“I think he’s waking up,” Hans heard Olza’s voice say. It waivered, like it was weak

Where…

A blinding orange orb floated over him, surrounded by darkness. He saw a blurred shape that could have been Olza’s face.

What… Oh gods, my head.

“Easy, Hans. Take it slow.”

His vision sharpened, adjusting to the torchlight. Terry, Quentin, and Kane sat nearby, looking at the Guild Master. They appeared… disheveled.

“You passed out,” Olza explained. She looked to be on the verge of tears. “I’m worried you hit your head on the way down.”

“I’ve lost way more blood than that and been fine.”

“I’m not sure if that’s the culprit,” Olza said. “The core turned black at the same time you collapsed… and that’s not all, but we’re safe here, so don’t rush it.”

Hans climbed on to his elbows and scooted backward to sit against the dungeon wall. Taking a better look at his Apprentices, he saw their hair was wet with sweat, and gore dried on their armor.

“What happened?”

The Apprentices looked to one another as if deciding who should speak. Terry took on the responsibility. “The dungeon reset like it usually does with a suggestion, but this one was different. There’s usually three gnolls down the hall from the core, right? This time there were nine.”

“Nine?”

“Yes, sir. It got hairy there for a minute, but the boys did good. Their hard work is paying off.”

“Yours too, sounds like,” Hans said. “Is the rest of the dungeon like that?”

“Don’t know,” Terry answered. “We haven’t checked, and Olza was pretty worried about you. I wasn’t. I know there’s not much in that head to damage.”

Hans laughed, making his head swim. He closed his eyes to steady himself. After a minute, he said, “How long ago was this?”

“Twenty minutes or so.”

“Nothing else has come down the corridor? Camahuetos? Imps?”

“No, sir.”

That was a good sign. If the rest of the reset went like the gnolls, they would have three times as many monsters to fight to reach the surface. The party had recently slept from the run to the bottom, but the looks on the Apprentice’s faces told Hans their adrenaline had already dumped, a sort of post-battle hangover where the body struggles to rebalance itself after a surge of near-death danger.

Hans kicked himself for being overconfident with the core. He should have brought Bel or Lee with them, but at the time, it sounded like a waste to pull them from training for that long. Now his party was vastly outnumbered and had a civilian with them no less.

No amount of regret would get them to the surface, so for now they would rest a while longer, talk tactics, and then fight their way up.

New Quest: Safely deliver your party to the surface.

***

Fighting six camahuetos with a party of warriors was frightful, but manageable.

A small herd of the horned beasts charging down a narrow corridor was a new challenge for the Apprentices. It would be a challenge for most adventurers, actually. That was a lot of mass moving with great speed.

Olza waited in the dungeon core room, and Hans told the Apprentices to take up their formation where the camahuetos were still out of sight. The Guild Master ran ahead. Seconds later, they heard the sound of battle–hooves clopping on stone, grunts of angry animals, a sword hitting meat. Two camahuetos ran toward the adventurers, but their heads weren’t lowered for a battle charge.

They fled.

When the monsters saw three sets of swords and shields ahead, they slowed, hesitating. As if they considered turning back but thought better of it, they continued their charge. The Apprentices did as they had practiced on dozens of runs before: They held their ground, waiting until the last moment to dodge to the side. As the beasts stampeded by, their own forward momentum dragged sword tips across the length of their bodies.

“Another to you!” they heard Hans yell, a third camahueto coming down the hall shortly after. The Apprentices dispatched it handily and jogged to catch up to Hans. The Guild Master wiped his sword on one of three dead monsters surrounding him.

“How?” Quentin asked.

Hans smiled. “Practice. Monsters are often surprised if their own tactics are used against them.”

“So you charged them?”

“Yes, but that’s not important right now. Get Olza, and from here on, dungeon silence protocol is in effect. If we can pass the imps and the geckos without a fight, we’ll be fresher for the Bone Goblins.”

As the boys backtracked to get the alchemist, Terry looked at the camahueto bodies and frowned. “Think the whole dungeon reset like this?”

Hans nodded.

“So three minotaurs and three shamans are waiting for us?”

“And a whole mess of goblin grunts.”

Terry took a slow deep breath, holding the exhale for several long seconds. “If you asked me an hour if I had ever been in a real battle, I would have said yes.”

“And?”

“I would have been wrong. A real battle is ahead.”

***

A few dozen yards from the gate into the Bone Goblin section, Hans whispered. “We’re lucky to be doing this backward,” he said. “We have the element of surprise, and the shamans will be easier to reach, but that doesn’t change the fact that three minotaurs will defend them. Terry and I will go after the shamans. Quentin and Kane, your job is to hold the door and take down the goblins that come your way, but more importantly, we need you to watch for the minotaurs. If they are coming for me or Terry, call it as quickly as you can.”

The boys nodded.

“Once the shamans are down, we’ll all regroup on Kane and Quentin. Until then, avoid the minotaurs at all costs. Does everyone understand their orders?”

