A few seconds after Fern disappeared into shadowy entrance of the Den, she called me through the game’s voice chat system.

“Hey, guys looks like the coast is clear down here for now if you want to follow me,” she whispered through the chat. “Just leave a couple of seconds between you so that the person in front can get out of the way. It’s pretty cramped down here.”

I grimaced at her words. It sounded like my choice of weapon might be a bit of an issue in the confined spaces inside the Den which meant that I might be limited to thrusting attacks with my naginata which weren’t really what it was designed for. At least if my naginata was too long to swing properly my magic would allow me to deal some damage. Even then my magic would be limited both by my SP supply and the cooldown for my one and only offensive spell. I was still hopeful that there would be some open spaces where I could use my naginata properly, but I wasn’t sure how likely this was.

While I was thinking Katy decided that she was going to be the next person to go into the Den. As such, when I ceased my pondering Evie was the only one still up here with me and she was watching me with a concerned look on her face.

“Are you alright?” she asked worriedly. “You’re not claustrophobic, are you?”

“No, I was just thinking about how we were going to have to fight down in the Den if it’s as cramped as Fern was saying,” I explained giving the petit blonde a reassuring smile. “My weapon’s length might make it a bit awkward to use properly in tight spaces.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” Evie nodded giving me a relieved look. “Anyway, we’ve got to get going. The others are waiting for us.”

Without waiting for me to reply she let go of the ledge and slipped through the hole leaving me standing alone on the forest looking at a hole in the base of a tree. With a sigh and a flick of my wrist I sent my naginata back to my Inventory so that it wouldn’t get in the way while I was entering the Den.

Sitting down on the small ledge I looked down into the Den curiously, hoping to find out as much as I could before I went inside. Like Fern had mentioned there was a small glowing blue mushroom growing out of the wall, the strange fungus was actually giving off quite a decent amount of light allowing me to see that the others had made enough room for me to slip through now, so I wriggled through the rather tight entrance. As I did so I felt silently thankful that I wasn’t claustrophobic because if I was then this method of entering a Den would be giving me a panic attack. Once I had managed to wriggle through the hole in the base of the I let go of the ledge and dropped into the Den.

Thankfully I only had to fall a short distance and landed without any difficulties before standing up to look around the small cavern that I had found myself in. To my surprise it wasn’t as cramped as I had feared but I could still see why Fern had wanted us to give the person in front of us a few seconds to get clear. It was also pretty eerie, with the only real light being the ghostly blue light given off by the mushrooms that were dotted around the small cavern. The roof of the cavern was even high enough that I could stand up straight which was nice as my avatar was even taller than I was in real life. To my left there was a narrow tunnel that led deeper into the Den confirming my suspicions that using my naginata down here would be limited to thrusts and maybe the occasional small chopping attack if there was a little more room than normal.

“Alright then,” I said once I had gotten my bearings. “I guess I should go first down the tunnel over there. Fern, you and Katy follow right behind me, you should be able to walk side by side and Evie follow behind us and focus on keeping me alive if we get attacked.”

“Okay,” Evie agreed as the other two nodded their agreement. Katy drew her knife and gave it a calculating look. It was obvious that she preferred to use her bow but using the knife was the right decision if we got caught in one of these passages instead of a cavern. I really hoped we wouldn’t get attacked while we were moving through the tunnel but not being prepared was just asking for trouble.

As soon as everyone was ready, I called my naginata out of my Inventory before taking my place at the front of the group and we started down the tunnel which was slightly gloomier than the cavern we had just been in thanks to the lower numbers of luminescent mushrooms lining the walls. This gave the tunnel a pretty sinister air and I gripped my naginata tightly as I tried to see further ahead into the gloom of the tunnel.

As we walked along all I could hear was the quiet breathing of my party members and the thudding of my avatar’s heartbeat in my ears. The silence was starting to get unnerving especially when I knew that this was supposed to be like a small dungeon and dungeons were usually chock full of monsters. Glancing back over my shoulder at Katy I saw that she also had a slightly confused look on her face which told me that this wasn’t what she had expected as well.

That seemed odd to me, but I supposed that it was possible that the lack of monsters could be being caused by some sort of bug. Despite the fact that this game had mostly been made by AI’s it was possible that there were problems with the code. Not likely maybe, but not impossible either.

Just as I thought this, I heard a thumping in the distance that was quickly getting louder and my head snapped back around just in time to see a large shape bounding down the tunnel towards us.

“Shit!” I shouted when the thing finally came fully into view. It was a giant rabbit the size of a small bear that was covered in dull looking armour plates. The top of its head in between its ears was one of these armoured areas and it had lowered its head as it charged towards us. If something this big hit us full on I suspected that it would do a lot of damage.

“Get back!” I shouted to the others who quickly complied with my order as I braced my weapon against the round like I was hunting a wild boar. My naginata wasn’t going to be as effective at this as a more traditional boar spear and I briefly considered switching to my spear. Unfortunately, by the time I had even considered the option the massive rabbit had made it within only a few metres of me. Thinking quickly, I activated my Barrier Skill instead causing a large wall of magical energy to appear immediately in front of the rabbit which barely slowed down as it smashed through it.

