The scraping steps continued to reach their ears as they waited for it to appear. Colin managed to track the sound to the walkways somewhere above them and was glad to hear that whatever it was, seemed to be going away from them. He waited for a few seconds for the sound to die down a little before allowing himself to pay attention to anything else.

The room, no, the building seemed to be dominated by the massive machines before them.

Two giant turbine engines laid dormant, with each being a seemingly exact replica of the other and each taking up half the room. The engines had all of their shieldings removed, revealing the blades, bearings, hoses, and every bit of copper wiring. None of this could be up to OSHA standards, especially with the steel platforms that surrounded each of the engines. One even with himself and Nox, the other was a floor above them and was supported from the ceiling with heavy-duty wires. The back end of the turbines went into a wall around a hundred meters away with a single door right in the middle.

Colin walked in, taking special care to avoid making noise as he stepped onto the steel floor of the walkway. With a change in perspective, he was able to see that each turbine had several series of inactive control panels. These sat on the end of the machines nearest to them, wired to the turbines, but facing towards them.

“DevilWalker,” Nox whispered. “Would you like me to finish this quickly?”

“Think you can?” Colin asked.

The Goblin grinned, its sharp teeth and wide mouth made the simple look appear savage and disconcerting. A circle of darkness burst around its feet a moment before a burst of inky mist engulfed it. It dispersed into the aether seconds later, and Nox was nowhere to around. He waited a few seconds to see if he could hear anything happen.

But no sounds of conflict burst to meet his ear as the seconds passed on. The only thing he heard was the ever-present THUMP and SCRATCH of the things footsteps as whatever it was moved.

Crouching, Colin stealthed over to the control panels on the left. He was disappointed but not surprised when he found that the controls were labeled in a language he didn’t know. It did seem to resemble Asian characters vaguely. Still, the layer of complexity was different enough that he couldn’t even begin to translate it.

He could make a few guesses of what individual buttons and switches did from their positions and prominence, but even that could be wrong.

The building rattled as a detonation of sound reached his ears, followed immediately and overlapping with a feral scream. It sounded like a pig, adult male, and a lion were sharing the same chest and roared in rage. Whatever was making this sound had to be huge, given the size of the lungs necessary to keep going for as long as it did.

The second the roar ended, the sound of glass shattering broke the silence several times in a row, one after another. Rushing air moved around the building as the sounds of something hard impacting tough flesh reached his ears, then another, and another. It sounded like someone was hitting a punching bag in quick succession but amplified a hundredfold.

After the eighth or ninth blow, the barrage ended, and the creature growled again in a challenge.

Nox’s voice pierced through the building as he screamed, something oddly feral in his previously refined voice. “Die! You Goatbanger, Die! Die! Just fucking die!” the Goblin screamed again and again.

The stream of expletives and orders to die ended, rattling chains took up Nox’s silence as the creature seemed to roar its protest.

Shadows burst apart to Colin’s right, and he ducked behind the control panel he was inspecting as Nox reappeared, huffing from exertion. A thin sheen of sweat was gathering into beads on its forehead, and its right hand was clutching something that was starting to smoke. Nox’s mouth was closed tightly as it released its grip and dropped the single link of chain that it was holding in its hand. The looped piece of metal was glowing pale blue-white with cracks of red glowing light marring its blackened surface.

“Damn the Heavens,” Nox hissed as it held its hand out, palm up, as its other hand reached inside its coat. Charred skin in the shape of a chain loop scarred his palm, and the entire hand was shaking with the pain. “Of course the final room for you had to have a fucking Columbine Mutator at its final stages. If we had an army or a group of Plague Hunters, maybe we could defeat this thing, but alone?!” it hissed angrily as it finally found what it was looking for.

Withdrawing a small bottle of red liquid, Nox poured half over his palm and took the rest down in a single pull. Before his eyes, Nox’s skin started to regenerate as the fluid seeped into the skin and filled in the burn portions with clean green flesh. Seconds after the potion was consumed, the skin healed, and Nox pocketed the bottle as it flexed its fingers.

The hand dealt with; the Goblin looked to Colin with a severe look in its yellow eyes. “We need to find the door out of this room. We cannot defeat this thing. A full-grown Columbine Mutator if damn near impossible to kill, and we are not prepared to fight it.” Nox whispered, hoping Colin would get the hint.

