The castle seemed mostly empty when I stepped out of the portal the next morning, but I eventually found Maria and a couple of her women up on the balcony. She greeted me with a laugh and a head shake, saying "A little early aren't we? Did someone get his butt kicked on the way home?"

She had been talking to a group of mages, three elves and one human, and they all smiled when I said "Got spanked by an orc raiding party the day we crossed out of the Forbidden Lands" I nodded a hello to the other women, then said to Maria "How you want to do this?"

"Tessa is first up for the spawn point" she nodded to the human girl "so we can knock that out first, then get started on getting everyone access to the portals"

"Alright" I mumbled, considering what that would take, then said "Ok, gonna be a busy day. I'm going to have to do three blessings per person to give them access to all the portals, and with restore time it'll take a little while. Let's get Tessa started, then see how long it'll take"

Maria had marked spots on the floor throughout the whole castle that were meant as spawn points for the women, meaning they wouldn't all respawn at the same point. A good defensive strategy in my mind, since anyone attacking the castle would have defenders respawning all around them if they got into the castle. Tessa's spot was in the other upper floor room, and we got Tessa positioned before Maria explained what would be happening.

"Alright Tessa. Everyone swore to keep the secret of changing the spawn points, and as most of you guessed, it's something Jake does. He's going to cast a spell that will ask if you want to resurrect at your next death point, or change your spawn point. Choose the second. It'll then ask you where you want it. Just stand where you are and say here. You'll be taken to the courtyard for an hour, then be spawned back here without loss of level. You good?"

Tessa, like every other eternal, was good looking, but had somehow ended up with extremely pale green eyes and white hair, something I hadn't seen on a human. She nodded at Maria's question and said "Yep, got it"

The informal tone struck me as weirdly out of place coming from such an ethereal looking person, and I was grinning a little as I cast the spell. That was the last of the enjoyment for the day as I did the castle portal blessing on Maria, then started doing three each for every single darn woman there. This aspect of portal use would ensure I didn't create too many, since I would have go back and cast a blessing on every damn person I had done before. That endurance drain kicked in and I had to stop and munch on something periodically for it to go back up. Low endurance numbers meant a tired Jake, and as Maria laughingly told me, a tired Jake was a grumpy Jake. Luckily, Maria decided to wait on the retention runes for her people until one of them got something like Sienna's entangle spell.

Maria and a couple of her people followed me back through the portal, but immediately headed to Mairisian City to collect their wayward lamb, the one that got killed on the way through the forbidden lands. I had forgotten about her, so she was lucky someone remembered. I had to cross over to give her the blessings, but Maria came to get me after they rounded her up.

The Guardians were a constant presence for the first week as they visited us and the other two cities. Maria talked with Andulin, and from that managed to get her seneschal and guard captain. All of her local help had to be blessed by me, (fun), and since I was doing it I did a couple of people from Mudtown. I had talked to the old woman, Jeritha, who ran the apothecary store in Mudtown about different style vials, and she had said I would need to buy them in Telarin or somewhere larger. Rather than spend the money somewhere else, I talked to Seth about forming that co-op thing, and they selected two people to become their buyers. I blessed them for Riverbend and Mairisian, and they would take lists with them and bring back stuff to sell in Mudtown, or take items to sell in my store in the capital, or in a market at Riverbend.

My healing and cure disease potions were in vials that looked like your standard test tubes with corks in the end, but the healing one had golden colored fluid, while the disease one was sort of pale green. I bought ten normal vials, and ten that were about twice the size and shaped more like pyramids, then set up in my room to see about changing reality again.

I cast a blessing on a new type vial with water, did a restore, then cast Telina's Restoring Touch. There was maybe the slightest pause, kind of like the universe did a hiccup, then the vial glowed like a 100 watt bulb for a second before fading, and I got:

Mana Restoration Potion

Restores 190 points of Mana

Hmm, I hadn't considered how much mana, and the spell had used all of mine. Next time I would have to maybe say or think a smaller number to see if it would work. These potions had a bluish color, and no matter what my goddess was thinking, these puppies were going to cost money. I would give the paladins some of course, but even Maria's people would need to buy them, discounted maybe, but still cold hard cash. I had been creating two potions a day pretty much every day I had been here, so there was a fair stockpile of them amongst the various groups and Andulin's people. I planned to do two mana potions a day for a week or two to build up enough to give Mirabeth and Sienna, then go to one healing and one mana potion a day after that. I would put the healing ones on a shelf in the central square, but sell the mana ones in my store. I had a sign made for the store, 'Adventurer's Emporium', and figured I would see what was offered for the mana potions as Eternals wandered through. I was thinking at least 5 gold each, maybe more, and if someone from Mudtown wanted to pick up a couple of healing ones and sell them in the store, who was I to complain. I wouldn't keep any profits from the healing ones, but it would be a nice boost for the people of Mudtown.

All in all it was a sort of fun couple of weeks, with Mary and I getting to spend a lot of time together, and absolutely no eternal issues. I even introduced her to the concept of the picnic, something we could do since the forest was enclosed by walls, making the whole thing like a park.

Before going to do the third resurrect spell, I posted a notice in Riverbend and Mairisian City that said:

Healer Priest available for dungeon crawls!

Excellent healing skills, high health, and good attack and defense numbers

Gold cost per day, including travel to and from dungeon = .5 x highest level party member.

First choice on any and all items usable by priests

Join party and get 1/10 of found coin

(Not available for Forbidden Land travel or Dragon hunts)

I figured the daily cost seemed fair considering how the higher level dungeons were harder. Charging five gold for a level ten group, and ten gold for a level twenty would be easy enough for someone to meet. I added the last part to keep from getting my ass killed constantly.

