Five floors.

Five twisting floors of spore-filled death and fleeting encounters with the retreating boss.

Fife was not happy with the constant lack of finality, but she was enjoying how her body moved and worked. Her wings weren't so useful in the tunnels, but she couldn't wait to try those out in the open air. First, though, she had to deal with the hobgoblin. "We should have brought Ogmera with us. She could tell us how many floors there are to go before we have this guy cornered."

Contemplating the unasked question, Astrid asked, "She wasn't able to keep up?"

Sighing, Fife nodded. "She has some advantages over a regular adventurer, but she should go full kobold. I wonder if Trav's system would let her become a wolf like you guys?"

The question intrigued Astrid. All her life she'd known that their gifts couldn't be passed on, but dungeons did things differently. "It would be interesting to see how the wolf takes someone not drawn to close combat. I won't lie, organizing the siege machines was not my preferred task." As she spoke, Astrid recalled the time she'd spent standing back among the engineers, wanting nothing more than to charge at the gates of the city. She'd gotten her wish, too. "She may not be useful as a magic user any longer."

Fife shook her head. "That would be a shame. She's good at what she does. Perhaps, if we have— Luddy's back."

"Yeah, yeah. You're showing off a bit now, Fife." It shouldn't have bugged Ludmiller so much, she knew, but Fife somehow sensed her presence. "This floor seems unfinished. Basically a straight run to the boss room. There might be something significant about that, but I don't know for sure."

"As long as he has nowhere to go but down, I'm fine with this. More floors mean more resources." Drawing her sword, Fife thumped her shield a few times with the pommel to ensure the straps were secure on her arm, then advanced down the hallway. "Tell me where I'm going."

"Left, then right, then straight on. Like I said, this wasn't a complicated one—except for a few side rooms." Ludmiller checked over her daggers again and smiled. "You're welcome. There were two trolls and one of the big orcs."

Trygve whined, regret painting his tone as he heard of what he could have hunted in the tunnels.

"Don't feel bad, brother," Astrid said, "celebrate having strong pack mates."

She was right and Trygve knew it. Checking his blades, he nodded to Katelyn. "Lady Wizard, could you create an area of lower intensity fire?"

Surprised a little by the request, Katelyn nodded. "With Fife's new abilities, I don't need to keep the whole chamber blazing hot. Why?"

Eyes flashing, Trygve said, "I want to live long enough to engage with and fight something."

The request startled Astrid a little too, but thinking about it made her blood pump faster. "Yes. If there are more than the one cursed goblin, we might as well all have some fun." She looked to Brayden. "You would be able to return us?"

Since the leader of his chapter had retreated from Northridge, Brayden had felt a touch adrift in his faith. The only guide he had that he was walking the correct path were the continuing miracles Brogdar honored. He nodded to Astrid. "Brogdar sees much good in all of us."

Holding out her right forearm, Astrid took Brayden's in her grip. "You represent your god well."

"And you yours. Let's empty this hole." It didn't take much, but it had been more than the high priestess of his order had done. Brayden closed his eyes and whispered a prayer of protection over everyone present.

Magic no longer held the terror it once did for Astrid, and her pack were learning that too. As the warmth of Brayden's prayer settled on her shoulders like a mantle, she welcomed it—for it did not deny her skills or prowess with arms. Even bringing life to the dead didn't betray her warrior spirit, it only made a single defeat not a total loss. "Thank you."

Brayden smiled. How he'd gotten through to the wolves when Alice Stormblade hadn't, he had no idea, but they accepted Brogdar and himself as their companions now, which was enough for him. "Breath of Spring, you have Fife covered?"

"Now that she doesn't get hurt by Katelyn's flames? Yes. Are you needed elsewhere?" Only having caught the tail end of Brayden and Astrid's conversation, Breath of Spring was curious what they planned.

