6:32

Owin slowed as soon as he saw the final chest. It was just as wide open as the other three, revealing the glowing battery to the world. The problem was the lack of a boss. Nothing stood between him and the glowing orb.

“This floor is isolated, right?” Owin asked.

“Yes. Always has been.” Shade looked around quickly. “I haven’t seen anyone else, and you would think we would have if it was a common floor.”

“Then where is the boss?” Owin took a few more steps closer, but his instincts screamed not to sprint forward.

Shade smacked his hand on top of Owin’s helmet. “Be ready with that summon spell. I wasn’t joking when I said it is cramped in the box. Really cramped. I know it’s hard to imagine what a box in the void looks like, but it is a box and it is in the void, and wow is there not a lot of room in there once you start filling it with mana batteries.”

“What?”

Shade walked forward with an exaggerated arm swing. “Sacrificial Bait is my real name, after all.”

“Didn’t you say your real name started with a D?”

Shade walked backward, shaking his head slowly at Owin. “I thought eating a whole brain would boost yours. I—”

The water moved around Shade, launching him straight up so fast it took Owin a moment to realize the skeleton had disappeared. Far above, Shade hit the boundary wall and exploded into gray dust.

Summon the Withered Shade

Shade grabbed Owin’s shoulders and pulled him back. “I don’t know what sort of cruel joke this is from Sloswen, but we are going to go occupy ourselves in some other way back at the portal for a few hours.”

“What happened? It looked like you disappeared!”

“Disappearing would be a mercy right now,” Shade said as he continued dragging Owin backward. “There is a water elemental guarding that chest, and being that we’re in this swampy ass dungeon, I don’t believe there is a good way for us to approach this fight. Unless you have some sort of ridiculously powerful spell hidden in those giant ears of yours, I think it’s best we run.”

Owin pulled himself free of Shade’s grip. “I could use Discharge.”

“And fry yourself? What good would that do?”

The mana battery sat in the chest, glowing like a beacon. He had already collected four by taking the one out of the golem, but having another wouldn’t be a bad thing. Potirantoma the demon was able to build powerful prosthetics with a single small mana crystal. Owin could hardly imagine what an alchemist could build with full battery orbs.

“What if I just run in and grab it? Or you grab it and I unsummon you?”

Shade flailed his arms in front of them. “Do you see it? Could you confidently point to it and say ‘Hey, there’s the giant water elemental that’s about to rip me to shreds?’”

“No.” The water had moved right before Shade was hit, but there wasn’t any sign of a mob before that. If Owin could only react to the elemental immediately before an attack, he wouldn’t stand a chance. He was fast, but not that fast.

“Sometimes retreating is the better idea. Greed is a dangerous enemy in the dungeons. You know the gods set it up that way. Why else would people risk their lives so willingly? That wish hangs heavily over our heads, you know. They play into that greed.” Shade sighed. “I’m just saying things.” He squatted and waddled over to stand right in front of Owin. A bit of silver blood still clung to his eye sockets. “I know you want to grab that battery, but this is a fight that I think could actually kill you.”

Owin leaned to the side, looking past the skeleton. The empty space around the chest was only occupied by some glowing crystals, providing light to the area. He watched for a moment, trying to spot any sign of the elemental. There was nothing. Not a single bubble or rock movement. Nothing that revealed the elemental’s size or location.

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“How would other heroes fight this?”

Shade stood back to his full height. “Myrsvai could send in abyssal spells until they hit. A magus has all sorts of spells to fill an area. You, assassins, soldiers, or berserkers are simply out of luck. Even a hunter could find some way to fight this boss. Some puzzles don’t have solutions.”

“You’re sure?”

Shade nodded enthusiastically. “I wouldn’t lie to you.” He crouched again. “I wouldn’t lie to you about this.”

Owin opened his index to his map and started following the path back to the girhuma settlement. “What are we going to do for six hours?”

“You can entertain me. Tell me stories. I’m sure there are plenty of things from before you met my beautiful self that you could tell me.”

