“I can’t fight these,” Turk stated as he stared at the creatures before us. “It goes against everything I have ever wanted.”

I groaned and rubbed my neck with my hand.

A pack of four female Tabaxi was about fifty yards from us. They looked like muscle-bound Amazon women wearing only bikini-type armor. Their bodies were curved like a Cuban supermodels, and their quads would snu snu someone to death. Each of them was at least a double D cup. Nothing about these creatures seemed dangerous except for the four-foot swords they held in each hand and the fact they stood at least seven feet tall.

They stood before an entrance to a thick jungle zone. The portal had dropped us off in a small grassy clearing. Seventy-five yards from the portal was something that reminded me of a rainforest. Trees were everywhere, and the sounds of animals and birds echoed through the zone. You could feel the wet heat coming off the floor.

“I wish I had a camera,” Dirk said as he ogled the pack in front of us. “Do you think they are friendly?”

Vreek smacked Dirk on the shoulder.

“What is wrong with you two? Everything in here wants to kill us!”

I tried to let out a laugh, but I knew both boys were overcome with years of their pent-up boyish fantasy desires. All the anime and manga they watched was playing out right here before their very eyes.

I turned and looked at both of the boys. I would have sworn I saw drool coming from the side of both of their mouths.

“Turk! Dirk!” I yelled to get their attention.

Both of them moved their head to face me but it took their eyes another five seconds to follow.

“You two cannot let your fantasy take over like this. How do we know the labyrinth doesn’t read our desires and use that against us?”

Turk grimaced for a moment. He took another glance at the Tabaxi and sighed, and looked back at me.

“You are probably right, but I cannot begin to imagine a better way to die,” Turk joked.

“A real goblin would take one of those creatures and make her submit,” Vreek informed Turk. “I doubt you could do that in here, though.”

I scowled at Vreek and shook my head no. He was not making this any better.

“We aren’t taking anyone, and we are going to fight these Amazonian cat women.”

I snapped my fingers and got Dirk’s wandering attention back to me.

“If we play around and do not commit to this, someone will get hurt or die. So focus.”

Dirk nodded and pulled his new daggers from his belt.

“Not how I wanted to test these out, but I guess it will have to do,” he stated as he shrugged. “Any plans?”

“Spread out, Dad gets their attention, I’ll snipe one, you surprise attack one, Vreek holds off the fourth,” Turk announced as he pulled his bow off his back. “We need to see how each of us handles one while we still have some power of the heart we ate. Once we get into the jungle, our tactics will change because of the landscape.”

Vreek and I both nodded. Turk could not shoot his bow from a distance like he could now. Seeing these creatures' strength was the real test of how much deeper we could go.

Once we were ready, I charged the pack of four women and they turned and started charging me once I was about thirty yards away.

Turk had moved to the right and fired a shot that struck down one of the women in the back. She was not out, but she was getting up slowly. One of her arms was missing.

One woman veered off toward Turk, and Vreek moved to intercept.

Dirk popped up behind one of the women from under her shadow and did a double slice along her back that erupted in a red and green flame and caused her to scream and fall dead.

The one in front was shouting but heard the calamity behind her and turned for a moment before moving into fighting distance with me.

She swung her swords at me, and I blocked both with two simple parries of Light Drinker. I wished I had a shield and hoped I could find one soon. Dealing with two swords against one was not a matchup I wanted the further we progressed.

She swung her momentum and drove her swords down at me. Both swords crashed down onto Light Drinker, and I could feel the power of her strike. She was strong, but I could tell I was still a lot stronger than her.

I pushed her sword up and kicked her in the knee, buckling it behind. As she stumbled and fell, I flicked my sword forward and ran it through her heart. She died and I yanked my sword out and turned to see how Vreek was doing.

Vreek was holding his own on the defense side, yet he was not able to attack back.

His shield was getting chipped up from her strikes, and she was blocking his sword with her own. Neither had landed a strike yet.

Dirk was waiting behind to see if Vreek wanted or needed help while Turk finished off the women he had originally shot with his magic.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

Minutes passed, and Vreek was sweating from the fight. He had managed to get a few cuts on the woman but he had also taken a few hits as well. The heart was keeping him going and preventing the bleeding from being life-threatening.

Vreek suddenly stumbled, and Dirk started to move forward to help.

As the Tabaxi woman saw the opening, she dove in with both swords planning on ending Vreek’s life. Vreek suddenly shifted to the right and used his sword to cut off one of the woman’s arms. She yelled in pain as the arm fell to the ground. Vreek wasted no time and followed up with an attack on her back, dropping her to her knees as he brought a third strike around and took off her head.

Dirk had stopped moving in and was now smiling and clapping.

“It was all a feint!” Dirk stated as he continued to clap. “I thought you were really done for.”

