Kicking the door behind him open, Matthew called upon Hel’s gift and let her darkness wash calmness across his sight and his emotions. Activating his cloak of shadows, its dark mist wrapped around his body and concealed his presence in the darkness of the auditorium. Berating himself, he’d made an amateurish mistake, and it annoyed him to the point that he felt like rectifying it by crushing everything that moved, crawled, or swung across the inner jungle that was the auditorium.

Jungle was the only word he could think of to describe the man-high mushrooms, the dense moss carpet that covered to his knees, and the many layers of vines which draped and hung from the ceiling all around. The foliage here was much thicker than anything he’d suspected, which created an environment much more dangerous than he would’ve imagined. Still being several hours before sunset, he’d foolishly believed that the girls would be safe from any large encounter with the enemy until they found the dungeon entrance itself.

What he’d failed to take into consideration was the fact that the vines growing densely over all the openings into the already dark room had made it a haven against the sun where the gibberlings could frolic all the time. The beasts weren’t sleeping as they’d imagined. They were awake, alert, and slowly descending in a wave on the two girls who had boldly marched into their lair.

Rebecca and Jennifer, to their credit, had moved several steps into the room, crouched down silently, and were trying to let their eyes adjust to the darkness as much as possible – which Matthew knew from experience wouldn’t be enough. A human’s eye can only see so much in the dark. A gamer’s eye can see slightly more, but not even they can see in complete darkness. Doom was slowly creeping up on the girls, and they were completely unaware.

Pulling on the strength of the darkness around him, Matthew felt his own power rise considerably, and his level of worry drop considerably. Calling on Hel’s sight and wielding Hel’s scythe, her influence over his emotions was incredible. An icy coldness enveloped his mind. His breathing slowed back to normal levels. His heartrate calmed and returned to normal. With his emotions now under the icy grip of Hel’s influence, he took his time to access the situation fully.

Dozens of gibberlings were gathered in the room – a mere trifling matter for him to reap while encased in the pure darkness which engulfed them – but only a handful was nearing close enough to be a danger to the girls. Deciding to test Jennifer’s mettle, since he knew so little of her at the moment, Matthew casually waved his hand and bestowed the gift of Dark Sight upon her. Similar to his Hel’s Sight, the Dark Sight allowed the recipient to see even in complete darkness, though it didn’t allow one to see the souls, nor did it wash Hel's calm indifference over one.

As her vision suddenly cleared, Jennifer’s eyes opened wide at the group of gibberlings which were quickly closing upon her and Rebecca. Having crawled on top of the giant mushrooms, the creatures were leaping from the top of one to the top of another, moving noiselessly as the stem of the mushroom gave and absorbed their weight like some sort of giant shockabsorber.

“YAAAAAAAAAAA!!” Instinctively, Jennifer screamed in panic and stumbled backed up several feet closer to the exit. A slight glow emanated briefly from her hands and several large shards of glass appeared spear-like in the air in front of her and then fell making soft squishing sounds of they landed harmlessly atop the thick moss covering the ground. Reacting to the scream and the sudden flash of light, Rebecca spun around, sword slicing thin air just a few feet in front of where Jennifer stood.

Sighing, Matthew nodded slightly to himself. With Hel’s influence over him, he could calmly and coolly judge the situation fully. All in all, the girls were doing about as well as could be expected. Neither had ever been in a true fight before, and they had absolutely no experience in using their newly acquired talents. Toss them into a sudden situation where they were blind as well as facing multiple opponents, and one could only expect that they’d be serious trouble. With a casual wave of his hand, Matthew bestowed the gift of Dark Sight upon Rebecca, moments before the first of the creatures were upon her.

Reflexes slow from the sudden shock of being able to see in the dark, Rebecca stumbled and the first gibberling raked its short jagged claws into the soft flesh of her left shoulder. Yanking her forward towards its gaping maw, Rebecca barely got her blade up between them in time, shoving it hard through the back of the creature’s throat. Gurgling, it released its grip and slowly fell backwards as its brethren were already starting to leap forward to take its place.

Coolly watching, Matthew gauged that a wound like Rebecca’s was probably only about ten percent of her life. Dismissing it as a trivial injury for now, he pulled the shadows tight around himself and swung Hel’s scythe up into the vines hanging overhead. The girls had enough to deal with, with the four remaining gibberlings that comprised the first wave in his opinion, so he casually removed the second wave from the equation for now.

Hel’s scythe wasn’t a normal blade like one carved by a smith; it was a weapon forged in the icy darkness of Hel, quenched in the river of life. The blade was shaped of darkness, made of darkness, and as mutable as the darkness itself. Out in the blazing noonday sun, the blade would be weak. Ineffective. Its powers drained almost to the point of uselessness – much as the shadows across the ground shriveled and shrunk under the direct light of day. In the pitch black that was the auditorium however? In such as place as where Matthew was now, the power of Hel’s Scythe could be unleashed fully. With nothing but darkness around, the blade’s size and shape were only limited by the user’s imagination, and the amount of mana they wanted to expel to alter it.

