Name

Gwen Baird

Armour

6

Class

Hunter

Health

43

Level

6

Dodge

3

Species

Half-Elf (Wood/Human)

Species Skills (Half-Elf)

Strength

6

Elf Sight

6

Agility

5

Base Skills (Hunter)

Body

6

Stealth

9

Mind

6

Perception

6

Sense

6

Tracking

6

Charm

6

Archery

7

Gwen sighed, slid down the roughly carved stone of the passage wall, and sat on the ground.

"I guess we just have to wait then," Gwen muttered, rubbing her hands up and down her thighs.

"It's the only thing we can do; if we leave the cairn we're abandoning Wylla," Jin Ae said.

"Yeah, I might be a bitch some of the time, but not enough of a one to do that," Gwen said with a bitter half smile.

"You're not a bitch," Jin Ae said, folding down to sit beside her, "and if you are you're not as bad as me."

"Please," Gwen said, "I bet I can beat you on that."

"Really? I wouldn't be so sure, at the very least my ex-husband would disagree with you." She looked away from Gwen and instead focused on the small orb of glowing light she held.

"Ha, at least you didn't leave in a screaming fit only to crawl back after you heard the end of the world was happening, so you could ask a favour, no less. Then got the favour and before getting into another fight, and leaving, again," Gwen said. She sighed, "I am fairly certain by any measure I probably took advantage of Ana wanting to get back together. And as much as I would like to say I didn't realise what I was doing, I did. And she still followed through, even after I was a massive bitch to her, which definitely makes her the better person. Not that that was in any doubt."

Jin Ae laughed, "Ah, using people's goodness against them. That sounds familiar. You know, when I got divorced I didn't even question if my ex would do the right thing. That's the kind of guy he is. And I broke his heart. Which shows the kind of person I am."

"What do you mean?" Gwen asked.

"I knew he was still a little in love with me. I knew he would want me to be happy. I knew he would be generous with his heart and that gave me the chance to be ruthless. And I took that chance and I ran with it," looking at Gwen again she explained, "we have two kids, he put them first and I put myself. I had fallen in love and wanted to be whisked off my feet into this new life we were going to live. We were going to have long talks on history and philosophers, take vacations when we wanted them, not just when the schools were closed. But, it's hard to be whisked anywhere with an eleven- and eight-year-old in tow." She sighed, "So I win the gold medal in bitchiness."

"At least you've figured it out now?" Gwen said.

"Oh, before now, actually. When my lovely new boyfriend told me that he hadn't bothered signing up to get a ticket. On the day I was leaving for the cryo centre. Because a world in turmoil was the perfect moment for a historian to be present and wouldn't that be an amazing legacy? Sitting around and watching the world burn just so you could be the one to write down what the screams sounded like," she flicked a pebble with a finger, "he never even considered that I might consider my children more important. Which probably shows that I made him think they weren't that important to me."

"Or he was just an arsehole, I wouldn't discount that," Gwen said.

"Ha, well he was that too. But we were well matched, only the end of the world happened and I had an epiphany about what the world was to me. And he wanted to write his name in history. I guess I can't blame him for staying the same person he was when I fell in love."

"Well, no, I think you can. It's the end of the world, expecting someone to be a grown up is probably not asking too much," Gwen disagreed.

"He had a list of reasons why he was in the right," Jin Ae continued, barely listening to Gwen. "He was going to be hand that wrote the last words on Earth's history. And a girlfriend would only slow him down," she added something that the translator in the game chose not to translate. Gwen took this to mean that it was a very specific turn of phrase, but a fairly universal meaning.

"It sounds more like he was wanting to get some action in the end of the world orgies, to me," Gwen said bluntly, lowering her head onto her arms so that she was level with Jin Ae. "And it sounds like you are better off without him."

"Oh indubitably, I am not contesting that. But just because he was awful, doesn't mean I wasn't too, just earlier on," she said with a shrug.

"Fine, I'll ask Theo to make you a medal saying that you're the bitchiest member of the group and I'm second best, how about that?" Gwen asked.

Jin Ae snorted, then covered her hands over her face as the noise echoed around the tunnel.

