Ambrose could see white in the distance, and moved towards it. When he eventually made it closer it was evident that he had found the main source of Tailoring materials within the dungeon.

The creature appeared to be a sheep the size of a small bear with long slender legs. It was standing in a small patch of colourful flowers, and occasionally bending down to nibble into one.

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Dungeonese Sheep (Dungeon), Greater Level

One of several ‘prey’ creatures within the dungeon, ‘The Gaol of Neterin’, the sheep eats the seeds of dungeon flowers to dull its senses and enhance its strength. The leftovers from the sheep's other meals then go towards growing its crop in an endless cycle of consumption. The sheep produces a large amount of wool to protect itself from the other dungeon creatures and supply Residents.

* Strength of Body: Higher

* Speed of Body: Higher

* Strength of Mind: Higher

* Speed of Mind: Lower

* Strength of Soul: Lower

* Speed of Soul: Lower

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Judging from the Attributes and the description, Ambrose figured that this was likely the next step of opponents in the dungeon’s levelling path. Figuring that there would likely be higher level Loobins hanging around somewhere, ones that had begun to use tools, and that this thing would be next. The Loobin’s tongues would also act as a perfect weapon against the sheep’s thick coat. It's possible that the stronger Loobins are the ones who gathered up to hunt these guys.

The additional hint at the flowers being valuable was a welcome one, encouraging Ambrose to draw the creature further away from the field before fighting it. The sheep had no currently known special weapons or tricks that Ambrose could determine, only ever nibbling the seeds out of the plant directly.

Initial reconnaissance out of the way, Ambrose was prepared as well as he figured he could be, and began to quietly move forward, taking care to not disturb the flowers for fear of creating noise. Wishing he had a ranged option that didn’t involve losing his weapon, Ambrose crept into range of the sheep’s backside, and decided to go for the obvious weak point in front of him.

Aware that the creature was going to be faster than him, Ambrose wanted to cause the creature enough pain that it would hesitate, allowing him time to exercise his running Skill and draw the sheep over to the edge of the forest, where he hoped that he could use a tree as an obstacle, to keep the larger creature from being able to build up speed to ram him.

Dagger entered the sheep's exit and Ambrose twisted the blade, causing as much damage as possible with the attack. The effect was greater than expected, as the sheep’s knees buckled while Ambrose fled. The sheep however, didn't follow, instead biting the heads off of flowers left and right.

Ambrose, not hearing the creature following, risked a glance backwards as he sprinted up the hill towards the forest. Dropping his speed down to a walk, he watched what the sheep was doing.

It was only a moment longer as the flower’s effect kicked in, numbing the sheep to pain. No longer noticing its wounded behind, the sheep let out an angry bleat towards its attacker, and began to charge.

Back to sprinting, Ambrose quickly lost the lead he had gained as the sheep quickly closed the distance, being far faster than Ambrose had anticipated. It was clear to him now that ‘Higher’ wasn’t a particularly detailed metric, and was likely over double.

There was no way he could make it to the forest in time, so Ambrose instead turned to face the charging sheep. It seemed agile enough that if he dodged to either side it would still deal a glancing blow, which with the speed and weight of the creature, would likely cause enough damage to break his legs leaving him as a sitting duck.

That left going above the creature, its vision was mostly to the side, so if he timed it well enough, with its head turned down to charge, and Ambrose having the high ground, it hopefully wouldn’t get an opportunity to adjust its head before Ambrose could clear it.

The creature closed, Ambrose quickly discarded his bag to the side, not wanting it to interfere with his next move. Moments before the sheep made contact, Ambrose leapt forward, the difference in elevation aiding him in clearing the thickened fleece. Following the advice of his first Skill unlock, Ambrose tucked himself forward into a ball, and tumbled down the hill slightly, struggling to stop himself.

It wasn't as graceful as he had hoped, but at least he hadn’t belly flopped straight into the ground. The sheep had also struggled to stop its momentum, creating a large enough gap for Ambrose to return to his feet. Not allowing his opponent to gain momentum again, Ambrose ran towards the creature as it turned to him, looking to run him down once more.