I barely had enough time to think about how much this was going to hurt before the massive creature slammed into my naginata with enough force that I thought the weapon was going to break under the strain. But before it did the blade finally penetrated the rabbit’s armour causing it to impale itself on my weapon before finally smashing into me like a ton of bricks.

The impact sent me flying backwards through the air as the rabbit finally came to a stop as its brain finally figured out that it had been badly injured and fell down. However, the giant rabbit had so much momentum that it continued on down the tunnel after me for a couple of metres before coming to a stop by my feet.

Groaning loudly, I tried to sit up to see whether the rabbit was still alive or not before lying back down when something moved inside of my chest sending a spike of pain through me. A quick glance at the HP bar at the top right-hand corner of my vision revealed the problem. My previously full health bar was now flashing angrily at me with only a tiny sliver of red remaining. There were also a flashing symbol next to it that seemed to be telling me that I was stunned which explained why I was having difficulty moving and why my vision was blurry.

“Crap, Evie heal him. Heal him now!” Katy ordered. She sounded a bit panicky but that passed when she saw that I was still conscious and instead turned her attention to the beast that had done this to me with a truly terrifying look on her face as she saw that it was still breathing.

White light washed over me as Evie cast her healing spell on me. Blinking I saw that she was now standing over me with a worried look on her face, so I attempted to smile to try and ease her worry but from the look she gave me in return the smile didn’t make her feel any better.

Meanwhile Fern and Katy were viciously stabbing the massive armoured rabbit over and over again. From the frustrated looks on their faces this wasn’t out of any anger, their weapons just weren’t able to penetrate its hide very well. That made sense, my naginata did a more damage than any of the starter weapons and according to Katy and Fern their daggers dealt among the lowest amount of damage even among other starting weapons and relied upon the wielder having a higher dexterity and therefore attack speed instead.

Soon a second healing spell washed over me leaving me feeling able to sit up which I did. Shaking my head, I crawled over to the girls and gripped my naginata with both hands before activating Slash. A surge of power filled my otherwise still weak arms and the blade ripped free of the rabbit’s flesh causing it to whimper in pain.

“Fuck, that still wasn’t enough?” I wheezed as the naginata dropped from my hands once more and I fell flat on my face.

“Stop moving around,” Katy snapped angrily at me as Evie rushed over to my side once more. “And what did you expect? That thing’s a Level 5 Armoured Rabbit.”

“A Level 5?” I coughed as Evie helped me sit up and cast another healing spell over me. “No wonder it nearly killed me in one hit. I hope there aren’t too many more of them in here.”

“I don’t know,” Katy answered. “But at least now we know that this Den is at least one of the places that the Voracious Rabbits are coming from.”

“You mean there could be more than one?” Evie asked as Fern stabbed her weapon through the newly torn gap in the Armoured Rabbit’s hide. This time she obviously managed to hit some sort of vital organ because the rabbit let out a short gasp before slumping completely in death causing a white number 2 to flash briefly above its head before fading away. Like the Terror Chicks that I had fought before this monster was worth 2 Soul Points which almost made killing it worth the broken ribs.

“They’re rabbits,” Katy pointed out. “There could be half a dozen Dens just like this one hidden in the area surrounding town.”

“That’s actually quite likely,” I wheezed in agreement causing Evie to heal me once more which finally allowed me to breath properly. “Holy shit that thing hit me hard.”

Now that my HP had been raised back above halfway, I was actually able to stand up. I was still a bit unsteady which showed when I bent over to pick up my naginata and nearly fell flat on my face. Seeing that I was still struggling Katy quickly picked up my naginata and handed it to me.

“Well, the rabbit had a couple of interesting pieces of loot,” Fern said as she turned away from the Armoured Rabbit’s corpse.

“Oh, like what?” I asked knowing that Fern was using this as an excuse to give me some more time to recover.

“The most interesting things are a couple of armoured plates, which are some sort of crafting material,” Fern explained. “There was also 4 pieces of rabbit meat which is a pretty good haul for killing one monster.”

My eyebrows raised slightly at this. The largest amount of meat we had ever received from a single rabbit had only been 2 and that had only happened once so getting four pieces of meat from a single Armoured Rabbit almost made what had happened to me worthwhile on their own. However right now I was more interested in the armoured plates and asked Fern to hand one over.

As I had expected, the armour plating was fairly light which suggested that it might be able to be made into medium armour as opposed to heavy armour since it was also described as a type of Leather in the small notification that popped up when I tried to Identify it. But until I could get back to town and learn more it was difficult to say how useful it would be. The armour plating also felt a little bit like horn which actually made a certain amount of sense to me because I knew that a Rhino’s horns were made out of the same stuff that hair was.

As I handed the piece of armoured plating back to Fern who placed it in her Inventory another wave of light washed over me, courtesy of Evie who was still watching me with a worried expression on her face.

