New Blood
“Work quickly,” Aristal said, glancing back down the crumbling hallway, “The deception ward will not delay them overlong.”
“You don’t say,” Mink replied. The narrow Man’s blunt sarcasm was reflexive, his attention never deviated from the inspection of the doorway before him. Something wasn’t right, was off. He hadn’t figured out what just yet, but his instincts on such delicate matters had saved him plenty of times before. They would do so again.
“What are you insinuating?” the Gnomish mage replied, not caring for the affront to his character, “If that is some underhanded barb at the spell which malfunctioned during the ambush, I’ll have you know that it was your wanton use of oil which caused me to slip up.”
Mink’s fingers danced over a pair of pressure plates embedded in the top jamb of the door. Now just to find the release trigger. His hands caressed the surrounding stonework as he replied, “We discussed the plan, which included oil. If you’re unable to ma–” He stopped cold and threw a hand up for silence, then made the sign to indicate something was approaching.
Aristal registered only confusion, and Mink rolled his eyes. Fortunately only Fabor shambled into view, his armor plating a musical harbinger to the impending pursuit. “They come,” the barbarian blurted in his usual direct dialect.
As Mink turned back to his work, his eyes saw the door handle being triggered. “No, wait!” he barked, but the door swung open from inside. He neatly slid between the lengths of deadly spear which snaked from the wall. Fabor dropped to the ground, also avoiding the wicked barbed tips. Aristal was impaled cleanly through one lung with a foamy, “Hurk!”
The other two members of the adventuring party that had assembled last evening under a curtain of ale stood dumbstruck with horror on the other side of the doorway. Mink picked his way through the spears as Fabor hacked through the spear pinning Aristal and slung the mage over his meaty shoulder.
The rogue paused and scanned for pursuit behind them, seeing the red trail Fabor dragged behind him as they scurried down the hallway ahead. “New blood,” Mink quietly bemoaned his choice to brave the dungeon with such unseasoned ilk.