The entire group had fallen into walking single file, as it was far more comfortable to walk on the more or less flat center than trying to walk side-by-side on the slanted surface. It wouldn’t take much warning to get into position.

They could - if they were careful - fight three abreast, so they decided that Serenity and Lancaster would take the sides, outside the rails, while Liuyedao stood a little behind them in the center. Hopefully that would give the two “tanks” a chance to stop whatever came at them, while still allowing Liuyedao to attack.

The next encounter was another single spinner, which was easily handled by Nightwitch and Doyle.

Soon after that, they came to a fork in the path; it split in a Y shape. As they tried to decide if they should go forward and right or forward and left, a pair of spinners came from the right-hand tunnel. Nightwitch and Doyle managed to take them both out, but the second one sputtered to a halt only a few feet in front of Serenity.

“Towards the spinners or away?”

Everyone voiced an opinion. Doyle was the only one who voted “away”, so they turned right to head towards where the spinners came from.

“Incoming!”

The next group was three spinners. Only one of them was crushed before reaching the group, but the other two were both damaged. One of them managed to hit Serenity while he was attacking the other, gouging through his poorly-made leg armor and giving him a gash on his shin. When it hit him, the spinning blade slammed into his bone - and the spinning stopped for a moment. Liuyedao took the opportunity to pierce its top dome, hitting the core and stopping it forever.

Rissa stepped forward to heal the injury before realizing Serenity had already healed. “You’re … you heal a lot faster.”

Serenity looked at the injury. “Yeah, I guess I do.” It had taken hours for the graze from Macho’s gun to heal. This had been easily as bad an injury, but it was healed in moments. It might have been the same speed as when Raymond shot him, though. That had also healed quickly. Everything had, since then.

He checked his available healing. Almost Full … it hadn’t been a bad injury. It wouldn’t have killed a pre-integration human, either, at least not if it hit there, but it would have hurt them enough they’d definitely need healing. Anyone in the front line should have at least some physical stats, so that wasn’t a problem. “I’m fine. This level seems a lot more dangerous than the first level.”

“I’m a bit bored back here but I think I’d like to stay bored, if that’s fine with everyone.”

Lancaster chuckled, then told Rissa “I think we’re all good with you being bored.”

The spinners still didn’t have cores with essence. Serenity was fairly confident by now that they were golems - enchanted objects - so they wouldn’t. This level was going to be annoyingly loot-free if that was all there was.

They pressed onward until they came to another Y in the path. Once again, Echo heard noise coming from the right-hand branch.

There were five spinners. Nightwitch and Doyle each concentrated on one, so only three reached the front line. Serenity jumped over the first one, leaving room for Liuyedao to strike it, while Lancaster stabbed the second. The third one headed for Lancaster, but Serenity put his knife through it before he landed.

Three with no injuries. It was better than they’d done the previous time, but it wouldn’t have worked if they’d been any slower.

“We need a better way to deal with these things. We don’t have any shields, and our armor doesn’t stop them. They’re one-hit-kills as long as you hit the dome and not the blades, but I’m afraid that if I hit the blades … I think they’d break my sword.” Liuyedao poked the remains of one of the spinners. “Is there any way we can use this thing as a shield or something?”

The group stopped to look at the remains and think about it.

After a few minutes, Lancaster said, “They don’t jump. So …. We know what height the blades will be at …”

Doyle looked at the rails on the floor. On the higher side (the outside), they were barely above the floor, but on the low side (the middle) there was more than an inch from the ground to the top of the rail. “I bet they have some way to get up on the rails. So we’ll need a couple inches of …. Something.”

Lancaster nodded. “Shin guards, then. Take one of these domes and attach it to our leg armor … uh. We can use the less damaged ones.”

“If you’re going to be busy for a while … let me know when you’re done. I need to get some mana back anyway.” Nightwitch sat down with her back against the curved wall, rested her feet on the closer railing, and closed her eyes.

It took a while for the rest of the group to work out a way to attach the domes to their leg armor. It looked terrible and would probably need to be fixed after every battle, but it was a thin plate of metal from below the knee to above the ankle on each of the three in the front. If it stopped even a single hit, it would be worth it.

They had to wake Nightwitch up before they could move on.

They decided to take the right-hand tunnel again, following the spinners back towards where they came from.

The tunnel continued on, monotonously. On and on and on.

Serenity pulled out some jerky out of his pack to munch on while they traveled. “Anyone else want some?”

Doyle accepted, but Nightwitch shook her head and chuckled. “You really do eat all the time.”

Serenity paused, puzzled. “What do you mean?” He ate to heal, but that was just when he’d been hurt.

“You really haven’t noticed? You eat more and more often than the rest of us, that’s all. I know some of it’s for healing, but I didn’t think you got hurt that much.”

Serenity thought while they walked. Was Nightwitch right? She could be. He’d have to pay attention to know.

As he thought that, he realized he’d finished the jerky he’d grabbed.

Half of his pack was filled with food. He didn’t expect to eat it all today, but he’d wanted it on hand, just in case. He was still hungry, though, so he pulled out some dried fruit.

Maybe Nightwitch had a point.

It was at least twice as far to the next branching. As they arrived at the branch, once again Echo heard noise - but this time, it was from both directions.

