I know that I had been expecting a fight from the moment I walked through the door, but it would’ve been nice if it could’ve started off when I wasn’t in the middle of the room and easily surrounded. I immediately dropped my backpack to the ground and stowed my crowbar. Then I checked my mag and flipped the selector switch to binary. All around the room, coming from every direction, I started to hear the stone shifting around as ten of the floor panels began to lift up.

“Oh fuck me…”

I could not afford to just sit there and wait for them to finish emerging, so I promptly opened fire on the closest crab. Much like its cousins in the other rooms, it took nearly half a magazine of 7.62x39 to the body before it finally collapsed to the floor and died. By the time it had stopped moving the other nine had climbed free of their holes in the floor, and were beginning to charge my way.

Ability: Minor Speed activated

I took off in a sprint toward the north side of the room, just barely threading the needle between two of them that were scuttling toward me. They swiped with their claws as I passed through, narrowly missing my shins. I aimed left and fired into the crab to that side while my Blade slashed at the legs of the right crab. The knife chopped through two of the legs, but the tanky bastard only barely slowed down from the loss of the limbs. A third crab rushed around and blocked my way, so I jumped and slid across its head. Like gliding along the hood of a car.

The moment my feet hit the floor again I took off to make some distance. My Blade repeatedly stabbed into the sides of the crabs, severing a leg here and there and even a claw, but the damage-sponges didn’t seem to care about the attacks one single bit. They rushed toward me like crustaceous bulls over and over, not allowing me a moment to stop moving. It reminded me of a video game series that I used to play, which featured a type of giant skeleton that rolled around in a big wagon wheel.

All I could do was keep dodging and take any pot shot that I could. Their thick claws made for perfect shielding for their faces. The top of their heads was solid stone. It was difficult to get along their side without another attacking me.

It felt like I was running around that room for an hour, as I dodged blades and bodyslams, but really it had been barely thirty seconds. I finally managed to kill another two after whittling them down, and gained myself a bit of breathing room. That was great, but left me with only two mags left on my chest, one in the gun, and the two in my left glove. I had the AP rounds on the right, but I wanted to save that for the coming bossfight if I could. Each time that I tried to get to my backpack to restock ammo the crabs would try to mob me, they wouldn’t give me the chance.

As I mag dumped into the side of another crab that I’d flanked, I decided then and there that I would be upgrading caliber again the moment I made it out of the dungeon. Well, if I made it out of the dungeon.

This place was being entirely unfair with the power balancing with how durable these things were. Seriously, what right does any biological creature have to outright tank close to twenty rounds of 7.62x39 in the body before dying? Shit, I’ve seen bears and moose dropped by one or two rounds! What was I supposed to do if I didn’t have a gun? Fight them off with a sword?

Stamina: 70/100

Until I could get out and switch, all I had was my rifle and my handgun. Well, really just the rifle. I knew the 10mm was going to be pretty much useless here.

I rushed toward the next crab and jooked to the right as it swiped at me, the blade cut down the side of my pants but missed my skin. I unloaded into its back once I got past it. It clumsily tried to turn around and face me, but I was already moving again toward the others. Back and forth I had to go. There was no time at all to slow down and engage just one at a time, despite how much easier that would’ve made it. When I tried to focus on just one, the others would close in.

My only option was to hit and run, to slowly chip away at their absurd durability.

Three more of them finally succumbed to their wounds, leaving only four left for me to deal with.

Stamina: 30/100

I could do nothing but watch as my Stamina ticked ever lower. Too low for comfort. The moment that it hit zero and I slowed down, I’d likely be overrun. If it wasn’t for their awful turn radius, I’d have been caught by them already. I did a quick tally of my ammo as I went around the perimeter of the room. The last three had taken two mags between them, leaving me with zero mags left in my vest, and the two in my glove. All the rest of my spares sat full nearby in the backpack. Out of reach and useless to me.

With a lot more room to maneuver freely, I was able to run in a tight circle around the group, dumping rounds into their backs. They seemed to be stuck in a loop of constantly spinning to face me instead of moving. That might’ve been the perfect way to finish them off, abusing their stupidity, at least until one had the bright idea to just charge straight out and into my path.

“Shit!”

I couldn’t dodge around with his claws held out to the sides, not in time. My only option was to try and jump over him like the one earlier. I leapt over the air, and watched as his body suddenly lowered. Then his legs tensed and he bounced upward.

I was directly over his head. All I could do was mentally brace myself for impact.

