The harrowing feeling of being an inch from death faded, and he was left staring at Kobolds.
Colt wrenched his attention back into the moment. There was no choice. The first and most immediate reaction he could do was to spend his stat points.
One went into strength, the other into dexterity. An even build, for now, flexibility meant survivability, each point was a significant effect, with Bill he’d already seen the difference they made. In the chaos of a fight, every little detail could be the difference between him and his allies making it through or dying.
His second move was to toss his knife at the enemy.
It flew in a line as the first Kobold charged. Following the narrow invisible line he saw—from the knife in his hand to the kobold’s head. He felt like it would land, so he sent it.
When it plopped right into his target’s skull, only slightly off target, and a second after its limp body crashed into the muddy ground, he knew he’d made the right call.
The rest of the kobolds came in a wave; seven were headed at him. They intended to overwhelm and consume them, tearing them limb from limb.
But now, they were easier to handle. They were sluggish. Molasses in the air; even with his sword feeling like a jerky puppet in his hand, they were worse. Little rats to slice and stab—even with their numbers, they couldn’t get past the distance between the sword and his hand.
Three of them faced him, and he drained their blood.
They started sluggishly, but his sword wickedly chopped them down.
It was a dance. Pure and simple. A dance of battle where his feet clicked to the rhythm of blood and steel—the beat was each slice of his sword, the notes were his dagger finishing off kobolds. Using both weapons at the same time was awkward at first, like all new things, but the longer he used the sword, the more it belonged.
In a matter of twenty seconds, the three kobolds he’d faced died.
Then he turned to take in the rest of the fight.
Nate bashed in one of the enemy’s heads like a pumpkin smashed against a wall—it twitched on the ground, already dead; the only bits of life remaining in its body were the twitching spasms of its muscles that didn’t realize it yet.
He was working on a second kobold while a third harassed him on the side.
Sarah struggled more and gave up on using a knife. Instead, she punched at her kobold with a curled fist, followed by a second to its jaw.
She had it well in hand, just not the strength to end it as quickly as he had. Colt flew in to back up, a vision of death as he stabbed the kobold in the back and held it still for her to smash a fist into its neck, shattering its windpipe.
They moved to help Nate.
Another ten seconds later, the seven kobolds had drifted to death, and only the three of them were left standing.
He got messages about the Kobolds and glossed over them, skipping straight to the information at the end of the notification.
———
You have leveled up!
You have gained 1 point of Dexterity!
You have 2 Stat points to spend!
Skill Gained: Swords Proficiency [Common] (Basic)
Swords Proficiency (Basic) - Level 1
This skill encompasses using swords and sword-like objects in the art of combat.
———
After a breather, Colt went and checked the new skill. It was uncommon. Just like that, Cannibal Kobold, the rarity was surprising, which brought a warm rush of gratitude to his gut. Hiding status seemed useful.
So he tried it.
Activating the skill was easy. All it took was to focus on willing his status to be hidden—a quick prompt appeared, asking for details and which skills he’d like hidden.
Colt opted to hide everything.
Like that, with a mental switch, his Status was more secure than ever. There was more to do with the new level.
And that was assigning stat points. As ever always, the first went to dexterity… But the other… That one he held onto, Endurance, tempted him, but he held back.
That one was headed right for Soul.
Not now, but later. After spending the first point in his soul and that tiny flash of seeing something larger than him, the fascination latched onto his head. It was like standing at the edge of a great river, cutting through the horizon. How far did it go? How deep was it?
Colt would find out but now wasn’t the time.
Eventually, these levels would dry up, and they wouldn’t come as easily as they did now. Every game was like that. If he was going to dip his toes into that river, it would be best done at these earlier levels, even if he invested most of his points into the most straightforward physical stats.
With his points done, he confirmed with Nate and Sarah they’d also leveled up and spent their stats—then they moved further into the dungeon.
As they walked down the dirt path of this part of the dungeon, moving through the twisty, narrow street, Colt told them about the red eyes. Sarah seemed scared, and Nate just grunted. To the army man, it must’ve been yet another danger to file away in his mind.
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It wasn’t long before they wandered into another small troop of kobolds. This time, three.
It wasn’t long until those kobolds died.
They didn’t give a level after they were killed, but the next group of five they ran into did.
———
You have leveled up!
You have 2 Stat points to spend!
———
Spending those new stat points was easy. Strength and Endurance. Both Nate and Sarah were also packing on the levels—but a quick inspect told Colt he was still ahead. Nate reached level six. Sarah had gotten to level four.
Levels were one thing. Skills were another. Sarah had gotten to an unarmed level of 8—much of it transferring from her previous practice in Muay Thai. After the three fights, she moved smoother than ever and became a force that easily kept up with Nate and Colt’s superior stats.
Things went on like that.
Their cautious pace led them out of the dirty stucco alley and into an old, old, medieval-style alley. Here, the bags of trash had transformed into barrels of refuse. Crates of crap. On occasion, they came across pits and piles of filth. The lights here, too, had transformed. Now they were torches and braziers, live fire lit by a wood that never seemed to burn out. This alley, too, twisted and curved. Though more. Like it’d grown organically in this dungeon, a living messy vein of life and medieval garbage.
More kobolds lived here.
More kobolds died here.
Between the three of them, the fighting became easier. Skills and levels helped, sure. But so did practice. They found Sarah was good at disabling and locking down a foe, handing chances to kill them on a silver platter. Colt took those chances, delivering lethal blows with the edge of his blades. Nate kept to the middle of the fight, drawing attention and reigning in stragglers into the chaos in the middle.
