“Dude, what the fuck was that?” The fury in David’s voice was apparent. “This hallway was clear? How the hell did we manage to pull a dragon?”

The same confused look was on nearly the entire party’s face, no one appeared to be completely sure how they’d pulled that dragon.

Ethan had been seated, eating and drinking to regain his health and mana. When David asked the question to the group, he stood up and walked across the cavern. There had been one person in the party who hadn’t contributed to the fight. Daniel.

Tae-Won stepped away from Leah who looked like she’d been hyperventilating and into Ethan’s path.

“Hey man, be cool. It was an accident.” He put his hand on Ethan’s chest plate to try to get him to stop and calm down. Ethan just brushed by him.

“Daniel, what the fuck did you do?” Ethan rounded on their missing party member who had been standing at the back of the room with a large grey wolf next to him. When he realized that Daniel had not contributed anything at all to the fight with the dragon he knew this had somehow been Daniel’s fault

Daniel didn’t answer immediately, he just started down at his feet looking embarrassed. Ethan grabbed him by the quiver strap that crossed his chest, his plate gauntlet jerking Daniel towards him.

“I asked you a question, what did you do, Daniel?” Ethan was glaring at the Ranger now, his eyes lit up with golden energy as his mana channeled uncontrolled through him.

“Ethan…” Leah started to interject, but Ethan silenced her with his other hand. It was an imposing sight, Ethan had a couple inches of height on Daniel and was built much bigger due to stat distribution. Daniel was slight, built for ranged attacks and had more points in Dexterity. But Ethan was a tank, he had higher Strength and Constitution.

“My pet was on aggressive.” Daniel said meekly, looking embarrassed. Whether because of his mistake or that he got caught, Ethan wasn’t sure.

Ethan scowled and let go of the strap, stunned that such a simple mistake had almost cost them weeks of work. Deal with this later. We’ve got to finish scouting this place.

“Oh Daniel.” Leah looked like he’d slapped her when he said that. Daniel was a long time friend of hers, constantly following her to any guild or game like a puppy. His performance was always subpar, but Ethan recognized that he was part of a package to keep Leah.

Ethan just kept walking, Miguel was sitting on the ground with his head in his hands. He could hear Sam and David ripping into Daniel behind him, but Miguel hadn’t joined the rest of the group yet. Something was clearly wrong.

“You okay?” He could tell that Miguel was at full health, the party interface showed him everyone’s HP and mana levels.

“Yeah.. I just…” Miguel shook his head and looked up at Ethan, “coming back down is hard sometimes.” His face was pale, his eyes electric blue with raging mana. A small pool of vomit was at his feet.

“Fuck, Mana Depression?”

“Yeah, I used too many cool downs that fight, too many spells cast in such a short time.” Miguel looked manic as he smiled up at his friend. “I’ll be alright in about 2 minutes.”

“Well, you did amazing. You got those Ice Spears grouped perfectly, except for the one that cut Leah’s Roots and cost me a shield.” Ethan grinned at his friend. Him and Miguel had known each other for a while, their relationship went deep. Of everyone in the game, Miguel was one of the people Ethan trusted the most.

“Let me know if you need me to do anything.” Ethan reached his hand out to him.

“Just make the world stop spinning and I’ll be great.” Miguel grabbed him by the forearm, smiled and promptly threw up again. “Sorry.”

Ethan laughed softly and walked back towards the rest of the group, avoiding the growing pool of puke. Leah and Tae-Won were still talking to Daniel. Her arms were waving wildly and she looked like she was yelling in whispers, Tae-Won stood with his arms across his chest, anger etched into his face.

David and Sam had broken off and were looking at the corpse of the dragon. It was a bloody mess. Their group had carved most of the body in their attack. Sam had pulled his swords out of the creature’s skull, but there was a gaping hole where its eye had been. The dragon lay on it’s left side, Miguel’s Ice Spears were slowly melting but embedded in it’s ribcage. The monster's wings were shredded from Leah’s claws.

“You find a chest, or was it not high enough?” Ethan asked Sam and David. Major dungeon bosses would spawn a treasure chest as a reward, but their loot tables had to be discovered and recorded through multiple kills. His guild were the first players to reach this dragon, if it had a loot chest they could report back, then the Raid Clan would pay a little extra.

David was standing with his arms crossed across his chest. He wore grey robes and carried a one handed mace, a leather backed libram with a brass holy symbol attached to a chain that crossed his chest. He and Ethan had been roommates in college, their friendship carrying over into various video games before they found themselves trying to climb The Tower.

