A skeleton and an exoskeleton walked down a tunnel into a mountain.

"We tried to follow your general instructions as best as we could, and I'm feeling pretty confident you will like the results!" the former said.

"I'm dying to see them, Tom!" replied the latter.

After a couple of seconds, the undead merchant stopped and looked at the crab with a surprised grin on his skull.

"Was that… a pun?!" the incredulous skeleton asked.

"A pun?" the crustacean said as he continued strolling forward. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Tom jogged forward to keep up with the other merchant, his bones rattling loudly along with his walking stick as he continued staring down with an open grin.

"Yes you do, you sly crab!" he exclaimed after a few more seconds staring at Balthazar.

After another minute, the two merchants arrived at where the tunnel ended and the halls began.

"Oh, it's all dark again," Balthazar said, squinting at the void around him.

"Of course!" said Tom. "A proper dungeon needs to be dark and spooky. We're creating an ominous ambiance here! If you were an adventurer walking in here for the first time and found the place all lit up, what would be your first thought?"

"Uhh… I'd wonder who's going around keeping all the torches lit?" Balthazar replied with a cocked eyestalk.

The skeleton furrowed his brow ridge.

"Well, yes, that too. But my point is, keeping the place dark helps with what we're doing here, alright?"

The crab spun around, looking up at the darkness surrounding them.

"How did you figure out how to turn off the lights anyway?"

"Simple," Tom said. "Jim found this big lever behind one of the pillars that switches all the lights on and off."

Balthazar looked up at the skeleton with arched eyestalks. "Seriously? Wouldn't that mean it will be really easy for a random adventurer to stumble upon it too and turn on the lights for all the halls?"

The undead merchant chuckled and scoffed while waving a dismissive hand.

"Don't worry about it, we placed a decorative tapestry in front of it."

"Oh," said the crab. "Is it… enchanted for invisibility, or something?"

"Nope!" replied the grinning skull. "Just a regular old rug with an ugly pattern on it. Trust me, adventurers never check behind those. We've had one covering up a secret room filled with gold in Tudor's Hall for years, and no one has ever found it!"

"Wait, really?!"

Tom's grin widened. "Maybe. Did you look behind every tapestry when you were there before?"

"Uhm, no?" said the crab.

"Exactly!" the cackling skeleton exclaimed. "Now follow me, let me show you some of the highlights of your new dungeon!"

Balthazar frowned for a moment but followed the merchant skeleton as he pushed onward through the darkness.

"How do you even know where you're going?" the eight-legged merchant said.

"Oh, sorry. I forget you living things don't get the same dark vision trait we cold folks do. Let me help ya."

Tom tapped three times on the side of the iron lantern hanging from the tip of his walking stick using his bony fingers. Inside, a small swarm of fireflies lit up and swirled around within the glass, producing a pale greenish halo of light around the two merchants.

"Oooh, this one is a personal favorite of mine," the skeleton said as they arrived in front of an old wooden closet.

The piece of furniture looked decrepit and had several scratch marks along its surface. At the front, between its two doors, was a suspicious-looking hole about the size of an acorn.

"So," Tom started, looking excited, "an adventurer stumbles upon an old wardrobe, gets curious about what might be inside, walks up to open it and—"

"And a skeleton pops out," Balthazar said, interrupting the other merchant's grandiose conclusion with a plain expression.

"Raaarrrgh!"

A tall skeleton wearing nothing but a pair of lime green shorts burst out of the wardrobe, jaw bouncing up and down as it screamed and held a small axe above its head.

"No, no… You can stop, Jim," Tom said, hunching forward and looking deflated. "He already guessed the surprise."

"Oh…" said Jim, slowly lowering his axe as his shoulders dropped too.

"I mean," Balthazar said, "you guys aren't exactly being super original here. This is more or less the same act as when I first met Jim at Tudor's Hall."

"Aha!" exclaimed the skeleton in shorts, suddenly raising his axe again and putting on a devious grin. "But this time we added a twist to it. When a real adventurer comes through here, your savage skeletons won't just spook them, they'll actually slice off an arm or a leg—whichever one is more at hand!"

"Oh, yes," said Tom, perking up a bit. "The advantage of working with those higher-level bony fellas you got here is that they can actually do some real damage, unlike us down in our beginner-friendly dungeon!"

Balthazar winced slightly and opened his mouth to speak, but the undead trader got ahead of him.

