"You don't decide that on your own," Amy whispered.

Dana raised her voice a little too much. "It killed my entire party!"

Eli winced. "Let's get there first and see what we're dealing with."

"Fine," Amy said, clenching her jaw and slowly shaking her head.

Dana didn't sound happy either. "Fine."

As the group drew near the entrance, Dana explained, "So, the cave is actually pretty deep. We fought our way through some easy mobs going deeper, and we were doing so well. None of us thought to keep track of the torches we were using. Then, like I said, we reached a large chamber deeper inside, and that's when we lost light and all hell broke loose."

"What were the easy mobs like?" Zack asked.

"Lizardlings," Dana said. "They walk on two feet but looked like... well, lizards. They only reach up to my hip, but they're fast little critters, and they’re wielding spears. Don't worry, though, we already dealt with them, so it should be easy going until we hit that larger chamber."

"Okay," Eli said. "Charlotte, are you okay to take the front?"

"Of course!" she boomed, not keeping her voice down at all.

With that settled, they entered the cave. The cave itself was surprisingly roomy, and they could all walk side by side with plenty of room to spare. The ceiling wasn't even close to touching the top of Charlotte's head, and she was the tallest by a fair margin.

The walls looked carved, like someone had dug into them with tools at some point. If it was recent or not, Eli couldn't tell, but he guessed not. Rocks, sticks, leaves, and all sorts of debris littered the floor, along with scraps of leather, rusty weapons, and what looked like human skeletons.

Amy's rats skittered between her legs, heading deeper.

"What are you doing with those rats?" Dana asked.

"If they die, we'll know there's something there," Amy replied.

"I don't think you have to wonder," Zack said, pointing deeper inside. Lizardlings were waiting for them.

"Incoming!" Charlotte barked, unsheathing her huge sword.

"Didn't you say you dealt with those?" Zack asked, frowning as a total of six lizardlings charged. Dana took aim with her bow. She loosed an arrow, striking a lizardling archer center mass, immediately killing it.

"We did, I swear," Dana breathed. "Respawning mobs. Things we kill won’t stay dead in this fucked up world."

"That’s a pain," Zack said, lobbing an explosion potion over Charlotte's shoulder. It struck right in the middle of the charging group. All of them dropped to about half HP, and a single swing from the Barbarian's sword cut through the entire group, leaving them in messy pieces.

Ding! You have reached level 9.

Dana raised an eyebrow. "You got level 9 already? I didn’t even get to level 5!"

"I must've been right on the cusp of leveling up, I guess," Eli said. "Let's go before they respawn again."

"My friends, well coworkers, should be near here," Dana whispered.

"You used to work with them?" Amy asked.

"They worked for Mr. Lee on the ninth floor, same as me."

Zack bent down, holding a small, wicked-looking knife, cutting into one of the lizardlings.

A wave of nausea at the sight shuddered through Eli, and he turned away from the gruesome work. "What are you doing?"

"Harvesting their body parts for alchemy ingredients. I don’t actually have a recipe to use this stuff in, but why not take everything I can?"

"I guess."

"They have gold too. You should loot them."

Charlotte hit her own forehead with surprising force. "Right, loot! Why do we keep forgetting?"

"Because it’s unbelievable," Amy said. "We’re actually in a game world!"

"Yeah, I’m with Amy on that one," Dana said. "It’s just so weird. We have to search their pockets?"

Zack shook his head. "Just command Open at the corpse, and you get a small inventory-type thing in with a grid."

They each looted one to test this new feature. Eli did indeed see a pouch-like graphic in front of his inner eye, divided into squares—nine total. The lizardling’s corpse held 19 copper coins and something just called "rags," probably the brown sackcloth it had been wearing over its narrow shoulders.

The group patiently waited for Zack to complete his harvesting before heading further into the cave.

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"How many of these lizardlings did you fight?" Eli asked.

"Maybe 20 or 30 all in all," Dana said. "But I recognize these lizard bastards. They were the same ones we fought right when we entered. I even killed that little archer thing the same way I did right now."

"So there are more of them waiting for us?" Dana asked.

"Oh yeah."

"Dang it!" Amy said. "One of my rats just died."

"How much further in?"

"It’s difficult to tell, honestly, but not far. I think the other ones might be getting chased." Her voice rose, "They’re coming back here now!"

Soon, they heard squeaks coming up the one lone path into the cave system.

"Get ready, Charlotte," Eli said, producing his orb of light, since the light from outside barely reached this far in. Ten of them charged around the corner, right behind four scurrying rats. They slithered forward on silent little legs, charging Charlotte the moment they saw her.

Charlotte swung, cutting one of their little heads into two and then clean through a lizardling's body, but then they were upon her. She screamed as their little stone-tipped spears pierced her skin.

Eli healed her and shouted, "Keep calm, Charlotte! You’ll be fine! They’re not doing that much damage!"

And they weren’t. Each little pinprick drew blood, but Charlotte was not handling it well at all.

"Get them off of me! Get them off of me!" she screamed. She dropped her sword, grabbed one with her hands, and broke its back like she was breaking pasta before throwing it into boiling water.

The lizardling let out a short screech before it fell silent. Eli healed Charlotte again and slammed his orb of light into the head of one, hearing a surprisingly loud cracking that echoed off the bare walls of the cave. The lizardling flew into the wall and fell to the ground with a broken neck.

