Galen was on the verge of pissing himself.

The sounds.

The shaking of the murder bunker.

All the deadly stuff flying around out there was unlike anything he had ever experienced before.

Controlled excursions into low level encounter challenges and weak monsters hadn’t prepared him for the really high level shit.

An arrow had almost hit him in the face after he had emptied the grenade launcher at the attackers. Flew right through the hole.

He had closed that hole and opened up another one to continue firing, only to have to relocate once again after what sounded like bullets almost got him.

It sure was lucky that the horrid little creature had pulled him down at the right moment. Otherwise the bullets would’ve tested his helmet and face.

Speaking of which, the creature, the dreadling, was urgently pointing to the back of the murder bunker.

The dim red light made it hard to see perfectly, but there was an obvious ladder leading up to the ceiling, where it looked like there was a hatch.

He tried not to make too much eye contact with the little nightmare, although the fact that it carried a miniature version of the carbine he had on a sling kept throwing him off. It even had a ballistic helmet and plate carrier just like old equipment the soldiers of the old country used to wear. Sure, the gear was all a flat, dark gray and if you looked at them out of the corner of your eye you’d think they were made of shadows.

Weird shit.

Just wrong.

Sent a shiver up his back.

Better than warmth down his leg.

At least the dreadling had eyes. Other dreadlings didn’t have eyes or had more or less than two.

It occurred to Galen that maybe he should listen to it.

“Up the ladder, huh?”

He glanced at the door leading out to the killing floor where the battle raged.

The smoke grenades he had launched made it impossible for him to see, but he could certainly hear it.

“Why not down?”

He had noticed a similar hatch on the floor of the murder bunker.

What had the Dread Paladin said?

Plenty of tunnels connected the many bunkers.

The dreadling was insistent, so he grabbed a bag and stuffed it with a few varieties of grenades before heading up.

This murder bunker had been well-stocked with a good selection of arms, so he figured the others would be the same.

The hatch was thick, but opened easily and smoothly.

He didn’t hear any sort of motor, so he wondered what kind of mechanical assistance it used.

Idle thoughts often came when he was nervous.

The dreadling poked him insistently on the ass with the barrel of the miniature shadow carbine.

A glance down made a few drops trickle out against his will.

The hatch on the floor was open.

He hadn’t heard it.

The opening was a black void. Unlike the shaft above him, which was lit by the dim red crystals.

All he could see where two small eyes glinting in the darkness.

The dreadling chittered at him as it fired down.

He fumbled with his grenade bag, but managed to drop one into the darkness. Crucially, he had remembered to pull the pin first.

He scrambled up the ladder like a suicidal squirrel that had decided to snatch a nut from between a dog’s paws.

He was either lucky or good that in that split-second he had chosen a flashbang rather than one of the other types since he was still within the danger radius of the latter.

A loud bang and a bright flash followed him.

It was a lot louder in the enclosed space.

Painful really.

The light wasn’t as bad since he had closed his eyes.

The dreadling chittered urgently as it kept jabbing his ass to hurrying him along.

He glanced down without slowing.

The light had faded.

Only red-tinged smoke remained.

They reached what had to be the ceiling of the five-story tall cavern.

It certainly felt that high.

The climb had been long and the sounds of battle had faded noticeably.

His breaths came quickly.

It took a long moment and several deep breaths as he watched the dreadling climb out of the shaft after him and close the hatch.

This murder bunker was the same as the first except the murder holes were closer to the floor, which was above the ceiling.

It took him a few tries to pick a shooting hole with a line of fire down to the battle.

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The smoke had cleared a bit.

Enough for him to see the top of the glowing mana shield one of the attackers had cast.

It was just about all he could see.

“Right…”

He grabbed another grenade launcher off the rack and started loading it when gun fire erupted behind him.

The dreadling fired bursts frantically at… something.

Galen couldn’t tell.

There was a shape, but it kept flowing in and out of his vision.

One moment he had it. The next it was gone. As if he had forgotten it had been there in the first place.

Disoriented, he stowed the grenade launcher in favor of his carbine.

The noise in the enclosed space hurt his ears, but what choice did he have.

The dreadling suddenly jerked, dropping its miniature carbine in favor of a long, stabby knife.

It never got to use it as its entire body melted into dark goo before it vanished into the shadows on the floor.

In its place stood the same rogue that had killed his squad and the Bat People.

He squeezed the trigger, spraying and praying.

God didn’t answer.

The carbine was torn from his grasp. It was still on the sling so he tried to grab it, but something hard hit him right in the face.

A muffled crunch reached his ears.

Tears filled his eyes.

Blood ran down the back of his throat.

A kick to the back of one leg forced him to one knee.

An arm snaked around his neck, squeezing tight.

The arm was small, tiny even, but it was as hard and unyielding as a steel cable.

A monster’s fang, dirty ivory with irregular lines running throughout its surface like cracked marble. That terrifying green glow seeped through.

