They were twisted shadows in the darkness. Creatures of inky blackness, massive size, and fearsome intent. Shadowy shares that were almost bear-like, the few shapes Jack caught in the split second that confused looks turned to agonized screams.

Bears with long ropy arms ending in deadly scythe shaped claws edged in littering darkness.

Scythes that crashed down upon Barlton's head so fast Jack didn't even see the blood before his friend dropped to the ground. Horrific sheering claws that ripped open a startled looking Chu Hua's abdomen, slicing so cleanly through the steel lamellar plates as if they had been made of finest fragile porcelein, the now wide-eyed girl collapsing to the ground as her powerful warrior's hands tried to hold in her spurting intestines as a singular sigh slipped from her lips amongst her sister's screams.

"Barlon!"

"Chu Hua!"

The panicked cries of Veti and the others was an odd, terrible contrast to their utterly silent killers, whose depredations demanded an answer Jack roared to give with the fury now blazing through his soul.

"Ignis Ventus Sanguis!" Jack screamed in the moments the Shadow-Scythes teased and struck, effortlessly slicing through polearm shafts before their claws struck again and again. And it was only by sheerest luck that shields and armor drenched in blood-forged mithril covered in runes of Resilience and Concealment were struck instead of fragile steel and bare skin, or the too loud zero level wizard daring to take an entire pair of seconds to focus and chant his spell. When he could have been effortlessly slammed into the wall, if not disemboweled and slaughtered in a heartbeat.

And Jack was determined to make those perilous terrible seconds when death could come for him in an eyeblink count.

So that when contemptuous shadows finally turned his way, revealing massive bear like maws and teeth of the void distending like a serpents jaw to tear his skull clean his off, he answered with flame.

"Burn!"

Flame that had been infused with the pristine essence of oxygen and the potency if his blood and will. Flame that was fare brighter than any tier 3 spell had a right to be, flame that could Jack's interface had made more than clear could burst even the wards of an experienced mage with a +4 modifier to his willpower check.

And never had Jack felt more fiercely intent than he did at that moment as the massive ursine horror before him lit up in liquid flame of an intensity 6 fold that of his elite Firestream spell.

A Tier 1 spell that Jack had heightened to the point it was 20 times as potent as the novice ranked Firestream he had first cast before a bemused Yohan Silvercrest who might or might not have been one of the four Horsemen responsible for Greycliff duchy but was certainly a master of his craft and would have no doubt stared on in disbelief when Jack's Tier three infused version of the simple basic spell he had taught Jack blazed for with 120 times the fiery intensity of the tier 1 spell Jack had learned a lifetime ago.

Even as his friends screamed in sudden blindness and pain, Jack's mana manipulation and his Greater Elemental's instinctive use of cooling air and Windward saving them all from instant third degree burns as Jack's sun torch turned the shrieking bear of shadow to ash, the howling maelstrom of superheated plasma also serving as the equivalent of a Tier 3 wind gust to shove the blazing monstrosities back, Jack's face locked in a rictus of absolute fury as he washed his sun torch over the skull of a second shadow figure who's scythe claws were just inches away from tearing out a panicked Su Li's throat.

"Burn!" Jack roared, washing the hallway with flame even as he launched forth a single quartet of volleyball sized orbs that turned the whole hallway into a superheated inferno, catching at least two other shadowy Doombears in the roaring inferno his last seconds of Windfire kept at bay as he snarled and whispered a guttural word, doing all he could to hold focus to multiple complex castings, already knowing that all he had done was buy he and his friends a handful of seconds at best, sensing the milling shadows promising savage reprisal, now interspersed with shrieking shadowy bears lit with flame.

"Formo!"

Artisanal Manipulation skillcheck made! You have successfully summoned the mantel of Orange Tier Nightmare to respond to your will, while embracing a Tier 3 dual element spell you (fortunately) have a Deeper Understanding of! 1 foot thick specialized barrier generated! 5 mana spent!

You have used 90 mana within 10 seconds. (60 unreserved Mana remaining.)

Saving throw versus Mild Disorientation successful!

Congratulations! You have slain 2 Level 16 Shadow Scythes!

Windfire is now Journeyman Rank 3!

Artisanal Manipulation is now Adept Rank 2!

Dissolution Orb is now Adept Rank 4!

