1

The foraging group exited the cavern and told Harper, Zack, and Rachel about the ice glitch at end of the tunnel.

“God, we have to find a way out of here,” Harper said worriedly. “The ice realm is four worlds away. If we’re seeing mobs and environments from that realm, then this whole universe is really breaking down.”

“We’ll find a way out,” Angie said firmly.

The team spoke about their injuries, which were getting full Mana Heal treatments. Despite being squeezed by the giant Minotaur, Thao had escaped without any major injuries. Zack’s right quadriceps tear had closed up, leaving another nasty scar for him to brag about.

Rachel felt the most long-term effects. The long gashes on either side of her hip, a result of the minitaur ramming her, had healed up well. Her coccyx, on the other hand, ached constantly as she lay on her side. Her assessment had been right—the injury would throb for days, despite the healing spells. Her cracked left shoulder blade wasn’t fully healed, and Damon told her to sit out the next battle.

“Zahra will take your place in the formation,” he said.

Meanwhile, Zack complimented Rachel on her bravery. “That was pretty impressive for a little lady like you,” he grunted. The healer smiled.

The teammates were disappointed they hadn’t received spells or upgrades from the Minotaur battle. “Just the furs, I guess,” Damon said in a disappointed tone that was similar to Jordan’s reaction.

But Angie had been right. The women were thrilled by the find, and she said she’d use one of the large pelts to create new undergarments for the women. “I am so tired of that dry canvas getting caught in my privates,” she moaned. The other girls laughed.

The members walked around the room, inspecting the carcasses for loot, but they found nothing of value. Damon stopped at the dead corpse of the glitched Minotaur. Rachel’s struss still protruded from its back, but it was completely infected by the glitch now. It looked like a luma key against the very real environment of the dungeon room.

“Guess you’re down one weapon,” Damon said to Rachel, and Thao gave the green-eyed healer one of her steel spears.

While Rachel jumped down to the lower levels to join Sierra, Harper insisted she continue with the team up to the next floor. Damon tried to talk her out of it—she still couldn’t put any weight on her feet—but Harper was adamant.

The orc general relented, then added, “Then stay on your boulder and above the fray.”

“What if they’re flying mobs?” she asked, grinning.

He grunted, then looked up at the opened face sculpture in the high ceiling. “Are we gonna be able to reach that?”

No one answered.

2

After casting Leap, Damon jumped. He passed through a thick floor composed of the ceiling bricks to the lower room, then ten feet of raw soil, followed by the two-inch-thick tiles that covered the floor to the next room. Grabbing a ledge, he hooked his leg onto the stone tile and straddled the opening as he observed the room.

Under a thick layer of fog that hovered above the floor, Damon saw that many of the floor tiles had been overturned. He clambered into the room and called for Harper next. She elevated into the room, riding her boulder.

“Remember, I want you high,” he said unwittingly.

Harper blurted a light chuckle. “Oh, you do?” she teased and rose to the ceiling, which was lower than the previous room’s.

Although she had a better vantage point, they both saw the same layout. The room was shaped in a semicircle. The fog they had seen on their way in covered the first two feet of the room.

“Where’s that coming from?” Harper asked.

Damon took off his steel glove, bent over, and pressed his hand against a section of exposed earth. It was very cold. He thought of the frozen tunnel in the room below, then stared up at her. “Fog rises when the ground is colder that the ambient temperature.”

She nodded.

He stepped forward and asked, “So where are all the mobs?” Behind him now, Harper told him she didn’t know. He walked to the flat section of the semicircle as the rest of the team leaped into the room. Still holding the steel glove he had taken off, he passed his palm over the large bricks. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Angie pulled up beside him. “Any ideas, Ang?” he asked.

She shook her head and glanced up at the face sculpture in the ceiling. The mouth was closed. “I don’t know, but we can’t advance until we find a solution.”

While much of the team searched the room, Damon and Angie continued along the circumference of the walls. Water and grit accumulated on their hands, which they regularly wiped off against their armor.

“I think I’ve found something,” Damon said, and Angie drew in closer.

Under the glow of their light orbs, they detected a circle cut in the middle of a brick. Twelve inches in diameter, the crevasse was barely noticeable.

“Nice find, Damo,” Angie said, genuinely impressed. “It looks like a button. Try pressing it in.”

The orc general fitted his steel glove back on and made a fist. He pressed his knuckles against the circle and pushed. The round stone moved inward, then continued receding after Damon removed his hand. It came to a stop six inches into the brick. They heard a loud click come from somewhere in the room, but nothing else changed. No mobs appeared and the mouth in the ceiling remained closed.

“Alright, everyone,” Harper’s voice floated down from her elevated position, “there has gotta be more switches. Look for ‘em.”

The teammates spread out along the circular and flat walls, searching for a similar incision in the bricks. Jordan found one near the bottom of the flat wall, close to the floor. Hammer found a third, higher up in the bricks. They pressed the extra two buttons, heard more clicks, but nothing else happened.