My first tour group formed in Riverbend, and I met them at an inn at the southernmost side of town. It was easy to pick out the group as eternals tended to stand out with their looks and magic gear. This group had taken a table in the middle of the room, and I paused to give them a once over. Three of them, one an obvious warrior, one a mage, the other wearing leather armor. The warrior (Jeff) was different than any I had seen to this point as he was wearing chainmail that had fur around all the openings, and a helmet with horns sticking out the sides. Sort of looked like a Viking, except he had black hair, was clean shaven, and was hugely muscled. The mage, an elf named Siril Skywalker (Thank god it wasn't Luke), was wearing some basic robes, but had a decent looking staff. The last one was a woman named Shadow, human, dark haired, and fairly small. I figured her for a rogue type, something I had never worked with before, but she had a cool name.

She saw me first, glancing over, then back when she saw my name. Her bark of laughter brought the others around, and they joined in as I walked over. The dragonsbane part got through a second later, and the group stopped laughing and studied me a little harder. I waved at the pretty serving girl, getting her nod at my sign for a drink, then I pulled out the fourth chair and took a seat.

"Loser? Really?" Jeff asked in a deep but laughing voice. He was followed by Shadow saying "You're the priest from the dragon's fall story they tell. I've met Maria before, so I wasn't sure if it was something she made up"

I thanked the serving girl when she handed me my ale, chuckling a little at Shadow's view of Maria, then turned to give the group a smile as I said "Yep, that's me, Loser Dragonsbane. You left word with Misty that you wanted to meet?"

"Why the thing about not doing dragons if you've already killed one?" the mage asked, making me sigh to myself before saying "You don't need me for that. They do so much damage you're pretty much a one shot kill, so you either take him down quick, or you die. We got lucky and had some pretty good magical stuff to help, but still lost half the party" I shrugged and looked at Jeff, giving him a questioning look so we could move this along. I was kind of freaked out about how strong looking the guy was, wondering what kind of spreadsheet numbers it took to end up looking like he'd been doing steroids for fifty years. The guy's arms were huge.

"On our way to the border of orc territory when we saw your notice" he said "Two days travel from here is supposed to be a goblin dungeon. We have a quest we can fulfill if we kill the goblin king" he nodded at his partners and said "I'm level 12, Shadow's a ten, and Siril is eleven. We've kind of hit a ceiling. Keep getting killed and having a hard time moving higher"

I took a drink, then set the mug down and said "Works for me. It's your party, so I'll follow your lead, heal anyone who needs it, and fight if you tell me to. We settle up after we get back here"

"Whoa cowboy" Shadow said, holding a hand up and frowning at me "All I've seen is a name, so how about telling us what you can do"

"I heal about 80 points per spell, and can cast quite a few spells" I said, getting all three to sit up and pay attention "I'm level 11 and have a defensive aura that helps party members. I think you'll find I'm pretty useful"

"No shit" Shadow muttered, leaning back and waving at Jeff to go ahead. He seemed confused for a second, then asked "You don't want to know about us?" I shrugged at the question and said "Doesn't matter. Do what I can, but it's up to you guys to have your shit together"

"That's the truth" Saril mumbled as Jeff looked at his two friends, then shrugged and sent me a party request.

It was funny as hell watching everyone look at my basic stats as I looked at theirs. Jeff was a Barbarian, something I had never even heard of, but he wasn't what I would call a great tank, because he had 100 health. Yeah, a whole whopping 100. No wonder he died a lot. Siril was a Fire Mage like Mirabeth, though I doubted he was half as effective, and he had 60 health. Shadow was an Apprentice Thief, whatever that was, and she was smart enough to have put a couple of points into stamina since she had 80 health. The collective gasps as they saw my 310 made me chuckle, but I just said "Benefit of being a priest" and didn't comment on their poor attribute choices.

I bought another darn horse, then met the group at the southern gate. The gate guards both nodded and said "Lord Loser" as we passed, and I leaned down to shake hands with one of them, but didn't comment as we rode out. Saril appeared to be the nosy one since about five minutes after leaving he asked "What was that Lord Loser thing?"

"They know me here" I said "got a good reputation in the empire"

"Is that possible?" Siril asked, looking at his other people in question "Is there a reputation status?" At their shrugs I said "I'm not sure what a reputation status is, but I just mean I get along with them. Friends"

"What the frick does that even mean?" Siril muttered, eyeing me, but when I didn't comment, didn't say anything else.

I'm not sure if my presence made them leery, or if they were naturally quiet, because no one talked much as we rode. I was used to Maria chattering and laughing to fill the silence, and was surprised to find I missed it. We followed the road, so it was easy riding, and when we stopped for the night it was in a small town with an inn. I liked that a lot better than sleeping outside, mostly because you didn't have to keep a watch and could sleep all night.

Jeff had a map, and the next afternoon he said "Should be there in a couple of hours. We'll set up camp and do the thing in the morning" I was sort of disappointed we weren't attacked that night as I had hoped to see the three in action before I went into a dungeon with them. The dungeon entrance was a fairly large cave in the side of a series of hills that had started rising around us. It looked like a river or stream had run out of it at one point and we walked up the stream bed until we found it and the four level 8 goblin guards. They all had 95 health and carried rusty looking swords.

I had stopped, expecting a quick discussion of tactics, but found myself alone as Jeff pulled a two-handed axe, screamed like a banshee, and charged forward. Shadow and Siril kept walking, so I took a couple quick steps to catch up. The three of us walked over until we were about thirty feet from the fight, then stopped and watched. Jeff's strength numbers showed because one of his swings killed a goblin outright, but he didn't move much, which made me wonder if he had put every point into strength. I guessed you could possibly end up with 35 in your strength if you kept everything else at base level. He took two thrusts and 30 points of damage by the time he killed the second, then another wicked slash as he chopped the arm off the third goblin. I flicked a healing his way, then waited as he bellowed and chopped straight down to kill the fourth.