"Jack!" Veti's words tore Jack out of his momentary state of stunned disbelief as awe at the sudden jolt of potency blazing through his soul was replaced with the horror of realizing they were facing a level 16 mob that moved so quick and struck so hard that it was only by sheerest mad luck that Jack, a level 0 nobody, hadn't been instantly obliterated by a single swipe of those horrific scythe-like claws.

"Jack!"

With a hiss he shook himself free of his stupor, snapping back into the moment, knowing he was running out of time.

Eyes widening with horror as he took a look at the damage inflicted upon his friends. Elof was wheezing and spitting up blood. Aroust was snarling, his weapon shattered, left arm a mangled wreck, blood mithril armor the only reason why he still had an arm at all. And Barlton... Jack's hiss of dread became a relieved sob. His poor massive dwarven friend he had thought had his skull cracked open like an egg. Only to find, miracle of miracles, that Jack's blood-mithril forging had held.

Miraculously, it had held.

And for all that the dwarf was groaning, his thick oak-like neck had managed not to snap under the fearsome power of the blow that had sent him crashing to the ground.

But there was no reprieve when he gazed Chu Hua's way, gazing into desperate gold brown eyes filled with unspeakable pain, flashing him a single bloody smile.

"Promise me, Jack? Promise me you'll save my sisters?"

Jack ignored her words and the terror pounding through his soul, taking a solid pair of gulps of his blue mana potion before oh so carefully grabbing Chu Hua's trembling arm and putting his artifact on it, earning a sudden spasming cry, her sister's glares turning to muted looks of despair.

"Jack, it's too much for our Healing Touches. We're too knew to our skills!"

Jack said nothing, merely pulling a bottle of triple distilled spirits before splashing it on his hands and on Chu Hua's spilling intestines, earning an awful scream.

Before he covered his friends burst intesines in one of Drake's priceless healing potions an, in a fit of mad inspiration, revealed a prize he didn't think even his closest friends realized he still had, a portion of the liquid blood-mithril he had prepared, having used less than half in coating and strengthening his friend's armaments, now covering his hands in it as it responded to his will, Jack's trembling, near exhausted limbs at the bring of collapse as he pressed the screaming Chu Hua's intestines back in her ruptured abdomen nestled in a liquid pouch of mithril as he chanted the words to a spell that had been his bloody companion through countless tragedies and lives he couldn't always save.

"Sana Injurium!"

You have successfully used Arcane and Artisanal Manipulation synergistically with healing magic!

You have successfully channeled Party Experience into healing Party Member: Chu Hua!

Skillcheck successful! Willpower check successful!

You have successfully bought Chu Hua back from the brink of death!

Jack ignored the looks of disbelief and desperation being sent his way, his focus only on the next wounded friend to catch his eyes before realizing he was a heartbeat from making an unforgivable mistake.

One that could cost him absolutely everything.

"Duck!" He screamed, as his terrified friends did just that, an upright Jack now spraying the hallway of deadly shadows behind them with liquid flame, again grateful that his air familiar's chilly convection currents and his own growing understanding of his spell kept the radiant heat from cooking his friends alive.

Lighting up a hallway that loomed endlessly in the distance.

A hallway that could have held countless ambushers that could have struck and torn out all their throats in a heartbeat.

But there was nothing at all.

Nothing save a massive second foot-thick wall perforated with murder holes that would allow any of their pole weapon heads or a spell caster's fist to launch any number of arcane projectiles, yet a would allow no creature passage that was unable to tear through the wall.

Drake's desperate eyes met Jack's own when he gazed at the wall Jack had placed 20 feet behind them, now sequestering a good thirty feet total of the ten foot wide corridor, giving them a nice bit of room to maneuver in, if nothing else.

"Do you really think our walls have a hope of holding them off?" his friend asked, tone one of both despair and desperate hope.

Jack gave his most supportive grin, speaking for the sake of the group entire. "I reinforced it with runes of Concealment, Warning, and as much Resilience and Permanence as I could. Do you remember the reinforced battlements we spent hours working on before?"

Drake flashed a sheepish smile. "I still have nightmares about that day I almost died to that bastard Hecklebart's henchmen!"

"And how many times did that bastard try to get through the wall, unsuccessfully, I might add?"

Drake frowned in thought.

