Aliandra

  Ali followed along, bringing her summoned monsters prowling beside her as they picked their way through the dark, botered area of the cavern. had surprisingly sharp eyes, easily calling out the skeletons hidden in the darkness well before any of the others could spot them, saving them time and again from deadly surprises.

  With each skeleton that crawled, g and creaking out of cracks in the walls or from behind deg trees, her terror rose anew as she struggled to shed the fear and helplessness of that night fleeing from mohrough the deserted streets of Dal’mohra.

  Malika tanked with gritty determination and resilience, withstanding the onsught of the undead monsters with her body and her healing magic while Ali strove to kill them as fast as she could manage. And each time one died; she felt the rush of pure relief once again. She hated the skeletons, but at least she was no longer fleeing them in abject terror.

  “Looks like a cave entrance up ahead,” said quietly.

  Ali stared ahead, squinting as she tried to pierce the gloom, but all she could see were shadows. It wasn’t until they had walked about halfway there that she finally made out the darker outlihat marked the jagged gap in the rocky wall. A cool, dry breeze wafted out from the opening, carrying the smell of stone and just a hint of something burnt.

  “Shall we explore it?” asked.

  “Yes, let’s go see what’s in there,” Malika agreed. “Though, if it’s a bunch of skeletons together, we run. One is my limit, I think.”

  “I’m game,” Mato said.

  “Ok.” Ali added her vote, trying to ighe fluttering in her belly.

  “Ok, let’s go,” Malika said.

  Ali crept toward the entrance, keeping behind the others, barely breathing as she tried not to make a sound. There was a tense moment as ’s Mote of Light drifted through the jagged opening, slowly illuminating the interior of a cave that probably hadn’t seen light in thousands of years.

  She gasped; her breath caught abruptly by the sudden bands of tighthat cmped across her chest.

  The cave was not particurly rge, but the ground was littered with a thick yer of broken bones. Huge heaps of bone y piled up against the walls as if blown there by some violent squall, gleaming a bleached white uhe radiance of ’s floating magic. At the back of the cave, a small stone-paved square of ground remained mysteriously clear, and in the ter was a bck hole leading somewhere below.

  Guarding the hole was a skeleton.

  Warrior – Undead Skeleton – level 9

  It had no legs. Instead, its torso loomed nearly three meters above the coils of what must have been a long tail on the ground – now naked vertebrae and ribs. It had an elongated skull with giant protruding fangs, and four arms held four rusty scimitars. An eerie scraping pierced the silence as the Naga skeleton shifted, dragging bone across the rough stone paving.

  “Armand…” Ali gasped, choking on the sudden lump ihroat.

  Malika

  A chill settled into the pit of Malika’s stomach as she stared at the monstrous skeleton looming rge in the ter of the small cave. It was some kind of four-armed Naga that stood nearly teall even with most of its body still draped across the ground.

  The skeletons outside this cave hit unbelievably hard, and she was immensely grateful for her Enlightened Evasion and Soul Armor skills – and the fact that, so far, they had only entered them solo. Taking on more than one skeleton simultaneously was simply out of the question, she had to heal tinuously to tank just one. And annoying as he sometimes was, she had to admit that Mato’s ridiculous skill that allowed him to take damage for her whenever she was in trouble, had saved her several times already.

  But this thing was enormous. This is going to be tough.

  “Armand…” Ali said, with a sudden hit her voice that caught Malika’s attention instantly, making her heart lurch.

  “Ali?”

  But Ali was unresponsive, her eyes glued to the monster, her body trembling.

  Gently Malika pced a hand on her shoulder, and Ali startled, her head snapping around to stare at her. Malika could see the tears welling up.

  “Somebody you knew?” Malika asked, trying to keep her voice as gentle as possible.

  “Armand,” Ali said, swallowing hard. “He… he was a dear friend who saved my life.”

  “We o kill that,” Mato said, his lips curled back like a wolf or bear tasting something foul.

  “But…” Ali said, her voice sounding tiny and brittle.

  “That’s not your friend anymore,” Mato said, his voice softening.

  Ali looked like she was about to shatter.