Eight spinners came from the right. Nightwitch and Doyle were once again able to take out two before they reached the group, but this fight would not be easy.

The spinners were all bunched up as they spun in, but when they got closer, three of them sprouted blades and spun in faster than the other three. The three in the back also sprouted blades but hung back until the front three were engaged.

The first one sprang at Liuyedao. All three of the melee attacked it, and it fell to pieces. The two on the sides ran into Serenity and Lancaster, but bounced off the new shin armor. Nightwitch and Doyle attacked the middle rear spinner, while Rissa ran up behind Liuyedao. Her spear couldn’t reach anything, but she was ready.

The three spinners in the back seemed to lean backwards, then their spinning blades struck the floor and they were launched up into the air. It didn’t seem like a very accurate jump; only one actually moved forward, while the other two went sideways and ran into each other. They ricocheted off each other with a CLANG.

Ramming the spinning blades into the floor to jump stopped the spinning momentarily, but the spinners were speeding up again by the time the one that managed to jump forward ran into Serenity’s arm. It slashed his hand and Serenity frantically grabbed his knife with his left hand while his right hand healed.

The spinner landed on top of the one that was already in front of Serenity and was spun away, into the wall. Serenity moved to crush it before it could spin back up again.

Lancaster swept his sword down and forward. He didn’t hit any of the spinners, but all four of the ones that were still spinning were knocked backwards and sparks flew from where they hit the floor.

Liuyedao stabbed towards one of the spinners and a blade of force visibly extended from his sword, skewering it.

They’ve been holding back. Good to see they’re managing skill activation without speaking.

Liuyedao followed up his stab with a slash. He was obviously aiming to hit all three remaining spinners, but only hit the center of two of them; the third was barely nicked and spun back up to speed. It rushed towards Lancaster, and he stabbed it right as Echo yelled “INCOMING LEFT!”

The device coming from the left was obviously a similar design to the spinners - it looked like someone had stacked two spinners on top of each other, except that the top spinner had four chains that were two foot long ending in large blocks of metal rather than blades.

It would have looked comical if it hadn’t also looked deadly.

Serenity grabbed the last spinner he’d smashed and threw it at the top half. One of the chains smashed into it and flung it into a wall, almost like hitting a baseball.

The spinning didn’t slow down.

Doyle and Nightwitch pelted it with arrows and spells, but Doyle’s arrows didn’t seem to be making it through the tough top surface, and any arrow he sent below didn’t make it through the spinning chains. Nightwitch was at least denting the top, but didn’t seem to be making much progress either.

“Aim for the joint!”

Serenity wasn’t sure who said that, but it was good advice.

Advice that Liuyedao was the first to take, as he dropped to the ground and stabbed with the skill that let him extend his sword. As his sword extension passed between the two spheres, he was shoved backwards and so was the golem. One chain ran into the wall, then another. It slowly stopped moving.

“I’m glad that worked.” Rissa looked everyone over. Lancaster had some significant bruising and possibly a cracked shin bone, so she set to healing him.

“What are we going to do about those double spinners? If they’re immune to me and Doyle…” Nightwitch trailed off.

“We should see if they’re immune to magic. I didn’t see Moira or Echo attacking.” Rissa didn’t look up as she spoke. Lancaster yelped as she pressed on his shin. “Definitely needs more healing.”

“How are your weapons holding up?” Liuyedao held his sword out to show off the nicks and dents it had picked up in the fight. “Mine isn’t doing so well. I think the cores on these things may be harder than the weapons we have.”

Serenity took a close look at his knife. It was in better shape than Liuyedao’s sword, probably because it was enchanted for durability, while Liuyedao’s was enchanted for sharpness. “Mine’s okay for now, but you’re right. We’d better hope for some weapon drops or we’re going to have to get more made.”

Doyle picked up one of the damaged metal ball bearings that formed the innermost part of a spinner. “You think they could make something out of this metal? Maybe we should be collecting it.”

“Should we go back, then?” Moira had been quiet for a long time. It was almost a surprise to hear her speak.

“Nah. We’ve got eight here plus whatever’s in that double guy. Real question is, should we go left or right?” Doyle walked over to the double spinner and started taking it apart.

“Left. Hold still, Lancaster. You’re only making it heal slower.” Rissa didn’t take her eyes off Lancaster’s leg as she spoke.

“Why left? The spinners aren’t so bad, they’re easier than the double spinners.” Nightwitch asked.

Rissa huffed. “No one has noticed the pattern? I don’t like it. I don’t want to see thirteen of them next.”

“Thirteen?” Nightwitch sounded confused.

“One, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen. It’s the next in the pattern.” Rissa paused. “Seriously, none of you noticed it?”

Lancaster was the first to speak. “I don’t want to find out if you’re right or not. Eight was more than I liked.”

By the time Lancaster was healed, everyone had full mana and stamina, they’d collected all of the cores, examined the dual spinner, and even replaced the damaged shin guards.

Rissa had deliberately healed Lancaster mostly with her improved natural heal, rather than her instant heal. She’d said something about it being better in the long run, while Lancaster accused her of just wanting to watch him suffer.

The group went left.