“What is a Columbine Mutator?” Colin asked, eyes locking with Nox. “Explain.”

“We don’t have time,” Nox said, pointing above them and ahead. Its claw-tipped finger pointed towards the wall the turbines went through, “it was on the second story past that wall. My chains will only hold for another-” it paused, thinking or looking at its own interface. “Twenty-two seconds before it gets loose.

“Answer me,” Colin pushed. “What is a Columbine Mutator?”

Teeth bared in a snarled, Nox answered, “The Columbine Mutator are nexuses of both life and death energies that never let them die easily. They are humanoids that have parasites within them that makes their hosts violent and nigh-unstoppable if fully grown. When they are hurt killed, a Columbine Mutator will grow stronger and adapt to whatever harmed them. The most common power that they mutate is hyper-regeneration and body enhancement. In other words, they are usually big, strong, and heal insanely quickly. Good enough?!”

Colin barely got the chance to process the information before the sound of shearing metal echoed to them, and a furious roar challenged the room.

“How big is this thing?” Colin asked, looking towards where Nox had pointed.

Nox was looking in the same direction as Colin as he spoke, “big. At least twelve feet tall and built like a gorilla.”

“Did you hit it with everything?” Colin asked as the sound of its steps reached them, the beat of its steps now faster than the walk it was doing earlier.

“No, but I fear that brute force is not the idea here,” Nox said, hand reaching under its jacket and towards the small of its back. “It hit it hard enough to bend forged Sansinite, and it healed immediately. No, there has to be another way. No dungeon is unbeatable,” Nox said under his breath.

Looking at the control panel they were hiding, Colin pointed at a label that was stuck under the dashboard and contained the same language that covered the controls. “Do you have any idea what this says?”

“Yeah,” Nox answered. “It says warning, electrical hazard. Do not touch. Why?”

Scowling, Colin was about to explain when the upper portion of the wall above the door, leading to the next area, exploded.

Peeking out from behind the control panel, Colin got his first look at this Columbine Mutator, and his heart dropped in his chest.

It was easily as tall as Nox said but severely understated how solidly built this monster was. Its legs looked just a little too thin to hold up the rest of its massive build and a torso that grew larger as its waist reached its rib cage. Its shoulders were massive and led into gigantic arms that ended in long yellow fetid claws. Every inch of exposed skin looked like bands of muscles that were layered over itself again and again. Its head was the scariest part of the creature; its face covered in a mask of yellow stained bone surrounded by exposed muscle with three yellow-red eyes searching the room. The third eye that sat in the middle of its forehead swiveled around, halfway out of its socket, it’s gaze darting independently around the room.

“That’s a Columbine Mutator?” Colin asked as quietly as he could.

Nox nodded.

Colin’s heart beat fast as his mind raced to try to think of something he could do against that thing. He had no equipment that could hurt it if its regeneration powers held true. The only magic ability he knew, kinetic Vigor, wouldn’t hurt the monster since it was a simple boost to his physical stats. The Machines around him were dead and unresponsive since no buzz of power could be heard from within the control panel.

Colin looked at the Goblin next to him and thought one very depressing thought. If Nox couldn’t do anything against it, what could he expect to do?

“DevilWalker?! Stay with me here,” Nox said, pushing a silver flask the size of Colin’s palm into it. “Drink this, it will help,” he whispered.

He sniffed it tentatively at first but mentally shrugged when nothing hit his nose. He tilted his head back and took two swallows of the fluid before some of it hit his system immediately.

You have drunk a dose of the Goblin Brew, Qorze. While not brewed magically, this alcoholic beverage is known to have near-perfect smoothness, absolutely no odor, and helps clear the mind of negativity(Knowledge; spiritcraft). The Goblin Brew, Qorze, has removed the hidden debuff; Doubt. The effect of Qorze will also keep the debuff from returning for the next few minutes.

The more he learned about this world, the more he got annoyed by its many hidden nuances and frightened by how it affected him personally. Now that he was clear of the debuff, he could tell that doubt had been worming into his mind. Making him unsure if anything they tried to do would prove useful. Fear would have been preferable to doubt, fear can spur a man forward and help him achieve his goals, but doubt is far more insidious. Doubt can make you hesitate and question yourself at the wrong moment. Fear can be forged into a weapon, but doubt might as well be a death sentence.

In Colin’s opinion, at least.