It wasn’t long before Colt got another level.
———
You have leveled up!
You have 2 Stat points to spend!
———
Colt spent them like the others. One went to strength, the other to dexterity. Building up a good base seemed prudent. He told them after he’d finished spending points and when he’d leveled. But he didn’t tell his teammates how he spent the points. Neither of them did either. That part was still a secret, even between them. Trust only went so far in situations like this.
After an hour, they hit a split in the alley, and Colt decided to take the left.
The medieval-style architecture grew from buildings to hedges. This part of the labyrinth thrived with greenery, not a narrow gap to be seen, stretching what exactly Colt thought of as an ‘alley.’ It became less of an urban sprawl dungeon and more of a hellish, endless maze.
They made it about a hundred feet into the hedges before calling it and heading back.
By now, they had a feel for the dungeon. It would keep going like this. Each intersection spawns into different ‘alleys.’ Whose sole definition seemed to be narrow tunnels that crowded on the sides. Making you feel claustrophobic. Left, right—what else would be found here? Could they have found themselves in a dense New York-style alley? Shipping containers in a dockyard?
It wasn’t much information, and they all still had a lot of questions. For example, why did the moon in the sky above never move, but hours had slid by? It stared at them above, a crescent resembling a mad man smiling down at them with his eyes closed.
The real reason they decided to head back was hunger. Fighting a lot brought it out, making it all the more obvious about one key detail here. In all the travel and bits of garbage they had dug through, there wasn’t any food to see.
Unless one counted kobolds as food.
He didn’t, really. Neither did Sarah nor Nate.
When they got back, Nate planned to count the kitchen resources. After that, the three would head back out and gain move levels.
One or two trips more like this, and they’d have a safe lead on everyone else. Enough to keep control of the kitchen. They agreed as they walked back through the dungeon to keep things tight-lipped. Tell everyone some details, such as them being out of Nashville and the danger of the dungeon—enough to scare everyone else and keep them from peeking out of the door.
After they had their lead and control, they could focus on finding the mandatory boss and getting the hell out.
As they walked, they made plans and talked about everything under the moon. But what they didn’t talk about was what came after. What happened when they escaped this dungeon?
Colt, for one, hoped that outside of this place… Wasn’t much different at all. Each level, each kobold was a challenge; this place and all of these skills were like pieces and tools to a puzzle he could just barely grasp—a puzzle he dearly wished to solve.
This was a different world. A place where he didn’t have to scrape by at the bottom of the barrel to live off meager scrapes of cash working for rude people. No, he could make himself into something here. Be his own person.
It wasn’t long until the medieval architecture became the stucco alley—and then, not long after, they were back at the brick alleyway of Nashville, at their kitchen door.
Colt did the honors of opening them back up into the kitchen and returning back to the last remains of their old world.
Almost everyone was missing.
Only Cindy and Chef were there; Chef hovered behind her with a knife as she cooked, his eyes honed on her cooking, barely sparing the three of them a glance as they wandered into his kitchen covered in kobold blood. An odd reaction.
Most concerning, though…
“Where’s everyone else?” Colt asked, looking at the freezer, wondering if they were all jammed back there.
“Out.” Chef answered, “Getting our new ingredients. We had a shipment due today.”
“We’re not getting a shipment ever again… They went outside?” Colt asked carefully. Chef had gone off the deep end, then.
“They’ve never missed a delivery, boy. And you need to get back to cutting chicken. Lazy, incompetent oaf.” Chef stopped hovering over Cindy, his stern eyes shooting towards the three of them. There was an edge to those eyes, and Colt noticed how he was holding that knife, ready to cut—even though it didn’t look like Chef was prepping anything.
He’s gone.
Cindy shivered and stopped cutting, looking back at them. Her eyes were puffy and red.
“They left me here with him. And he’s snapped.”
“SHUT IT!” Chef yelled, snapping a hand against the table near her, making all of them jump. He waved the knife in the air and stared at them with wide eyes, “My whole kitchen has gone to shit just because of some unruly customers—you all think you can walk over me in my kitchen, do whatever you want here. No. I pay your checks. I’m the reason you have this damn job. Get on your ungrateful knees and kiss my damn shoes!”
Nate stepped forward, raising a hand. “Donny. Listen. I know this is hard to understand. I’ve fought the things that attacked you. They aint like nothing we’ve seen, I know. You just need to drop the knife and sit down. We’ll take care of this for you.”
“How about you get back to your fucking job? You run around my kitchen with your head held high, ‘war hero.’ As if I give two licks of care about you killing some kids in some godforsaken county—Did I tell you to stop cooking!?” Chef screeched, lashing out with his hand as if to slap Cindy. Only, the hand wasn’t free. It had a knife in it.
She let out a shriek, pulling her head back even as the edge of the knife cut through it, drawing a line of red right under her eye.
Shock and horror to see another person hurt—this wasn’t Kobolds. Colt threw away the sensation, knowing now was the time to act. The last hour trained him how to move without freezing, and so he did.
Colt lurched forward as Chef gasped for air, confused and surprised at his own sudden act of violence. He didn’t see Colt coming, barely reacted as he tackled Chef to the ground, and tore the knife out of his hand—the stats and the surprise were simply too much. Colt moved on a level and reacted in a way only a trained athlete could.
With a single move, Colt took Chef to the floor and pinned him.
He grunted as Chef started to kick and resist underneath, “Get me something to tie him up with—and someone else help Cindy!”