I honestly could not tell you what time of the night it was as I laid collapsed, panting within yet another protective dome while the newest herd of mutant rodents circled me hungrily. And frankly, I did not care. I had been absolutely right. This sucked the big one.

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed, you fuck-wads!” I wheezed to the Dungeon at large.

Oh, yes. I had noticed, alright.

It seemed that every time it was my turn to run with the Key, the distance to the next pillar was much farther along than Jax’s leg. It was like whomever had set this up was doing it specifically at my expense. As if they were laughing in their shadowy recesses and shouting, “Run, fat boy! Run!” I could almost hear them. Yes, they knew who was doing the fighting and who was doing the running.

Not that I was really all that fat, anymore. My recent diet of Jack and Diddley was doing wonders for my figure, and whatever caloric intake Life Energy provided did not seem to replenish my fat stores. Heck, a few more days of this, and you might actually be able to see my abs! I had not seen those in years!

Right about the time that I mustered the energy to flop bonelessly onto my back, I heard the sound of Jax’s plodding footsteps approaching. She had progressed well past the point of being in any kind of hurry any more, delaying her inevitable bouts with my pursuers as much as possible. I did not blame her in the slightest.

Heaving a sigh, I prepared to get my spell running again. At this point, the words came with a fair degree of readiness, not that I actually wanted to say them anymore. It was rather like playing red rover, but knowing that inevitably, you were going to have to call the really fat kid’s name to come running at you. No one wanted to do it, but that was the game. Of course, in this particular simile, all of the kids were fat.

“Alright, ye scabby boggins. Let’s have it,” Jax taunted in a drawl.

I did not even bother to look. Intoning my spell with almost a sarcastic cadence, I clenched my teeth as the aforementioned lard-ass cannonballed onto my ribcage. Again.

There were only two of the really big rats this time, together with an entourage of another three of the now comically small, forearm-sized ones. Really, whoever thought that the things had ever been that big? It was a ludicrous notion. I mean, I still ran from them, of course. I was a mage, not a fighter.

Groaning as I rolled onto my side, I watched as the rest of the fight played out. I still had a sliver of Life Energy from the last burst that Jax had provided, about two pylons ago, so I was not about to pass out again. Still, I was hardly going to try and stand up with my spell running. That was just wasteful.

The fluid movements that seemed to highlight her fighting style when she was in the mood were mostly absent at present. She was still trying, of course, but that kind of thing really does not come naturally, especially given how tired she was. How tired we both were.

But she was still doing okay. With each bout, Jax was becoming more competent at dealing with the monstrous rodents. Learning their tells, when they were about to jump, when they were ready to dodge, and etc. We were just fortunate that they did not seem to be learning from their mistakes in turn. Not that they could. Being that they were dead and all.

As she hurled the final ratling at a wall, forcing an axe chaser down its throat, she turned to look at me, “Ye well?”

“Yep,” I returned, dropping my spell like a traveling salesman drops his luggage at a dingy motel. “Unscathed this time. You?”

“Few scratches,” she replied shortly. “Nothin’ major.”

As she shuffled her way over to me and plopped down to rest again, I gave her a quick once over. What was left of her clothes were hanging on by threads. Her once full set of baggy pants were now reduced to the point of scarcely being a g-string. I had been studiously avoiding any accidental glances down there to respect her privacy, but it was getting harder. At some point during her last wait, she had apparently taken an excess scrap of cloth and shoved it through her waistband to try and help. It was a make-shift attempt, at best.

Her top was little better. There was almost nothing left to it at all. Little bits of it had been torn away or ripped to tatters over the night to the point where it was just a strap with a bit of white cloth dangling over her nipples. Personally, I would have just discarded the thing a long time ago, but unlike her undercarriage, she seemed to like that I kept sneaking glances. Of course normally, I would have been trying my utmost to control myself in that regard as well, but it truly did help her fight better. Which was an odd thing to say, but that was where we were.

“Heal?” I asked after a moment.

