The blade of the trap that Kyle had activated was set at ankle level for the average Adventurer which meant that it was at face level for the Scorprats and when the trap was activated the blade was released from the slot in the wall that it was hidden inside it had enough force behind it that when it struck the front ranks of the Scorprats they were ripped clean in two causing the ones behind them to shriek in surprise as they tripped and slipped over the remains of their comrades just in time to be met with a barrage of magical blasts from Amy and Kyle causing even more widespread panic among the terrified monsters.

“Holy crap!” Hal gasped seeing the havoc this relatively simple trap had caused. “I’m suddenly even more glad that you noticed that before I set it off by accident Amy.”

Kyle silently agreed feeling his face pale at the gory sight that he had created, looking at the remaining monsters which were currently rushing their little fortified cul-de-sac he noticed that several of them were limping and had open wounds from where they had stood on the poisoned glass shards that they had taken the time to set up.

“Hal, you keep them busy while we kill off the ones that have been weakened by the other trap that we had set,” Kyle said.

“Right,” Hal replied preparing his shield to hold back the oncoming monsters and grinned as flames started burning around the head of his hammer once again, courtesy of his friend.

Kyle took aim at one of the hobbling Scorprats and cast his Mana Darts spell launching the shards of Mana into its body finishing the sickened creature off before switching targets to another weakened monster and preparing a Mana Blast to strike both it and the other Scorprats around it before ducking as a something hurtled at him from behind the crowd of monsters.

“Shit!” he shouted. “What the hell was that!?”

The strange thing then retracted shooting back past his shoulder, the barbs on its end taking a chunk out of him as it did so causing him to yelp in pain and grasp the bleeding wound. The attack had torn through his jacket like a knife through butter which no matter how he looked at it was a bad sign. As far as medium armours went the jacket that his mother had made for him was excellent for his level so anything that could penetrate it so easily was clearly an attack from a monster that was either completely based around dealing damage or had a large level advantage over him and the others to the point that he was glad that it hadn’t decided to attack Amy because if it had her body would’ve been pretty badly damaged even if it hadn’t hit her centre mass.

“I don’t know for sure, but it looked like a tail,” Sasha replied her face turning pale as she noticed the gaping wound in her friend’s shoulder. Which was odd because the attack didn’t look like something that a Scorprat Stinger, the ranged type of Scorprat used.

“Yeah that’s kind of what I thought, Fi get down, there’s no way you can take a hit like that,” Kyle agreed glancing upwards at his Companion who cast a healing spell on his shoulder before deciding to land on Amy instead of him when the wound didn’t quite close all the way. “Amy focus on using Mana Barriers, your Earth Walls take too long to cast.”

“Alright, I’ll keep everyone safe!” Amy replied already beginning to prepare the spells. Earth magic was great for controlling the battlefield, but she also knew that Kyle was right about the slower speed because of this “You guys stay on the offence.”

Hal gritted his teeth, he was supposed to be the one that the monsters were attacking not Kyle, yet his friend was now injured worse than Hal had been this entire trip into the Dungeon. With a grunt of anger, he brought the head of his hammer down on an unlucky Scorprat, the vicious attack spraying the surrounding area with its remains then used his shield to bash another monster out of the air.

Sasha grimaced as she was sprayed with bits of Scorprat but upon seeing the look on Hal’s face she couldn’t bring herself to say anything to him and instead redoubled her efforts to stab as many of the Scorprats as she could over the low wall that Amy had made with her magic, keeping an eye on Kyle as she did so, just in case his injury was worse than she thought.

Another healing spell washed over the gaping wound in his shoulder and Kyle grimaced as he felt the strange feeling of the wound scabbing over completely but kept casting the Mana Bolt that he had prepared before blasting yet another Scorprat with the magical blast before he realised something was wrong. He was beginning to feel lightheaded and a quick glance down at his shoulder revealed that what he feared true. The thing that had attacked him had a far more powerful poison in tis tail than the Scorprats they had fought so far. Scorprat poison wasn’t very powerful and previously they had usually waited until they had defeated all the enemies before Sasha cured them simply because they didn’t have a lot of antidotes to spare but he could tell that he was losing HP fast despite Fi’s healing even without opening up his Stat Screen to check.

“Uh Sasha,” he said his voice slurring alarmingly as he turned to look at her. “I think we might have a problem.”

Amy’s gasp of shock echoed through the minds f the others as Kyle lost his balance and he collapsed, her curses following shortly after as she had to block an attack from the thing that had poisoned her friend shortly after.

“Shit! Fi he needs healing again!” she shouted mentally as she conjured a wall of mana to deflect the spiked tail that shot towards Hal. The barrier lasted barely a second before shattering into a thousand pieces, but it slowed the attack down enough that Hal was able to smash the tail out of the air with his hammer causing whatever was on the other end to screech in pain before withdrawing the appendage just in time to avoid a follow up swing.

Sasha rushed over to his side and removed one of the darts containing the antidote from its loop in her holster and jabbing it into his shoulder as close to the wound as she could without causing Kyle any unnecessary pain but despite her rough treatment he didn’t so much as grunt in pain and upon checking she discovered that he had lost consciousness.

Fi landed next to him casting Restore once more as she did so, the warm light washing over her partner and revealing a distressing tapestry of green lines that they had been unable to see in the dim light cast by Amy’s Mage Light. These lines began to fade slightly as the antidote that Sasha had given him went to work but from the look on Kyle’s face it was clear that he was still in considerable pain.

Seeing this Fi placed the end of her tail over his forehead and recoiled in shock at what she found.

