They sat for a few more minutes as the others reloaded weapons and finished looting.  Allistor rose and looted the boss.  He got a hundred fifty klax, four alpha claws, and a scroll!

Putting everything into his ring, he said, “I think that’s it, folks.  Not much of a dungeon, but it was good experience and good practice.”  He winked at Michael. “In one of my games, we could all teleport back to home base now.  But it looks like we’ve got a long walk ahead of us.  Stay sharp – we don’t know if there are more vermin roaming around down here.”

Sam added, “At least those ones that took that left turn.”

They set off back through the tunnels, Ramon consulting his map as they went and directing them when to turn.   They took a few side tunnels they hadn’t followed before, just so Ramon could fill in his map.  It took them forty minutes to reach the manhole where they’d entered.

Allistor went up first, carefully checking the surrounding debris before climbing the last few rungs of the ladder.   He kept watch as the others joined him one by one.  Together they walked quietly back to the gates of the Warren, where Lilly let them in.

*****

As more days passed, the citizens of the Warren kept busy with foraging and crafting.  Four days after the vermin dungeon run, a group of three octopoids wandered into their sensor zone.  Allistor took Sam, Lilly, Amanda, and Ramon outside to deal with them.  Lilly had missed out on the dungeon and needed some experience.   He invited them to group up, and they went to work.

The group made short work of the monsters, firing on them from a distance until they fell.  The Stronghold received more system points for a successful defense, and the group got some good experience.  Lilly leveled up and was thrilled to get a dozen pieces of octopoid hide.  She’d been working with piles of vermin leather for days, and she was getting a little sick of the smell.

The most disturbing happening of the week came when Meg, not wanting to cook vermin meat, had put it up for sale on the open market just for kicks.  They’d collected over a hundred pieces of it from the dungeon run.  Thinking nobody would want it, she put up twenty pieces and priced them at one klax per piece.

Within minutes, someone had purchased them.   And a minute after that, she received a message from the buyer.

We’re starving here.  There are twenty of us, and we’ve killed everything we can find close by.  If you have any more, please sell it to us.

She burst into Allistor’s quarters to relay the message to him.  His first reaction was “They must be starving.  Who would eat vermin meat if they didn’t have to?”