Owin groaned. “I don’t remember what I’ve already told you.”

“Perfect! Start at the beginning. I probably don’t remember any of it either because I really wasn’t listening to anything you said when you first summoned me.”

***

Miya hadn’t had all that much to work with lately, but that didn’t stop her from accidentally causing half the basement to explode. Luckily, she was resistant to explosions, so all it did was cause her to do a few backflips until she smashed against the wall. Unluckily, the explosion caused a massive fire to rage through her lab.

Footsteps pounded on the floor above and quickly descended the stairs. Chorsay and Potilia were there in seconds. The old man picked Miya up and brushed the soot from her goggles. He set her on her feet in the gentlest of ways.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

“No more than usual.” Miya ran her hand through her hair, brushing more soot out.

“Wow.” Potilia walked into the alchemy lab, which was fully on fire. “What did you do?”

“It was an accident!”

Chorsay strode right into the lab, directly into the raging flames. “I didn’t think you would intentionally destroy your own lab, Miya.” Within seconds, the soldier had the fire under control. With a mix of abilities and just his impressive depth of knowledge, Chorsay stopped the fire from spreading further.

Miya finished collecting herself then ran in and stopped the rest, pulling everything explosive away from anything that could cause them to combust again.

After a few minutes of cleaning, Chorsay sat heavily on a table. It creaked under his weight. Potilia leaned on what was left of the counter, which was little more than charcoal.

“I had a thought about remodeling the headquarters,” Chorsay said. He cleared his throat. “Just now.”

Potilia snorted.

“I’m sorry,” Miya said for probably the thirtieth time. If this was the first mistake she had made, it would be different. She really couldn’t stop making mistakes. What was it that Althowin’s apprentices did differently? What did they have that she didn’t?

A new fire sprung to life on the counter beside Potilia. She immediately smacked her hand onto it, causing the entire counter to explode.

“Po!” Miya flinched back.

“Oops.”

Chorsay chuckled. The table beneath him cracked in half, causing him to fall flat onto the stone floor. Miya gasped, but as soon as he hit the ground, Chorsay’s chuckle burst into a full, deep belly laugh.

Potilia started laughing and tripped over what was left of the counter. She spread out on the ground despite all the debris and soot and continued laughing.

“What’s happening?” Miya asked.

Chorsay sat up and pushed half the table away. “This isn’t how I expected to spend my evening.” He grunted and stood. “Let’s go find a drink and some food. No reason to spend the evening here.”

“Shouldn’t we fix this? Shouldn’t I fix this?” Miya looked around at the devastation she had just caused. She had lit fires before, and she had broken her fair share of furniture, but this was the first time she had almost destroyed the whole building.

“Why?” Chorsay asked. He walked toward the stairs. “There’s always tomorrow. No rush to these things. We’re all safe.”

“Sometimes it worries me how much you don’t worry,” Miya said.

“I didn’t save all that money to let it sit in a bank,” Chorsay said as he started up the stairs. “We will get you a new lab. Maybe one with less wood next time.”

“I think that would be good,” Miya said.

“What about using the same material as the arena?” Potilia was still lying on the ground.

“That could work,” Chorsay said, his voice becoming distant as his heavy footsteps pounded on the floor above.

Miya stood beside Potilia. “Why are you still on the ground?”

Potilia shrugged.

It was nice when she wasn’t panicking. She seemed so confident when she was calm. Miya offered a hand, which Potilia took. As soon as she was on her feet, soot started to fall off. Miya brushed as much as she could from Potilia’s back, but she had just been lying in it. There was too much clinging to her clothes.

“Are we getting food? There’s a new restaurant on the other side of the portals,” Chorsay shouted down the stairs.

“Yes!” Potilia grabbed Miya’s arm and dragged her across the basement and quickly up the stairs.

“We’re all covered in soot,” Miya said as she stumbled into the lobby.

Chorsay shrugged. He was already half out the door. “It’s late. Nobody will care.”

Miya wondered, just like every other day, how she ended up in the Nimble Hog Hero Company. It really was an odd group.