  “I have to agree with Mato, Ali,” Malika said, croug down to look her in the eyes. “That thing in there is a monster wearing the bones of your friend. Armand is long gone. We should kill it and release your friend’s remains so he be with his aors in the spirit realm. Just like we did with Donavan.”

  “Ok,” Ali said, sniffing, clearly struggling to hold back her tears.

  Malika stood, readying herself. “Mato, I’m going to need a lot of help with this one.”

  “I got you covered,” he said.

  “Hold up,” cautioned.

  Malika g the Half-elf as he stared at the monster with narrowed eyes.

  “My Explorer skill is identifying it as a dungeon boss,” he said.

  Malika’s notification sounded like a strangely hollow gong in her head as shared his skill.

  Warrior – Undead Skeleton – level 9

  [Explorer]Category: Dungeon BossThreat Level: GroupMoype: UndeadDamage: Physical

  A chill ran down her spihe regur skeletons had hit hard enough. How much harder will a boss hit? And it was level nine.

  “What’s a boss?” Ali asked quietly in the darkness.

  “A mohat is strohan normal,” Malika expined. “Adventurers have categories of threat. Bosses are usually found in dungeons, and usually require a group of adveo defeat.”

  “How many in a group?”

  “Four to six, depending on levels, strength, and csses,” Malika replied, gng over to to firm. The truth was somewhat worse though – bosses were supposed to require excellent team coordination in addition to simple numbers.

  “I still think we should try to kill it,” Mato said. “The undead are abominations against nature. They spread blight ah and nothing good will e of us leaving it here.”

  He certainly hates the undead, she thought. But she was ined to agree with him, if it were not for the extreme danger, she would also choose to destroy it.

  “Perhaps we test it, and if it seems too dangerous, we retreat?” said. “With Ali’s summoned monsters, we’re quite a strong party, but if it’s to we could level up a bit more and e back ter.”

  “I could go for the ‘try it and run an,” Malika answered. “What about you Ali? Are you ok?”

  “I’ll be ok,” Ali said. “Let me summon another rat.”

  “Ok, same pn as usual,” Malika said, waiting for Ali to finish her summoning before she turned aered the cave.

  The four-armed Naga skeleton tur the sound of her footsteps, its bones and swords g discordantly in the enclosed space. A whisper of wind rose from the dark hole in the ground, bringing with it the smell of dusty catabs and a hint of acrid brimstone.

  She hadn’t taken more than two steps before the monster rushed at her, crossing the bone-cround with an incredible burst of speed, brandishing all four swords. She dodged left. Three powerful overhead swings whipped past her face, sending chips of bone and dirt flying, and her heart rag. Malika spun, unleashing a spinning kick empowered with her Soul Strike to nd her first atta its lower ribs with a fsh that briefly overpowered ’s light.

  She dodged a fourth horizontal ssh and stepped further into the cave, positioning the monster where Ali’s summons and Mato could easily reach it. She pu a sed time and everyone engaged as if the brief csh had stung them into motion, unleashing a light show of magid arrows and the sudden din of bat that rang loudly in the close fines of the small cave.

  Not so bad, she thought as she lined up atack.

  In that moment, the skeleton’s swords all glowed with a dull red light and suddenly she was flying across the cave to sm into the wall with a stunning impact. She coughed once, half of her health ripped away in an instant by the sword that had cleaved through her chest. She slid down the wall, struggling for breath with the tattered bloody remnants of her lungs, and nded with a crash in a pile of bones. Urgently she eled her mana to heal herself as a sense of impending doom settled upon her.

  Out in the ter of the cave, the swlowed again, sshing viciously. Mato’s heavy fur-covered body smmed into the wall with a thump that reverberated in the cave. A dense wave of his red mist e billowed out from his battered and bleeding body. An instant ter, Ali’s wolf flew across the cave, bisected by the sword ssh, nding with a spt in two gruesome bloody pieces.

  We’re going to die. The colossal magnitude of their mistake hit her like a gut punch of absolute certainty.

  “Run!” she croaked, coughing up left-over blood as her brain struggled to catch up with the whipsh of having her lungs ripped out and then nearly instantly repaired.

