“Ohhh, that felt…strangely weird?”

Fancy giggled. It had been described to her that the feeling a Dungeon Core got when a Delver died was like a really nice kiss. “As good as, say a kiss?”

Jessica’s Core turned pink, as she muttered, “Not quite.”

“But close?”

“Not saying.”

“How many Dungeon Points did you get from that?”

“Well, according to the log, they’ve just ticked over their third hour, and we’re getting an even 5 points per hour. So that’s 30 points for every 6 hours, we knew the thief was level 8 and the Fighter level 10, so 30 less 8 and 10 leaves 12. This means the Mage is level 12?”

“Well done. Yep, that’s correct. So, we should have got 160 points for the Thief’s death.”

“Yes, that puts us up to 2573 Dungeon Points, so we can level again!”

“Do it straight away, as we need every advantage we can get.”

Jessica selected the upgrade and got a prompt asking her to select her next Elemental Magic.

“We’d agreed that Light Magic would be next, didn’t we?”

“Um, we selected Dark as the previous one, didn’t we?”

“Yes.”

“OK, yes, Light will be next. You’re doing really well.”

“If we survive this.”

With a sigh, Fancy agreed, “Yes, if we survive this.”

Jessica sensed another red figure approaching her Dungeon. She looked outside and said, “Finally. Aunt Bess has arrived. Could you go and escort her in?”

“Will you be OK?”

“I’ll be a lot better when these last Delvers are dealt with.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Fair enough. Anything I need to know about this Aunt of yours?”

“Umm, high level assassin? Isn’t my real Aunt, but just an old friend of the family? Known to the general public as Shadow of Death? Plays Canasta like, well, an Assassin?”

Fancy started shaking.

“It’s OK. If she decides to betray us, we’re dead, so it’s not worth worrying about.”

“Thanks, that’s so reassuring.” Fancy’s voice displayed perhaps a smidgeon more sarcasm then was warranted under the circumstances.

“Back soon.”

Fancy zipped out using one of her tunnels. The warren of tiny tunnels honeycombed the dungeon, but due to the inherent magic of dungeons, only that Dungeon’s Assistant could use them. Any other creature even attempting to use them forced them to close.

The Mage looked out over the next room with disgust. “Mud. Why does it have to be mud?”

The Fighter would have laughed, except that he was just as disgusted. It did amuse him to see the Mage suffering, though - misery does love company, after all.

About twenty metres into the room, the first of the giant mosquitoes turned up. While the two Delvers were easily able to spot and kill them as they attacked, the mosquitoes did perform one other important function. They distracted them enough that they did not realise that a half dozen giant leeches had attached themselves to each of them under their robes or armour. This constant drain had started to drop their health and increase their exhaustion.

Part way through the last room, the first pair of crocodiles attacked.

The improved stealth and camouflage worked as expected, with neither being detected until the last moment. Jessica was a bit disappointed that neither killed a Delver, but both the fighter and mage had been significantly damaged before being killed. She was also disappointed that the mage didn’t use fire, as that would have set off the gas trap.

The health potions they’d drunk restored all of their health, undoing all the good work that the leaches had done. Still, they immediately started losing health again as the leeches were still attached.

“That’s a little disappointing,” Jessica mumbled to herself.

Jessica got the rest of the crocodiles to back off. She’d have them attack after the Delvers lit their torches.

The two remaining Delvers reached the end of the dungeon. Again, the mage got out his crystal and discovered that the tunnel that led to Jessica started on top of a small mound, that just peeked out of the mud. The pitch-black tunnel dropped ten metres and then started off to the west.

They got out torches and lit them. With a huge ‘whoompf’, the whole room caught on fire. The rest of the crocodiles used the confusion to launch their attack, with three going for each Delver.

The fighter was grabbed and dragged into the quicksand trap. Two of the crocodiles let go and the last one started to do a deathroll. This caused the pair to sink further and further into the pit.

The Mage used lightning to shock the other three crocodiles, causing them to let go. He then killed them, one by one.

Jessica immediately triggered the quicksand trap, releasing streams of fine bubbles into the mix. This increased the downward suction in the pit, dragging the fighter to the bottom, where all three remaining crocodiles started attacking him again.

The Mage looked at the pit, snorting at not seeing any movement, just the bubbles, lit another torch and jumped down the shaft.