The trip to the Meadows, the area where the boss monster appeared for this level, was pretty quick, as we walked directly there. The boss was a giant tree with fire magic that threw exploding apples at us. The worst part about fighting a tree was that you couldn’t really harm it. The bark might barely protect it, but it’s body was as hard as, well, wood. Ideally we would have brought axes with us, but none of them through about it and I didn’t know we would be facing a tree. Worse still, it was resistant to light damage. Every time Brie fired a spell at it it seemed to get a bit more energetic, so she had to sit the battle out.

Eventually we managed to cut enough off of its roots that it lost a good bit of sap and essentially bled to death. We picked the few remaining apples and took them with us through the portal to level 2.

This level seemed to start us in a clearing in the middle of the woods. Brie pulled out a map and consulted it. There were four portals on this level, and all were mapped out, so she soon knew where we were and could lead us to the Rat Warrens. Three kilometers of travel, and several encounters with forest creatures, from rabbits and squirrels to boars and woodpeckers, and we made it to the Warrens. We sat down to rest and Edam pulled out a crystal with a slight green glow inside. “Any of you interested in music? Apparently one of those birds I killed had a Minor Musicality talent. It will give you perfect pitch and make it easier to learn music based skills.” He looked around, and when everyone either shrugged or otherwise turned it down, he put it back in his bag. “Guess I’ll sell it in town. I’m sure some noble or wanna-be bard will want to buy it.”

After we had finished resting we made our way into the cave. A few seconds later I saw eyes reflecting the light Brie was producing. Too many eyes. Rats at least as big as a small dog, and in some cases as big as a medium dog swarmed us and I started swinging. I probably got bitten at least half a dozen times, but we managed to kill the first wave. “Nice.” said Fontina, pulling out a crystal. “Minor Water Magic.”

“You planning on using it?” I asked. “That ring was pretty handy, so I was thinking about picking up a talent for water magic. Plus, if I get it, I can probably shoot ice arrows with my ice magic.”

“Ice bolt is a pretty common combined spell.” Fontina said, “But yes. I want it myself.” To emphasize the point she put it in her mouth and a smile came on her face. “That felt pretty good.” she said after it dissolved.

After we finished digging out tiny DP crystals that were barely worth recovering, we kept going. Eventually we made it to a split in the tunnel. “Ok,” said Camembert. “both directions might have the elemental crystals we want. The dungeon just switches it from time to time. So which direction should we go first?”

I listened carefully. The left tunnel seemed to have a lot more scratching sounds. “The left seems to have more rats. Is it trying to protect them? Because if it is, that’s the way we should go. If not, though, it’s still our best chance to get talents and cores.”

Edam shrugged. “Works for me. They aren’t a threat, so going left just means more money.” The others didn’t care, so we went left.

Thirty meters later, after fighting a handful of rats, we entered a clearing. I had gotten a talent in the last fight, but didn’t check it immediately, as the room seemed to swarm with fifty or more rats, though the back of the room held a few crystals that glowed slightly on either side of another hallway, which also contained a few of those crystals. “Light crystals.” whispered Brie to me. That was what we had come for.

Even though she was quiet, several of the rats heard her and started running towards us. I stepped to the front of the line and held up my shield, blocking several of the rats from jumping at us. Brie started firing light balls to blind them and Fontina started firing arrows. She was starting to run low, though. I swung my sword, hitting one or two of the densely packed rodents with every swing, but more kept coming.

“Out of arrows.” said Fontina, drawing her short sword and joining the front line. The hall was only wide enough for three of us, though, so Edam stepped back and focused on hitting any that made it through. Several of them had made it to Brie, and she was having to beat them with her staff instead of firing spells.

Shortly after the ones that made it past us were killed, a much larger rat the size of a large dog came through the tunnel at the end of the room. Brie wasted no time firing a Light Beam at it, but it only seemed to take minor damage and glow a bit. Then it fired a light beam of its own at me. I got my shield in the way in time, but I could smell the wood of the shield burn slightly before it stopped. Maybe it was just light magic it could do that with? Since only ten or so rats remained I froze the edge of my blade, ran over and to the giant rat, swinging at it. It jumped to the side but I still nicked it, freezing a bit of its skin.