“Nah, save it,” she said, stretching. “Unless ye think ye have aught to spare?”

I sighed, “I can get off a small one without a problem. Two at most.” Experience really was the best teacher. I could not tell you how, but I was getting a real feel for how my body reacted when I was getting close to empty. Larger surpluses where another thing entirely, but those were far and few between.

“Hold off, then,” she said with a grimace. “Let me see if I can get this next batch to cough up some Life for ye.”

“You’re ready to go already?” I asked skeptically.

She just shrugged, “Me arms feel o’ lead, but I still got me wind in me. I ain’t gonna get better tonight.”

“You want me to use another Gem during your fight?” I asked.

“That’d help, aye,” she nodded gratefully, but then she looked at me, consideringly, “How many we used so far?”

We had discovered that — at least as long as its effects were running — in addition to the rather immediate benefits to Jax’s desire-based ability, the Gems seemed to help alleviate some of our stamina issues, and I had been slowly doling them out over the course of our run. They had been a goddess-send, to say the least.

“Two Lesser and uh…” I paused to recount them again, “nine Minor. I think.”

“Ye countin’ the one we used afore we got into this mess?” Jax reminded me.

“Oh. Make that ten Minors then,” I corrected.

She pursed her lips, “All o’ them, and we still ain’t got to Core cap?”

“Well, Hess said that it was about ten Minor to the Layer, and we’ve been splitting them. So that by itself should be halfway for the both of us. Plus the two Lesser would put us at around… maybe three quarters full?” It was a guess, but I felt like my reasoning was fairly sound.

Jax, of course, did not yet have the facilities to dispute my estimate, so she simply nodded. Dropping the most recent additions next to my cage, she asked, “How many do we got saved up now?”

Since the inventory gave me a stack count as part of its interface, it was easy enough to do some quick mental math and give her a combined total, “That would put us at twenty-four Lesser and fifty-four Minor, altogether.” Our Gem stash was starting to become quite the little pile. It was getting to the point where I was beginning to regret the fact that my pocket was sitting right on top of my crotch.

Hearing that, her eyebrows slowly rose, and she smiled in disbelief, “Donum? Do ye know that right now, we got more money out of everybody I ever knowed?”

I pursed my lips, thinking that over. I did not have any real concept of the worth of things, after all. “How much would you say that a Lesser is worth?” I asked curiously.

Her head bobbed back, unsure, “I dunno. Maybe… four? Five gold?”

“Okay well, assuming they’re worth five…” because that made the math easier, “then we have something like… 174 gold worth of Gems?”

That figure did little to satisfy me. Gold was not something that I could easily equate with money. Of course, in D&D terms, it was a paltry sum. You could not even buy a suit of plate mail for that. Not even close. Actually, I was pretty sure that a breastplate alone cost something like two or three hundred. But here?

At one point, Jax had said that staying in an inn cost something like a quarter of a silver per night. In dollars, I knew that you could usually find a place for a hundred bucks, so a silver should be about four hundred. And I knew that the coinage here was usually broken into eighths. Literally. So, if a silver was an eighth of a gold… then a gold was worth… 3,200 dollars? And we had 174 of them?

Holy shit… That would be like… Hmm…

My mental math was not quite so advanced as to pop off a figure like that, so I had to break it down into steps. 100 times 3,200 would be 320,000… and then half again would be another 160,000. So that would account for 150 of them. Plus another… well, 24 is a bit wonky to do in your head, so lets call it 25. That way we can just take half again. So, that’s just 80,000. And then added up, it would be… 400… 560,000… and then taking away the 3,200 we added would leave us at… 556,800 dollars worth of Gems?

I sat back as my internal sense of value aligned. That was getting close to new house money. In some places. No fucking wonder almost nobody ever made it to the Boundary. If even a Minor Gem cost that much then a whole Layer would set you back thirty-two grand or more! And we had been popping them like stamina potions!? Lady preserve… I had already blown through over sixty grand in this Dungeon alone! And twice that counting Jax!