"Trust me, once you see this next trap, you will be convinced!"

They pushed onward a few more steps while Jim stayed behind, carefully resetting the wardrobe doors, which had come off their hinges.

"Ta-da!" exclaimed the proud skeleton, extending his arms out as if presenting something impressive.

Balthazar stared ahead, at what to him seemed like a completely empty hall with nothing worth noticing.

"I… don't see anything here, Tom," the crab stated plainly.

"Exactly!" the grinning undead said. "You can't see it at all, just like adventurers won't!"

The crustacean frowned. "I can't see what exac—Ah!"

A hatch popped open on the floor in front of them, its top a perfect replica of the tiles surrounding it, and from the square hole revealed came a disturbingly excited screech as a female skeleton emerged from below.

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"They will never see it coming until it's too late and the floor opens beneath their feet!" Liz said, climbing out of the floor trap with a sticky green substance dripping off her bones and equipped armor.

"Wha—what the hell is that stuff?!" Balthazar asked, still recovering from the fright of her sudden appearance.

"Oh, this?" the former adventurer said, pointing at a blob of green muck slowly sliding down her shoulder. "It's acidic ooze! It was my idea to fill the pit at the bottom of these floor traps with it. I got the inspiration from the pit where I died." She paused and let out a giggle that was more sinister than adorable. "Don't worry, though. It only dissolves flesh and muscle, not bones. It's perfectly safe for me!"

The crab stared dumbfounded for a moment before speaking.

"That's… not exactly what I was worried about." He paused and looked between Liz and Tom, as if searching for the right words to use. "Look, guys, I don't know how to put this in a way that doesn't insult your… I'm going to say 'traditions' here? But could we maybe not kill or severely maim the adventurers that come in here?"

Tom and Liz exchanged glances of confusion mixed with concern before staring back at the crab.

"You lost me at the 'not kill adventurers' part," the female skeleton said.

"Ehhh, let me try to get this straight," said the older undead, stepping to Balthazar's side. "Tudor's is a beginner dungeon, adventurers even refer to it as a tutorial dungeon, or whatever. We can't really be too deadly there, given the low levels and whatnot. But when you called us here to work on this beauty of a place, to turn it into a proper, functioning dungeon… we went to town with it!"

Tom scampered forward and spread his arms open in front of the crab, as if presenting something around him that, as far as the crustacean's eyes could see, might as well not be there.

"We built spike traps that would skewer adventurers like it was Sunday barbecue at uncle Chuck's place! You know how long it took Jim to dig floor traps into this place?" He used one foot to stomp down on the hard stone floor a couple of times. "Each one deep enough to ensure the drop would be deadly! These halls were barren, empty canvas when we got here, but now? We have swinging spike balls on chains that fall from above when you open a chest!"

"They make heads go pop!" Liz exclaimed excitedly from behind Tom.

"We had to import several large mechanisms from Tudor's, under the cover of night," the skeleton in a coat continued. "But we even managed to make a hall where the walls close in on unsuspecting adventurers once they go inside!"

"Yes! It makes their insides go squelch!" the undead girl added with a happy squeal.

As the skeletons rambled on, Balthazar kept opening his mouth to get a word in, but each time he was dissuaded by the visible enthusiasm of their presentation.

"I get it, but—" he started.

"We even managed to create a trap that fills up with whipped cream from that fountain and drowns adventurers in it!" Tom hastily said with childlike joy bubbling out of him.

"Wait, really?!" said the crab.

"Yes! It will make them gasp and go all gulp gulp gulp!" exclaimed the overly excited skeleton apprentice, before mimicking the motions of someone grasping their throat and gasping for air before she collapsed to the floor with a loud rattling of her bones.

Balthazar sighed.

"Look, guys, I get it. You put a lot of work into making this place deadly. And normally I'd be all for it. Adventurers die every day, it's just their natural life cycle. They sign up for danger, they know what comes with it. No skin off my back."

"You don't have any skin," Tom stated plainly.

The crab's eyestalks frowned.

"Yes, thanks, Tom, I know. Neither do you. But that's not the point right now. My point is, for what I'm trying to accomplish here, I can't really have adventurers enter these halls and start dying. At least not too much. It's just counterproductive."

"What are you trying to accomplish anyway?" the undead merchant asked.