  Over at the cave entrance, something flickered like a dark shadow crossing the sun. A deafening thundercp reverberated off the rocky walls, and Malika bli the sudden afterimage of a shadowed figure blurring across the ground with a silver spear pointing forward. A silver fsh heralded an explosion of bone, and the pieces of the giant Naga skeleton rained down across the entire cavern.

  Yroup has defeated Skeletal Warrior – Undead Skeleton – level 9.

  What the fuck? She stared unprehendingly as rusty scimitars ged against the stoh bone fragments cttering down beside them.

  A shrouded, hooded figure bck leather stood where the skeleton had been, holding a glowing steel spear casually in his left hand. A premonition of danger knotted Malika’s gut at the sound of a gloating chuckle rising from a sed figure entering the cave.

  “No more running for you, little rat.” It was Edrik’s voice, dripping with his sadistic glee.

  Which means… she looked back at the shrouded figure as he dropped his hood, revealing his face.

  Fuck! The knot i of her stomach froze in an instant.

  She instantly reized Kieran Mori, leader of the Town Watch, and Adrik and Edrik’s boss. The man known as ‘Suddeh’.

  And lurking behind Adrik and Edrik at the entrance was another shadowed figure that Malika reized.

  Ta.

  It was abundantly clear to Malika, in that momely what had happea had sold her out, betrayio the thugs of the Town Watch, and by the tented look on her face, she was the one who stood to gain the most from her death.

  “Let me show you what it means to betray us, little rat,” Edrik said, stepping forward with his sword already drawn.

  Malika watched her executioner limber up his arm as he strode across the botered gap separating them. It would not even be a test. She knew he was over level twenty, and he would take her choosing a Monk css as a personal insult. The sword blurred towards her.

  I wish I had gotten more time.

  Before the sword strike nded, a blur of red mist and muscle smmed heavily into Edrik’s side, knog him sideways and drawing a surprised grunt, stopping him as suddenly as if he had run headlong into a wall. Mato stood there; four paws pnted as his huge bulk blocked Edrik’s advance. He roared his rage, spraying pink-tinged foam from his mouth.

  Malika gawped, stunned. Why? It eless battle; all he was going to achieve was getting himself killed as well. Her eyes took in the se, as if in slow motion; Edrik slowly getting to his feet, his face twisted in murderous anger, Mato loomiween them, blood gushing from the grievous sword wound the skeleton had inflicted, his cloying mist e billowing from his body.

  As Edrik charged, Malika reacted. She reached out her hand and touched Mato’s back, unleashing as much of her mana and stamina into her Healing Mantra as possible.

  Live! She screamed it in her mind as her magic tore through his body in a rush of desperate healing the instant before Edrik’s sword lifted him from the ground and tossed him across the room. The bear smmed into Ali’s tiny body and, with a loud crash and a startled yelp, suddenly both of them were gone.

  “Edrik, you’re ruining the merdise,” Kieran said, his voice gcially calm.

  Edrik immediately halted, as if frozen in pce. “Sorry, boss.”

  “Now secure the rest before we lose any more. Without that Fae, it will be hard to turn a profit from this fiasco.”

  His cold eyes swiveled aled on Malika. Her vision faded to bck as an intense pain blossomed through the back of her head. She hadn’t even seen when Kieran Mori had moved.

  Aliandra

  The sword fred with an angry red searing light as it arced around in a vicious empowered strike. It bit into Mato’s fnk with a siing ch, spraying crimson blood into the air, and a force so powerful that it lifted the entire mass of the bulky bear into the air, tossing him across the room filing like a ragdoll.

  Ali stared, dumbfounded, at the sight of a bear growing rapidly rger as it hurtled through the air toward her, her mind unhelpfully reminding her of the physics of the situation, and how Mato outweighed her several times over. Too te, she tried to run, but Mato’s body struck the ground right in front of her, bounced almost a meter into the air, and then collided with her tiny frame. Something ched. The impaocked the wind from her lungs, throwing her across the darkness of the hole to crash into the rocky wall behind it. She felt a sharp jolt of pain as her head cracked against the rock, followed by the siing lurch of weightlessness. In her daze, she desperately tried to process the yawning expanse of empty darkness below her feet.

