I scrambled as quickly as I could to my feet. The gremlin was still hanging on to my back, and I felt the weight of another get added. I jumped at the nearby wall turning my back to it, slamming the gremlins between the rocks and me. I felt their small bones break as they screamed their last cries.

I had somehow dropped my sword when I was falling, and so I pulled my hatchet out and waded back into the little monsters. But, as it turned out, that was almost worthless. With my skill in Taekwondo being over 15 but my axe skill being under my kicks were much more destructive.

It wasn’t long before Blink, and I had cleared up all the gremlins. But, without the support of the goblins, it was just like the last floor, only much smaller as it seemed like only the final room came at us.

I moved up close to the portcullis and looked through just to see if the mimic was there, but it was missing. The room was now empty again as its gremlins had come through to get us. I turned my back and moved toward the bloody mess of monsters.

Looting was quick none of the gremlins had anything; the helmets for the goblins were too small for me and not worth the time to bring. The spears were nice, however. They were longer than the cut-off ones that the real goblins had used. These were lighter weight as well and so would make good javelins weighing around three pounds each.

When I activated loot for the bodies of the goblins, I was happy with what I got. Each one gave me a poison resistance potion and two copper coins. The goblin soldiers carrying copper coins made me wonder if this world also had their version of the ferryman and the river of souls. The potions worried me.

Only two of my arrows had made it through the fight. The broken parts went back into the quiver so that they would mend faster. They should be good in another hour or so. My weighted skirt had used its healing on me twice in the fight, from what I could tell. I knew once was the leg, but I couldn’t tell when the other was, but I was out the mana, so it happened.

“On we go, Blink,” I said as I grabbed up the best three spears. I could easily hold two in my left hand and throw the one in my right. I might not have a high skill for throwing spears, but it wasn’t incredibly hard, and it might be helpful.

When we turned the corner of the dungeon that the spear goblins had come from, the dungeon did one of its more abrupt changes. The floors and walls went from cut stone back to the naturally formed cave, and the abundant light was all but gone. There were torches behind me on the wall and one almost out of my vision.

“Blink take lead, try to check for traps we haven’t seen any but I am worried about them.”

We slowly made our way forward. She knew danger even if what triggered a trap wasn’t something she would spot. It wasn’t long before she stopped us.

I felt her send a worry across the bond to me, and then she fell off the wall. “Bads airs,” she almost screamed in my brain.

I dropped the spears and raced forward, held my breath, and pulled my 150 lbs lizards back. Her eyes were bloodshot and just rolling around as I looked at her. I had a debuff of some sort of poison that was trying to put me to sleep. I dropped my bag as I felt my knees go out from under me. My face crashed into the ground, causing a flash of pain behind my eyes.

That pain was enough to let me sit back up and pull the stopper off the poison resistance potion. I hoped that it would work even after the poison was in me. My breathing was getting shallower as I felt my eyes closing. Then I felt a warmth start from in my belly and push out. Finally, my debuff cleared off my vision, and my breathing returned to normal.

I pulled out a second one and poured it into Blink’s mouth, and tried to get her to drink it down. Getting angles right was hard since her whole body had a single line. It wasn’t like tilting her head back was as easy as mine. After a few moments, I was able to get her to swallow the potion.

I waited with her checking her health through the bond for the next thirty minutes before she woke up. She had only been exposed to the poison for a few seconds more than I had. If we had both fallen in there, then we might not have made it out at all.

I hugged her when I saw her eyes slowly open. “I was so worried, girl. I didn’t know when or if you would wake back up.” I said as I pet her head.

“Bads airs”

“Yeah, the air was bad I got you out and gave you a potion.”

“Bads Airs NOW!”

I jumped up and saw that I had a faint debuff that was starting to flash. I grabbed another one of the potions and tossed it back as I saw Blink backing up. I grabbed my bag, and we pulled back another twenty feet.

“Is it okay here?”

“Yess”

“I think we can push through if we have the potion in us. Each one should give us a few minutes but we will want to try to be fast about it.”

I got Blink to down a potion, and we headed forward again. She paused right past where we had been. “Airs bads… Buts okay,” She sent to my mind.

We moved at a much faster rate, this time moving through the tunnel. As we progressed, the air itself started to get so thick with the poison that I could see it. Before we made it to the other side, we each had to take another two potions. We just barely made it through the gas before we would have had to take another set of potions.

At the end of the gas, the tunnel dipped down by about ten feet. At the bottom of the dip was a murky pool of water. Blink dove in while I waited for just a moment. I didn’t think I could make it back out of the gas, but I wasn’t sure how far the water would go.

Blink solved that problem of mine by sending a quick message. “Pool smalls.”

I went in and found that with my armor on, I was walking across the bottom, which wasn’t very deep. The pool itself was only about eight feet deep at its deepest. Yet, for someone so heavy they couldn’t swim, that was a terrifying depth. I was starting to panic as the air in my lungs was running out. It would be a terrible way to die but almost comical. Then, right as I was about to accept that I was never getting out of the pool, my head broke into the water.

