As we walk down the stair, darkness envelops us both.

I look around, and, sure enough, pure darkness around us. I couldn't even see my hand in front of my eyes, and I doubt Eros could either.

While I was beginning to be a little cautious about this darkness, I try to relax by continuously thinking ´Dont worry! The guard said this would happen, so you should just keep walking. It´ll end soon!... I think.´

After five seconds of continuously walking down the stair, I began to get a little nervous.

It wasn't me that mentioned it though.

“Hey, do you think that we should go-”, Eros said but stopped himself mid-sentence.

One second we were walking down some stair in the dark, and in the next, we were standing on the almost flat ground in the brilliance of light. Well… not that much light. But, it is at least better than complete darkness.

The change in footing was disorienting, but I quickly adjusted. Eros did not.

I quickly look around to search for dangers. I luckily find none.

With the danger-checking out of way, I begin studying my surroundings in detail.

We seemed to be in some kind of underground cave system. There were a few plants down here, including some glowing moss that seemed to be the only light source down here. In the distance I could hear the sounds of creatures running, growling, and sounded like a dog barking.

“You okay?”, Eros asked while standing up again.

“Yeah. Did you get a map of this place?”, I ask Eros.

“That, unfortunately, isn't possible. The layout of this place randomizes every few days, so making a map every third day wouldn't be worth it”, Eros explained in an irritated voice. Seems he thought the same about it as me.

“Well, that's inconvenient”, I said.

“Sure is”, Eros said, beginning to look around. He seemed to be searching for something.

“What are you looking for?”, I ask him.

“Magical traps and illusions. Wouldn't want to walk into those”, Eros explained.

Oh… I should probably just let him do his thing.

Eros continues looking around for about twenty seconds before sighing.

“Nothing magical at least. Doesn't mean we should let our guard down, through”, Eros said, taking out his new battleax.

And with that, we began our culling of the dungeon monsters.

Our culling began a lot faster than I expected.

The cave tunnel, that we were walking down, curved abruptly to the side, making it utterly impossible for us to see what dangers were ahead of us.

“I go first”, Eros whispered to me.

He stealthy walked ahead of me, making no sounds while doing so. He put his back against the wall and made a quick peek into what was next in our path.

“I see some spider-webs ahead, but can't see any of the creatures”, Eros whispered.

I nod, and we slowly begin walking again.

When I get to the corner, I realize that I really underestimated Eros when he said some spider-webs. The walls and roof had become grey from a thick layer of webs. Now, normally I would just shrug a spider-web of, but when it's massive, and I know that a spider appropriate to the size of the spider-web is nearby, I begin slightly panicking.

Calm down you little shit. You want to die, or something?

I hear my old teachers voice echo inside my head. It calms me down and helps me keep focused on our current task.

I constantly search the surroundings for any kind of movement, while also trying to detect any unknown sounds.

I can't see or hear anything out of the ordinary at the moment, but that doesn't mean anything.

We slowly near the end of the forest of webs, both of us beginning to relax a little bit due to the lack of attacks.

“Well, that was easier than I thought”, Eros whispered.

Do you ever have those moments where you want to hit somebody in the back of their head? I certainly do right now.

I begin hearing the chittering of spiders approaching from above.

“Why did you have to talk”, I almost hissed at Eros, as I prepared to cast my spells.

I couldn't figure out their location, but I could definitely hear them.

“Got my sights on one of them”, Eros said, running forwards.

I look at where he is running to, and see the Wolf-Spider myself. If I had to describe what they looked like, I would definitely say that they were bloody disgusting.

This Wolf-Spider appeared as a large monstrous spider with the head of a wolf. Its eyes were multifaceted like a spider’s, and its fangs was complimented by a set of spider-like mandibles. Perfect material for my nightmares.

The Wolf-Spider jumped from the wall towards Eros, and he skillfully dodged while making a swift counter-attack, cutting off the top part of the Wolf-Spiders neck.

The Wolf-Spider emits a very loud screech, putting every other spider into action, before collapsing to the ground.

The creatures begin raining down all around me, making any escape impossible.

Eros sees my trouble, but is too occupied with his own group of Wolf-Spiders to assist me.

Guess I have to do it myself.

I begin channeling a multicast. Greater Entangling Vines multicast, to be specific.

I cast the spell on every single Wolf-Spider I can see. It doesn't work the way I want, though.

It works terribly, to be precise.

The Vines quickly sprout from the ground, and begin entangling their victims. That's where my plan begins to fail.

Even I could see that something was wrong with the vines. The thickness of the vines was all wrong, and the Wolf-Spider were already breaking out of them.

Why are they so wrong. They never do this in the- That's it! We aren't in a forest area! Well, that makes my earlier tactics bad ideas. I can use some a spell I haven't used before, though.

I had waited for a opportunity to finally use this spell in a very long time, and I was going to take it.