“There must be a fourth one,” Damon said. “Keep looking.”

And they did, but found nothing. While some of the orcs grumbled, Thao looked in the one place no one else had: along the floor. A few moments later, she found another switch.

3

As soon as she pressed the button, the floor began tremoring. A tile shot out from beneath the fog and crashed into the ceiling. Thao and Jordan had to move quickly to avoid the stone shards that burst back down toward them.

Jordan walked to the spot where the tile had been and peered into the fog. “Are those tentacles?” he asked no one in particular. A moment later, an eyeless, bulbous shape rose from the low-hanging mist. Displaced soil ran in streams down its tight skin. Still, all Jordan could see now was a bulging ball of flesh, green in color with yellow ovals.

“Hey. I think this thing is polka-dotted,” he chuckled.

The round, fat shape protruded higher above the fog, almost reaching his height. He turned to catch a glimpse of the other teammates. He saw another seven fat, slug-like creatures rising from the earth like overweight zombies. Armando sliced through one with his skelchion sword, drawing blood from its fattened sack.

As he stared at the spectacle, a tentacle quickly wrapped around Jordan’s ankle, and he turned his attention back to the monster in front of him. It had now reached his height. A wide mouth displaying long, pointed teeth opened at the bottom of its body, just above the fog. Its lips were lined with a thick row of thorns.

Jordan swung his boney bastard sword, severing the slimy appendage from his foot with ease. The creature squealed a bubbly underwater sound which the Grimalkin hunter couldn’t help but laugh at. His Creature Description details appeared.

SPEW (Level 28)

HP: 259

MP: 311

STRENGTH: 18

CONSTITUTION: 25

DEXTERITY: 33

INTELLIGENCE: 31

WISDOM: 35

XP: 199

DESCRIPTION: Not a snail. Not a slug. Not a thicket of thorns. Not a squid. Not a mole. Watch its spit, you have been warned.

Jordan hacked his sword into the fat top of the spew monster, cutting through its skin. Red and yellow blood splashed against his steel splint mail. He looked over his shoulder at Harper, who was perched above them.

“Hey, these are gonna be easy,” he shouted. “That’ll be nice after those Minotaurs.”

“Did you get a look at the description?” Harper asked.

The veteran shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”

He heard what sounded like a chime and looked back at the spew monster. The last of a blue light cascaded through its body and it spat out a strand of spit that clung to his leg. Almost like a tongue, the spittle extended from the monster’s mouth and began dragging him in.

“Oh, damn,” Jordan muttered, but he wasn’t overly concerned.

He swung his blade through the spit, expecting that it would sever just like the appendage. But his blade passed through it like water. There was a brief moment where the strand of thick spit separated, but then it reformed.

Jordan swung his sword at the barbed mouth, which was getting perilously close to him now. His metal blade bounced off of a blue barrier that now encircled the monster. As the spew monster pulled his leg toward its mouth and the outer thorns lanced through his flesh, he groaned and shouted, “Need a little help over here!”

The thorns continued to drive deeper into his flesh and he continued to swing at his sword, but the creature was impervious to damage. Grimacing from the acute pain now, he purposefully fell on his back. He planted his other foot against a flatter section of the monster’s mouth, engaging in a tug-of-war with his leg as the prize. Despite his advanced strength, the spew monster was winning the battle, and his foot moved inches from its opening mouth. Behind him, Jordan heard screaming and shouting. So much for an easy ride, he thought.

4

Harper watched the spew monsters engage the team members. Everyone was paired up except for her and Thao. On her boulder, she zipped over to the Grimalkin hunter.

“Thao, we have to figure out a way to break these mobs’ spells,” she said as she assessed the combatants. Vlad and Jordan appeared to be in the most trouble. They had been snagged by the monster’s unusual spit spells. She nodded toward the Russian. “Him first.”

Thao ran with the veteran mage as they crossed the room.

Vlad, who was still standing, saw them coming. “Deese zhopoliz slug monsters use some kinda magic,” he said frustratedly. He swung his Bonebase sword futilely through the strand of spit that was connected to his knee.

Harper cast Damage Reject, encircling the Russian with the green sphere. As she expected, it did nothing to the spit. “Worth a try,” she muttered then tried the element’s opposite power and blasted Fire Scorch at the line of spit.

“Hey! Watch it wit dat,” he protested as the flames shot close to his leg, but the veteran was already withdrawing the spell. It had done nothing to the liquid.

While Thao tried to penetrate the spew monster’s shield with her sword, Harper told him to start listing.

“Yebad! What is ‘listing’?”

“We try every spell. You start from the top of your list. I’ll start from the bottom of mine. We’ll meet somewhere in the middle. Hopefully we’ll find something that works.”

The Russians only reply was, “Arrrgghh!” as the first thorns punctured his skin. He started experimenting with the spells, moving at a much slower pace than the veteran mage.

While Harper tried Mana Leech and Mana Flash, Vlad stumbled over.