Aura: 60%

The upward bodyslam was not enough to send me flying up into the ceiling, this time, but it did make me flip through the air until I landed on my side and rolled. The other three seized the opportunity to rush me, and I had to push along to the floor to avoid their claws as they chopped down at me like a team of chefs cutting vegetables. They left deep gouges in the stone floor as they tried to slice me up like a Thanksgiving turkey.

There was no opportunity for me to get off the ground, the moment I stopped moving they’d be free to rip me apart.

My only option was to open fire. That would require me to stop. And their claws were perfect shields against normal 7.62x39.

I wondered if they are stronger than AR500.

Fuck, I wanted to save that ammo.

I used all the strength my legs had to give myself a final push along the ground to give myself any amount of breathing room. I dropped my mag and conjured the AP from my glove and seated it in a single fluid motion. I popped the normal round out and chambered the new one and took aim at one’s face right as it was lifting up its claws to chop my ass.

I fired three bursts as fast as my finger could move right into its eyes and it dropped like a rock. The other three were right behind it, moving to the sides of its dead body to get to me. All I could do now was hold my ground and hope the ammo did its work. The second crab took six rounds and fell. The third’s blade scraped against my Aura while the eighth round killed it.

Aura: 0%

The final crab raised up its claws as I put six rounds into it, and then brought them down on my right leg.

I can only say that I’m thankful I moved it in time. The bladed appendages came just short of cutting my leg clean off. I still felt them glide right through the fabric of my pants and my flesh like it wasn’t there. My bone might have well been warm butter for all it mattered. The blades cut through my leg a few inches above my knee, and blood began pouring out like a waterfall.

I could only scream as the overwhelming pain shot through me. I might’ve let it shut me down if my survival instinct didn’t quickly kick down the door and tell all of my senses to stop being a bunch of little bitches and do something. I fired ten more rounds into the crab and stopped it short of bringing its blades down on my shoulders. It collapsed into the quickly growing pool of my blood.

Ability: Minor Speed deactivated

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Stamina: 0/100

My head began to droop over as I started falling to my side. It felt like such a great time to stop and rest. Just a short nap was all I needed to pick me up. Then I could—

There I was, sitting and shivering in the unheated tree stand between Charlie and my uncle, staring through the lens of my scope at the most magnificent elk I’d ever seen.

“If you don’t take that shot, I will.”

“Shut up. I’m focusing… Uncle, distance?”

He held the rangefinder to his eye.

“I read six hundred yards. Wind is going about… Ten miles per hour to the south.”

I adjusted my sight, clicking the scope’s elevation turret.

“Christ, I could have put two in the thing by now.”

“Charlie, I swear to god, I will put one in your leg.”

“If he doesn’t, I will. Now shush, Charlie.”

“Yes sir…”

Charlie crossed his arms and huffed. He’d been invited along at the last minute, and had to beg his mother to let him come. She didn’t like it when he hung around when my uncle was visiting, let alone a whole week out in the mountains. She said my uncle was a bad influence.

“Remember James, just behind the shoulder. Take out the lungs or we’ll have to track it to make sure it drops.”

I took a deep breath, aimed for just behind the elk’s shoulder, and squeezed the trigger. The stock of the rifle drove into my shoulder and nearly knocked the breath out of me. It was only the second time I had ever fired a 300 Winchester Magnum, the first was the day before we left for the trip to test the rifle’s zero. The caliber was never meant to be fired by a fourteen year old.

Even with my hearing protection, the sound shook me to the core. My uncle barely flinched as he kept watch through the rangefinder. I couldn’t get my sight lined up in time to watch the impact.

“Clean hit. He’s down!”

“Suck it Charlie!”

I jumped up from the camping stool I’d been sitting in for the last five hours. The built up frost on my pant legs fell off as I did a small victory dance.

“Yeah yeah… I thought I was going to graduate college before you shot.”

“Cut it boys, time to go hiking. I want that elk in the back of the truck before sundown!”

“Aye aye sir!”

We both snapped to attention, and climbed down from the tree stand one by one. My uncle lowered the rifle by a line to us, then climbed down last.

“Tomorrow will be your day Charlie, then mine after that! We’ll all be eating elk for a year after this!”

The three of us began walking, trudging through the snow. My heart was still racing, I had never hit a target that far before. When my uncle had taken me to his favorite range before, the furthest I had hit was three hundred yards, and that was with his custom .308 after ten minutes of coaching.

I’d taken that elk out, that far away, on the first try.

“You ready to feel that recoil tomorrow Charlie?”

“No, but I’ll do it anyway! And mine will be a thousand yards!”