“’Snails…” I breathed out.

Jax had both of her hands clasped over her mouth, almost tearing up over the prospect of so much money in our possession, but when she heard me say that, her expression fell. “That be her word. Why ye be swearin’ usin’ her word. I got loads o’ words, and ye never used one o’ mine!”

I looked at her. Really? “I don’t know. It’s fun to say?” I explained reasonably.

She made to argue, but her eyebrows lifted after a moment, “Aye… I suppose it be at that. Still, I don’t like hearin’ such on yer lips when ye ain’t ever used mine.”

I sighed, “But, I don’t know what any of yours mean! Or well… I suppose I’ve picked up on a few of them, but I don’t know any that would fit that situation.”

“What were yer meanin’ then?” she asked helpfully, as if she was some kind of school marm.

I sent her a bemused look. The conversations I got into with this woman… lilim… whatever. “You know… something like… I don’t know,” I floundered. “Just a general expression of amazement.”

“I’d usually swear by the names o’ the Three. But if ye wanted sommat else…” She thought it over for a moment before snapping her fingers, “Ye could say ‘chebs’!”

“Chebs?” I repeated incredulously. “Jax, I’ve never once heard you say ‘chebs’.”

“Now ye have,” she said smiling. “I think it’d be cute if ye said ‘chebs’.”

I blinked. Cute? She thought it would be cute? But then I narrowed my eyes, “Why? What does it mean?”

“Nothin’ special,” she shrugged far too innocently, “Just sommat like ‘wow’, ye know?”

“Uh-huh…” I said by way of reply. “I’ll see if I can work it in.” Standing up, I grabbed the Key back off of the pedestal and held it up, “Now. Are you ready to take this ‘flaming tadger’ off my hands?”

She blanched, “Donum! Watch yer tongue!”

Some time later, I was ambling along the drainage hall toward wherever Jax had ended up. I was not really paying attention, as I was busy dumping the latest batch of Gems into my fanny pack of ball bruising. Including her latest round, which had quite fortunately only consisted of the smaller rodents, we were up to sixty-two of the Minor Gems. Enough for another three Layers, I figured. Plus the Lesser Gems, we were probably good to get to the Boundary already. Assuming we did not lose the damned things again. And with only my little pouch to contain them, that was a distinct possibility.

My gut gave a warning gurgle, pulling me out of my reverie. Poking it in admonishment, I muttered, “That’s enough out of you.” Before she had headed off, I went ahead and patched Jax up with a weak regeneration spell, so I was once again coasting on fumes. Not that it was anything new. It was kind of funny, in a way. After all, a man who works in the sun all day will talk your ear off about the weather. So, naturally, all I seemed to be thinking about lately was my stomach.

Well… maybe not all I was thinking about…

I paused then, my spacial sense warning me that I was about to dumb-ass my way right into a wall. Recoiling, I stared at it for a moment, blinking. I was at a dead end? Had I taken a wrong turn somewhere?

Must have…

Giving my head a shake, I turned around… except that way was blocked off, too.

Uh… This was… new.

Looking around for anything I might have missed, I could not see any sign of an exit. Nor could I even see how I might have ended up in this room. It was just a plain, square room with absolutely nothing in it. Except for me.

“What in the…”

Wide-eyed, and starting to freak out, I spun around quickly. However, when I did, my eyes fell on a fairly large example of one of the common ‘talking’ crystals that the Dungeon liked to periodically install. It was just sitting there, like it had been there the whole time. Which it most assuredly had not.

Oh, this is some ‘Labyrinth’ shit right here… It was not a realization I was particularly happy with.

Fairly certain that I was being screwed with, yet again, I heaved a sigh, “Whatever. Let’s see what you have to say for yourself, shall we?”

Put your pole in me,

Spread my flaps and come inside.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

I’ll get wet before you do.

Promise.

I stared at the message, aghast.

Was this supposed to be an invitation of some kind? It almost looked like an ad for a porn website or a gentlemen’s club.