"Wow" Shadow said with a grin "that's useful as hell"

"No shit!" Jeff yelled, holding his axe up in some kind of victory celebration. I tried to keep any expression off my face as Jeff sorted the dropped items and the rest of us joined him. When he straightened up, Jeff said "All yours Shadow"

The girl nodded and pulled a couple of knives before moving forward into the cave. "She'll clear the traps and stuff" Jeff said, getting a nod of understanding from me. I felt obligated to add "If you want me to fight, you'll need to tell me, otherwise I'll just heal as needed"

"No problems dude" Jeff said, slapping my shoulder "that's some wicked good stuff you do. It'll make this a walk in the park"

Well, worst case I'd have some funny stories later.

Shadow turned out to be a lot more useful than I had anticipated. We had been kind of strolling along through the open cave when we came upon two piles of goblin gear. Jeff picked up the coins as Siril said "Shadow does a super high damage back stab, and has built up her stealth stats to the point where it takes something high level or magical to see her"

The cave narrowed as we passed two more double piles of goblin gear and eventually reached an iron banded, wooden door that had Shadow standing in front of it. She was doing the fiddly stuff Maria did, and muttered "Gotcha" as we stopped behind her. She stepped back behind us, tossing a grin my way as Jeff stepped forward and opened the door. Five goblins were on the other side, pretty much what was at the cave entrance, but with the addition of a level 9 senior guard.

I winced when Jeff banged his axe into the wall as he wound up for a swing and got gut stabbed as he recovered. The goblin paid for it with an axe to the head, but Jeff managed to get stabbed in the face before he brought the axe back up. Not sure what he did different from Dalmar; didn't choke up on the handle or something, but his swings seemed to hit the walls a lot and I'm not sure what would have happened if he missed. He didn't, and I did two heal spells by the time he finished. I decided to do my armor spell, then did a group blessing before restoring my mana as Shadow headed down the stairs that started twenty feet beyond the dead goblins.

"Nice bonus on that blessing spell" Siril said with a nod my way. I was thinking about how much 30% more hit damage would be if you had super maxed out strength. Jeff was killing 95 health goblins with one hit, so 30% more would be around 30 points of damage. So, a lot.

The stairs ended about two hundred feet lower, and opened into a fairly large, torch lit cave. I could see fairly well, and figured the whole thing was nearly ninety feet long by thirty wide, and smelled like a cesspool. The cavern seemed to be a giant kennel for hyena like creatures, that had red eyes, huge teeth, and stood a good four feet high. Shadow appeared in front of Jeff, then slipped behind him, saying "They'll smell me, so they're all yours big boy"

I'm pretty sure I mouthed 'WTF' as Jeff raised his axe, let out a huge bellow, and charged straight at the closest dog. There appeared to be about six of them scattered around, but at his bellow, the four closest turned and charged back at him. My question about what would happen if Jeff missed was answered as he took a huge swing that got dodged by one of the dogs. He ended up banging his axe straight into the floor with a loud clang, then staggered forward as two of the creatures bit him, one on each leg.

I cast a heal at him as he got his axe back up and swung sideways at the 'Pit Hound, Level 7, Health 80' and killed the one chewing on his left leg. The other two arrived then, piling on, though they didn't knock him down. When a fireball zipped away from us and impacted right on the pile, I'm pretty sure I mouthed another 'WTF', even as I hit Jeff with another heal. I quickly followed that with a third, as he began chopping stunned and burning hounds into pieces. The two healthy ones had gotten interested at the explosion, and they decided Siril was a better target. Siril sent another fireball at the two charging us, but the hounds both dodged it, and the fireball continued on until it hit the far wall and exploded. Shadow slipped behind me at the same time Siril did, and just like that it was me and Bruce against two pit hounds. I called fist, sent a quick heal at Jeff, then knocked the first hound in the head, stunning it for a second. The other one latched onto my left arm, gnawing hard, but let go when Bruce slammed into its left ear. A second call to Fist allowed me to bring the first hound down to about nothing as a knife zipped past me, stuck in its eye, and killed it. The last hound ducked in to bite my leg, but couldn't dodge another swing from me, so got stunned long enough for me to finish it with a final overhand hit to its head.

Jeff was grinning as he propped his axe on his shoulder and walked back over to us. I on the other hand was not. I stepped aside so I could give the fireball throwing retard a questioning look and said "What the hell was that?"

He blinked in surprise and looked around as if he would see something, then asked me "What's what?"

"I think he meant the whole blowing up your teammate thing?" Shadow said with a laugh

"I can barely keep him alive with only the enemy attacking him" I said in disgust "if you keep blowing him up, this is going to be a very short tour"

"What's the problem dude?" Jeff asked with a shrug "I thought it was max smart on Siril's part. I had them all gathered together, perfect for a good doggy roast"

"Oh Goddess" I mumbled, rubbing my eyes and waving a hand in acceptance. Looking back with a shrug, I said "Ok, whatever works for you guys"

That got a grin from Jeff, and he waved Shadow forward, saying "All yours", then moseyed along after her as Shadow wandered back and forth across the cave, moving consistently toward the other side.

"No really" Siril said after a moment "It's a fireball, what else would you do with it?" When I just shrugged, he frowned and said "Honestly, I want to know"

"Fine" I sighed "I don't know what you do with it since we don't use them. But I can tell you, if you hit me with one, I'm going to be really, really pissed"

"What do you mean you don't use them?" Jeff asked "Everyone uses them. That and firebolts are what it's all about"

I shrugged, not wanting to discuss magical tactics, and just said "Yeah, I can see that. It's just hard to use a fireball in a dungeon without hurting teammates, and none of the people I work with are going to accept taking friendly fire. If a tactic works, then by definition it's a good tactic, so I wouldn't change" I gave Siril a hard look and added "Just don't throw them my way"

Shadow let out a small laugh as we caught up with her at a door on the far side of the cavern, her eyes sparkling with humor as she said to me "Someone's talking all strategically and stuff. We're pretty relaxed about these things Jake, since you know, it's not really life and death"

"True enough" I said back, watching as Jeff flung the door open and immediately chopped down and killed a goblin guard. The second guard let out a screech and turned to run down the hall, getting a blink of surprise from me. Having a monster run away could not be a good thing.