“Right… and then you’ll be going on your date with two super models and they’ll buy you an Xbox?”

I heard a faint noise, one that I could only describe as a “whumpf”. Then the ground fell out from under us.

“James! Wake up! Come on buddy, I need your help!”

My eyes opened to see the sky above, and cliff faces all around. The snow had collapsed and dropped us into a covered ravine. I looked around. There laid my uncle, his leg past the knee was crushed under a chunk of ice. He waved and put on a smile, but I could see how much pain he was really in.

“Hey bud, I know this looks bad, but believe me I’ve been through worse.”

Blood was pooling under him.

“Fuck!”

I got up and ran over to him.

“Fuck fuck fuck! What happened! What do I do!"

“The knife that was on my side broke through its sheath during the fall, I think it is currently lodged into my calf under this ice."

He fumbled with his pants, pulling his belt off.

“Do you know how to apply a tourniquet, James?”

“No!”

“Alright, I’m going to teach you. I need you to get that around my leg, about four inches above my knee, can you do that?”

“I think so…”

“Good.”

I had to dig out some of the snow below his leg to loop it around.

“Now what?”

“Tighten that fuck as hard as you can! If you think it’s too tight, it's not. I promise.”

I did as best I could, and the puddle stopped growing.

“Good job bud… I’m probably gonna lose consciousness soon… Already lost too much blood… I need you to mark the time on my forehead.”

“What? Why?”

“So whoever you find for help knows how long it’s been on my leg. Hurry up, this is important bud.”

“James! Mr. Rogers!”

Charlie’s voice called out from above. I looked up to see him peeking over the side of the ravine.

“Ah… good… You two boys… Mi— Might take both of you to—”

His head slumped over and his eyes shut. I put my hand to his chest, I could feel that he was still breathing, but barely. I grabbed the marker that he had in his pocket, for marking the map, and wrote the time on his forehead.

“Charlie! You gotta run back to the tree stand! We need that rope that he lowered the gun with!”

“Got it!”

He took off, leaving me and my unconscious uncle alone in the ravine, unsure how exactly we’d pull this off. I dug around to try and find the radio, but it was buried somewhere under feet of snow. I was almost certain that my uncle was going to die that day.

No, that’s not right, I remember it clearly. We did pull it off, just the two of us.

Charlie got the rope, he tied it to a tree. The two of us got that block of ice off of him and hauled my uncle out. It took us two hours to carry him to the ranger station to get help. He managed to keep the leg. After months of physical therapy he was walking around and went back to elk hunting in the woods every year, but needed a cane for the rest of his life. He kept going another ten years after that day.

We never did track down the elk.

My eyes opened again to see the familiar stone walls around me, and I felt the warm blood soaking my jeans.

I remembered I had packed a tourniquet in my vest, and I pulled it free and strapped it around my leg a few inches above the cuts. I tightened it by hand as much as I could before my strength failed me. The blood loss was already making my hands go numb. I managed to secure it and the flow of blood slowed, but still didn’t stop. I just didn’t have the strength left to tighten it enough. Unlike my uncle, I didn't have anyone nearby to help me. I was lightheaded, my vision full of spots. I felt so cold. If I fell asleep now then I was properly fucked.

I knew my femoral artery was cut, and nothing on my person could stop the bleeding in time. I knew that I’d pass out before I could make it to the first aid kit in my backpack, even though that might not have been enough to save me. I refused to just lay there and die though. My hands fumbled in my pockets until I found the potion I had just gotten, I tried to pry the stopper out, but my fingers lost all ability to grip it tight. My brain was running dry of blood as I thought of any way I could open it.

I remembered the gem in my pocket, the one I had thought I’d never use. I barely got the pocket flap open and dug my hand in until I felt the gem touch my skin, and willed myself to use it.

Gem of Berserker Rage used

I could feel the immediate adrenaline rush as it kicked in, and my foggy head started to cloud over more as my heart pumped. There wasn’t enough blood in my body for it to run, like running an engine completely dry of oil. I felt the strength return to my hands as I grabbed the phial and ripped the stopper out. I tipped it against my lips and drank it without hesitation.

The liquid was foul. The taste reminded me of the moonshine that my uncle used to make. I had stolen some once for a party. Once. This stuff burned even more as it went down.

Scratch that. It was so much worse. The burn was spreading through my body. I began to scream as it felt like every inch of me was set on fire. My heart had been racing like a car, but the tank was just fumes now and it was sputtering out as it began to stall

As my vision faded to black, all I could think was that I’d made a terrible mistake.