They both straightened up and listened desperately, trying to tell if the noise had alerted their enemies. In the quiet, Gwen pushed her shoulder into Jin Ae's. They shared a smile.

We may both be terrible people, Gwen decided, but it's nice to not be the only terrible person you know.

The sound of footsteps started to beat through the stones of the cairn.

Gwen lifted her head and listened to the movements of several monsters: they were going up the tunnels, not down into the hidden depths below. The others must have caught their attention.

She said as much, then relief kept her mouth moving when she should have shut up. "Thank the gods, no offence, but I hate talking about my problems."

Jin Ae laughed, "You think I'm any better at it? How do you think I get into most of these messes? Come on, let's go kill some monsters! Then we can pretend we are the heroes the villagers need us to be. And not the messes we really are."

Gwen shook her head, "That's too close to philosophy for me. Let's just go and stab things and forget about this conversation."

"Ah, fair enough, I never pretended to be healthy," Jin Ae said, turning to look out the crack in the wall.

There was a low grunting noise from outside, Gwen leaned forwards a little, taking care to block any light from escaping the hole in the wall, while staying fairly invisible herself.

The beast that wandered past might have been the bigger, meaner, older sibling of the beetle crossed with a boar she had "met" when she had arrived in the game.

She was quite happy to let that one go past. People with a better defence than surprise and what, she was beginning to realise, was a mostly ornamental wall, could fight that beast.

The plan needed her to stay alive, or at least one of them out of Jin Ae and her and the odds would be better if they could stand by each other. And no one could be certain that they would come out of a fight against something like that without a scratch.

More monsters passed. It was becoming less and less likely to be a changing of the guard, or something similar, and perhaps instead she could hope that it was the distraction that they had been promised.

Next passed a small pack of the wolf-type monsters, the ones that oozed a bloody sap as they walked and the joints in their legs snapped and reformed. This lot walked with a languid spring to their steps. As if they were looking forward to the fight they were marching too.

Gwen shook her head, why was she so desperate to see something human in them even though there had been nothing yet to prove it? Oh, some had a bit more awareness, but there was never anything behind the eyes. And yet she kept searching for it. Why was that? She didn't want there to be more to them. Let them be automatons with no care for the world around them except to kill, that was easier. She didn't have to feel bad, or wonder if she should be feeling bad if they were nothing but monsters.

But it felt wrong even to think it.

She hunched her shoulders a touch and looked over the group. Some of them were carrying weapons, better ones than the broken sticks and cobble stones that the ones in the village had grabbed up. One carried a long spear, something like a halberd or a pike. It was meant for holding off foes from far away, but her newly expert eye could see that the monster was holding it wrong. Rather than wielding it to get a longer reach and to deliver distant blows, it was holding onto it tight. Like it was a new present it didn't want to let go of. Hopefully, that would help Marina or Theo defeat it. They had not, after all, allowed for a longer than natural reach when they had said their goodbyes and left them up a tree.

One of her eyes shut in a wink as the notification for a new level of Perception showed itself.

She shook her head to dislodge the thought. The pair probably weren't even up a tree any longer. They'd have found a new spot; it wasn't worth thinking about. They would be fine, or else they would find out that they weren't in a while. And Gwen and Jin Ae would probably be in trouble long before that so there was no point in fretting about it.

Something caught her eye. One of the monsters was wearing a bracer, something leather, perhaps? Gwen's night vision wasn't up to seeing more beyond the fact that it was a dull brown, which had shown up against the lighter grey streaked mud tone of the wolf fur it covered. That was worrying, somehow more worrying than the idea of them learning to use weapons. It was one thing to seem them realise that a thing you picked up could help you hit harder, but something else entirely to see them learning about armour. And in particular how to put it on.

She wondered how it had managed that, how many tries had it taken to manage the laces, and then ruthlessly stamped on the giggle that had tried to break free. Of all the times to be inappropriately giggly, this was not one she could afford.

The monsters continued up the passage way. They were, she realised, leaking less of their sap or blood, or whatever it was. Perhaps that was the real reason for their odd bouncing walk?

It didn't matter.

She eased back again.

Monsters continued to pass by them, but not in the same rush that there had been.

Gwen turned to look at Jin Ae. She gave her a nod. Then she checked both directions, like crossing the road, she thought, with another stamped down giggle dying in her chest, and squeezed out of the hidden tunnel.

