1

Damon told Zack to leave the frog’s corpse alone, and the Marine acquiesced. “But I’m coming back for it when we’re finished,” Zack grunted.

The other orcs experimented with the new spells and learned that they could jump vertically from a standing position. The height of the jump still varied according to the effort they put into the leap, but they discovered that the blonde-haired Marine was right. They no longer had to ride the boulder to access each floor.

They also realized that they could climb the walls with the Sticky Slime spell. Yellow ooze materialized in their hands and was adhesive enough to hold their weight and cling to the stone surfaces. Once the spell was turned off, the goo vanished.

As the team prepped to move on to the next floor, Sierra approached Harper, who was propped up against the wall, close to the fire. “Any words of advice?” the rookie asked.

The veteran considered her question for a full minute before responding. “It’s probably not anything you already have in mind,” she rasped, “but do a quick scan of the room. Look for anything that stands out. Levers, traps, carvings. And assess the mobs. If there are different breeds, determine which one is the biggest threat. Then look for weak spots. Weird discolorations, parts of their anatomy that shine or stand out in any other way, that sort of thing.”

Harper took a deep breath before providing her last bit of advice. “And remember, if the hole in the floor remains open, you can always retreat and devise a strategy before you go back in.” On her final words, the veteran coughed raggedly. Sierra gripped her shoulders, which felt hot even under her steel scaled armor. The coughing subsided, but the veteran mage looked worse for wear. The skin on the bottom of her legs still shined, appearing as thin as paper.

Sierra thanked her for the advice and walked next to Damon, who stood below the opening to the fifth floor.

He turned to her. “Are you ready?”

She glanced at Damon, who didn’t return her gaze. As she studied his features—the scar tissue that covered his left cheek, a gap at the top of his head where the hair had been burned away and hadn’t yet grown back—she remembered her antagonism toward the two veteran leaders. She had criticized their decisions. Now she understood that not everything was so black and white. In the realms, the choices were never clear, and they had to be made in split seconds. She understood the complexities better now.

“Yes,” she said, “I’m ready.”

2

Still getting used to the new spell, Damon overjumped the hole in the fifth floor and ascended high into the room. Sierra sent through the Fire Glow spell after him and, in the dim illumination, he caught a glimpse of pale skin somewhere on the ceiling. Having jumped at a slight angle, he landed on the stone surface near the rim of the hole.

Sierra jumped through next, but unlike him, she didn’t adjust her angle and yelped as she descended back toward the opening. Damon reached for her and pulled her in.

He set her down and shouted down through the opening, “Zack and everyone else, jump at a slight angle so you touch down on the floor and don’t drop through the hole again.”

He turned to Sierra, who had guided the light orb up toward the ceiling.

“Well, we’ve had ants, worms, and frogs,” she sighed. “I guess bats are next.”

As his teammates fired up through the hole, the orc general peered up at the ceiling. Shiny, light-skinned humanoids were attached to the limestone surface. Damon counted thirty mobs. His Creature Description details appeared.

CHIROPTERADON (Level 33)

HP: 288

MP: 379

STRENGTH: 35

CONSTITUTION: 28

DEXTERITY: 145

INTELLIGENCE: 37

WISDOM: 15

XP: 233

DESCRIPTION: Humanoid-bat hybrid.

Suddenly, the pale, winged creatures unfurled from the ceiling and the room was filled with a high-pitched tapping sound as the chiropteradons flew toward them. Damon was knocked down by one from behind and another mob descended upon him. Its black eyes appeared sightless, but the monster screeched directly at him, revealing its long fangs. Its head was adorned with strange-looking antennas. As the bat creature lunged for his neck, Damon plunged his sword into its midsection.

The chiropteradon arched its back and screeched again. Although he was sure the mob was dying, Damon pulled his sword back and drove it through the monster’s chest again. It fell over and he jumped back to his feet. As he glanced around the room, he saw most of his teammates engaged with at least one chiropteradon, but they were handling the adversaries with ease. “Finally, an easy opponent,” he muttered.

In the amber light of the swirling Fire Glow orbs, Damon located Sierra, who had positioned herself against the wall. She swung her staff toward the ceiling and blasted the airborne mobs with Fire Scorch. The chiropteradon’s thin wings burst into flames as they plummeted to the floor. Hammer and Vlad, who had defeated their pairings, ran to the downed bat creatures and killed them with their swords.

