Wolfe flinched slightly as Nico’s head snapped to the side. Teeth, skin, and viscera blew out of his mouth as his whole face distorted from the gunshot. Nico’s own gun went off half a second later, but the blow to his face had caused him to skew sideways, and the enforcer’s aim followed—the bullet slammed into the tiled floor of the pound next to Wolfe’s head and skittered away, small flecks of ceramic pelting the side of his face.

Wolfe didn’t waste his opportunity, flipping his cards and bringing forth his tier-two ‘torturer imp’ and then rapidly reloading while rolling deeper behind the desk. He had two ‘return to the pit’ cards as his others, but for once wanted the cover of a creature rather than giving himself a clear run at his enemy. He heard gunfire and then Shel and Miriam yelling.

He popped his head back over the counter and in half a second picked two enemies. Kevin, who had the same general look of his sister—red hair, green eyes, and freckles—was right next to the counter. He had gone full ginger.

Never go full ginger, Wolfe thought to himself semi-hysterically in the moment.

Kevin was short and even thinner than his sister and had dark bags around his eyes and a yellowing bruise on his face.

Behind Kevin were two thugs with black hair and brown eyes, as well as a man in white riot armor—identified as a common two power, tier-one mortal ‘rookie riot police’ card—and, on the ground, a fucking dragon egg. Nico was running into the other room, hunched over with his hand over his face, and Wolfe didn’t see either Shel or Miriam.

Wolfe’s gun had a red aura across it from his ‘soul hunter’ mantle, and he fired into both the thugs’ chests as he figured them to be the most dangerous targets. Both went down hard and didn’t move.

Kevin was so startled, he managed to drop his gun, but then he tackled Wolfe, hitting him square and sending him back toward the floor. Wolfe released his own gun and managed to squirm so they hit sideways—but he landed on his elbow, and screaming pain shot through his arm.

Kevin managed to get on top in the scramble and rained two blows on Wolfe’s face since one of the enforcer’s arms was shot and the other numb with agony. But Wolfe brought his legs up and around, putting them across Kevin’s chest, and then threw him off to land against the inside of the receptionist’s desk. Kevin hit awkwardly, and as he struggled to get up, Wolfe kicked out hard, hitting Shel’s brother in the temple and slamming his head against the desk interior. Kevin went down like someone had cut a puppet’s strings.

It’ll take a lot more than one half-trained punk to take me out, even without the use of my arms, Wolfe thought to himself.

There was silence, then walking. It sounded feminine, but Wolfe wasn’t taking any chances, grabbing his gun and training it toward the side of the desk.

Shel was the one who came around it, and Wolfe breathed a sigh of relief, holstering his gun. He stood gingerly, wincing as he put pressure on his arm.

“Told you we could help,” Miriam said as she came around the side as well, carrying an ivory-inlaid derringer in one hand and a golf club in the other.

“Touché,” Wolfe muttered, then he walked into the other room, the dogs barking a constant sound.

He kept shaking his arm out as he walked over to a cabinet and opened it. He was looking for a dog tranquilizer and quickly found it—something called Telazol with an injector. He grabbed two of them, then came back and bent over Kevin.

“What are you doing?” Shel asked.

Kevin’s pants were already low, an upper butt cheek exposed, and Wolfe injected him, hoping for the best. “Putting him to sleep so we can get him out of here.”

“Why not just put him in the car?” Shel asked. “I mean, he’s already knocked out. Is that even safe for human use?”

“I don’t know,” Wolfe said irritably, pulling Kevin’s pants up fully. Idiot already looks ridiculous. “But your brother here nearly killed me, and we didn’t get Nico and one of the others. So, more of the Cobras will be here in about thirty minutes. Which is the time we have to run the dungeon and get cards before we have to take Miriam to her plane ride. At that point, we lose access to the dungeon forever. I’d rather get some decent cards while we can.”

Miriam was smiling. “I can’t wait to go through a card dungeon! What’s this one’s theme? Dogs?”

“Pretty sure it’s werewolves,” Wolfe offered.

Shel was staring at Wolfe, fear in her eyes. “Wolfe, you can’t do that. You’re shot! You shouldn’t run the dungeon.”

I can fucking handle it. “I’ll be fine.”

“How much Health are you down?” Shel asked, stepping forward.

“Even wounded, I’m harder to kill than you, girl,” Wolfe responded irritably.

He grabbed Kevin’s torso and hauled him back to a sitting position, but his arm twinged. “Can you girls get one leg each? This fucking tweaker probably only weighs a hundred and forty pounds, tops.”

Miriam and Shel grabbed one leg each, and they manhandled Kevin to the car, each of them walking weird and grunting—Miriam and Shel because they were tiny, and Wolfe because he was wounded. Eventually, they managed to get him into the very back of the SUV, though.

I really hope fuckface here doesn’t wake in the next twenty-five minutes. I don’t want to come back and find he’s taken the car.

Wolfe breathed deeply and stretched, hands on his back, to try to crack it—but no luck. He exhaled and motioned back to the pound, which had finally quieted but for a single dog constantly yapping.

“Shall we?”

Miriam smiled and hefted her derringer. “Yes.”

Wolfe glanced over at Shel, whose eyes flickered to the back of the SUV and then to Wolfe’s arm. But she nodded.

I should have gotten Shel a gun and some training. That would make her a touch dangerous at least. Although, fuck, I met her less than twenty hours ago—haven’t had the time.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

He whipped his phone out and quickly looked up the strengths and resistances of Beast type creatures. He was almost positive that they would find a bunch of them in the dungeon. He found the master chart and checked it.

