“It’s just a pair of kids and their mother!” the man snorted derisively to his companions.

Felicia and Kyle looked uneasily at each other, as more adventurers filed into the room. We were in the Level one boss cavern, cleaning up after finishing the boss. Felicia hadn’t wanted to leave any money ‘lying around on the ground’, so we’d stopped to process the corpses, while I filled them in on my story. We’d almost finished, when we were interrupted by voices approaching.

“Can we help you with something?” I asked. We’d moved to the side of the cave to process our hides, so we weren’t in the way if they wanted to proceed to level 2. The man spat at my feet.

“We came here for the boss loot, girlie. How’d you get here quicker than us?”

I smiled thinly. “Not everyone hides behind the town wall until dawn. If you’re out already, you don’t have to wait for the guards to let you out.”

“Bullshit,” he snarled. “It ‘aint safe outside at night. Couple of kids wouldn’t have made it.”

Did he really believe that? It was true that monsters tended to spawn outside at night, but from what I’d heard from Angus, this dungeon was the most dangerous area in 20 miles. Kyle certainly hadn’t had any problems walking here before dawn. Sleeping would have been unwise, but Reynard’s friends had been fine just posting a watch.

I shrugged. “We didn’t have any problems. Now, as you can see, there's nothing for you here, so if you’d like to head back…” I pointed at the jungle passage, “or move on, that would be great.”

“Bullshit.” he growled again, but weaker this time. He glanced at his buddies for support and tried again. “We came here for the coin, the way I see it, that's still here for the taking.” He took a step forward. My heart started beating frantically. Is this [Intimidate]? The sudden ramp up in the threat level had me worried, but I’d dealt with bullies in my previous life, before I had magic even.

Competency displayed with [Intimidate], Level 1 awarded

For gaining a skill level you have been awarded 1 XP

As soon as the notice came up, the fear eased. “Felicia,” I called out, not taking my eyes off the man. “What are the Guild rules about attacking other members?”

“Uh, well, if there is a complaint it goes before the Guild master who adjudicates. The guilty party is generally thrown out of the guild and handed over to the town authorities.”

“And the guilty party is the one who strikes the first blow?”

“I think so?”

“Well then.” I gave my opponent a shit eating grin. “Care to start something?”

“We aren’t afraid of you,” he growled. It was true, I hadn’t used [Intimidate] yet. That was about to change.

“Maybe not,” I said. “But I know you’re afraid of the dark.” I cut my [Light] spell.

I’d lit the cave up for Kyle’s fight with Gil- the ground was quite treacherous and was a significant hazard in the darkness - and kept it it on to help Felicia with her skinning. With the exit open it wasn’t quite as dark as normal, but there was a moment of confusion before everyone’s eyes started adjusting. I was as blind as anyone, but I didn’t need to see to target myself. [Simple Invisibility]. [Light].

When the light returned, I was gone, at least as far as these rubes could tell. They gaped and looked around for where I might have run to, while I casually strolled around behind the group. Kyle and Felicia looked as worried as everyone else, but they kept up a good front, Felicia hiding behind Kyle.

[Intimidate]

“So tell me, Felicia,” my disembodied voice coming from behind them now. “What happens if there's no one left to bring a complaint forward?”

They didn’t wait for Felicia’s answer, they knew it already after all. They broke as one and started running back to the upper level.

“Wow.” Felicia said. “That was amazing.”

“Would they really have robbed us?” I asked.

“Maybe,” Kyle said, with a rueful look on his face. “I couldn’t have held off all 5 of them, and they’d have threatened to hurt Felicia if I said anything. So are we going to talk some more about the Worldwalker thing?”

“Maybe?” I said. “You probably know more about this than I do.”

“Worldwalkers were a long time ago though,” Kyle said. “We don’t know any more than the stories we were told as kids.”

“That's more than I’ve got. Milly seemed to think that… I was in danger - either of failing what I needed to do, or death - if I didn’t get to a high level quickly, and then disappear.”

“That's why you were- wait, you’re going to disappear?” Felicia asked.

“That was Milly’s advice.” I replied. “Whats yours?”

