Lauren hadn’t waited for a moment after Rav had huffed into camp and told Nate about the dungeon. The fact that she heard that asshole, Anthony, was ‘keeping watch’ there pissed her off even more. Rav might be too simple to catch on, but it was clear to Lauren that Cocksucker McFuckface planned on clearing the dungeon himself and keeping the best of the spoils before everyone else got there.

What was going to happen was that Lauren was going to show up, kill him, and then pick up where he left off. At least he’ll have probably had the decency to collect a bit of the loot and store it on his corpse before she got there. How sweet.

And if, for some reason, he actually is watching the entrance like Rav said, then he’s clearly too dumb to live for not taking advantage of that opportunity. There’s no way the dungeon is actually difficult, at least if you have more brain in your head than shit. It was clear to Lauren that she could finish the dungeon, in its entirety, by herself, before the sun came up.

And on that note…

People had been mentioning something about the ‘dangers of the night’. Like, the first night was safe, for the most part, but after that, things came out to hunt. Stuff that their teachers had warned them about. That was why the monsters had built a camp. That was why her group had built a camp. But honestly, Lauren knew she was the powerhouse of the camp anyway, so she’d be totally safe. Annnnd technically Nate hadn’t ordered her to stick around so…

Eh, maybe he’d be mad, but he’d get over it.

…

It still made her feel weird.

The running helped.

The sun had mostly disappeared behind the giant sky-rings, meaning it was getting harder and harder to see.

Or, it would, if her 25 Perception didn’t afford her a certain edge when it came to night vision. There wasn’t an adjustment time, her eyes simply pierced the darkness as though it were nothing… within a certain range. She could still see much further during the day, but she was confident she would see any threats before they saw her.

The only issue being that she didn’t quite know where the dungeon was. Rav had come from the direction in which she was now running, which she figured was most likely to be a bee line from the dungeon, but… people can be so very dumb… she could have been wrong.

Maybe this was a bad idea.

No, nonsense. What, should she go back to camp with her tail between her legs while some dick takes her loot? It would be much more of a chore to steal it after he was back with the group. That wouldn’t do at all. Unacceptable, honestly.

Her pace quickened.

The sun slipped away.

It became… really dark.

And… something was… definitely moving… behind her.

Her Endurance wasn’t anything special, not like her other Primary Skills, but her Agility afforded her an incredibly fast movement speed while she was able to run. Didn’t dampen the Stamina usage though… and her bar had just reached the last quarter, glowing a dull red in her vision.

There wasn’t any going back now. There might not even be any going forward, she realized. If she chose to fight here, she’d have to win quickly and take some time to rest and recover Stamina… which relied on nothing else being attracted by the sounds of fighting.

A bad gamble.

But continuing to run meant she either made it to the dungeon, or ran out of stamina and died like a dog…

No. That wasn’t right.

NO.

Fucking never again would she feel inferior, weaker, or at the mercy of ANYTHING.

Mercy was hers alone to give, and her supply was lacking.

Diving forward, she executed a front roll and used her combined Agility and Perception to size up her attacker mid-maneuver. Even upside down, she could tell this thing was going to be more of a fight than usual. It seemed to bleed shadows, standing on two legs with a hulking upper body with overly long arms that it used to move. Instead of eyes, a deep red-gold emanated from narrow slits. It had no obvious weapons.

She doubted it needed any.

Thankfully, it was just the one, and as her roll ended, her knife appeared in her hand and she planted her back foot to shift her center of gravity forward, maximizing the impact of her comparatively smaller Strength.

Her stance was perfect, and the shadow chasing her couldn’t have expected her to entirely reverse her momentum from a full run in less than a second, so it was very surprising that the thing managed to change its course mid-stride, dodging into an aerial corkscrew. This caused it to only sustain a long scratch along the outside of its body instead of impaling itself on her waiting dagger.

It didn’t matter, of course, and a cruel smile crossed her face as her experimental poison activated to great effect.

The monster landed skillfully and was just shifting forward to launch an attack of its own when the wound erupted in fire.

The unearthly scream that followed was the stuff of nightmares, and bothered Lauren’s sensibilities too much to allow it to continue.

A knife bounced off the creature’s head, handle first, but the mistake was quickly rectified as two more daggers embedded themselves in the places where its strange eyes made clear targets in the dark.

The scream cut off.

[Congratulations, you defeated a Dwarf Shade. +50 Power]

Damn, these things really hate fire. She had watched as the light seemed to cause the ‘Shade’ to disintegrate near the wound. Whatever its health, it certainly didn’t last long after losing a substantial chunk of its body. All that was left after a few moments was a small pool of black liquid, and her throwing knives. She moved to collect the weaponry, but the nearby howls of anger and pain threw her into a panicked run instead. She could always come back later, now she had to run. Fast.

Her Stamina hadn’t had the chance to recover much at all, and the dodge roll, though perfect, used a large chunk of her remaining Stamina.

She had trained enough to know how fast her Stamina ran out.

She had seconds. And there was nowhere to hide here. If she was in a dungeon? Easy. She could pick them off one by one. She wasn’t being given the chance. She heard the cries, even louder now. They had found the body, and they were mad.

Her lungs burned, her legs were worse. She had trained for bursts of combat, not for endurance running and consecutive fights! This was so fucking unfair.

Not like this.

Please not like this.

Her Combat Proficiency was in a state of constantly screaming at her but having no advice. The sign of real danger. The sign she needed help.

A rock slammed against her calf, causing her to stumble slightly.

They had found her.

More stones soon followed, not dealing significant damage, but messing up her rhythm and causing her run slower. She had no time to look behind her and see by how much.

She could hear them closing in. Her Perception made sure she heard exactly how close they were.

Her Stamina ticked to 0, glowing angry red.

She did not stop.

Her vision started to fill with warnings from the game, her Health was steadily ticking down.

She was going to die out here, and it was entirely her fault.

She choked on her own breath, something like a sob escaping her mouth, as an uncaring claw pierced her side and she fell.