“How in the how?” Abigail gasped with theatrical exasperation. “I know you like to explore but how did you find a whole new underworld so far from Drunder in only a day?”

“I sorta fell into it,” I said, rubbing my head sheepishly.

“I knew you were an interesting one,” she said with a wink and a smile. “From the moment you did the human cannonball on that pirate ship.”

We walked for a while because I didn’t want to bring out my dragon in front of her. I also wasn’t sure if he was mad at me for feeding him to the shark. Did summoned pets get mad? At some point, I was going to have to face the music.

We entered the underworld through Ryuudagon’s old cavern. Without the dragon guarding the entrance, the place had become a highway for dwarves, both hellfire and normal. They paid us no mind as we fell in line alongside a wagon pulled by a pair of oxen.

“It’s not going to be long before other people find this area,” she whispered.

“I know,” I said, watching another wagon coming from the city. “That’s why I need to clear this dungeon first.”

“Ah, I see,” she smirked. “So it’s a dungeon you’re trying to clear. That might make this harder.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Abigail sighed. “If it were just normal fishing or if the shark was guarding something, it would be easy enough to catch. Monsters in dungeons are something else entirely. They have to be fought. That means we will still have to defeat it after I catch it.”

“I know that!” I snorted. “I just need to get it out of the lava. I can’t do anything while it’s in there.”

“Fair enough,” she replied.

I tugged Abigail to the side as the wagon started down the pass to Under Drunder. “We’re going this way.”

It didn’t take long to get back to the dungeon.

Welcome to the hidden dungeon: Beneath the Beneath

Abigail smiled when she saw the message. “I still remember my first hidden dungeon. You’re not going to believe this but it happened after a pirate attacked a boat I was fishing in. It was another game called Eternal Legacy Online. I teamed up with a player and the pirate captain to clear a hidden dungeon on an island.”

“They let players be pirate captains in that game?” I asked. “I bet that’s a fun class.”

Abigail giggled and shook her head. “No. He was an NPC. He was forced to tag along because we sunk his ship.”

“Oh wow,” I said, thinking of Mary. “I never thought of asking NPCs to do dungeons with us.”

“It’s actually not a good idea,” she said. “They don’t respawn if they die. You have to be extra careful if you involve them in your adventures.”

“Oh…” I trailed off. Perhaps forming a duo with Mary wasn’t such a good idea after all.

We ground to a halt when we got to the room where I fought the crabs.

“Where to now?” Abigail asked.

I pointed at the ledge high in the chamber. “Do you have any way of getting up there?”

She flashed me a crooked smile and winked. “Yes, I do. Just watch this.”

Taking out her fishing rod, she reached back and cast her line. It hooked one of the rocks jutting from the wall just above the ledge. Then, she reeled herself in. I was left speechless as she slowly rose off the ground while vigorously cranking the line.

When she got to the ledge, she stowed her equipment before peering down at me. “Well? What about you? Do you need a hand?”

“Nope!” It was my turn to show off. I took a few steps back to get a running start and activated Super Jump.

Abigail gasped when I landed softly beside her. “Okay then. You can fly!”

“Naw,” I chuckled at the idea. Perhaps flight was next on the list of skills to learn. “That was just a jump.”

The lava shark was still swimming restlessly in the pool when we arrived.

Abigail let out a low whistle when she saw it. “That must be at least a thirty-footer.”

“Is that big for a shark?” I asked.

She grinned. “The shark from that old movie Jaws was twenty-five feet. What do you think?”

“I think it ate me in one bite,” I replied. “So, do you think you can pull it up?”

“I got this!” she said, rolling up her sleeves and flexing. “They don’t make a fish I can’t catch. Not even in this hell hole.”

She took out her rod, fiddling with her menu as first the reel vanished and another more robust one appeared. The line on the new reel looked way too thick for the rod to handle. Abigail gave me a knowing smile as she attached a special lure to the end. It was a large purple octopus with jagged hooks lining its tentacles.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Abigail set up camp next to a cluster of rocks a good distance from the pool. “Okay, this is going to be tricky. It would be a lot easier if the pool was bigger but I suppose I can work with this.”

“What if I make it bigger?” I suggested.

She tilted her head. “Can you?”

“Yeah,” I laughed. “That’s what my class was made for.”

“Well, go for it then,” she replied. “Just give me a good ten feet to work with on land. I don’t want the thing jumping out and sending me to respawn before I’m ready.”

“Is it going to kill you?” I asked, not liking her tone.

Abigail shrugged. “It’s possible. That’s always a risk you take with monster fishing. Sometimes I get a bite. Sometimes they do.”

I set to work expanding the pool. The pit I dug was twice the size of the tiny pool the shark swam around in, and nearly ten feet deep. I couldn’t tell how deep the original pool was but I wanted to give the shark room to stay submerged so it would feel comfortable swimming into my expansion. The area between my pit and the pool was only a couple feet of rock.

I set some charges using Make Explosive in glowing weak points before taking my position behind Abigail. “Are you ready?”

She swallowed and nodded wordlessly.

“Good,” I replied. “Kablooey!”

The charges went off all at once, causing the wall between the pit and the pool to crumble. Magma spilled into the pit and, just like in the movies, the shark flowed with the magma as it expanded to fill the sudden void. Abigail opened the jar of ghost snipper chum and chucked it into the magma. Without waiting for the shark to react, she cast her line right into the middle of the spreading fish guts that seemed to be fireproof.

