“This would have been easier if we stuck to trails,” Gayle pointed out when they paused to rest for the third time, plucking burrs from her socks while Irene made a sandwich for Peter and Laurence helped himself to a few slices of ham.

“There aren’t trails going where we need to. Trust me, it’ll be worth it.”

“It will,” Cassandra backed him up, and Gordon nodded.

Despite their best efforts, it was growing dark by the time they finally reached the dungeon entrance. Levi had trekked across some overgrown fields in pursuit of dungeons before, but none of them compared to this forest, and he’d underestimated the difficulty of bringing unAwakened people along. He couldn’t just pass around a stamina restorative to keep everyone going, so there were far too many pauses for his initial guesses to be remotely accurate.

Beast Dungeon: Level 1

"You're absolutely sure this is safe?" Irene asked, for the thousandth time.

"Skarm could clear this dungeon on his own. We have nothing to fear. I won't let anything happen to you." The minions grouped up a little tighter as he spoke, their loyalty mirroring Levi's own. Skarm stood a little straighter and flexed his claws, while Two waved to Peter and gave him a reassuring grin, pointy teeth on full display. Becca teleported behind them, prowled around in a tight circle, then returned to the front.

"Shall we?" Levi asked, gesturing.

Irene took Peter's hand. Peter endured it almost two seconds before tugging free and hurrying forward. "Yes! Let's go catch a dino!"

"There's nothing too big here yet, but be careful for the acid spitters."

They stepped inside, Irene's breath catching in a gasp at the vast plain spread out before them. Like the other Beast dungeon, this one had an open layout rather than the tight rooms and hallways of most other dungeon types. Plenty of space for the beasts to roam.

Levi spotted a flock of dire-turkeys at once, perched in the branches of a stand of trees nearby. Of course 'flock' gave them entirely too much credit - there were three of them. In fact, looking around, he couldn't see any creatures in larger groups than three or four. Without the + bonus from containing a map treasure item, the dungeon was downright tame.

The boss, an only slightly larger than usual dilo, looked like the perfect target for Peter's first tame.

"Have you decided on a build yet?" Levi asked Irene. "We should get your class today too."

"Medic."

"Are you sure? That's a very slow class to progress, and you'll be vulnerable--"

She shook her head. "I don't plan to be in the front fighting, and I don't need to level fast. You know what you're doing, and I trust you and your monsters to do the fighting for us. What I want is to be sure that if either of you is hurt, I can do something about it."

"I don't know if I'm high enough level to count yet, but we'll certainly do our best." He handed her two health restoratives. "I'll be back."

He left the minions guarding the patient Irene and much less patient Peter, crossed to the flock of dire-turkeys, and unceremoniously grabbed the first one by the neck. It proceeded to claw and peck at him, inflicting slow but steady damage, while the other two in its flock chased after him with loud gobbling.

Levi kicked one away hard, dropping its health by about 10%, then switched his prisoner to his other hand to draw his sword. It took only a single Beast Bite to chomp each of the other two turkeys in half, their substance too fragile to hold up against his much more focused manablade. While the sword itself grew no stronger without additional improvement slots, the damage inflicted by its mana-powered functions were a direct reflection of the strength of the mana of its owner. With each threshold Levi reached, his mana would grow that much stronger. Most weapons could remain viable indefinitely as long as they provided the functionality their owners desired.

He returned to his family and handed the sword to Peter. "Now remember what I told you?"

"Stab the biggest part, hold it down, and don't let it get me."

"I'll be right here, so if it gets away from you, I'll catch it. But forcing it into submission has to be all you."

Peter nodded eagerly, holding the sword in both hands. He gave it a few test swings, then nodded. "Ready."

Levi tossed the turkey to the ground. It gobbled feebly, disoriented, and swiveled as it tried to find where Levi had gone. Peter took advantage of that moment to strike, stabbing the sword into the turkey's lean body, and jumped on it with both feet. The turkey squawked and squirmed, but even if it took him a few stomps to pin down the turkey's neck, he succeeded, then stood there grinning, leaning forward on the sword, staring down at the helpless turkey.

"Obey me!" Peter shouted. "Even if I'm just going to feed you to a velociraptor, you still need to obey."

"There aren't any velociraptors around at this level, so I suspect the turkey will be long gone by then."

Peter kicked the turkey with his other foot, causing it to scratch wildly with its feet again, though it couldn't reach at this awkward angle. "Hurry u--oh!"

