A Second Life – Though most won't survive for long, all of the summoned ones arrive with a chance for a second life. To make the most of their odds, the summoned are given a new body based on their previous one. They are returned to the peak time of their life and all disabilities, diseases, and other conditions are removed so long as they received them after their birth, hatching, etc… Some are given a choice to be summoned, based on some specific need in the new world while most are simply summoned against their will.

-The Adventurer’s Guild

When Nash and Tamsyn arrived at the Seductive Succubus, several members were already waiting. Hank, the stone-born dragoon was sitting at a table with Lynesse and Cyrie, the Dark Elves. Xill and Nishra arrived a few moments later. Everyone seemed ready to get going, Xill’s Quickling foot tapping rapidly in anticipation. A few ceramic cups of tea or water were scattered across the table. Nash picked up a cup of water.

“To a successful venture,” he said, raising the cup high in the air.

Everyone grabbed a cup except Tamsyn and raised them up in answer to Nash’s toast. As one, they all drank down their respective beverages. Setting their emptied cups back on the table, the group headed outside.

“I’m gonna need my own cup one day,” Tamsyn grumbled unhappily.

Once outside, it was time to ride out to the dungeon. Luckily, Nishra, Hank, and Lynesse each had mounts they could use. Hank shared with Xill while Lynesse and Cyrie doubled up on her massive tarantula mount, complete with a double saddle. Hank had a stone lizard mount while Nishra rode on an actual lizard, a red-scaled raptor. Together, they made for an eclectic-looking group. Nash chuckled before spurring his mount onward and to the south, toward the dungeon.

The journey went by quickly and they engaged in all manner of small talk on the way. Within two hours, they were at the Dungeon of Chittering Madness. One of the unique aspects of this particular dungeon was that it could be cleared multiple times. There were countless giant insect hives within this world. Each reset changed where the entrance took the party. Every run was unique, the only commonality was that there would be lots of giant insects in an underground hive and there would always be a powerful queen at the end. Today was no different.

Walking into the hive, Nash could make out several mammoth wasps buzzing about. All of the insectoids ranged in levels from fifteen to nineteen on the first floor. With their damage dealers’ average level being right at twelve, Nash expected the fights to last longer than normal until Lynesse and Cyrie caught up in level. He hoped it wouldn’t take too long to power level them both.

“Alright, Hank… you’re going to be our main tank,” said Nash. “That’ll give you some experience in the role. I’ll take over when the wasps get to be too much to handle. Tamsyn, you’re solo healing this one until we can find another healer. Xill, use your speed to get behind the enemy. That’ll give us and you a flanking bonus. Nishra, Lynesse, and Cyrie… stay back and stay together. Nishra, as the most experienced ranged attacker, I’ll need you to watch for the wasps’ stinging dive bombs and get out of the way. Lynesse, Cyrie… stick to Nishra like glue. Okay, any questions?”

Nash looked around at his six companions and smiled. Blades, staves, and bows at the ready, they all shook their heads. Their jaws were all set in determination to clear as many dungeons as they could this day.

“No questions,” said Nash, giving them a half-smile. “Good. Let’s go squash some bugs.”

Three giant wasps made up the first group they encountered. Hank shouted at them and charged in, grabbing their attention. Nash and Xill flanked the leftmost wasp while the three ranged attackers peppered it with fireballs and arrows. It went down faster than Nash expected and they moved on to the next closest wasp while Hank held its attention. This wasp went down even faster than the first. The last only lasted a few seconds before it too went down. They had defeated their very first group of monsters as a party and it had gone well.

"Great job," congratulated Nash. "Just like that from here on."

The rest of the floor went much the same way, with the occasional monstrous larva thrown in. The wasps were all of the worker variety, so Nash had to explain that the upper levels would have warrior wasps of increasing difficulty. There would also be a few mutant types, some being the floor bosses.

Battle after battle, the group’s experience continued to climb. By the time they reached the first-floor boss, Nash and Tamsyn had hit level 25, Nishra hit 21, Xill hit twenty, Hank reached fifteen, Lynesse was now twelfth level, and Cyrie had swiftly made it to eleventh. Nash had known about the theory-crafting behind power-leveling but had never witnessed it firsthand.