Of course, it might have just been some sort of riddle. If so, it was one of the most blatantly, sexually charged, and frankly obvious riddles I had ever heard… which meant… that it probably was not obvious. Nor in any way sexual.

Oh, that’s a bit clever. Though, once you removed the obvious answer, what was actually meant was pretty clear. You put a pole inside to hold it up. It has flaps. It gets wet from the rain…

“A tent!” I said aloud, smiling smugly, happy to have so easily beaten this little game.

There was a pregnant pause. And suddenly, I was once again pelted with cacophonous, shrieking laughter from all sides.

“A tent?!”

“He said a tent?”

“He did!”

“The Queen preserve!”

“I knew it! I knew it!”

“Hilarious!”

Gritting my teeth, I clapped my hands to my ears to try and drown out the mocking voices, but they itched at my skin. Wormed their way through my teeth. Vibrated my skull.

Just as I was starting to scream, the voices stopped just as abruptly as they had begun.

Panting, and more than a little pissed off at being continually harassed, I yelled, “For fuck’s sake! What did you want me to say? A vagina?!”

My voice echoed for a moment in the little room, and then a new voice whispered jovially in my ear, “Maybe…”

And kissed me on the cheek.

Without any more warning than that, the crystal and the walls around me winked out of existence, and a small, blue, triangular gemstone was left spinning on the floor. I stared at it, more than a little spooked, as it settled into motionlessness. Then, spinning around quickly, I scanned the hallway. I did not see any sign of whomever had spoken.

But my cheek was certainly moist.

“Where ye been?” Jax asked as I rounded the corner, halfway between cross and anxious.

Heaving a sigh, I waved an unconcerned hand, “Nowhere. Just some Faen antics.”

“Again?” she asked, surprised. “They must o’ takin’ an awful shine to ye.”

“You think so?” I asked, absently rubbing at my cheek. I considered divulging the details, but given her temperament, she might get upset about… certain parts. That was the last thing I needed. “Well, anyway, I somehow got another Key out of the deal,” I said, holding up the aforementioned gemstone.

She looked at it in surprise, before frowning, “They’d not o’ given ye such for free, I’m thinkin’. What did it cost ye?”

“Only my dignity,” I responded. “They seem to think that I’m some form of high entertainment.” Or perhaps, low entertainment would be more accurate.

“Ye mean they be makin’ light o’ ye?” Jax asked, clenching her fists.

I smirked, “Just some harmless fun, so far.”

She harrumphed, “I’d like to shove some harmless fun up their fannies, would I.”

I chuckled. From what I had just witnessed, they might actually enjoy that. Or drop a thermonuclear detonator on top of us. Whichever struck their fancy.

As I came to a halt in front of her latest dome, I realized that we were now in the main hallway, just a little ways from the ladder to the safe room, and I smiled. “Well! Look at that!”

Jax nodded, “Aye. Seems we’re to the end of it. What now?”

What now, indeed. Frowning, I paced a circuit around her cage, looking for clues, but it looked just the same as all of the others so far. There was no writing, nor arrows, nor keyholes. It was just a fairly wide, cobbled storm drain that happened to have a forcefield perched in the center of it. “I have no idea. I guess you could try handing me the Key again…”

“And then? Where’ll ye run?” she asked. “Up yon ladder?”

Considering it for a moment, I nodded, “If it comes to that, then yes. If we can’t figure out what else to do, then we’ll have no choice but to get Hess involved.”

She made a face and sighed but seemed content to leave it at that. Wordlessly, she removed the green Key from its pedestal, and gave me a questioning look.

“One second,” I stopped her. Reaching into my pouch, I removed a couple of Minor Gems and palmed them. It would not hurt to be prepared. “Okay, hit me,” I said.

At my signal, she underhanded the stone to me, and it arced unimpeded through the forcefield. As it dropped into my waiting hands, we both tensed. This time however, the click that usually heralded a swarm of rats coming for a taste of my hide sounded from below me. Looking down quickly, just to my right, I saw another pedestal rising from the floor, mere inches from the edge of the field.