Jack sighed. "The point is that these walls are stronger. Much stronger."

Drake blinked in awe and wonder. "But Jack, those horrors move as fast as a scorpion and can tear through steel like it's paper!"

"I'm a Master Rune Forger now, Drake." Jack ignored the looks this declaration earned. "When I forge a Bloodrune of Resilience, the rune I specialized in above all others, believe me, nothing's breaking through. Hard eyes met Drake's own. "None of these fuckers are breaking through my walls."

This earned a hairy eye from Aroust. "Jack, there's a swarm of level 16 Midnight Bears out there! Shadow Scythes, according to your interface, but I know a creature out of a bard's legend when I see it. That means were in the Orange. In the fucking orange!" His bitter laughter rang oddly discordant before he groaned in fresh agony, clutching his awful injury. "This was the horror my wife was forced to endure thanks to that madman of a bard. And that fool hated me enough to censor me even as he doomed our entire party." He shook his head, bitter tears flowing down his cheek. "I could have done nothing but die by their side."

Jack solemnly bent down, resting his palm on his friend's shoulder, doing the only thing he could to reassure his friend.

"Sana Injuriam."

And during the long moments his friend hissed and cursed and thrashed as Jack slowly but surely compelled slivers of shattered bone to align and fuse, and torn muscle to mend anew, Ah Lam and Su Li both did their part, solemn faced youngest and oldest sisters doing all they could to alleviate Barlton and Elof's injuries and Jack was beyond grateful for the help, especially when they each went over each other's healings, realizin that their different paradigms meant that together, they could heal elements the other had somehow missed.

For when Jack gazed at his friend Barlton, having shamefully put it off to the last, afraid that injuries to the brain and spine were utterly behind him, his formerly stunned and spasming friend was right as rain, giving Jack a fierce grin and congratulatory pat on the back for all that his eyes were still haunted by the same sense of dread they all were, the dark hisses and occasional scream of the Shadow Bears a stark reminder of just how perilous their situation truly was.

"Thank ya, lad. I doubt we would have lasted two eye-blinks if it weren't for ya being at our side."

It was only at that instant that the air rung with the sudden cries and hollers of a black swarm of those beasts charging the wall in unison, Jack's heart pounding as the earth shook, a dozen vicious midnight black scythes bursting through the murder-holes... but unable to reach their rapidly scrambling back prey.

But Jack's heart still pounded with horror, realizing his mistake

Because he had made the barriers neigh indestructible.

But he had done no such thing for the surrounding walls, gazing with wide-eyed horror at the sudden cracks, as the wall before them was near ready to burst under the weight of furious pounding hooking death just beyond.

Then Veti screamed with horror when frantic pounding could be heard to their rear.

Making it instantly clear that if Jack hadn't thought to forge a second barrier, just in case... they would already be dead.

Which they still might be in just seconds, as not one but both barriers began to press inward as the sealing creaked and cracked.

"Formo!" Jack screamed, the walls and floor bubbling up around the shifting walls immediately wedging them tightly in place, at least for the moment, even as he frantically sliced open his hand, screaming out "Resilience! Pertinax!" As he deliberately squirted his blood on ceiling, corridor walls, and floor, marking and claiming their entire enclosed territory as his own, even as he grew dizzy with the rapid depletion of potency and blood.

Before taking a gasp as not one but two young women boosted him with the last of their healing magics, Jack then sipping both red and blue potions as well as swallowing his own horror as he gazed at the pair of walls with just the shallowest of slants, and Jack knew it could have been far worse, would have been far worse, had the horrors not actually had to slam the wall into the hard stone roof, forcing the foot thick barrier at an angle that would have demanded an extra foot of clearance at least, to force it over.

Yet the cracks that Jack's Artisanal Manipulation quickly smoothed over and reinforced made it damn clear they had almost done just that.

And for all that Jack thought, prayed, desperately hoped they were finally safe, the cacophony of screeching furious horrors didn't abate, it only grew.

Elof's wide frightened eyes gazed imploringly into Jack's own. "Will it hold?"

Jack grit his teeth and smiled. "I'm not raising any more flags like an idiot, but I did my damnedest, buddy. That's all I'm going to say."

His young friend's eyes widened, before flashing the briefest of smiles. "Would you believe I actually leveled up?"

