“You can only hurt children if you draw attention to them,” Tarra whispered to them. “The dungeon will fight the horsemen first. Besides, don’t leave yet. Not before I give you my gifts.”

“What?” El asked, not comprehending the words Tarra was speaking.

”I have a gift for each of you,” Tarra said. “It’s not an easy one to give away. But, might as well give it to you now. When I crossed Level 30, I was given 2 Level upgrades that I could give to someone else. I thought about giving them both to Alice, but seeing how protective you are of her, I changed my mind. And sincerely, each of you could use an upgrade. And since it’s obvious, you need to stick together with each other, I picked special abilities that would complement each other. So, accept it and use it wisely. That’s all I can do for you. For now.”

“I did not know that is even possible.”

“You should know by now, anything and everything you can think of is possible. Might not be probably, but, it is possible. It would not be inside your head if it was not.”

While Tarra was talking to them, El felt the surge of Energy and Mana travel through Tarra’s hand into his body, and it made his body jerk and shiver. But only for a second.

Becuase the very next moment, he was feeling better than before and letters in his vision said,

[Congratulations on reaching Level 23

You’ve been granted:

Tranquility of Thought, Ability Novice

The special ability had autimaticaly triggered following Atributes Improvement:

Intelligence: +20 Percent

Wisdom: +50 Percent

Do you accept the ability?]

"Yes, yes I do," El said readily, and instantly he felt a wall of pressure suddenly being lifted of his shoulders.

A moment later, he looked at Alice that had an unexplainable smile on her face.

“What did you get?” he asked Alice, deciding not to touch her to see it for himself.

‘The vision of an Elbrian Eagle. It… is fantastic,” Alice said all mesmerized as she looked around.

While they were processing it all, on the moutnaint side, the mountain still trembled and the stones stared to come down, the horses neighed in fear, stopping their run up. But it was too late. The bolders came rolling down, hitting their legs, breaking them, sending them to the ground, togehter with their riders.

That made El tense up again, moving a feet forward, thinking why did Tarra had to give him more intelligence when what he needed was speed and strengh and indurance. Then he realized, he faced an opponent he knew so little of and that all those physical attributes may not have helped him one bit.

“I see it clearly, Scarface is not among them,” Alice told him, quessing why El got so tensed up right away. “There below the trees to our left. He’s running toward us.”

El squinted his eyes, but could not see it, but then, he reasoned he did not have the sight of Elbrian Eagle either.

Then he exhaled a long breath, saw that the children were all but forgotten as the dungon suddenly fell silent, with only a few rocks falling

“It has exerted a lot of power so far,” Tarra said. “Even your planned tunnel fire was not in vein. It used a lot of its Energy to push all that water out.”

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That made El feel even better and more confident.

“Let’s step back, slowly,” El said suddenly, feeling somehow so composed and at calm. “Let’s see if it will see us. Let’s see if our plan may actually work.”

“You think you can run???” the roar of dungeon broke the noise of a few stones still rolling down. “I will capture you all, alive and skin you, one part of your body at a time! Your screams will feed me! For years to come! Till you lose your voice! Till you do not pay for all my creatures your men slaughter, times ten!”

“Keep him engaged,” Tarra whispered to him, “The kids are halfway here, running. Don’t even look at them. Just keep on pushing it.”

“You talk so much!” El yelled back. “You’re more of an old man than I am.”

“Maybe, maybe you’re the Paladin I’ve been searchign for!” the Dungeon

“I…” El started to speak, but he suddenly did not know what to say.

“Of course he’s a Paladin!” Alice yelled. “He only looks old. He’s got a shinny sword he hides sompleace, but… most impressivily, he’s got a big dick, bigger than the size of my axe’s handle. And every night, he beds all the virgins in any village he arrives. I’ve seen it myself. Women leave their men, jump out of through their windows when he passes by, jump from the bridges when he leaves. And now, he came here, came here to fuck you. So, you better be scared, you dumb, ugly bastard!”

“Ha, ha, ha,” the dungeon laughed. “You need a child to speak for you and to fight for you!! You’re just an old, broken man! Pathetic! And you insult by sending a few soldiers to charge me! You’ll see what my Praetorians and spiders do to them!!”

By now, Ervir and a few others of his assistants had got up, realized that something was way off, and got their swords out, suddenly not having any appetite to go up the mountain, slowly moving their feet backward toward the snowy ground.

Suddenly out of the gate, dozens of heavily armed Praetorians came out, their heads all shaved and tattooed, their eyes all black. Alice shivered as she saw their mouths opening to show shark-like teeth, sharpened and pointy.

She shivered even more as they uttered a monstrous cry and ran toward the assassins.

Then came spiders out of the dungonen’s entance, their bodies bigger than the cow’s head, their legs over six feet long. And they were even faster than the Pretorians, moving down so fast that it was obvious they’ll catch up to assassins long before they can reach the snow.

“Those creatures are twice as powerful when fighting on the dungone’s ground. They lose that advantage when they move to the snow,” Tarra said as suddenly she had a long bow in her arms, tensing it up and shooting a very arrow at the spiders, the shafts suddenly coming off her strings one after another.

El was guessing they must be charged with Mana and Energy as they flew so fast and when they pierced spider’s head’s, they exploded as if they were mellons thrown down from high up.

Assassins reached for their crossbows and started to run down the hill, turning around just to fire a bolt at the spiders that were closing in on them.

“From what I heard about them, I actually would not mind those assassins to disappear,” El said, but instantly knew it was a mistake.

“You know if they die, the dungeon would capture their souls.”

“Yeah, I know now. The way you explained it, their souls then would feed the dungone, making it stronger.”

“Exactly,” Tarra said and let go of another set of shafts, killing the spiders that came closest to the assassins. “But I don’t have enough arrows to kill them all.”

“Let’s move backward,” Alice suddenly said as she saw dozens of goblins running out of the dungeon with bows and arrows in their hands.

“Not without those children,” El said and ran toward them, ran faster than ever before. But Tarra was faster then him, and got to grab two children, picked them up from the ground and carried them in each hand and ran backward before the first arrows even made it in the air toward them.

As they ran back toward the snow, El waved his staff knocking an arrow that was to fall on Tarra’s back, then another one that was aimed at him.

“Just run with them! I’ll block them all!” he yelled at Tarra, stepping behind her and walking backward, waiving his staff at another set of arrows that started to rained down at them.

But then, El realized he did not need to block any more arrows. As they made it to the snow, they all started to fall a few yards in front of their feet.

“I guess we’re out of their range,” El commented it with satisfaction.

“Now you will face my wrath!!” the dungeon roared again and suddenly three large figures, so tall they needed to bend their heads to make it through the dungeon entrance, came out.

The creatures had no necks, but they had three eyes and hands the size of an old tree-trunk.

“Oh, shit, I guess Noseless forgot to mention those, huh?” Alice said as she stared at them.

“No, those are baby Cyclopes. They must be new. So, let’s move backward, take these two children to safety. Can’t help those guys anyway,” Tarra said with regret seeing how the assassins were now circled by the few remaining spiders that cut of their decent while they waited for Praetorians to come down and give them a hand at killing them.

Alice cast them a quick glance, seeing how the assassins formed a circle, their body in full mail suddenly shinning against the first rays of days sunlight.

“Eight of them can still fight. Maybe they still have a chance,” she said as she let El step behind her and guard her back.

“Depending on what comes through that entrance,” Tarra said as she put the kids on the snow in front of her and let them run free toward the trees. “Maybe none of us have a chance.”