Alan’s arrow flew straight and true, finding its mark in the eye of the sleeping monster.

The screeching of agony filled the cavern as the Enhanced monster reared back, blood flowing from its eye, though far less than Jake would have hoped for.

“There were scales over its eyes while it slept. From how little penetration my arrow got, I think they are the same as murk hound fur,” Alan said quickly, a second arrow leaving his bow a moment later as the three monsters bounded clear of their resting places and began to charge directly at them.

Jake, Karl and Nepthys moved forward to intercept the lizards as arrows and ice flew past them, striking the largest of the monsters and digging into damage on its face.

Alan seemed to have been right about the scales, as more than one of his arrows skittered harmlessly across them to no effect. Rhew was having just as hard a time with her magic, but Jake had a feeling that was more due to this Dungeon than their scales.

Having an ice Caster in a fire Dungeon was tough, but at least she wasn’t a fire Caster. Jake doubted fire would do anything to these creatures, and losing half of their ranged attackers would be bad.

The three lizards seemed to content to take them on individually, which Jake had a feeling was both good and bad.

Jake had already cast aside his torch; there was no need for it in here, after all. Instead, he manifested his dagger in his free hand and met the large lizard head-on.

While the lizard was long and powerfully built, it lacked the reach Jake had with his sword, letting him control the first few moments of combat by cutting at its eyes.

The monster ducked its head, retreating slightly and hissing as it did. Oddly, the ridges running down its spine seemed to be glowing slightly, but Jake was already committed to his follow-up.

Moving in with a jab at the monster’s face, Jake slid around to the creature’s flank and tried to get in closer to use his dagger. To his surprise, however, the lizard merely closed its eyes to protect them before opening its mouth, hissing angrily as flames shot out.

Jake’s eyes went wide as a gout of flames enveloped his right leg, burning away his clothing and searing him badly as he got out of the way. Thankfully, he’d already been moving in that direction. Otherwise, it would have been far worse.

Knowing that he’d been lucky was a cold comfort to Jake as he bit back a cry of pain, forcing his protesting leg to keep moving as the lizard whipped around to rush for him.

Pushing his Wyrd down into his sword, Jake infused his blade with power, realising that he was moving too slowly to keep away from the monster for much longer.

The lizard’s spinal ridge had gone dark when it breathed flame but was starting to glow once more, which meant that Jake was out of time.

Moving forward instead of back, Jake slashed down at the creature’s head, this time cutting deep into its neck as the Wyrd in his blade let him cut through its scales.

The monster writhed and shook in pain, knocking Jake’s blade from his hand before lunging up at him.

Jake tried to dodge to one side, but his badly burnt leg gave way, and he was forced down under the weight of the beast as its jaws snapped down towards his head.

Pushing up with all his strength, Jake was just able to keep the jaws from snapping shut on his face while he plunged his dagger up into the soft scales of its belly.

Since his injury during the fight with the Corrupters, Jake had been struggling to regain the muscle strength in his left arm. Thankfully, however, the weight of the monster helped the poisoned dagger drive deep into its body, where it did its work.

Blood was steaming from the creature’s neck as it struggled with him, one of its forelegs striking his side as it tried to get away from the dagger. Even with an offhand strike, the dark claws of the monster tore right through Jake’s flesh with ease, making him gasp in pain and almost slip on his hold.

In the end, though, the wounds that Jake had dealt were too much for the lizard, and he rolled its body off of him before fumbling a potion up to his mouth.

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Lying back, Jake let the potion numb the pain and get to work healing the worst of the damage. He’d lost a lot of blood to the wound in his side as well, so he was feeling a little lightheaded.

“Jake, are you okay?” Alan called out, making Jake look over to see that the other two lizards had likewise been dispatched.

Nepthys seemed unharmed but winded, while Karl had a number of deep gouges in his leg that Rhew was binding as he drank a potion.

They were nearing the end of their potion supply, but that wasn’t too surprising. Jake was happy enough that they made it this far while being unfamiliar with the Dungeon.

“Yeah, I’ll be okay,” Jake called back after a moment before dropping his head back once more. “Those things were damn tough.”

“Not as fast as a murk hound, and not as strong either, but with other benefits to balance that,” Nepthys said thoughtfully as she inspected the corpse of the largest of the three.

“That’s putting it lightly,” Jake said with a laugh that turned into a pained grunt. “I wasn’t expecting flaming breath, that’s for sure.”