We waited in silence for what seemed like an eternity for the shark to react. Then it bit. The rod jerked in Abigail’s hands and the line pulled taut. She let it play out as the shark took the lure back to the original pool.

“No!” she barked when I moved in to help. “Stand over there and be ready when I pull this sucker out.”

It was a struggle doing nothing while Abigail played Old Man and The Sea with the lava shark. I clutched my ice pick and waited. She seemed content to let the shark swim around with the hook in its mouth, reeling it in and then giving it some slack as it fought back.

Just when I was about to offer to help again, Abigail gave a mighty tug, and a terrifying creature emerged from the magma. While shaped like a shark, the monster had the sleek black sheen of well-polished obsidian for skin. The only thing to show any color was its many rows of white teeth inside its gaping maw. Those teeth were snapping violently as the shark tried to eat its way through the air to Abigail who’d wisely barricaded herself behind several rocks.

She was ready for battle, holding the broken fishing rod in one hand and a metallic mallet in the other. Her attention, however, was focused on me. “Anytime now, Veritas!”

The fact that the shark was made of stone boosted my confidence. Both of my classes were armed to the teeth with skills designed to shatter stone. I clutched the ice pick in both hands and lunged at the thrashing lava shark.

“Break Stuff!” I screamed as I aimed at its big round eye.

While the shark didn’t shatter as I hoped, the side of the shark’s head did cave in a little. It shifted on dry land and aimed that snapping jaw at me. I readied another strike and regretted not setting my respawn point closer.

Abigail surprised me by letting out an ear-piercing shriek and jabbing her fishing rod into the shark’s remaining good eye. It roared, a sound I wasn’t aware sharks could make while seeming to struggle with which of us it wanted to eat first.

Not wanting to give it time to decide, I dumped my remaining stamina into another Break Stuff and slammed my ice pick into the shark’s open maw. The strike smashed through several layers of teeth and into its upper jaw. The blast was much larger than the previous one and blew right through the roof of its mouth and out of the top of its head, causing it to convulse before flopping into the magma and sinking.

Congratulations! You have reached level 28!

Abigail fell on her butt and sighed loudly. “That was some hit. It’s too bad it fell in the lava. I wanted to harvest it.”

“I’ll go get it,” I announced, already equipping my lava proof armor.

“What in the…” she cut herself off with a fit of giggles as I donned what looked like a space suit.

Fortunately, the shark only fell into the part of the pool I dug so it wasn’t too deep. It took little effort to bring it back to the surface and Abigail helped me haul it out. I went back down, searching the original pool to see how deep it was. To my surprise, it wasn’t very difficult to see in the magma. While my vision was obscured by an orange fog, I could still see several feet in front of me.

The original pool turned out to be roughly twice as deep as the one I dug. A chest rested at the bottom along with the entrance to a cave. Since the chest wouldn’t move, I popped it open and dumped its contents into my inventory. Then I swam back to the surface where Abigail was busy positioning the shark.

“Did you have to mess up its head?” she asked. “It looks like you shot it with a cannon.”

I flexed at her. “Arm cannons!”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever! Several parts are glowing. How do you want to split the loot?”

From what I could see, several of the teeth and the dorsal fin glowed.

“That’s not all,” I announced, going through my inventory and dumping its most recent additions on the floor.

Obsidian Rod

Rare Item

Stats: Attack +30, Sta +20

Special: Indestructible

Level to equip: 25

Obsidian Pickaxe

Rare Item

Stats: Attack +30, Str +20

Special: Destruction Boost

Level to equip: 25

Crystalline Shield

Rare Item

Stats: Defense +30, Sta +20

Special: Ray Damage Reflection

Level to equip: 25

“Dibs on the rod,” Abigail squealed. “This bad boy was made for me. You don’t know how many fishing rods I go through.”

“What about the shield?” I asked, claiming the pickaxe for myself.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Should we sell it?”

I nodded, taking out a handful of coins. “I suppose we can. There was also some coin in the chest; thirteen gold, seven silver, and three copper.”

“Keep it,” Abigail waves the coins off. “You can have the coin and the shield. I’ll make plenty when I sell the shark.”

“What about those?” I asked, pointing to the still-shining harvestable items on the shark.

“Oh, right,” she said, taking out a knife to carve them out.

Obsidian Shark Tooth

Crafting Item

Obsidian Shark Fin

Crafting Item

“Aren’t shark fins illegal?” I asked.

Abigail rolled her eyes. “Not in a video game. Besides, this shark isn’t endangered. I’m sure it will respawn for the next person to find the dungeon.”

“Oh, right,” I replied. “How do you want to split this up?”

She looked the items over. “Give me the fin. You can have the teeth. There are more of them, so I think that’s fair.”

She was right, there were five teeth and only one fin. In the end, I agreed with her deal. The thing Abigail did next surprised me. She opened her bag and the shark disappeared. Before I could ask, she winked and explained. “This is a special Bag of Fishing. It will hold any fish regardless of the size. Your shark monster just fits the description.”

“Awesome,” I replied. “Are you going to show it off?”

Abigail laughed. “Well, that too but there is a lot of stuff the shark can be used for that isn’t harvestable. A good chef can make use of the meat and I think a blacksmith can harvest the obsidian from its skin. You never know with monsters.”

With everything out of the way, Abigail looked around. “So, where do we go next?”