I realized why it wasn't a good thing when Jeff let out some kind of war cry and took off after the thing. "Oh-oh" Shadow said with a laugh before ducking to the side of the doorway as Siril yelled "Traps Jeff! Look out for..." the rest was washed out by a loud roaring sound as flame shot across the hallway at about shoulder height, setting Jeff on fire as he ran through it. I rolled my eyes and trotted ahead and ducked down to look under the horizontal flames until I could see him staggering forward, head and shoulders with actual flames surrounding them. I cast a quick heal since he was down to a bare sliver of health, then a second one as the flames burned for a few more seconds.

The fire continued shooting across the hallway, and a laughing Shadow ducked down and crawled on hands and knees under it, waving me to follow. I sighed and did, muttering "I'm beginning to see why they had so much trouble staying alive" I hadn't realized Siril was so close behind me, but he must have heard and let out a laugh.

"You're too serious about this stuff" Siril said as we got to our feet and started down the hallway toward where we could see Jeff hacking at three goblins "It's just a game right? Not like anything really matters. Have fun, do what you want, and enjoy life" Jeff was finishing the third goblin off when we arrived, so I restored the fifty points he had lost. I should have charged them per healing spell, I'd be rich.

This level was all one long hallway, with a bunch of small caves on the right and left, each with a random number of level 7-9 goblins. Shadow killed most of them, moving ahead of our group, ducking into a cave, then backstabbing the various goblins who never managed to see her. Jeff did charge into one room with three goblins in it, but he had room to swing and killed all three without taking any damage. Siril and I just moseyed along behind everyone, or stood and waited as Jeff scrounged through the various goblin drops.

When we got to the end of the hall and found another set of stairs down, Jeff called a break, which gave me a chance to ask Shadow a question that had been bouncing in my head. "Where'd you get the throwing knife?"

"Thieves guild" she said, pulling one out and holding it up "you can buy them from the guild after you get accepted. I do double or triple damage with them most times"

Throwing Knife

8-13 damage

Usable by: Thieves or assassins

Great.

"The three of us are from Warston, a small town on the east side of the empire" Jeff said in his rumbling voice "Eight of us have spawn points there. The three of us teamed up when a couple of dickheads wanted to take over the town and started messing with Shadow. Had a little bit of a war going for a while, but Eddie and his two guys killed a guard and had to run for it. That was stupid, since they let you do what you want as long as you don't mess up the town" he nodded at a grinning Shadow and said "Shadow's a wicked player killer now, so none of them will even look cross-eyed at her"

"Are there assassins?" I asked, wondering about the knife

"Sure" Shadow said "Haven't met one, but they're supposed to be basically a thief that can use poisons, and maybe a couple other weapons. I think you need a certain amount in your intelligence stat to get offered that. At Level 7 I got offered a quest, and when it was over, I got level 8 and an offer to join the thieves guild. Probably works the same way for the assassins guild. It's been pretty nice since I can go and get quests from them when I want"

That sounded pretty cool actually. It made it seem like she was on some kind of career path and had a company backing her.

"How'd you guys end up killing a dragon?" Jeff asked, getting Siril and Shadow to give me interested looks.

I shrugged, then said "Four of us, me, Maria, a dwarf player named Dalmar, and Bob, a warrior, went down to see if we could meet one. I think it was something Dalmar wanted to do, but we all went for the fun of it"

"Did it go like the story says?" Shadow said, leaning forward, the interest clear on her face.

"Pretty much" I answered "Bob told the story when we got back, and it ended up getting told everywhere I guess. The thing was level 30 and had 1200 health, so I doubt you'll hear of many people taking one on"

"Jesus" Siril muttered "1200? Wow, that'd take forever to kill"

"Did you get it's treasure?" Shadow asked

"Just the drop" I said "Maria and I were killed, so Bob and Dalmar weren't going to wander around dragon territory looking. Drop alone was great though, and I'll probably go back one day to see if I can find it or kill another dragon and find his"

"Yeah" Shadow said in a dreamy tone, eyes distant "Just imagine if it was like in that movie, with the hobbits and stuff. If I could sneak in and steal stuff while a dragon was there I would get so much experience it would be crazy. Not to mention the gold and magic"

"Or you could get eaten" I said with a laugh "and let me tell you, getting chewed on by a dragon is one of the most painful things you'll experience"

We got moving again after that, but I heard Shadow mutter "I need an invisibility ring "

The next level was more open than the one above, with four large open rooms being connected by iron doors at each end. Shadow got the first one open to reveal six goblin guards and a level 9 shaman.

Siril sent a fireball at the shaman, who did something that caused it to veer to the right. It missed the shaman but smacked into three of the guards, killing one. Jeff's roar as he charged got all of the goblins to focus on him, and I caught Shadow disappearing out of the side of my eye.

Jeff's first swing decapitated a goblin, but he got hit by a green missile that the shaman conjured. It must have been some kind of acid or poison because Jeff cursed and tried to wipe something off his right arm. I restored his health, but he took a couple sword cuts, and I think the poison was still working, as his health immediately dropped in half again.

Siril started sending flame bolts at the goblins around Jeff as Jeff got back on track, swinging his axe in wide circles, killing goblins like wheat. The shaman was making a series of gestures I was pretty sure meant something bad, but he froze suddenly and turned into a pile of gear, revealing a grinning Shadow behind him.