“Better?” Nox asked, taking the flask back and tucking it into another pocket within his duster.

Colin nodded, “how did you know I had the debuff?”

Nox shrugged, “I had it too. I’m just able to recognize my own thoughts, and this did not sound like me,” Nox said, flashing a small, sharp-toothed smile.

Nodding, Colin figured he should have known too, but he didn’t even know that he would have to watch his mental personality. Now with the debuff gone and his mind calmer than mere moments ago, Colin put his mind to work.

The creature growled as its eyes surveyed the room. Every time he looked, there was something new and twisted about the creature that he’d missed before. Like now, Colin could see its chest heave up and down as it breathed and showed off its sharp-looking teeth. He observed it for a few more seconds before the Mutator started to tromp around on the railing above the turbines. Its eyes never seemed to stop looking for Nox.

Turning back to Nox, Colin pointed to the warning sticker that the Goblin had translated a minute or two ago. “What language is this?”

“Gnome,” Nox answered quietly. “Why?”

Nodding to Nox’s words, Colin thought about the building they were in. The facility was an experimental power testing site that was dead as a doornail. Every safety guard that the turbines would have had on Earth had been removed or never installed at all. It was likely that these machines were missing critical pieces too. He had no idea what could have been in the area where the Mutator burst from. Still, Colin doubted he could have gotten to that area without being seen and summarily slaughtered.

“What’s the best way to kill a Mutator?” Colin asked softly, following the Columbine Mutator with his eyes and ears when he couldn’t see it.

Nox had a similar attitude as Colin, keep your eyes on the enemy. It spoke quietly while shrugging, “you either have to use the right poison to cancel out its hyper-regeneration, or you need to deal enough continuous damage to overcome it. Why do you ask? We need to get past it and find the way forward, not defeat it.”

But Colin missed the last part of Nox’s statement. He was too focused on the plan that was starting to come together in his head. It was stupid, dangerous, required no small amount of luck, and was beyond his expertise. However, the small, green humanoid might have been precisely what he needed.

“What do you know about this kind of machinery?” Colin asked, pointing to the control panel they were hiding next to.

“These Gnomish-contraptions? Yeah, I know enough about these devices to know I much prefer my alchemical solutions and magic. Why do you ask?” Nox hissed in annoyance.

Colin smiled, “what do you know about Tesla coils?”

Nox had cocked his head for a moment before his grin became a feral version of Colin’s. “It will take some time to get ready. There’s not even power to these units, and I’ll have to jury-rig something for that.”

“How long?”

Nox shrugged, “at least a few minutes. Think you can get its attention and survive its tender mercies?”

“No problem. Just assume that you are free to start working when you hear my girlish screams of terror,” Colin said, winking at the Goblin.

“Wait,” Nox hissed, reaching into one of his many long coat pockets. “Take these. I need you alive to get me out of here,” the Goblin explained before Colin could even think to ask why. The Goblin produced four vials of fluid. One red with black flakes, one blue with inky consistency, the next was black that somehow was prismatic at the same time, and the last one had a clear fluid that swirled black smoke within it.

“The first one is a health potion, obvious with the red color. The second one summons a Phantasmal Shadow, use that one last. The black one infuses the target with Cloying Darkness; you’ll see what it does. The last one you’ll want to throw under its feet. Got that?”

Colin nodded, mirth gone. He looked at the forth vial and looked through it at Nox, “Let’s get this party started.”

Nox’s yellow eyes rolled up towards the ceiling as Colin stepped away from the two’s hiding spot and head kept towards the shadows. He moved away from the area he heard the Mutator’s claw scraping walk, hoping to first get it into view before moving towards it. He was around the right side of the second turbine when he managed to get a look at it again. The disproportionate monstrosities eyes scanned the building, the third eye rapidly moving towards each creak and groan of the building.

Internally groaning, Colin hated what he was about to do.

“Hey, Fugly!” Colin shouted, both hands to the side of his mouth. “Why don’t you get your turd loving, pond scum guzzling, gene pool reject ass down here,” Colin shouted, taking a few skipping steps back and away from the monster. If you were going to insult a monster, might as well go the whole nine yards, “bitch!”

All three of the creature’s eyes locked onto him in a heartbeat, and it leaned forward, letting loose a roar of pure rage. Colin got the impression that this was one of those monsters that didn’t get angry situationally. It was always pissed off.

