Yea, but there's a surprising twist.

"Roni!" Mallory nearly hissed to herself as she approached the group that was loitering in front of Viggo's the next morning. Even though she was ten minutes early, Mallory had approached the appointed meet up spot only to find the entire adventuring party ready to go, plus Veronica who was standing next to the amazonian, and by the sounds of it pretty deeply engaged in their friendly banter.

"Malls! punctual as always. figured id tag along, keep your honor safe from these vagabonds." she joked, drawing murmurs of fake indignation from most of the group and a scoff from the amazon.

"oh little Veronica, if I was interested in her honor, you couldn't stop me if you tried." the Amazonian purred. "but don't worry, she's not my type, too... fragile."

"Its true you know." the leader offered casually. "smallest thing I've ever seen her roll around with was a grizzly!" which of course sent all the adventurers to laughing again.

"Alright, well lets get going. sooner we get you there the sooner you can clear these things out." Veronica said, turning to leave with a roll of her eyes. 'and the sooner you can all be gone for good.' she added to herself. the group made good time out of the village and to the forest, though once they were within the forest proper the less worldly of the group were slowed by the absence of a beaten path. The banter, of course, never ceased. 'hey, at least we wont have to worry about any wild animals with all this noise.' she did notice that the elf and one of the humans seemed almost to be better suited in the woods than the others, the elf moving with the effortless grace inherent in his race plus several levels of ranger, considering his gear, leather armor irregularly dyed with several shades of green and brown, and a bow with a full quiver of arrows. the human was covered in layers of furs and although lacking the grace of the elves, used an economy of motion that easily made up for it, keeping his center of weight low, staying balanced as he moved through the undergrowth, and always seemed to be trailing his hand along the trees or bushes around him. after a particularly loud laugh from the back of the group Veronica shouted back, "Hey, Keep it down back there! do you want every predator in the forest to know where we are?!"

Oddly enough the leader just laughed again. "oh, we don't have to worry about a couple wolves, lass. Don't you worry, your tight little behind is safe with us." he seemed to be looking at the fur laden human as he responded, but it was the elf that stepped back to where he was next to Mallory and interrupted her response, "Nevertheless, I agree with the girl. her instincts are solid, and even ignoring the fact that this valley is spawning dungeons left and right, something feels.... wrong... in these woods." he looked over at Mallory and gave her a small nod, acknowledging she had had the right idea.

"alright, that's two. what do you think Heinrich?" the leader's voice dropped considerably, as the group drew together.

"the trees are indifferent to the plights of mortals." The fur covered human began cryptically. "And I feel no beasts moving around as they normally would, even with us moving through. As if the spiders have scared everything from this side of the valley."

"spooky..." the leader said as he held up his hands in a sign of acquiescing. "Alright, the fun kids have been outvoted. we stay as quiet as we can till we get there, so we don't draw anything with more than 4 legs down on us before we are ready."

"Thank you. we're almost there, maybe another hour or so. And then we can get out of here." Mallory nodded as she turned back to the small game trail they had been following. "Besides," she mumbled under her breath, "The spiders aren't the worst thing in the woods these days." she caught a side eye from the elf some ten paces ahead of her, and realized that under her breath or not he had heard it clear as day, but turned back the the path instead of inquiring further.

They ended up beating her guess of an hour, but just barely. with the midday hours just beginning, they arrived at the web covered branches that signaled the entrance of their domain. The adventuring party (minus the elven ranger, which had gone straight into the dungeon, presumably to scout further in)

"we appreciate the guide job girlie, but best leave us to whet we do best now, eh?' the leader said in a clear dismissal. Mallory simply nodded in response, and watched them move down the path as a group, with the priest tucked in the middle, out of harm's way.

"well, that's one problem taken care of, one down one to go, right?" Veronica smiled down to Mallory.

"maybe. The ranger mentioned something about multiple dungeons, so forgive me if I don't hold my breath on getting rid of all our problems any time soon." Mallory replied glumly as they turned back to the path home, only to stop dead in their tracks. standing in the path, not seeming winded at all stood the ranger. Before they could react he jerked towards them till he was almost nose to nose with Mallory and hissed under his breath, "what is it?!" she realized his eyes were almost all white, and he was flicking his eyes back and forth like a animal deciding which way to run.

"what's what?" Mallory responded, and as she tried to jerk backwards she realized he had grabbing her arm in a vice grip.

"you said there's something worse than the spiders out here, and now their all dead, so what did it?" now he was starting to look back an forth, and Mallory realized he was full on panicking, and Mallory could feel her own panic rising, almost like he was spreading it to her through his arm's tight grib.