Eli healed Charlotte again, even though she had barely lost a fifth of her life. Keeping her topped up might help her courage, he hoped.

"How’s she doing?" Dana shouted, loosing an arrow that went wide and bounced off the wall.

"Missed," she swore, nocking another to pull back the string. This time, she aimed a little better and hit the leg of one of the lizardlings still on the ground. Several of them were climbing Charlotte now, stabbing into her with sharp claws and teeth rather than using their primitive weapons.

Charlotte screamed and spun, pulling lizardlings free one by one, tearing her own skin to get them off so she could crush them in her meaty fists.

More of them were coming, but Zack stepped up closer and started throwing explosion potions down the tunnel, overwhelming them where the path narrowed to a natural chokepoint. Dana leveled up to 5, and by the time Charlotte got the last lizardling off her, Eli was almost level 10 already, despite these little creatures only being level four. Amy was almost level eight, and Charlotte just stood there panting, covered in blood.

"Barely reached level eight," Zack noted.

"We really need someone up there with her," Eli breathed, healing Charlotte again.

"How are you doing, Charlotte?" Amy asked, walking up to the wild-eyed Barbarian.

"I don’t know if I can do this," Charlotte panted. "It hurts so much—it’s nothing like a game. Games don’t have pain. Why is there so much pain?" Charlotte’s eyes teared up, and Eli saw Amy getting misty too.

They hugged each other, Amy on her tiptoes to reach Charlotte’s hair, stroking it gently. "It’ll be fine," she murmured. "We just need a little practice, is all. We’re still low level, and we’ll get someone up front to fight beside you later, I promise. We’re all here together."

They allowed a few minutes to pass to let Charlotte compose herself. Once she was ready, she picked up her sword again and held it out in front of her, the tip trembling and her shoulders folded forward, making her look small. They continued deeper into the cave.

With that last batch of lizardlings taken care of, the cave was eerily silent. The only thing reaching Eli's ears were the sounds of his, and his group's, footfalls. Doing his best to keep his breathing even and steady, he continued deeper and deeper until they reached a larger cavern. His orb of light lit the entire place and revealed three different paths forward.

"Is this the place?" Eli asked, his voice a hushed whisper that nevertheless echoed off the bare walls.

Dana shook her head, then pointed to the rightmost path. "No, we went down that route."

The path narrowed, so they were forced to walk single file for a short while, then broadened again.

"Almost there," Dana hissed.

Zack held up a hand and put a finger to his lips.

They all strained their ears and Eli finally heard it. A muted, but distinct grunting, accompanied by a wet, sloshing sound.

"What is that?" Amy asked.

Dana nocked an arrow and carefully stepped forward.

"Wait," Eli whispered, but she did not listen.

Charlotte threw a fearful glance Eli's way, and he nodded, encouraging her to continue forward. They couldn't allow Dana to go in there alone. He dimmed the light and gently moved it to hover over the Barbarian’s head.

The group entered a huge cavern and Eli's nose was assaulted by a stench of death and suffering. Blood and guts. Corpses were all over the ground near where they entered, forcing them to walk over the dead. They'd all died trying to escape. Blood smeared the ground and a trail of it led off into the dark.

Eli willed his orb of light up into the ceiling high above and upped the brightness to the spell's maximum. Even with that powerful a light, the cavern was large enough that the light did not reach the far corners, and the jagged rocks and outcroppings threw eerie shadows. Near the middle of the space, something huge and hairy kept its head down, munching on flesh.

"There!" Dana shouted, her words echoing off the dark ceiling and the walls. An arrow flew and struck the hairy beast in the side.

It reared its head and bellowed.

"B-bear," Charlotte stammered.

Not just any bear. Even at this great distance, it was enormous, easily half again as big as the biggest grizzly Eli had seen on the nature documentaries he kept streaming from his TV to keep himself company. Its fur was a deep brown with slightly lighter tips, and the light from above glinted off deadly looking claws.

It bellowed in anger and confusion again, and then charged.

"What's happening?" Amy asked, her voice shrill enough to make Eli wince.

"It's a huge bear. It's coming right for us!"

"Let me tame it!" Amy shouted.

Dana fired arrow after arrow, all of them missing the moving, and surprisingly quick, target. "Screw that!"

"Charlotte, up front!" Eli barked. "Zack! Blow it up with explosion potions!"

A quick inspection revealed they were hopelessly under-leveled for this creature.

Bear. Animal. Level 24.

It bounded off a cliff and the bear's stench reached their noses just as Charlotte stepped up to try to block the a simple, standing swipe from their foe.

She was tossed to the side, her head slamming into the cavern wall so hard Eli heard it crack. Her health plummeted and Eli pulled Amy to the side as he healed the Barbarian twice, maxing out her HP. Still, she did not stir.

The bear let out a horrific whine of pain as a potion exploded in its face, but the thing's health barely dropped, and it didn't let up its attack. Zack was torn open diagonally from his shoulder down to his hip, and screamed as dark blood gushed, staining his clothes, and the ground, red. Eli healed him back to full, closing the wounds, while Dana struck the bear's shoulder with another arrow.

The monstrous creature must've possessed some spark of intelligence, because it seemed to understand Eli was keeping the group alive.

It turned on him, fury in its deep-set eyes.