The moment it started moving towards him, Colin squeezed the bottle in his hand tightly in anticipation as he waited for it to jump down to him. It barreled through the safety railing and hopped to the floor, where Colin was already halfway to throwing the bottle. After making a slight adjustment for aim, the bottle flew, landing to the right of where Colin was sighting on.

That fact didn’t seem to matter to the thrown potion as it shattered on the ground. The wispy tendrils of shadow trapped within the vial burst from the clear fluid and sunk into the floor. A perfect circle of perfect black shadow four feet across appeared on the floor. From this hole, a four-foot fist of swirling shadow shot out and punched the Mutator like a three-ton battering ram.

While bulky, the Mutator couldn’t help but get flung up and away from the dark hole in the ground. Then, as soon as it happened, the smoky black fist dissolved into the air before the Mutator fell from its impromptu flight. It reached a height of six feet into the air and landed with a solid crash that rattled Colin’s entire body.

It laid prone on the ground for several seconds as it merely breathed. When it started trying to get up, Colin took several steps away and readied himself to run away from it. Unfortunately, he needed the freakish creature to follow him and away from Nox.

All three eyes locked back onto Colin as it got up shakily, it’s overly broad arms not designed for this. Good to know, yes. Currently useful, not unless he had a way to keep knocking it to the ground. It panted as it stood, the little wisps of a voice that escaped it sounded painfully human and tortured.

Once, it had returned to its thin, frail-looking legs. Colin smiled as he decided now was the time to play around. Bending his knees and waist forward, Colin patted his knees and clapped his hands. Releasing a quick whistle, Colin called out to it like a man calling for a puppy, “who’s a good mutant freak! You are! Come on. Come get me!” Colin called out, smiling like a suicidal idiot.

When the creature roared, Colin bolted. He headed towards the only door away from the Mutator, which was way the hell over at the other side of the room. The creature was following him, that he knew for a fact. It’s every footstep was loud and never seemed to get any quieter as he ran away.

He heard it growl, and Colin took that as a warning sign. He dove forward, and combat rolled back to his feet. All in time to narrowly avoid the crash as its body impacted the ground where he’d been a second earlier.

It growled again and immediately attempted to pounce Colin again. Jumping to side, Colin drew the heavy dagger into his right hand and one of his regular daggers into his left. The creature landed with a crash that shook Colin almost off-balance. In the moment before it moved again, he plunged the heavy dagger into the nearest section of tissue to him, which happened to be its thick shoulder.

It resisted, but the heavy dagged parted the twisted flesh of the creature and dug halfway to its hilt. Taking the normal dagger, he drove it into the same spot and pulled both blades apart. The creature screamed in pain as it jerked that shoulder to dislodge him. It worked, but only after the damage had already been done.

Unfortunately, the movement that Colin considered a jerk to remove him was almost more like a judo throw that sent him into the wall.

You have impacted a wall for 20 points of damage. You now have 120 out of 140 health remaining.

The only thing Colin could think was ‘ow’ as he struggled to his feet and hurried away on three of his four limbs as he worked his way to two, somehow still clenching his blades. He chanced a look behind him only to see the creature remaining still for only a moment. Panting and the wound he inflicted healing, Wolverine-style, before his eyes. In seconds, the injury he inflicted was gone.

Teeth clenched, Colin turned back around and went from zero to sprint in only a moment. At the end of the walkway, Colin found a big warning sign in that same language that he couldn’t read as he turned sharply to the left. Ducking past the part of the machine that continued past the wall, he found the door and pushed his way inside.

To his left and right, Colin found the ends of the machines that continued into this room with heavy cables leading from them into the floor. Along the walls sat navy blue painted pallet racking that stood around twenty-five feet tall, and each holding large shrink-wrapped gaylords. Thirty yards directly ahead of him, a large roll-up door sat closed with an actual, yellow, and black painted forklift in front of it.

Colin internalized all this in the first few seconds before another thought occurred to him.

Holy shit, was he on Earth, or were these digitized gnomes just this good?

The sound of claws scraping against the wall, separating him from the Mutator brought Colin back to the task at hand, buying time. With a spark of inspiration, Colin sprinted towards the forklift and looked it over for a few seconds. Propane tank, automatic, lifting limit of 9000 pounds, fork positioner controls, all check and awesome. Even better, the keys were in the ignition.