“So there's a trick to not getting lost on the second level, that Master taught me.” Felicia said. She unrolled a parchment backed with leather and showed it to us. From what she said, I expected a map, but this didn’t look like any map I’d seen before. It looked like a complicated Venn diagram, all overlapping circles.

“The paths all change when the dungeon resets,” she continued. “So they can be good for finding your way back, if you can remember them, but they can’t help you find anything that's in here. You can do what most adventurers do and cut a path, but that will reset as well.”

“This is a map, right?” I asked.

“Yes. This level doesn’t have much in the way of geography, like rivers or rock walls - its just one big open area. Though… I guess the kobold holes could serve as landmarks, if you could easily find them. But what it does have is plants.”

“Lots and lots of plants,” I agreed. I made a note to come back to the Kobold holes later.

“Some plants though, only grow in certain areas.” She tapped her map. “So if you know which plants to look for, you can know where you are!”

“That.. doesn’t seem likely?” I said, looking around us. “I mean, its just one big area with the same climate throughout. Surely plants would spread?”

“Normally, yes.” Felicia said, “And some plants do spread, or get moved around. Just not these ones. It has to be a deliberate design feature that's maintained by the dungeon magic itself!”

“Why would it do that though? Help us find a way through?”

“Dungeons are weird.” Kyle said, pausing when we looked at him. “Uh, I mean, its something Da said a lot. Said that they had their own rules, and one of them was always you got to be able to go down all the way.”

“So it wants to kill us, but it also wants us to be able to get down to the bottom level?”

“The biggest monsters are all on the lower levels,” Felicia mused. “Maybe it can’t put them higher up so it needs for us to go down to them?” She paused, and then went back to her presentation. “So, anyway! If you take a look at the map, you’ll see that Enos Root is right next to the entrance. She pointed at a fairly unassuming shrub with yellowish flowers.

[Identification] : Enos Root - Condition: Healthy - Properties: None

“Now the three jobs that I picked are for items that are all up here.” She pointed to a spot on the map that didn’t look far from the entrance. “So all we have to do, is find the Ross Vines, then the Tasmor Bushes, and when we find the Sayina flowers we’ll know we’re in the right area!”

“Huh.” I said. I looked at Kyle, this was clearly news to him. “How many people know about this?”

“Not many, I think? Its local knowledge, handed down, so no one would tell most Guild members. The Oakway raiders might know?”

“Nice.” I looked at the map. I could just about make sense of it, and if I looked it over carefully enough, [Memorise] should retain all the details. The circles were the navigational plants, but there were also points marked for what must be various medicinal ingredients. As were the Kobold burrows. There were 8 of them, spread widely across the map. None near where we were going though.

“So do we need to worry about the burrows?” I asked.

“Not immediately, they tend to avoid humans in the jungle,” Felicia said. “Wait- do you know what a Kobold is?”

“Nope. Something that burrows?” I replied.

She shook her head. “They’re a tribe of small… lizard people, that live in burrows under the jungle floor. They’re about 3 foot tall.”

“Wait… an intelligent race?” I asked. “How does that work as a dungeon monster?”

Kyle shrugged. “Just like anything else. Only difference is they use knives.” He didn’t seem to see the problem.

“But they’re intelligent,” I stressed. “It can’t be OK to kill them.” Oh damn, I finally slipped up and said OK.

Neither of them noticed my slip, but Felicia at least realised what my problem was and tried to explain: “Dungeon creatures - universally - harbour an endless hatred for non-dungeon creatures. Intelligent or not, they’ll always attack.”

“But if they can speak… my Worldwalker trait should let me understand them, we could negotiate…”

“You can try, we won’t stop you.” Felicia said. “I’m not even worried about you talking to them and getting fooled into letting your defences down. You might learn something about why they always attack - but they will attack no matter what you do.”

“I can’t even imagine dungeons working any other way,” Kyle said. “How do they work on your world?”

“We don’t have them,” I said, still thinking about the upcoming possibility of having to kill a sentient. “Or Monsters. Or magic for that matter.”

Kyle and Felicia looked at each other, but neither said anything. Finally Felicia said: “It must be… very different?”