“That’s new,” I remarked unhelpfully.

We both stared at it for a few moments, suspiciously. Neither of us truly believed that it would be that simple, but nothing else happened.

“I guess…” I hedged, “that I just… put the Key here? And then…”

“Right…” she agreed. The implication was obvious. Then all hell would break loose. Closing her eyes, she took a couple of breaths and stretched her neck back and forth a few times. Opening them again, she stared at me. Slowly pressing herself as close to the barrier as she could, she began to nibble at her lower lip, fidgeting as she crossed her arms in an attempt to highlight her nonexistent cleavage. “Let me out,” she grumbled thickly. “Be done with, so I can taste ye proper.”

She inhaled greedily as the trickle of my desire splashed against her. I had known what she was doing, of course. Unlike Sherr Hess, her attempts at seduction were brusk, amateurish affairs, yet charmingly earnest. She was not at all capable of making me lose my head like our other companion, but I appreciated the effort, all the same. And she would need whatever boost I could give her. So I allowed my mind to be taken on the path she was trying to lead me down, letting my imagination spackle in the gaps that she was not quite adept enough to fill.

With a half smile, I reached over and softly placed the Key in its receptacle. As soon as it clicked into place, a second barrier swooped over my head, crashing headlong into the one already there. And with an ever-so-gentle pop, the two seamlessly merged, almost like a couple of soap bubbles on a slick countertop.

Jax immediately swept forward and hugged me tightly, her head buried in my chest. “Maeve is merciful,” she whispered. Taking a deep breath, she quickly found my semi-erect shaft poking its way through the fabric of my loincloth and began to play with it, but we would not have that luxury just yet.

Very shortly after we were rejoined, both pedestals began to descend back into the ground. And as it did, a section of the nearby wall began to rise. It appeared that our final test had arrived.

Jax released me, growling at the admittedly expected interruption, and summoned her weapon.

Hastily, I snatched the Key before it could be sucked into the floor and stepped away, hiding behind the back of my feminine warrior. As the last forcefield flickered away and died, I glanced at her, “Remember, your shadows are your greatest weapon. Use your lust, not anger. Keep your mind on your reward.”

With a nod, she loosened her stance, hopping in place a few times before settling in an unconcerned and aloof pose. Her back was straight, her head cocked, and her weight shifted to one leg. I looked her over critically. It was not the pose of a tried and true seductress, exactly. More the nervous affectation of a young actress attempting to come off as one in her first theater production. Still, compared to the hunched, animalistic berserker stance she had been using, it was a step in the right direction.

Taking a breath in anticipation of its weight, I summoned the full mantle of my buff over us, just as the wall section completed its ascent. What was highlighted in the newly created alcove was undoubtedly another rat, although by this point, the appellation was becoming far less appropriate. It was huge — easily the size of a fully grown male lion. It made a sound as it stepped forward. Maybe in a normally sized rodent, it would have been a squeak, but in this creature, it came off more like the sound of Mothra squawking out its war cry.

Neither of us moved. The shadows enrobed us, hiding us from its view. Slowly, it shuffled forward, its form now so grotesquely expanded that the agile movements of its kind had transformed into the lumbering slither of an alligator. It lifted its nose to the air, sniffing us out.

As its attention seemed to turn to me, Jax hummed a decoy into existence. The gigantic rodent’s head swung about just in time to see a shadowy axe-wielding fury descending on it, and it roared in challenge. Its powerful legs bunched underneath it, and it lunged at the clone. But just as its jaws were about to clamp down on its anticipated meal, the shadow popped out of existence, replaced by Jax’s real axe. Its head jerked back as the blade slammed into its mouth, cutting a new, wider smile into its face. The rodent tore at the metallic intruder for all it was worth, shaking its head back and forth like a dog with a chew toy before the heavy weapon dissolved.