So Colin put the daggers he was holding away and leaped into the seat. Opened up the valve for the propane, he turned it on. It roared to life, and he pulled the first lever on the left, raising the forks to around five feet in the air. He was closing the forks together when the Mutator knocked the doors off the hinges with a single swing of its fist.

Its eyes found the rumbling forklift, and it roared as it started to lumber towards him. Adrenaline pumping, Colin put the pedal to the metal as he charged the Mutator like a knight wielding a lance against a dragon. With the forklift’s closed forks being the lance and the revving vehicle beneath him the steed.

The Mutator crouched, clawed palms pressed to the ground like a cat in preparation to leap. It bent lower to the floor and flexed further as its claws dug slightly into the concrete as easily as clay.

Like a coiled snake, the Mutator sprung forward with its clawed hands extended forward and ready to impale him. Colin smiled as he adjusted the height of the forks and met the leap of the Mutator with the end of the improvised lance. With the combined momentum of both, the Columbine Mutator slid onto the arms of the lift, its thick red-black blood drizzling like syrup off the forks.

The twisted humanoid lashed out and still tried to reach Colin as it squealed in impotent rage and pain. It’s long, thick claws scored deep furrows in the roof of the protective cage of the vehicle, knocking off long scrapings of painted steel and sections of the overhead guard. Trusting Nox’s judgment of its regenerative abilities, Colin kept driving the forklift until it rammed into the brick wall next to here the door used to be. The tips of the forks pierced the brickwork, and he felt the entire impact through his whole body.

It’s movement slowed, and squeals quieted throughout the next few moments. It released a final breath in a long wet exhale that seemed a little too dramatic for such an immersive game.

Letting out a relieved breath, Colin climbed out of the vehicle and looked at the twisted thing with a savage grin and piteous shake of his head. While potentially lethal, that wasn’t so bad; Colin thought as he started to make his way past the creature, and to the door it had busted down.

The sound of snapping bones made him turn around and look upon the Mutator in horror. Its knees were snapping themselves around and now bent the entirely wrong way. Its thighs and calves now thickened and tore apart the skin as if it were mere tissue paper. The feet elongated, and the sharp nails on the creature’s feet turned a sickly yellow. The last change to the creature seemed to be the most dramatic.

Its lower jaw seemed to grow larger to make room for the curved and malformed teeth that lengthen out of its skull. Each grew to around three inches long and pointed in different directions, looking like a chaotic mess that would give orthodontists nightmares.

This whole change took place over ten seconds, and Colin was grabbing the vial of Cloying Darkness that Nox had given him when the Mutator started spasming. Its head shook violently before it suddenly stopped moving and stared at him with all three of its eyes. The Mutator seemed content to stare at Colin for a few seconds as it breathed heavily and seethed.

Then in a very controlled manner, the Columbine Mutator laid its hands on the mast of the forklift and pressed its legs up against the wall behind it. With a squealing roar, it pushed with all four limbs, and the forklift started to roll backward. First an inch, then three, and with every second that continued to pass, it managed to work the forklift farther back.

It managed to push until it had extended past its reach, and the forklift was utterly free of the wall by a fair margin. Its feet fell to the floor and slid itself off the arms of the forklift with a wet slurp. It landed on all fours and stayed there as the wound from the forks healed.

Not waiting, Colin drew back and threw the vial as hard as he could at the mutant freak and watched as it shattered against it. Instead of splashing everywhere, the black fluid flowed through the air in thin strings. It injected itself into the Mutator’s body wherever possible. Eye sockets, mouth, ears, anus, and the large wound in its chest were infected with the fluid, and the reaction seemed almost immediate.

Lines of wiry black seemed to stand out from its skin. These started around the eyes, mouth, and chest, where the threads of the Cloying Darkness potion embedded itself into its system. Next, two of its eyes changed from its gross yellow-red color to tar-black, with the third eye dancing around the room as if trying to avoid something. Seconds later, all three eyes were as black as the night sky, and the Mutator’s head was turning from left to right.

Yup, Nox’s potion had indeed blinded it, and that wasn’t all. Now the darkness had traveled all over its body and was making its usually sharp and jerky movements seem dull.

