Fortunately, we got to the spot Constantine said we needed to reach to carve our way into the next room. I say “fortunately” because we were only a few feet away from a sphincter that seemed to lead into the worm’s stomach. The sphincter was partially open due to the worm’s death, and the contents of its last meal oozed out of it in a brown stream. The stench was beyond anything I’d ever smelled, and I’d once found a dead body in a sealed metal drum in August.

We hacked and carved our way through the worm’s body while trying to control our gag reflexes. After a couple of minutes of messy chopping, we tumbled out of the worm’s gullet and into a dark room with a smooth stone floor. I scrambled several feet away from the worm to take in several deep breaths. Compared to the worm’s guts, the stale dungeon odor was like the coming of springtime.

I lifted my torch to look around. The room was fifty feet square, with large arched openings in the center of each wall. The tunnel worm’s body stretched from the opening behind me into the opening on my right.

Sonja came over to me, coughing and spitting out worm blood after pushing through the monster’s flesh.

“I’d better go up a whole Rank after that bullshit,” she said between coughs.

I glanced at my forearm but didn’t see any new skills glowing green or enhancements to my existing ones.

“Nothing for me,” I said. “How do I know how much experience I need until the next Rank?”

“What color is your Rank label?”

“Kind of a brownish-green. Could be the worm blood, though. Or my blood. Or both.”

Sonja smiled, then spit one more time before standing up. “Once it hits full bright green, you go up. When you hit a new Rank, it turns black and gradually turns green as you gain more experience points for the next Rank.”

“So, like every other RPG, I need to kill things and solve puzzles.”

“You got it. And the bigger the ‘things,’ the better.” Her eyes focused on something over my shoulder. “Like those guys.”

I turned around. I hadn’t seen it during my first scanning of the room, but upon closer examination, I could see the opening to my right was carved to look like the mouth of a giant bald human. I took a few steps forward to bring the carving into my torchlight. The massive head wasn’t bald but had close-cropped hair. It also had pointed ears and huge canine teeth. Its bulbous nose hung over the top of the dark entry.

Sonja grabbed my arm to keep me from going further and pointed to the shadows next to the opening. Two hulking figures stood motionless on either side. I couldn’t make out their details, but they looked like smaller versions of the carving, with bald heads, broad shoulders, and each holding a spear.

“Goblins,” Sonja whispered, assuming a battle stance with Mourner raised.

“What?” I whispered back, raising my sword. “I thought goblins were little monsters that noob characters use to go up Ranks.”

“Not in this world,” she said. She held her torch up and squinted at the two giants. “They’re huge and attack things on sight. But these aren’t…”

Before I could stop her, she strode toward the creatures that were the size of NFL linemen. I hurried alongside her. If she wanted to fight, I’d back her up as much as I could.

But the closer we got to the monsters, the more I saw they were not alive at all but lifelike statues.

Or about as lifelike as a real monster could look with my limited experience. As I mentioned, these goblins were tall and wide and towered over me. Both were bald and had long pointy ears, and bulbous noses that extended over mouths split wide in Joker-style grins. Though the statues were a uniform gray color, I could still clearly see the sharp teeth in each mouth. They wore stone-carved kilts around their waists and thighs, but they were naked from the waist up. And their torsos weren’t chubby like you’d expect on an ogre. They were lean and muscular and made Terry Crews look starved. Each monster held a long spear with vicious hook blades at the top.

“Christ,” I said, “that’s what goblins look like down here?”

Sonja laughed. “Not at all. They’re much worse. They typically wear chainmail armor over their chests and use scimitars rather than spears. If they think you’re strong, they’ll attack you to test themselves. If they think you’re weak, they’ll attack you because they hate weakness. And don’t even think about insulting them. Drives them out of the minds.” Then she gave me a severe glare. “Which is why you were such an idiot for chasing them when you saw them herding gnomes. Don’t do that again, hear?”

I didn’t look at her or say anything because I felt that I would try to rescue enslaved gnomes again if I saw them. It was all Mace’s instincts, though, because I wanted nothing to do with these juiced-up goblins. But Mace’s “Honor” and “Mercy” traits wouldn’t allow him to shrug it off if he saw such bullying in action. And as I thought about it, I didn’t think the vestiges of my cop training would let me stand by either.

Constantine and Stephen joined us, adding their torchlight to the strange scene.

“Why did it have to be goblins?” Constantine asked, staring at the large goblin head opening, along with the two goblin statues.

“Because The Tomb thinks we’re ready for them now,” Stephen said. Then he gave me the same glare Sonja had. He opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off.

“Don’t go chasing them, I know.”

He nodded, still staring at me. “Your Intelligence is what, ‘2’ now?”

“What of it?” I asked in a dangerous voice. There was no way I’d admit it was still a “1.”

“Your Intelligence was around ‘6’ when you chased after the goblins the first time. Sorry, but I don’t trust your judgment until it gets to double-digits.”

I was smart enough to know my “1” Intelligence couldn’t hope to fire a comeback that would make him reel, which was why I wanted to slap him with the “heretic” slur again. And this time, I knew what to expect if Stephen tried Force-choking me because as soon as he lifted his hand, I’d drive my sword into his stomach. Let Constantine heal the son of a bitch after he cried for his mama while holding his guts in for a few minutes.

Constantine must’ve seen the look on my face. He stepped between Stephen and me with a snarl on his bearded, dwarven lips.

“Remember who you are,” he annunciated slowly in his character’s Scottish brogue. He pointed to both of us in turn. “Chris Able and Alec Bryson, you were roommates in college and have been friends for twenty years. You are not your characters!”

I blinked and was instantly horrified that I’d even considered doing such a thing not only to another human being but to my friend Alec. Sonja had said I’d get better at controlling Mace’s instincts the more I practiced. And I needed a lot more practice considering the thoughts I just had.

“And I swear to God,” Constantine continued, “if I have to remind you again, you’re both gettin’ a shield to the face, and I won’t heal either of you!”

I looked at Stephen. He seemed to be fighting the urge to kill just like I was. But his eyes moved from Constantine to me and then slowly went from aggressive mocking to Alec’s amused crinkle.

He said to Constantine, “You’d heal us. You’re incapable of not helping.”

“Try me, wizard,” he growled, but I noticed far less heat in his voice than a moment ago. “If you two spent half as much effort fighting The Tomb as you do comparing stat sizes, we’d be home now.”

I gave Constantine a sideways grin. “You’re just jealous you have no size to compare, dwarf.”

He curled his lip. “Who needs size when you have a hard head.”

At the same moment, Stephen and I yelled, “That’s what she said.”

We smiled at each other, and even Constantine grinned as he shook his head. I didn’t know how long my camaraderie with Stephen/Alec would last, but for the moment, he was my old college roommate again.

“Always the dick jokes with you guys,” Sonja said wearily. “Stephen, use your magic to make sure we’re not walking into a trap here, would you?”

Stephen bowed to Sonja and said, “Sure thing, my lady.”

He dug into one of the pouches on his belt, pulled out an eyeball that he had harvested from the blathering aberration, popped it into his mouth, and started chewing thoughtfully.

I looked away because the last thing I wanted him to see was me gagging. I pretended I was watching the other entrances to make sure nothing was sneaking up on us.

Which was a good thing, because I saw something sneaking up on us.

Or rather, some things.