The girls meticulously step through the trap area. The spacing and architecture of the wires resemble a laser detection grid inside a movie hallway. The cables stretched around in different angles, making moving without pulling them difficult. They bent their bodies in sorts of ways to pass the wires without contacting them. They slowly zigzag all across the tunnel to navigate a pathway. Thankfully, their decision to ditch their gear before tackling the trap proved correct. With their thin bodies, they could barely manage to squeeze in the narrow spaces.
After they moved along the corridor for about twenty feet, the ranger Ragna in the front stepped on a nondescriptive spot of the floor. To Ragna's frustration, she heard the sound of another metallic click. The next noise was several clicks of bolts fired from different locations. The darts whistled as it flies directly into the path of the ranger from different trajectories. She moved her body to avoid collision with the darts. Dodging didn't go quite the way she had wished. She dodged all but one of the darts. Her moving around caused her body to collide with a wire. The dart struck her back left shoulder, easily piercing into her body. The problematic part was what happened when the wire was disturbed.
The wire detached from the ground like a snapped piano wire and shot to the ceiling like it was under enormous tension. A square section of the floor around one square yard fell. The whole floor section gave way, of course, Ragna happened to be standing on that floor space.
"Ahhh!!!!"(Ragna)
Ragna stretched out to grasp the edge of the hole before fully plummeting to her doom. Luckily for the ranger, her quick reflexes enabled her to prevent the worst case. As she dangled from the opening, she began to feel her body go numb. She almost forgot about the dart in her back. They didn't know the type of poison used to coat the projectiles because Tatiana took an antidote immediately.
Ragna, having the dart lodged in her shoulder, began to circulate the toxins. She quickly lost the feeling of her wounded area. Ragna speculated the poison was something that caused either neurological paralysis or muscular-skeletal paralysis. Either way, if she doesn't take an antidote to the poison quickly, it will be detrimental. It was surprisingly fast-acting. The problem was Ragna's situation prevented her from being able to. She started to attempt to pull her body up, but one shoulder was completely numb. The muscles of her injured shoulder would not operate properly.
"Ragna!! Hey!!! Say something, you okay??!!"(Tatiana)
"No... I'm not alright... I'm poisoned by one... of the damn darts and... can't pull myself up. My body is getting... more deadened each second. The poison is so... fast-acting...
if one... of you can't help me. I'm... sure I will fall."(Ragna trap hanger)
"I'm coming, hang in there until I get to you, alright? Don't give up!! It will take me a minute, so focus on hanging on."(Tatiana)
"Alright... not... haa... like... I had... anything... haa... I could... do...(Ragna poisoned)
Tatiana could tell by listening to her. The problem advanced too quickly for her to respond appropriately. She could only hasten her progress through the trap to help her party member. She had less than ten feet to her, but may have been ten miles. Navigating the wires was not a straight line or a quick process. Yet, the knight didn't give up; she bit down hard on her teeth and quickened her pace.
"Ragna, keep talking to me!! I need you to stay with me!!! Okay?"(Hebe)
"Haa... my... body is... so... numb... can't..."(Ragna the struggling)
"Hang in there!!"(Beatrix)
Tatiana and the rest move as quickly as possible towards the ranger. The distance closed slowly, from the first ten feet.
8 feet... 7 feet...
"Come on, hang in there, Ragna!!! (Tatiana)
6 feet... 5 feet... 3 feet
"I... can't... feel.. my... body... help... I'm... scared... I don't... want... to... die..."(Ragna life reflecting)
"Just a bit more Ragna, I'm almost there!!! Don't quit on me!!!"(Tatiana the valiant)
There is nothing more sad then begin so close but not close enough. For the poor ranger, Tatiana was still out of her reach when the disaster took place. In the haste of the knight, when she was about one foot away, something happened. There's a saying that 'haste makes waste', then what does panic make?
The knight in her panic to help her friend and colleague decided to push the obstacle away to close the last foot of distance. As she practically dove forward while moving the wire that blocked her path aside. Tatiana was flinging herself to Ragna to grab her before she slipped. The cable made a sound like a piano wire snapped and shot to the ceiling like the other wire.