Type

Weakness

Resistance

Immunity

Beast

Corrupt, Undead, Death

Divine

Corrupt

Infernal

Dragon

Psychic

Beast

Elder

Nature, Plant

Elemental

*Dependent

*Dependent, Corrupt

Psychic, Death

Golem

Lightning

Fire, Ice, Life

Corrupt, Psychic, Death

Infernal

Divine

Mortal

Mortal

Corrupt, Infernal

Beast

Nature

Corrupt

Beast, Plant

Life

Plant

Corrupt, Death, Fire

Shadow

Light

Undead

Life (reverses)

Death (reverses)

Energy

Weakness

Resistance

Corrupt

Life

Death

Life

Fire

Ice

Ice

Fire

Life

Death

Corrupt

Light

Shadow

Lightning

Meta

All except Meta

Psychic

Telekinetic

Beast, Dragon

Wow, Beast has bad matchups against everything. It’s weak to Corrupted, Undead, and Death, resists nothing, is immune to nothing, and is resisted by Dragon, Mortal, Nature, and Telekinetic.

“All right, Shel, here’s the deal. With Sorenia, your lantern angel companion, out, you’ll have amazing matchups against beasts, as your mortal cards will do twenty-five percent more damage and will also take half base damage from their natural resistance. Your cards will be way stronger. You yourself will take less damage as well as long as your mantle’s on, and that’s also huge.”

Shel nodded.

Actually, a Divine and Mortal deck would likely kick the shit out of my Infernal and Beast deck… Infernal wrecks Mortal, but Divine beats Infernal and Mortal beats Beast. Not like I plan to betray her or anything, but just something else to keep in the back of my mind.

“What about me?” Miriam asked.

“Well, your dragon eggs will take less damage, but I doubt that’ll be a huge deal. Just try to keep the derringer firing, I guess.”

She frowned.

Wolfe eyed the horizon, where the moon was just coming up.

“Let’s go. We’ve got, like, eighteen minutes, I think. If we’re focused, we can get to at least one sub-boss.”

Wolfe started jogging inside, and the others followed.

As he reached the inside of the pound, a shimmery, moonlight door formed in the wall, and a howl that was only half sound reverberated through his soul, pushing at his will with a terrible fear.

Every dog in the pound went dead silent, even the one that had yapped since the first gunshot.

Miriam stumbled and Shel trembled, but Wolfe just pushed it aside. He’d been there and done that in a lot of life and death situations and knew how to act through fear.

“Still want to go in?” he asked them.

Both warily nodded, almost identical expressions.

Wolfe stepped into the gate.

With no sense of the passage of time or space, Wolfe found himself inside a forest. Ahead him he saw building tops through the forest canopy. It’s lights cast a ruddy glow over the trees. A powerline on rickety poles ran from somewhere ahead of him toward the town, surprising Wolfe—the dungeons rarely acknowledged the advance of technology. From the same direction as the town, he heard screams.

Damn. I’ve read about dungeons, but this is something else entirely. Really… different. The gods are powerful and strange as fuck both.

Wolfe glanced around. Behind him and to the side, Wolfe saw a huge moon, blood red. A glow came from the forest just ‘below’ the moon, from Wolfe’s current position. An eldritch glow that spoke of magic.

As Shel and Miriam materialized near him, Wolfe turned to face them. “Let’s head to the town.”

“Why?” Shel asked, staring back at the eldritch glow coming from behind them.

As Wolfe broke into a jog, he answered. “Nothing here is real, so this is just a choice over card types to get first. I can get Infernal cards from kicking Cobra ass, but you have no naturally available source of cards. So we should grab some Mortal cards by ‘rescuing’ whatever fake people are in the town—” Wolf said, holding air quotes up as he picked up speed. He strongly suspected there was no real reason to run in regards to saving people, but he wasn’t a hundred percent sure. Perhaps the town had a timer before you lost amazing cards.

As they ran, Shel tried to pull up beside Wolfe, leaning over and whispering in his ear, “Are you not going to use Cereboo?”

Wolfe grimaced. If Damian found out… “How do you feel about Damian, Miriam?”

“I hope the Cobras get him,” she said, half-snarl.

Wolfe glanced over. Her teeth were clenched and her eyes narrowed in rage. Hope she isn’t just a great actress.

He pulled his deck and pulled Cereboo out. The pup joined him, running alongside the group.

Miriam stared at the pup for a minute, then giggled. “Oh, that’s going to cause a whole situation. I hope you end up kicking his perverted molester ass.”

Before Wolfe could answer, or think about the implications of what she had said, they came around a bend and were staring at a tiny town. It had a gas station, a sheriff’s office, a small post office, and a few homes. All were in nineteenth-century wooden style but with electricity added.

But the sheriff’s office was under attack by multiple werewolves, all howling and ripping at boarded-up windows and doors. Each werewolf was practically a carbon copy of the others. They were seven feet tall, bipedal humanoids with fur, wolf’s faces and elongated jaws, and claws on their hands and feet.

The boards had been ripped from quite a few windows of the sheriff’s office. But at the same time, a scream came from one of the houses along the street.

Sorenia, Shel’s advanced lantern angel companion, lifted her lantern high.

Wolfe was torn, but he wanted to keep Shel with him—and he wanted all the cards they could get.

“Miriam, go save whatever was in the house! Shel, with me!”

Miriam ran off toward the scream as Wolfe leveled his gun at the mass of werewolves and pulled up his deck.