The next nine floors were no challenge at all. Everyone, including Vreek, could kill any of the normal creatures with a single hit. We dodged as many monsters as possible, and Turk's ability to see far away helped us avoid many of them.

The twenty-fifth floor had a pack of forty rock-like creatures who were slow and easily taken down. A few pieces of ore dropped from them, and we put them in our pack.

Standing outside the thirtieth-floor portal, we debated whether we needed to eat a heart. We decided to skip it, and this boss was similar to the Yashk and his snake men. The boss was fifteen feet tall, and we let Dirk attempt to solo it. The boss had two massive swords that he swung at Dirk. Each time Dirk would narrowly dodge them or slightly deflect them with his daggers. Dirk’s speed allowed him even to dodge when the boss attacked from a coiled position. I had struggled against Yashk when he used an attack like that. I was amazed as I watched Dirk slash him twice across the throat after toying with it for a while. The boss fell dead.

"That wasn't fun at all," Dirk bemoaned as he walked away from the boss's dead body.

"Why hasn't it vanished like the other?" Turk asked.

I also stared at it, wondering why it was not, and suddenly Vreek shouted out.

"Get the heart!"

Dirk's eyes went wide, and he ran back to where the corpse was and quickly cut out the massive heart from inside it. Ten seconds after Dirk had removed the heart, the body started to disappear, and soon, it was replaced with a chest and a blue portal.

"What should I do with this?" Dirk asked as he stared at the heart.

I found myself tapping my foot as I thought about it. The real treasure in a fight like this would come from the treasure chest. If the dwarves had killed this boss, would they have gotten a heart? Would they have gotten something to help them grow stronger?

"Eat it," I informed him.

"What?" Dirk asked.

"Eat it!"

Dirk looked at me and then at Vreek and Turk.

"I could share it with you! Wouldn't that be better?"

I knew he wanted to eat it, but he also did not want to feel like a hog. He was shuffling his feet as he stood there, holding it out toward us.

"It is yours. The dungeon gave it to you. It won't do anything for me or Turk. Share it with Vreek if you want, but it is yours."

Vreek looked at Dirk and smiled.

"I already got something," he teased as he tapped his bracer. "You eat it."

Dirk's smile grew, and he nodded and lifted it to his mouth. For a brief second, I thought it looked like he glowed a little while eating it.

As always, it never took long for one of us to eat a heart. Fueled by the desire to make us eat it as fast as possible, Dirk was licking his finger and wiping his chin off.

"So, are you going to open the chest or make one of us do it?" Turk asked as he pointed to the chest.

Dirk laughed, having forgotten all about the chest, and turned and opened it.

"Well, that sucks!" Dirk complained.

He pulled up a metal ingot that had a green tint to it.

"I was hoping for a weapon or ring or something. Not a piece of metal."

I knew what Dirk wanted, but I also knew that anything we got from a boss here must have special properties.

"I am assuming that can be crafted into something. Now we need to find a goblin or orc skilled enough to do something with this."

Vreek started laughing and shook his head.

"We have not had one of those in a long time. I do not think Bula had one either."

Dirk walked over and handed me the bar. It felt warm, and the green tint seemed to reflect from the soft light in the room. It weighed probably at least twenty pounds.

"Well, I'll put it in the backpack, and we can save it for another day. Nice work though on the boss," I told Dirk as I messed with his head.

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He laughed and pointed to the portal.

"Let's keep going.

Floors thirty-one through thirty-nine were not difficult at all. We had to cut up a heart on floor thirty-nine because a poison attack hit Vreek and Dirk. Vreek was puking from the poison, but Dirk’s heart from the boss caused his problem with it to fade away. I felt the poison cloud slightly burn my skin and could feel the tingle in my lungs, but it was nothing more than a nuisance. I assumed I somehow resisted it.

These weird plant-like creatures on this floor reminded me of a cactus and a starfish moving around and shooting out needle-like darts. The creatures were not fast, but the needles they shot out were quicker than expected. Their cloud attack if they were given enough time to launch it caused problems. The range from which they would agro on us was so random.

With nine full hearts and three-quarters of another, we fought the boss, a massive thorn-like creature with long tentacles and spikes that inflected poison if they hit you, as Vreek and Dirk found out. It was not difficult, but we tried to work on some tactics for later bosses. We knew at some point we could not just walk in and one-shot everything.