"what do you mean? they just walked down the path?" Veronica responded confused, gestured towards the path slightly behind them.

"Not THEM, idiot! The Spiders!" the elf hissed louder. "I've already been through most the dungeon, and they're all dead! torn, slashed, burned, fried, some just half gone, like the other half had just never existed! so WHAT... WAS... IT!?" both his hands had moved to her collar, and he had shook her with the last three words.

all three of the jumped as the rest of the party came back out of the entrance, with the leader shouting as he spotted the two girls. "HEY, YOU TWO! WHAT KIND OF GAME DO YOU THINK YOUR PLAYING?" as he stormed up staring Mallory in the eyes, he caught Veronica off balance and yanked her back, where she was promptly swept into a headlock by the Amazonian before she could retaliate. "YOU! there's no spiders here, just a bunch of corpses, you think this is a joke, wasting our time like this?"

"I don't know what your talking about!" Mallory pleaded, "they were still alive yesterday morning when I passed by, I swear!!"

The leader's voice went cold as ice. "Don't know huh? well, lets just show you what I mean then, and once you understand, we can talk about how you can help repay us for our wasted time and resources." he grabbed Mallory by the shoulder of her forest leathers, and dragged her towards the path to the spider dungeon. As they walked in silence, Mallory saw for herself the fury that had been inflicted on the place. 'no' she thought 'fury isn't quite the right word. some attacks look bloody and destructive, but others look.. precise, like whatever did it did it while expending the least possible time and effort, like the animal or creature was... practicing? or experimenting?' eventually they got to a small clearing, covered in a layer of dead so deep the ground couldn't be seen at all, across one side was a mound of dead burnt egg sacs, and in the middle was what could only be the queen of the dungeon, a spider easily twice the size of a horse, and just as dead as the rest.

"What in the name of Areh..."Mallory mumbled.

"I can promise you this." the priestess spoke up next to her for the first time, in a troubled voice. "My lady had nothing to do with this place."

"its too quiet, I'm gonna look around." the Elf spoke to the leader, before taking off into the woods, silent as a ghost.

"as you can see, gaining anything of any value is out of the question, as well as the dungeon core. by my calculation, we could have made pretty penny of this dungeon raid, so unless you can come up with... oh, let say..."he tapped several of his fingers together as if adding up several numbers, "30 thousand gold? you'll be coming with us till you can return the value of our investment." the lecherous smile from the night before returned, and it was clear how he expected the repayment to occur.

"No, tha-"Veronica started, before the larger amazon woman muffled her with one hand.

"Shhh. I'm sorry it came to this, but things will be easier for you if you co-operate little one." she said, sounding almost sad at the turn of events.

"The contract for the use of my services was clear." the voice that rang out was so completely different from the one she had spoken in before, Mallory wouldn't have known it was the priestess if she hadn't seen her mouth move as she spoke. "No slavery is to be conducted while a priestess of Areh is attached to your group." she finished defiantly, staring down the leader. he matched her gaze for a moment then laughed.

"dumb little cunt, you think you have any choice what I do? just for that, you can consider our contract at an end. Heinrich?" at the same time he finished speaking Heinrich stepped up from behind the priestess and grabbed her hands, pulling them behind her back and squeezing them both flat together, but when he let go they seemed to be stuck together, because even though she struggled, she couldn't get them apart. "Now that our contract I at an end, you can join these little whores in making us our money back. Hope you enjoyed your little chats with your goddess, I doubt she'll want anything to do with you after what I'm about to do to you."

he took a step towards the diminutive priestess, and started reaching for his belt, but Mallory shouted out first, "Stop, wait, please." the leader stared at her and for a moment no one said anything, and a perfect silence fell over the clearing. before Mallory could decide weather to beg or attack, a shiver slid down her back like a splash of cold water, and she felt all the fine hairs stand out straight. "Wait, when did it get so quiet?" she turned to Heinrich, "where are the birds and insects?!"

He realized what she meant and let go of the priestess with a hiss as her hands finally came apart, but it was the leader who spoke. "enough of your stupid games, now you get to go first!" he hadn't gotten more than two steps before a new voice filled the clearing, low, rough, but with every syllable clear and easily understood. like two boulders grinding together and somehow producing speech.

"Don't you know what 'no' means?" and then all of a sudden, like he'd been there the whole time, Des was standing at the far end of the clearing glaring straight at the mercenary leader. He threw something across the clearing and when it tumbled to a stop at the leaders feet, Mallory finally recognized what it was. A broken long bow, covered in blood.

"And you call me a monster."