Barlton chuckled softly. "Finally a bit of good news, and I'm getting pretty close myself! Now come over here and consult with yer old friend Barlton, and we'll put ya on a right good path fer survivin' deeps like these!" This earned a few strained chuckles, lips curving in strained smiles as everyone else sensed that they were most of the way to their next level. It was like having a sip of really good tea while awaiting trial sentencing, Jack thought.

Of course, if they couldn't find away out of this situation, the penalty was a grizzly death at the hands of darkest nightmare. And as the endless night of their lives wore on and the inky blackness seemed to swallow up the space between them despite the profusion of glow lights in play, Jack could see how badly it a psychological tole it was taking on them. Haunted eye and flinches turned to furious grimaces with every dread length of silence punctuated by a sudden burst of furious hostility as the ink-black nightmares howled and scrabbled at Jack's rune-blessed walls with a frenzied madness that bordered on the diabolical.

Truly, they were in the deeps, breathing in inky black potency that twisted in their souls even as it revitalized them and Jack couldn't help wondering if it was this mana-rich miasma the true horrors lived upon as much as they did the oxygen in the air.

Certainly Veti's surprised curse, sharing a winde-eyed glance with Drake as much horror as awe as their three warrior maidens groaned and clenched their heads as if enduring a sudden terrible pressure made it clear that Jack's dark dazed musings were more than just metaphor, as did the message now blinking across his interface.

Party modifiers in effect! You have survived (and aided your friends in surviving!) the pressures of Orange Tier Potency! + 40 permanent boost to mana as your soul is reforged in the pressures of darkest dream!

And suddenly Jack understood the reason for the crushing daze that had left him stupified for endless moments, wondering if countless adventurers had perished before them, caught off guard the moment they entered any delve. Then again, weren't most transitional areas all but safe zones? And hadn't their double-edged blood hound for treasure and peril both, Barlton, managed to always dive into the heart of any new Delve as they all somehow strung together, and this one the most perilous of all.

Jack shook away his racing thoughts as his daze turned to resolute focus, grateful that the peril of the moment, at least, had keep them upright and alive and fighting as they needed, only the nightmarish reprieve of the illusion of safety, and Jack generating Masterwork barriers he was able to generate only by the most unlikely twists of fate and carefully channeled potential, a twice-born soul channeling the unlimited potency of this singular life not into levels but rather into a few deadly talents and a handful of lifesaving spells.

He lurched over to a thrashing Chu Hua's side, the pale flesh of her torso still showing when Jack used Artisanal Manipulation to wash away her ruptured armor like a splash of shimmering mercury, offhandedly realizing at that moment that his naked fist could splash through an unenchanted suit of armor, even a full plate harness as if it were water. His fist? Hell. All he needed was a second's concentration, and he could melt it right off his target. And how deadly a fighter did that make him? Though he was somehow dead certain that there was a world of difference between melting armor off an unsuspecting mortal knight and confronting an experienced Delver wearing armor enchanted by eldritch magics or an enchanter's blessing, or perhaps just infused with the life force of the adventurer's own will and a dozen other tricks of survival that translated to HP in one way or another, Jack was sure.

Even as he shook away the skittering thoughts and focused on the only thing that mattered.

The girl thrashing and trembling, who, by the tiniest of horrified gasps of the others, it was clear was beginning to suffer just like any mortal crushed by the deeps. Even if it were only a hundredth as bad as an already forged Delver was forced to endure pressures beyond what most, with their ever doubling potency pools in the mid levels would ever have to endure, Chu Hua was now forced to endure it after coming so close to disembowelment, and without years of carefully increased exposure and levels gained but now, as a Battle Maiden Jack was sure couldn't be more than level 5 or 6 herself.

Her sisters looked on in horror but it was clear they're whimpers were as much terror and discomfort as fear for their sister.

But one thing at a time.

Only one thing at a time could he focus on as the inky black gloom devoured the light, their ears ringing with the roars of furious beasts hating all that which dared to resist their scythe-like claws.

Jack wiped silky dark hair thicker than his own and slicked with salty sweat, smiling gently into Chu Hua's tear-filled eyes.

"I think this is it hero," she gasped with a smile. "Remember your promise to my sisters?"

"Chu Hua? Will you open your interface to me?"