  Falling!

  Her body filed, feeling strangely nguid as the echoes of the impact pouhrough her dazed mind. Panic cmped her chest.

  Think!

  The smooth walls of a stone shaft whipped by in a blur as she and the dim bulky outlihat was Mato plummeted into the dark unknown, and in that moment her muddled thoughts suddenly sharpened into crystal crity.

  I’m going to die.

  In desperation, Ali reached for her mana; stretg out a hand below her, she summoned a barrier. For one brief moment, it sho with the bright golden glow of hope, banishing the darkness. Her body smacked into it with a bone-jarring stop, radiating a spiderweb of cracks through the magical surface. Her respite was fleeting; Mato’s enormous bulk crashed down on top of her, shattering the barrier into tiny glowing shards and splinters of spent magic.

  She fell.

  F the pain and shock of the double impact aside, Ali summoned a sed barrier. But the sheer momentum of her and Mato’s fall shattered the barrier instantaneously, filling the stone shaft with golden light, and drawierrified attention to the endless darkness below.

  She cast it again.

  Desperately, she burned her mana, casting aing barriers as they smashed their way through her golden magi a precipitous dest of exploding shards and jarring pain. Somehow, Mato mao twist his bulky form so that he was below her, taking most of the impastead of her. She g to his blood-soaked fur with all her pitiful strength, while she -cast her barriers, heedless of the cost.

  With a loud, sudden thump, Mato collided with something solid and stopped. Ali bounced off of his furry stomad nded in a painful heap on the cold stone floor at the bottom of the shaft, stunned and dazed, watg the shards of her broken magic slowly rain down on them like fading golden snowfkes while she struggled to breathe. Something inside her had broken. Her body ached, her head was throbbing, her breathing was agony, and she had spent nearly all her mana.

  Health: 12/100

  Mato groaned beside her as his form twisted and morphed bato his normal body.

  Alive.

  The word drifted arouunned mind for a while before it began to make any kind of sense. How am I alive? Somehow, that crazy stunt with her barriers had slowed their dest enough that the nding at the bottom had not left them as spttered bloodstains on stone.

  Although she felt like she would have preferred to be pushed down a mountain.

  Mustering her st remaining strength, Ali willed her bruised and battered body to move. She wi the jab of pain in her side.

  Whatever broke in there must have been important.

  She bled freely from several cuts, and likely, her entire body was e bruise. Slowly, she sat up and gnced around, trying to grasp what had happened, and where she was.

  By the fading light of the st remnants of her barrier magic, her eyes took in an area of dust-covered, fitted fgstones, and the unmistakable precision and artistry of Dwarven stonework in the walls of the dark chamber they had nded in. As her gaze searched across the stone room, she suddenly froze. There, staring back at her from the darkness, she found three sets of glowing red eyes.

  A flicker of fme sprang up in the darkness, its red glow lighting an outstretched taloned and scaled hand. The fmes intensified, densing into an angry e-red ball h in the air. Her instincts screamed at her to flee. Dang reddish light grew stronger, illuminating a bluilian face. The st of smoke and fme, and the sounds of crag and sizzling filled the room.

  “Mato!” she shouted, her voice crag with panid urgency. She spent the dregs of her mana to summo barrier between them and the high-speed ball of fire that shot out across the room.

  The fireball shattered her barrier in a deafenionation of fme a. Like a ragdoll, her body was tossed by the cussion wave of ford heat and smmed into the beautiful dwarven stonework. She slid down to the ground, ears ringing and lungs burning as she struggled to breathe in the suddenly scorg air.

  Still alive? I’ll never doubt Malika again. Every point of vitality was worth it…

  Dimly, she heard Mato’s yell twisting strangely into a roar as he transformed into his Bear Form. The burns and scorch marks down the side of his body were so severe ihat the white of his ribs could be seen through the burnt flesh – a gruesome testament to the power of the monster’s fire magic. Did he take some of my damage too? Smoke from the fme mingled with the red mist of his rage as Mato tore across the room and collided with the monsters with a dispy of aggression and savagery that shocked her to the core. For once, Ali was grateful for Mato’s eagero dive into battle, but his demeanor and the density of the red mist flowing around his body told her just how severely he must have been burned.