“No chest. Unless you want some busted dragon fangs or you can skin it for the leather.” Usually, they would have harvested everything they could from the dragon, but this being a scouting mission they had a high risk of death and there was a good possibility anything they looted would get lost if the day went bad.

“Well shit. We may have to be done for the day, I don’t have a spare shield.” Ethan felt embarrassed, he should have brought a back up for his gear. Of course, he wasn’t expecting to take a fireball and then a claw attack from an enraged red dragon, but he still should have been prepared.

“I’ve got one you can take.” Sam looked extremely proud of himself as he casually rested his hands on the hilts of his swords and surveyed the carcass. His leather armor was not even scratched from the battle. “Did you see me run up the back? That was epic.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you picked the most efficient way of getting within melee range and NOT what you thought would look the coolest when the video gets passed around to the raid team?” David cocked an eyebrow at Sam.

“Hey man, I was just trying to do my part in making sure you had one less target to heal. I saw you had your hands full with Ethan and Miguel.” Sam and David always sniped at each other. The guild was a bunch of sarcastic assholes, it was what held them together in the game. “Miguel okay, by the way?”

“Yeah, he got hit with Mana Depression. His eyes were still glowing when I talked to him.” Ethan nodded towards the still seated Sorcerer. “He said he just needed a couple more minutes.”

Sam and David nodded their understanding. Mana Depression was the equivalent of running out of Stamina and getting exhausted, serving as a balance mechanic for casters. It could happen to anyone if they weren’t careful with their casting.

“Word. What are you going to do about that situation?” Sam gestured to Tae-Won, Leah and Daniel behind them.

“Man I don’t know. I’ll deal with it when we get back to town. Let’s just focus on scouting this place for now.” Ethan rubbed the bridge of his nose with his fingers, the thought of having to handle the issue with Daniel right now was already giving him a headache.

“Heard. Here, take this. You’re going to need to for the rest of the dungeon.” Sam swiped his hand in the air in a fairly complicated motion and out of nowhere a shield materialized. “Told you I had one.”

The shield wasn’t more than a wooden disk banded together and reinforced with iron. It was about the size of his conjured Holy Shield, only half as big as his previous kite shield.

“Appreciate it. The defense on it isn’t bad, even if it’s got less strength than my last one. But it does have the benefit of ‘not being shattered wood’ going for it.” Ethan equipped his new shield and swung his arm around for a minute, getting used to the difference in size and weight from his last shield. He nodded to himself, confirming that this was, in fact, a shield and that he could use it. “You guys ready?”

“Waiting on you, I came in with enough gear to play my class.” David delivered insults and jokes in the same dry voice, people who didn’t know him well had a hard time distinguishing between the two. Ethan just rolled his eyes and Sam coughed back a laugh. “Sam, go get everyone.”

Ethan turned towards the crossroads that were separated by the dragon’s corpse. One of the sides was partially obscured by the dead monster, but from what Ethan could see it looked to be a hallway. Large stones had been carved into tiles and elaborate sconces in the shape of dragons heads burned to provide light. The other side was a simple rock tunnel with simple torches that cast dim pools of light.

“Which way we going?" Miguel still had a blue glow coming from his eyes, but the worst of the Mana Depression had clearly passed. Sam, Leah, Tae-Won and Daniel were behind him. "Nice shield by the way.”

“I’m going to vote left, the right is just more cave. Let’s find the gate and get out of here.” Tae-Won clearly wanted to be done for the day. Daniel was Leah’s friend, but Tae-Won wasn’t looking forward to the fight his wife was about to have with their leader.

“We need to do both. Our job is to scout the entire dungeon and get all the information back to the Raid Coordinator.” David was always a completionist. He took their scouting missions very seriously, even when it became a pain in the ass.

Their guild was a Scout Group. One of a handful of guilds not part of the raid clan due to levels or gear, that would find the floor dungeon and report back with as much information as they could get. So far, they’d been in this dungeon for two days. If they wanted to get the reward, they needed to finish today or another group may catch up to them. Their contact was one of the Raid Coordinators, a player named Arianna. Ethan preferred to deal with her as little as possible and usually sent David to meetings with her.

“David’s right.” Leah spoke up, her voice was firm as she locked eyes with Ethan. “The mission comes first.”

Well she’s pissed too, but is she gearing up for a fight with me or is she mad at Daniel? Ethan didn’t like to be distracted like this, he was responsible for keeping everyone alive. If he wasn’t on his game, then the last month of progression could be wasted in one night.