“You’re not wrong.” I sighed. “Well… lets get to looking for Ross Vines. Kyle, if you take the lead, Felicia can stay behind you and point you in the right direction and I’ll take rearguard.”

Three steps and we were in the jungle. Three more, and the vegetation closed around us so thoroughly the edge was a distant memory. We kept to the paths, not wanting to waste Kyles sword on tree branches. Mental note: get machete. Using the paths got us turned around, but there was almost always a path going in the direction we wanted. With Felicia’s pathfinding, we (hopefully) didn’t have to worry about getting lost.

Our first warning of an encounter was a clicky sounding purr from up ahead. Kyle stopped, and held his hand up for Felicia to stay back. We froze in place, as the sound got louder. I couldn’t see clearly past Kyle’s bulk, but something moved through the jungle ahead. Suddenly, Kyle went down on one knee, crouching behind his shield, and I got a good look at our opponent.

Fuck me, its a Velociraptor. It was just like the ones in Jurassic Park, maybe a little smaller? Grey lizard skin - I’d heard that they were supposed to have feathers now, but maybe this dungeon hadn’t gotten its journal subscription yet.

“[Blind]!” I called out. I didn’t have to, but it was part of keeping the others informed. That was why Kyle had dropped, to give me a clear shot, part of the simple team tactics that we’d worked out. When I [Blind]ed a lizard, they all tended to do the same thing: Thrash around, biting and slashing like a madman. After about 10 seconds of that, assuming they didn’t latch on to something, they’d freeze while they tried to work out what to do next. That was when we’d stab them, so I don’t know if there was a third stage.

Our latest victim was exhibiting the same behaviour, so Kyle was carefully keeping his distance as he waited for his shot. That was when the chills I was getting from seeing Jurassic Park come to life coalesced into a coherent thought, and I looked around wildly.

Velociraptors hunt in packs, was the thought. I have no idea if that was accurate Palaeontology, but it was certainly the case here. “Behind! [Blind]!” I screamed, bringing my daggers up to block another raptor that had snuck up behind us while we were distracted by the one in front. At the same time I cast [Blind] but not on my attacker. On Felicia’s. It went crazy - falling to the ground and lashing out with its claws at everything around. One of its attacks hit my guy, but despite hissing in pain, it kept its focus on me, biting at me with its enormous jaw. I almost kept it at bay with my knives, but it turned its head at the last minute and sank its teeth into my gauntlet.

You have taken 2 damage!

Ouch! I thought, feeling the teeth scrape my skin, but the gauntlet had mostly done its job. You know, as long as you’re going just keep your head attached to my arm, I might as well…

You have inflicted 49 damage!

I’d decided that blinding it might not have done much good if it knew where I was. As it was, being stabbed in the head made it let go to scream at me, so bonus there. Kyle had abandoned the front to push Felicia’s attacker back into the jungle. He might have stabbed it again, I wasn’t really paying attention.

You have taken 7 damage!

A kick this time, or maybe a rake? Those legs were too low for me to block easily.

Your party has killed a Hunting Raptor - your experience share is 80 XP

“[Blind]!”

Like the others, he went crazy with the kicks and bites. I managed to dodge back, and looked over the rest of the fight. Kyle had actually finished Felicia’s one, and was checking my side out.

“I’ve got this,” I said, “Felicia, keep an eye out for others?” She nodded.

After that, it became mechanical.

Your party has killed a Hunting Raptor - your experience share is 80 XP

I got in two more stabs, but Kyle actually finished off his and moved over to strike the final blow on mine.

Your party has killed a Hunting Raptor - your experience share is 80 XP

That sword did so much more damage than me, I was jealous. After it was over, we all just stood there - not back to back, but each of us scanning the jungle in a different direction - waiting as our breath came back.

“That was a little bit scary,” I said. “Felicia, are you alright?”

“Yes, just a minor wound,” she replied. “You?”

“Two scratches.” I said. I tensed as I saw a leaf move, but it was just an insect.

“I’m fine as well,” said Kyle.

“Yeah, armour is really nice to have… lets get Felicia some as soon as possible shall we?”