“Pizdets!” he shouted as he lost his balance and his hands got stuck to the monster’s spit. It carried his entire body toward the monster’s mouth. “Harper, please help me,” he cried.

Thao ran up against Vlad’s body and tried to buttress him against the steady pull of the spew monster’s spell. Above them, Harper kept rolling through her list and struck on her next spell. As she cast Song of Distraction, nothing really changed, except a glimmer rippled through the strand of spit.

“That did something,” she said.

Then Vlad began screaming.

5

It was more luck than anything that allowed Angie to find the right combination. She pummeled the spew monster with her aerial weapons, but to no avail. Seeing the physical weapons were ineffective, she started with her spells.

Unlike Harper, Angie had a shorter list, but she didn’t roll through them as quickly. She tried each spell three times, even with their cooldown periods, before moving on. When she got to Mana Flash, her first two strikes did nothing. But behind her, Harper had used—and more importantly, left on—the distraction spell. Angie’s third flash rocked through her monster’s shield, tearing a clean line through its skin and knocking it backward.

“Yes!” she shouted.

Harper looked over at her. “What did you use?”

“Mana Flash! Mana Flash!”

“No, it didn’t…” Harper said, then asked, “Are you sure it was that?”

She didn’t need the answer. Angie shot another red wave at her monster. Its spit fragmented into a series of bubbles and fell into the fog. The spew monster emitted another pained, bubbly cry, and its wound grew larger.

Angie waited for the fifteen-second cooldown, then fired again. The flash ripped through the spew’s body, cutting halfway through its large mass. She saw red meat swell from the wounds as red and yellow blood gushed down over its body. The monster cried more weakly now, and its tentacles started flailing listlessly above the fog.

After waiting a few more seconds, the Marine veteran wielded another Mana Flash. The red beam sliced deeper into the spew monster. When its hit points plunged to zero, the motionless creature fell over.

6

With Song of Distraction still active, Harper telepathed the other teammates to tell them they needed to use Mana Flash to defeat the mobs. But the orcs and healers didn’t have the spell. So, while the veteran mage pounded Vlad’s spew monster, she told Thao to go help the others.

Meanwhile, Vlad was still screaming. The monster’s long, thin fangs had pierced through his flesh. “My bones, my bones!” Vlad groaned as its teeth scraped against his tibia. But with every flash, the monster’s hold on the Russian mage weakened.

Still perched on her boulder, Harper fired another flash, killing the monster. While Vlad pried loose the dead spew’s thorn lips, Harper turned and assessed the room. Almost all of the teammates had freed themselves from the monsters, except for Armando. Before she could intervene, Angie swept in and attacked the mob.

Harper sped to Jordan, who was lying on the floor, healing himself. The monster had shredded his blue-furred legs and he was groaning painfully. The veteran mage called Thao over to help with the healing

With the situation under control, Harper grabbed Damon and they descended through the holes to get the other two members of the team.

7

After telling Rachel that she was needed on the eight floor, Harper turned to Sierra, who was still lying down on her front side. The rookie mage was clothed now, having received enough healing to manage that mundane task.

“I don’t want you down here alone,” the veteran mage said to Sierra, then turned to Damon. “Can you grab her and jump through that hole?”

“Oh, dammit,” Sierra interrupted as she carefully pushed up to her hands and knees. “I can try it myself.” As she shifted her weight onto her feet, Sierra cried out and hot-footed across the limestone floor. “Aaah, aah,” she whispered.

Harper shook her head. “Grab her, Damon.”

The orc general walked forward and did a reverse-lift, scooping her up by the front of her body. Sierra didn’t resist and felt relief once her blue footpads left the ground.

Damon looked down at her backside. It was riddled with scar tissue, but all the wounds had closed and some of her blue fur had grown back.

“You can display your bravery once we get you to the seventh floor,” Harper said. “It’s a much longer jump from there and it’ll be safer for both of you if you take the leap. It is ice cold up there, and that might be better for your feet, but for now, Damon will take you up.”

8

Sierra did manage the long leap up to the eight floor, sprinting across the freezing floor of the Minotaur room. She was followed by Damon and Rachel. Harper brought up the rear, riding her boulder, but feeling more and more silly as she did so. She cast another Mana Heal spell on her thin-skinned feet, feeling a strange competitive urge to “man up” like Sierra had done. And she would have to do it without footwear, just like the rookie mage.

They joined the crew in the spew monster room, and the group was eager to move on.

“Aren’t you guys hungry yet?” Harper asked as her stomach grumbled. They shook their heads, and the veteran mage resigned to their will.

Despite her obvious pain, Sierra stated she wasn’t going to sit out any more fights. She had re-equipped her armor, yelping when the studded leather pressed against her backside.

“You guys stay here, sit out this next battle,” Damon told Jordan and Vlad, who were wobbly on their feet. They didn’t argue.

After they had defeated the last spew monster, the four buttons in the room had protruded from their stone bases. Then a section of the flat wall had receded and slid aside, revealing the door to the floor’s second room.