All three Apprentices nodded. Olza stood near them, clutching a rusty hatchet she salvaged from a dead gnoll. Her face had been pale since Hans woke up, and she stared ahead at nothing in particular.

“Okay, good. I’m going to channel Gret as best I can. If we’re lucky, we take down at least one shaman before they realize they are under attack. When you hear combat or my call, breach.”

As Hans steeled himself for the battle ahead, he asked the rest of the party to go around the corner with their torches so his eyes could adjust to the darkness. He didn’t have low light vision like the goblins, so he’d be moving through the room by memory for the most part. When he could see the faint outlines of the goblin gate in the darkness, he opened it slowly and crept into the shaman room.

The shamans spotted Hans first.

A small meteor flashed to life and rocketed toward Hans, fire blazing. He deflected it with his shield, cursing his terrible stealth skills but thankful for the brief light. He spotted two of the shamans in the flash and charged, calling for the rest of the party to enter as he did.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

He dodged a glowing arrow made from mana and ran the first shaman through, withdrawing his sword swiftly to turn on the next. His sword bounced off a magic barrier, and though it was invisible, he heard the distinct sound of glass cracking, a sign that he could smash it completely with one or two more strikes.

He heard another sound as well, but that sound didn’t make sense.

Mixed in with the shuffling of goblin feet and the clopping of minotaur hooves, he heard the sound of something large, traveling on bare feet. They didn’t make the clatter of beast claws bouncing off of stone. They were heavy and muted, like bags of flour dropping to the floor.

As he delivered another strike to the shaman’s barrier, he saw the glint of a battle axe. A skeletal minotaur was on the charge.

And it barreled toward Kane and Quentin.

“Break!” Hans yelled, but the boys couldn’t. Goblins swarmed them, cutting off their mobility.

Shit.

The minotaur plowed through the goblins in its way like they were rats.

Shit shit.

The barrier broke. The shaman it protected, with nowhere to go, shot another meteor at the Guild Master. The spell hit Hans in the chest as he beheaded the goblin caster. The impact hurt, but the meteor didn’t have enough space to gather truly dangerous momentum, and Hans’ adrenaline was high.

Hans turned to charge toward the Apprentices when he saw the glinting battle axe–mere feet from the boys–fall to the floor, the minotaur wielding it collapsing into a scatter of bones.

Thank the gods.

“Two shamans down!” Hans yelled.

The flicker of a shadow crossed Hans’ vision, coming from somewhere behind him. Sensing danger, he threw himself sideways into a roll. A crude club, more broken log than crafted weapon, splintered against the stone where he stood a moment before.

As Hans came up to his feet from the roll, he punched one goblin grunt in the face with his sword hand and bashed another with his shield.

Please don’t be a champion. Please don’t be a champion.

“Champion on the move!” he yelled, warning the rest of his party that something big was in the room. He still hoped it wasn’t a champion, but he didn’t have time to communicate the complexity of his doubts. Making his allies aware was more important than species-specific accuracy.

Not being accurate still bothered him, though.

Hans slid backward, moving away from the beast and into the faintest edge of Quentin’s torchlight.

The club came again, swinging low to sweep horizontally. A glimpse of the goblin’s hands put Hans at ease. They were too small to be a champion. The monster he fought was bigger than Buru, but not by much. It had the typical look of a goblin but sized up–twisted pointy ears, teeth filed to points, oily green-brown skin, and a belly from gorging itself.

Not a champion. Just a berserker.

Hans hopped the club swing like it was a jump rope. As soon as his feet returned to the ground he shot forward, severing the goblin’s arm at the elbow before it could reverse its attack and swing back the opposite direction.

“Shaman down!” Terry yelled from somewhere far into the room.

Too close to attack with his sword, Hans shoved the surprised berserker with his shield. The monster shrieked in pain and anger, the shock of the wound breaking its focus, costing the creature its balance.

Hans retracted his arms from the shove and shot forward again, this time thrusting upward into the berserker’s chest, entering just beneath the sternum, smoothly sliding through flesh and organs. He shoved the monster again to withdraw his sword and spun to aid Kane and Quentin.

He relaxed. The boys had the presence of mind to follow orders and hold the gate where they entered. They used it as a chokepoint to keep from being surrounded by the fifteen or so goblins still standing. Hans and Terry reached them at the same time, chopping down goblins like machetes cleaving through jungle.

When the last goblin of the group fell, Hans shouted, “On me!”

They swept the rest of the room as a unit, finding a few stray goblins, all of them desperate to retreat. The last three clawed at the exit leading toward the surface, struggling to open the heavy stone door. They died too.

“Hans,” Terry said. “Was that us?” He pointed to a pile of goblins, their bodies slashed to ribbons.

“Not us.” Hans approached the pile. Before crouching down to inspect the nearest body, he put a foot on the goblin’s head, turning it away and holding it there.

