The banging on the door had subsided for a while but then had restarted with a vengeance. It sounded as if one of the goblins finally had figured out that banging against a solid hardwood door with their fists was not going to get them very far and had picked up an ax from somewhere.

The door was shaking under the heavy blows, but so far was holding firm.

Like an old man, I raised myself off the ground, wincing and huffing and puffing all the way. Once I was on my feet, I experienced some brief vertigo, but then was able to shuffle into the room to see if there was anything useful for my current situation.

Like food and water.

At least, the elf had left, because I was in no shape to fight that mofo.

Oh, how I wished to bash his face in, break those teeth and shove them into his annoyingly mesmerizing eyes.

Dreaming of vengeance, I made my way around the room. I quickly realized that this had been, at some point, the bedchamber of the ruler of this place. At least that is what it looked like. And the goblin king, or perhaps the old geezer had taken it as their private residence.

All over the room were piles of dirty rags, discarded items, some coins, a poorly crafted dagger here, a sword there, and something that resembled a bed, only that it was made out of an odd mix of fur, some feathers, and dried mushrooms.

And then I discovered the basket with half-spoiled food shoved against one side of the room.

At the sight of the fruits, the semi-rancid meat, and the gourd of stale water, my mouth started watering, despite feeling revolted.

Beggars can’t be choosers.

I practically inhaled the first few bites before I was able to control myself. If I ate too fast, I’d simply throw up and waste it all.

Slow and steady wins.

Judging from the banging coming from the door, I had that much time.

But while I was eating, I could, at least, start to think about my next steps. Obviously, Du’Andrazzil had left the room, and, unless there was some secret tunnel, it had been through the ordinary-looking stone-arch at the other side of the room.

Since he had not returned… he either was dead, was sleeping, which seemed rather unlikely, or the tunnel beyond led further away, perhaps even outside.

Either way, I had to investigate because I sure did not fancy the idea of going back through all of those goblins and then be stuck in the same part of the dungeon that I had already explored previously. That said, I did like the idea of killing more goblins. Especially now that I needed red mana and some of the goblins, roughly fifty percent, in my estimation, contained red mana.

If only I was in better physical shape…

But, perhaps, if I extinguished all light, hid in the darkness and then sneak attacked the crap out of them? Again one of those harebrained ideas. I mean, it wasn’t undoable, but a risk that I really didn’t need to take. The prudent thing to do was t-.

I noise from beyond the stone arch made my thoughts stop cold.

Immediately I stuffed the fruit I had been chewing on in my pocket and shuffled over to one of the torches at the side of the room. I had no idea how they were still burning since I had been in the room for a while, but something was feeding them energy. And I needed the light to go.

One after another, I quickly pulled out the torches from their sockets and suffocated the flames with one of the filthy rags.

Soon the dimly lit room had turned into a chamber full of darkness and shadows, illuminated only by the few remaining torches on the other side of the room. Perfect conditions for the increased sensitivity granted by my underused Twilight Vision spell. When I activated the spell, the obscuring darkness receded rapidly and I could see almost as well as if it was a brightly lit space. I would have loved to extinguish some of the torches on the other side of the room as well, but I simply did not have enough time. Because whatever I had heard, it was coming closer.

Quietly, I drew my sword and wrapped the tattered remains of the elven cloak tightly around me, before covering myself in Shadow Skin.

Luckily, the hallway was flooded with light, so I could easily make out what or who was approaching. And I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Fucking Legolas was back!

Weirdly, I felt the urge to talk to him, to reason with him, but I quickly shook off that feeling. I was done talking. Unless it was the type of talking done with a foot of steel, preferably buried deeply in Du’Andrazzil’s body.

I only had one shot at this, though, because I didn’t doubt for a second that Du’Andrazzil was much stronger than me. In fact, he looked quite healthy, almost vibrant. A significant difference to his state a little while ago. Either that was some stupidly strong regeneration skill, or my blood was doing the deed. My intuition told me it was the latter.

The main question was whether my current strength would suffice to even stab him. That shadow cat and the goblin king had had some motherfucking tough skin. And I wasn’t any stronger now. In fact, the opposite was true. Could I improve my chances somehow?

I looked around the room, thoughts going 100 miles per hour.

The door. Goblins.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Not really. I’d kill them in a heartbeat too.

But they would provide good cannon-fodder. Soften up good ol’ Legolas for me.

Quickly, I moved next to the door and waited for Du’Andrazzil to enter the room. He was careful, I had to give him that. Instead of rushing into the room, he was standing there, sword in hand, surveying the dark space in front of him, clearly apprehensive. I was sure that coming from the brightly lit corridor, he wouldn’t be able to make out too much in the gloomy darkness, so I just stood still, waiting for the right time.

After a few moments, the elf stepped into the room with a confident stride, quickly reaching the middle. Which was when I pushed the crossbeam to the side, effectively unbarring the door. Luckily I did not have to lift it, because I would not have been able to do that by myself. But pushing… that was well within my capabilities.

