Okay, I know how the rest of this goes now. Bit of a relief, really. Sometimes the story decides to go somewhere else.
Anton squinted at the door at the top of the stairs. “We’d have to go through the door one at a time,” he said. “So it’s going to be a choke-point.”
“That’s not so bad,” pointed out Jill. “It’s a choke-point for him, too. We can push him back easier than he can us. It’s not like he’s going to have a gun.”
The party collectively chuckled. It was very unlikely that their target had a gun. This deep into the Second Republic it was generally safe to keep a rifle around for hunting and seeing off non-sapient beasts, but gunpowder had a bad habit of exploding whenever encountering an unfriendly mage. Humanity was back to fighting with crossbows and sharpened pieces of metal again, and in fights like those numbers meant a lot more.
The door at the top of the stairwell appeared neither guarded nor trapped; unfortunately, it just wasn’t trapped in a way that Jack could see. Opening it promptly set off a godawful clatter that reverberated across the dark corridors and half-rubble rooms making up the second floor. Jack swore as the five of them hurriedly cleared the door. “Bastard propped up a mop and a bucket!” he hissed, pointing at the offending items. “That’s cheating.”