I gasped for air as I came up. I took in a good bit of water and started to cough as I was trying to get more oxygen to my brain. Unfortunately, the room I was in was dark, and the sound of dripping water was only heard once I got my lungs working again.

Blink swam by me, brushing her long scaly body along my arm. “Bait tooks longs time. Hunt!”

I wanted to grimace at her calling me bait again; however, I knew how true it was. While I might be much stronger now, she could level and had been, which meant that her skills were going to outstrip mine. So she was going to keep being the huntress, and I was going to keep being the bait. At least for a while.

Once I got completely out of the water, I cast glow directly above us. There was no light in here at all, so the tiny glow gave just enough to see where the exit was. We moved forward and toward the tunnel in front of us. It was just a few feet into the tunnel that the light behind faded away, and I ran into the wall.

I recast glow right at the wall I had just bounded off. But unfortunately, the eerie green light from my spell did nothing to help lower the tension that I was feeling. I didn’t want to backtrack, but I worried that the tunnel had just ended.

As I looked around, however, it became clear that the issue was the tunnel was curving and going up. It was a spiral, which was why I found the wall with my face as we were going. I quickly got into the habit of casting glow to my left every ten paces or so as we started our ascent.

After about twenty minutes of the slow winding tunnel, we came to a door. It wasn’t much of one. Sadly its construction was better than the one that I had on my storage room, But, honestly, that wasn’t saying much. This door was a series of branches tied at the top and bottom and then somehow, using what looked like leather, connected to the wall.

I sent over to Blink, “You know there is going to be someone waiting on us right?”

I heard a soft, playful hiss come from her, “yess.”

I put the two spears I had carried in my left hand against the wall, then I opened the door with my left hand. I knew that whatever was in here was going to be hostile, and so I needed to be ready to strike. As I pulled open the door, I saw a group of around a dozen goblins.

These goblins looked much more like the ones I had fought up above. They had all sorts of different weapons. A few had spears, but more had clubs or hacked-down full-sized weapons. All except the one that I took as the leader.

He was different in all the ways that could prove to be challenging or very comical. The leader of this group was a goblin in full plate armor holding what appeared to be an appropriately sized war hammer in his right hand and in his left a little goblin-sized kite shield.

This guy was either going to be a royal pain to take down, or he wasn’t going to be able to move because of the weight of the armor. Either way, he was the boss, and so I was expecting that I would need to take everyone else out first. If for no other reason than to have the time to get through the armor.

Even before the goblins could respond to us coming out of the door, I let loose the spear I had in my right hand. I knew that my throwing skill wasn’t very high but figured that it would be hard to miss at six paces. But, just to make sure that I hit something, I threw at a cluster of three.

My spear streaked out and caught one of the under-armed goblins in the chest. While goblins couldn’t or wouldn’t build things, that didn’t mean that the spears I took from the dungeon goblins weren’t lovely. The bronze tip parted the goblin’s ribcage and lodged in place as he stumbled back.

My bond with Blink told me she was already in the room. I couldn’t see her, and it wasn’t precise enough to throw anything again. Which I was mostly okay with. There were only goblins in here, and most of them appeared to be of the weaker types. So it was time to dance.

I drew my sword and stepped in. What I found odd was after I turned on my dance, my body reached to my belt and pulled out my hatchet as well. It wasn’t the best weapon I had as I made it for trees, but it still would do things that I was guessing a sword wouldn’t do.

The initial confusion that my sudden attack had quickly fled as the simple-minded monsters found their target. As I stepped forward through the door, my foot found a wire on the ground, and I heard a loud click. My right side rocked hard as a large stone attached to a rope pendulum smashed me off my feet.

I checked my health as I was rolling across the ground. It had dropped to one half after that one hit. If I wasn’t wearing my new armor, I would be dead already. That one trap reminded me again of the problems I faced in this world. Yet, my slight musings were quickly put away as I heard the sound of goblins yelling.

I struggled to my feet to find that I was backed up to a rounded corner in the room. It would keep me from being flanked but also made me hemmed in. A fact that the goblins chose to take advantage of. While most of them had clubs and daggers, I was once again facing a few spear users.

I stepped forward and to my left, trying to open enough room for my sword to be useful, but the three spears moved forward to intercept. Unfortunately, my dance had been interrupted by the rock trap, and I was dazed enough that I couldn’t go back into it. So they were doing an excellent job at holding me back.

After I leaned back to avoid a spear thrust, I lunged forward. I might not be able to enter the dance again, but I still had some developed skills. I drove my sword-point on and into the neck of the right most spear goblin as I swung my hatchet in a circle catching the jab of the middle one.

I stepped around to the right of the center goblin, putting his body between me and the last spear. The last one tried to bring his spear around to face me, but I still was locked with the middle spear, so I yanked my hatchet and the spear up. My strength was enough with the magical armor that I was able to bully my move. I now had both goblins tangled with each other. I grinned as I advanced.