Taking both simple daggers from his belt, Colin sprinted towards it. He was hoping that combined with its blindness and slowed movements, he might be able to hurt it even more and slow it down more. The moment he took a half dozen steps, however, the Columbine Mutator head turned towards him, it opened its malformed mouth in a snarl. It padded towards him, and Colin dove to the side to avoid it. Not surprisingly, the monsters skidded to a stop and started casting its head about as if trying to find him again.

Colin had started sprinting again the moment he’d avoided its path and closed with the monster before it had managed to stop and face him. As it finally stopped, he pushed both daggers into its side and pushed with his whole weight as he came to a complete stop. Twisting with his entire body, Colin pulled the blades across its side to widen the wound.

The daggers pulled free, and its thick syrupy blood started pouring out from its large open wound. It squealed and turned, throwing out its clawed hand to return the treatment. Even with its slowed state, Colin was too close to avoid the attack and was sent sprawling away with four deep gouges dug deep into his side.

You have been clawed by a Columbine Mutator for 251 points of damage. You have - 131 point out of 140 health remaining. You have died.

The pain was in his side was excruciating for a second before it faded to a calming numbness. His breath started to slow as the darkness around him edged into his vision. His body didn’t respond to his demands to move, and no matter what he tried to do, Colin could not get his body to move. Was this it? Was this how he would die after all this trouble to get his hidden class and the means to get his revenge. Hell, he was finally starting even to enjoy playing the game. He felt his eyes get heavy and sluggish as the world around him began to fade.

Then with the will of a night owl waking up in the morning, Colin’s vision cleared, and a single ferocious thought entered his mind.

No, I can’t let it end like this.

Your Determination skill has activated. You simply refuse to let death claim you and your will has responded. Your death status has been revoked for the next ten seconds or until you take one more blow. It’s recommended that you heal due to your health still being -131 out of 140.

A timer appeared in the top right of his vision, a small square with a clock in it, and a large number nine laid over it. As it observed it, the number ticked down to eight.

Shit shit shit shit, Colin thought as he scrambled back to his feet. His hands started patting around for the healing potion that Nox had given him. Finding it as the timer hit five seconds, Colin pulled the cork and drunk most of the potion in a single swallow. He poured the rest over his hand and, gritting his teeth, rubbed the remainder over the gashes across his chest.

You have drunk and applied the Potion, Vitality of the Hallowed Shadow. The darkness heals your wounds, repairs your bones, and brings you back to full health since this is your first time being infused with Hallowed Shadow. The Potion, Vitality of the Hallowed Shadow is a specialty of the Dusk Alchemist. You have been infused with Hallowed Shadow. While the full effects are unknown, you can feel a portion of the change it is causing within you. You are now a living shadow for the next ten seconds, and all your attributes have been increased by five for the next minute. Continue taking Potions of Hallowed Shadow to bring your Infusion level to a higher tier.

Holy Shit, Colin had to get himself some more of this. In the span of a heartbeat, Colin’s entire form seemed to become dark, and chills flowed through him like a wave. It almost looked like his skin became covered in layers of charcoal that swirled upon his skin. The same happened with his clothes, seeming to flow like a cohesive mist around his skin.

He dropped the vial, and the Columbine Mutator turned its head to face him again at the sharp sound of it shattering. It had only traveled a few feet away and looked to be stalking towards the doors where Nox should have been working. Now it spun around, crouched, and sprung towards Colin in the span of three seconds. Its clawed arms were extended forward, and eyes locked onto his.

Then it passed through Colin as easily as a brick through smoke.

The Columbine Mutator was as surprised as Colin when its arms found the ground earlier than expected and had a hard time finding purchase on the ground so suddenly. Colin, however, had a major case of the willies as his shadowy body vaporized into black mist and seemed to flow around the quadruped Mutator as it passed through him.

When the previous prompt had said that he was a ‘Living Shadow’ for the next ten seconds, he was unsure what to expect. His becoming a ghost was not what he would have guessed. The Mutator managed to stop itself after digging its claws into the ground with the sound of it scratching across the floor. It looked at him for a second as if trying to comprehend him before he could see the time hit zero.

His skin and clothes returned to normal, and again Colin was vulnerable. It took an extra moment for it to decide to attack again, but this time it did something profoundly more unusual. The third eye started to glow a sinister purple light deep in its dark pupil, giving Colin a sinking impression of a laser getting ready to fire.

“Nox?! You ready yet?” Colin called, unsure how to proceed.