The strikingly beautiful girl with her lush full lips pale with strain could only shake her head in despair. "Jack I... I don't think I can."

But a frowning Jack was no longer wasting time, overriding the barrier between them with a quick surge of will and ignoring her wide eyed gasp as Jack instantly got a sense of her character sheet and the level she was holding back from claiming against all logic, like an animal curling up with pain when it needed to move as fast as it could.

Almond eyes widened, soft brown orbs gazing into his own. "Jack, how?"

And Jack's gaze was indeed locked to her own as his fingers forged runes of silvery crimson upon her now naked chest, for the eyes truly were windows to the soul. Or in this case, interface sheet, and it was nothing to guide his friend to what she most needed to see.

"I'm a big believe in choice, Chu, so in the end it has to be up to you. But do you see those perks I just highlighted?"

A trembling Chu, looking like a frightened girl in her own dreaming self, gazing upon the page Jack, towering over her like a massive sentinel, at least to her mind's eye, was gazing at the page Jack had flipped to.

"Mend medium Soul Flaw: 4 Point cost. Mend Greater Soul Flaw: 6 Point cost. Mend Lesser Soul Flaw: 2 Point cost."

The little girl's eyes widened, and Jack's surprise was no less than her own when both her sisters suddenly appeared before them. One looking stern, the other frightened and still holding a stuffed bear. "Ah Lam, Su Li, look at this! I never knew we had those perks available!"

Su Li frowned. "Look at his fingers, wet with strange sigils and his own blood...and that page... I don't think it was there before."

"It wasn't." Jack admitted.

Su Li's furrowed her brow. "Then how?"

Jack smirked. "My own interface is telling me I'm accessing

'Administrative Privileges,' but I am forging mithril bloodrunes on your chest as we speak, and I sort of have experience doing this before."

Chu Hua's eyes widened.

"It's okay," Su Li hastened to add. "We gave him consent, because your life is sort of hanging in the balance." Then she paled herself. "All our lives?"

Jack nodded. "The same party link is anchoring us all to the same life raft of potential, so I'm just doing my part to keep us all afloat."

"By transforming our very souls?" Asked an incredulous Ah Lam as Jack willed her own book open with a surge of will, Su Li smirking and pulling open her own as all three flipped to the same crimson page now covered in silvery runes as a now trembling Jack pointed to the perks their lives depended upon. "Alright. Those are the perks you might want to take up before you worry about leveling up a single healing or fighting skill, because not only will it shoot up the rate at which you gain levels beyond 5 or 6, it will also keep you from being crushed to slime because we really are in an orange tier hell hole right now."

Chu Hua gazed at the page for long moments as Jack fought with every ounce of his will to maintain the connection. "Chu Hua? Please. You have to choose. And now."

Slowly she nodded, even as Su Li rapidly made her own choices, glaring at a hesitant Ah Lam. "Do it! Do you want to die down here? Do you want to spend forever stuck at level 10 when the rest of us are shooting for the stars?"

"But for the next few levels we'll be worthless!" A sentiment mirrored by Chu Hua as Jack lost the ability to speak, just holding the connection for a few more precious seconds as his precious potency bled away.

"Who cares!" Said a suddenly alarmed Su Li, looking Jack's way. "If you don't heal those cracks, you'll never get beyond a few more levels anyway! Jack won't force you but I'll call you a damned fool and laugh in your faces if you don't repair that Greater Soul Flaw, Chu Hua, and you as well, Su Li!"

And with those words Jack crashed to dizzying darkness, losing himself in horrific nightmare dreams of racing through endless tunnels of pitch blackness as howling abominations endlessly chased him.

Only to lurch up with a groan and a splitting headache, realizing that his nightmare was very much a reality.

Only now he was being gazed upon by eight very intent faces, 3 of them worn by strikingly beautiful girls, each of which had a shimmering red-silver rune emblazoned upon the pale naked flesh of their sternum, all of them with their armor seamlessly split down the middle, naturally flexed apart by their generous cleavage.

Jack felt his cheeks blaze, grateful that no more was being revealed than by an inordinately daring dress, almost glad for the sudden burst of furious howls and pounding to break up what had been a heavy silence.

"Jack, what the hell did you just do?" Said a glaring Veti, a sentiment mirrored by a coldly disapproving Barlton.