“Be thankful that they seemed limited on how often they can use that,” Nepthys said, coming over and wincing at the burns on Jake’s leg. “This will likely not heal until we finish the Dungeon.”

Jake snorted as he levered himself up to a sitting position. “A polite way of saying until we’re all dead.”

“Well, I was trying to put a good spin on it,” Nepthys said, rolling her eyes as she reached down and helped Jake to his feet. “Do you need another potion?”

“How many do we have left?” Jake winced as he put weight on his burnt leg; it seemed that most of the potion had gone to healing his side.

“Not many, but I think they’d be better spent preparing us for the next floor than being held in reserve.”

“Yeah, not a bad point,” Jake said, taking a potion from Nepthys and knocking it back with a sigh of relief.

Fortunately, Karl and Jake were the only two to be injured fighting the Enhanced lizards, so they drew the Wyrdgeld from them before moving on to the chest that held the rewards for completing the tier.

“Let’s see what we have,” Alan said eagerly as he opened the chest, letting out a low whistle as he pulled out several cloth sacks. “Looks like twenty Wyrdgeld in coins and two sacks of ten individually wrapped cuts of meat. They look kind of familiar as well.”

“What do you mean?” Jake asked, taking the coins from Alan and adding them to his belt.

“Last night’s stew, looks like we know where the meat comes from,” Alan said, pulling out a wrapped steak to show them before dropping it back in.

“Makes sense, I suppose,” Jake said, thinking back on how good the Wyrdfruit were. It did make him wonder what else the Dungeon would give out, though.

“Will those go bad?” Rhew asked, frowning a little at the bag Alan passed her.

“Any rewards or resources you have harvested will degrade as normal when taken,” Felix said, coming forward to look at the reward before nodding to himself. “The normal speed of spoilage for anything infused with Wyrd is quite slow, however, so it won’t be an issue for this delve.”

“Good to know,” Jake murmured as they secured their rewards before heading over to the door down to the next floor. As good as this was, he was itching to move forward.

This would be Jake’s first time going past the first five floors of a Dungeon, and he was both excited and more than a little nervous. Nepthys had said that floor six was a jump in difficulty, but he didn’t know how much of a jump.

“Don’t worry, we beat the first tier Guardian floor; that means something,” Alan said as they gathered around the door down to the next floor. “We might not be ready to finish the next set of floors completely, but we can definitely do the first few. I mean, how much worse can it get?”

“Damn it, Alan.” Jake sighed and walked down to the doors, pushing them open and stepping through as Alan asked Rhew why she was glaring at him.

-**-

Jake was the first out onto the new floor, giving him a moment to wipe his brow and take a sip of water. The heat was a step down from the Guardian floor, but it was by no means comfortable.

Floor six began with a short tunnel that curved sharply to the right, so Jake waited patiently for the rest of his group to arrive before moving forward. After coming this far, it would be frustrating to die in an ambush, after all.

“Well, I probably should have expected that,” Alan said as they rounded the corner and saw what lay in wait.

A large stone with a flat top jutted out of the ground in the centre of a cavern filled with all manner of rocks and boulders. One of the giant lizards was stretched out atop the large stone as though basking, as they’d seen before.

Ten of the smaller lizards were lying around the base of the rock, intermixed with chunks of obsidian, much like on the previous floor.

This fight was objectively easier, but Jake could see an opening on the far side where the floor continued, so this was far from all they would be dealing with.

Getting ready, they kicked things off with a synchronised assault from Rhew and Alan on the sleeping monster, wounding it badly. The two of them then kept the pressure on it as it tried to reach them, eventually bringing it down just before it got halfway to them.

At the same time, Jake, Karl and Nepthys dealt with the ten normal lizards that charged straight at them.

Fortunately, a few shields from Nepthys staggered their arrival, and a single blow from an infused attack was enough to kill one.

Nepthys took the brunt of the attack for them, using the benefits of her higher rank to move faster and react quicker than her foes. Both of her blades were constantly in motion as she reaped the attacking lizards while dancing past their clumsy bites.

“Damn,” Jake said under his breath, looking at Nepthys in a new light as she slipped past the last lizard and beheaded it with a flick of her wrist.

Alan turned to Jake with a smile, starting to say something before pausing as Jake glared at him. “Just don’t, Alan. Don’t do it.”

“Superstitious nonsense,” Alan muttered, rolling his eyes as he went to gather as many arrows as could be salvaged from the body of the Enhanced lizard.

Shaking his head, Jake went to gather the Wyrdgeld from the nearby lizards.