Immediately, the door flew open, and a throng of goblins piled into the room, howling in bloodlust. There were a lot more than I had suspected. Based on the banging and guttural shouts, I had thought that there might be a dozen, perhaps. But this was closer to twice that number.

And luckily, they saw the elf right away, despite the darkness blanketing the whole space. Neither looking left or right, they rushed forward, eager to tear into the pale-skinned Du’Andrazzil.

The elf reacted quickly. Instead of being stunned by the sudden turn of events, he drew a dagger with his off-hand and readied himself for the onslaught.

The first goblin was stabbed in the chest and fell to the ground with a gurgling noise. Du’Andrazzil turned sideways, freeing his sword in the process and slid between the two following goblins, stabbing one of them with his dagger and slicing a second mouth into the throat of the other.

Before the next goblins could react to this chain of events, one of them was kicked viciously in the crotch, causing it to curl up and whimper, and the other had its skull caved in by the pommel of the elf’s sword.

And just like that, five of the two dozen goblins were down.

By then, I felt sure glad that I had not attacked Legolas by myself. He was a monster.

And then it got even scarier. A dark blue light began to coalesce around his hands, and suddenly hundreds of tiny ice shards shot out in a circle around him, cutting four unfortunate goblins to ribbons. The reach of the ice shards was low, only two yards perhaps, but it was a fearsome weapon in a melee like that.

But then the tide turned. While Du’Andrazzil was focusing on skewering the next goblin, a spear came out of the dark and hit him right in the chest. Its force was insufficient to pierce entirely through his clothes and the skin, but it was enough to unbalance him.

The goblins sensed the momentary vulnerability and, literally, threw themselves at him. The first couple got stabbed, and a well-placed kick to the side of the face broke the neck of the next one. But the remaining eleven or so goblins quickly buried the elf underneath them.

And they were falling into a frenzy, stabbing, biting, kicking, and hacking, really doing whatever they could to do some damage, or restrain the elf. I could see a blue shimmer evolve around Du’Andrazzil’s arms a couple of times, only to be snuffed out immediately when another hit by one of the goblins distracted him.

I almost felt bad for the elf. Almost.

And I figured it was time to step in and farm some mana while the goblins were still distracted with killing Du’Andrazzil.

Sword raised, I moved toward the scuffle. No one seemed to notice me, which was just perfect. The Shadow Skin spell was my best offense and defense at the same time.

But then it turned out that I had been too hasty with expecting the imminent demise of Du’Andrazzil. Just as I was about to start picking off the goblins one by one, the elf managed to free his left hand for a brief moment. And instead of trying to pry off the goblins or stab them, I could see him pull a little orange-tinted crystal skull out of a bag attached to his belt and crush it on the floor.

Immediately, a semi-translucent dark cloud shot through with streaks of amber rose like a dome around the lying elf. And in front of my disbelieving eyes, the goblins started to writhe in pain, while the wounds of the elf rapidly began to close. A couple of moments later, Du’Andrazzil managed to shake the goblins off his body, got up, and, with a nasty grin on his face, began killing them one after another.

Which was when I kinda lost it.

“Die, motherfucker!”I screamed, jumped into the black cloud, and stabbed my sword right into the elf’s chest, using all my body weight to force it through his skin. And while I had lost a lot of mass during the last days, I was still considerably heavier than the average goblin.

Caught by surprise, the elf stumbled backward and fell on its back, allowing me to put my foot on him and push the blade even deeper. I could feel the dark cloud drain my energy at a prodigious rate, but I did not hesitate a single second. The elf had to die and it had to happen right then.

But I could see that the sword was not going to be quite enough, even though it was lodged into the elf’s chest. So I used my anger, my fear, and my desperation to grab all the red mana I had available, and I pushed it into the blade. After initial resistance, the red mana flowed smoothly, almost naturally into the cold metal, and within a couple of seconds, the sword began to glow in a cherry red hue. Legolas started to howl in pain as his flesh sizzled and smoked.

But even that was not quite enough.

So I dug deep and pulled forth all the amber, black, and silver mana I possessed, not holding back a single mana. Dark inky mana billowed out from my fingertips, joined by beautiful cords of amber energy snaking through the shadowy mist. The inherent instability of the combined mana caused the cloud to churn violently, threatening to tear itself apart any second.

So I used the silver mana to contain, to guide, trying to provide structure without limiting potential. Slowly the mana formed into an amorphous cloud around me, roughly like the dome I could see and feel around Du’Andrazzil. And then, I willed the construct to drain the lifeforce around me and transfer it to me.

At first, nothing happened. There was resistance, a mental barrier. So I pushed harder, with all my willpower focused on that singular effort. And then, suddenly, I could feel it.

In the beginning, it was merely a trickle of energy that entered my body, but soon it became a steady stream. Not much, in the grand scheme of things, but it was the difference between life and death, victory and defeat.

And then, the cloud around Du’Andrazzil began to fade, and the impact of my cloud became even more noticeable. It was a heady rush of power and potential available at my fingertips. And I wanted more of it.

