Chapter 31:

This time, when we walked into the building, it was a little bit different. There were a few people coming in and out of the portal, and we had to wait in line for a few minutes before the raven saw us. It tapped our three tokens and then cawed at the two women for coins.

They looked at each other and at us. I shrugged completely out, and Jonas pulled out two coins. Each Astrid and Helga pulled out, one grimacing as they laid it on the table. Ah, they really didn't have enough money to run this dungeon. Hopefully, this wouldn't stay a problem for much longer.

The raven asked. "Team name?"

Everyone looked at me, and I shrugged. "Do we need one?" I asked.

"No," crowed the raven.

"We'll skip that for now," I told it.

The raven bobbed its head, and we moved on to the line for the portal.

"What, you didn't want to give us a team name," Astrid said.

I shrugged. "We don't want to get too attached in case you guys suck in the challenge."

She smiled softly but didn't banter back. A little disappointing as I think that would have helped our team cohesion, but... I couldn't fault her. Everyone else was quiet and thinking.

I thought about what was happening, and I realized it wouldn't be as simple as it would have been if we had just had five of us. We could all run in and each take a badger at first.

No, that might work for the first room, but it definitely wasn't going to work for the second room, and I wanted to get farther than we did last time. Otherwise, this might not be useful. And for that, we needed a strategy. But no one was talking.

I waited for another handful of seconds before I realized that no one would talk. I let out a mighty sigh as I conceded that I had unofficially made myself the team leader, a position that I didn't really feel qualified to be in. It'd be best if Bjorn was deciding tactics or something. Someone who knew anything about fighting. But, well, I was what we had.

"Helga," I said, "can you take one of these badgers yourself?"

She shrugged. "Probably. I have a big ass sword, and as long as one doesn't come at from me from behind."

I nodded, thinking. "Okay."

After a little bit of consideration, I clapped my hands together for attention once.

"Okay, here's how it's going to work. Bjorn, you're going to engage two. Don't worry about killing them as much. Unless you can see how to do it, just keep them off of everyone. Jonas. I want you to get one isolated. Kill it as fast as you can. That'll leave two for Helga and me. Astrid, support. Any of us, however you can, but let's focus on burning down one at a time. If you need to, start with Helga and then move to me, Jonas. And then we'll all end. And then move to Helga and me once yours is dead. Go help Jonas if necessary. Otherwise, go help Bjorn."

Helga, Bjorn, and Jonas all nodded, but Astrid spoke up just to confirm. "I’ll focus fire on Helga's, then yours, and then play it by ear. However, whoever needs help most."

I nodded, "Of course, support supersedes damage. If someone needs healing and no one else is in extreme danger, it would be best if we could keep the party up for as long as possible."

"Reasonable." She responded in confirmation.

With that, it was our turn to step into the portal.

***

When we reached the first five badgers, my nerves had mostly subsided. I shouldn't have been nervous as we had already had this fight. Still, the addition of new members and wanting to perform well was making me constantly check everyone's disposition out of the corner of my eyes. But for the most part, everyone seemed to be doing all right. Bjorn was attempting to talk to Helga, and Jonas and Astrid were whispering things back and forth.

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I walked to the rear. And as soon as we saw the set of opponents, we leaped into action. I had kind of wanted to stop and assess briefly to ensure nothing was wrong, but this was fine, too. We had already decided on our plan, and nothing had changed.

Bjorn barreled into the center, just like he did last time. But this time, he had a dagger in one hand. While one of his victims was thrown against the wall again. This time, the other was stabbed in the shoulder. It was with a much better position that he began their tussle.

The remaining four of us spread out. Astrid hung back where Jonas and I charged. Helga drew her sword and approached more cautiously.

I learned my lesson from the last time and didn't attempt to mimic Bjorn and slam the badger. Besides, I had a weapon now. So, as we got close, I juked left and then stepped right. The badger fell for it, and digging deep with my knife, I left a slash across its shoulder. I was aiming for its neck, but it managed to slide aside.

