Bark turned and pointed down the hall. “Run!”

Killa’s arms glowed yellow as she threw them up. A field of writhing yellow tentacles covered the doorway as she turned to run. “Head towards that storage room!”

The cacophony of hissing from the spiders was all the motivation I needed to turn and run down the hall. “Which room?”

Bark ran and pointed at the third room on the left. “That one.”

It was the emptiest room we had seen in this hallway. I sprinted toward it, but Killa moved way faster than I thought she could and beat Bark and me there. Killa flicked her wrist, and two blue tentacles flew past me. I stopped and turned to see them hit two of the spiders that had followed us into the hall. The spiders exploded into a shower of green gore. They had almost caught up to Bark, who was trailing behind us.

Bark turned and slashed his sword at a spider that had caught up to him. He split the creature’s face in half. He swung another sword and stabbed a spider that leaped at him.

I saw another spider aiming to bite Bark’s leg. I aimed and fired. My shot killed that spider, and I received another five stat points and one hundred and fifteen shards. I caught a glance at the horde of spiders headed our way. More than a dozen were wrapped up in Killa’s tentacle magic, but more were climbing over their trapped allies. The walls were covered in spiders.

This is way more than a few!

Bark spun and killed two more spiders with his swords right before they tried to attack him. He kept trying to backpedal to catch up with us. Killa threw two more blue tentacles at the wall to kill another pair of spiders. I shot another spider and received the same rewards. I didn’t like how much mana I was going to need. So I quickly assigned my ten points to arcane.

It’s a good thing that every time I put points into arcane my mana refills slightly. Although it doesn’t look like it’ll be enough.

We killed spider after spider. I had killed another six spiders, while the other two killed ten each. Bark slowly caught up and we dashed into the room and slammed the door shut.

Killa placed a hand on the door, as it sounded like the spiders were trying to bite through the metal door. Bark and I were panting heavily as we took our momentary respite.

“That, that was way more than three.” I leaned forward and rested my hands on my knees.

Bark leaned back and let his swords hang to his sides. “Yeah, that’s never happened before. I’ve never seen that many enemies in one place before.”

Killa giggled. “At least we’re all going to get some stat points for this. Even though I’m only getting two per kill.”

“Way to see the silver lining.” Bark gave a hoarse laugh. “But the first two gave me ten, and then I hit level fourteen. They’re level eight.”

Killa frowned. “That means anything more than eight more kills will be a waste for me.”

I stared at the two. “Have you lost your minds? We are trapped, and you’re worried about levels and stats?”

“Isn’t this exciting?” Bark smiled even through his panting. “We can’t let an opportunity like this pass us up.”

“What?” He can’t be serious. We can die here.

Killa walked up and put a hand on my shoulder. “Listen, this number of enemies is more than most will see in several days. We can probably get you to level fourteen or higher today. That’s quite a jump since you’re, what, still level seven?”

“I’m eight now.” I shook my head. “But that doesn’t matter. There are dozens of them still out there. We have no food or water. What are we supposed to do? Do we just stand here until they give up and move on?”

Bark laughed. “Nope. We’ll open the door once you’ve calmed down and reloaded.” He rolled his shoulders as he walked up to the door. “Killa will kill as few of them as possible while focusing on containing them. With this door, we’ll be able to reduce their numbers to a rate we can handle. I want you to use up the last of your mana, and then grab your dagger to kill any that get behind me. You’ve got what, two shots left?”

I quickly put the rest of my points into my arcane again. “Actually, I think I have about fifteen or more now. But each one I kill will let me get more shots off.”

Bark furrowed his brow. “Are you just putting all your points in arcane right now?”

I gave a quick glance to Killa, who didn’t show any change in her demeanor. “It’s more like I’ve already spent all of them.”

His shoulders dropped. “You don’t need a few minutes to assign your points?”

“No.” I drew out my answer. “Why? It isn’t instantaneous for you?”

The shaylip sighed. “No.” He turned around and faced the door. “I’ve really got to get that system now.”

I turned to Killa. “Really?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I can split my mind so I can assign my points while we fight. So I’ve just finished getting mine distributed.” There was a softer expression when she looked at Bark. “He needs to stop and do nothing for a few minutes. The more points he has, the longer it takes.”

I filled my gun with the last of my rocks. “Uh, can you give me a moment to find some rocks?”

