The lizardlings didn’t chase Ethan for too long after his escape.

Killing the three escorting him had been quick, and by the time the camp guards reacted and came after him, Ethan had already collected the lizardlings’ fragments and booked it.

They tried chasing him through the woods, but quickly stopped once he went back into the first forested cave.

The whole endeavor netted him a level and a decent chunk of fragments, which was always welcome, but now it was time to head back and start thinning them out. For that, some extra stats would be more than welcome.

Ethan assigned the new point to Toughness, and clicked his tongue when he found himself around 15 fragments short of the wand’s tier-2 upgrade.

Oh well. At least the stat upgrade will give me another four points in Might and Spirit. But next buy is 100% the tier-2 upgrade. Maybe I’ll have a tier-2 spell by then.

With the purchase made, he glanced back at the wand upgrade options left.

[Tier: Increase by 1 - 100 fragments]

[Cast refresh: Decrease by 0.25 seconds - 1 fragments]

Yeah. Tier 2 is needed at this point. Though I wonder if getting all the upgrades first matters. Cast refresh doesn’t seem expensive. But I’ll do that later.

Ethan summoned his claws and grinned. The boost in Spirit gave them yet another inch, and now they were around 6 inches long. He glanced into the direction of the new lizardling camp and took a deep breath. “Good. Now I’m ready. Tunnel fighting 2.0 is about to begin.”

***

Liz Taylor

Relax. You got this. You can do this.

Liz took a step out of cover and stood among the dead and dying lizardlings. She lifted her crossbow and lined the sight to the last running lizardling. The crossbow felt hefty in her hands, but not heavy. Just the right weight. She exhaled, held her breath, and pulled the cold metallic trigger.

The magic bolt shot out, and before she could inhale, a shout of pain reached her as the glowing bolt sunk into the lizardling’s back.

You have defeated [Lizardling - Level 8]

You have reached Level 11. 1 stat point awarded.

“Yes!” she whispered to herself as she lowered her crossbow. She was finally getting good with it.

I just need more fragments. Then I’ll be able to shoot faster. But for that…

Liz eyed the dead lizardling for a second before she cautiously looked behind for any overseer. When she saw none, she turned to her right. “Let’s harvest these.”

Gerald raised an eyebrow at her, furtively looked up toward the camp, then nodded. Audrey—a towering young woman still in gym clothes—leaned over her bloodied and still smoking tower shield and continued quietly chewing on a piece of jerky, but her eyes lit up and she nodded. Her much shorter sister—who was also in gym clothes—glanced back toward the camp far behind them as she twirled her wand around her fingers.

“You sure we want to give them more ammo?” asked Amelie. “Don’t get me wrong, they can get stuffed, but we’re already on their shit-list, and at this point we might be better off leaving before that archer fuck and his cronies take us on one of their ‘joint expeditions’. We all know how those things go.”

Gerald dismissed his sword and winced as he studied a stab wound on his right thigh. Amelia took a step closer, waved her wand at his injury, and Liz watched the wound close up within seconds. Gerald nodded to the girl and mumbled a quick thanks before turning back to Liz. “I agree. We’ve rested, and we got some levels under our belt. I think we should be on our way before we get dragged deeper into Lance’s weird politics. We already have to give them half our fragments because of the quick heal they gave Martha. And it’s clear that Lance is just waiting for an excuse to shoot us in the back.” The man shook his head and re-summoned his sword to collect his share of the fragments. “That boy was right. We should have gone with him.”

Audrey raised an eyebrow. “The one your other friend keeps cursing? The psychopath?”

Before Liz could respond to that, Gerald answered. It was for the best. She had nothing good to say about Martha. That two-faced snake.

“The boy did nothing wrong. It was an accident, and if it wasn’t for him, we’d be dead twice over. Plus, he told us to stay back, and we didn’t. She’s just…”

“… Looking for something to blame,” said Amelie as she came back, wand still twirling in her hand. “An overseer’s on the way. Bronson. Level 16. What are we doing? Are we staying or are we leaving?”

The four shared a few looks, a bit taken by surprise at how fast they had to make a decision.

“I wouldn’t mind it. We work well together. We can take it easy and level. In a day or two they won’t be able to mess with us,” said Audrey, leaning over her shield. Liz was reminded of the fitness influencers she’d often see on her social media, which technically made sense. Audrey was a personal coach, if she recalled correctly.

Her sister—their team healer— aimed for a rock, and a gray-white projectile zipped out of her wand. Even though it seemed it was about to miss, the projectile slowly arced back on target and hit the large rock dead center.

Liz wished she had hurried to get to the portal. Missing out on an extra free spell was biting her in the butt.

“Your friend sounds like fun,” said Amelie as she aimed for another rock.

Liz noted it’d been barely a couple of seconds since the short girl cast the first projectile, which told Liz the young woman was investing heavily in Cast Refresh, given the naturally low refresh of the standard wand.

Amelie dismissed her wand and put her hands on her hips as she faced the team. “It would be worth teaming up with him if he’s not dead yet. You sure he was above Lance in levels?”

Liz nodded and nervously glanced at the oncoming overseer. He was still minutes away. “Yes. But we can talk about that later, we’re running out of time.”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Why does it feel like I’m in charge?

Liz turned to each of her co-conspirators and shared a nod with them. “Alright. Let’s let him take half the fragments then. And once he leaves, we’ll go. Deal?”

“Sure,” said Amelie as she summoned and shot her wand in quick succession, testing how far she could push her projectile off target before it failed to correct itself.

Gerald and Audrey nodded, and Liz exhaled.

She wasn’t sure if she was ready, but with this team, they had a chance.