We both whirled at the same time, facing each other, and slowly started to circle. I stepped carefully to the right, never crossing my feet in a fighter shuffle. My knife held low, my right hand ready to stab or slash, but my left hand held out in an attempt to intercept any attack and redirect it. It's perfect.

As it lunged at me, teeth snapping, my left hand came down slightly, pressing against the side of its head, and caught it. Mid-lunge. Using my weight and twisting my body, I flipped it over onto its side, and it smashed into the ground with the oomph of the breath leaving its body. I slashed at its wrist with my knife, severing some tendons, and as it wiggled back to its feet out from underneath me, I jumped back to avoid getting hurt. When it started moving again, I had to be careful as the paw I had injured wasn't nearly as responsive. Sometimes, it would half stumble as we continued our slow circling.

This time, I attacked. I feinted a grab for the scruff of its neck, and it snapped up at my hand, exposing the inside of its throat to me as I lunged forward with my knife. It managed to react quickly enough, but even as it ducked its head down, the tip of its knife dug into one nostril, digging out the side and splashing blood in a spray as its face started to bleed. It snarled and lunged at me. I was slightly overbalanced forward. I just managed to put my hand on its shoulder to prevent it from reaching me, and I pushed it into the dirt.

Its good paw managed to nick my arm as it went down beneath me. Still leaning forward. I dropped one of my knees into its back, right between its shoulder blades, and started to stab in all the places I could reach with my knife, as my free hand held its head to the ground as it wiggled viciously from beneath me.

My focus didn't let me see what happened to Helga's badger before arrows started impacting around me.

I nearly jumped back as the first one missed my hand by only three or four inches. As it sunk into the badger, it hissed slightly and then dissolved, leaving a deep puncture wound with nothing to stop this flow of blood that started gushing out of its side. I jumped off the badger, avoiding narrowly avoiding a slap of its hind claws as several more arrows punctured it and then vanished.

The badger was now incredibly slow from blood loss and numerous cuts. So, taking the knife in both hands, I dove to my knees, putting all my weight into the stab to the brain. My knife hit the skull and burst through in a sudden jerk. The badger lay twitching dead on the ground.

Planting my foot on its skull, I yanked up, ripping the dagger free of the thick bone, before turning to find Helga and Jonas decapitating their badger. Bjorn was holding up his final badger for Astrid to puncture with arrows. His other badger was already dead from the earlier tussle.

I leaned down and wiped the gray matter off my blade on the badger's fur before straightening up and looking around.

"Anyone hurt?" I asked.

Jonas and Bjorn shook their heads, and Helga didn't say anything.

"It doesn't seem like it," Astrid said, though. "You got a small scratch."

She walked over, placed her hand a few inches above the cut on my arm, and muttered something. I could feel a slight zap of static electricity, and the wound started slowly closing in real-time.

"Thank you," I murmured, and she gave me a small smile.

"Just don't let it happen again." She teased.

I nodded. "You said you could skin these if you had a knife last time. Do you think it's worth doing?"

Bjorn looked down at his knife and shrugged. But Astrid said, "I... I didn't see pelts on the table outside. I don't know if that would be worthwhile. Just the teeth and claws."

"Just the teeth." We quickly recovered the teeth, and I put them all in my pouch. "We'll pay back the entry fees first, then we'll split the loot equally," I reminded everyone.

"Okay." No one seemed to have any objections, and we started walking down.

"Okay, this next one's going to be a lot more complicated. Twice as many and stronger opponents. The first room is nice, though," Astrid said. "It's rare to see the entry fee returned so quickly. Normally, it takes several different major milestones before you earn back the money here."

"As long as we don't destroy any of the teeth in the fight, we've pretty much got our entry fee and a little bit of profit for us first-timers," I said.

Astrid nodded. "Yes. Even if we can't get past the second room grinding, this would be profitable for almost any team that has any newbies on it."

"But we should be able to get past the second room," I said. "It's just going to be a lot harder from there."