Fife followed the directions all the way to a large room she judged to be over a hundred feet on each side with tunnels leading off into the darkness. Fife looked back at Breath of Spring, winked, and she walked in. Low flames erupted in the surrounding air, and when she saw a cloud of spores rush toward her, she took a deep breath and channeled out the fire that burned within her toward it.

Short Claws was getting desperate. He'd been fighting a retreating battle, just like before, and had been waiting for that crucial moment when the invaders' support group ran out of resources—but they hadn't. In fact, they seemed to be getting stronger and bolder with every floor he harried them on.

The best bacterial plagues, viral loads, and even fungal spores had all been destroyed in the purifying flames that seemed limitless. The fire mages they'd brought the previous time had eventually been overcome when Short Claws had burned magic to protect some exceptionally hardy spores, but the single kobold with the burning staff had not faltered and its flames had never failed to incinerate everything that'd been sent against them.

Finally, though, things seemed to be going his way. Short Claws watched the unstoppable dragon-beast marching toward him. Not wanting to make things seem different, he built a mass of mixed microbiological terror, summoned a huge globe of water to act as ablative protection, and launched it toward his foe.

Dodging to the left of the ball of death, Fife smirked as Katelyn's fire encroached-on and boiled away the protective water sheath, then incinerated the biological load. She took one step toward the hobgoblin and froze. Her new instincts screamed at her that the floor was not what it seemed. Crouching, she tapped at the stone with the tip of her sword until what should have been solid rang hollow.

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It was uncanny how the dragon had detected the trap. Short Claws cursed for all he was worth as they carefully found their way around the edge of the huge pit trap. Screaming an alarm, he called all the remaining bosses he had scattered around the room to rush the delvers.

When the first arrow connected with Fife's forehead, and bounced off, she knew that things had stepped up. Far to her right, four big trolls were charging for her; only increasing that feeling. "Getting rough, are we? Desperate?"

A great howl interrupted whatever conversation Fife might have had with the charging enemies. The trolls closed the distance between themselves and her by only half before the first of the wolves, Astrid, slammed into them.

With the trolls being dealt with, Fife turned her full attention to the hobgoblin. She broke into a run, skirting the pit she still didn't know how she detected, and fixed her eyes on the goblin dungeon boss.

Short Claws hadn't expected his trolls to be met by armored beasts that could trade blows with them, but what surprised him more was how the heavy fighter of the dragon dungeon leapt at him. Not used to up-close fighting, Short Claws tried to dodge the attack by backing up. When the dragon boss landed on him, pain blossomed from where its claws hooked into his body.

"Gotcha!" Fife hadn't been able to engage directly with the hobgoblin yet, and finally getting her claws on him filled her with excitement. Even as the boss tried to get out from under her, Fife sank her talons in more.

Bracing himself against the pain, Short Claws coughed and let loose a huge blast of spores into the dragon's face—only to have it breathe fire back at him. He expected her to be sadistic, to threaten and cow him, but she brought her sword down to his throat in a rapid stroke that brooked no interruption. He had but a moment before he was scooped up by his dungeon's magic.

With the goblin dead under her, Fife stepped one foot off to the side and kicked back, sending the body into the middle of the pit trap and triggering it. She was acutely aware that its last attack would have killed her, if she hadn't gotten her new upgrade.

As the surrounding room drew back into focus, Fife noticed the smell of burning fur in the air—and a lot of blood.

Liv pivoted as Astrid slammed the troll in the face with a shield. She built momentum in the twist, swinging her cleaver around as Astrid ducked. At the peak of momentum, the huge weapon met with the dazed troll and sliced through armor, muscle, and bone as it cleaved the beast's head off and sent its gorget, now split in half, to tumble to the ground into a growing puddle of blood.

Standing back up straight, Astrid heaved her strength behind her shield and plowed through the headless corpse, shoving it onto its back and away to give Liv room to turn for the next troll. There was pain, despite her armor not having given way to any weapon. Her fur had mostly singed away now and her skin was burning inside her armor. None of that mattered when she could fight and kill and live life to its fullest with her pack.

