Note: This chapter has not gone to my editors and events may change before final release. The below is also unedited and in a raw non-polished form.

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“Good work, Sam.” Toaby patted him on the back.

“Thanks.” Beamed Sam.

The group stood at the end of the trapped hallway. A door with a familiar ringed metal knob stood between them and next room. They all looked between one another, waiting for someone to volunteer to open the door.

“Don’t look at me. Last time I touched a door, it cut me in half.” Sam protested, waiving his arms and taking a few steps back.

Toaby pulled a spider leg from his inventory. Laura looked at it and then locked eyes with him. “Here comes Toaby with his trusty spider leg. You’re getting to friendly with disfigured body parts.”

“Its just a spider leg. And its incredibly useful.” Laura’s gave him a ‘are you kidding me’ look. “Fine, I’ll replace it with a stick or something when we get back if it makes you that uncomfortable.”

“I would appreciate it. Spiders in general make me uncomfortable.”

“You do realize this is a dungeon dedicated to spiders, right?” Sam added.

“I didn’t make the dungeon. I just need to level up.”

“Hey, kids. Can we go through the door now?” Toaby looked around and everyone nodded.

He pushed the door with his spider leg, but nothing happened. Hooking the leg around the door’s handle, he pulled. It shifted but didn’t open. It felt stuck. The door handle stayed on the door this time, so he approached and gave it a good tug. It ground against the floor but opened.

The doorway opened to a large circular room. There was a long rectangle table with a dozen or so chairs around it in the room's center. Several massive iron chandeliers hung above it. Purple flames ignited around the chandeliers’ candles that lit the room.

On the opposite side, set into the wall, was a wide staircase. It was large enough to allow the entire party to walk down side-by-side. Around the room, on either side, were a pair of wooden doors. Broken furniture was scattered about. It was primarily bookcases and chairs, but they could also recognize the odd table and desk.

All of that was interesting and would require further inspection, but none of it drew the attention of the party as they entered. Instead, their eyes were drawn to the three humanoid figures standing at the top of the enormous staircase.

They were all tall, not quite the height of a God, more basketball player. Their skin was a light a purple and their hair black. Not a normal black, a deeper dark that seemed to absorb any light that touched it. Two of them were wearing tattered leather armor and holding rusty short swords. The other was wearing robes and had a tall staff carved out of a branch. Most notably were their elongated ears that met at a point and their eyes that were completely filled with black.

“What do we do here?” Laura asked while looking to Sam.

Sam shrugged as Toaby equipped his weapons. Whispering, Toaby said, “Grab your weapons. Something tells me they aren’t going to be friendly.”

Unsure if they could hear him or if they were going to fight regardless, the two figures wielding blades broke off from their group and ran around the room heading for Toaby and his party. The mage lifted his staff in the air. A purple ball of energy, about the size of a half-dollar, floated above its tip. Waves of energy warped and pulled into it. The ball grew in size as a result. When it became the size of a basketball, he slammed his staff down and sent it beaming for the adventurers.

“Disperse!” Toaby shouted as he leapt for the side.

His group quickly followed suit and leapt to either side of the door. The ball of purple energy collided with the floor where they were all standing and exploded, sending shards of stone around the room.

An Arachnokin Mage’s energy ball hits you for 5 magic damage.

Toaby pushed himself to his feet. His group must have all had more agility than him because they could get farther from the blast zone. He hoped that meant they took less damage than him. Either way, that made had to be stopped.

“Sam! Return fire on the mage. Hiro and Laura, take the guy on the right while I…” Toaby wasn’t able to finish, the warrior took his concentration by attacking him. He focused just in time to pull an axe up and block a strike meant for his head.

Pushing away to add space between them, he didn’t dare look to see if his group followed his orders. A tingling in the back of his head told him to counter-attack, so he did. He wasn’t sure what the feeling was, but it felt like the right thing to do.

Slashing upward with an axe, the warrior parried and returned with his own sideways strike. Using his offhand, Toaby did his best to block. He wasn’t quite fast enough, but lucky for him, the attack landed against his leather vest.

An Arachnokin Warrior hits you for 2 (5 - 3 armor) slashing damage.

Toaby was already down by almost a third of his overall health and hadn’t landed a single blow against his opponent. The warrior shifted his weight to kick at Toaby, but Toaby slashed out with his unoccupied axe.

You deal 1 (2 - 1 armor) slashing damage to an Arachnokin Warrior.

The attack glanced off the warrior’s wrist guard. The force was enough to push his hand down and free up Toaby’s off-hand. An opportunity he didn’t waste. He slashed out against the warrior’s stomach.

You deal 1 (3 - 2 armor) slashing damage to an Arachnokin Warrior.

I’ll take what I can get. Toaby tried to jump away but was kicked instead. He fell backward and took another two points of damage. The kick forced the warrior to take a step back himself, allowing Toaby enough time to get to his knees. As the warrior leapt forward, his blade in the air, Toaby took aim and threw an axe at him. The warrior had both his hands on his blade and was too close to dodge.

You deal 3 slashing damage to an Arachnokin Warrior.

You have inflicted an Arachnokin Warrior with bleeding.

The blade sunk into the creature's chest, tearing through its frail armor. The tingling in his head told him to continue attacking. His opponent was off guard and he should capitalize on it, so he did. Leaping forward from his knelt position, he slashed outward. The attack connected for a few points of damage. As the Arachnokin warrior spun around to attack, Toaby rushed him. Instead of attacking with his axe, he used his free hand to push against the weapon stuck in the warrior’s chest.

