You have entered the Dungeon of: Kal’ech, Priest of the Deep Ones!

You have gained: Dungeoneer’s Kit!

Items contained in Dungeoneer’s Kit: Rope (basic), grappling hook (basic), lantern (basic), lock picking kit (remedial), climbing gear (basic), tinderbox (basic), hiking pack (basic), sleeping kit (basic), tent (basic).

Additional items: Fifteen days of Rations (remedial)

The system messages flashed before his eyes. Entering the dungeon hadn’t been what Theo expected. When he pushed against the door, the antechamber beneath the waterfall disappeared, fell away in a rush of blue light. Then the interior of the dungeon materialized. It was like he’d been teleported, or deconstructed in the outside world and then reconstructed in the dungeon. The dungeoneer’s kit was already on his back, contained within the hacking pack. Those tools sound useful, he thought, but fifteen days of rations? How long will this dungeon take? Jessica didn’t have time for them to spend half a month in a dungeon.

Kal’ech’s dungeon appeared to be a long, dank hallway dripping with moss and water. The same carvings from the outside covered the walls within, fish-creatures staring out at them with pitted eyes. On either side of a long walkway, shallow pools of running water ran deeper into the cave system. He turned around to look at the door they came in through. But something felt off. The door was sealed into the stone, with no visible creases or handles. He gave it an exploratory press.

Once a player has entered a Dungeon, they must complete the Dungeon before leaving.

The error message flashed before his eyes.

“Fuck,” he said aloud. Blake turned to him.

“What is it?” He asked.

“No turning back now,” Theo said, “only way out is through.”

Alice frowned. “Wish they would have told us that before we got in here. Fifteen days of rations? How long do these things take?”

“I don’t know. But every day we’re in here is a day something horrible could happen to Jess. We need to finish this dungeon, and fast,” he said. Then he turned and started walking down the pathway.

“Wait, Theo,” Blake said, “let’s regroup. We should come up with a plan.”

“We don’t have time,” Theo said, “we have to—“

He was cut off by something sharp colliding with his leg. He blinked, then looked down. A trickle of blood moved down his ankle, from a small cut in his pants. He knelt down and lifted his pant leg, only to find a small set of teeth marks in the skin.

“What the…” he said.

Then another. Something sharp, this time on the back of his neck. He slapped at it like an insect, only to feel something wet and scaly attached to his skin. He pulled at it, felt its teeth pull at his flesh until, with a sickening pop, it came free.

He brought it around to his face as it tried to wriggle out of his grip. What he held — what had bitten him — was a small fish, about the size of a young goldfish, only pure black. He quickly used his identify skill.

Beastlore skill activated!

Razorfin Guppy: The Razorfin is a feared denizen of underwater cave systems. In their guppy stages, they hunt in schools, using their deadly fins and mouths of spine-like teeth to eviscerate their prey. Growing from the size of a—

“Ow, fuck!” Theo gasped. The menu dispersed as something sharp and cold latched onto his face. He ripped at, pulling off another Razorfin Guppy. He watched as it opened its mouth wider than he thought possible, revealing rows of needle-like teeth as sharp and silvery as metal.

Then, without warning, another leapt out of the water near his feet and latched onto his ankle. He screamed, but the pain made him lose his grip on the smaller guppy. It slipped through his fingers, slicing them open with its fins as it fell. He swatted at the one attached to his ankle and then brought up his boot and stomped the guppy on the ground.

You have defeated: Razorfin Guppy!

Path of Evolution ability failed. You did not earn enough XP to gain a skill from this enemy.

“Guys, we’ve got a problem,” Theo yelled. All around him, he could see black guppies swimming beneath the surface of the water. He turned back, only to see Blake prying a guppy off of his leg.

Then, the whole room exploded.

Not literally, but a swarm of guppies burst from the water, leaping in arcs over the small stone path, searching for blood. Several hit Theo, and he heard Alice and Blake scream. Tiberius whimpered and howled, and Theo caught of glimpse of his direwolf snapping his jaws wildly, catching guppies out of the air.

“Run!” Theo yelled, and he bolted down the long corridor, swatting wildly with his hands. Guppies continued to land and attach on every bit of skin, drawing blood where they sunk their teeth into his flesh. Razor-thin cuts appeared all over his body as fins grazed him, and soon his whole body was screaming in pain.

At first, all he could think to do was run. But soon the guppies were colliding with him so rapidly that he needed to slow down and swat at them.

Think, Theo, you must have a skill for this, he thought.

