We follow the tunnel at least a couple of football fields into the mountain, the gradient shifting every now and then: sometimes downward, sometimes up. We encounter a few traps on our way, though Tyrus manages to deal with them—some faster than others. I help with one that’s very similar to the first by again standing back and shooting it.

There are several little alcoves off the path that don’t lead to anything notable: a small underground pond, a mushroom grotto that after a little debate we decide to leave alone, and several dark dead-end caverns that just spend some of our time.

The pathway eventually leads into a murky cavern, one thick with stalagmites and stalactites and even some connected pillars.

The ground is littered with puddles and we try to bypass them as best we can, eventually finding our way out into a wide clearing that creates a massive, cavernous room, probably a hundred feet in diameter. The walls are smooth and shiny, with massive stalactites clinging to the ceiling above, though the ground is generally flat, only the occasional hump as if a stalagmite was dissolved away to leave nothing but its base.

It’s beautiful, though. The stone has a glittery, quartz-like quality in some places, but shines almost like glass in others. Water drips, echoing through the space.

“What do you think made this?” I ask. “It’s so different from everything else.”

I stand on one of the flat topped stalagmites, surveying the area as my party members fan out. Meg, especially, is on guard, though Flynt looks nervous too.

It’s Tyrus who steps wrong. His foot slips and splashes into water—only it’s not water.

He shouts and curses as the acid starts to eat through his shoe and he backpedals away from it as the puddle coalesces and begins to take shape, sucking parts of itself out from between the stones and crevices in the walls, becoming a large, shimmering, gelatinous creature that shudders and oozes toward him, lashing out with a spit of acid.

“Oh shit,” I exclaim, wrestling my bow into place just as I see another taking form on the other side of the room, closer to Flynt.

Tyrus has Meg and Jonas nearby to help, so I sight on the one growing by Flynt and loose an arrow toward it. It pierces the jelly form before sinking in, a red 1 floating up.

“Well, that did nothing!” I glance back toward our melee fighters.

Tyrus rushes in with his daggers against the other creature—it’s bigger, and continuing to grow—and he makes three quick slashes. Like my attempt, his seems to leave relatively minimal damage (3) (3) (6).

“I may be a little useless here!” he agrees.

“What about the magic arrows?!” Flynt is backing away hastily but running out of room as the creature continues to ooze toward him: slow at first, but gaining momentum.

“I’ll try!”

I don’t want to set off an explosion in such a confined space and so close to Flynt, so I reach instead for one of the magical fire arrows I bought from Flynt’s Emporium back just before we learned about Z and officially accepted our little role here. I wanted to save them, they were expensive, but I guess this is what I was saving them for.

Anyway, once I level up, I can put points into [Magicked Arrow] and imbue my own.

Maybe. If that’s even how it works. I won’t be able to find out unless we get out of this, though, and fire seems the only logical solution.

The living sludge moves quickly, charging toward us. Flynt slaps his hands together, muttering one of his spells in a slur of words; the tattooed focus on his forearms glows slightly, and fire erupts from him, swirling out from his hands and crashing into the sludge, cascading over it in a burning wave (30).

The spell packs a hard initial punch, turning the ooze black in some places and leaving it smoking in others, but it dissipates quicker than I expect it to, not causing any ongoing damage, which feels unfair.

Flynt wipes hair from his face and steps back quickly, dodging out of the way as the creature lunges at him like one of those slappy slime hands that come out of the capsule vending machines at the bowling alley.

I make my own positioning adjustment, tap the arrow twice against the bow to initialize it, then nock it and pull it back, anchoring the string against my jaw as I try to get a sight on center mass. I’m distracted by Flynt rolling away, something seizing in my chest at the sight of it, but I force myself back to the moment and release.

As it flies, the arrow catches on fire: a brilliant blue magical flame. It sticks hard into the creature, the flame splashing over it like napalm and wrapping around its form, causing a horrifying screeching sound that’s one part steam being released from a tea kettle and one part nails on a chalkboard (18). Unlike Flynt’s fire, the blue flame hangs around, flicking off a red 1 every second or two for several beats.