Looking around in confusion, blood dripping from its now somewhat loosely hanging mouth, it growled at the apparently empty corridor. All was still once more.

I smiled. That had been well played. Unfortunately, she was disarmed now, and fixing that would reveal her location to the monster. Moreover, any attempt on my part to give her ideas would no doubt attract attention that I did not want, so I was left uselessly stuck where I was. I wonder if telepathy is a thing…

Before I could complete the thought, Jax made her second gambit. With a throaty moan, she signaled her attack, allowing the newly formed shadow to charge ahead of her. However, the giant rat was more cautious this time. It sidled back defensively from the clone, and when Jax emerged from the shadows, trying to hide her forming axe behind her back, the rodent lunged for her instead.

She reacted quickly, spinning away, but not before taking a nasty gash to her shoulder. Instead of crying out in pain, she gasped almost in delight, quickly forming a new double. The shadow mimed out her injury, collapsing to its knees and grasping its shoulder. The rat gleefully went for it, tearing into the kill in triumph. The solid thunk of an axe severing its lower spine was the price for its folly.

As its hind limbs went limp, it quickly swiped out with its foreclaws, attempting to cleave her arms away, but the previously ignored clone swiftly interceded. As the shadow faded, Jax abandoned her axe in the beast’s hindquarters and simply rolled away, reforming the weapon in her hands before losing herself in the darkness.

The now crippled rat roared in frustration, enraged at being toyed with by its intended prey. Slowly, it tucked itself into the alcove, guarding its now useless hind end from further injury. Whatever else Jax was going to do, it was going to have to come from the front.

Cautiously, I sneaked the two Gems into my mouth. That had been a pretty gnarly wound Jax had just suffered, and I wanted to give her some encouragement. If she was going to have to make a frontal assault, she was going to need all the help she could get.

She felt the beginnings of my little gift after a couple of seconds, and grinning slyly at me, she leaned into it with gusto. Within moments, she had five fully formed duplicates ready to go, and her impromptu war band charged the beast.

It hissed and swiped its claws in wide arcs, trying to remain on the defensive, but this time the shadows had no need to sacrifice themselves. They kept dodging and weaving, often unnaturally, to escape its claws. After all, they had no real mass to speak of. It was nothing for them to change directions on a dime.

And in the confusion, Jax kept whittling at it. A cut here. A gouge there. They were fairly weak blows, individually. Her earlier injury made her left arm all but useless, so she was unable to bring forth her full strength. But they began to add up.

As more and more of its life’s blood began to drip onto the cobblestones, the beast made a last desperate gambit. Tucking its front legs underneath itself, it used its mass to its advantage and steamrolled into the wall. Jax and two of her clones went down, crushed by its weight. It did not even realize that it had successfully hit its target.

The remaining two duplicates continued to harry it from the side, and it abandoned the attack to track its new targets. Seeing Jax scrabbling back, I sighed in relief. She was okay, but she was clutching her ribs. Hopefully, she had just gotten the wind knocked out of her, and nothing more serious.

Just then, the Gems finished dissolving in my mouth, and I hurriedly fished around in my pocket for another to keep the effect going. But I was interrupted by an unwelcome pop-up.

Congratulations!

You have added enough to your Core to gain a Layer.

The condensation process will begin the next time you sleep.

If you have not distributed your stat points, do so now.

Well… shit. I had not thought to ever be put in a position where I would not be overjoyed at the sight of that particular message, but here I was. More, I was seriously considering using another one anyway. If it still worked to keep up our stamina and Jax in the proper mindset, then it was worth the expense… even if they were worth over three grand a pop. Oy… there has to be a better solution to this.

In my hesitation, I glanced up again. My spelled darkness had again surrounded her in its camouflage, but with the outlines, I could still see Jax clearly. She had regained her feet, though she was using the wall for support and hunched over in obvious pain. As we made eye contact, we tried to silently convey as much information as possible with a single glance.

From her, I was receiving one message loud and clear: need healing!