She kept to the shadows. Jin Ae seemed willing to follow her. Gwen was horribly aware of the sounds she was making. Her feet dragged across the stone, rasping and crunching when she leaned her weight on them. Her heart beat seemed to be an echo in her chest louder than bells and thunder. Her breathing was somehow worse than that.

Jin Ae had extinguished the light before leaving their sanctuary in the walls, so now the world was lit only by their innate night vision and the occasional stone recessed into the walls that glowed. They were barely more than the memory of a candle, more like the dying light of a torch than anything you could lead a party with. But with her better-than-human eyesight, Gwen was able to make her way through the grey stone and moss covered walls of the cairn.

They came to another corner, Gwen held up a hand to stop Jin Ae. She could hear something on the other side.

There was movement beyond the line of wall. She held her breath and risked a look, but the creatures were distracted. It was a trio or so of the two legged hybrids, no, she changed her mind, there were four, but the three standing around the fourth had blocked her view. The fourth was badly injured, at first she thought the creatures were trying to help it, but then she saw the clubs. She gasped and flinched at the sight. Apparently, there was no first aid in the hybrid army.

The noises of the creature dying masked her gasp, and she pulled back around crouch beside Jin Ae.

She held up three fingers, tapped the one furthest from her and pointed to Jin Ae, then the one closest to her and pointed to herself. The middle finger got a shrug and Gwen hoped the "whoever gets there first is welcome to it" vibe she was trying to give off. The experience you gained from kills was nice, but she'd willingly give up a lot of it if it meant they had a smooth attack.

Jin Ae nodded.

Gwen gave a grim smile and she peeked around again. Two were kicking the corpse of their brethren as it dissolved, the third was looking over her head at the wall. By crouching Gwen seemed to have dodged their lethally efficient security.

Holding a hand behind her she counted down, three, two, one. The second her fist clenched on one, both she and Jin Ae let loose.

Jin Ae sent out a barrage of silent spells. Fist-sized globules of green light hit the monster furthest from them. They spread across the fur and bark, burning whatever it crossed. The monster fell to the ground without even having the time or chance to let out a cry or a whimper.

Gwen was less organised. In the cramped quarters of the tunnels, and in particular while leaning around a corner, she couldn't use her bow. So the dagger would have to do. She ignored the way it seemed to thrum (happily) in her hand as she took it from its sheath. She bounced it once on her palm to remind her how the balance and weight felt, before throwing it into the back of the nearest monster. It landed with a meaty thunk, and soon the monster was dropping to the ground like its fellow, Gwen leaping in as it crumpled to retrieve her dagger.

The third and final monster of the group, turned to see what was happening and so was slain with a spell to the face and a knife to the belly. The hair on Gwen's neck rose as the spell scored through the air above her. When it hit the monster it covered the muzzle and most of the face like a jelly, before it seemed to crawl into the skin. The monster shuddered and fell across the bodies of the other monsters with no more noise than a sigh.

The trio had been killed silently and dissolved just as quietly into the ground. Somehow, the oppressive atmosphere seemed to lessen a little at that.

Gwen and Jin Ae crept forward, looking in the piles of goo and dirt for anything they could salvage. Gwen got her two knives back, the metal one looking a little tarnished from its time in contact with the sap, while the bone dagger seemed completely immune to such damage. When she picked it up the sap pooled off of it, like oil racing across water's surface after being doused in soap.

Gwen wrinkled her nose.

Jin Ae held her shoulder and leaned into her ear, "Level up?"

Gwen startled. Despite it all she had somehow forgotten that they were in a game. And yes, they had a quiet moment. It made sense to sort these things out before they moved on.

Gwen had actually levelled up twice since she had last checked, the text in the notifications wasn't technically any different, but she still got a feeling that it was judging her for not noticing. She thought for a moment, then carefully entered the new points into her Body and Agility stats. More health and stamina could only be a good thing. And she was in the midst of a stealth challenge like she hadn't seen before in the game, so helping that along was probably a good idea.

Jin Ae seemed to stand a little taller and more solidly in the space she occupied, after they had finished levelling up. Gwen guessed she had put something into her Body stats too. Unless that was a bard thing, putting points into Charm might work like that too.