As the high-pitched screeching came to an end, Damon walked up to them. “Not using your spells, Vlad?” he commented.

The Russian wiped some sweat from his brow and grinned at him. “Deese zhopoliz’s are easy,” he bellowed, then lowered the volume of his voice. “I wish day were all like dis. Good for notting yebad designers.”

3

“We’re not done yet,” Sierra said as she weaved between the corpses. She pointed to the ceiling where the face sculpture hadn’t opened yet. Her teammates looked around the room, confused. “Over there,” the rookie mage continued, “behind the waterfall.” She guided her light orb behind the descending water, highlighting a large iron door. It was closed.

“So how do we get in?” Jordan asked.

Sierra didn’t answer. She walked in behind the water and called back to the group, “There’s a lever built into the wall over here.”

The team closed in and stared at the door. Damon grabbed the long iron handle and pulled down.

It wouldn’t budge.

“Give me a hand here,” he said to Zack, who grabbed the top side of the lever.

As they strained to push it down, it abruptly released and the steel door raised ten feet. Flakes of rusted iron floated like orange snow down from the mechanism, catching the light from their glow spells.

“It must’ve seized,” Zack grunted as Damon stared up at the bottom rim of the door. It was three inches thick and solid metal. Half-inch gaps lay on either side of the door, carved into the limestone bricks.

“Is that thing even safe?” Sierra asked.

“Well, it ain’t getting any safer,” the orc general replied, but he had the same uneasy feeling she did. The door could come toppling down at any moment. As he gazed through the darkened opening and into the next room, he saw an elaborate stone wall, barring any further inspection of the room.

“That looks just like the Paris Catacombs,” Jordan gasped.

The wall before them was constructed from stacked human bones. They called Zahra over and she told them that they were all tibia bones, the largest bone in the calf. Cobbled among the leg bones were human skulls set in a horizontal line, five feet up from the flooded sewer-like passageway. The line of skulls continued along the left and right sides of the room.

“I think it’s a maze,” Sierra speculated, and Damon grunted in response.

He walked up to the edge of the opening, but not under it, and looked down. Past the entryway, the room was sunken in, two feet lower than the floor he was currently standing on. Much of the waterfall flowed into the lower room, filling the passageways.

He glanced at the rookie mage’s tattered enchanter cape, which had numerous acid-burned holes. “You might want to remove that. It’ll get wet and reduce your mobility.”

Sierra shook her head. “Uh-uh. I know it doesn’t look like much now, but it’s still boosting my intelligence and wisdom stats by 10 points.”

The orc general grunted. “Unequip your staff,” he ordered, doing the same with his sword.

“Why?” she asked while still following his direction.

He was staring at the heavy iron door again. “Because I don’t trust that thing,” he replied, “and we’ll have to move quickly.”

Damon fixed his gaze on the door’s bottom edge for a few more seconds, then turned to Zack. “Hold that lever like a motherfucker.”

Then, without warning, he scooped Sierra off her feet and ran through the opening with her cradled in his arms. The door slammed shut immediately after them. The metallic crash echoed through both rooms.

4

As he dashed through the opening, Damon fell forward, dropping Sierra and landing awkwardly on his knees.

“My god. How did you know?” she gasped as she shambled back to her feet.

The orc shrugged distractedly as he stared down the dark corridors running on both sides. “Orc intuition,” he said distractedly.

As they re-equipped their weapons, a dry, rattling growl echoed throughout the maze, reverberating off the limestone walls.

“Shit. What is that?” Sierra whispered.

Damon didn’t answer. He recognized the sound but couldn’t figure out where he had heard it before. He shook his head, frustrated. More growls echoed through the maze. He turned to Sierra. “I was going to suggest we split up and each take a path, but now I don’t think that’s such a great idea.”

She agreed and said, “We still need to gain access to the next floor.” She glanced back at the iron door. “And open that thing.”

Damon nodded. “The answer’s somewhere in here. I’ll lead. You cover my back.” He trudged through the murky water and took the left path, which curved along the circular outer wall that encompassed the maze.

With her back to Damon, Sierra guided her Fire Glow spell above them, illuminating the dim corridor. The hollow growls were closer now and sent shivers down their spines.

“Have you figured out what that sound is yet?” Sierra asked.

“No,” the orc replied.