It made sense from a gaming perspective. If you ran quests and dungeons long enough, eventually everyone’s level would equal out. However, this wasn’t a game so that reasoning shouldn’t apply here. Whatever the real reason behind allowing power leveling, Nash wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He’d just use it to their advantage.

Still, he was happy that both he and Tamsyn had leveled. Their experience gains weren’t nearly as lucrative as their companions’, but they had both already been fairly close to leveling before they began. It all helped. Nash was in a hurry to play catchup with his old guild. They had some things to answer for and Nash wanted to be in a position to ask the questions.

With the floor finally cleared, including three secret rooms that Xill managed to discover, they came to the central chamber. The dungeon was an underground hive. The central part of each level led up to the outer part of the next level, forcing them to work their way back to the center to face the new floor’s boss. It was an ingenious if simple design. At least there wouldn’t be any getting lost.

Nash entered first, taking in the massive round room. It was a rocky cavern covered in papery masses and viscious golden resin. He spied the exit on the other side of a massive mutated worker wasp, easily three times the size of the ones they’d encountered thus far. Other than its size, it sported two stingers tipping the ends of a pair of prehensile tails. Its coloring was dark brown with bright red stripes. The monstrous worker appeared to be examining a huge pile of gooey yellow cubes. Every so often, it would remove one and put it in a much smaller pile behind it.

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“Okay, Hank,” whispered Nash. “This guy’s straightforward. When he gets you with a stinger, we swap. Do the same for me. If either of us gets hit with both stingers, we’re going to die horribly. While off-tanking, pick up the workers that’ll be continually bursting from the ground. Everyone should kill them first. That’s it. Now, the next time it turns around to the small pile, charge it. We all good?”

Nash looked around to six nodding heads and smiled. “Good, on Hank’s mark.”

No sooner had Nash finished his pep talk than the giant wasp plucked a cube from the pile and turned. Hank wasted no time in charging in, critically hitting the boss for extra damage and provoking it. Xill had the boss flanked a moment later and Nash rushed in and planted both axes into the wasp’s thick carapace. Arrows and fireballs rained in from Nishra, Lynesse, and Cyrie while Tamsyn laid down slower heal-over-time spells to keep everyone topped off. Once the fight started, the room became toxic and everyone was taking minor damage from the air itself.

The fight wore on and the boss stung Hank with its tail. Nash stepped in to take over, using Blade Barrier to avoid the boss’s powerful attacks. Suddenly, the ground erupted and a dozen worker wasps crawled out to attack everyone. Hank was hard-pressed to get the attention of just half of the new group. Five of them had gone after the girls in the back of the room and had them backed against the wall. Looking at Hank’s ticker, Nash saw that there were still nearly twenty seconds left on the timer for the poison. The girls didn’t have twenty seconds.

“Damn,” cursed Nash while turning towards the new threat.

He charged into them all and scored a hit on each of them. As the girls hadn’t attacked them yet, they all turned their attention towards Nash who quickly charged back into the boss before it could free-cast something sure to be devastating to the party. He hoped the girls had enough sense not to hit any of the wasps attacking him.

He nodded once he realized the girls had turned their attacks on the group of insects swarming Hank. Nash realized that left just him to handle the boss and the other five worker wasps. When one of the wasps suddenly dropped dead, Nash realized Xill wass with him. He nodded his thanks at the little Quickling who had already started making short work of the next worker wasp in the group. Nash got a few more wacks into the wasps with his axes before turning them both on the boss.

That’s when the boss’s left stinger darted forward to the pierce Nash’s body and inject him with the toxin. Nash brought his Blade Barrier back up at just the right moment and managed to cleave completely through the stinger. Toxin and ichor sprayed everywhere, luckily missing the party members. The boss let out a horrible shriek, realizing its most potent attack was rendered impotent. While Hanktanked the other wasps, the girls systematically took them out with arrows and spellfire. Nash held the boss's attention along with the remaining workers while Xill continued his assault on the weaker creatures. Nash activated Evade to keep the monsteers from doing too much damage to him as Xill did his work.