They stole along the cavern, Gwen kept an eye out for more of the hidden holes and passages on their way. The monsters hadn't noticed the ones higher up in the cairn but that was no reason to believe that they would be that lucky for all of them.

At the thought of the word "lucky" Gwen was reminded of the goddess she had pledged herself to at the beginning of the game.

Well, it probably can't hurt, she thought. She sent a look upwards, since that felt appropriate, especially since they were now well underground, and thought loudly and as if she was trying to project her voice to the back of a very large room, "O great and awe inspiring goddess, please could you send some especially good luck my way. Things are, I think, about to get quite dramatic and I would greatly appreciate the help. Thanks very much, yours sincerely, Gwen."

She wasn't sure if that was how you were supposed to word a prayer, but she didn't have any skills in religion to tell her otherwise. Mostly people seemed to have set things they would say, but she didn't know what those were in this reality for her goddess.

Somewhere something pinged with the light of a new quest being born, and Gwen rolled her eyes. Really? You think I have time for that? Well, I guess that's something to think about for when I get out of here. I can ask Nikolai if he still wants to talk to me when we get back to the village.

Seeing a small hole in the rock a few corners later was a pleasant surprise. Huh, thanks, Gwen thought. Before shaking her head, okay, no need to buy into this sort of thing completely. It's not glowing in a holy aura or something, no need to assume that it was the goddess who made it visible.

She nudged Jin Ae, before pointing the hole out to her. Pointing her thumb at herself she then pointed along the passage. Jin Ae frowned, but gave a shrug. The message on your own head be it, was pretty clear.

Gwen held up her hands in mock and overdone surrender, "I'm a hunter, what else am I supposed to do in this situation," she mouthed.

She wasn't entirely sure if Jin Ae saw her clearly enough to get the message, but she smiled and ducked into the hole in the wall.

Gwen waited a moment to make certain that the hole wasn't a trap of some sort, but Jin Ae gave her a thumbs up and she went on her way.

She let a breath and all the tension she held in her shoulders drained out of her. She had picked up a new ability along with the points boosts when she had levelled up.

Concentrating, she found the inner switch that had been newly revealed to her. The one that represented her new ability to Shadow Walk. It seemed icy cold to the touch and in her mind's eyes she saw herself drawing in all of the light around her.

She took a step forwards and vanished into the shadows.

The light and darkness in the world was flipped. What had been dark and inky pools of black were now alive with a warm light, she could see every rock and pebble and fossilised spider web. And yet despite it being the world remade wrong, it felt safe.

As she clicked it into place a warning appeared in front of her gaze.

Beware: Shadow Walking can become addictive. Symptoms include a false sense of security while in use and a desire to use the power even when impractical.

She could feel it starting. It warmed something inside of her, some corner that had felt afraid since she had stepped foot into the game.

It promised her everything if she just stayed.

But she had been promised things like that before, from kinder and more tempting sources than a mysterious power that lived inside her head.

She shook it off and started to jog. She would have, at best, half a minute; she needed to get as far down into the cairn as possible in that time. The world seemed to grow brighter and warmer as she ran; the heat never grew to a point where it hurt, but she could feel herself growing sluggish.

Gwen gritted her teeth and put on a last burst of speed, it felt like she was running through a mist made up of tiny grabbing hands, but she made it a good distance down the passage.

Gwen felt secure in the knowledge that nothing could see her while she ran through the shadows and that in a tunnel deep under a cairn in a particularly badly lit spot she wasn't going to be knocked out of her magic by a bright light. The lights on the walls that had seemed dim to pointlessness were now holes into the ether that she had to dodge. At the very least, if she came to close to one she felt the beginning of a stress headache forming, like an alarm made out of muscle spasms and pain.

She had to drop the magic sooner than she would have liked. But there had been a small rockfall at some point in the past and she was able to hide away in the hole it left. As she shivered back into normal reality Gwen looked past the stones and gravel, to try and catch a glimpse of what was happening in the cavern ahead of her.

It seemed like she had dropped the magic just in time for it to come in useful. There was another corner ahead of her and it blocked a lot of the cavern. But if she leaned to a dangerous angle out of her shelter she could just catch sight of what was going on in the cavern.