"Well, for one, having most of my clientele die right behind my establishment would be bad for business," Balthazar explained. "But beyond that, it's about that stairwell leading down from these halls."

"The one we weren't allowed to enter because you said it was too dangerous?" said Liz.

"Yes, that one. The Mines of Semla. There are unknown enemies of much higher level there. And we can't explore whatever's down there without a strong enough party."

"Oooh, I think I see where you're going with this," Tom said. "You want to use the appeal of a more challenging dungeon floor below to find higher-level adventurers that can take it on."

"Yes!" exclaimed the eight-legged merchant. "The adventurers yearn for the mines!"

Tom tapped idly on his chin bone while looking up and pondering.

"So you want to use this floor as a test?"

"Exactly!" the crab replied. "The Halls of Semla would be like a great filter, meant to separate the newbies from the adventurers capable enough to make it to the mines, and clear a path to whatever is down there."

"To your chocolate fountain?"

"That too."

"But," Liz interjected, "why would deadly traps get in the way of that? If an adventurer is not good enough to survive them, he's not fit to go down into the mines either. He's of no use to you then, right?"

Balthazar let out another long sigh.

"I'm still trying to run a business up there. Dead people don't buy or sell me stuff."

Tom let out a loud "hmph!" and crossed his arms.

"Well, excuse me if I disagree with that statement!"

The other merchant rolled his eyestalks.

"You know what I meant. Dead dead people. If you guys just keep slaying them all, who's going to keep buying my stuff? I want this place to pose a danger, challenge their skills, and not be an easy time, but I'd prefer it if they still walked out of here alive enough to continue doing business with me."

Liz's skull looked up at the ceiling as if she was weighing her options.

"Alright, but what if we kill them just a little?"

Balthazar stared at her with a befuddled expression. "What? How would… No! Just don't kill my clients!"

"Right, but what about maiming? Nothing fatal, just severe injuries at most."

The crab exhaled sharply and pinched the space between his eyestalks.

"Why do you—"

"Oh!" the skeleton girl interrupted suddenly. "What about psychological damage? Maybe some mental trauma?"

Balthazar looked at Liz for a moment, his expression blank.

"Would they still be able to do trading after?"

"Uhh… Yeeees?" the hesitant skeleton replied.

"Then I don't even want to know," the merchant said. "If those fools decide to keep walking into this place, that's on them."

Liz did a little celebratory jump in place before letting out a high-pitched "yay!" and scampering off to fiddle with her floor trap.

"That girl really worries me, Tom," Balthazar murmured while leaning in closer to the undead merchant.

"Heh, same, pal," replied the skeleton. "She's way too innocent for this unlife."

"What?! That's not what I—"

"Anyway," exclaimed Tom, clapping his hand bones together. "I had one final surprise for you. I'm hoping it won't get in the way of your plans for testing adventurers."

"What surprise?" the crab asked with a cocked eyestalk.

"Well," the grinning skeleton said, "what does every good dungeon need to have?"

"Hmm… Public bathroo—"

"A boss, of course!"

"Oh, right, that," the surprised crustacean said. "But wait, what kind of boss are you talking about? Because if it's a giant bone colossus I swear I'm—"

"No! No, no, no. None of that," Tom reassured. "It's something else. Someone else, in fact. Someone you might remember."

Intrigued, Balthazar quickly followed the skeleton as he marched further into the inner halls.

"Who is it?"

The undead stopped in front of a pair of tall reinforced doors that the crab was sure weren't there before.

"We built a special hall just for the floor's final boss!" Tom said as he slowly pushed the doors open. "Balthazar, I'm sure you remember our friend from the bottom of Tudor's Hall."

As the gates split open, a dense mist rolled out over the floor, enveloping the crab like a smokescreen and keeping him from seeing the room clearly.

"Gah!" exclaimed Balthazar between coughs. "Where did all this dramatic fog even come fro—"

His sentence stopped abruptly as the mist cleared and the merchant saw what resided inside that hall.

A small gelatinous blob of gray slime, no bigger than a pumpkin, rested at the center of the room, its two tiny eye-beads turning to look at the merchants as the gates came to a stop.

"It is I, Montgomery, the Great Destroyer!" the slime declared in the most squeaky, high-pitched, tiny voice Balthazar had ever heard.

The crab stared at what he remembered as a gigantic, treasure-devouring slime capable of bringing an entire dungeon down with a baffled expression on his face.

"The hell happened to you?!"

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