"Is Max okay?" The small red kobold Ruby looked up at her master Max with slight worry.
"Tss..." Max's knee still ached faintly, but the pain had mostly faded, leaving only a lingering numbness.
Max slowly put down his foot. "It's almost healed, nothing serious," he reassured Ruby, who knew she had messed up.
Just then, a *ding-dong* sound, like that of a bell, came from somewhere on the table.
"Ruby will find it!" In an instant, a red blur darted past.
Soon, Ruby found a mysterious bronze bell on the table, jingling restlessly in her hands.
Max took the bell and examined it closely. As if some mechanism had been triggered, ripples spread outward from the bell, forming a large-scale projection. Clearly, this was a magical device similar to a surveillance monitor.
In the projection displayed by the bell, a group of unidentified figures loitered near the dungeon's entrance.
Upon closer inspection, they wore black cloth masks, dressed in dark stealth attire, and carried weapons of various sizes—their genders and ages impossible to discern.
"Is this really the legendary mage's dwelling?" A deep, masculine voice came through the bell.
"This heist will be worth our while."
Clearly, this was a band of thieves who had set their sights on the dungeon.