“Almost! I need another few seconds,” he yelled back.

Growling, Colin drew his heavy dagger and hoped that the increased attributes would be enough to help him survive the time left. Then the Mutator’s body tensed up, and the light in its eyes intensified, and a bolt of purple light shot from its eye and engulfed Colin’s left hand. There was no pain, so Colin thought for a fleeting moment that it must have somehow missed. Then he noticed that no sense of anything from that hand registered.

He looked down at his hand, and Colin’s heart skipped a beat as he observed that his hand up to the wrist had been turned to solid stone. As he watched, his skin was slowly growing harder, grainier, and even became a granite gray as the petrification slowly spread.

You have been hit by the Columbine Mutator’s petrification ray. Starting from the area where the ray hit, you will begin to turn into a living statue over the next two minutes. !Warning! NPC’s could be cured of this creature’s petrification, given that the effect is removed within a year. Players will die if they are not healed within ten minutes after the full effect.

Great, this just got more complicated. Colin shouted back to Nox, “I am out of time here. I’m coming your way!” Colin shouted as he turned around and sprinted towards the main turbine room where Nox was.

A shouted stream of expletives left the Goblin as it worked furiously to get the finishing touches done. He’d barely gone five paces when the Mutator fired its petrification ray again and narrowly missed Colin. Instead, the amethyst ray hit one of the doors that the creature had broken on its way inside. Unlike his flesh, the door immediately turned from whatever metal it was made from and turned into a pitted gray stone.

“Shit shit shit,” Colin muttered as he sprinted past the doorway and immediately saw Nox working furiously in one of the turbines. “It’s right behind me, Nox!”

The Goblin in question slid out of the machine and looked behind Colin before looking at him directly. “Here’s what I need you to do. Break that last vial I gave you, the summoning vial when it gets right here,” Nox told him, his foot-stomping the ground. “I need him right here and order the creature to hold it. Understand?”

Colin nodded, “You got anything for petrification?” he asked as he gestured at the stone arm.

Nox looked briefly before looking pained, “no time right now, DevilWalker. Let’s kill this thing quickly so I can help you,” Nox said, falling into his own shadow and reappearing at the control panels. “Be careful! I gotta start powering it up now!” he yelled as he plugged two large power cables into each other, and the whole room burst to life.

And right on queue, the Mutator ran through the doorway and padded to a stop. It looked down the aisle between the now humming turbines and glared pure malice at him. Then it started coming towards him, going quickly from a trotting lope to a full sprint in only a moment. Feeling the stone spread halfway up his bicep, Colin turned and hurried away from the oncoming juggernaut of a beast and didn’t dare to wait.

Grabbing the last of Nox’s vials, Colin threw it at the indicated spot and waited for the vial to crash.

The instant it did, the entire contents of the vial vaporized and coalesced into a bipedal creature made entirely of writhing shadows. Its form had no real definition beyond the basic humanoid shape, and that gave it a very creepy vibe. This was not helped by the fact that the only color in the mass of shadow was a single eye outlined in shimmering aetheric red roughly where the head would be.

Without waiting, Colin pointed to the oncoming Mutator and then at the spot Nox had indicated, “keep it right there!” Colin ordered, hoping it understood English.

The eye of the shadow creature stared at him for a long second before turning about with the liquidity of a creature without bones or joints. The shadow waited the three seconds until the Mutator had run into the right position before it acted. Its body flowed more than moved as it grabbed the Mutator, halting its charge in the right spot. Its arms elongated and wrapped around the quadruped. The Mutator howled in rage as it struggled against the creature holding it.

“DevilWalker! Get your arse over here!” Nox yelled as he adjusted many of the controls and gauges.

The petrification had reached his chest and spread to his right shoulder down to his abdomen. It was very uncomfortable, but somehow he was still able to breathe without hindrance. This thought occurred to him as he hurried to Nox while the shadow creature wrestled the Mutator in place.

He stopped in front of Nox, who hit one large red button just as Colin arrived. The large, movable portions of the two turbines began to spin while arcs of electricity sprung in and out of the machines. Nox looked at Colin as nervousness crossed its face, “I need you to push this button when I tell you too, the instant I tell you to. Got it?”

Colin nodded, “yeah.”