“Okay, I think we can move on now,” I said as I stretched slightly to test how I was doing. I was still a little bit sore, but it was much better than I had been a few moments ago. “Yeah we’re good.”

“If you say so,” Katy said as I took my spot at the front of the group. “I just hope that we don’t get attacked in this tunnel again. That almost went horribly wrong.”

“So, do I,” I replied with a sigh. “Alright, let’s move quietly guys, where there’s one mob there’s going to be more.”

The others nodded their agreement and we started down the tunnel once more. Now that we knew that we weren’t alone the tunnel seemed a lot more menacing and every time we heard even the slightest sound that wasn’t coming from us, we immediately froze in anticipation of being attacked again.

Thankfully these all proved to be false alarms and we slowly made our way further down the tunnel. Eventually I noticed that the blue light provided by the mushrooms seemed to be brighter up ahead and a couple of minutes later I realised that this was because we were finally approaching the end of this tunnel which opened up onto a large cavern that had five Voracious Rabbits sleeping in a small pile and another two gnawing on a bone nearby.

Glancing back over my shoulders at the others I saw that Katy had already switched to her bow and was now ;pulling back the string in preparation to attack and the others were also looking ready to start the fight so I turned back around and started casting my Static Armour spell. The enemies weren’t going to be able to hit me anywhere as hard or take as much as their bigger cousin had been able to which combined with their numbers meant that using my new spell was a no brainer. Especially since the effect still worked even if I blocked the attack.

Soon the metallic scent of ozone filled the air of the Den as lightning started to crackle around my body and I raised my hand to fire my Jolt spell into one of the rabbits that was gnawing on the bone which was quickly joined by a bolt of blue energy and an arrow.

These three attacks sent their unfortunate victim flying into a wall with a crunching sound eliciting a loud cry of pain from the rabbit as it slid to the ground. Seeing that they were under attack the other Voracious Rabbit that was awake screech angrily as it charged towards us.

Activating my Ward Skill, I swung my left arm into the rabbit as it leapt at me slamming it into the wall. Seeing this Fern immediately started stabbing the creature with her knives. By the time she had killed it my Ward was cracked and starting to fade away but the recent increase to my Magical Power meant that it had been able to stand up to the Voracious Rabbit’s struggling.

Meanwhile the other rabbits had been woken by the sudden screeching of our two victims and the subsequent ranged attacks from Katy and Evie. Screeching loudly, they started charging at us only to be met by me as I activated my Sweep Skill. My naginata flashed as it ploughed through three of the rabbits and creating a bit of space for me to move into and start making a mess.

This cavern was large enough that I could swing my naginata fairly easily so long as I didn’t do anything too stupid and this combined with Fern knowing how to play a rogue meant that I ended up being the main focus of the attacks. Thankfully this was to our advantage because of my Static Armour which crackled loudly every time a rabbit attacked me which I quickly followed up with a blow from my naginata.

This of course meant that Evie spent most of her time keeping me healthy while Katy took pot shots at the rabbits. She knew enough to not go all out and fire arrows as fast as she could. Instead she was allowing me to make sure that I kept their attention and shooting them only when she was sure that they wouldn’t attack her.

Fern was also making sure to attack only when she was certain that she wouldn’t steal my aggro. Every time her Laceration Skill came off cooldown, she used it on one of the rabbits and then leapt back as I followed up with an attack to make sure the rabbit that she’d just attacked was more interested in attacking me.

These simple tactics allowed us to wear the rabbits down fairly easily. Evie wasn’t really able to keep my HP from dropping with this many enemies, but she did well enough that I wasn’t too worried, especially when Fern started taking out the badly injured rabbits which allowed me to defend myself better and Evie to keep my HP up.

In the end we managed to take out all of the rabbits without any real difficulty which actually surprised me a little. I had actually expected that the noise the rabbits were making would attract even more monsters to attack us which would’ve been bad, especially if it had been another Armoured Rabbit. But when the last rabbit fell, and I looked around to make sure we weren’t going to be attacked by anything else before finally relaxing. My HP was currently sitting just above halfway, and my SP was even lower because I had been using Sweep to attack as many of the rabbits as possible with a single attack as well as Ward to deflect attacks when needed.

But really, it was my new Static Armour Spell that was the MVP for this fight. I don’t think things would’ve gone anywhere near as smoothly if I didn’t have this Spell since using it meant that even if I didn’t manage to block or dodge an attack at least the rabbits were damaged by the electricity covering my body. Sadly, this Spell didn’t increase my defence yet, but Harmon had mentioned that Skills could be upgraded so maybe saying that it didn’t increase my defence yet was more accurate.

While I was thinking this, I started looting the bodies of the rabbits that we had killed as the others checked their Status.’ We had just killed seven rabbits which combined with the Armoured Rabbit from earlier meant that our Exp and Soul Points had increased significantly. I knew that I was close to Levelling up again myself and my Lightning Magic Core was also close to Levelling Up again, but I wasn’t quite there yet. When I was done looting, I wandered back over to the others who all looked up as I approached.

“So, did you guys get any new Skills or magic?”