I tried to flip in mid-air but it didn’t work very well. I’m far from an acrobat even with my high agility. I held my blades tight as I summoned the Rift and dropped through the magical portal. It didn’t matter much if the thing dumped me outside. I didn’t much feel like betting the strength of my vitality against the chance of my brains splattering over the hard stone floor.

I braced myself for the attack of many dog monsters. Instead, I found myself wobbling on one of the spindly arms of the chandelier as it swung like a ridiculously ornate playground swing. I yelped and clutched at the bulbous column attached to the chain, readjusting my ass so more of it was on the arm.

I swallowed as I looked down. My vision swam a little at the height. The Towering Tyrant lifted itself with an outraged roar as it flung about blindly.

“Where are you, you little prick?” it bellowed.

I kept quiet, hoping the swinging chain wouldn’t creak. Even from all the way up here, I could see the creature's ears swiveling around like a bat. I jabbed a thumb into my guts, warning the thing to stay quiet. It had betrayed me in the past and I would not allow it this time. The jab stung a bit more than I thought it would, bringing tears to my eyes. The wound from the Daughter or Umbra’s arrow was still not entirely healed yet.

“Are… are you still here?” the Cyclops thundered, patting the ground with searching sausage-like fingers.

The room shook as the monster dropped onto his keister, his shoulders trembled as he let out great powerful sobs. A river of blood was flooding its face from the arrow to the eye, no doubt thanks to the Bleeding Poison.

The beast yanked at the arrow before rolling on the floor and howling in agony. Tears mixed with the blood and when they did it only made him scream louder.

“It won’t come out,” he cried. “Please, someone help me. I can’t see.”

I sat awkwardly on my perch watching but unable to do anything. I didn’t want to feel bad for the monster and yet somehow I did. I eyed the far stairwell, wondering how the hell I was going to get over there now.

The Cyclops whimpered. “I just want to go home. Please, Mistress, can’t I go home?”

Okay, now it was just getting sad. “I’ll help you if you promise not to kill me.”

The beast rolled, swinging its giant head from side to side as its ears flicked about. “Who said that?”

“Promise or you get nothing.”

The beast tilted its head up. He knew my voice was coming from this direction but that was about it. Crawling forward with a stretched-out arm he ran into the mirror. He banged on the glass with a fist.

“Open up, I want to go home.”

I knew it was a portal. Not a very good one though, the Cyclops would have to suck in his guts and squeeze through the thing to get to the other side. You’d think a Goddess could provide a proper door for her murderous monster friends.

“Can’t you just let me kill you?” the monster wailed. “She already likes the other guys more than me. I’ll make it quick, I promise. She said if I killed enough of you she’d reward me real good.”

“I’m not going to let you kill me.”

“Why?” he cried, rolling onto his stomach and pounding the ground with his fists and feet like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

I clutched the chandelier harder as the entire room shook. There was no doubt in my mind that the thing could crush me just as easily as I could step on an ant.

“I’m so sick of being tricked and killed. I don’t regenerate that fast after so many times.”

“You really are a giant baby,” I snapped, readying another rift.

“Shut up. How about I shoot you in the eye and see how you like?”

Done talking I opened the rift right below me and jumped in. I was thrown straight out again, this time with an arm holding my waist as I swung from the other side of the chandelier.

“Fuck off,” I murmured.

Whoever or whatever was determined to keep me here was being a real dick about it.

“Okay, okay, I promise I won’t kill you. Please just get this thing out before I heal around it.”

“Lift your arms up and stand still.”

Bad idea. Very bad.

You’re so dead.

He looks hungry.

I’m not going to help you anymore if you’re just going to try and kill yourself every time a monster gets a little weepy.

The voices all sounded at once. Speaking over each other until I felt dizzy. They’d never done that before. It had always just been one.

Why are we stuck with this guy? Can I trade for the red-haired Nox Warrior?

“Shut up!”

“What?” the Cyclops said, his arms held high. “ I didn’t say anything.”

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

“There’s someone else here, where?”

“No, it’s just… Never mind, stand still.”

I awkwardly climbed down, hanging from my arms as I angled myself over the giant green hand. I let go and dropped, landing hard and bruising my ass.

I froze, every muscle in my body tense as the hand began to move. I gripped my poisoned sword hard, ready to stab the moment the thick fingers started to close over me. My gamble worked out though which was a nice surprise. The hand paused right beside the beast's face.

“Hurry, it’s real bad,” the Cyclops said in his gravelly voice.

I reached up, pausing before I touched the hard wooden shaft. Yes, I had to say it that way. “You are not allowed to squish me just because this hurts.”

The Cyclops shifted on his heavy feet. “I won’t, alright?”

This is such a bad idea, I thought to myself as I dug out an unpoisoned arrow from my bum bag.

I eyed the health bar floating above the monster’s head. My poisoned bolt had barely made a dent in it. There was no way I was going to be able to kill this thing on my own. No wonder there were so many dead people on the ground. I swallowed hard, wondering how soon I’d be among them.

