“Run!” yelled Jen as she took off down the cave tunnel with Slim laying over her shoulder watching their backs. Their agility made them fast, but it wasn’t ten minutes before Slim let out a hiss to warn Sam of mobs approaching.

“Keep going!” Sam hollered as he turned to face the mobs. His first thought was, “Damn they’re fast!” and his second thought was “LOG!!!!” as he pointed his ring finger at them.

The log was almost as wide as the tunnel and smashed through the ghouls pushing them about 20 feet back before coming to a stop in a jumble of broken and crushed bodies. Sam didn’t stay around to take a long look but RAN for all he was worth.

Within a few minutes he heard one of his enchanted alarms go off behind him, and he knew they were close. He turned around and logged them again, before taking off in a sprint.

“Kelly, I may actually make it out of here”. That was when Sam heard another enchanted alarm go off, and he turned and logged more ghouls that were chasing him. These ghouls looked like bodybuilders with huge muscles, and braced themselves for catching the log. It knocked them off balance and crushed the one up front but didn’t smash through and confuse them like before.

“LOG, LOG, LOG.” Sam shot three logs at the ghouls and that did the trick. “Shit, at this rate, I will run out of logs before I can get out of here,” Sam thought.

Sam ran; he guessed he was about halfway out of the dungeon. A crossbow bolt flew past him. He dove on the ground and spun around and rapid-fired about 10 armor piercing crossbow bolts into what appeared to be leather-armored, crossbow wielding ghouls, and then he logged them for good measure.

He jumped up and ran, and as he reached a turn in the tunnel, he pulled out one of his enchanted fire grenades, threw it back around the corner and ran. Sam had made the fire enchantment grenade with a timer, and it was set to explode about 3 seconds after it was thrown, at least that’s what he hoped would happen.

The timer worked perfectly, but the explosion was not what he expected. Sam was around the corner and with his agility he was easily more than 100 yards away when the grenade went off. The explosion propelled him forward about 25 yards and it felt like it melted off the back half of his body.

If he hadn’t been around a corner, he definitely would have died. Sam curled up on his side just trying to breathe. Thankfully the explosion must have done even more damage to all the mobs behind him.

He dropped almost all his healing charms out of a ring and set them to healing his burned backside, but the power in the healing charms ran out before he was completely healed.

Sam was in severe pain, but he ran and hobbled along anyways. He knew he was going the right direction, but he no longer had any idea how far he had left to go. He cursed at himself, as he threw on a bunch of his forgetme charms around his neck just before he heard his alarm enchantments go off, but as he turned, he could tell that the ghouls knew he was in front of them somewhere as they slowed and started pointing their crossbows in different directions. Luckily the forgetme charms prevented them from knowing exactly how far or exactly where to fire their crossbows.

“Stealth Log,” he thought as he silently launched the log, before continuing to limp and run. Sam passed a narrow bend in the cave, turned around and “logged!” all his remaining logs in the small space. The logs were jammed between the walls and ceiling, completely blocking off the passage, but for how long, he had no idea.

He continued to run as best he could. That’s when Jen showed up. She took one look at Sam and threw him over her shoulder and turned and ran. He was looking backwards as he hung over her shoulder, and he thought that the log barricade must have stopped them for good, but just before they made it out of the cave entrance, he saw some more ghouls chasing them and he fired a deluge of crossbow bolts of every kind at them.

When he noticed his fire-enchanted bolts explode upon impact, and destroying the ghouls, instead of just catching them on fire as they were designed, he guessed it was the strange mana in the dungeon that caused them to become super-charged. “Thank goodness those bolts were not as powerful as my enchanted fire grenade,” was all Sam thought before he passed out.

Jen exited the dungeon with Sam on her shoulder. She had no idea what he did to cause all those explosions as they were leaving the dungeon, but she could tell he passed out when he fell limp on her shoulder. Thankfully, she could also tell that he was breathing OK.

She took Sam to the rally point they had set up in the forest a short way from the dungeon. She started the slow process of using her bandage and healing spells on his burnt body. Slim was passed out next to Sam. He hadn’t done well with having his mana system blocked off while escaping the dungeon, but with her connection and new levels, she felt like Slim just needed to rest and absorb mana, and he would be OK.