She nodded as she stood near the far wall. There were a few loose stones around the wrecked and empty crates. Whatever had filled them had long since been pillaged.

I probably had enough rocks in my pocket to fill my gun two more times. Twenty-seven bullets. I’ve got to make them count. I looked at my mana bar, which was a little more than three-quarters full, as we waited. The sounds of the spiders at the door didn’t stop.

I officially hate spiders.

When mana was full, I gave Bark a nod to let him know I was ready. He put one of his swords on his back and grabbed the handle, ready to pull the door open. When he pulled the door open, he jumped back, drawing his sword at the same time. Killa raised her arms and covered the top half of the door with semi-transparent green tentacles.

I couldn’t see out the door as the spiders crawled all over each other. Then the first spiders crawled under Killa’s wall. Bark stepped to the side and cut the first spider’s head and a large portion of its front two legs off.

Killa raised her hands, and more yellow tentacles grabbed at the spiders trying to get in, slowing them down until only three had gotten through, even pushing the corpse of the one Bark had decapitated further in.

I started firing. These two are absolutely insane!

Everything turned into a blur. I lost count of how many spiders I killed. I stopped putting points in my arcane when I figured I would run out of bullets and mana at the same time. But I needed to not use more mana than I had, as I could feel myself getting closer to passing out when I used mana while my reserves were low. The throng of spiders started filling the doorway, pushing us further into the room. I did as Bark suggested. Once I ran out of ammunition, I pulled my dagger and started attacking any of them that crept over the mounting pile of corpses.

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After every muscle in my body screamed for me to stop, there seemed to be no more new spiders. Sweat blinded me as water distorted my vision. It didn’t burn, so I figured I didn’t have any nerves in my synthetic eyes. I could barely stand, and Bark looked as worn out as me. But neither one of us collapsed to the ground. Two inches of green blood flooded the room, and we weren’t interested in falling into it again.

The floor was extremely slippery, and I had fallen more times than I’d care to admit. I really, really wish I could take a bath right now. I touched my hair and felt how matted it was. Gross.

Killa stood, still pristine, in front of us. “That went pretty well, if you ask me.”

“Nobody asked you,” I huffed. No fatigue, no rolling around in the blood, no sweating, and no excessive heart rate. “You are horrible.”

Killa smiled. “Don’t be like that. How many levels did you get? Hm?” She put her hand to her transparent ear as she leaned in close to me. “Let me hear it?”

I groaned as I pushed her into the blood. “Now you’re just as dirty as the rest of us.”

Killa laughed and started waving her arms and legs like she was making a snow angel in the blood. “You’re just tired, full of adrenaline, and probably starving.” She stood up, still not a drop of blood on her clothes as she enveloped them with her body for a second. “Come on, let’s go make camp. I’ll even let you eat some special food tonight.”

She waved her hand, and all her magic that had been holding back the spiders vanished. Bark and I slogged through the blood and severed spider bits to leave. Killa practically skipped her way out. Bark was unusually quiet. In the beginning, he was all for the slaughter. But after a dozen spider bites and unparalleled exhaustion, all his enthusiasm disappeared, along with my patience for Killa’s sunny predisposition.

Killa led the way to the room where the horde of spiders came from. It was a large room, and every wall was covered in spider webs. Most of the floor and ceiling weren’t spared, either.

“Can we go to one of the other side rooms?” I looked at all the webbing. “I don’t want to see any more spiders... ever again.”

Bark turned to Killa and shrugged before pointing at me. Killa crossed her arms as she cocked her hips. “If I take care of all the webs, will that make you feel better?”

I found an untouched section of the floor and sat down on it. “It’d be a good start. A bath would be much better. Am I really going to spend days covered in all these spider guts?” I looked at my energy bar. The entire thing was almost empty from the combination of healing from; I don’t want to know how many spider bites and killing so many. I don’t know how many spiders injured me in the chaos. Actually, I’m more surprised there’s a tiny sliver left.

Killa smiled and pointed at me for a brief moment. “Ah, yeah. Let me clean you up. It’s not quite like taking a bath, but I can get the job done.” She stood in front of me. “Now, close your eyes and take a deep breath.”

I tilted my head. Is she going to do what I think she’s going to do? She didn’t wait for me. Her body dropped her clothes and ballooned out to envelop me. Killa’s body was cool and sticky. Her initial touch was a gentle, constant pressure that seemed to mold itself around my body.