“Marching order is the same as always. Sam, stay out front in Stealth and look for traps. Tae, you’re with me. Everyone else, stay together far enough back to support but not close enough you’ll pull aggro.” Ethan checked each of his friends faces for acknowledgment, ending with their Ranger. “Daniel, keep your fucking pet close to you.”

Daniel just stared down, the shame of the almost wipe still hanging on him.

When this is done, David and I are going to have to talk with Leah and Tae-Won about this. Daniel’s actions even before today have been making life harder on us. We need to settle it now. Maybe we can convince him to take the leap and just change to a different class. The conversation at the end of the night was not one Ethan was looking forward to.

Sam disappeared into the shadows, he needed to get a few minutes ahead of them to check for patrols and traps.

“Hey Daniel,” Miguel’s voice faintly had a manic taint to it, a lingering effect from the Mana Depression, “looks like you owe Ethan a new shield.”

Miguel grinned as he tossed a splinter of wood at Daniel, his eyes still faintly glowing. It sailed past him and Daniel’s wolf companion chased after it like a dog fetching a stick.

“Heh heh… yeah I think I have one in the bank I could give him.” The wolf returned to him and he patted its head. Daniel looked apologetically at Ethan, who just glared at him. Daniel returned to his embarrassed demeanor.

“Coooo-eeee, cooo-eee. Chirp chirp. Chirp chirp. Chirp chirp. Kreeeeaww.”

A bird call came from the tunnel Sam had just departed from.

There’s the signal. No traps, one patrol of three. Easy. Ethan lifted his shield and took his position.

“I don’t know why he insists on using bird calls. He could just easily send a group message.” Leah rolled her eyes.

“Well, because he’s Sam. I know he worked very hard on coming up with each individual bird call. I bet he’s spent hours practicing each one. Trilling and chirping to himself as he stabbed things. He’s probably internally monologued the entire thing. ‘Oh yeah, Sam, this is going to sound so fucking dope. The rest of the group is going to really appreciate the work I put into this! They’re going to love it’' Miguel faked stabbing imaginary mobs as he mimicked Sam’s thought process. His little joke broke the tension in the group, even Ethan’s serious face broke as he chuckled.

“Or maybe he’s hiding because they got too close to him and he needed to focus on not dying.” Miguel went fake serious. “He probably needs us to save his ass.

“Oooker, Oooker, Oooker.”

“Oh I know that one! He’s safe. Just waiting on us.” Miguel looked at Ethan with his standard ‘you’re my hero and I worship the ground you walk on’ mocking expression. He bowed low and continued “Lead on, fearless leader.”

“Let’s just go. Tae-Won, you’re on point. Keep your eyes open for that patrol.” Ethan started down the passage.

Miguel’s antics weren’t entirely due to the Mana Depression. He was just goofy, but he would do anything Ethan needed or asked. I know he annoys David sometimes, but I’m glad to be stuck here with Miguel. He keeps me sane.

The patrol ended up being a group of three Kobolds, small draconic looking humanoids that fell quickly to the party. Sam rejoined then right as the last one died.

“Nothing else in the way of mobs. The tunnel loops back on itself about 100 feet down. There is a named kobold three quarters of the way, ‘Drakkorak, the Cave Dweller.’ He looked blind, but had a big axe.” Sam gave his report quickly.

“Cool, let's keep heading that way. After we clear this tunnel then we can head back to the hallway.” Ethan nodded at his friends and they took their positions again.

“Sam,” Miguel whispered loudly, “I just wanted to tell you, your bird calls are amazing. They truly are the highlight of my day.”

As usual, Sam just ignored him.

With the way clear, Ethan’s party made better time finding the mini boss. At their level it fell quickly, Ethan’s borrowed shield held up fine and no one was hurt. The axe that dropped wasn’t better than anything anyone already had so Tae-Won stored it to sell after they were done.

Sam had been right, they ended up almost exactly back where they started from. The corpse of the red dragon still lay where they’d slain it.

“Okay, make sure we’re recording. This is probably going to lead directly to the entrance to the Gate and I want clear footage. Who knows what else we’re going to find here.” Ethan drew his mace and led the group into the hallway.

The passage opened up into a large room filled with eggs the size of beach balls. The shells were hard and scaled.

“I think this is where that dragon lived.” Leah spoke up from behind Ethan, her voice barely above a whisper.

“I agree, I bet if we had fought it here the eggs would have hatched and we’d have had to deal with them at the same time.” Ethan appraised the room as he agreed with Leah. “David, make a note of this place when you give the report to Arianna. Mention where we fought it and avoided the egg aggro.”

Whisper from Miguel: “Many whelps! Handle them!”