Once the worker wasps had all been dealt with, the party went to work on the boss. After being pummeled by numerous attacks, it went down in a grotesque screeching mess. First-floor bosses were always the easiest and most straightforward bosses in any dungeon. It seemed like another unwritten rule of this game-like world. While Nash pondered this, his screen filled up with new notifications.

Congratulations: You’ve defeated Xvvzk, the Mutant Worker Wasp

Reward: 6,000 experience

Red Carapace Shield – off-hand

Material Harvesting: Insect Chitin Plates (x12)

Toxic Stiletto – dagger

Iron marks – 1,325

The experience and marks had already been distributed equally. Hank took the shield and Xill took the dagger. No one else wanted the insect chitin, so Nash took it. He’d need to find a use for these materials before his item slots all filled up. Still, it would probably take a while for that to happen.

“Nice job, everyone,” said Nash. “Is everyone ready for level two?”

Six vigorous nods made Nash smile. “Well, then… let’s go.”

The second floor was much like the first, just a little more difficult. Warrior wasps attacked them at every step they took. Nash made sure to keep the pace slow and steady, lest they attract more creatures than they could handle.

Three-quarters of the way through the swarm of wasps, things went sideways fast. Battling a group of six, Hank missed picking up one wasp in the group and Nash was on the wrong side of him to grab it himself. It went for the people hurting it, the damage dealers. With extremely weak defense, they backpedaled as far as they dared. It turned out to be a little too far. Cyrie pulled a second group. Xill rushed in to try and help her but got swatted by the rogue wasp. He ended up landing near a third group, catching their attention.

“Ahhh, hell…” cursed Nash, stopping his forward momentum.

This wasn’t his first rodeo. He figured that using his double charge tactic was his best bet in this instance. He picked a wasp from the second group and charged it, swiping the rogue wasp on the way through. Turning, he charged a wasp in the back of the third group, using the power of his charge to knock the second group down like bowling pins.

Standing between Xill and the angry wasps, Nash activated Dark Rage and went to work with his axes. Xill moved out of his way and rejoined the rest of the party while they concentrated on the first group. Nash held the third group, while the second group formed back up with the rogue wasp and attacked him from behind. His party couldn’t help him. They were too busy working to defeat the five wasps that they were facing.

Tamsyn’s heals were working overtime to keep up with the damage that Nash was sustaining from all sides. Still, he had activated Blade Barrier and was giving as good as he got. Once the first group had been dealt with, the rest of the party went to work on the remaining wasps. Nash had already taken down three with his Vengeance ability. Luckily, Dark Rage was short-lived and had ended by the time the wasps were all dead. Nash just slumped down amongst the wasp bodies, exhausted.

“Wow, nice save” exclaimed Hank. “That was some badass tanking.”

“Ughh, thanks,” mumbled Nash, clearly winded.

The rest of the floor proceeded without further incident until they reached the boss’s central chamber. Within the chamber, curled up like a hideous bloated snake, was another massive mutation. This one was a kind of larvae. Instead of becoming a wasp, it merely grew to huge proportions and developed a huge maw filled with spines where teeth should be. The moment they entered the chamber, the creature’s head rose up from where its bulbous larval body was coiled and looked right at them. Its head was sickly human, with yellowed puffy eyes and a fat face. It was a grotesque abomination. When it closed its needle-filled mouth, it looked like a cherub from hell. With its mouth open, it looked even worse. A collective shudder went through the whole group.

“I’ve heard of these but have been lucky enough to never have to fight one before,” explained Nash. “We’re all going to be subjected to fear and sickness. There’s no avoiding it. Also, its flesh is extremely corrosive. Only ranged attacks will work. That also means this thing can’t be tanked. It’ll chase whoever is doing the most damage. You’ll have to lead it around the room while Hank, Xill, and I handle the waves of minions that’ll drop from the ceiling. These too are larva but can be killed easily. Don’t worry. It’s ponderously slow. Just remember to not get backed against the wall. You won’t survive that. Just circle it and you’ll be fine. Got it?”

Nishra nodded first, followed by Lynesse and Cyrie. The latter two’s complexion had paled considerably but they seemed up for the fight. Nash nodded at each in turn.

“Alright then,” announced Nash. “Let’s send this thing back to whatever hell it was pulled from.”