{"id":1011,"date":"2026-09-12T16:19:39","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T23:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/?p=1011"},"modified":"2026-09-12T16:19:40","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T23:19:40","slug":"damage-management-team-part-vi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/archives\/1011","title":{"rendered":"Damage Management Team Part VI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This follows Damage Management Team Part V<\/a>, Part IV<\/a>, Part III<\/a>, Part II<\/a>, and Part I…<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grunk nudged me awake. “Get up, Tell. Time to go.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I rolled over with a groan. “Are we seriously doing this?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A stoic nod. “I think so. Is there a better option?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We could keep heading outwards…”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grunk looked sideways towards the cluster of adventurers, Omish among them. “I don’t think they would let us. Lack of trust and all that.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Yeah… I have this fleeting hope that we still have options,” I mumbled as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “I need to feel like we are not doing something entirely idiotic.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Our lead is already shot. We don’t have a portal. We don’t know where a portal is,” Grunk frowned suddenly. “And I don’t know why, but I… believe them.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Believe them what?” I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I believe them about the Underfell, and the Wizardking… do you think it is a coincidence that our lives are short? We just accept it? I mean if I have a chance to live another thirty, fifty, seventy years? Is that worth it? If I can help the kids in my village live longer? Or Omish? Or even you, you hardass? Honestly, I would do it. I don’t know why, Tell, but I believe ’em.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I felt some pressure at the back of my eyes like a tear needed to form. I pushed it down with a sense of righteous Goblin anger. Gobs don’t cry. “Alright, alright you sentimental lunk. Help me up. But what about the Underking stuff you said before? Him giving us power, and all that?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grunk looked at this hands, embarrassed. “Can’t both things be true? Now, I am not sure it is worth the cost<\/em>. By the way, the little fire mage was asking about you.” Grunk offhandedly<\/em> mentioned as he slapped dust from my shoulders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Hmmm?” I tried to act nonchalant. She was a smoke show. What was it with magic and sheer undiluted hotness going hand in hand?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grunk grinned slyly. Pervert. “Asking where you grew up. Told her I had no idea.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Yeah you do. Stoccard-on-the-Well.” I made a face at his apparent lewdnes. “You going senile?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A semblance of his own nonchalance via a shrug. “Maybe I didn’t think it was for me to share.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Hmmm.” I agreed emphatically for all the reasons he already knew. Grunk was a bastard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Let’s go my little Goblins!” Christoph announced from the door. “Miki, light the way!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miki tapped her wrist twice, and her staff appeared in her hand. She was a full blown mage, there was no doubt. Being able to summon a staff of power? Check. Being able to focus magic without it? Check. A goblin mage. The world was queer as fuck. Her staff end, terminating in a small blue jewel the size of an eyeball, radiated overly bright at first, then shifted downwards to a muted soft glow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, I still had to squint. “Maybe we should walk in front,” I muttered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We will walk in front of you all,” Grunk announced much more loudly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tall knight looked uncomfortable. “If we are together, we are safer, are we not?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If we are in front-” Grunk tried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“They can see better. The light we need hurts their eyes,” Miki finished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I scrunched up my nose in annoyance, but Grunk squeezed my wrist. I smiled instead. A big fake eat-a-big-fat-bag-of-troll-testicles kind of smile. “That’s right. And when we step into a razor trap, you will only get splashed with a tiny little amount of our blood.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Stop it,” Grunk whispered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“No,” I whispered back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fror looked uncomfortable. “Razor traps? Is that a thing?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Oh yes,” Omish jumped in with glee. “Entire cows are rendered down to their prime cuts. Imagine a whirlwind of razor wires spinning about like a small tornado… slicing and dicing until all that is left is only chunks. They are aw-www-www-esome.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Great,” Streya smugly frowned. “Yet another scary thing to put into my book.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Book?” Omish looked confused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fror shook his head. “You had to ask.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Pay no attention to my dwarven friend. It will be the talk of the homeland. I am thinking using the title ‘The Underfell Guide, or perhaps, the The Idiot’s Guide to the Underfell, or maybe even, The Underfell and You, a Survival Guide. The title needs to be workshopped.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I would say.” I muttered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“What would you call it then?” Streya looked at me sternly, but it wasn’t anger, it was… curiousity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“What is it about? Like, uh, what is it focused on?” I tried to salvage my offhanded smartass remark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Oh, it is all the things. It is meant to be the source for new adventurers. At some point, the Underfell is inevitable for any growing population. Villages attract entrances. We don’t understand the mechanism, but when the village reaches a certain size, a dungeon entrance opens nearby. I am hoping to create a guide on all the ins and out of surviving, even thriving, in the Underfell. How to sleep, how to eat, how to avoid the traps, how to fight the monsters, how to survive. All the important bits.” Streya waved at the dubndub we were all filing out of. “How to use the washrooms… no one knows about how they work! Firewood? Waste gates? Fresh water? It is remarkable.