I leap up onto another taller, flat-top stalagmite to get a better view of the two creatures and my teammates: Flynt and I on ours, Meg on the other, Jonas looking helpless and frantic as he slowly approaches, rubbing his own hands together; they’re starting to glow a dark green and it makes me shudder. I’ve lost sight of Tyrus, but that’s not unusual if he’s doing his job. Guy can disappear in shadows, it’s his superpower.

“Careful touching these!” Meg shouts at our healer, slicing hers (10). It sizzles as something like ichor drops onto her arm and burns a black 5 into the air. “They’re acidic!”

“I don’t have much choice!” Jonas says, and cringes, reaching forward to make skin to… something… contact.

He cries out at the touch but keeps his hands anchored there, the roiling dark greenish energy uncoiling from him and wrapping around the jelly creature, like tendrils from an abyss. The creature turns black, drying out in some places, the necrotic spell making quick work as it burns and chokes through it, black infections spreading through its primary form.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Numbers begin drifting off it—though they’re not red, which is interesting. The slime is either particularly sensitive to this type of magic, or Jonas pumped a lot into this spell, because though it starts off slow (3) (3) (8) (6) it begins to tick upward (12) (20) (18) before it dissipates as the creature turns to dis-animated sludge, breaking apart like Jell-O with its mold removed too early.

That’s when the fallen shape emerges: a very familiar little dwarf drifts out of the mass, his skin sizzling and form completely unmoving.

I gasp and almost drop my bow as Jonas yelps and starts wading into the mess, black numbers drifting fast off him; the creature may be dead, but the acid of its form is far from inert. I can’t help but wonder how many [Hit Points] our healer has as the numbers begin to add up, quickly approaching—and then surpassing—my own total.

That’s when Meg grabs Jonas and bodily heaves him out of the mess.

“I’ll get him!” she shouts, angrily, her voice pitched to a growl as she goes into leadership mode. “Keira. Help Flynt with the other. Jonas. Take an Essence elixir, we’re going to need you at full. Keira! Snap out of it!”

“Right!” I do, turning back toward where Flynt has taken some wounds of his own while I stared helplessly at the other battle, and guilt coasts over me as I pull another magic fire arrow and repeat the process: tapping twice, nocking, anchoring, sighting. “Flynt! Get back! Another arrow, coming your way!”

He glances up at me and dodges another sweep from the creature, making a baseball slide in the hard gravel floor and losing his balance, landing hard on his back. That doesn’t stop him from spinning up another spell.

I let my arrow fly and that blue flame flickers around it again, crackling. It slams into what seems to be the head of the creature, bolting down into it. Flame wraps around it again (22), and it catches this time, lighting up the acidic coating of the creature’s external layer. It sizzles, a horrible acrid smell permeating the cavern. Red numerals continue to drift off it (2) (1) (1) (3) as that screaming sounds again, sending a shiver down my spine.

Flynt releases his spell, another fire bolt, and it pummels the creature from the low angle, shooting up into it with a frying sound, the bolt burning through to come out the other side (34) before slamming into the cavern’s roof; the residual energy cracks a stalactite that comes loose and falls into the jelly for good measure (5), though the thing already looked pretty far gone. It shrivels up like burning polyester.

Flynt scrambles up, rushing away from the release of acidic goo, hissing as he gets singed by it before he manages up on a rock. He looks across toward me, breathing heavily, looking a little worse for wear. Then, we both look over toward where Meg has slung Tyrus’s body over her shoulder and is trying to get out of the slime, small black numbers drifting off her as she does—though they’re getting smaller as it must be losing its potency.

Flynt and I rush over as Meg lays the unmoving Tyrus onto the slime-free portion of the cavern floor. He looks terrible, his skin mottled and red, burned into blisters in some places and almost missing in others, eaten by the acid. His typically pristine beard is patchy at best, most of its length singed away. His clothing is in complete disarray and also partly eaten through, revealing what looks like some kind of undershirt under his tunic.