The rest of the fight was Jeff's, with me sending two healing spells before it was over.

Working our way through the rest of that level gave me a good idea of everyone's relative strengths and weaknesses. Jeff was a monster, no doubt about that, but his dexterity must have been shit because he would miss a lot if the creature was close to his level. A level 11 goblin leader with 135 health went down with one hit, so I figured Jeff was doing at least 100 points of damage base level before my blessing bonus. Problem was, Jeff didn't wield the two handed axe as well as Dalmar did his hammer. Dalmar didn't do as much damage every swing, but he always hit something, and he could actually block with his hammer. Jeff didn't do anything but swing wildly, accepting stabs and slices to get his own hits in. He was definitely one of the 'a good offense is the best defense' kind of guys.

Siril...was useless. Nice guy and all, but he threw fireballs around like one of my holy fire spells, acting like friendly damage didn't matter. Hadn't hit me with one so far, which was good since I would have tapped him on the head with Bruce, but it just seemed wasteful to me. His firebolts did decent damage, maybe in the 30-40 point range, but after seeing a couple goblins dodge them, I realized firebolts didn't work like magic missiles...they could miss. Mirabeth had made it seem so effortless that I never realized she was leading her targets. Sienna had been a major part of our success against the werewolves, and had given me a real appreciation for how effective mages could be, but Siril...Siril made me wish he just stayed out of the way.

Of the three of them, I had developed real respect for Shadow's class. Except for the dogs, there hadn't been anything she couldn't sneak up on and kill with one backstab. She was awesomely effective against the shamans, and I could see how other eternals without high health would be easy kills for her. The rogue thing seemed to be a pretty versatile class, and if she ever got serious about it, she could turn into a seriously dangerous person. She had a bit of Maria's happy go lucky attitude, but lacked Maria's core of seriousness that made her such a good member of the team.

The group of them seemed to see this whole world as a big play pen, and had absolutely no interest in anything other than having fun. Based on a few things they said, it was also clear they thought the locals were all just simple programmed images with no reality to them.

I spent this level, and the following one just sending a steady stream of healing spells Jeff's way. He took so much damage I was actually a little surprised he had made it to level twelve. The shaman's became a regular thing, and I had to do a dispel when Jeff got hit with a slow spell on the third level. Siril decided to hit the shaman with a fireball, which hit as the shaman was busy doing another casting. Unfortunately Shadow was in the process of backstabbing the thing and took fifty points of damage when the fireball hit. She still killed the shaman, but disappeared again until she got back to me and I healed her. If her or Jeff had tended to stay closer to me, my aura thing might have helped them more, and I would have been interested to see if any damage would have been reflected back on Siril.

"I kind of remember us agreeing I would kill the magic users" Shadow muttered, giving Siril a disgusted look. He actually laughed and shrugged before saying "Oops?"

Keeping Jeff alive had been my main focus, but there had been chests in most of the rooms, which Shadow had opened. I got a mental nudge from Telina once when Jeff was pulling things out of a big chest on the third floor, but didn't say anything since I said we would settle up in Riverbend.

The fourth level was a new thing for me; lots and lots of traps. The level ended up being a hallway with only one exit at the end, but the hallway kept making right turns, getting shorter and shorter as it formed an inward spiral. Shadow earned her money here, disabling something, moving forward twenty feet, then disabling a couple somethings. It was an endlessly repeating process, and it got to the point Jeff, Siril and I would sit down and wait until she finished a section before getting up and moving forward to sit down again. Seriously boring stuff, but I think Shadow earned some kind of individual experience for doing traps, because about half way through she held up a hand and said "Hold on a bit, got a level up" Made me wonder if Maria got the same, or if it was a thief thing.

Like everyone other than my paladins, she didn't say anything about what her level up did, though I totally agreed with keeping your strengths and weaknesses secret. The level ended at a door that opened into stairs going up of all things, but it took hours for us to get there. Shadow needed a break by then, so we settled in at the bottom of the stairs and cooked a meal as she took a nap.

"Never seen a dungeon level with no one in it" I said as we ate, interested to hear if this was a new thing to them. Jeff gave a half shrug and said "Had one that was a room with traps that would trigger different types of elementals, but yeah, this was a real pain in the ass"

"We've done what, thirteen now?" Siril asked Jeff, and at Jeff's nod, Siril added "The traps'll kill you faster than anything other than the last Boss, so until Shadow got leveled enough to handle it, the traps ended the trip most of the time" he glanced over at me and asked "How many you done?"

I had to think about that. If you didn't count the rats and bandits, which I didn't, the only actual dungeons were the bone dragon one, the gnolls, the Lich, and the werewolves. Oh, and that goblin one. "Five actual dungeons" I answered, then added "but we did that dragon thing and had to go through the Forbidden Lands, so that probably counts as one"

"Holy shit!" Siril said, sitting up to give me a hard look "How the hell did you get to level 11 only doing five dungeons?"

"Dalmar is level 20, and I've been with him the whole time" I paused, remembering the gnoll one, adding "or mostly. So I've been fighting high level creatures for the most part. Good experience"

"Well, hell" Jeff said with a laugh "we need to team up with a high level guy"

"I wouldn't" I said, immediately regretting it. Last thing I wanted to do was get involved in discussing strategy with these guys.

Siril saw the wince and asked "What? Why not?"