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Not that remarkable. The Brownies have to put their dead somewhere,” Grunk sighed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A horrified look came over Fror’s face. “What?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Brownies. When they die, they become wood. They are shuttled to the nearby burial site… which are the fire boxes in the dubndubs,” Grunk explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We were burning corpses?” Fror’s eyes were the size of dinner plates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Its fine. They want it to be that way. Funeral pyres and all that. Its how their departed return to the Spirit Realm.” Grunk said. “And the smoke gets the harpies high.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“By the Fist,” Fror had turned white as a sheet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Oh, its fine. Its fine! Everything is fine!” Grunk waved at him apologetically. “A little funeral, a little hookah action, everyone wins!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“After all, don’t dwarves turn to stone when you die?” I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Absolutely not! Where did you hear that nonsense?” Fror protested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Around.” I tilted my head to my shoulder as an explanation. It was common knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“When we die we are just like any other living thing, we leave a corpse behind.” Fror grimaced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I think you would make a nice cornerstone if you did turn to stone.” I added thoughtfully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We don’t turn to stone!” Fror insisted. “But thanks. Cornerstones are important.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I smirked. “This way.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We walked down the wide hallway, the three of us in front, the four of them a few steps behind. The far end was lost to the dark, but with the steady mana glow behind us, I could make out a fair bit of the details. There were pressure traps across the full length of the corridor about two meters ahead. I held up a hand for everyone to stop and glanced across the length of the ceiling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Small nozzles along the edge. Acid traps. Nothing like being dissolved and cooked at the same time! Slime shit. Literally. That meant that there was a slime cell nearby…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“What?” Christoph whispered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Omish pointed as if it was obvious. “Pressure triggers.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Where?” Christoph squinted as if he needed glasses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“How did you survive to get that big, human?” I laughed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christoph smiled in self-deprecation, “Lots of good food from a great mom, little goblin. How else? Teach me. I want to learn. How do you see them?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christoph kneeled down, his armor clinking lightly against the stone floor. Streya leaned over next to him, a little sketchbook in one hand and a well chewed pencil in the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Omish looked at me questioningly. I waved for him to continue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“See the ridges on the stone? Its faint. All along the edges.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Noooo, oh yes<\/em>, I do see them. Like scratches! Yet the plates are the same height as the stones around it?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Omish made his hands flat and put them side by side as if representing the stones. “The pressure trigger relies on a static fluid pressure underneath. Its called hydraulics. The edging where the stone meets other stones allows smoother movement so the trap is triggered successfully. If they were perfectly flush, dust and dirt could make the trap stick. There is a trap disable along the line of the stones… we just have to find it, flip it and the static pressure will be negative. The trap can’t be tripped.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Why would there be a mechanism to turn it off?” Streya asked in a mild whisper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Why are you all whispering?” I teased. “The traps cannot be set off with sound. We have to be able to disable traps to work on them. Everything<\/em> down here requires maintenance.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I patted the tall knight on his blonde head and strolled along the length of stones. I flipped my trusty knife out of my belt, stuck the square edge of it against the disable stone, and flipped it up. All the pressure traps sucked downwards a few millimeters, as if relieved. Which in a sense they were, when you thought about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Interesting.” Christoph stood up and walked over the stones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“What is interesting is that you could have still tripped it there, bigfoot.” I grimaced. “Policy states not to intentionally step on traps even if they are in a disabled state, as the trap can still be triggered.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Oh! Oh!” Christoph danced forwards a few steps and looked at the three of us goblins with guilt written broadly all over his face. “Are we ok?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Are you melting into a screaming pile of goo?” I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Nooooo…” He exhaled, trailing off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Then you are fine.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A look of relief crossed his features.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Seriously? How do you survive?” I asked again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Streya made a few scribbles in her little black notebook. “Why are they called dubndubs?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That caught me offguard. “Sorry?