Matthew had been playing the game for over a year now and he’d increased his mana pool considerably. Surrounded by a hoard of some of the weakest creatures in the game, he had no qualms whatsoever about using his energy. These creatures were of absolutely no threat to him, but too many of them could overwhelm his women. With a cold snarl wrinkling the corner of his lips, he slashed Hel’s dark blade back through the vines hanging overhead a second time. He’d just got his women. He hadn’t even had a chance to fully even indulge in feeling the second one yet. He’d be damned if some swarm of small fries were going to kill them. Even thinking about the hassle he’d have to go through to get them back annoyed him!

Go to Hel. Traverse the frozen wasteland and visit his Revered Lady. Petition her for the location of their spirit. Go back out and hunt them through the frozen wastes. Rescue their spirit from whatever fate it was suffering. Take it back to the spring of life. Wait for the waters to do their work and restore flesh to their spirit. A complete and utter hassle, consuming massive amounts of time, and being a complete pain in his ass – and that was provided that some other damnable god didn’t steal their soul before they made their way to Hel! After all, he hadn’t had time to properly mark either of them yet with his Mistress’s mark…

Staring up, nothing moved above them anymore, except for a few tattered vines which forlornly bled sap or shed leaves down across the auditorium. Looking back over, Rebecca was bleeding from several more light wounds – he estimated that she’d perhaps lost half her life so far. The other gibberlings were now sniffing and growling uncertainly, staring up at the ceiling where their brothers had fallen, ripped and shredded by some unseen force which rained pieces of them down across the auditorium like hail in a hot summer afternoon’s storm.

“Heal”, Matthew muttered quietly under his breath. Unlike some of his innate talents as Hel’s Hero, he had to speak whenever using the magic common to his class, and he didn’t want to give away his location. The cloak of shadows would hide his presence, conceal him from sight and mask his scent, but it couldn’t hide any noise he made. Everything, he’d learnt, had limits to what it could and couldn’t do. The trick was learning what those limits were and how to work around them.

Watching Rebecca slowly straighten up fully, Matthew whispered “Heal” a second time, just to make certain she was back to her full life once again. Looking over at Jennifer, he was surprised to see that she’d somehow managed to avoid taking any injuries – had Rebecca intercepted the gibberlings and kept them from her, he wondered, feeling a little surprise. He’d assumed that a spelldancer, by its name alone, would’ve been a wizard type class that stayed in the back and avoiding fighting. Instead, it seemed as if Rebecca was quite capable of holding her own when it came to up close fighting – which, when he thought about it under Hel’s calming influence, made an odd sort of sense. Two of the first abilities which she’d unlocked had been the Dance of Striking and the Dance of Avoidance – both of which would be used for attacking and avoiding opponents up close.

Taking advantage of the gibberlings disorganized confusion, Matthew slunk quietly around to examine the dead. Four of the gibberlings had obviously been sliced or stabbed by Rebecca’s blade, but the last one looked like a porcupine, filled full of dozens of shards of glass that embedded themselves deep into its thick skin from head to toe.

“I’m going then,” Rebecca whispered, drawing his attention back to her again. Apparently she and Jennifer had been having a discussion of some sort while he was off in his own thoughts, and they’d reached a decision of some sort.

With a graceful flip, Rebecca leapt up on top of the mushrooms and began to dance and weave her way down them towards the stage. Growling, several of the gibberlings rushed to intercept her. The ones that approached from the front, or from the side, she slashed down with a graceful arc of the sword as she spun and leapt acrobatically to the top of another mushroom at the other side. Those that looked like they were going to catch her from the back, or from a blind spot at her side, were met with a barrage of jagged glass.

More curious about Jennifer’s talent than Rebecca’s for now, Matthew turned his attention to watching her. Sweat staining her naked body profusely, Jennifer’s face was clenched tight in concentration. She wasn’t creating the glass anymore; a huge pile of shards and fragments were already at her feet when she’d apparently wasted a considerable amount of effort and energy trying to learn how to use her new skills. Instead, she was now working magic to manipulate those broken shards and fire them in shotgun-style blasts at the creatures that seemed as if they were going to get a jump on Rebecca unaware.

Grinning, Matthew had to admit to himself that he was impressed. The two were working more effectively to support and cover each other’s weaknesses than he thought they would. Rebecca was twirling, swirling, dancing a ribbon of rainbow light that drew all the creature’s attention to her. She was slicing down a few here and there, but as he watched, Matthew realized that she was mainly focusing on keeping their attention off Jennifer. Naked, unarmored, and with no defensive skills or talents at all for her class, Jennifer would’ve been easy prey for the gibberling’s claws and fangs. Instead, by standing still, barely moving, and whispering her spells under her breath, she was completely ignored as the glittering rainbow that was Rebecca danced around the auditorium, dazzling the eyes of all the gibberlings.

There were a few gaps in their formation – gibberlings that Jennifer missed as she focused too intently on one side instead of watching the whole auditorium – but Matthew casually shredded with a flick of his blade. All in all, the girls were doing much better than he would’ve thought they’d do when faced with such numbers. They didn’t run. They didn’t cower. He could almost smell the fear emanating from Jennifer as he stood beside her – it smelled to him as if she might have even pissed herself at one point – but she still stood her ground and did what she could to support Rebecca.

Without him, Matthew knew, they would’ve perished here – overran by the sheer numbers and their own lack of levels, skills, and resistances. But, from what he could see, the two were working well together and would be quite dependable additions to his team. Grinning happily, he settled back to watch the two at work, subtly aiding and watching over them as they gradually thinned out and eliminated the enemy numbers.