“Where the heck is Dirk?” I asked.

Vreek and Turk were smiling at me, and both of them shrugged.

I glanced around the zone and could not see Dirk anywhere. I had slept a while and with no way of tracking time, I just knew it felt like I had slept a whole eight hours.

Turk and Vreek had cooked me some of the animals that tasted like mutton. It was weird watching their corpses dissolve into nothing after they had been butchered and cooked. The magic of this labyrinth was hard to comprehend. Even knowing what I knew from Earth did not always make it that much easier.

“He is around here somewhere,” Turk said with a wink, and I glanced around again.

“I really do not have a lot of time to wait on him to show up. I talked with the King while you all slept and…”

Suddenly Dirk lept out next to me. I fell backward off the log I was sitting on and crashed against the ground.

“Where the heck did you come from?” I gasped as I rolled over to stand up.

Turk, Dirk, and Vreek were laughing and obviously enjoying my surprise. I looked around, but there was no way he could have snuck up on me. Glancing at Dirk, I immediately noticed he looked different.

His green skin had turned a dark green that almost appeared black sometimes and his eyes now had a black band running across his face like a space-age pair of glasses.

“You evolved?” I asked.

Dirk nodded and started flexing showing off his increased muscles and acting like a fool.

“When? How?”

Dirk shrugged and smiled.

“I guess the heart from that boss did it. All I know is I fell asleep and when I woke up, I could feel the power running through me. I have only been up a few hours but there is so much more I can do now. I can see so many different things.

“Is that how you snuck up on me?”

Dirk nodded.

“I can jump between shadows. As long as the shadow is about a foot wide, I can jump into and out of it.”

I felt my eyes go wide, and I shook my head in disbelief.

“That seems…”

“Overpowered?” Turk called out.

I nodded and laughed.

“I was going to say powerful and cool but ya overpowered too.”

Dirk laughed and shook his head in disagreement.

“You two seem to forget how overpowered both of you are. Each of you can still one-shot anything we fight.”

Hearing Dirk say that reminded me of what I needed to tell them.

I retook my seat on the log and motioned for Dirk to sit down.

“I talked to the King, and I need to fill you in on what he told me about the labyrinth.”

Dirk and Turk had been sitting silently for a few minutes as they processed the information. I could see Turk calculating percentages and power scaling. He had always been the raid leader in our online guilds. Even as a teenager his grasp of those tactics, numbers, agro, and boss patterns was better than the other adults like myself.

Vreek was still struggling with the knowledge I had talked to the King. For him, that was an honor greater than anything else.

Dirk had simply taken the news and then started practicing dagger moves by throwing them at a tree nearby.

Turk stood up and bent down to grab the backpack near him.

“We need to start moving. Any lead we had is going to be quickly fading. The fiftieth floor is our friend. Once we get past that, we know they will have to deal with whatever creature comes after that. If they are not prepared for that level, they will have to get a whole new team going and sent in.”

I glanced at Vreek and Dirk, and both of them nodded.

“Let’s go then. I’ll carry the backpack. Dirk, you got your brother’s back still. Any questions?”

No one spoke, and we got together and moved next to the red portal. Two more floors till the boss.

The monsters were fast-moving killer rabbits on this floor. There was something disturbing about a four-foot-tall rabbit with huge teeth that attacked in packs and could jump at a ninety-degree angle at a moment's notice. It was our hardest battle yet as they moved fast and changed directions in a heartbeat. I took a few hits, and it felt like I was getting punched by a sixth grader when they kicked me. It wasn’t terrible but when one bit me on my arm, I decided I was done playing.

Fear did nothing to them, but I tried it anyways. They still died to a single hit of my sword. Turk built a wall of fire to help hedge them in. It limited the direction they could attack from and created a choke point.

“I’d like to meet the god that decided a floor needs rabbits like that,” Dirk complained as he ripped off a leg from one and took a bite.

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“Reminds me of bunny Fufu,” Turk joked.

“Bunny Fufu?” asked Vreek.

“Oh, it's a kids' rhyme. A rabbit goes through fields, grabs mice, and bites off their heads.”

Vreek looked at me, and I could see the confusion on his face.

“Are rabbits where you live prone to eating mice? Is that why you warn your children about them?”

I laughed out loud. In fact, I laughed so hard I bent over. Turk and Dirk chuckled, and poor Vreek had to wait for me to stop laughing.

“Sorry, rabbits aren’t like that where we live. It was just a silly thing someone made up.”

Vreek nodded his head, but I could see he was still confused.

We had to fight a lot more packs than I wanted, but soon we were at the pulsing black portal for the boss.

“I feel we should eat a small piece,” Vreek argued. “You three might feel like we don’t need it, but if something happens and someone gets injured, we either have to leave or hope they don’t die. I don’t want to risk my life or yours.”