The two charged at each other, though the sheep was forced to slow itself, less it tumbled down the valley. The creature would be ready for Ambrose to dodge out of the way this time, and with the sheep having high ground, going over was no longer an option. If he couldn’t go around, and he couldn’t go over, clearly he would just have to go under.

As the second, much slower charge was on top of him once more, Ambrose dived forward, narrowly avoiding both the hardened head, and front hooves of the prey creature that would give an apex predator from back home pause.

As Ambrose dived under, he curled up to avoid being trampled and slashed out with his dagger at a back leg as the creature passed over skidding down the hill. Even with both arms held inwards, and both hands desperately gripping the dagger, the force of the creature's movements wrenched the weapon from his hands, only scoring a shallow cut.

Ambrose hastily rose to his feet, running after his quarry, retrieving his blade on the way. Ambrose waited for the creature to come to a stop and begin turning once more. As it did so, he cut to the opposite side, and picked up the pace. This time, Ambrose decided that he would be the one ramming somebody, and crashed all his weight into the knee of one of the front legs going at full speed, just as the creature transferred weight to it. Ambrose winded himself in the process, but heard a resonating crunch as a reward.

The sheep, mid turn, tipped forward threatening to crush Ambrose. Gasping for air that simply wouldn’t come to him, Ambrose continued with his momentum, rolling under the sheep a second time, before falling flat on his stomach. The sheep, still affected by its flowers, didn’t notice the damage, and turned on the downed Ambrose.

While the sheep hadn’t registered the damage, its body certainly did, and as the creature pushed forward with its back legs, the front no longer had the strength to catch the creature's bulk. Muscle and tendons tore as the leg collapsed inwards under the stress, the sheep rammed into the ground face first, furrowing the ground, its large defensive collection of wool refused to be stopped, and pulled the body over, its weight managing to snap the neck.

Ambrose, still gasping, watched on in amusement as the giant fluff ball rolled down the hill, its momentum eventually being arrested, as the sheep slammed into a rock further down the valley in a less steep section.

Once he was able to catch his breath, Ambrose stood and went to begin harvesting his kill, only to find that the creature was returning to its feet. Its front right leg was torn horrifically, blood poured out with bone clearly visible. The neck was stuck, perpetually looking towards the sky as it limped in a circle to turn and face Ambrose.

The creature’s eyes turned down to stare at Ambrose in rage as blood frothed around its mouth. Ambrose was unsure what to do and began awkwardly moving around the creature. Beginning to feel bad for the thing, he wanted to finish the job, but as it kept trying to attack him when he approached, and its head out of reach, all Ambrose could do was repeatedly bait it into ramming forward where it would collapse to the ground, allowing him to slash at its neck.

The thick woollen coat acted against the creature, stopping Ambrose from being able to slit its throat, prolonging its miserable existence.

Several minutes went by as Ambrose kept out of the sheep's range, it slowly grew weaker over the period as blood leaked out and began to trickle down the valley. The rage eventually turned to pain and fear as the numbing effect of the flowers had finally run its course. When the creature was no longer struggling, Ambrose was able to grab its head and shove his knife into the eye of the sheep, finally putting it out of its misery.

“Well.” Ambrose let out a shaken and mildly horrified breath.

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Ambrose sat down and looked at the mutilated giant sheep, filled with an odd mix of remorse for the suffering he had inflicted, satisfaction at managing to defeat the creature, and pride at managing to come away unscathed.

“I really need more methods to fight, I couldn’t damage that thing as I am now. What, I would have needed a big hammer or something to beat that thing without relying on the environment.”

Prism had floated out of the bag after it was discarded and now floated next to Ambrose.

“Ambrose, utilising everything you have access to is simply the way of the world. You should not feel bad for beating a creature with tactics over strength. At the end of the day, you are standing and they are not. I must say, it is appreciated that you feel remorse at causing that level of pain to one of the dungeon creatures.”

It was beginning to draw down to evening, and Ambrose wanted to get out of the dungeon and back in town before nightfall.

He began to cut out a chunk of the skin off the creature. He only wanted the creature's wool but couldn’t cut through the strengthened wool with his dagger, and regretted having donated his shears to the dungeon. He managed to cut a large square out, cutting off the flesh that he had accidentally gathered and wiped the blood off, before rolling it up into a tube and putting it into his bag.