It was almost addictive. Scratch that. It was incredibly addictive.

I felt like a little godling.

Granted, I was still barely able to fend off the remaining goblins that were meekly swarming around me while keeping the elf contained, who, despite being impaled by a fucking fire-sword, was still struggling, still trying to push me off.

The goblins cut me, scratched me, hit me, but I shrugged it all off. I had gone through much worse during the last days, unimaginable pain and suffering, so this was a child’s play. Especially because I was healed continuously, albeit at a fairly slow pace.

Then the first goblin died, and I could feel the stream of energy slow down. Soon the second and third goblin faded away, and after another twenty seconds or so, all of them felt like empty husks to my life-draining cloud.

And then there was only the elf and me.

“Didn’t expect to find me here, motherfucker, huh?” I grunted while stared at his face, trying to find a reason to spare Du’Andrazzil. Not that I really wanted to. And what I found didn’t change my mind. There were fear and shock, but also hunger. And that last one made me shudder, reminding me vividly of the horror of being sucked dry by the vampire elf.

So I just stood there, keeping him contained and waited for the life to leave the once beautiful elf.

It felt sad, yet righteous.

And once it was done, I leaned forward, panting hard.

But satisfied.

This had been a good victory. Not well planned, but well-executed. Developing new spells on the fly wasn’t something I should get used to, but it felt oh so good. And the life drain was a potent spell. Low powered and with a huge mana cost, yes, but if I could maintain that in a melee fight, especially against swarms of smaller creatures… a game-changer.

And it was the first time I had actually used the synergy ability of the silver mana. That alone gave me cause to celebrate. Finally, my choice of silver mana, in the beginning, seemed to pay off bigtime dividends. I mean, yeah, silver mana had allowed me to take on different cores, but that by itself was not enough to justify a restricted classification. Combining different mana into more potent spells was.

And all because I had seen of Du’Andrazzil’s artifact in action. Otherwise, I would have never known what that kind of spell might look like.

Speaking of… I should probably search the bodies and get the hell out of there. I still needed to find the exit if there was one.

But first… vampires! With a bit of effort, I broke off one of the posts from the dilapidated bed, sharpened it with my dagger, and then jammed it into Du’Andrazzil’s heart. I had no idea if vampires in this world were the same as in fantasy novels, but I was not going to take the risk. Maybe I should cut off the head as well… but, honestly, that felt a bit too grisly. The stake would have to do. And I did not have any place to bury the fucking head anyway.

Once I was done with my precautionary efforts, I searched Du’Andrazzil’s corpse. Which was when I realized that he had actually pilfered the rings and the bag from me when he left me for dead. Just another reason to be mad at the dick. But he had paid for it with his life and got a stake through the heart. So I’d call it even.

Of course, it had also cost me that one golden mana…

Nothing I could do about it.

In addition to my stuff, Du’Andrazzil had an amulet that glowed with some magical energy and a cloak that was in much better condition than my own, so I took all of that. Beyond that, there wasn’t really much of interest on his body or on any of the goblins that were lying scattered around the room.

With some effort, I put the crossbeam back into place on the door and settled down to recover my mana. Three hours more or less wasn’t going to make a difference, but having the mana very well might. Once I was done, I made my way over to the brightly lit corridor.

Time to find out if there was an escape from this dungeon.

The hallway went straight for a good twenty yards before ending in a circular room. On the opposite wall, there was an ominous-looking archway leading into stairs descending into the dark. Just looking at it gave me a creepy, dark vibe, so I decided to keep my distance from that.

There was no way I wanted to go down anyway. Up was the direction I really needed. And this might very well lead to the second level of the dungeon, and I was not ready for that. Juicy as the rewards for completing the first level had been, it was not enough for me to be tempted by the deeper levels. I mean, it probably came with worse monsters and I had barely managed what the first level had to offer.

No sir. Not now. Perhaps not ever.

Which left the other central feature of the room.

In the middle of the chamber was an oval-shaped arch, with a shimmering and flickering surface, like a giant TV screen with a really low refreshment rate, spanning the whole area inside the stone frame. The arch was densely covered in runes that were lit by an eerie white light.

As I stepped closer, I began to better make out the image visible in the shimmering surface – it looked like a mountaintop in an alpine area, just as one might find on one of the higher peaks in the Adirondacks. Of course, it could be anywhere. But at least I did not see something that indicated that this was going into space or underwater.

Just in case this was not, as I suspected, a portal, I threw a coin into the screen. The surface shimmered briefly, and the runes on the arch flared a tiny bit, and then the coin was gone. And, even though it was hard to make out, I thought that I could see the coin roll around a tiny bit on the stone and then come to a stop.

So unless this was a really elaborate visual illusion, hellbent on luring a person to step into the screen for some nefarious reason… this was almost certainly a teleporter.

Since there was no reasonable alternative option anyway, I shrugged my shoulders, drew my sword, just in case, and stepped through the arch.