"Huh!!! No freaking way!!!"(Tatiana the regret magnet)
Another area the size of the previous trap fell following the wire detachment. Of course, this happened to be the space below Tatiana, and the lifeline Ragna was desperately clinging. To the horror of the remaining two members of the party, the other two vanished, screaming into the void. Soon after, the two were left alone inside the quiet dungeon.
The mage and bowman stood in shock. They could not fathom how to go on from here. Their losses were staggering, over half the party was gone. They thought for sometime before the mage Hebe spoke up.
"Beatrix, what do you say to follow them down the hole? As crazy as it sounds, please hear me out. Maybe I'm hoping I'm right, but the traps we have encountered so far seemed nonlethal. It's like the objective of the traps was to catch the invaders. I can't be for sure, but my instincts are telling me if we jump down the hole, we will not die."(Hebe the observant one)
Beatrix ran the whole experience in the dungeon through her mind again. Slowly, she came to an understanding like the mage. It was possible to assume that the traps are only trying to catch trespassers. Well, the assumption, of course, was hinging on the fact that they don't know what lies at the bottom of the pits. The darts would have a difficult time dealing out lethal damage even without armor. The poison seems only to incapacitate the victims. The paralyzed victims would be at the mercy of the inhabitants.
"So, you're saying you would rather gamble on your hunch about the nature of the dungeon to be with the rest of the group? Are you saying it would be more advantageous for us to get captured together instead of trying to escape alone? Frankly, it does seem the odds of escaping have plummeted to rock bottom. It's just I would like to point out something, Hebe. What will happen when we are captured? Do you think they will look favorably on us? Demi-humans and humans have clear strife between them. How much more when it's a fully-fledged dungeon?"(Beatrix the rebuttal)
Hebe could understand the marksman's fear. Jumping into a pit trap was not a decision to make likely. It was tantamount to surrendering to the dungeon or worse their lives. The adventures from the guild received instructions about dealings with dungeons when they joined. The stories of lives lost, missing persons never found, and especially what happened to women. Members of the guild battling inside dungeons found lost members in rooms treated like playthings or used to breed more dungeon populations. The horror stories act to remind the adventures that Demi-human is barbaric races, unlike the refined human society.
"Let me be blunt. What chances do you think we have with just us two? We know the dungeon architecture can change. So, how do we plan to find an exit? If the traps were deadly, we would have three deaths right now. I know they could have died because of the traps, but we don't know. Besides, the possibility that they are not trying to kill us was a blessing. But what if the traps go from capture to kill? If we jumped down with the other two, at least we would be together and not separated, right?"(Hebe)
The marksman Beatrix sighed. Her points were valid enough on the aspect of dealing with this insane dungeon. She didn't like to leave her fate to chance, but she could feel that their fates were sealed the moment they entered this place. The effort required to tackle the dungeon traps was too daunting, and being the only remaining members made the process near impossible.
"Okay. Hebe you win. I don't like it really, but what choices did we have. We will follow them and pray your gut intuition didn't inadvertently send us to our doom."(Beatrix)
"Yeah, let pray that doesn't happen. As long as we live, there will be hope for us to escape. Who knows, maybe we can negotiate our release if they are reasonable."(optimistic Oneesan)
The two had made up their minds. They moved through the trap towards hole their comrades fell. After some time, they stood at the edge of the dark portal to the underworld of the dungeon. They took one more glance at each other before stepping into the void.
In a moment, they fell an unknown distance before hitting a hard stone floor sloped at a sharp angle. The adventure girls tumble down the slope before repeating the same process several more times. Finally, they have their unconscious bodies unceremoniously dropped into a small room on top of two other unconscious victims. The group of adventures with hard-earned respect throughout the capital city of Soliloquy, just experienced a complete party wipe. If news of this reached the city, there would be panic. They are elites in the guild, after all. Unfortunately for the capital, none would hear of this story, at least not for some time to come.