“About that…” Felicia said hesitantly. “We want to get the skin and claws off these monsters.”

After a bit of discussion, we decided to process the corpses where they fell. Felicia was of the opinion that the least likely place to find a monster was right here, where these guys had been hunting. And given how thick the jungle was with scents and foliage, it didn’t seem like the corpses would attract scavengers quickly. We didn’t feel safe with just one person watching though, so Felicia did the work, while Kyle and I kept watch in different directions, weapons drawn. No scavengers appeared, only insects, which were enough of a problem quite frankly. I put insect repellent on my list of adventuring gear.

We then continued on to our target area. Once again, we chose the safer, but less efficient route of having Felicia look for our target plants, while Kyle and I kept watch. It didn’t help. With no warning, a screeching mass of flying creatures descended on us, biting and scratching. I lashed out with my daggers, trying to keep them at bay, but…

You have taken 15 damage!

You have taken 13 damage!

[Greater Invisibility]. Having their target disappear on them confused them for a moment and I was able to fend them off and back off enough to get a look at what we were fighting. Our attackers were birds? With teeth? No, wait, these are proper dinosaurs. I’d seen pictures of something that looked like this. How velociraptors were supposed to look, with feathers and sort-of wings. Felicia was being mauled by one, Kyle was successfully fending off three. I’d gotten away from mine, but that just meant that they were going to switch targets…

“[Blind]!” I called out the spell this time, forgetting that [Greater Invisibility] wouldn’t let my party members hear me. The…

[Identification]: Flying Raptor - Threat Level 8 - Condition: Blinded

Flying Raptor - yes, thank you - that I’d targeted behaved a little differently from the other lizards I’d blinded. He just curled up his wings and lay still on the ground. I guess when you fly, you don’t want to move around when blind? I thought. That was great, but I’d only taken care of one. The other moved to attack Felicia.

“Felicia!” Kyle called, panicked. He slashed one of his attackers, and it fell, but he still had two on him and wasn’t able to help. Felicia was defending herself, but I saw slashes on her arms.

Your party has killed a Hunting Raptor - your experience share is 160 XP

[Blind]. I cast again, giving her some respite. There was only one attacking her now, but it managed to land a deep bite.

[Blind]. And she was safe. I dropped [Invisibility] - it was getting in the way of party co-ordination, and the remaining Raptors seemed focused on Kyle.

“[Blind]!” I waited to see which raptor Kyle was hitting, and then cast it on the other one. “How are you?” I asked Felicia. Behind her, Kyle finished off the last moving raptor.

Your party has killed a Hunting Raptor - your experience share is 160 XP

“I’m… mostly fine.” Felicia said, checking over her wounds.

“Do you want the potion?” I asked. Felicia’s face wavered, and I could see she was struggling to say no. I shook my head and gave her the bottle.

“Are you sure?” she asked, “you paid for it, and I do have an emergency one that I can use.”

“I bought it for the team, and I don’t want to have to explain to your master that we were in an emergency. Though…” I looked around at the still forms of the Flying Raptor. “We’re not quite out of it yet.”

Felicia looked over at Kyle, who had moved on to hacking off his blinded raptor’s head. “If we touch them, they’ll lash out,” she said. “It might be better to wait for Kyle to finish.”

Your party has killed a Hunting Raptor - your experience share is 160 XP

I looked daggers at the still raptors. “It ought to be possible to take them out with one carefully placed stab…” I mused. I hadn’t had much luck trying that with the lizards upstairs though.

“You mean like, [Precision Damage]?” asked Kyle, coming over. He lined up a swing on one of the raptors, and we both took a step back. “Assassins have that.”

Not an Assassin! I protested in my head, but I consulted the help files. “[Precision Damage] is a pre-requisite for the Assassin profession… but its not a skill, its a trait. 5 development points.”

“Look at the Rogue class,” Felicia suggested.

“Rogue… gets it for free, and it only costs 10 points for the entire profession!” They got other stuff as well, so it was a pretty good deal.

“Its always cheaper to get the relevant profession than to buy the skills or traits separately,” Felicia said.