I miss my bed, Liz thought for a second, then focused back on the real world and pulled up her wand menu.

Wand #1

[Default:[Crossbow]]

[Sequential:[Crossbow - Mana bolt]]

Class: Armament

Tier: 0

Unique Traits: None

Cast Setting: Sequential

Capacity: 2/2

Cast refresh: 3

Mana regeneration: 1 (10%)

Stat Bonus: +3 Spirit

Fragments: 11

Liz rubbed her forehead and breathed deep the smell of car grease that still lingered on her hand.

Never thought I’d miss my garage this much. Even the rude customers.

Looking down at the mushroom forest, she wondered what was waiting for them in there.

***

Ethan wiped the blood off of his cheek and, leaning against the tunnel wall, bent over and collected his fragments. He knew he’d gotten a level or two, but he couldn’t spare the time to look.

After having finished with his upgrades and assigning his points, Ethan made his way back to the large lizardling camp. He’d considered luring one of the sentries out with [Whisper], but he worried that if he gave them enough time to react to his presence, they might alert the whole camp and then he’d have to leave again.

So he just walked through the entrance and started fighting them right then and there.

Another bolt of flames shot toward him from the second fortification, lighting up the dark passage as it rushed toward him, only to be engulfed and dissipated by the bonfire around Ethan’s right hand.

Ethan lowered his right arm and reduced the flames around it. “You guys are definitely the toughest lizardlings yet,” he called out, voice echoing in the narrow tunnel.

Stealth had stopped being a priority after the third lizardling was burnt to a crisp.

“Leave us be, human thing,” said a screechy voice hidden behind the dirt wall.

Ethan chuckled at that. “You found out you couldn’t capture or kill me, so you want me to leave? That’s not how this works, lizard thing.”

“Leave! Or you will die!”

In response, Ethan stepped forward while keeping an eye on the walls. He was ready to jump back or forward, just in case they somehow had a way of collapsing the tunnel, but other than that there should be nothing they could do to stop him.

He was wiping out this camp. Though it was a bit odd how he wasn’t being actively chased out already. Barely six of them had come to push him out so far, while last time, he’d been practically swarmed with lizardlings.

Either they’re busy with something, or this camp is mostly civilians. Hopefully the former.

Lizardling were nasty little shits, but if this place was full of children and whatnot… Well, he’d rather not murder children, even if they’d probably grow up to become the murderous and violent lizardlings he’d learned to expect.

A new individual popped up from behind the dirt wall, and Ethan tensed. This one was wearing a lot of jewelery. If you could call it that. The ornaments were made of stones, barely polished gems, and even bones tied around its neck and limbs. And the jewelery was the only thing this lizardling bothered to wear.

Ethan didn’t enjoy the view, though his sense of alarm spiked.

[Lizardling (I) - Level 30]

The buck-naked lizardling pointed a bone-white wand at him, and a small ball of glowing flames shot out.

It wasn’t the fastest or the brightest, but something about it immediately made Ethan raise both arms to guard his face while pushing out as much fire as he could, quickly creating a barrier between him and the projectile.

The ball touched his flame—and Ethan’s ears rung.

He only heard a sharp whistle as flames engulfed him. The explosion didn’t throw him back, but it most certainly rattled his bones and gave his brain a good shake. Ethan rushed backwards, just in case this portion of the tunnel collapsed.

His ears were still ringing. The fire hadn’t burned him. His own flames had protected him from most of the deflagration, and whatever had gone through wasn’t enough to burn him through his fire resistance, but the shock waves did a number on his ears.

Still, Ethan grinned. How amazing would it be if that lizardling dropped this ability’s spellcore? He needed a ranged spell. This could be it.

Next time I have to take the [Lucky Harvester] trait.

After a minute or so of the tunnel not collapsing on top of his head, Ethan ran back in. This time, he wasn’t allowing the lizardlings to hide behind their little dirt wall and blast him freely.

The fortification came into view as he emerged from the dust and smoke, and when he met the widening eyes of the lizardling, he screamed at it.

Ethan had no idea why. He was sure if someone had seen that, they’d think he was crazy. He must be looking crazy. He could feel the wild smile on his face.

The lizardling raised its wand once more, but Ethan was already upon it. He swung down with an extended claw, and the sharp appendage sliced into the lizardling’s hand. It shrieked at him, but Ethan barely had a chance to see its expression before he pointed his hand, sending an almost five-foot-long gout of flame right in its face.

Ethan let the flames roar, and only cut them off when he felt the gnawing ache in his chest.

The fire parted, revealing a still living and cringing lizardling. It lowered its hands to hiss at him, and scrambled backward when Ethan jumped over the small rampart. One of its eyes was permanently shut, while a few of its scales were discolored. It pushed itself backward, and then something unexpected happened.

In the time it took Ethan to inhale and understand what he was looking at, a skeletal armor made of bones appeared over the lizardling’s naked flesh. It didn’t cover everything. The arms and legs were unprotected, but the glowing symbols over the skeletal helmet as well as the similarly magicked ribs that surrounded the lizardling’s chest told Ethan that this fight might take a moment. He suspected that even though the limbs seemed unprotected, they might not be.

This bone armor was probably a wand. And Ethan had only begun learning of their capabilities, so he wasn’t underestimating this one.

The lizardling snarled and re-summoned its wand, grimacing when it gripped its weapon with a deeply cut arm. Eyes wide, Ethan shot forward, slashing down with his right claws while simultaneously throwing another gout of flames with his left. The armor glowed brighter, and Ethan watched with amazement as the flames parted around a spherical barrier that glowed with the same soft blue as the runes engraved in the armor.

The lizardling raised its wand, snarling. There was a flash of light, and Ethan’s ears rang again.