And saw it she did.

She let out a breath, it was the only thing she could do to stop from swearing at the top of her lungs. So much for the distraction drawing the monsters up and out of the cairn.

Gwen could count at least forty creatures, though it was hard to tell as they moved around and there wasn't much to tell them apart with, especially in the gloom. They were all milling around in the way of people, or hybrid plant/animal monsters, who have been told to wait somewhere and were growing bored. They mostly seemed to be the long-limbed, stretched almost, wolf creatures. She looked around and could only make out a single, beetle boar creature sitting in a corner (smaller than the one she had faced); thankfully, none of the really big creatures seemed to be able to fit in the chamber.

Then, the group moved and a taller monster came into view. It had the rangy look of something that has grown too fast and wore what looked like scavenged adventurer's armour. Behind it, two other monsters were dragging a girl with long, pale hair that had fallen loose and fell like a curtain from her slumped form. Gwen's heart hammered, the creatures weren't doing anything, not yet. But if they wanted to, they could kill her in a second.

Why hadn't they? It clearly wasn't out of some form of kindness, the hold they had on her looked painful. Even from a distance Gwen could see how they were marking the girl's skin and tearing through the sleeves of her dress.

She pursed her lips. Nothing good, she knew, would come of delaying the attack. But then nothing good was likely to come from doing it too quickly, either.

They needed the perfect moment and there was no way to find or manufacture one.

They would just have to make any moment they chose perfect through obstinacy and sweat.

She huffed out a breath and gave a shrug. That was an old song and one she knew all the words to. She'd cope or she'd fuck up and die again and end up in the temple with Nikolai probably looking very disappointed at her.

And that didn't sound fun. So she'd just have to manage.

Taking a deep breath, she flung herself back into the shadows and bolted up the passage again. She had a lot to tell Jin Ae.

Shimmying into the hole in the wall where she had last seen her, Gwen fell to one knee beside her."I saw Wylla, but we can't just charge down there and fight. There are too many down there for us to take on," she whispered.

"How many?" Jin Ae asked.

"I could only see into one half of the cavern, but there were at least forty there, I wouldn't want to bet on there being less in the spots I couldn't see," Gwen told her.

Jin Ae bit her lip, then winced, she'd stabbed herself with one of her fangs. Then she grinned, "I think I have an idea."

"Is it polite to say "uh oh" at this point," Gwen asked drily.

***

Howls, shouts and the screams like that of a dragon-sized toddler having a temper tantrum echoed down the corridor and into the cavern.

The tallest hybrid snarled and turned to look up the tunnel out of the cavern. Growling to itself, it waved its clawed paws at the twenty or so monsters closest to the cavern exit and sent them up to take a look. Then it turned back to its trailing pair and pointed to the human girl in their clutches. She seemed to come alive at that point and bit into the shoulder of the one closest to her in a jumping attack that shocked it more than harmed it. But her struggles were in vain, they shook her until she was stunned and hung there limp and shaking.

***

"That's not good," Gwen whispered, her gaze on the girl. She was holding up a mirror taken out of Jin Ae's entertainer's make up kit: it wasn't big enough for a good view of the cavern, but even the shaky reflection that Gwen was able to make out told her a lot.

"We can't get to her yet," Jin Ae whispered back, "the monsters that are left are too spread out, it would take more spells than I've got to fry them all."

Gwen nodded and put a hand up to her mouth as she watched the girl being pulled over to what looked like it might have been a hastily constructed alter or a surgical table. It seemed to have been made out of the stone from a sarcophagus, though the ropes they were tying the girl down with looked to be made from the same kind of plant that the hybrid in charge had growing in the place of limbs. And that was not a nice thought, Gwen realised, there were many ways for that to go, none of them good for Wylla.

As the racket continued, more of the hybrids left to investigate what was making the sound, they walked past Gwen and Jin Ae's hiding spot. She breathed a little easier every time more passed her by, the more that went up, the less she and Jin Ae would have to fight.

Hidden in the hole, Jin Ae lay across the dusty floor, her hands alternating between different ropes. Every time she twitched one, the motions would travel up through the hidden tunnels, bypassing almost all danger of discovery, and would lead up to one of the alcoves where once a skeleton had lain.

