you'd start, where better just leave it and move on.
[ ][SEARCH] Alright, do it, we'll just have to pool resources to figure out how to break the lock.
-[ ] You will use both Quadcopters for 2SN, but you'll need 4 other tokens to make up the shortfall.