With a sigh, I said "Simply put, you don't have enough health. Level 15 to 20 creatures will kill you with one hit, so no amount of healing will keep you alive. You need a tank with a minimum..." I stressed the minimum "150 health. Better would be two tanks with that so they could cover each other. Dalmar has 200 health, and he and Maria did a lot of dungeons together by taking it slow and healing between fights. As long as you have the health to survive a single fight, you can usually manage the whole dungeon"

"I'd have to go back to level 1 to reset my stats enough for that" Jeff said doubtfully

"This world is seriously unbalanced" Siril said "I've played a lot of games, and this one keeps you so weak that if you don't form a group, you'll never survive" he was frowning in thought as he added "the whole thing is off. Shadow is the only person I know who's gotten a class advancement path, and the only one who's managed to join a guild of some kind. There's no skills like enchanting, and so far no one I've talked to has gotten a find familiar spell. Hell, that was my favorite spell when I played, and the only reason I chose mage" he was sounding pretty angry by the end of that.

"Who's the highest level mage you've met?" Jeff asked me and Siril. I had to think about that, and realized I didn't really remember specific levels. I shrugged and said "I think in the upper teens" Siril nodded and said "Level 18 I think. No 19. That dickhead who called himself Voron the Mighty was a level 19 fire mage. He ran with that one crew from the capital for a while, then quit doing dungeons after he got killed and went from level 20 to level 18. Managed to get back up to 19 by doing the first level of a goblin dungeon like this a dozen times, then quit"

"Maybe we're still to low level for stuff" Jeff said with a shrug. They debated the issue until Shadow woke up and we moved on, but I didn't pay much attention since they had no more clue than I did about how things worked. As far as anyone knew you might need to reach level 50 before stuff became available.

The stairs only went up about fifty feet and ended at the ubiquitous trapped door. Shadow did her thing, then slipped behind Jeff as he opened the door, raised his axe, bellowed loudly, and charged into a fairly large room. I hustled through ahead of Shadow and Siril, figuring Jeff would probably lose most of his health in the time it took most people to sneeze. The room was near forty feet long, but only half that wide, and it looked like we had found a higher level group.

Two mages on the far side of the room, both of them doing their woogly boogly arm waves. Four level 9 guards, and a level 11 guard leader. Two of the goblin guards had bows, another new thing. The guard leader and two of the guards were chopping at Jeff, though one died after being split down the middle. The archers already had two arrows in Jeff, and he was down over half his health already. My healing spell occurred at the same time the goblin mages finished theirs, and Siril sent a fireball at the mages. One of the goblin spells caused the floor from where Jeff was, all the way to where Siril and I were standing to get a coating of some kind of liquid. The other spell hit me of all people, doing no damage, but giving me a message.

Silenced

You are unable to cast spells

Siril's fireball actually hit perfectly, exploding and blowing both mages to the ground, with one being killed outright and the other losing almost two thirds of his health.

Shadow's screamed "Grease spell!!!" made absolutely no sense to me until the flames from the fireball set the floor on fire, and I got to watch it sweep across the room and envelope all of us except Shadow. That's when I figured out that the goblin mage had seriously screwed us over with his silence spell. My urgent gesture at a burning Jeff did absolutely nothing. We'd have probably been ok, but Jeff and his two opponents all slipped and fell onto the burning floor, which actually helped the goblins since Jeff couldn't attack, but the archers could.

I had no clue what you did if someone blocked your magic, so I pulled Bruce and a potion, and started through the flames toward Jeff. Siril had managed to fall back down the stairs, and Shadow had disappeared again, so the archers only had me and Jeff to shoot at. They chose Jeff. Between the fire damage and the arrows, there was absolutely nothing I could do to save him, and got to hear him yell "Nooo!!!" just before he disappeared.

With a sigh I put the potion away, just before slipping and falling on my ass. I tried a heal spell since I had lost 50 points, but got nothing. Of course the archers moved on to me, and I started getting stuck with arrows as I struggled to my feet just in time to fall back on my ass into the flames. They went out a second later, and by then I was ready to kick someone's ass. The guard leader got Bruce upside his head, finishing him off as the damn archers both shot me again.

"I am going to shove those bows up your asses!" I yelled, exchanging swings with the last goblin fighter. I was down about 150 points of health when the second goblin went down, and I looked up to see Shadow kill the last goblin mage. The two archers looked back at her, then at me as I pointed my mace at them and said "Go ahead punk, Make my day!"

Hey, it just came to me. I heard Shadow laugh as the two little bastards both shot me. That was the last time though, because I called fist, not even thinking about it, and found it worked. The first archer got a face full of Bruce, falling down stunned as I spun and hit the other guy in the side. I actually kicked the guy on the ground in the head, doing a small amount of damage, then brought Bruce around to hit the upright one from the other side. A second call to fist, and a swing to the one climbing to his feet finished him off, and left me and the last goblin exchanging two swings each before he went down. I healed myself twice, then looked over to check on Shadow to find she was perfectly healthy.

"Hey man, can you heal me up?" Siril said as he came up the stairs and into the room. He had managed to loose about half his health, and despite how hard it was, I didn't say anything about him blowing us up, just tossed a heal spell his way.

"Well, that could have gone better" Shadow said with a laugh as she went around picking up coins and other things before moving to a pair of chests.

"So what do we do now?" Siril asked.

"Up to you guys" I said "It's all the same to me since I get paid the same if we stay and fight or if we head back. I'll do the tanking if you want to continue on"

"Nothing to be gained by turning around" Shadow said "and who knows, maybe we'll get lucky"

There was a round of shrugs, followed by nods, so I said "Onward then"

We gathered at the door on the far side of the room, and as Shadow fiddled with it, I said "Ok, unless you guys have objections, I'd like to try things a little differently. When get to doorways like this, I'll open the door and evaluate what we'll be facing. If there's enemies and room, I'd like Siril to step forward and send a fireball at whatever group is visible, then step back" giving him a look, I said "Firebolts only if any of us are in a room" His shrug of acceptance was less than reassuring, but worst case I'd let Bruce straighten him out.

Looking over at Shadow I said "You do what you do best" getting a laugh from her.