Now, the alcove was adorned with the empty cuirass' of various skeletons; a horn of some kind that might have actually been a very pointy hat with the end knocked off; and Gwen's cloak. Plus, numerous spells that Jin Ae had pulled out of the ether that had dramatically increased the volume of any noise made in that small space.

Before casting those spells, Jin Ae had sent Gwen out of the hole in the wall with her bags and weapons, with anything loose on her that could make the slightest noise. The slightest sound could not be risked when you were magnifying all noises a hundred-fold.

Eventually Gwen signalled to Jin Ae to stop. The monsters had stopped following the noises. Either they had worked out that it was a distraction, which would be very unlucky timing since they had been falling for it left right and centre so far, or they felt that the threat was less important than what might happen if they left.

Gwen remembered the tall, thin monster, wearing stolen armour. It wasn't hard to imagine what might have been scarier than a mysterious cacophony.

But still, "how are they still falling for that trick?" Gwen asked.

"I don't think it's a case of 'still'. In these types of games, very few monsters are capable of learning, right? So, once you have spotted their weakness you can exploit it," Jin Ae murmured.

"And what, being really, really gullible is the Achilles' Heel of these monsters?" Gwen asked; as a theory it did make a surprising amount of sense.

"Not so much gullible, I think, but suggestible. And of course, all the 'it's not paranoia if they are out to get you' rules aside, it's not like we are doing the same thing to the same monster, or even group. They aren't having the chance to warn each other."

Gwen frowned; she hadn't seen much of the creatures. But from what she had seen they were quick to anger, quicker to fight, and hadn't actually looked as if they were talking to each other. "I don't know if they can? At least the lower level ones. I don't know what this one that's in charge can do. But they barely look at each other, let alone talk."

Jin Ae shrugged, "There are a lot of ways of communicating without using speech; just because we are heavily dependent on it as a medium doesn't mean they are."

Gwen thought for a moment. How to explain what she meant. "They don't fight or move together, there's no joint tactics. They all fight individually, and sometimes that happens at the same time, but it's not together. Sometimes there's one that looks more senior in the ranks. But even they don't communicate, they just seem to point the others in the right direction."

"That's a form of communication," Jin Ae said.

"Yeah, but it's not 'you two go that way, you two go that way, and we'll sneak around the side'. They're herding more than leading," Gwen shook her head, "I don't know, maybe I'm thinking into it too much."

"No such thing," Jin Ae countered. "At least in a quiet moment like this. If we're going to fight these things we need to try to understand them."

"We also need to come up with a name for them, 'them' and 'monsters' might get confusing," Gwen said.

"I was hoping that we wouldn't be familiar enough with them to have to come up with a taxonomy, but I suppose you are right," Jin Ae sat up and brushed the dust from her clothes. Since they had used Gwen's cloak for their contraption, she was forced to lie on the ground in her stage gear.

Gwen added every-day clothes for Jin Ae to her list of things they needed. "Got any ideas?"

"That depends, would you say they are a part of the animal or plant kingdom?" Jin Ae said.

Gwen frowned, "Both? Neither?"

"Well, that gives us the option of fungus, which," she frowned, "might actually explain some things."

Gwen didn't like the sound of that.

"Have you ever heard of ohiocordyceps unilateralis?" Jin Ae asked, tapping a nail against her chin.

"No," Gwen replied.

"Hmmm, well I'll tell you about it later. It really is a very interesting fungus, but perhaps not something that you want to be thinking about right now," she allowed. And then gave a bright grin, "I doubt it's what's causing the problem here anyway."

Gwen seriously considered asking more about this, before deciding that Jin Ae was probably right. A couple of minutes before facing off with some monsters probably wasn't the time to learn more about fungi.

Speaking of, she whipped her head around to look at the cavern. Nothing much appeared to have changed, but she shouldn't be getting distracted like that. She had to stay alert.

"Anything changed?" Jin Ae asked.

"Not that I can see," Gwen told her.

Jin Ae let out a long breath, "Then I suppose there's nothing else to delay us, is there?"

Gwen snorted, "No, unfortunately it looks like we actually have to fight now."