My chest tightened slightly. I can’t breathe. Instinctively, I opened my mouth, and it was instantly filled with Killa’s gelatinous body. She tasted different—a little more earthy, but not in an unpleasant way anymore. And there was almost a meatiness to her now.

Despite her improved taste, I still needed to breathe. I tried to flail around, but it felt like my body was trying to move in water, but the water was a much thicker gel and sentient. In my panic, I could feel a pulling sensation all across my body. But then I could feel Killa stretching underneath my clothes, and it felt like she was tickling me with thousands of tiny feathers.

It was hard to panic while laughing. But I couldn’t hear myself laughing. Probably because my mouth was still gagged by Killa, I couldn’t hear much of anything. However, the top layer of dirt, sweat, and spider ichor dissolved before my eyes.

The whole process took almost a minute. As Killa pulled her body away from me and back into her clothes, I took a deep breath of the stale dungeon air.

Killa reformed her body quickly and leaned down next to me. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” I coughed a few times. “You, uh, just surprised me. I wasn’t quite ready.”

Killa sighed. “I’m sorry.”

I waved my hand. “It’s fine. But you said something about food earlier. Can I get some now? My energy bar is practically empty.”

Killa clapped her hands. “Of course. Just let me go get the packs.”

She hurried back to the doorway and grabbed all three packs. As she walked towards me, she rifled through one of them and pulled out a small paper sack. She pulled out a small sub-like sandwich.

“How much do you want?” she asked.

I looked at the sandwich. My mouth started watering. “I’ll take about thirty of those.”

My concept of a normal amount of food is destroyed. It hasn’t helped that all the food I’ve eaten here has been absolutely amazing. That, and I really don’t want to starve to death.

Killa giggled. “No, silly. Do you need just a hand, or my forearm included?”

My shoulders slumped. “Seriously?”

Killa wagged her finger at me. “We didn’t bring that kind of food for you to eat. Now, unless you’re going to eat that giant pile of spiders in the other room, hand or forearm?”

I drooped my head. “Might as well.” I held out my hand. “Give me your entire arm. And, uh, could you make it look like, I don’t know, something else?”

Killa frowned. “That’s… a lot. But if you’re that hungry, How about this?” She pulled out another sandwich, and her arm up to her elbow started peeling into sheets that she layered pretty thick on the sandwiches. She reformed her arm and held out the sandwiches to me. “How do slices of salami look? I even put them on the sandwiches to help with the flavor.”

She’s trying. I chuckled at her smile. There was something infectious about it. “That’s thoughtful. I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

Killa placed the second sandwich in front of me in the bag. “Alright, I’m guessing you want me to clean you off too, Bark?” She whipped her hands against each other.

“Yeah.” Bark sounded more exhausted than I did.

Killa went to clean him off, and afterwards, she cleaned all the spiderwebs in the room too. I don’t know if I can ever get used to her just “eating” everything like that. The sandwiches made eating more of Killa easier, and I saw my energy bar filling up rapidly. It even filled up, and then some. A second layer started filling it up in a different color. Orange said that I can hold as much as I needed or wanted.

While I ate, I decided to check out my status.

Name:

Rina Lone

Level:

14

Augments:

Agility:

170

Cellular Regeneration

Arcane:

105

Synthetic eyes: LvL 1

Power:

50

HUD

Quickness:

195

Resilience:

100

Toughness:

100

Unassigned Points:

0

Shards:

10835

Seven whole levels. That’s at least three hundred and fifty points. And each spider was giving me five points. That’s at least sixty-five spiders I killed. That doesn’t include how many Bark and Killa killed. The increase in my toughness helped with all the spider bites I received, but they still hurt. But with as many as I was fighting, I needed to move faster, twist more, and just be more agile. It helped me receive a lot fewer bites than I probably could have.

I thought back to the talk we had at the entrance of the dungeon. But it looks like I’m going to go with Bark’s strategy and focus on my quickness and agility. I don’t need to be strong, and I can make up for a lack of power with strong weaponry. I still don’t know how to use magic, so outside of my gun, I’ve got no way to use arcane.

A slight tingling spread from the back of my mind. But those two were right. That was a lot of stats. Was all that worth it? How much have I really improved?