We knew Skyler and his party would be at the very end of the Mistress’ dungeon, so we had a good distance to trek before we got there. With the Muck-cow sauce still in our system, Aeris and I didn’t waste any time.

She had inventoried her armor and still wore her black pants and pink tank-top. She bent over to stretch, placing both palms on the ground as if humans were supposed to be that flexible.

I cast Invisible on both of us after removing my platemail. I had invested in some Umbros, soccer shorts, after everyone had given me a hard time with my other athletic shorts. My long sleeve shirt was charcoal blue with Level Up written in yellow, that went well with the black of my shorts. After going Advanced In The Buff, I turned to her.

She was already shaking her head. “No thank you. I never showed you everything I got from leveling when we defeated the vampires army.” She said.

Holding out her hand, she closed her eyes. The muscles at her temps flexed. A silver cloud seeped out of her palm and surrounded her ethereal form. It started to collapse, as it filtered into her limbs. I was only able to see it because of I was observing her with Mana Sight, but the small aura of silver had intensified. She now shone like a silver torch in the magic realm. Invisible mostly held back her aura to the rest of the world.

“Do try to keep up.” She challenged with a smirk.

I felt the surge of magic echo off her as she shot out of the mess hall.

With a chuckle, I sped after her. Turning into the hall, I saw that she had already covered the one hundred meters between us and our new base.

I had only taken a few strides when she approached Russ. Instead of going around she jumped, floating over him and his entire forgery with effortless grace.

All I could do was shake my head as I picked up speed. I might not have had any special talent for speed, but with the base stats of 64 Strength and 100 Dexterity, plus an additional +300 to each stat from In The Buff, I didn’t need it.

Reaching Russ, I dipped low and launched myself up into the air. As opposed to floating, I barreled over him and pounded into the ground nearly forty feet away. My landing was loud enough that everyone at our base looked in my direction, but I was already off again and out of the room.

They would likely guess what was going on when my Skeleton minion came lumbering after us.

I stretched out my stride and set a steady flow of healing magic into my system to battle my exhaustion before it could take hold of me. Like a truck with the gas floored I plowed through anything that got in my way and sped from room to room.

I had almost made it to the Skeleton Archers before I saw Aeris again. She wasn’t running in a straight line.

She swerved toward the next skeleton, cast a compressed Gust that blew it apart, then skid under a flying femur and immediately jumped as she came to her feet, clearing the mob’s skull before gravity could pull it to the stone floor.

A skeleton to her left was her next victim, but as soon as it was in pieces, she was already destroying another, then entering the next room.

Hundreds of bones fell to the ground as I followed her from the room.

I charged forward, catching her, but only because she was still weaving about killing skeletons and leaving a trail of bones in her wake.

The competitive side of me couldn’t help it, but to see it as a challenge.

I left an Intermediate Health Bomb build in each hand. As she set her sights on entering the next room, I launched it forward. It entered just ahead of her.

As we were about to enter, a flare of light went off near the middle of the room before us.

She was waiting for me with her arms crossed.

I saw that my Health Bomb had done the trick and took out most of the Archers that had been waiting for us.

She narrowed her gaze, accepting my challenge. Quicker than my eyes could follow, she turned and headed straight for the next room.

I tried to follow, but without boosting my buffs there was just no way.

Like wading through fields of sparse grass, I had to watch my step as I ran from room to room. Her speed and mobility were impressive, but I was sure she would soon slow. Then another full minute passed and still she continued on, baffling me how she had the endurance necessary. As we got deeper into the dungeon, there were less skeleton bodies than before. The difficulty was getting higher, but she still continued to massacre them. When we reached the doorway to the Skeleton Sentinels, I found her waiting for me.

I heard the air fill her lungs as she took in a large pool of air. She let it slowly escape from her nose.

“That was fun.” She said, doing her best to disguise her breathing as I strolled up from behind.

Casting Heal on her, I heard no objections as it helped her recover faster.

“How did you do that?” I asked.

She met my eyes. The color had gone out of them in her see-through state, but her pupils were still visible.