The task had taken over an hour, and Ambrose figured he had enough time to gather a second square before he would need to make a break for it.

With a second square in his bag, Ambrose regretfully abandoned the rest of his kill, quickly grabbing a bunch of the largest of the remaining flowers on his way upwards, he began heading towards the tunnel exit of the dungeon, no longer having time to try his craft out before darkness would set in, and not wanting to remain in the hotel until it had some furnishings, or at least a door.

Prism’s light led the way as Ambrose headed up the hill towards the tunnel. Before he reached it however, something caught his eye off to the side.

“Oh no. No no no no no.”

Ambrose scrambled to move, it appeared his fight had drawn some attention, likely the smell of blood on the the air, as an eight legged form began scuttling towards him, faster now that it knew it had been spotted.

The Dungeonese Wolfspider chasing Ambrose wasn’t faster than the charging sheep had been at full speed, but it was still faster than Ambrose when it wanted to be.

“Come on man, a sheep nearly killed me, how the hell am I meant to survive that monstrosity. Prism, I thought you said it was meant to be safer on the outskirts of the forest.”

Ambrose kept running along the hill, as the wolfspider ran in parallel, slowly decreasing the distance between the two of them while cutting off the path up to the tunnel.

“It usually is, evening and night is certainly a more dangerous time within the dungeon, but it is odd that a wolfspider would come out this far, let alone one two days in a row. It seems the presence of an adventurer nearby after so long has drawn their curiosity. Or perhaps it can smell the other world on you.”

Prism’s form followed alongside Ambrose, dispelling the ever growing shadows from his surroundings. “I apologise if my advice gets you killed.”

Ambrose couldn’t think of a way out, its centre of gravity was far lower to the ground so he wouldn’t be able to get it to make the same mistake the sheep had. He also wouldn’t be able to make it to the river before it would catch up to him.

Ambrose didn’t have delusions of being able to beat the creature, the sheep was a prey creature from the first zone of the dungeon, the wolfspider was a predator from the third, there was no defeating this creature as he was, surviving alone would be a miracle.

Having no other choice, Ambrose began to return to the sheep, hoping he could entice the wolfspider to take the free meal and leave him alone.

It wasn’t long before Ambrose was able to position himself behind the sheep corpse, tying some of his rope around his weapon so he could recover it if he had to throw the thing. All the while the wolfspider was slowly heading straight towards them, clearly not worried about missing out.

The interesting new snack was having fun running around, the wolfspider allowed it to do so, it was clearly weaker than she was and wouldn’t be able to escape, not only was it slower, but a glowy little light hovered just above it, pointing out the strange smelling morsel.

It ran back, hiding behind one of the nasty fluffy things that its fangs couldn’t bite into. She slowly closed, in enjoying the slight wafts of fear that emanated from her meal. Her prey always showed the most fear when they were forced to look upon her glory and accept their deaths.

The tender little meat was stupid to think it was hidden and she decided to sneak up on it. She crawled onto the fluff, legs sinking in and getting slightly stuck, though it would be worth it to scare the meal some more.

As she moved her bulk over the top and looked down upon the food, she tilted her head and barred her fangs at it, each dripping with her anticoagulant venom.

Ambrose was indeed terrified as the wolfspider climbed over the sheep’s corpse, but was thankful and it meant he might actually have a chance to escape as its clawed feet sank into the hardened wool.

As the creature posed, toying with him, he made several moves at once. First, he made an obvious and wide strike with his dagger, releasing it as the wolfspider went to knock his arm away. As he did so, he shoved the flowers he had grabbed on the way back down into the snarling mouth.

Ambrose then grabbed his only other weapon, Prism, and slammed the jagged orb down onto the creature’s head, while it was confused and choking, trying to spit out the flowers.

The blow didn’t seem to cause damage to the creature but did at least seem to daze it, buying even more time. He shoved the ball to the side, hoping that the weight on top would be enough to pull it over and send it rolling further down the valley.

Ambrose didn’t stick around to see if his plan had worked, instead pulling on his dagger on rope, returning the weapon to him, as he was running for his life.

