Ten minutes into the dungeon delve, Duncan knew something was wrong. He’d entered the Goblin dungeon with Pyotr, Antoni, and Mairi – a strong group. Pyotr was slumming again – Duncan suspected his mother had asked Pyotr to look after him, because he was the experienced delver in Duncan’s group too often for it to be happenstance. Antoni and Mairi were intermediate delvers; Antoni was a competent healer with two years’ experience delving and two healing Techniques already, and Mairi’s fire magic could devastate goblins. Duncan was using a boar spear again – the extra reach and cross bar helped keep monsters at bay should they turn their attention to him. He still had no real Techniques of his own, but he could keep the bladed tip of his spear sharper than a grindstone could manage, and stronger than normal steel, and he could control his own blood enough that he didn’t bleed from minor wounds (although they still hurt. Pain came from tissue damage rather than bleeding, it seemed). His skin had hardened somewhat but was still weaker than his leather armor.

They had entered the dungeon as usual once they’d completed their final ready checks. The moment they left the entrance chamber to step deeper into the cave complex they were set upon by frantic goblins. Eight of the ugly creatures swarmed them, with no rhyme or reason. Duncan set his spear to receive the charge of one, and it impaled itself on his point, only the crossbar preventing it from running all the way up the spear to attack him. With its short limbs and dagger, it couldn’t reach him. A second goblin struck him on the arm with a bone club, the blow softened by his pendant and his leather armor, doing no serious harm.

Three goblins leapt at Antoni, and he was knocked back a step as they piled into him, biting and stabbing with poor quality daggers. Antoni activated a healing aura Technique and stood his ground. The pain in Duncan’s arm immediately faded – the blow wouldn’t even leave a bruise.

Mairi activated her fire shield technique, and the goblin attacking her shied back. At that moment, Pyotr’s Aura of Attention came to life and all the goblins turned to him. With his heavy armor and tower shield, he easily withstood their attacks, lashing out with his mace in reply.

The goblins were dispatched in short order, none of them doing enough harm to cause Antoni to cast a direct healing spell. His healing aura kept the group in good shape.

“That was invigorating!” Pyotr exclaimed. “They were a bit more lively than usual, and closer to the entrance than normal. Something may have riled them up. Let’s be more careful than usual going forward.” The rest of the group indicated agreement, and Duncan kept an eye on the passage deeper into the cave complex as his companions quickly looted the goblins and stashed the stuff in Pyotr’s storage bag.

They moved forward, Pyotr in the lead, followed by Antoni and Mairi, with Duncan bringing up the rear. The next few caverns were mostly empty – just a few cave mushrooms growing along the walls. Mairi harvested them quickly and Pyotr tucked them away.

The next chamber was a bloody mess. There were at least a dozen dead goblins scattered around, many of them in pieces. Blood and viscera coated the floor. “Oh shit,” Pyotr said. “Something big must have entered the dungeon.” Duncan felt a wave of adrenaline hit as his fight or flight reflex kicked in. The wide eyes and tense body language from his companions suggested they all felt the same way. Creatures generated by dungeons weren’t generally hostile to each other, though in some wilderness dungeons, there could be an entire eco system of predators and prey. The goblin dungeon wasn’t that sort of dungeon, though, so if something was killing the goblins, it was likely from outside.

Antoni bent to check a goblin’s body. There were great gashes along the torso, inches deep, in four parallel lines. “A beast did this. These are not wounds from weapons.”

Pyotr was decisive. “Back to the entrance.” He looked at Duncan. “Sorry lad, you’re too new for this. Something that could do this needs an experienced team. I’ll come back with…” His words were interrupted by an anguished scream from Mairi. She was driven to her knees as a terrible blow shredded her robes and her back. Behind her, barely visible in the low light of the caves, a massive black panther loomed.

The team reacted well. Antoni flooded mana into his healing Technique, trying to staunch the gaping wounds on Mairi’s back. Pyotr activated his Aura of Attention to make the beast focus on him. Duncan lunged at the panther, thrusting with his boar spear. And met only air, as the huge beast simply vanished. Duncan spun wildly, trying to see where it had gone. White hot pain made him cry out as claws ravished his flank from waist to thigh. The cat was gone a second later, only to appear beside Pyotr and swipe at him.

Fortunately, Pyotr’s stone armor Technique was up to the challenge – the claws etched deep gashes in his physical armor but didn’t penetrate further. His mace lashed out, clipping the panther on the shoulder, but the beast didn’t so much as flinch. That in itself was just as terrifying as the damage the monster had done to Mairi and Duncan. Pyotr’s blows routinely pulped the skulls of goblins, but the panther shrugged off the blow.

Duncan shifted his weight to his good leg, hobbling toward Pyotr and the panther. Mairi launched a thin streak of fire at the cat, which singed its fur but provoked not even a yowl. She activated her fire shield as her wounds started to knit together under the effect of Antoni’s healing technique.

The cat swiped hard at Pyotr again, and again failed to penetrate his armor. It promptly vanished, and Duncan screamed as savage claws ranked across his back, shredding his leather armor and the flesh underneath. His pendant prevented a negligible amount of the damage. He collapsed to the floor in pain the like of which he’d never felt before. Sweet relief hit as Antoni turned his attention to Duncan, the healing technique soothing the pain as it repaired wounded tissue.

“It’s ignoring my Aura,” Pyotr called. “Everyone get your back to the wall behind Mairi!” Duncan scrambled to his feet to obey. The cat had vanished again.

As they stood against the wall, straining to see their attacker, Antoni continued to heal Mairi and Duncan. “I can’t keep this up too long,” he said. “My mana reserves are depleting fast. I’ve done more healing in the last minute than I do in an entire delve normally.”

“To the entrance, now.” Pyotr directed. The group started shuffling along the wall, Duncan in the lead and Pyotr guarding their backs. The moment they started to move, Antoni cried out as the panther appeared and disemboweled him with a vicious blow. Instinctively, Antoni flooded his wounds with healing mana as he slumped back against the wall.

Mairi let loose with an absolute flood of fire from both hands at point blank range. She must have gone through half her mana reserve in two seconds flat as her flames engulfed the panther, burning hair, crisping skin, and charring the meat below. The panther yowled in pain and disappeared again. Mairi sucked in great gasps of air as she recovered from the exertion.

The cat reappeared directly in front of Mairi and impaled her with both front paws. She still had her fire shield active, and the cat’s paws smoked as they struck, but they struck true. Mairi was pinned to the wall by the attack. And the panther followed up by ripping her throat out with its mighty fangs. She slumped to the ground, slain outright, and the cat vanished again as Duncan stabbed wildly at it with his boar spear and Pyotr slammed his mace into its flank.