Normally a plan starts going wrong about the time you finish explaining it, but for once, things sort of worked out. I opened the door, standing squared in front of it, and found a round room with a mage, six sword holding guards, and two leader types, all looking at me. The room was maybe thirty feet in diameter, and there was a ten foot hole in the center, with the mage and leaders on the far side, the other six scattered around. Stepping back I said "Far side Siril"

He moved forward slightly, did a couple gestures, mumbled a word, and sent a fireball flying across the room. I shut the door to keep the mage from spamming me, waited for the boom, then opened it and charged to the right, figuring Shadow would do her thing without any input from me.

The mage and the two leaders were on fire and lying on the ground, but the six sword wielders were still standing. The three I charged all had their swords out and gabbled some goblin gibberish at me as I called fist, then bashed the first one straight down on the top of his head. That last ring I got from Bob had helped quite a bit, so this level 8 goblin lost two thirds of his health as he went down. I danced back, shoved one in the chest, took a weak slice to the arm, then bashed the third right in the center of his chest. A quick swing down finished the one climbing to its feet, then the other three arrived and I got busy.

The tank thing puts you in the middle of everything, so I lost awareness of the rest of the room, focusing on swinging, dodging, and even blocking with my mace a couple of times. I had watched Jeff stand his ground and get chopped to pieces enough I knew that wasn't going to be my tanking style, so I went all Kung Fu on their asses, dancing around, jumping and tossing in a good kick to the nads if I could get one in.

I was laughing by the time the last one went down with a backhand mace to the face. I had only done one heal spell, but I was still only down 105 points of health when I looked around. I saw that Shadow must have done for the three leaders, since there were three piles scattered around that side of the room. She was grinning at me as Siril came sauntering in shaking his head and chuckling.

"You should have gone warrior" Shadow said as she began picking up coins "that looked like you were having a lot of fun"

I did a quick heal, then a restore before saying "If only" The hole in the floor was actually a stairwell that wound downwards. Looking at the group I said "Let's take ten to give Siril a little time to gain some mana back. If you want to scout ahead, feel free" I said the last to Shadow. She gave me a mocking salute and slipped down the stairs, disappearing from view while I was actually looking at her. How the hell that could possibly work messed with my brain. I mean, was the system hiding her? Was she still there if I reached out to touch her?

I did a quick peek at my stats and saw I was at 27% of the next level. I couldn't remember how many goblins we had killed to this point, but I was guessing I was probably getting like 1% or less per goblin. It sure went a lot quicker when it was Bob and I facing level 20 creatures. Since I got experience from the dragon even though I was dead, I figured Jeff would still get some.

Shadow trotted back up a few minutes later, saying "Goes around a couple of times and ends at a door. I've detrapped and unlocked it, so we're ready whenever you girls are"

"Hey, this kind of awesomeness doesn't come without a cost" Siril said with a laugh, gesturing for us to head on down.

It was a little crowded at the base of the stairs as there was only room to swing the door open. I did the door opening to reveal a ten foot wide, eighty foot long hallway, that had two level 10 goblin guards standing in front of facing doorways about twenty feet away. They didn't react to me opening the door, so I looked at Shadow and asked quietly "Any traps?"

She slipped past me, then stood still a moment before saying "Nope. Want me to do them?"

"Sure, have at it" I said with a grin. She disappeared again, and Siril and I stood and watched. The first guard kind of arched forward with a squeal before turning into gear, with a smiling Shadow behind him. She disappeared again as the other goblin put his back to the wall and began swinging his sword. No backstab if he stayed that way, so I walked forward a bit, held up my mace, and said in a normal tone of voice "Hey Butthead!"

That worked. He turned to face me, giving Shadow a free shot that she took immediately.

The facing doors were about a third of the way down the hallway, and I could make out two more guards at the end, both facing our way and standing in front of a door. I hadn't figured out what triggered the creatures to attack, but these two didn't appear to see us. I looked over at Shadow and nodded at the two goblins and said "We'll wait here if you want to take care of those two"

She had no trouble with them since the second one decided to step away from the wall and look around like he would find her if he looked hard enough. After she finished them I sent Siril back toward the stairs and had Shadow wait next to the door, telling her to slip into the room as soon as it was open, then I opened the door on the right.

One goblin, a level 12 captain, and a troll were inside, both turning to look at me as the door swung open. "Take the goblin" I said as I stepped in and moved to attack the troll. The captain attacked me also, but I moved to put the troll between us and began exchanging blows with the troll. The troll was a level 10 with 180 health, but I'd had some experience with them by now and managed to dodge a lot of his swings. The captain got in two good hits before Shadow killed him, then I had to attack the troll hard to get him to focus on me. Shadow disappeared again, but as I was bashing the troll in one of his knees, I said loudly "Get Siril, tell him we need a flame bolt"

The troll did less damage than the two stabs the goblin gave me, and by the time Siril arrived I had the troll down to zero health and was hitting him in the head every couple seconds to keep him there. Siril finished the troll off as Shadow went through the large chest and I moved out to the hall and keep an eye on things. Jeff had been hauling all the loot to this point, so I was wondering if Shadow would have enough strength to pick up from here, or if we'd need to spread it around some. When they came out I asked her, and got "Unless we pick up non-magic items it shouldn't be an issue. Magic weapons and armor are the heavy items and they seem kind of scarce"

"True" I said as I got ready for the next door "I've found exactly two usable weapons since I've been here"

I was tempted to knock, just to see what would happen, but decided that might be better at the beginning of a dungeon. Swinging the door open, I took a quick look, then relaxed a little and said "Ok, one of these" The room had three pedestals sitting in the middle, each with a lever on it. Two stone statues stood against the right and left wall, and there wasn't anything else in the thirty by thirty foot room. Shadow and Siril joined me at the door, and after a few seconds Shadow said "I can see a hidden door in the back wall. It looks like your basic guessing game. Pick the wrong lever and a golem comes to life"

The stone statues were actually very detailed, showing two, eight foot tall human warriors of all things, each holding a two handed sword. They didn't show a tag, so I had no idea of their level or health at this point.