Now that I knew it couldn’t do that with other magic I continued to swing at it. It occasionally fired a light spell at me, but I was only slightly blinded from the flashes of light, seeing spots throughout the fight. Eventually I ran my sword through its neck and it collapsed as a wave of energy ran through me. The Rat’s hot blood sprayed out from a severed artery and got in my eyes but I managed to wash them out with the water from my canteen.

Seeing that all of the other rats were finished, I pulled out the two talent crystals. The first was a black crystal. Average Endurance. It was worthless for me, but maybe one of them would want it. The second was red. Minor Light Core. I told the others what I got from the giant rat and read its description. Minor Light Core allows you to absorb part of any light magic that hits you and ambient light, storing it in a Light core in your chest. You can then use the stored light to cast light magic without the use of mana if you have the skill. Brie was interested in both of them, as she only had minor Endurance, but especially the Light Core. I tried to give them to her now, but she said that, without knowing their value she couldn’t pay me. I told her that if she was sure she wanted them, then she could pay me in DP crystals at the standard rate of 1 DP = 1 Copper. She agreed and immediately used both.

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Shortly after that she started complaining about a pain in her chest while we collected the light crystals and DP crystals, so we gave her some water and took a break. As Fontina was down to seven arrows, I handed her my wand from my backpack and instructed her to focus the water from the air on the tip of the wand. She had used the water ring enough that she managed to do it after a few minutes. “Good, now make that water fly towards that wall.” That took her another thirty minutes to get right, and she only managed to fire a few proper water bolts before she started getting a headache and had to stop. I let her keep the wand in case she ran out of arrows, so she could still use ranged attacks. After waiting for about an hour the pain had stopped, so we could continue.

“Do you realize how lucky you were to get the boss rat’s power?” asked Edam. “That’s a really nice power, worth a lot of money and you just gave it away.”

“I sold it to a friend for DP, which can be much more useful. I think it was worth it.”

“Are you sure you don’t have a Luck talent?”

“You saw my status. No Luck talents.”

“Well, hidden talents are a thing. Or maybe you’re developing one.”

I shrugged and we made our way deeper into the cave. We occasionally ran into a rat, but had no real issue in dealing with them. After a hundred meters or so we found more light crystals in the wall and it started getting hot in here. The rats that approached all seemed to spit embers at our faces or blow fire at us, and if they managed to touch you your were burnt. I found that Ice magic was especially deadly to them, as every one I hit with a freeze slash died quickly. Fontina also managed to hit one with water magic, only for steam to come off of it, weakening it. As the others weren’t as able to fight the rats due to their intense heat, the battle took longer than expected, but eventually we beat them. I borrowed the water ring to splash all of the bodies so that they were cool enough to remove the DP crystals from, and we got to work collecting crystals. Many of the crystals we collected were in the walls, and after Brie was burned when trying to remove one, I had to spray down the walls as well, filling the room with steam.

Eventually we all left, feeling like we had visited a sauna while still in our clothes, and with multiple minor burns. Brie explained to me that only Life magic got actual healing magic at Minor level, with Light and Water getting one at Average and Earth getting one at Major. As she only had petty and minor light magic, she hadn’t learned to heal us yet, but would look into the Light Healing spell when she got back to the guild.

As we approached the next room I started to get chilly. The fact that all of us were damp didn’t help. Cam sneezed, and the sound echoed through the hall. “You wouldn’t happen to be able to lessen symptoms with your light magic?” he asked, have joking.

“I can sterilize everything you touch so that we don’t catch a cold from you.” she said, also joking. To demonstrate she made the end of her staff glow purple.

That’s when the sound of scratching reached us. “Great, more rats.” said Edam. “Not that killing them isn’t lucrative, but judging by the drop in temperature, they are probably Ice elemental rats. And I don’t think those will be as easy for us to deal with as the fire ones. So, any ideas?”

It was true that my ice magic would be practically useless, and water magic wouldn’t be much better, maybe slowing them if it froze on them. Brie’s light magic was the only magic we had that might affect them. “Anyone happen to pick up a fire magic talent back there?” I asked, and everyone shook their head. When no one else came up with an idea, we walked on in silence.