“The Wind Magic buffs usually just make a person faster I’ve read, but my talent adds a weightless property to them. After we beat the Zombie Sergeant, I was able to unlock a few new spells.”

“Do you have some other surprises?”

She scrunched up her nose like I had asked her something inappropriate.

“A girl doesn’t tell.” She insisted.

I snorted, before changing the subject. “Are you ready for this?”

“What do you have in mind?”

***

The bones of the Skeleton Sentinels were mostly hidden because of their excess armor. The bone of their ribs was shielded by thick a breast plate of bone plates that fit together like joints. Their waist and pelvis were covered by this same extension of armor. Their legs were wrapped in similar plates and even their feet were encased in extra bone. Three of them stood shoulder to shoulder as one unit.

The sledge brothers didn’t flinch away from a one on one with the three of them. Skyler and the two guys mimicking his fighting style stood their ground as the Sentinels marched toward them at a brusque pace.

The three guys were still using war hammers, but their gear had completely changed. They each wore platemail, but there were slight differences between each one of them. The smallest guy was named George was level 154 and had silver runes etched into his grey steel mail. The tallest guy’s name was Perry. He was level 155 and had brown runes in white steel mail. Not surprising, Skyler was the highest level of the three at level 159. He also looked to be thirty percent bigger than they were even if he wasn’t the tallest among them. That was saying a lot considering they were all using Strength builds and likely had close to the same amount.

Skyler’s armor didn’t have any runes I could see, but his mail was streaked in black and red. There was no doubt that he won all the cool points.

When the Sentinels were about fifteen feet out, Trevon, their level 152 Ice Mage, cast a sheet of ice across the floor.

The Sentinels slid forward with each step, lowering themselves to keep their footing.

Trevon still wore a monk like garb but had upgraded it. He was teal from top to bottom except for his large bronze belt buckle, a round golden pendant with a red ruby handing from his neck.

Holding up her hand, Clarissa, was hiding her blond hair under a visorless sallet helmet. She was level 150 and wore a black cloak over a purple gown that had the typical mage flare to it. I intensified the magic to my vision to see the brown light seep from her hand and approach at the backs of the sledge brothers like a fog. The magic bypassed them entirely and entered the ground between Skyler’s men and the Sentinels.

A row of stone spikes shot out toward the incoming Sentinels reaching up to their waste.

When they were only a few feet from colliding with them another hand shot up, causing a crimson cloak to snap with the sudden movement. The red light that left her hand didn’t creep slowly like the last one but flew high into the air before smoldering into life, igniting in flame. Fire rained down, blanketing the Sentinels.

I watched as the fire blinded the skeletons momentarily, but it did more than that. It ate at the bone, greedily sucking all the moisture it could get from the marrow inside.

It was no wonder their Fire Mage, Audrey was level 158, the second highest level among them. She was also the only caster to wear any armor. It was a smooth leather breast plate of deep red and black that hid under her cloak. She was tall, but petite with caramel skin and her short hair was curled up under her Corinthian bronze helm.

As the skeletons slipped into the stone spikes with flames still blocking their vision, three cold steel sledge hammers were thrust forward into the Sentinel’s shields. The creatures stumbled back and started to fall to the icy floor.

With their mobs positioned at their feet, the sledge brothers raised their axes like woodcutters preparing to split wood. Their hammers fell.

It was too easy.

Before their hammers finished the three Sentinels, my healing spell reached the mobs, causing them to crumble into dust.

Their hammers pounded against the ground.

Aeris threw her hand over her mouth to keep her laughter from escaping.

I nudged her with my arm.

We stood directly in front of our friends a dozen feet behind the remains of the Sentinels they had just faced. Standing here, they were less likely to see us as we cast our spells.

“Eh.” Perry complained.

“You are getting too powerful Audrey.” Skyler said turning about and giving her a flirty grin.

Aeris looked up to me wide eyed.

I shrugged.

“That wasn’t me.” Audrey replied squinting at the screen in front of her. “I don’t think we got any experience from them.”