"Now's not the time or place for that, Jack, no matter how much your blood boils with the terror of death."

Drake chucked softly, grinning at Jack and shaking his head. "Splitting the armor right off their chests? Only you could get away with a move that bold, brother."

But Elof alone seemed to get it, the three girls suddenly flushing with cheeks as bright as Jack's own, too flustered to even speak in Jack's defense though they showed no anger and Chu Hua was gazing at Jack with something beyond simple gratitude, and everyone else had been too focused on the pounding on the walls to bother with anything but their imminent deaths. But Elof caught the flash of silver that blazed so brightly to Jack's Mage Sight, but was almost invisible in the dreadful gloom.

"Guys, take a look! He runed them. Just like he did us!"

This earned several curious looks and whistles, Elof happy to remove his armor with surprising swiftness even without assistance with his physical stats all now around 15. "See? I recognize it! It's the same rune Jack gave me! Only, well, mine's on my back."

Veti, much to Jack's relief, gave a considering nod. "I saw Chu Hua's expression earlier. I didn't think it was possible for Delvers to die in the deeps once they made it to the portal and took a class but..." shes swallowed and shook her head. "The very thought... but look at Chu Hua now. She looks strong. Vital." She flashed a relieved smile. "I think you're going to make it, Chu Hua."

The boys all gave relieved nods, and Jack could sense that they had decided by unspoken consent to let Veti take the lead. And if she declared Jack forgiven...

Chu Hua flashed Jack a grateful smile, bowing solemnly and low. "I think I will too, and I only have one question for the beloved hero who's bloodrune now beats against my heart."

Bemused brown eyes pinned Jack where he stood. "Why is Elof's tattoo upon his back, and mine between my breasts?"

With lithe grace she rose before a nonplussed Jack, reaching out with laquer tipped fingernails to stroke Jack's chin. "Were you trying to claim me, hero?" She flashed an arch smile. "Me and my sisters? All three of us?" Her teasing smile widened as Jack's cheeks blazed so bright it could even be seen in the darkness as soft warm lips darted forward with surprising speed to caress Jack's ear. "Do you really think you have the stamina for that?"

Barlton gave a rueful chuckle. "Ah laddie, ya did it this time, that's fer sure!"

Ah Lam bit her lower lip before giving a sad shake of her head. "I'm afraid our hero will have to be disappointed, then. For I already have my eyes on another." She then positively beamed at a fresh-faced Elof, who's eyes widened with something between awe, wonder, and horror, when the youngest of the three boldly walked up to Elof and clasped his hand. "Are you claimed?"

He swallowed and shook his head. "I... no. No!" He then gasped when her soft hand touched his now naked, hairless, and well-defined chest.

"Good." Her gaze hardened. "But your fighting form needs work. Polearm will always be superior to sword and shield unless you're truly gifted. We're going to have to work on that. Because if you ever hope to claim any girl's heart, you have to be strong enough to protect her

Elof blinked and swallowed as if looking for the words. "Okay," he softly said, now focused on far, far more important things than a handful of hideously over-leveled monsters clearly eager for his death.

Su Li, for her part, was gazing at Aroust with odd intensity. "There is something to be said for strength and experience, sisters, and a man who already knows how to use his weapon." She dipped her head to the duelist, as one experienced woman of the world to a man she admired.

Even Aroust blinked, clearly not having expected that, no witty rejoinder coming from his lips.

It was then that all three sisters burst into laughter dancing back from all three men they had approached, and save for a couple brief flickers of irritation, the warmth of their smiles was such that Jack's friends couldn't help chuckling ruefully in turn.

"Oh they had you lads there, that's fer sure!" Barlton declared, his powerful hand gently clasping Veti's own as she leaned into him, giving a considering nod of her own. "I think the girls were somehow saving face? Maybe it's a cultural thing."

All three then bowed as one. "Thank you for the gift of your runes, Jack."

Chu Hua flashed Jack a genuinely sympathetic smile. "I can tell they weren't forged without cost. Priceless ore and blood spent on friends who will always be grateful and revere you."

All three bowed a second time at that, even as the darkness boiled with the screams and howls of their enemies and Jack's mind raced in a frantic search for possible ways to survive this madness.

Because if things didn't change, all Jack had bought the girls were final days of inky darkness and terror before finally being eaten alive by the horrors of the deep.