He turned to Levi, his face that mix of excitement and uncertainty bordering on awe. "I can be Tamer or a Fighter. Tamer, right?"

"If you want dinosaurs, then yes. Don't worry, I can teach you everything you need to know about fighting with a sword too."

The turkey stopped struggling, and Levi saw its tag change from hostile to allied, the name shifting from 'Dire Turkey' to 'Dinobait'. Levi laughed, though Skarm looked disapproving.

"Your turn," Levi said, turning to Irene. He held out his arms, which he'd deliberately prevented his health from doing anything for, clawed and bleeding from the turkey's violent protest at its treatment. "It might take more than one try, so if we need to do it again--"

There were tears in the corners of her eyes but her face was set in determination as she gently applied the health elixirs to Levi's injuries. It took both bottles to get through all the scratches, though drinking even one of them would have more than restored him fully - external application was far less efficient, but sometimes necessary.

"Anything?" Levi asked.

Irene shook her head. "No windows."

"Then we'll try again after the boss. Gordon, ready?"

Gordon nodded. Frosty ran on ahead to start setting up webs, while Flomper took both shadevines to sneakily apply to the boss while it was distracted.

Levi ran in, firing a few Stone Shots as he went, then grabbed the oversized dilo's throat with his Beast Bite to gain control of its spitting. Forcing its head to the side, just in time, it spat a stream of acid that completely missed Levi and came nowhere close to Gordon. That didn't mean it was defenceless, even a level 1+ boss couldn't be underestimated too severely, but Levi didn't try to defend himself, instead focusing fully on damage. He had enough health by now that he could outlast the dilo even if Gordon weren't here providing backup.

For his part, Gordon was steadily improving. He still more closely resembled a jungle explorer than swordsman, but even inefficient hacking cut away chunks of the small dinosaur's health pool.

This time they weren't going to take any chances. Even though it meant Levi got clawed up pretty good by the dilo, and had to drink mana restoratives twice to keep his Beast Bite active, he stayed in place and held it down while the shadevines drained its health and Gordon repeatedly cast Dismay until it would have no resistance remaining. Only then did Levi let it up, using the sword through its neck to direct it like a dog on a leash, running it to where Peter and Irene waited.

Irene had her hands over her mouth at the sight of just how battered Levi was, while Peter had eyes only for the dinosaur. A waist-high dilophosaur a bit chunkier than its scrawny non-plus counterparts, with dark red scales almost black, and pulsing neck frills patterned with bright red warning. It snapped and struggled and snarled, but Levi’s team was more than capable of keeping it in line, helpless at the end of his sword.

"Go ahead, Tame."

Peter stepped closer, just out of reach of the dino's snapping jaws, and with great seriousness held out his hand. "I CHOOSE YOU!" he shouted.

Dinobait's tag flipped back to hostile as Peter unbound it in favor of his new dinosaur, but before the turkey could more than take a single step Centoo pounced on it and quietly dealt with the potential problem.

"You will be Henry," Peter declared, and the dilo's name appeared. Levi released the Beast Bite, Flomper collected the shadevines, and Henry dipped his head to meet Peter's upraised hand. "Good boy, Henry."

Henry chirped a gentle screeching sound, then turned to look around with his head raised and frills flexing, as though eager to be on the hunt.

"Give it a few minutes, and we can go find something for him to chase. Got to let his health recover first.”

Peter nodded seriously. He sat down and patted his leg, and Henry sat down beside him.

Levi turned back to Irene. “I promise, this looks much worse than it is. Ready?”

She nodded, got out the health restorative, and set to work daubing it over the bleeding gouges where Henry’s claws had dug deep in his efforts to escape Levi’s control. Her eyes kept darting over to the dinosaur, now lying placidly beside Peter. “You’re sure it’s safe?”

“Absolutely. Tame is inviolable. Henry will be loyal to Peter as long as that bond remains.”

“But the turkey looked like it wanted to attack him.”

“He won’t be unbinding Henry any time soon,” Levi assured her, though he began to wonder. If they grew very close, Peter might start to think he didn’t need to keep the dinosaur under control. He resolved to give him a long talk about the importance of maintaining the link even if you thought your minion would be completely loyal, and to give Cen and Becca covert instructions to always stay close enough to deal with Henry just in case.

There was no such thing as too cautious.

Then Irene made a small surprised sound, and when Levi refocused on her he saw what he’d been hoping for.

Irene Morrison: Level 1

(Medic)

It had worked.