“What?!” Skyler bellowed. “How’s that possible?”

“I don’t know…”

I held my finger to my mouth as Aeris looked to me with concern to shush her.

She took a deep breath.

“I’ll pull the next group.” Audrey said.

With my hand on Aeris’ shoulder, I had her duck down slowly.

A fire ball soared in our direction, but off to the side, hitting another trio of Sentinels.

The skeletons immediately started this way. From the angle that they were coming, we were safe to stay where we were.

Leaning over, I whispered in her ear. “It’s your turn.”

Just as before, the Sledge brothers lined up to face the Sentinels as they came.

Their strategy was one born of necessity to include the strengths of all their party members. They had a lot of variety, so there were so many things they could have done, but still, what they had decided to do worked.

The ground froze under the skeleton’s feet and once again they started to slide. Stone spikes shot up to position the mob’s stopping position.

I watched Aeris all the while. Her eyes shifted from one thing to the next as she calculated what she was going to do.

As Audrey’s flame appeared above her party, Aeris turned her head to the side. When the fire came, a grin turned up the corner of her mouth.

Aeris’ hand shot out.

Fire funneled down and baked the Sentinels that had almost reached the group’s tanks.

As mana was focused into Aeris’ spell, I could feel waves of energy against my skin. Like a boomerang, her Wind Slash darted forwards than swept across the back of the Skeleton Sentinel’s necks.

Before the Sledge Brother’s had made their first attack, they watched the enemy before them as their heads fell from their shoulders.

“Kevin!” Skyler cried. “Was that you?”

“Nope!”

Aeris and I both jumped up from our crouching position as the noise came from directly behind us.

Platemail or not, Skeleton General’s Defense surrounded me in bone platemail that the Skeleton Sentinels would have been jealous of. In one hand a Health Bullet formed and in the other an Alpha Bullet.

“I found the experience Thief!” The voice called again, but he was still invisible to me.

Throwing hundreds of extra MP into my eyes, Mana Sight allowed me to pick up traces of the shadow magic that shrouded someone standing before me. Taking advantage of how time sped up while I was in this state, I examined the invisible person with Creature Observation. To my surprise, it actually worked now that I knew he was there.

It was Kevin, their dual knife wielder, who was level 161. He was a higher level than Skyler.

I was able to see the Sledge Brothers moving in slow motion as they started to head around the stone spikes to walk this way. Their mages were also craning their necks to get a better view.

In my panic, I had foolishly jumped up out of invisibility and summoned my skeletal armor that everyone knew I possessed. Was there any way to get out of this? It would take a moment before invisible fully took effect again.

I doubted Kevin could see us while we were invisible. He had probably just been watching after they didn’t get experience and seen Aeris appear when she cast her spell. The fact he said thief and not thieves made that even more likely.

Then, I noticed that Aeris was gone. Not that she had already turned invisible but wasn’t there at all.

I scanned the room, seeing nothing, but when I finally looked up, I saw her close to the ceiling, moving faster than everyone else.

Well, I was about to be found out and all the blame would fall upon me. What could I do? There was one thing that came to mind.

Allowing the mana to continue to flow into my eyes, I dropped Skeleton General’s Defense at the same time I cast Bat Form.

I didn’t take form immediately. The magic was flowing at its normal speed but couldn’t match the rate that I observed it.

My skeletal armor dissolved into nonexistence first. Only then did my body start to change. It was as if my body shrunk before my eyes. My head seemed to stay the same size while my body rose from the floor. I became a giant bat at about head level. Immediately I began to flap my wings to climb into the air. I would do my best to follow Aeris. Where ever she was going.

As I released Forced Learn, time sped back into place and I lifted quickly into the air, making it to the ceiling in only a few flaps of my wings.

Aeris had caught herself on the ceiling by flipping and landing there on her feet, then jumping off toward the rear of Skyler’s group.

I followed her by skirting along the ceiling.

“Who is it!” Skyler bellowed as he made it around the stone spikes.

“I. I could have sworn that I just saw a large skeleton, but now its gone.” Kevin called.