Eventually, Brie’s light orb started to fade, and she had to put more energy into keeping it lit. That implied that more than just Ice magic was happening here. Soon we started being attacked by an occasional Ice rat, but they weren’t that difficult to kill when they came at us only a few at a time. We touched a fire crystal to each one to thaw it out before harvesting it, and before long each of us had to put a fire crystal in our pockets to keep warm. The further we went, though, the harder Brie had to work to keep her light lit. “I think I’ve figured out what else we’re dealing with. It’s probably a darkness magic user. My guess would be a giant rat like the Light one.”

“That kind of makes sense.” said Cam. “The last cave had fire and light, this is the opposite.” He then seemed to realize something and stopped walking. “Wait, why aren’t their any walls?” We turned back the way we came, only to see a one and a half meter tall Rat man slash at Brie, leaving a nasty cut across her body. She fell to the ground and her light ball went out.

Now that we couldn’t see, I quickly dug through my backpack. We had to have a torch, right? No, we didn’t think we would need any, because we had a light mage. My hand did find something else, though. The three apples from the tree boss. “Everyone,” I said, connecting to the ring on my finger and making my shield glow, “follow me. I’ll lead us out of here.”

I looked around for the rat man as I walked backward towards the passage we came from. I knew he would be targeting me now that I had the only light magic. We were almost into the tunnel when I saw something leaping at me from behind and to the side. I brought up my shield just in time to block his dagger from hitting me.

We exchanged several blows, but it was clear that the rat man was more skilled with a blade than I was. After ten second or so he managed to get a slice under my shield, cutting the strap and leaving slight gash on my forearm. As the shield fell of my arm I switched to making my sword glow and activated my rage. I grabbed my sword with both hands and unleashed a flurry of slashes at him, which he dodged by jumping backwards. I ended up leaving my friends behind as I mercilessly attacked him, but in my anger I didn’t care. I just wanted him dead.

I heard some of the others fumbling for light stones as they tried to fight off enemies attacking from the dark and carry an injured, bleeding woman. I ignored them, and just kept swinging. He was clearly more skilled than me, able to dodge my attacks easily, but also was a bit self absorbed, acting like he was just playing with me instead of taking the fight seriously. He kind of reminded me of Edam, but that didn’t stop me from attacking him with all I had. Thirty seconds later his gloating got the better of him as he ran into a wall. He was surprised for only a second as my icy blade took his head from his shoulders, spraying blood into the air like a fountain, filling me with energy.

As the subject of my anger died my anger faded, and I realized how far I was from my friends. I ran towards the sound of their combat. All of them seemed to be standing in the end of the tunnel, holding a light stone in one hand, while swinging with the other. Cam had been forced to drop Brie, but thankfully they were able to keep the rats off of her as she lay there. They had dropped several light crystals as they were fumbling for them, and by the light of those crystals I could see several larger frost rats approaching. “Take cover” I called, and threw one of the apples into the middle of the large rats. The apple exploded and firelight covered the area, showing us dozens of burning rats writhing in pain. Eventually the shrieks of pain ended and those that were still alive were easy to finish off.

“What the hell was that?” said Edam after verifying that they were no longer under attack.

“Exploding apple from floor one.” I said, checking one of the dead rats to make sure it was dead.

“Not the apple, I mean running off when we needed you like you had a personal vendetta against that rat-man.”

“Oh, I have a Rage talent that lets me gain up to 300% to my strength in exchange for using 300% more stamina.”

“I remember the talent.” said Cam, “But I don’t think the talent made you abandon your friends when they needed you.”

“I’m sorry.” I said. Now that I think about it, that’s exactly what I did. What kind of a person does that?

“Well, maybe you can apologize to Brie if she makes it out of this.” said Fontina. She was holding Brie, who apparently now wore a large bandage instead of a shirt, with the bandaged part of her back now getting a red line across it from the blood. “As it is, we need to get out of here. We don’t have time to collect the crystals.”

I nodded. “Brie’s life is a lot more valuable than a bunch of crystals.” I said, then lead them out of the tunnels to the exit. I passed the rat man’s corpse on the way and considered stopping long enough to take his core, but that would delay Brie’s treatment. Thirty minutes later we were back at the portal and took it to the surface.

When we exited, we immediately took her to the healers who were standing by in case a team came back injured. They quickly stopped the bleeding and closed the wound, but she had lost a lot of blood and would need several days to rest. Cam told us to take the next two days off and we returned to the Guild hall.