He reached out with Call of the Wild, sensing all the guppies in their flying frenzy. He pushed his mana outward, trying to overpower them, making them stop attacking…

These beasts are under the influence of a magic user whose magic is greater than your own. They cannot be influenced.

The system error flashed briefly in his vision, but he barely had time to register it. A guppy latched onto his eye, making him see red blood. The pain was excruciating, and he ripped it off as quickly as he could manage. He kept running, stumbling down the corridor, tripping over guppies as they crushed beneath his feet. The endless system messages were disorienting:

You have defeated: Razorfin Guppy!

You have defeated: Razorfin Guppy!

You have defeated: Razorfin Guppy!

You have defeated: Razorfin Guppy!

You have defeated: Razorfin Guppy!

He summoned his staff to his hand from his inventory, then began swinging with it wildly. Thanks to the knowledge the skill Staff of Nature’s Power provided, he could actually pick some out of the air and swat them down. As he swung his staff, minor magical effects swirled around it: gusts of wind or bursts of green sparks that lended strength to the blows. The runes that were carved along the staff’s edge began to glow green, awakened by the battle.

He summoned mana to the hand that didn’t hold the staff, then called for the spell Thorn Spray. He watched as the thorns appeared, floating in his outstretched palm in a torrent. Then he thrust his hand forward, and the thorns erupted forward, shooting down the hall. Guppies screamed and hissed as thorns impaled them, causing them to fall to the ground, skewered.

You have defeated: Razorfin Guppy!

You have defeated: Razorfin Guppy!

You have defeated: Razorfin Guppy!

You have defeated: Razorfin Guppy!

You have defeated: Razorfin Guppy!

A small opening appeared in the swarm as he cleared them. “Let’s go!” He shouted, turning to Blake and Alice.

Alice had her knives out and was slashing wildly at the leaping guppies. Blake’s hands were alight with magic — one with flame and another with a small energy shield — and he burned the guppies as they leapt. The jaws of the fish sunk into the glowing blue mana shield, and Theo could see them begin to chew through it, sending shards of blue light to the ground.

That’s useful. That’s better than thorns, Theo thought. “Blake, take the lead! Burn us a path!”

Blake pulled a guppy from his face, blood pouring down his cheek, and zapped it with electricity. Both Alice and Blake were bleeding profusely, their bodies covered in cuts and bites. Blake was still shirtless except for this leather armor, having torn his tunic up to wrap Theo’s wounds, and so his body was the most exposed. His arms and sides, where the leather armor didn’t reach, were starting to look like mincemeat. Tiberius stood in the rear, his mouth bleeding from trying to eat the razor-sharp fish. Luckily, only a few of the guppies had managed to bite through his thick direwolf’s fur, and so he bled less than the others.

Blake nodded, then ran beyond Theo, spouting fire from his hands. His shield had shattered, bitten to pieces by the razorfin’s metallic teeth. They all ran through the brief opening that Theo’s thorns had created, but soon the fish were leaping again, and more eagerly than ever. The corridor in front of them was a minefield of leaping fish, arcing over the path and searching for flesh to hold onto.

Blake concentrated on his hands, then forced a spout of flame towards the end of the tunnel, leaving fried fish dead on the floor. The smell of burnt flesh filled the corridor, and they ran forward over ashen corpses.

He could see the end of the corridor now, an opening where the long tunnel ended and a new chamber began. “There! Keep going Blake!”

Blake was sweating, and Theo could tell his mana was running low. But he took in a deep breath and summoned another spray of fire. It filled the corridor, pluming against the walls and burning guppies as they left the water. Soon the water on either side of the passage was choked with dead fish. But still the creatures leapt, clogging the air in front of them.

“I’m out,” Blake panted, “that’s it.”

“Then we run for it,” Theo said, wiping blood from his face. “Ready?”

Blake nodded solemnly. He summoned his sword to his hand, which appeared in a flash of light. Then they charged.

The fish, startled by the sudden movement, leapt to attack. Theo beat them down with swipes of his staff and sprays of poison thorns, but for every one he killed, ten more seemed to leap from the water. They attached onto his cloak and skin like burs, until he could no longer see his own hands. Only black fish and dripping blood.

The end of the tunnel was so close. He just kept running, following Blake, as the razor fins latched onto his face, clouding his vision…

Then the worst happened.

A huge splash from the water next to him, and a black shape the size of a football flying from the water. It slammed into Blake’s side, pushing him from the platform. He landed with a splash in the water.

“Blake!” Alice shouted. She drew her bow and nocked an arrow, just as another huge razor fin leapt out of the water, heading for Theo’s head.