Miguel chuckled to himself at his own joke, Ethan just ignored him. I’m not giving Daniel any credit. We almost died to his shitty pet. The dragon could have hatched all the eggs as it came. Then we really would have been fucked.

“Hold up, there’s a chest over here.” Sam had wandered closer to one of the clusters of eggs. “Want me to try to open it?”

“Let’s keep moving.” Ethan said, shaking his head. “We don’t want to unintentionally hatch any of these eggs. I’ll make a mark of it, but we’ve been in this dungeon long enough.

“You sure?” Tae-Won asked him. “Could be an upgrade for someone in it.”

“David, what do you think?” Ethan turned, asking the Cleric.

His friend chewed on his lip as he scanned the room. Dozens of eggs in clusters were all around them, the chest looked like it sat in the largest one.

“I have to agree with you.” He said, looking disappointed. “Only one tank and healer, too high a chance we’d get overwhelmed.”

“Alright, keep moving.” Ethan said, gesturing for Sam to lead the way.

Ten minutes later they stopped again. They’d found the gate. A massive set of obsidian doors loomed before them. Glowing blue runes had been carved into the granite frame. It looked just like every other gate to the bosses room in the game encountered. Someone had tried to decipher the “runes” but they didn’t translate to anything. Just decoration put in from the designers.

”David, you got this marked on the map?” Ethan looked back at him, he was already making notes. Didn’t even need to ask. Ethan thought to himself.

“Yep, as soon as we’re back in town I’ll update Raid leadership with everything we’ve seen.” David was an excellent player. He was adamant about strategy and preparedness. To Ethan’s knowledge he’d only died a couple of times at this point. He was a level 30 Cleric, which meant he’d been this character for a while. Before that, he might have been a Rogue. Ethan couldn’t remember. When people die, they reroll from zero. The rest of the group was between levels 22 and 27. To be on the actual raid team players currently had to be at minimum level 35. The threshold would change whenever the raid leadership thought it necessary. So far, Ethan’s guild has gotten close several times, but had fallen short due to the danger of scouting. Scouting parties were a great way to get experience and level up, but the risk was always high.

“Alright, I’m going to open the door and let’s go through. Hopefully this boss won’t trigger on the door opening and we can escape. If not, well, I’ll see you all in Startsgarde.” Everyone smiled and laughed nervously. They were closer to than they had ever been and no one wanted to start over again.

Ethan slowly pushed open the door with his hammer, his shield ready in his left hand. The darkness was impenetrable. Everyone funneled in behind him, careful to keep the door open so they could make a quick escape. He channeled enough holy power into his hammer so it would glow, but not enough to consume much mana or give off any threat. Visibility was minimal, but they could tell the room was huge.

“Who is taking screenshots and video?” Ethan asked back to the group.

“Me.” “Me.” Sam and David responded back. Good, two points of view will mean less gets missed.

Ethan carefully made his way towards the center of the room, and still didn’t see anything.

Two more steps. Nothing. Two more. It was so quiet Ethan could hear the blood pulsing through his ears as his adrenaline peaked. Daniel inched closer to him, the Ranger's bow drawn and his wolf beside him. He looked extra nervous. Probably due to his almost killing everyone with that dragon earlier.

Daniel’s wolf let out a low growl and, almost in slow motion, Daniel released his bow firing an arrow straight out in front of him.

“No!” David and Tae-Won yelled together, but it was too late. A glowing golden pair of eyes opened in front of everyone as Daniel’s arrow hit something and clattered to the ground. The small wooden stick echoed in the chamber.

“SHHHHIIIIIITTTTT!” Screamed Miguel as a massive maw opened to reveal sword like teeth in a roar that shook the room. Braziers lit around them and a massive black dragon, five times the size of the one they had killed earlier, was illuminated.

Ethan’s world became fire. His new shield burnt to ash in a second. Leah was already dead, Daniel too. Sam, Miguel and Tae-Won were nearly in the same boat. David was trying to get to the exit. He’d already saved the images needed, but that didn’t mean he wanted to start back at level 1. Ethan summoned his holy shield and tried to escape. But the enormous dragon was already chasing him. A tail the size of an oak tree launched him across the room as the obsidian monster lunged for David. Ethan watched as the Cleric’s HP hit zero at the same time as Tae-Won, Miguel and Sam. He had less than 10 hit points left when the dragon refocused its gaze on him.

Ethan’s last view was a cavernous maw with sword like teeth coming for him. The dragon easily bit him in half. Fuck, not again… was his last thought before the game faded to black