I nodded. That much was obvious. But I had my own problems. I required Life Energy to do that. And besides, it was vital that she kept summoning clones, or else she was going to be defenseless. The two that remained…

I blinked as the monster finally seemed to grasp one of its attackers and sweep it into its mouth.

The one that remained was not going to last long. And if she tried to make more while my buff was down, she was not going to last all that much longer.

She sighed. I do not know how much of all of that she had understood, but she nodded calmly. Heal now, her eyes repeated.

Alright then. Sighing in relief as my buff fell away, I quickly summoned the Words I would need for the spell, and cast them out to her. I hit her as hard as I could with what reserves I had remaining. I had no idea if it would be enough, but I kept pushing, beyond what I thought was wise or really even possible. Finally, as dark spots began to cloud my vision, I gave way, and collapsed.

I do not know what happened after that. I lacked the strength to even lift my head, much less any attempt at recasting my buff. But I could still hear.

Jax laughed joyfully as the healing Energy washed over her and rapidly began the process of reforming her army. The enormous rodent ponderously turned at the new sound, less than happy at having to start anew. It howled its terrible cry again as the band of shadowy warriors charged it, and the fight continued. The details of it were lost to me, just a mass of snarls and flirtatious moans from my vantage of the stones beneath me.

“Come on, ye great howlin’ baw!” she taunted. “Cough up some o’ that Life yer bleedin’ out. Can ye nay see that me Donum needs a drop?”

The monster did not deign to reply, instead opting to go into another of its death rolls.

Jax let out a panicked squawk, “No! Not that way!”

The thing’s furry torso just bumped me as it came to a stop, and my eyes bulged at its nearness. It was close enough to smell. It was a musky scent, with sweet overtones just lacing through the otherwise rotten milieu.

What the fuck, Jax? Turn the damned thing away from the downed healer! It was Tanking 101.

Screaming, she began to hack at it furiously in an attempt to get it away from me, but that only forced it back. Damn it all. Now she’s freaking out. Unfortunately, that meant that I ended up getting bowled over and trampled underfoot as the monster retreated from her attack. Groaning in pain, I was just fortunate that the thing was paying me no attention whatsoever, else I was a simple kick away from being minced.

Just then, one of her berserking attacks managed to trigger a weak burst of vampirism, sucking some much needed Life into us. Gasping with renewed Energy, I quickly rolled away. The beast, seeing me out of the corner of its eye, turned to attack my retreated form, but Jax’s latest guardian interposed itself, sacrificing its short existence for my benefit.

Hastily regaining my feet, I called out, “Don’t lose yourself, Jax. Fight loose, for cheb’s sake!”

She choked at that, and laughing, she threw herself back as the beast swiped at her again. “Aye, for that I’ll do.”

And without another word, she buried the axe in the thing’s neck and skipped away.

The great rat gave a few steps chase, but when the axe vanished again, what blood remained in it began to gush out of the wound. In moments, it fell, and the life slowly faded from its eyes.

Some minutes later, we were standing wearily in the safe room. The two of us were a disheveled mess. Clothes ripped to shreds, covered in blood and bits of dead rat, and whatever other refuse we had unluckily managed to roll in. And I was not sure where it was coming from, but there was an unholy smell emanating from somewhere.

I could not be bothered, though. We were done. We had triumphed. Key in hand.

I felt as if I had just finished walking the length of the Sinai Desert like some ancient Israelite, such was the degree of my tiredness. And from the way that my head was bobbing around on my shoulders, I had a feeling that torpor was fast approaching.

If I could manage to fall asleep, that is.

Jax and I stood there, shoulder to shoulder, staring down at Sherr Hess. She had claimed one of the cots, draped in a sprawl like some kind of discarded bit of laundry. One foot was resting on a raised leg of the cot, while the other was hanging bonelessly at the floor. Meanwhile, her arm was raised up and lying over her eyes at the elbow. Rather more significantly, however, her other was… tucked away.

And naturally, she was snoring loud enough to wake the dead.