After spending a few minutes fighting the boss, Turk lit it up with a fire spell, and it fell dead, burnt to a crisp before it faded into nothingness.

"I guess plants are weak to fire,” he stated before he started to laugh.

Turk had made a good assessment. I realized we needed to start thinking about weaknesses and strengths.

I let Vreek open the chest, and we laughed when he pulled out a leather belt with some ornate markings. It looked like a pair of the vine tentacles the boss had used to attack. Every time Vreek opened a chest, it seemed to be armor.

"Put it on Vreek," Turk said after we had all taken a turn looking at it.

"Why me?" Vreek asked. "I already have something."

Turk nodded, and I knew Dirk was wondering the same thing.

"I'm guessing that may give poison resistance," Turk said as he fingered the small stubble on his chin. "I have been thinking about the bosses we have fought and what they dropped before. I think we are going to see a pattern."

"What pattern?" Dirk inquired as he started lifting his fingers slowly. I knew he was counting the boss floor drops.

"The first boss we killed on the twentieth dropped a bracer. We did not get the one on the fifteenth, so none of us knew what that drop was. The twenty-fifth floor dropped ore, and the boss dropped a metal ingot. Remember those flowers we got from the thirty-fifth floor you said could be used for poison or an antidote?"

Dirk started nodding, and I saw where Turk was going with this. He had always been good at figuring out patterns and game mechanics.

"That would make me believe that this boss has something to help against poison."

Turk pointed at Vreek.

"I hate to say it, but Vreek is the weakest one here, and since he is on the front line, if that belt does help against poison, he needs to wear it. Dad seems unaffected by the poison right now." Turk paused and held up nine fingers. "We have nine full hearts left. That means we need to figure out the best use of the items we find."

Vreek laughed and started wrapping the belt around his waist.

"Turk seems like a much better leader than you, Zolb," he joked.

"I agree he is much better at this than I am."

After he closed the clasp on the side, the belt readjusted itself slightly to fit around Vreek. It was good to see that the items fit anyone who wore it.

"Let's push ourselves to the rest level this time. I want to figure out how long we have been going and take a few moments to rest and eat. It won't do us any good if we tire ourselves out."

Floors forty-one through forty-seven were a little bit harder now. Vreek could not one-shot the creatures any longer, and it usually took two solid hits from him to kill something. The three of us could still kill most things with a single hit. Dirk had to aim for a vital spot on animals or the creatures we faced for a one-hit kill. He was killing based on weak points where Turk and I were overpowering whatever we hit.

The mini-bosses on the forty-fifth floor were a pack of werewolf-like creatures. Twenty of them appeared, and they all attacked as one. They had been stronger than any of the other monsters we had faced so far. It had taken teamwork, and I had to manage the attacks they tried to land on me as they surrounded me. Dirk and Vreek kept the ones off of Turk as he killed them from afar.

One had landed a good cut on my arm with its claws when four of them rushed me simultaneously, but after I struck them down with a whirlwind attack, my wound healed from the power of Light Drinker.

I used fear on the pack; only about four had been slightly affected. They were stronger indeed.

I let out a small sigh as we reached the forty-eight floor.

How much time had passed since we had entered into this labyrinth? We had been pushing for hours on each floor. It must have easily been at least two days.

“I’ll get a fire started,” Turk shouted as he moved towards one of the trees not far off.

Vreek had already gone to the pond in the distance, and Dirk was collecting some of these sheep-like creatures on the floor.

I found a spot I liked, far enough away from the portal but still where whoever was keeping guard could see it. I always wanted to ensure no one could sneak up on us while we took this chance to rest. I could feel the need as my body ached and was tired.

I took the first watch and let everyone else rest. Staying awake in this zone seemed hard as everything felt incredibly peaceful. The gentle sound of water off behind us, the breeze that blew just enough to stir the air but not make it cold.

My mind felt relaxed. Time was impossible to gauge, and I tried to think about the labyrinth.

“Zolb!”

It felt like a needle had just been impaled through my eye. A sharp pain all the way through my skull. It echoed worse than anytime I had ever talked to Brar.

And then it hit me. It wasn’t Brar.