"Maria said magic isn't much good against Golems, and swords and arrows do half damage" I said, glancing at the two of them and getting agreeing nods. "I'm guessing the door will close when we pull a lever, so the important question will be if choosing wrong brings both to life, or only one"

"No, the real question is if we're willing to risk it" Shadow said with a grin "because I'm all for finding out what's behind that door"

"Maybe come back after we finish the quest?" I asked, getting a head shake from both before Siril said "No telling if we can return here, so I say we go for it"

"Your call" I said, stepping into the room "I'll do the lever pull. Shadow stays hidden as much as possible, and Siril tries his firebolts" I looked at him and added "and plan to run away a lot. Try to put me between you and whichever one you attack"

Shadow walked to the far side of the room, then disappeared, as Siril went to stand in the corner behind me and to my left. The statues would have to take a couple steps to be able to hit me, so I hoped to have a few seconds to evaluate things. I looked the pedestals over, but didn't find anything that made one of them stand out. Shrugging I reached up and jerked the right most one toward me. There was a couple seconds pause, then the door slammed shut and the statue on my left began raising his sword with a cracking noise. A quick glance to my right showed that the statue wasn't moving, so I raised Bruce and waited to see what old stony was going to do.

I guess with the door shut the thing didn't need to hurry, because it did the whole raise the sword high, then began a slow plod my way, his tag appearing and saying

Stone Warrior

Level 15

Health 220

Could have been worse. I yelled "Don't do anything yet Siril" as I dodged the downward swinging sword. The sword was a lot faster than the rest of the golem, but slow enough that it missed the first three swings. I hit all three of mine, calling Fist each time, and managing to bring the sucker down below a quarter of his health. Fist added up quick if I had the time to make it work, something I needed to start making better use of. The rockhead connected with a sideways slice, cutting me good and tossing me to the ground. He did about 90 points of damage, getting some reflected damage in return, so I ignored it and rolled to my feet in time for Shadow to do a back stab and finish the thing off.

I went ahead and did a couple quick healing spells, then a restore as Shadow and Siril were talking "Not so bad" Siril said as he joined us where the golem had died, though the golem didn't leave anything behind, which I thought was a bit cheap. "Jake's pretty good with that mace" Shadow said as she walked over and started looking at the levers. After a moment, she said "Man, we'll feel stupid if it's the middle one"

"Probably doesn't matter at this point" I said as I joined her "Unless the next one is tougher than this one, it's probably worthwhile taking him down for the experience" At their shrugs, I said "I'm going to call down some holy fire first thing to see if it works, but it won't do any damage to you"

"Holy fire huh?" Siril said with a laugh as he went back to his corner. Shadow gave me a wink before disappearing and leaving me to pull the next lever, which was the center one. There was the slight pause, then the cracking, grinding noise from my right. I stepped back to open up more space, then called down Telina's flame. It formed above the thing as it raised it's sword, than flashed down and splashed outward, getting an 'Eep' sound from Siril before he realized it wasn't doing any damage to him. The golem lost half it's health, so I shrugged and did it again, finishing the thing before it even completed the slow raising of it's sword. Easiest fight in history.

"Well shit" Shadow said with a laugh, appearing beside me "Someone's been holding out on us"

I shrugged as I walked back over and gave the last lever a yank, then as a section of the back wall swiveled open, said "Takes a fair amount of my mana, so I usually don't use it, since I mostly concentrate on keeping my teammates alive. Low risk here"

We gathered at the opened wall panel, and looked into a small room with four chests in it. The mother lode! Shadow looked around, then said "Looks clear"

A glimmering on the floor right inside the doorway had captured my attention, and as Shadow started to take a step forward it resolved into a glowing rune that said

Rune of Lightning

Activation requirements: Any creature other than a goblin stepping over it

Damage: 150 points shock damage and 10 second stun

My grab and yank pulled Shadow back a second before she stepped forward. Her squawk of surprise almost drowned out my "Wait, trap!"

It took a couple minutes for me to explain what I was seeing, then a few more minutes of discussions about jumping over, or edging around, before I said "Just stand on the other side of the room, I'll walk over it. It doesn't do enough damage to kill me" Both of them said "Sure" a lot quicker than I had expected, making me regret not letting them try their ideas.

As soon as my foot moved over the rune, I was blown back, getting thrown far enough to hit my head on the pedestals as white light blinded me. I was definitely stunned, in serious pain, and had small arcs of electricity still popping around me, though a message was floating around waiting for me to read it.

"Owww" I mumbled as I just laid on the floor and waited for the stun to get over so I could heal myself. Darned goddess giggled in my ear while I was lying there moaning. "Yeah, real funny" I said as I finally cast two heal spells on myself. I still hurt all over, and told myself that next time I would wait for someone else to volunteer. Staggering to my feet, I saw Shadow and Siril heading into the other room, so I said "No, no, I'm fine, thanks for asking" This time I heard Shadow let out a laugh.

When I pulled it up, the message said

You have acquired a new rune

Rune of Lightning

Lightning:

When activated will do 150 points of shock damage to a single creature, and stun for 5 seconds + 1 sec/level of caster

Chain Lightning:

When activated will do 50 points of shock damage and stun for 10 seconds all creatures within twenty feet that meet activation requirements

Activation requirements determined by caster

Mana required to cast: 180

Holy hand grenades Batman, that just made the whole trip worthwhile.

------Note-------

Been a while, but I've still got some I'll be posting as I can

S. Zaplosky