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We call them washrooms… where we camped last night.” She clarified further. “You keep calling them something else. Something I don’t recognize. Like a different tongue? Dub-in-Duubs? Is that High Latter Orcish?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Nope, just laziness. Waste and Water rooms. Double U, Double U. Dubndub. Dubndubs plural.” Grunk explained. “In training, wthey are called safe rooms. No traps. No lairs. No distractions.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Why?” Fror asked confusedly. “It is a dungeon!? We are in a dungeon, right?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Yeah so?” Grunk raised his unibrow on one side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It kills explorers! It is designed to harvest lifeforce. Why put in safe places?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I internally agreed. It never had made sense to me either. Don’t get me wrong, they are very useful. But that means they are useful to everyone, and that’s not great for us when the goblin killers feel nice and cozy (and fuck those guys sideways).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Because they serve a purpose. It is an ecosystem. For the Underfell to persist, it has to be in balance. The dubndubs create balance in lots of ways. They serve water, they haul waste, they are used for transfer points for all sorts of community byproducts.” Grunk seemed to enjoy teaching the adventurers. “Each dubndub is at a critical junction on that part of the floor, and it is there for a reason. The communities around it need them.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Streya put her hands up, pencil and notebook both held askew. “Hold on. Communities?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Yeah. Communities. These acid traps,” Grunk pointed at the nozzles. “Waste product from a cell of slimes. They are up there, or nearby, living their slime lives, doing whatever slimes like to do. I have no idea. They are slimes. As far as I know, the height of their civilization is forming geometric shapes. Tetrahedrons. Cylinders. Cubes. And digesting things.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This is wild.” Streya sounded like she on the verge of outright giddiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“How did you think this all worked?” I asked sardonically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Streya’s eyelids spread wider as she thought about it. “From our side of all this, one day a dungeon entrance appears. Monsters start to come out at night to steal our livestock and our children. When that dungeon entrance appears that day, through the curse of the Wizardking, we are no longer able to delve near them. Our shovels stop turning the earth, our mattocks do not carve stone, and the wells cannot be dug any deeper. For some communities, that means fleeing at a minimum<\/em>. Others are able to make do. Some thrive when they get lucky with where the dungeon entrance appears and they just have to guard their town from the monsters. For most villages, the dungeons are a pox. A plague. To us, it is a form of warfare being used against us. Sometimes a dungeon entrance sinks back into the earth and life picks back up… but that is rare.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It’s not warfare. It is our homes.” Omish’s nose wrinkled at the thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Yes. That is true.” Streya nodded thoughtfully, turning back to her notebook and scratching out her secret thoughts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Slimes. Yuck.” Christoph shuddered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I agree,” Omish smiled. “Yuck.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We can keep moving,” Miki sighed. “As interesting as this is, we are still on the first level. The only way we win all this is if we keep making progress down.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“By killing the Wizardking?” I asked. “Is that winning?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No one replied. But some uncomfortable looks floated between the adventurers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Surface dwellers…” I muttered it under my breath. Grunk nodded sagely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“How far down is it?” Christoph asked as he turned inwards to head towards the end of the hallway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“How far is what?” I sighed. I knew what he was asking, but playing dumb apparently was also in my wheelhouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Halls of the Underking start at level one hundred and one.” Grunk’s voice was positively glowing with pride. “But even we don’t know how deep it goes. Need to know basis. And we don’t need to know.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Did you say one hundred and one?” It was Fror’s turn to make a face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I loved seeing that face. What was that? Dismay? Defeat? Ooooooh, please let it be defeat! Turn around and flee, suckers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I have made it to fifty five,” Christoph said offhand. “Granted our mage had to emergency portal us out, but we did get at least halfway before. That counts for something, right?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was impressed. I had never gone below ten (for obvious reasons, such as dungeon management teams primarily having the bulk of their work closer to the surface.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Fifty five?” Omish whistled. “That’s not bad.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I lost half of my party,” Christoph frowned heavily. “It seemed bad at the time.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“And you wanted to try again?” I teased. It did not sound like teasing. Grunk gave me a disapproving look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I have my reasons,” Christoph said tersely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We all have our reasons,” Miki admitted. “Alright Team Kelpie, where is the nearest stairs?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have no fucking idea, lady. But instead I said, “This way.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This follows Damage Management Team Part V, Part IV, Part III, Part II, and Part I… Grunk nudged me awake. “Get up, Tell. Time to go.” I rolled over with a groan. “Are we seriously …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-short-story","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1011"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1012,"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions\/1012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}