Dirk shrugged.

“I understand what Vreek is saying. You two forget he is not as strong as us. Until this morning, I was noticeably weaker also.”

Vreek was right. As usual, I was not considering his point of view.

“You three eat the three small pieces we have left. I would rather save the full nine hearts if possible, and my sword will heal me.”

They all agreed and ate a fourth of a heart. I wondered how much longer we could keep going with just a small piece.

“Everyone ready?” I asked.

When they all nodded after preparing, we jumped in.

“RUN!” Dirk shouted again.

Turk was using his magic to sprint around the room. His arrow attack had grabbed the agro of the twenty-foot tall werewolf creature. Turk took a massive hit which left him bleeding when it dashed faster than any of us expected and hit him with its claws. Since then, it was a race around the massive room that was like a football stadium. Even with Turk’s magical power in his feet, he was barely staying ahead of the boss.

“Bring it around!” I shouted as I prepared for Turk to run past me. I could see him coming around the room, and I prepared to swing at the boss.

Turk blew past me, and I swung my sword. I considered jumping and trying to hit a vital point, but right now, I needed to just slow the boss down.

As it ran past, I swung my sword and took off his left leg from the thigh down. It howled in pain as it tumbled across the floor, and blood flew everywhere.

“Now!” I shouted.

Dirk jumped out of the shadows the boss had created. The light in the room had shadows everywhere and allowed him the perfect chance to strike. He popped out next to the boss, hacked off his right arm below the elbow, and jumped into the shadows again as it tried to swing with its other hand as it rolled over.

I ran up and took off its other leg.

Suddenly two explosions rocked the boss, and his head blew up in a cloud of blood.

“Nice work!” Dirk called out as he popped back out near the boss.

“Try for a heart!” Vreek called out the moment the boys started to celebrate.

Dirk motioned for me to come over.

“You need to do it, he is lying on his chest, and I doubt we can turn him over even as cut up as he is.”

I nodded and started to carve a chunk out of the boss's back. As I cut, the body started to fade, and a moment later, all that remained was a silver and gold chest.

“Did we miss it?” Turk asked as he ran up.

I glanced over and saw that his arm was starting to heal. The cuts were done bleeding, and he would have a few nice scars from his shoulder to his elbow on that arm.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “I am not sure if every boss drops a heart.”

Vreek was grumbling. I understood why. It should be a powerful thing if we could get a boss's heart. It would also help us to conserve the hearts that we have.

“You going to open it?” Turk asked as we all stood around, staring at the chest.

“It’s different from the others,” I pointed out. “It is more ornate.”

Turk nodded and bent down, and looked all around the chest.

“It has more designs on it. Nothing I can read or understand, but it definitely has something on it.”

“Well who should open it? Does it even matter?” I asked.

Turk shrugged.

“I don’t know. We only get one chance at this. There were games where whoever killed the boss or opened the boss seemed to affect what was the reward. Here we do not know. We just know it should be something good.”

I rubbed my face and let out a moan.

“Dirk, you do it. If it is affected by the one who opens it, I don’t need anything right now.”

Dirk scoffed but gladly walked up to the chest.

“Baby needs something shiny,” Dirk joked as he opened the lid.

I saw his eyes widen, and a smile crept across his face.

“Yes!” he shouted as he reached into the chest and pulled out a pair of daggers that almost looked like a short sword by their length. They had a slight curve to their blades, and all along them were gems. One had red gems on the hilt, and the other had green gems on its hilt.

“I guess the boxes work for the one who loots them,” I stated as Turk laughed.

“Everyone is ok if I keep these, right?” Dirk asked as he started attacking the air around him.

“I think they were designed for you. None of us use daggers.”

Dirk nodded, slid the two daggers into his belt, and smiled.

“I can’t wait to try them out!”

After Turk finally healed up we gathered around the blue portal near us.

“You know this is going to get harder,” Dirk asked as he looked at me.

I nodded and smiled.

“That's what makes this fun. The fact that we all might die,” I joked.

Turk and Dirk laughed, and I saw Vreek shaking his head at us.

“I think our God screwed up when he sent you three. You three are crazy.”

I laughed and nodded.

“You only live once!” I announced

“Or twice if you are us!” Dirk shot back.

“Why don’t you lead the way, Zolb, since you don’t mind dying,” Vreek said with a chuckle. “Some of us only have one life it seems.”

I nodded and jumped through the portal.

“Holy dwarf balls!” I yelled as the others came through the portal behind me.

“Elf tits!” I heard Vreek shout as he stumbled through.

“Oh my god!” Dirk cried out next.

“Sweet mammary glands!” Turk muttered.

We were screwed.