“I think they’re dead,” Terry added, helpfully.

“I think so too, but if one almost dead goblin nearly chomps your fingers off, you don’t forget.” The Guild Master touched the back of the goblin’s neck. “Cold. These were definitely sacrifices to make the berserker.”

Hans took one more look around the room. “Injuries?”

Kane had a gash on his head, from a rock, he thought, and both him and Quentin had superficial scrapes and cuts up their sword arms. Terry had similar injuries, as well as a goblin arrow sticking out of his arm, which he noticed for the first time right then.

“Huh,” Terry said, looking at the small arrow embedded in his shield shoulder. “When did that happen?”

“Don’t pull it out yet.”

“I was there for that class. I know not to pull it out.”

“Knowing the right path and choosing the right path are two different things.” Hans said. “Kane, Quentin, pack and wrap the worst of your wounds, then do Terry’s. Terry: Keep that arm still.”

Borrowing the berserker’s club, Hans wedged it against the doors to the surface. If other goblins heard the battle, they would be on their way, so best to buy time if he could. Next, he jogged out of the shaman room and down the dungeon corridor to collect Olza. She stood against the wall, clutching the hatchet, shaking slightly. Her face was empty and ashen.

“Olza, it’s okay,” Hans said, trying to get her attention without spooking her. “The worst is over. I know you’re scared, and that’s okay too. We’ll be out of here soon, but first I need your help.”

Hans brought Olza to Terry. He knew the alchemist knew first aid–she taught half the classes on the topic at the guild hall–but she was shaken, so Hans told her what to do.

“Get bandages ready,” he said. “Terry, drink a Healing potion.”

When Terry finished chugging the vial and grimacing at the taste, Olza and Hans crouched next to him. Terry winced when Hans put a hand on his shoulder to hold him still. Hans yanked the arrow out, a hunk of flesh going with it.

Terry cursed as blood spilled out of the wound and down his arm. Olza pressed her bandages into it to slow the bleeding. While she held the bandages in place, Hans wrapped the wound, having to go around Terry’s body to effectively secure the bandage to the shoulder. With dungeon left to run, he wedged packing under Terry’s armor and wrapped over it. They could change the dressing on the surface.

Hans told the Apprentices to drink a round of Healing potions, including Terry, who would be drinking his second. The potions wouldn’t close the wounds before the run finished, but they would help with pain and stave off bleeding and infection in the meantime. In this case, Terry drank two because his risk of infection was much higher. Goblins were known to dip their arrows in feces, delighting in suffering they’d only enjoy beyond the grave.

Terry knew that already. They covered it in their lessons.

After minimal discussion and a little bit of rest, they continued their journey to the surface. The quantity of goblins in their path made that trip a slog. The Apprentices had to stop from time to time to catch their breath and rest their sword arms. Hans didn’t need to rest, but he welcomed the reprieve all the same.

The journey through the bayou–Hans refused to use the nickname the Apprentices used–was mostly hiking. None of the monsters, or the alligators for that matter, were aggressive toward humans by nature. Slimes were mindless unless disturbed. Goliath toads were happy to relax in the mud, unbothered. Alligators would eat a person if they had to, but they preferred less challenging prey.

The party didn’t speak a word on their way through the swamp. They no longer needed to be particularly stealthy, but stress and fatigue made conversation less inviting.

When they exited the bayou section, entering the final long stretch of dungeon corridor, they found a dead alligator, killed with a sword thrust by the shape and precision of the wound in its head.

Must have wandered out of the bayou.

As they approached the turnoff for the iron mines, they found Honronk seated on the ground, cross legged, reading a spellbook. When he saw the state of the party, he hopped to his feet.

“What do you need?”

“Can you come with us and help get these wounds cleaned and wrapped?”

Honronk nodded. Seeing Terry’s shoulder, he took the Apprentice’s bag, sword, and shield to carry them for his wounded comrade. Terry was grateful.

“I’m glad you didn’t try to come down for us,” Hans said as they neared the door.

“Come down?”

“To rescue us from the reset… Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“No. An alligator wandered to my front door. I wanted to request a dungeon gate so that didn’t happen again.”

“You didn’t know something was wrong?”

Honronk shook his head. “Should I have?”

Hans chuckled and told the tusk not to worry about it.

***

Open Quests (Ordered from Old to New):

Progress from Gold-ranked to Diamond-ranked.

Mend the rift with Devon.

Using a pen name, complete the manuscript for "The Next Generation: A Teaching Methodology for Training Adventurers."

Expand the dungeon with resource-specific monsters for each of Gomi’s major trades.

Decide whether or not to pursue silent walking and snow walking.

Find a way for Gomi adventurers to benefit from their rightful ranks in the Adventurers’ Guild.

Build a rest area in the dungeon with space for Luther to live there full-time.

Secure a way to use surplus dungeon inventory for good.

Expand the dungeon using the ogre valley job as a blueprint.

Safely deliver your party to the surface.