The Wolf-Spider were breaking out of their prisons, and I had precious few seconds to attack.

Like last time, I began multicasting a spell. It wasn't the same spell, though.

The spell I was multicasting was the great spell called Fireball.

When I was in the forest, I couldn't cast it due to the danger of a forest fire. Now, though. I can.

I channel ten casts. Then fifteen. Then twenty. And at last, I reach the perfect number of thirty casts just waiting to be channeled out into the world.

The first Wolf-Spider breaks free, and begins rushing towards me.

Perfect timing.

I stop trying to delay the spells, and let them loose all around me.

The Wolf-Spider all around me cry in pain. Completely forgetting about me, they wildly run around, trying to put out the fire on their bodies.

All of them fail at doing so, and, after a minute or two, every Wolf-Spider that tried to attack me was now lying lifelessly on the ground around me.

“Thats that”, I mumble to myself, while carefully walking through the graveyard of burning corpses.

I walk over to Eros. He already finished off his enemies, and was waiting for me to get over here.

“Did you use much of your Mana Reserves?”, Eros asked.

I quickly check within myself, and see that there is not too much of a difference from before the fight. Noticeable but not anything notable.

“Not much. I could go on for hours”, I answer.

“Great. Want to try out the rats next? They should be easy enough”, Eros asked, walking over to the newly bare wall to rest a little.

“Sure, but how do we choose exactly which monster we fight next? I don't see any signs to guide us nearby”, I asked while glancing around the cave tunnel. Did I miss something important in here?

Seeing my confusion, Eros snorted a little.

“We can't exactly choose which monsters we face, but we can make educated guesses. Barrow rats are naturally drawn to corpses, making it easy to lure them into a trap. With this many corpses, I wouldn't be surprised if some of them are already running over here, as we speak”, Eros explained.

Oh, that's clever. Why didn't I think of that?

“That's a good plan. Lets camp this place out!”, I said, while going over to rest beside Eros.

“What do you mean by camp? We aren't staying here long enough, for that to be necessary”, Eros said in a confused tone.

I sighed.

Oh, boy. Let's get to it.

After ten minutes of me trying to explain slang to Eros, I begin hearing weird noises coming from our left.

“Do you hear that?”, I ask Eros.

He takes a moment to see if he can hear it himself.

“I certainly do. Let's get ready”, he said, standing up from his resting position against the wall.

I stand up as well and go a few meters to my right. Wouldn't want to be next to Eros when he starts swinging with that battleax of his.

The noise becomes louder, meaning that the origin of the noise comes nearer. I can't see them though.

The noise becomes even louder, but I still can't see them.

The noise becomes louder again, and I begin to wonder about the number of Barrow Rats.

Could we survive the onslaught of the magnitude that I am imagining?

And then, I saw them.

Sixty meters away.

A chattering swarm of large, sickly looking brown rats emerged from everywhere. The creatures appeared both half-starved and agitated enough that any sign of aggression would make them rabid.

“They're coming!”, I half-shout to Eros.

“I've noticed”, Eros half-shouted with a voice full of sarcasm.

I enhanced him with a strength and speed enhancements, and then began to study the creatures we were gonna kill.

When they go closer to us I began to notice something about them. I originally thought that they would move as a hive, but that was far from the truth. They tried to crawl over each other while try ran, trampling those who were too slow. It was gruesome, to be honest.

Time to give them a merciful death.

They were almost within striking range for Eros, so I decided to make the first move.

I initially wanted to burn them all swiftly with a Fireball multicast, but that idea was quickly discarded. We were going to be in here for a long time, so going all out constantly was a bad idea.

Eros was here, and he could easily take them all on singlehandely, so I just offloaded half of the work to him.

I multicast Wind Slash a few times at the back of the rat swarm. It works wonders, and some of the rats get cut in half, with their blood spewing on the rats around them. Not that they cared though.

Some of the other rats actually stop and begin eating their dead comrades.

That some friendship right there.

I cast Greater Earth Strike, to see how it would do. With it being more focused on a smaller area, it was terrible for this situation. It certainly killed every rat it touched, but it was not many.

I began to only cast Wind Slash from the sides and from the back. The rats, who were focusing on defending themselves from the front, never saw it coming.

With Eros killing tens of rats with every swing with his battleax, and me casting Wind Slashes from every single angle, we quickly kill the swarm of rats. The last ones were especially easy, with them just eating their fellow rats instead of trying to fight us.

When Eros beheads the last one with a wide swing, we both sigh simultaneously.

“Well, what do we-”

*ROAR*

A massive roar echoed through the tunnels. It was so loud that I had to cover my ears with my hands to stop my eardrums from bursting.

“What the hell was that”, I shouted/whispered to Eros.

Eros smiled at me like a devil from the Abyss.

“Isn't it obvious? It's something we´re gonna kill!”