At exactly 7:35 the next morning, the elf turned up in front of the [Deep Rock] dungeon. Her appearance completed the group's roster.
"Alright, let's go inside," said Duke, again, with no consideration for others.
From here, he walked to the entrance and entered without another word.
Aug looked at the rest of the group who had not moved yet and shrugged, following Duke inside.
Once inside, the dungeon was quite dark and consisted mostly of rock walls and a compacted black sand floor. The entrance was a rock tunnel that looked like it led to a larger rock cavern ahead. Because of Aug's height, he could not stand up straight most of the time, having to find high spots to stand. It smelled damp and was dead silent, so every step Duke took in his steel boots made a piercing noise.
A few minutes later, the rest of the group entered. The boy with the cape was instantly upset. He had got his leather shoes, as he put it, tainted, and was one step away from having a breakdown.
"Dude, chill, it's only sand," said the elf, who seemed to be allergic to any sort of annoying noise, which included the caped boy's voice.
Duke and Aug were the only ones who had introduced themselves the previous night. Therefore, Aug had no choice but to invent nicknames for everyone.
While Cape Boy was having a hysterical fit, much to the elf's distaste, Crazy Eyes had already walked off ahead.
By the time the group noticed, she was already running back in their direction, laughing as if she were a child. "I have friends!" she said, as half a dozen kobolds chased her, with shovels and picks already swinging at her.
Everyone had to quickly ready themselves in the limited space that they had left, as the small brown lizard-rat monsters swung at Crazy Eyes's heels.
As she passed Duke, he stepped in front with his tower shield blocking their way. The kobolds could not stop and slammed into the shield, piling up in a mound of flailing arms and legs. In the anarchy, one of the kobolds had been impaled with the others' pickaxe. Five left.
The remaining five quickly recovered, spread out and charged, attempting to circumvent the shield. Duke blocked two, and hit a third with his sword as it rushed by, slicing it in two. Four left.
The two that got past the shield charged at the Elf and Cape Boy. The elf was calm and collected, pulled back her bow, and let an arrow fly, hitting the kobold in the forehead and pinning it to the ground. Three left.
Here she waited, not worrying about the other kobold as it charged towards Cape Boy. Cape Boy screamed and ran towards Aug and Crazy Eyes, who were further back.
"Kill it! Don't let it hurt me!"
"Aren't you a mage? Kill it yourself," replied the Elf, who Aug could see was silently hoping the kobold would kill Cape Boy.
As Cape Boy ran past Aug, he slashed at it with his machete, cutting the kobold in two. Although now out of danger, Cape Boy kept running, leaving the dungeon.
Back with Duke, he now had one kobold on either side of him. One slashed at his legs while the other distracted him. For its trouble, the distracting kobold got cleaved in half. But the other one got a pickaxe between Duke's armour, striking his shield. Just as it did, the elf had finally got around to notching another arrow, shooting it and nailing the last kobold to the cave wall.
"This is boring," said the elf, yawning loudly.
"Could you pay attention! You allowed that kobold to hit me."
"Maybe you should be better."
This argument went on for about ten minutes about whose fault it was, during which Cape Boy did not return. Now they were down to four members, two hated each other, and the last was a nutcase.
While this was happening, Crazy Eyes had been running around looting all the kobolds, leaving nothing for the rest of the group.
The argument finally ended with Duke and the Elf deciding to agree to disagree and that they would not talk again. They were children in adult bodies.
He already didn't see this party functioning in any meaningful way. He should have expected this. Asking the city's guild for help was a last resort for most, leaving only the unemployable and untrustworthy.
Now noticing all the loot was gone, Duke yelled at Crazy Eyes, and marched on ahead. It looked as if he were about to throw a tantrum, stomping his feet and throwing his hands around.
Soon enough the Elf and Crazy Eyes followed, but Aug dawdled, waiting for them to be out of range so he could collect some corpses.
He couldn't afford to be picky, but his inventory space was not unlimited. Therefore, he ended up collecting the two killed by arrows and the one killed by the pickaxe. Hoping to save time, he hadn't scanned them and trusted these were the best corpses, given the other three had been cut in half.
The party had regrouped in the large rock cavern, and were gazing at the luminescent, light blue crystals lining the cave's ceiling. Crazy Eyes was jumping at the roof, coming metres short of reaching it, but that didn't stop her from trying.
She would also yell at anyone else who looked at the roof.
"My shiny rocks don't touch!"
"Hey big guy, which direction do we need to map?" asked Duke, looking down each of the three tunnels leading further into the dungeon from the rock cavern.
"The east side," replied Aug, pointing to the right tunnel.
The entrance to the dungeon faced south, so as they were facing away from the entrance, this was north, making the right east.
"You mean the left tunnel," replied Duke, setting off in that direction without letting Aug rebut.
As no one followed him, he stopped at the entrance and turned around. "Follow me!" he yelled, unexpectedly angry. He repeated himself a few times, getting angrier each time, before Aug spoke up.
"That is west," replied Aug, looking at his map to be sure he was right. "Look. West," said Aug, holding up the map so he could see. Duke was too far away to read it, so he stomped back to the map to look.
The elf, who had been silent until now, spoke. "The big guy is right," she said, her back facing Duke.
"I thought I told you never to talk to me again," replied Duke, flailing his arms and stamping his feet.
"I don't listen to idiots," she replied, spite lining every letter of her words.
Without another word, Duke stamped off towards the east. Aug and the elf sighed, making brief eye contact before continuing on.
As they left, Crazy Eyes was now trying to climb the wall to get to the roof crystals, but had fallen and twisted her ankle. They assumed since she was the healer, she could fix herself. Knowing she had lost to the cave, she limped off after them.