  Why is this happening? She wao wake up, run away, or do anything to make this stop. But she couldn’t. No matter how much she wa, the air still burned in her lungs, and her head still throbbed with searing pain.

  Instead, her mind g to the memory of Malika’s calm voice coag her through their first battle together, and the torrent of panic settled just a little.

  Ali drew a deep breath. What I do? She wouldn’t be effective if she didn’t at least uand what she was fag – she was not Mato, someone who could just wade in and figure it out on the fly. Using Identify, she examihe monsters engaged in brutal melee with Mato.

  Mage – Kobold – level 9Rogue – Kobold – level 8Warrior – Kobold – level 8

  Kobolds! Her panic immediately loomed rger when she saw just how high their levels were. I’m five and Mato is only level three! Urgently, she rechecked her mana while Mato roared his challenge, but it would be a while before she could regee enough to be of ao him.

  The warrior was a little bigger thaher two, standing perhaps a little over a meter tall, covered with dense green scales that gleamed in the flickering light of the still-burning remnants of fme strewn across the room and dripping down the walls. The Kobold’s swings and jabs with its rusty sword were deft and quick as it darted bad forth, banced well on taloned feet and a sturdy tail. Short, sharp white horns protruded from its head and a row of sharp fangs lis mouth, lending it a monstrous, almost draic appearance, while its reptilian red eyes were filled with malicious ing as it focused on dodging Mato’s wild swings and slig at him from the side.

  “Mato! Use your heal!” Ali yelled, realizing that he was already sone in his rage that he had fotten to activate his healing skill yet again. To her intense relief, the greenish flicker of his magic activated on his swipe and his wounds began to recover slowly.

  Thank goodness, she thought. She had been terrified that he was too far in the rage to hear her.

  The smaller, bck-scaled Kobold chittered in a high-pitched call, darting out of the shadows to fnk Mato with uny speed. Using its bck scales and bed leather armor to great effe the shadows, it buried two daggers in his back before he could eve. Mato roared in pain and shed out with his cws, but the Kobue deftly sidestepped, dodging ba to make atack. The green-scaled warrior in front of him sshed across his shoulder with its sword, taking advantage of the sudden distra.

  The malevolent red Fire Mage, however, was the ohat terrified Ali the most. It hung back at the far side of the room, fixing its glowing eyes on Mato and summoning its fire once more. Its cws gleamed iensifying light of the fmes it jured and the walls of the room began to flicker with dang shadows. With a cold certainty, Ali khat if that fireball hit Mato, it would all be over.

  She cast around the room, desperately looking for something, anything. But there was nothing to even throw, not that she could throw anything effectively. She racked her brains, frantically searg, when suddenly a fsh of inspiration came to her. She reached out towards the mana she was still reserving to support the rats left behind in the cavern above and with a painful wrench, she broke the e. It wasn’t much, but it was all she had.

  “Mato, mage!” she yelled, unleashing an arc of glowing are bolts at the red-scaled Kobold who was still summoning his fire magic. Mato clearly heard her because he broke off the e with the warrior and rogue, and with a burst of speed from his skill, charged at the mage. The instant he moved; the fireball flew from the Kobold’s outstretched cws. With reas born from sheer desperation, Ali summoned a barrier between them with some of her precious remaining mana, ao deflect the immi inferno.

  The violent explosion rocked the room, filling it with smoke, flying gobs of fire, and the glowing shards of Ali’s shattered barrier. The blowback from the fireball khe Kobold mage rolling head over heels across the stone floor. The cussive explosion tore further wounds along Mato’s shoulders and fnks, but much to her relief, Ali’s barrier had bluhe bulk of the explosion, aill stood.

  He swayed a little.

  Ali fired Are Bolts into the downed Kobold mage while it scrambled tain its feet iermath of the explosion, but to her horror, Ali’s mana dried up and the mage immediately began summoning more fire.

  No! Her barrier had ost of the mana she had regained – she had nothio stop him.