“Fuck.” Jonas’s voice is high pitched and teary and he wipes his shaking hands on his coat as he fumbles with another elixir—this one red. Health. “I shouldn’t have done that spell, I shouldn’t have…”

“If you hadn’t, we’d still be fighting it,” Meg says, examining Tyrus’s body, listening to his chest. She begins compressions like a life guard, which seems weirdly out of place but makes sense given the situation.

I take the elixir bottle from Jonas’s shaking hands and pop open the cork, handing it back for him to down, which he does quickly. A light red shines briefly in his darkened eyes. His usually warm brown skin looks ashen and his hands are red where they touched the creature.

Flynt is on guard, ready to spin up another spell if necessary—though he has to be getting low on Essence, too, given the damage power of the two he already threw.

“What are you doing?” Flynt asks Meg. He’s close to me, and smells like sweat and wildfire.

“Trying to get him to breathe. Jonas, come on buddy, you have to get your head in it. We’re not going to be able to get him back for much longer.”

“I haven’t brought someone back like this before.” Jonas's voice quivers. “He’s far gone, Meg, and I’m very weak right now. It’s not just about Essence…”

“You’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t try, you have to try.”

Her voice is stony but her expression is knit into a deep sadness as she focuses on the chest compressions on the dwarf. I don’t usually think of Tyrus as being small—he’s shorter than we are, sure, but he’s not small. Now, though, he looks tiny.

Jonas crouches down next to Tyrus, and when Meg removes her hands he places his in the same spot, beginning to whisper low. I can’t make out words, I don’t think I’d speak the language if I could, but it’s low and almost growled—not the melodic sound I’d expect. It is nothing like his usual healing spell, and the hairs on the back of my neck start to stand on end at the sounds of it.

And at the power.

The air almost crackles with the energy of the spell being woven. Desperation begins to edge into Jonas’s voice alongside hints of strain, and I can’t help but reach out and rest a hand on his shoulder.

Then, without thinking about it, I crouch down next to him as if I could lend him some of my energy. There’s something instinctual about it, something pulling at me, and Jonas puts one hand over mine at his shoulder.

I can’t describe the sensation that coasts over me. It’s painful, but also not: a sharpness followed by a sudden pang of weakness. And it's almost like an undertow grabs hold and pulls me below the waves. My vision swims, I feel my face pale, but I hold on, I keep my grasp.

I understand what is happening, and it’s fine. I wasn’t hurt in the battle. I was healed up after the ogre. This can only come from me. No one else has it left in them.

My vision shifts and everyone starts glowing. I’m a bright beacon while Tyrus is entirely dark, though Jonas is close and Meg not much better off. Flynt is splotchy, bright here and there but dim elsewhere, where he must have been hit by the acid.

I can see as some of my light begins to travel through Jonas and sinks into Tyrus’s chest. It coasts through his body, fusing wounds closed and creating a dim glow around him.

The dwarf draws a sudden deep breath and begins coughing, body pitching forward as black sludge comes up out of him, splashing onto the ground—and an achievement alert pops up on the bottom of my screen. I ignore it as Jonas releases hold of me and grabs him.

I lose my balance a little and end up sitting on the floor, a wave of dizziness coasting over me as stars burst into my vision. When it clears, I can’t help but pull up my character profile, just to prove my theory and sure enough.

[Keira, Hunter Elf: Urban Ranger]

[Level: 3]

[Reputation: Noted]

[Defense: 14]

[Hit Points: 8 / 41]

[Experience: 1425 / 2200]

[Stamina: 45 / 150]

[Essence: 0 / 0]

I know I was at full [Hit Points] going in. The spell took almost all of them—and who knows how much [Stamina]. And if the glow was anything to go by, Tyrus is nowhere near [Full Health]. None of us are.

Jonas is crying and has pulled Tyrus into a tight hug as they sit on the ground. The dwarf returns it dazedly, hands fisted tightly in the fabric of our healer’s shirt. Meg rubs Tyrus’s back softly. Flynt is still on guard, glancing occasionally over at us with concern knit across his features.

“Keira,” Tyrus says, over Jonas’s shoulder, his voice hoarse. “Look. Loot.”

I look over my shoulder and sure enough, through a narrow natural archway, in the shadows at the back of the chamber, I see a sparkling and golden gleam.