“I also need to take your throwing knives. May I just,” Nox said, reaching to the small of Colin’s back and pocketing every throwing knife that Colin had left. “Sorry to just take them, but you look kind of… handicapped right now.” Nox said, looking at the summoned shadow and the Mutator.

Groaning, the Goblin muttered, “this is going to hurt like a bitch. Oh well, for Grimhold,” he told himself as he stepped into his own shadow.

A flash of new movement brought Colin’s attention back to the contest between the Shadow creature and Mutator. Above them, Nox burst out of a patch of shadow and held one of the throwing knives in each hand. Using gravity, the Goblin dropped on top of the creature and plunged both blades into it while avoiding the Shadow. After releasing the weapons and leaving them in the Mutator’s back, Nox vanished in a puff of shadowstuff and reappeared to repeat the process. Each time the Goblin left the blade somewhere else on the Mutator’s body, and after a few seconds, Nox was out of knives.

Then Nox reappeared a few feet away from the pair of monsters and pointed at the shadow. It looked like it had seen better days, the shadow practically oozed liquid shadow to the floor. It’s one glowing red eye remained fixed angrily on the Mutator. With the point, Nox yelled, “get ready, DevilWalker!”

Colin held his hand over the button that Nox had indicated to him. He groaned as he felt the arm to the elbow lock up, and the area just past his groin stiffen. Not the way he wanted to get a hard-on, but he’d have to endure.

The Goblin’s pointed finger flashed a single point of white light as he yelled a single word over the noise in the room, “reditas!” Then Nox shouted at Colin as the pinpoint of light impacted the Shadow, and it faded like smoke in the wind.

In the same instance, Colin slammed down on the button, which immediately caused the machines to speed up, and the arcing electricity to increased in volume. The Mutator looked at the spinning turbines to its sides and roared as the first arc of electricity struck.

The bolt of electricity sought out one of the knives that Nox had sunk into it. The smell of cooking flesh reached Colin’s nose as bolt after bolt struck the knives and damaged the Mutator further. Each bolt struck faster and faster, with the mass of the creature somehow not allowing the electricity to leave and ground it.

After a moment, Colin could see the flesh of the Mutator blacken and char around the embedded blades with every passing second. He could almost see it try to heal itself. Still, the damage that the turbines were doing and sustaining was overcoming its natural ability. Seconds ticked by, and the blue-white light of the electricity seemed to get blindingly bright and deafeningly loud.

Smoke and the smell of burned meat permeated the room along with the scent of frying plastics before the machines stopped with an earth-cracking boom. Seconds later, the engine started to slow, and the noise in the room lowered to a low hum. The smoke in front of Colin made it impossible to see the Mutator.

Seconds passed, and the air began to clear, letting Colin see the large lump of smoking flesh that had to be the Mutator.

“Good work, DevilWalker,” the refined British voice wheezed. Just off to Colin’s left, stood the Goblin with a significant scorch mark blackening the center of his stomach. “I don’t think either of us could have done that alone.”

“I don’t think so either,” Colin agreed. “Now can you help me deal with this petrification before I can’t move at all?”

“Alright,” Nox groaned, grabbing and checking vials in his jacket and belt. Eventually, he found one colored a clear pink and looked at it critically.

Then Nox threw the vial at Colin’s chest, shattering it on his stone torso and instantly spreading the concoction over his body. It took a moment, but Colin’s body glowed a leafy green as sensation flooded his body, and he observed Nox drink one of his own healing potions.

“Oh, that’s better,” Nox purred.

“Yeah, it is,” Colin agreed as he found his body able to move normally again. “What now?”

“I’m not sure,” Nox answered. He tapped his chin in thought as a prompt filled Colin’s vision.

Congratulations! You have completed the fifth and final room in The Ruins of Old Willows Cross. To claim the reward from this Dungeon, find any door and step through it

Turning around, Colin found the door they entered from and smiled at the faint gray veil covering the door that neither of them closed when they came in.

“Ready to get out of here?” Colin asked, gesturing at the doorway.

Nox looked, and the first genuine smile that didn’t look crazed spread across his face. “DevilWalker, more than you could imagine.”

Just before walking through, Colin thought about Nox for a moment and wondered when he stopped thinking of the Goblin with him as an it and started thinking of him as a person. It was weird that he felt a kinship with this vicious little humanoid that wasn’t even human. He found that it didn’t bother him in the slightest. Instead, he smiled at Nox as they walked through the veil, side by side.