He had seen what it had done, so he kept as still as a mouse with the tip of the blade hovering just out of the corner of his right eye.

“You’re a hostage. Don’t resist or do anything stupid and you might get out of this alive. I’ve had just about enough of killing my fellow humans, especially when you don’t really deserve it.”

Galen tensed.

He was pretty sure that her hostage-taking plan wouldn’t work.

The Dread Paladin didn’t look like the kind of guy that cared about that sort of thing.

“It won’t work.”

The rogue woman grunted.

“Yeah, probably not… the stories… the murderer out there won’t care. Pity you decided to work with him.”

“We didn’t… I mean… I had no idea he was even down here. Honestly, I didn’t know a lot of what was going on down here.”

“Yup, that’s what I figured. You look like a dumb kid. That’s why I let you go. Hoped you’d be smart enough to go hide somewhere. Would’ve let you go. Low levels have no place in this kind of fight. Blame your leaders for putting you in this position.”

Galen tried to take a deep breath. It was difficult with the arm around his neck.

He had a fancy class, but the rogue was right. Level 20 was too weak compared to her at least 40. The class came with three abilities to add to the basics he kept from his old ones. One was the ability to exude a cold mist, which he had used. It felt like he could do it again, but just a little bit and not as cold as he could on his best day. He had used too much of it at the beginning of the fight. Regardless, it was useless in this situation.

Another was the ability to imbue his weapons with cold.

Again it was limited to melee weapons and the temperature he could reach was cold, but not that cold.

The last was perhaps his only hope.

He concentrated.

Tried to activate it silently.

He had been practicing, but it was fairly new and it was hit and miss.

In the life and death situation he found himself in there was no chance.

“Cold Mist Step!”

A short range teleport of sorts.

Ten feet maximum at the speed of a short step.

He slipped out of the rogue’s hold and found himself near the bunker’s door—

“Nice try, but way too slow.”

And… he was back in her grip this time she added a figure four around his waist with her legs, trapping one arm against his body.

The arm around his neck squeezed tight for a moment, bringing the darkness in around his vision.

He got the message.

“Try it again and see what happens. Now, just be a nice hostage and—”

He didn’t listen.

He struggled, bucking as the rogue rolled over so that he was staring at the glowing red gems embedded in the ceiling. His free arm got tangled up with the strap of his carbine.

He threw everything he had into his cold mist ability on the one chance that the desperate situation would lead to a miraculous unlocking of a heretofore unknown level of potency.

If he could get it below freezing he could—

“Cold, but not that cold. You need at least 20 levels before I’d worry about you.” The rogue sighed. “I should take you hostage, but I’m almost a hundred percent sure that the murderer won’t give a shit. He’ll call the bluff and I’ll have to cut your throat. And you’re just a dumb kid, misled by greedy people that would rather work with evil murderers and bat monsters than their fellow humans. It’s really not fair that they’ve made us dirty our hands with their blood. Fuck it… killing you would be like killing a baby kitten. Barely any teeth and claws. Can’t leave you free though. All it takes is one lucky grenade or bullet from you and… unfortunately, I’ll have to disable you… semi-permanently.”

The rogue moved with disorienting quickness and strength that belied her slight frame.

Galen was face down before he realized it.

Pain flared as his broken nose rubbed on the stone floor.

She bound his wrists behind his back.

Then stinging fire slid across the back of his ankles, straight through his thick boots.

“What? Why?” he said through grit teeth.

“I told you, can’t risk you getting free to cause trouble.”

“You cut my achilles—”

“Both of them,” she agreed. “Gave you the Pet Sematary special. Relax. We’ll heal you once we win.”

“I’m bleeding—”

“Quit whining, it makes you look weak. Fine, it might take awhile,” she conceded.

He heard her rustling through a pack followed by paper tearing.

The stinging pain flared into a burning fire.

“Clotting powder. So, don’t cause anymore trouble and I’ll have Deon heal you up good as new. You’ve got a special sounding class and were always looking for potential.”

“I’ll never—”

“It’ll be your choice, but from where I’m standing we’re the only ones that care about protecting our world. If that’s something that sounds like a worthwhile cause then you’d be a real piece of shit to fight against that, wouldn’t you?”

Galen kept his mouth shut.

He couldn’t tell if she had left since he hadn’t heard a single sound. Not even of one of the doors opening.

The ropes were tight and he couldn’t walk, but he couldn’t just wait for help.

Not from the Dread Paladin, nor from the people that murdered his fellow Golden Eagles.

Thus, he tried to concentrate what he had left of his cold mist into his wrists.

Desperate situations sometimes led to large jumps in growth.

That was an observed fact even if it was rare.

He could still contribute to the fight.

Free himself, then crawl over to one of the murder holes.

Despite the rogue woman’s words, she had murdered Sgt. Tran and the rest of his squad.

That wasn’t something he could let go.

It wouldn’t have been right.

They would’ve avenged him, so the least he could do was try.