He tried to recall where he had heard that rattling growl before. It was familiar, something from his recent experiences. As he waded through the water, he thought about his last mission in Africa. He had seen lions, elephants, rhinos. Was it the rhinos? he wondered, but that felt wrong. It was something else. Something more aggressive, more vicious.

They took a few more steps forward then he dark water suddenly exploded upward. Long jaws lined with irregular fangs emerged from the surface. Before the displaced water landed back into the passageway, the jaws chomped onto Damon’s right calf, tearing through his thick skin. He stumbled to his side as the reptile released him and rose from the water to a standing position. Its front legs repurposed as triple-jointed arms, which slashed at his steel armor with long, webbed claws.

Damon’s Creature Description details came up.

CIPACTLI (Level 34)

HP: 676

MP: 16

STRENGTH: 84

CONSTITUTION: 67

DEXTERITY: 55

INTELLIGENCE: 1

WISDOM: 10

XP: 242

DESCRIPTION: A crocodile that likes to mouth off.

“Crocodile,” Damon muttered as he finally identified the sounds the creature had been making. He raised his sword. The cipactli’s head shot forward, its jaws gaping. Damon blocked the attack with his shield and swung his blade, cutting through half of the monster’s neck. Its head sagged to one side and snapped against his steel-clad shoulder. He grabbed the head and chopped his sword into the gaping wound, fully severing its head. The cipactli’s body fell backward and splashed into the cloudy water.

Damon turned around to Sierra. “Hah. Just like half of the monsters in this realm, all you have to do is cut off their heads!”

With her back to him, Sierra laughed without turning around. She kept her eyes focused on her side of the passageway. “Easy for you to say,” she chirped.

The orc general grinned, and as he turned to face the front again, another cipactli launched into his chest. He fell into the water and bumped Sierra, who managed to stay on her feet.

Damon pushed his head above the water level and saw his attacker. It was the beheaded crocodile. Its three-inch claws slipped under his helmet and gouged the back of his head. As the brown water splashed into his face, Damon saw the cipactli’s hit points. 553 out of 676. The reptile released one arm and hooked it back.

Is this thing going to elbow me? Damon thought incredulously. And, at first, it seemed that way, but as the monster drove its elbow toward his face, its scaled reptilian skin parted and another mouth protruded from the joint.

What the?

Damon turned his head at the last second. The fangs bit into the scarred tissue that covered his left cheek. Dammit, I just got that healed. The elbow ripped the flesh from his face. Damon felt the cold, damp air tingle against his teeth as he tasted his own blood. Fuck! There’s a hole in my cheek! The jointed appendage chewed the bloody meat and gulped it down.

“Goddammit!” Damon shouted and inadvertently bit into the gaping wound in the side of his mouth. “Ow, fuck!” He dug his fingers into the beige hide of the monster’s underbelly and, using both arms, threw the cipactli off of his body. Damon staggered to his feet.

From behind him, Sierra yelled, “Whoa, stay down.”

He froze in a crouched position. A breath later, her Fire Bullet soared past him and pounded into the standing cipactli. The monster was blown back fifty feet, ricocheting off the curved exterior wall and disappearing from sight.

5

They hurried around the maze and saw the remains of the cipactli laying in the water. Steam wafted up from the ten-inch hole the fireball had punched through the middle of its chest.

Damon turned to Sierra and said, “Nice work.”

He heard a splash behind him and looked back at the mangled reptile. Each of the cipactli’s four limbs were pulling away from its body, stretching and tearing its own flesh. Then the arms and legs hopped like grasshoppers through the water, flexing and unflexing toward them. As the appendages drew closer, Damon saw more fanged mouths sprout from each joint.

“Well, that’s different,” the orc general commented nonchalantly.

The closest leg flexed one last time, then jumped at them. The other three limbs quickly followed. Damon batted them away with his shield while Sierra cried out fearfully but still deflected them with her staff. Damon rushed forward and sliced through the fallen appendages with his sword, splitting them at the knees and elbows. Still, the hungry mouths jumped from the water like leaping fish, smacking against their shins.

One bit into the top of Sierra’s calf. She cried out painfully before prying it loose with the end of her staff. Blood ran down her leg into the brown water.

“Hammer of the gods,” Damon barked.

The massive marble-and-iron hammer appeared in his hand. He lifted the weapon high and bashed the jumping crocodile munchkins. Flesh was shredded and teeth went flying against the skull-adorned walls. A notification appeared in his field of view, and he turned to Sierra.

“That finally killed it… um, them,” he said.