An arrow struck Astrid's helmet, the tip piercing one of the eye slits and grazing her welted skin. She burned all over, but where that little piece of dirty metal had cut was an entirely new kind of inferno.

Like a waterfall gives life to the plants it showers with droplets, the fungal spores stole it from Astrid's flesh. She grabbed her helmet and ripped it off to let the cleansing fire scour the wound, but already she felt the burning mycelia hunting through her, seeking her heart. "F-Fife!"

Head snapping around, Fife spotted Astrid through the flames and could see the bubbling flesh on one side of her face—bloated and putrid—chasing down her neck into her armor. With another leap, Fife cleared half the distance between herself and Astrid, slid along the rocks, rolled, and came up before the huge wolf woman as she started to fall.

With one of her eyes gone dark, Astrid looked up into Fife's face and struggled to beg her for the power to fight on. Fife opened her mouth wide and Astrid knew what was coming when she saw the red glow at the back of the kobold's throat.

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> One of your minions gained a new talent!

Travis stared at the notification. "Okay, that's the second time I—"

> One of your minions gained a new talent!

> One of your minions gained a new talent!

> One of your minions gained a new talent!

"This is getting weird. What are they doing in there?"

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The pain of the fungal infection faded, but the heat of the fire around Astrid no longer stung her flesh. She stared up at Fife through her remaining eye and found new strength and energy burning inside her. It was impossible for Astrid to figure out if her cry for help had been begging to be put out of her misery or be saved, but now that she could feel Fife's fire still searing the rot out of her, she knew what she'd gotten.

Astrid stood back up, her body boiling the toxins out of her blood and freeing her from further degradation at its pustular touch. "Thank you."

Fife grinned and felt like a feral wolf herself. Astrid didn't look to be burning anymore, despite Fife having unloaded as much fire into her face as she could. "Get your ass back to Brayden and let him fix that eye. I want you ready in case there is more to fight."

"But the—" As Astrid turned to survey the room, she saw why Fife had spoken as she had. The trolls were dead, another two of their number's heads rolling free of their bodies, and Njal had found the goblin archer and introduced it to both of his adamantine swords. "Oh."

Sharp Eyes had ways of dealing with creatures that desired to get up close and personal. Most of them, however, required the opponent to either be slow, have bad senses, or not be an armored juggernaut. The wolf creature that shredded him before he could get more than one countermeasure off was all those things. The small bag of spores he'd slung at the creature hadn't dazed it enough that he could avoid his fate.

The burning embers in Astrid's eyes seemed to flare for a moment, and Fife grinned. "Looks like I'm not the only one. Katelyn! Flames down!"

The wolves gathered around their leader, each of them pulling free helmets to reveal their formerly fuzzy heads—singed from the flames that had licked at their armor—now had patches of scales growing on them, spreading. "What's this?" Astrid asked, reaching out with her gauntleted hand to rub the scaling on Hreti's cheek.

Shrugging, Hreti sheathed his swords and ducked away from Astrid's touch. "I don't know. Was fighting, then the fire didn't hurt anymore."

Fife had left the wolves to figure out what had happened and approached the room's exit. It should have been stairs down, but instead it was another tunnel with a green light shining from its opposite end. She walked along the passage and found her target—the heart room. The heart of the dungeon was big, decorated with skulls around its base that all seemed to have mushrooms growing in them—Fife wasn't stupid enough to get close to it. She figured, though, that it was about half the size of Breeze. "I'm not allowed to smash you this time," Fife said, stepping to the threshold of the heart room, "and I won't hurt you, but know this—when next we meet, you will be crushed." She let out a little wisp of flame from her mouth, eyeing the heart and wondering what it would be like to cut it in half.

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This story is released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. If you are paying money to see this or the original creator, Damaged, is not credited, you are viewing a plagiarized copy of the story.