  In that moment, Mato desded on the downed Kobold, pounding it senseless with a mighty swipe of his forepaw. Then his jaws closed on its neck, shaking it, and tossing the creature against the wall, where it fell limp and lifeless to the stone floor. The half-cast fireball careened off into the er aonated, spraying fire across half the room. Several fming gobs nded on her, burning through her clothing and searing her arm and both legs. Ali hissed in pain as her vision dimmed briefly, ing ba a wave of dizziness.

  Mato still tangled with the rogue and the warrior while bleeding profusely from dozens of severe stab wounds and gashes, but Ali was pletely out of mana again. Helpless without her spells, and terrified of being noticed and attacked, she sprinted unsteadily across the room to the corpse of the Kobold mage and began to destruct it. Seds ticked by like dripping mosses as Ali watched the rogue’s daggers repeatedly stabbing Mato while his healing magic struggled and failed to keep up with the onsught. The ground was slick with blood and Ali had never seen his misty aura so dense and red. He itting foam and blood from his mouth as his attacks became more and more erratid violent. Fresh smoke rose from his burns, and the room was filled with the stench of partially cooked flesh, burnt fur, and sulfur.

  Finally, after seemingly forever, her spell finished with the rush of mana filling her pool. Immediately, she summoned a Barrier to block the rogue’s dagger strikes and cast her Grasping Roots to lock it in pce, giving Mato some room to maneuver. However, Mato ighe rogue, sshing at her barrier with his cws instead.

  “What are you doing? Move!” Ali yelled. But Mato simply growled and tried to bite her magic, dripping bloody froth all over the barrier.

  He ’t hear me anymore, she realized, releasing her barrier so that it wouldn’t distract him further. Instead, she eled her mana into her Are Bolts and fired them as fast as she could at the rogue, deg that it was by far the most dangerous of the two remaining Kobolds. Ali emptied the rest of her mana into the rogue, finally dropping it right as she ran dry with Mato nding the final attack, able to ect with a swipe because her roots were interfering with its ability to dodge.

  Ali left Mato to deal with the remaining warrior. Dodging gobs of fire, her feet slipping on the blood-soaked fgstones, she ran back across the chamber to the corpse of the rogue and began to Destruct it. As she urged her magiehow work faster, she kept gng at the brutal fight unfolding before her, cheg on Mato, hoping she would be done before he succumbed to his grievous injuries. Even his eyes were beginning to glow red, and the dense mist around him seemed to be pulsing with an ominous heartbeat. He khe warrior back with a powerful attack, taking a deep cut on the shoulder from its sword. Lost to the rage of his Berserker magic, he simply ighe ugly wound.

  Ali was forced to look on, helpless to intervene, while her magitio dissolve the corpse at her feet.

  As soon as it finished, she immediately poured her mana into Are Bolt, and the stream of magic smmed into the warrior, sending green scales flying. Anxiously, she watched her mana dwindle as the bolt stream curved across the room. Suddenly, and with an anticlimactic swoon, the remaining Kobold colpsed to the sound of a soft chime going off in her mind.

  Ali sunk to the ground too, exhausted, burned, and ireme pain. Mato tinued growling and shaking the corpse of the warrior.

  “Stop it, Mato, it’s dead,” she said, exhaustion and the aftermath of shod adrenaline finally crashing down on her.

  Mato turned gleaming red eyes on her and roared, suddenly charging at her. She screamed in sudden panid created a barrier at the st moment. His rge frame smmed into it, spraying blood across the golden surface. He roared and attacked the barrier, biting it repeatedly.

  “Mato! Stop!” she shouted, the panic making her voice crack. He was pletely out of trol. She scrambled backward along the ground in her haste to escape the enraged bear. His heavy paw smacked into the floating barrier, shattering it into tiny floating golden shards.

  Her eyes opened wide with shock, and she screamed as the huge bear charged her. She summoned another barrier, but all she got was a fitful puff of golden glitter that bounced off his snarling muzzle. His foaming jaws bit down on her ah a siing ch. Her tiny body was no match for his power as he shook her bad forth. Her ankle snapped with a loud crack, a surge of incredible pain, and with a dizzying lurch her vision faded to bck.

  timewalk