“Could it be a boss mob?!” Asked Clarissa with a stutter.

“A boss mob killing other mobs?” Skyler replied.

“We didn’t get a kill this time either!” Audrey confirmed.

As they gathered around Kevin below, an idea came to mind that was too good to pass up. It was time I shared one of my favorite jokes even if it would give us away. It would be well worth it.

Looking toward Aeris, she had made her way to a side room and entered safely without anyone seeing her.

With a little bat shrug, I decided it was time.

Turning toward the group of confused players, a large dose of giddiness shot up my spine and I let out a squeaky laugh.

I flew right at them.

As I neared, I dived down, opening my bat mouth in a fang filled grin and screeched, “Bat man!”

They turned to me as one with their sledges and magic ready.

My large bat eyes went wide. Immediately, I retreated out of bat form and cast Skeleton General’s Defense.

Instead of meeting the brunt of their magic and steel, they jumped back.

I landed on the ground with a solid thud with enough of an angle that it sent me rolling.

“Elorion?!” Kevin cried.

Nearly ten feet away I stopped rolling.

“What in the Underworld are you doing man?” Skyler demanded.

Collecting myself I hopped to my feet. Turning to them through the eyes of the Skeleton General’s Skull, which was actually my helm, I saw both relief and irritation.

Looking from one serious face to the next I was no longer able to help myself. What started as a snicker soon turned into a full belly laugh. I tried to answer the question while holding myself back, but it proved difficult.

Uncasting my skeletal helmet, I ultimately told them the truth. “Its Aeris’ fault!”

“No, it’s not!” She called as she stepped from outside of the room she was hiding in.

Their eyes went wide as the turned to see that she was behind them.

“It was you’re idea!” She insisted.

“That’s right! I had this genius idea and instead of stopping me, you decided to come with me. It’s totally your fault.”

Clarissa started to giggle, shortly followed by Audrey.

Aeris’ mouth stood open as she shook her head but was interrupted before she could respond.

“What idea, to steal our kills?!” Skyler accused.

“Well, kind of.” I replied scratching my head. “Honestly, we ate some magic bacon with happy sauce and wanted to see your faces when your mobs started dying without explanation.”

“You stole our kills! That goes against the gamer code! Its unforgivable!”

I couldn’t help but to chuckle at his response.

Audrey rolled her eyes and hugged Aeris who had stepped up next to her, joining her and Clarissa.

“That was pretty funny.” Kevin said, coming out of invisibility.

“Bat man!” George, the shortest Sledge Brother yelled with a laugh.

Everyone laughed. Everyone but Skyler.

Taking his helm off, Skyler wore a nasty scowl.

“I’ll make it up to you Skyler.” I promised.

His scowl remained as his brow raised in question.

“You thought I was lying when I said there was magic bacon and happy sauce... Would you like to try some?”

“Really.” Aeris encouraged. “The sauce holds properties that make you really, really… uh, happy.”

“Happy.” I said, drawing out the word like it had some special power.

“You guys are acting kind of strange,” Audrey said.

“I do like bacon.” Skyler said, as the hints of a smile started to overtake his scowl.

“My man!” I declared.

We all came together in a huddle as they started to discuss how much longer they were going to hunt here when a dark static began to bombard us from the direction of the entrance to the room. We all turned at once.

A small woman with vibrant red hair hanging down past her waist stared back at us. The magic power that beamed off her was clear as day even with minimal mana funneled to my eyes. She looked like a black sun, with tendrils of dark magic snaking off of her.

Only after we had seen her did she hold back the power emanating from her. It was then that I saw the red silk looped over a single shoulder than hung down over her enticing form. She was barefoot, which seemed to add to the illusion that she was delicate and needed extra attention.

“So, you are Lilith’s new pets. A bunch of weak idiots.”

“We are getting stronger!” Skyler spit. “Who are you?”

“Someone who is really hoping you will make a mistake, so I have an excuse to devour you.”

If there was ever any question in my mind as to what she was, that had been answered. She was undoubtedly a succubus.