The axe moved a few inches deeper and Toaby received a new message.

You deal 6 (3 x 2 critical) slashing damage to an Arachnokin Warrior.

You have inflicted an Arachnokin Warrior with bleeding.

You have caused a major wound to an Arachnokin Warrior.

The warrior roared a mixture of anger and pain. He gripped his weapon tightly and unleashed a flurry of strikes. Toaby did all he could to deflect but was left with glancing blows. The system message in the middle of his vision making it hard to see.

After closing the notifications he got a grip on the battle but not before suffering the minor wounds debuff, the top ten percent of his health graying out. Dammit. I need to end this. Darting forward, he went back on the offensive. Toaby purposely left himself open, and the warrior landed a massive strike to Toaby’s chest. In return, Toaby landed two blows of his own. He pulled back to land another set of blows, but the warrior slumped over.

Toaby took a moment to take stock of the situation. He only had ten hit points remaining and a meager two stamina. His hit points weren’t recovering, at least not at a speed he could notice, but his stamina was steadily going up one point every few seconds.

Looking around the room, he spotted Laura and Hiro charging toward the mage. The warrior they had been facing was lying dead on the floor. Checking his party’s status, all three of them were low on hit points and had the minor wound debuff. Sam even had the major wound debuff, his health being nothing more than a sliver.

“Sam, back off. Let us finish it.” Toaby’s health recovered enough for him to toss an axe at the mage, who blocked it with a wall of purple energy. The metal projectile falling harmlessly to the ground.

Hiro charged in with his sword, swiping outward in a quick one-two combo. The mage deflected the first strike with his staff, but the second hit its mark and left a wide gouge in the mage’s arm. A pair of daggers landing in his chest, followed by the axe in his back, was enough to finish him. Toaby noted the several arrows both around and in the mage.

The entire group collapsed to the floor in order to catch their breaths.

“That was a bit intense.” Commented Sam.

“No shit.” Laura replied.

“My notifications almost killed me. I took at least one blow because they blocked my view mid-fight.” Toaby spoke between heavy breaths.

“If you focus on the gear icon in the corner of your notifications, you can choose to hide them during battle.” Sam stated. Toaby did just that and nodded his appreciation at the hunter. “So what did we get for loot?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t think any of us have checked yet.”

“Oh, let me!” Sam, seemingly gaining a second wind from his excitement, ran over to the mage and pulled up its loot table.

While he was doing that, Toaby was clearing the rest of his notifications. The system always kept his gains for last, and those are the ones he cared about most.

Congratulations! You have defeated an Arachnokin Warrior x2.

Congratulations! You have defeated an Arachnokin Mage.

You have been rewarded 35 experience.

Congratulations! You have increased your Throwing Mastery skill to 4.

Congratulations! You have increased your Axe Mastery skill to 3.

Congratulations! You have learned the skill Battle Wise.

Battle Wise: Honing your skills across many battles, you’ve learned how to handle yourself better and read not only your opponent’s movements but have gained insight to what your next move should be. Trust the instincts you have begun to sharpen. Provides a 1% battle insight bonus per skill level.

That explains things. Checking his character sheet, he saw that his new skill took up his only wisdom skill slot. He shrugged. Not like I had any idea of a better skill to put there.

As he closed his character sheet and notifications, a loot table appeared in his view. It had three items in it. The first was a stack of five mana crystals, the second was a pair of tattered robes and the last was a ruby. The mana crystals only had a few question marks in their item description, and the robes had both low durability and no armor value. The only thing with apparent value was the ruby, not because it had a monetary value but because it said it could be enchanted. Since none of them knew how they were going to use any of the items, they elected for Toaby to carry everything as the party leader until they made it back to town.

They repeated the process on both of the warriors. Each had a rust short sword. At first, the prospect of getting more weapons for the settlement excited the group, but the stats on each of them were terrible. The warriors must have had skills to increase their damage because their weapons certainly offered little. Regardless of their poor quality, the group elected to take them. They didn’t stack inside of anyone’s personal inventory, but each of them only took one slot and perhaps Curtis could repair them.

“If they dropped their weapons, what about the mage?” Toaby inquired.

Sam walked over and grabbed the mage’s staff. “It just says wooden walking stick.”

“Hmm… The magic must have all come from the mage himself. Oh well. It was worth a shot.”

Toaby looked down the large stairs the three Arachnokin were standing above. They led down to a massive door the size of a three door garage in width and height. It was made of wood and carved with an elegant flower pattern. In the middle of the massive door was an enormous sculpture of a spider. On the spider's back rested a keyhole big enough to fit their weapons in.

“Should we go down there first?” Toaby pointed to the large door. The rest of his group all turned to take in the sight of the gigantic door.

“Remember how I said I wasn’t going to open any more doors? That goes double for that one.” Sam stated.

Hiro walked down the stairs, his weapon drawn. He attempted to push open the door, but it wouldn’t budge. “I think its locked.” He called back to everyone as he returned to join them.

Toaby looked at the two doors on the left of the room and the two on the right. “Any preferences?” After everyone looked around and returned unsure looks, Toaby suggested, “Should we just go clockwise?” The group nodded, and he headed for the first door.

Laura shouted for him to stop. “We should rest up here for a bit first. We still have over twenty hours to clear the dungeon, and it’s going to take at least thirty minutes for us to recover our health.”

A quick glance at everyone confirmed they wanted to rest. “Ok.” Toaby responded. “Let’s take a seat here and recover. Good call, Laura.” They all took a seat at the long table and prepared themselves for the challenges to come.