An arrow whipped past his head, collided with the leaping razor fin. It flew backward, pinned to a stone wall. But Theo could only look at Blake, screaming. The fish ate him, taking chunks out of his flesh as he thrashed in the water. He reached out a hand to Theo, a hand covered with tiny guppies, from the bloodied water.

Kill Blake Hanson, Theo thought, looking at him.

No. No!

He shook the thought away, then grabbed Blake’s outstretched hand, pulling with all his strength. Blake screamed with pain as the fish refused to let him go, and when he landed on the stone, his body looked deformed, coating with all sizes of razor fins.

“Alice, help me!” Theo screamed.

Alice ran over and grabbed Blake’s other hand, and together they dragged him the rest of the way down the hall, blood leaking from his mutilated body.

They collapsed into the next chamber, falling on the stone. Behind them, the snapping jaws of fish vanished. Instead, the razor fins set to eating the dead corpses of their kin, thrashing in the water and sending sprays of blood. Then the thrashing vanished, and the water settled down again, a s calm as the moment they’d stepped inside.

Theo shot up, tearing wriggling razorfins from his hands and face. Blood spouted from every wound, and needle-like teeth jutted from his skin, left behind. He turned to Blake and began beating the larger razorfins with his staff, then ripping them from Blake’s body.

You have defeated: Young Razorfin! Some of this creature’s Universal Power has been transferred to you.

You have defeated” Young Razorfin! Some of this creature’s Universal Power has been transferred to you.

Path of Evolution ability activated: You have learned the skill [Swimming (Expert)] from Young Razorfin!

The power flooded his body, a warm rush of mana and knowledge, but he ignored it. He kept prying the fish off of Blake. Alice, having scraped off most of her own fish, brought her knives and began cutting the razorfins off of Blake. She handed Theo a blade and he started slashing at the fish. When they were finished, and the last of the razor fins was off of Blake, they cut the remainder from their own body, then Tiberius’s fur. Tiberius whimper and began licking his wounds, trying to chew out the leftover teeth from his paws.

Blake lay gasping on the floor, soaked in blood.

Okay, Bel, let’s see what you’ve got, Theo thought, and he poured mana into his hands. He let them hover over Blake, swelling with green light, and then cast Nature’s Healing.

To his surprise, Blake cried out in pain. The cuts on his face patched over with green, as if moss was growing over them. Vines sprouted from his skin, then dug into his flesh, closing his wounds like stitches.

“Yikes,” Alice breathed, “you call that healing?”

“Nature’s Healing. Guess it can be brutal,” he said. He kept going. He moved to Blake’s side, where the Young Razorfin had pierced his simple leather armor. He gathered the green light in his hands, then pressed them to Blake’s side. Blake cried out again as vines wrapped his wounds and moss coated them, almost instantly absorbing the flowing blood. Theo vaguely knew that the plants he was using to heal Blake had chemical properties that would help stop the bleeding and keep infection at bay. Maybe it wasn’t as clean and pretty as Jessica’s healing, but it would work.

When he was done healing Blake’s most grievous wounds, he rested. Blake had passed out somewhere in the process, but he was breathing. Theo hoped his health energy would do the rest of the work. He moved over to Alice, who was trying to pry leftover teeth from her skin. He did what he could for her, then Tiberius, and finally himself. By the time the healing was done, he was drained of mana entirely.

He slumped to the ground, exhausted, his back laying on Tiberius’s huge side. He made a pretty good pillow, as a dire wolf. “That’s it,” he said, “I’m out of mana.”

“We should camp here. Rest up until we’re ready to move forward,” Alice said.

Theo frowned. “But where is here?”

He looked around. The space before him was wide and circular, with no visible ceiling. He reached into his explorer’s pack, removed the lantern and the tinderbox, and lit it. Gentle orange light filled the room.

They lay in a large atrium with the same strange carvings as the rest of the dungeon. The room was a dome carved with scenes of the deep sea, angler fish and mermen, fish-headed people and squids. From the center of the ceiling, a spout of circular water fell, making a column of thundering liquid penetrate the floor. The water misted the room, making everything damp.

On the back wall, three doors waited. Each bore a different carving of a monster.

On the first door, the carving was of a large squid-like beast with searching tentacles and one huge eye.

On the second door, in the center, was a mermaid. She had beautiful long hair that seemed to float around her, and in her fist was a slender trident.

On the third door, there was a huge crab, with armored carapace and reaching pincers.

Theo looked at all three, frowning.

“They’re making us choose,” Theo said, “they’re making us choose who to fight.”