They shared a look. It was plain to Gwen that Jin Ae was terrified. Which was fair. So was she.

It wasn't dying that worried her. She'd died once already and to be honest it wasn't that bad. It was the pain that happened before you died that was worse. Being crushed to death had been bad enough, but at least she had blacked out fairly quickly. With these monsters, and wow, we really do need to come up with a name, she thought, she doubted she would be that lucky again.

Gwen shook her head, "Well, no time like the present."

Jin Ae smiled and then pointedly waited for her to start.

She sighed, then turned. "Right, I'll try and off the one in charge, shall I? You pick off the ones around the edges?"

"Gladly," Jin Ae said.

Gwen pulled her bow over her head and checked the string with her fingers.

She gave Jin Ae what she hoped looked like a heroic nod and then turned towards the battle. If she dragged her feet a little as she walked over to the corner before the cavern then Jin Ae was unlikely to complain. Gwen knocked an arrow from her quiver, pushed her back into the shelter of the wall, and then with Jin Ae following her like a shadow, she stepped out and around the corner.

The cavern was huge, roots hung from the ceiling, white as bone and like skeletal fingers.

The arrow left the bow string before the dust thrown up by her feet had hit the ground.

She had been aiming for the monster in charge who had been ordering two other creatures around, and had been getting in the face of one of them. Only, somehow, the lead monster had seen the arrow coming. It shouldn't have been able to, she was hardly in the cavern when the arrow left her bow.

But it had seen it and it had grabbed the monster it was bullying by the throat and used it as a shield to block the shot. The arrow hit the struggling monster in the back, killing it close to instantly. The monster in charge dropped the corpse as it started to dissolve, looking with a faint sense of disgust at the twitching body that was fading into the dust.

The hairs along the back of Gwen's neck stood tall. The boss looked into Gwen's eyes and growled, almost appearing to laugh. She glared back, pulling another arrow and shooting it in its direction. Another monster was grabbed and used as a shield, before being carelessly tossed away.

Gwen took a second look at her opponent. This creature was not a blank slate like the other ones. It had a personality. Unfortunately for her, it was a jerk.

It waved a hand, and the vines on the sarcophagus moved and grabbed Wylla. They weren't strong enough to hold her completely still, she came to life enough to struggle against them, but they were growing and it was only a matter of time.

It didn't bother coming any closer itself, instead, with a wave of its branchlike arm, it sent a group in Gwen's direction.

"Oh, so now you learn how to do that, fucking hell, were you listening in?" She cursed, before sending off as many shots as she could. They were not as well aimed as she would have liked, out of the handful she set loose only a couple hit and only one monster was sent to the ground. She pursed her lips, panic wasn't her friend. It just made her hands shake and she wasn't much use then.

Jin Ae sent off a spell at one of the closer, injured monsters that had been hurt by Gwen's first shot. The fire scorched the creature and appeared to be enough to kill it.

Gwen slung her bow back onto her back and pulled her sword from its scabbard on her hip. One of the wolf headed creatures ran at her, but she was able to swing hard and fast with her sword and take a chunk out of its neck. It fell in front of her, dissolving almost instantly.

Growling, the leader moved, not towards them, as they had hoped but back towards Wylla who was fighting with everything she had against the vines holding her in place. Its arm grew and grew until it was suddenly both an arm and a shoulder-high staff. A crystal shone at its top and the light it gave off seemed to shiver and writhe across the walls.

"Oh, that's not good," Jin Ae said, from behind her, "I don't know what that is but it's triggering a magical sense I didn't know I had, to tell me it's bad."

"Amazingly I had worked that out!" Gwen grunted, as she used her sword to keep a clawing beast at arm's length. The monster was off balance thanks to a slice she had given to its thigh, which gave her just enough of an advantage to bang into it with her shoulder while it was chasing her where she used to be and send it sprawling in front of Jin Ae, who gave up on spells for the moment to club it over the head with her sword.

That left three monsters between them and the leader, who was using its staff to do something malignant-looking to Wylla. It waved the staff over her and Wylla seemed unable to tear her eyes away, she was following the glowing crystal with not just her eyes but as much of her upper body as she was able to move in the vines.

