The Dungeoneers by John David Anderson

holding Colm’s torch, was a boy close to his age, though shorter and even skinnier. (Colm wasn’t sure how that was possible.) He wore a scarlet robe that fell well past his feetand dragged along the stone. His wrists were adorned with silver bracelets, and his underclothes were tattered and covered in grime. His face was pale, with giant globes for eyes and thin eyebrows that made the globes look even bigger. His hair, unlike Colm’s, was long, falling over his shoulders in straw-colored strands. He looked frightened.
    The girl standing next to him did not.
    â€œMy name is Lena,” she said, putting one fist across her chest in a salute that Colm had never seen before. “Lena Proudmore. Sorry I almost decapitated you . . . Colm, was it?”
    Colm just stared. In the flickering torchlight it was hard to make out all her features clearly, but he couldn’t miss the sharp chisel of her chin, like a weapon itself. Her crimson hair was cropped short in back, falling across one eye in front, the other shining brown in the flicker of light. Her lips were pursed, pulled tight against her teeth in a determined smirk. Colm had never seen anyone with red hair and brown eyes before.
    â€œYou’re kind of . . . ,” Colm began.
    â€œIntimidating. I know. Sorry. It’s just that you can never be too careful.”
    Intimidating wasn’t what he was thinking, but he couldn’t deny it either.
    â€œUm, p-p-pardon me,” the boy in the robe said, inserting himself into the conversation and extending his free hand, his bracelets jangling. “I’m Quinn, but p-people sometimes c-c-call me N-nibbles, on account of how I’m always eating.”
    Then how come you’re so skinny? Colm wondered to himself. “Nibbles,” Colm said, taking the boy’s hand but not taking his eyes off the girl, mostly because she had nearly slit his throat a second ago. Mostly.
    â€œSo what are you , then?” Lena said, her hands on her hips.
    Colm wasn’t sure he understood the question. “Um. Lost, I guess.”
    Quinn snorted again. Lena flashed him a dirty look, and he shut up.
    â€œNo. I mean, what are you? Are you a fighter? A wizard? You’re certainly not dressed like much of anything. Oh, gods, please tell me you’re not a bard.”
    Colm pointed to himself. “What? You mean like one of those guys who go around singing dopey songs all the time?” Actually, Colm thought, maybe not such a bad life. Better than a shoe cobbler, at least. He shook his head anyway.
    â€œWell, then?” Lena pressed.
    â€œI guess I’m a thie—” Colm stopped and corrected himself. “A rogue, I mean. Except not really. I was going to train to become one. Or I was going to think about it. Then I got thrown in this hole.”
    â€œA rogue,” Lena whispered to herself. “Figures.”
    â€œFigures?”
    She looked at him; even in the torchlight, he could see her rolling her eyes. “Haven’t you ever studied Herm Hefflegeld’s theories of proper party configuration? Didn’t you ever read Stormfist’s essay on the effects of class interdependency anddungeoneering efficacy?”
    â€œHere we go,” Quinn sighed, rubbing at his eyes.
    â€œI’m sorry, I’m a little new to all of this,” Colm said. “See, I come from Felhaven—you’ve probably never heard of it, it’s, like, this little farm town ten miles and some freaky crystal teleportation jump away from here. And my family doesn’t have a whole lot of money, and then my sister got sick, and I thought if I could help pay for the medicine, you know? So I went to the town square, and I—”
    Lena put a hand in his face, actually smothering his still-moving lips. “We don’t need your life story, farm boy,” she said. “The important thing is that we finally have a rogue, so maybe we can get out of this place in one