Vreek grunted and wiped his sword off on the woman's fur and stuck it into the ground.

“These are some skilled creatures, and they learn and adapt. I could have ended it a minute ago, but I wanted to see how much they learned and how fast.”

Vreek turned to me and pointed at the one I had killed. Its body was now starting to dissolve as were the others.

“You should spend more time learning how they fight for later. You keep forgetting you will not be stronger than them at some point.”

I muttered and nodded. Vreek was right. All of us had flaunted our strength. Vreek had demonstrated his skill. He knew his limits and was doing everything he could to overcome them.

“I am thankful Brar gave you to us, Vreek. You keep us alive because of your wisdom.”

Vreek grunted and moved over to see what was on the ground from the one Turk had killed.

“Are we messing up that badly?” Dirk asked as he watched Vreek walk away. “I mean, shouldn’t we kill them fast?”

I put my arm around Dirk and gave him a side hug.

“Vreek is right. When you could not kill something with just one shot, you had to use your speed and technique to stay alive and kill it. That was a good experience for you. Now that you have gotten an upgrade with your weapons, you still need to be prepared not to kill everything with one attack.”

Dirk returned the hug, and I saw him nodding in understanding.

“I will admit part of me wanted to see just how much stronger I am from the evolving and from the new weapons.”

I laughed and nodded.

“Nothing wrong with that. We all need to be more like Vreek and use our heads more.”

Vreek returned and handed a pelt that looked like the fur of the Tabaxi we had just killed.

“Is this what I think it is?”

Vreek nodded.

“Put it in the backpack. It must have some use.”

I nodded and walked over to the backpack on the ground. I had dropped it before we attacked.

“Everyone back here,” Turk shouted from where the portal had put us at.

“Why are we coming back here?” Vreek asked.

Turk sat down and patted the ground near him.

“We need to see how long till the monsters respawn. We don’t want to be in the jungle and find ourselves in trouble because we did not know how long it takes.”

Vreek laughed and nodded as he dropped to the ground.

“At least one of you uses their brains,” he teased.

It felt like forever as we waited. Dirk and Vreek were dozing, and I was attempting to as well. Finally, Turk gave a few snaps of his finger, and I saw that the four women had appeared. This time two of them had a shield and a sword, one had a bow, and the fourth had two swords.

“Two hours,” Turk stated as we all stood up and stretched real quick.

“Ok, play with your kitty this time,” I joked with the boys.

Each of them groaned but laughed.

When we had finished with our respawn, I had secured a new shield, as did Vreek. It was larger than I had expected as it did not shrink down like the gear from the bosses.

Armed with a bit of knowledge, we struck off into the jungle with no clue where the portal was.

“About fricking time,” Dirk moaned as we saw the green portal in a small clearing.

It had taken us eight hours to hack our way through the jungle and we had killed well over twenty packs of these Tabaxi female warriors. Most of them dropped nothing besides the occasional fur pelt. Vreek had made me pick up a few more since they did not take up a ton of room in the backpack when rolled up. One dropped a small ring and we gave it to Vreek to wear. Turk said it had a slight magical glow, but none of us knew what it might do.

At some point, we had to find a way to identify stuff.

I was just glad we had slept well on the forty-eighth floor as all of us were a bit tired and we knew there would be no rest till the fifty-fifth floor.

“Let’s get it over with,” Dirk moaned as he pointed at the portal.

“Blue elf balls,” I muttered as we descended on this floor.

We had gone from a hot, humid jungle to a snow-filled, cold-blowing floor. Four inches of snow was on the ground making all our feet feel cold very quickly.

“Good thing Vreek had you get those pelts!” Dirk shouted above the wind.

He was right. We had all wrapped ourselves as best as we could, and we were clumped up more than I wanted, but the wind and the snow made communication difficult. No monsters had been found as we wandered around. The floor seemed harder to survive than any other floors we faced.

“Why was nothing this bad?” Turk yelled as we pushed through the wind that came across us at an angle. “None of the other floors were that hot or this cold!”

I had no answer so I did not even bother to try. If floors after the fiftieth floor all had such a wide swing of element changes, I could understand how one needed a pack mule to bring so much in hopes of dealing with these changes.

An hour passed and we had still not found a single monster. We noticed a large formation up ahead and Turk pointed toward a spot he saw.

“A cave! There is a cave!”

We headed in the direction of the cave and saw a massive opening that seemed to lead down before the surface.

“Look out!” Turk exclaimed as he fired off a bolt of fire ahead of us.

I saw his bolt intercept a massive spear that was flying toward us, deflecting it off to the side.

Peering through the snow that was pelting us in our faces, I saw the shapes of some tall shaggy hair creatures at the mouth of the cave.

“Run!” Turk yelled as he pointed to more spears headed our way.