Gwen had to force her own gaze away and onto the trio of still living and uninjured monsters in the room. Gwen's hand fell into the open maw of her quiver, there were no arrows left. Looking over at Jin Ae she could see the sheen of sweat standing out on her friend's brow and the way her arms were shaking behind the weapons she carried.

They were running out of chances. Which meant she had one option left and about ten seconds to do it.

Gwen took a breath and then ran screaming at the creatures; sweeping her sword low she took one off its feet. When it fell, Jin Ae, now screaming with equal intensity set it alight. Panting, Gwen moved onto the next beast, a red film had covered her gaze and she let her anger out, it was stupid and she would probably regret it later, but she shoulder barged on as hard as she was able. She didn't send her opponent to the ground like she hoped, but it staggered, its wooden limbs tottering under the impact. As it tried to catch its balance she kicked it in the back, putting it off even more. Then she moved onto the other: this time the monster was smarter, it knew it had to attack fast, because she was fast too. It clawed out, scratching along her stomach. Most of the damage was kept to the surface of her armour, but the tips of its claws dug in and she could feel them peeling back her skin. The pain was everything in her world for a moment. It began and ended there.

The red of her anger changed to the flashing red of a health bar that has dropped perilously low.

Then she caught sight of Wylla's face over the monster's shoulder and she was snapped back into the cavern. Her skin was as pale as the bone in her dagger and her eyelids were drooping over eyes that were zipping back and forth. Pulling herself away, and trying to ignore how agonising that was, she swung wildly with her sword. It bashed the side of the monster's head, stunning it badly.

Behind her, Jin Ae had been busy, she had killed both the monsters that Gwen had left in her wake and she did the same with this one too. Her sword cut deep into flesh, spilling blood, while she sent a kick into the other side. There was a crack that echoed around the cavern and promised a broken rib.

Putting a hand to her belly, Gwen drew back a palm covered in red blood. She shook her head. I don't have time for that right now, she thought as she stumbled forward. "Oi, fucker!" she shouted.

This seemed to catch the hybrid leader's attention, and growling it turned towards her.

"I've killed your friends, so I think it's worth it to you to let the girl go, don't you think?" Gwen asked, trying desperately to keep on her feet as the blood loss from her wound made her dizzy for the second time in a single day.

The boss didn't answer so much as roll its eyes; raising its staff it started to chant, then stopped, choking. Green blood had begun to spray through its teeth. The tall monster let out a whine, then fell to the ground.

With shaking hands, Wylla was knelt behind it on the sarcophagus, a sword, green-streaked with blood dropped out of her lax hands. She looked down, Gwen's gaze followed. The skeleton that had been the occupier of the sarcophagus had been tossed aside when the hybrids had moved it. But that skeleton, dressed in old and tarnished armour, was looking up at Wylla. It moved with creaking slowness to pick up the hilt of its sword and returned the sword to a position across its ribs.

"Thank you for the sword," Wylla said. The skeleton nodded, then looked over at Gwen and Jin Ae. The skeleton seemed to stare at them from empty eye sockets; the leathery remnants of dried skin lay on its bones and hair beaded with gold, and semi-precious stones lay down its back. It nodded once to them, Gwen and Jin Ae nervously nodded back, then the skeleton's hold on its un-life faded and it collapsed to the ground. It clicked against the stone beneath it, its whole body seeming to rattle and shake, but it never let go of its sword.

Wylla wobbled, Gwen stepped forward to catch her, though she was hardly in much better shape, and Jin Ae had to help hold her up as well. "Thank you, to you as well," Wylla said, her voice fading, "But I think I am going to faint for a bit now, if it's all the same to..." Her eyes slid closed and her weight fell fully into Jin Ae and Gwen's arms.

That was when footsteps could be heard running down the corridor, Gwen, with barely the energy to hold her head up, turned with Jin Ae to look. It was Marina and Theo, running into the cavern, before skidding to a halt in front of them. They stared at the trio huddled over the body of a hybrid and the skeleton of a long dead warrior. Marina stepped forward, healing magic already glowing around her fingertips.

"Well thank fuck it's you," Gwen said, then allowed gravity to win and push her to her knees. The world went a bit fuzzy and grey for a while after that, but she didn't care enough to fight it.