[Rogue] wasn’t an option - I didn’t have the [Finesse] requirements and I didn’t want to give up my Illusion magic bonus anyway. [Precision Damage] though… I looked it up while Kyle cleaned house.

[Precision Damage]: 2x damage total against unmoving or unaware targets when using [Small Bladed] weapons (5 points)

Hmm. I’d already noticed that I did more damage when I was invisible. I think that's because their defences were reduced or something like that. I’d been doing 20 something damage to those Ilan lizards before, but more like 50 when I was invisible. [Precision Damage] would have taken that to 100…

Your party has killed a Hunting Raptor - your experience share is 160 XP

Your party has killed a Hunting Raptor - your experience share is 160 XP

Hmmmmmmmmm. But Kyles sword did a base of 60 damage, plus whatever he hit by. He was taking out those Ilans in one shot. I was a lot better off blinding his opponents and letting him do the damage.

Your party has killed a Hunting Raptor - your experience share is 160 XP

Speaking of which…

“Oh, guys, I feel I should mention that I’m down to 48 mana points. That's two more [Blind] spells, and then I’m done casting until I rest.”

We made it out alive. Felicia had almost finished her ingredient collection when we were attacked, so she hurriedly finished up while we gathered the bodies. We didn’t want to stop and process them here, and they were a fair bit smaller than the Hunting Raptors, so we managed to stuff all 6 into sacks and have Kyle carry them. Then we headed back, as quickly as we could while trying to keep an eye out for more ambushes.

We did run into a few more creatures - a large snake, boa constrictor sized, and a different type of raptor. The snake was slow enough that we could just avoid it, and the Feathered Raptor made the mistake of ambushing Kyle. Its green feathers camouflaged it really well though - none of us saw it until it attacked. [Identifying] it was the final trigger for my skill going up.

We camped out on the first level to finish with the corpses. Anything we left behind would disappear at midnight in the dungeon, so it was great for not leaving a mess. Kyle and Felicia did most of the work, though I ruined most of one carcass plucking enough feathers to unlock the [Hunt] skill. They didn’t let me touch the claws though, which were apparently the real prize. Felicia had cut off the feet when we were in the jungle, but now she carefully prized out the talons from each toe.

“Level 2 is infused with darksteel ore,” Felicia said. “The kobolds mine it, and a lot of the animals incorporate it in their bodies somehow. See?” She handed me talon. It was pretty dark, parts of it were pitch black, but it had a varied pattern to it that I had to admit looked kind of pretty up close. “It gets polished and carved up, its one of Oakway’s signature products.”

“So… how much?” I asked. Felicia grinned at me.

“The big ones we can probably get 5 silver for, the little ones, 3 silver. Even if they’re damaged too badly for carving, you can melt the darksteel out of them, get a few coppers each depending on the weight.”

[Calculate] did the heavy lifting for me. “That's 198 silver!”

“Plus 8 pounds of feathers, all the skins, and the boss reward,” Felicia added happily. “I think we can clear more than 300 silver for today!”

It ended up being much more than that, mostly because Felicia had forgotten about the quest rewards. They added up to 120 silver (we got docked 10 silver from Felicia’s hasty gathering at the end, we didn’t feel inclined to argue) And with my bargaining we managed to get about 25% more than Felicia had been expecting. When we finally split the profits, we were each holding 16 gold and 8 silver. We spent the remaining time in the market. Kyle and Felicia had their obvious armour purchases to make, but I hadn’t made my decision when it was time to go to work.

Yes work. It was starting to feel ridiculous, working for a few copper a week, when I had gold in my pocket. It was still the case though, that I had a lot to learn about this world, and listening to random conversations was helping with that. Of course, now that I had come clean to Felicia and Kyle, I could just ask them about all this stuff, right? I think that if I had been planning on staying it would have been a good idea to buy a house and settle in. But I wasn’t planning on staying, was I? Felicia hadn’t looked happy when I told her I planned to disappear, but she hadn’t had any advice of her own. She had told me she’d think about it. Maybe it was time to start thinking about my next destination…

Then I realised there was was situation I needed to deal with before I could leave - and that was because he walked in the door of the Green Tanner.

Reynard.