I dug the arrow into the slimy eyeball right beside the arrow and used it to leverage the barbed thing free. The Cyclops howled and stamped his feet and sobbed but surprisingly he didn’t crush me. I tried not to look at the glob of important-looking bits on the end of the arrow as I let it drop to the floor far below. The eyeball right in front of me, as big around as I was tall, was deflated and weeping a thick clear fluid mixed with blood.

The Cyclops dropped to his pudgy knees and let his hands drop to the ground. The powerful impact sent me tumbling off the spongy surface, almost falling directly on my face.

“That hurt,” the Cyclops wailed.

“I know, I’m sorry. It’s out now though. You’ll be alright.”

The Cyclops sniffled and rubbed his forearm under his damp broad nose. I don’t know why I was apologizing or why I felt bad at all. He’d been trying to eat me. It’s not like I shot an innocent man or something like that. What happened to my ice-cold heart and blackened soul? It infuriated me that my default setting was a giant-ass softy.

“What’s your name little bug?”

Lie.

“You can call me Joe. What’s yours?”

You fucking suck.

“Eugene Gravelbark the Third.”

I blinked, clamping my jaw to keep it from flapping in the wind. I could not think of a more unlikely name than ‘Eugene’.

The name above Eugene’s head began to flicker and warp before settling back on Towering Tyrant. I guess the game didn’t care for the Cyclops’ real name.

Eugene’s heavy sigh had me looking at his enormous face. He was blinking his eye over and over, the large fluid-filled globe no longer deflated and shredded. The bushy brow above the eyeball dropped as he inspected me.

“You know, you look even smaller now than you did before.”

“Rude,” I said stepping over the corpse of Daughter of Umbra to put a little more space between us.

“What, it’s the truth. Can’t be offended by the truth.”

“Clearly, I can,” I snapped.

Eugene pointed at the stairwell I’d been so desperate to get to earlier. “That’s where you need to go. There’s some bad shit up there though. Not every one of us is as nice as me.”

I stepped over a second corpse. “Nice is it? Not exactly the word I’d use.”

“I was just doing my job. What, you’ve never worked a job you didn’t like much before?” Eugene asked.

“This is a really strange conversation.”

Eugene climbed to his feet and stretched. “Would you rather I went back to killer beast mode?”

I strained my neck to look up at his face. “Not really, no.”

“Then off you go. When you’re on the first step I can go back home.”

“Ahh, alright, thank you, I guess.”

“Don’t tell anyone I just let you go. I kind of have a reputation to protect, you know?”

“Sure thing. I’ll tell everyone how deadly and terrifying you are.”

“Sweet.”

I turned and ran, still not completely trusting Eugene. I made it to the stairs without any more drama. On the first step, I turned back and waved. Eugene beamed revealing his odd yellow slab-like teeth and waved right back before dropping to his stomach and awkwardly commando crawling through the glass of the mirror. His large belly got stuck for a moment before he muscled his way through.

Shaking my head at the absurdity of the situation I’d found myself in I started to climb the stairs using my Flicker skill to light the way. This stairwell wasn’t lit like the other had been. By the time I reached the crest of the stairs and wandered down the next hall to another giant iron-banded doorway the wound on my stomach had healed entirely. My magicka reserves were still only about three-quarters full but my stamina and health were completely full.

I twirled my blades, almost dropping the dagger. I muttered to myself, frustrated that thing still didn’t feel right in my hand. I needed it to work the way I wanted it to if I was going to have any chance of surviving. Eugene was right, there was no way the other monsters were going to turn out to be decent fellas like he had been. This was a legendary challenge dungeon after all and the Goddess was determined to whittle down our numbers.

I looked at the carvings on the door, admiring the detail of what looked to be a mermaid. It would have been better if these glyphs were warnings and not just impressive art.

I pushed open the heavy door, flinching when this one did squeak. The loud squawk of a bird and the chattering of a monkey made me flinch. Hot damp air filtered out through the open doorway almost slapping me in the face. The large room, unlike the practically empty one below, was filled with a dense forest complete with ferns and dangling vines. The room was lit by luminescent plants randomly spaced throughout the forest. It was the only place in this entire realm that glowed turquoise blue rather than purple.

Danger.

I yanked at my hair in frustration and angrily whispered, “if you’re not going to actually help me then shut up!”

Grumpy.

“No shit.”

I stepped carefully into the forest. The moment I had cleared the swing of the door it slammed closed behind me. Aside from the steady drip of water and the distant jabbering of animal noises, the place was silent. It would have been extremely soothing if it wasn’t for the sense of menace pressing down on me.

There was a poorly formed path through the dense tropical forest but even in the gloom, I could see it was littered with corpses. Nothing screamed ‘trap’ quite like a distinct singular path.

I turned and found a heavy draping vine, using it like a rope to climb high into the thick tree branches. The way the trees were crammed together made the branches intermingled giving me a fairly simple set of bridges to follow.

Feeling pretty smug with myself I started forward, stepping carefully to avoid making undue noise. The dim blue glow was enough to light the way as it filtered through the leaves casting dancing shadows around me.

I was halfway through the maze of branches when the soft sound of a hiss met my ears. I took another step and the hissing grew louder. The leaves of the tree ahead of me shifted as a long body with too many heads slivered into my path. Six forked tongues flickered in my direction as a wave of intense fear descended on me.

“Well, shit.”