The wolfspider was furious. Her dinner had hit her with the glowy, and she couldn’t get her feet out of the fluffy. The ball and spider rolled to the side, wedging her slightly to the ground as her prey began to run into the distance.

When she finally managed to get free, her prey was close to the top of the hill, though it had nowhere to go. It couldn’t lose her in the forest, and there were no nearby tunnels for it to hide in either.

She chased after, running along at full speed to catch up. She could hear the glowy thing making noises at the annoying morsel but it made no difference, it was in full sight and running towards a dead end at the end of the world.

Closer and closer, the smelly thing glanced over its shoulder, fear evident on its face. She howled at it, enjoying the hunt. She would enjoy watching the life drain from it even more. She promised herself to make sure it was a slow and painful death, to make up for it hitting her.

Ambrose continued sprinting, Prism floating to his side.

“Ambrose, if you can make it to the tunnel you will be safe, this is a stationary dungeon so the creatures are bound to it much like the Nightlights are. It won’t be able to follow you out.”

He was closing in on the tunnel but could hear the creature swiftly approaching behind him, tearing through the grass far faster than before. He spared a glance behind him, seeing if he had enough time to make it, or if he would need to make another desperate attempt at combat.

His fear grew when he saw how close the creature was. It had clearly seen this, as the creature let out an excited howl.

Ambrose jumped towards the tunnel. The hunter lunged towards Ambrose.

The wolfspider slammed into the wall, somehow missing her meal. Looking around frantically, her rage and confusion only grew as she could find no sign of the infuriating snack. It was as if it had disappeared into thin air, or walked right through the wall.

For some reason other than the disappearing prey, she felt uneasy being up against this wall, as if the edge of the world rejected her presence. As she began to feel lost, forgetting the reason she was out of her forest, the wolfspider returned home, she was rather hungry after her dinner had managed to escape her.

Ambrose landed just inside the tunnel, with Prism’s now dormant and dull Nightlight falling to the ground and bouncing further into the darkness. He scrambled to his feet, ready to fight to the end but the wolfspider had hit some force field protecting the tunnel. He watched on in relief as it quickly looked around in anger, confusion, and then fear. Just as quickly as it had arrived, the wolfspider skittered off out of his view, back towards the forest it had come from.

Picking up the inert form of Prism, Ambrose began carefully treading through the darkened tunnel.

By the time he arrived outside, the sun had set, and darkness was quickly rushing in. Knowing that he would likely get lost in the dark, he discarded his normal stealth and pelted near his full speed through the undergrowth towards Baro.

He had not arrived fast enough, finding the gate to the town closed off to him. Ambrose quickly rushed down the wall, searching for a guard but finding there were even less at night. He eventually found where the only two guards were posted, they seemed rather relaxed playing cards, until of course they saw the outline of a form rushing outside the walls, heading straight towards them.

“We got an attack Merf!”

The two swiftly pulled out a spear each and prepared to meet the charge of the monster, if it dared to leap at them.

“Woah woah woah, friendly, friendly. I got a bit lost in the jungle. I am the traveller you probably heard about. Can you please let me in?”

The guard who had initially noticed Ambrose, motioned to his companion. The one Ambrose assumed must be called Merf, grabbed a torch the two had had burning next to them. He then cautiously moved over to the edge of the wall, covered by the first guard. As the light hit Ambrose, he tried to give a friendly wave and smile, though it came off more of a grimace as the light somewhat blinded him.

“Ya got anything following you?” The still unnamed guard asked.

“I certainly hope not.” Ambrose peered out into the darkness of the farms surrounding him, but night vision ruined by the torch, could see nothing but the shifting outlines of crops that were, hopefully, just blowing in the wind.

“I definitely don’t see anything.”

“Alright, head back to the gate, and ol’ Merf here’ll let you in.”

“Thanks. I’m Ambrose by the way.” Ambrose offered another wave to the guards as he headed back to the gate.

Safely back inside town, he was able to finally lose the feeling of being stalked, that had followed him all the way from the dungeon. He was sure it was just paranoia after being caught off guard by the wolfspider, but how could he ever know for sure.