“Damn! He’s burning up!” She exclaimed. “I think he might need another dose of antidote Sasha.”

“I think you might be right,” replied Sasha who reluctantly injected him with another vial of the precious potion before continuing in a louder voice so that Hal could hear her. “Just remember this one of my last two doses, so everyone else be careful.”

“Just get Kyle on his feet again,” Hal replied batting another Scorprat into the side of the tunnel before slamming his hammer down on another. “I can’t do this on my own!”

After she had injected him once more Sasha attempted to clean the wound as best, she could considering that it was mostly closed cursing as she did so. She knew that she should’ve checked the wound for any toxins before Fi used her healing magic on it and sealing any poison in, which was probably why Kyle was reacting so badly to it; when the healing magic had closed the wound more of the poison had been trapped inside of it. The wound was still oozing some sort of viscous fluid, but she wasn’t sure that cleaning that away was going to help at this point.

While this was going on Hal and Amy had been working as hard as they could to keep the Scorprats at bay but the monster that had injured Kyle was causing problems for them. They had figured out that the monster in question was a Scorprat Impaler which was a Variant of the stinger that used its tail like a retractable spear instead of a whip and had the most powerful poison of all the types of Scorprat.

Now that Hal had managed to injure it the monster had been far more cautious, waiting for Hal to be off balance after a swing at another Scorprat before attacking. Luckily due to the damage it had sustained its attacks were slower and weaker now meaning that Amy was usually able to conjure a long Mana Barrier that deflected its tail to either side of Hal, something that was only possible now that he was the only one holding the breach but on occasion she didn’t quite manage to angle it right and Hal had to either awkwardly block it with his shield or duck behind one of the walls of either side of him when it broke through the hastily erected barrier. All this was while he was holding off the Scorprats, the combination of assaults leaving him battered and exhausted. His shield was also looking worse for wear despite him casting a spell that restored a small amount of Durability on it several times, the iron just wasn’t strong enough to hold up under the attacks of a monster as powerful as this one.

Just as Hal smashed another Scorprat back with his shield the Impaler’s tail flew towards him and this time a Mana Barrier didn’t appear in front of him as Amy shouted out a warning.

“Shit! I’m out of Mana!”

The tail slammed into Hal’s shield, the spike on the end penetrating clear through to the other side and right into Hal’s gut causing him to stagger backwards, the barbs ripping through his flesh as he did so.

“Hal!” Herman screamed in horror as his partner collapsed in a heap as blood spurted from the wound in his gut. “Shit, how’s Kyle doing? Amy can’t hold them by herself!”

“Don’t worry about me Sasha, start treating Hal,” Kyle groaned from his place on the ground causing her and Fi to jerk in surprise as they hadn’t realised that he had regained consciousness.

“Now get off him, you ugly freaks!” he roared seeing that his friends’ body was now covered in Scorprats as they swarmed forwards. The whole area was suddenly covered in an unearthly blue glow as he activated his Suppression Aura in the hopes of scaring the monsters away and he glared their way with blazing blue eyes as they shrieked in pain. As soon as it appeared the aura dissipated but its work was done, the monsters had retreated back down the tunnel revealing Hal’s beaten and lacerated form.

“Shit, I might have overdone it,” Kyle groaned as he stumbled slightly from the use of his Skill drawing heavily on his Mana and Stamina. His left arm was currently bound in a sling to prevent him making the injury any worse, but he was determined to do his best to keep everyone safe while Fi and Sasha treated Hal and he quickly made his way to the gap between the two low walls that Amy had made earlier, ignoring the cries of disagreement from Sasha and Fi.

We don’t have any choice!” Kyle snapped. “Hal needs treating now not later, so we can’t retreat and Amy’s out of Mana which means that she can’t seal the tunnel, which wouldn’t last long anyway, look the walls that she created earlier are already shrinking!”

It was true, the walls had shrunk by a good few inches while they had been fighting, normally this wouldn’t happen, but this was a Dungeon, an area controlled by a malign will that could change the shape of its surroundings to create an environment that the monsters it created could thrive in. This meant that anything that changed this environment like an Earth spell could be changed back to the way it was before and larger changes were more quickly detected and fixed which was why Amy hadn’t simply created a massive wall and used her telepathic abilities to find out when Zerah had made her way down the tunnel and defeated the monsters on the other side.

Kyle held one of his chains closer to the weight than normal and started using it like a light flail knocking Scorprats back as they leapt at him with compact swings these attacks didn’t do as much damage as Hal’s hammer would, but it was more than enough to keep the spooked creatures at bay. Now that they had experienced the pain caused by his Suppression Aura only the boldest of the Scorprats dared attack with even the Impaler laying low for the time being.

As soon as he had recovered enough Mana Kyle enchanted his chain with his Minor Vampiric Enchantment spell causing what looked like red electricity to arc from the weapon with every blow increasing the damage of each blow and draining some of the monster’s life away to heal his wounds. As time went on the monsters got bolder and he had to intersperse his normal chain attacks with kicks which was much more difficult without his left arm to help him balance but despite his endurance flagging he was able to hold them back, but he knew that once the Scorprat Impaler started attacking again things would get out of hand again very quickly.

Sasha grimaced as she finished bandaging Hal’s wounds, this time she had opened one of the vials of antidote that she had left and poured half of it into the wound in an attempt to clean as much of the poison out of it as possible before soaking some bandages in what remained and using them to plug the wound before injecting him with two vials of healing potion and another dose of antidote.

This done she told Herman and Fi to keep an eye on him while she did something and walked up to Kyle.

“Kyle, I’m going to kill the Impaler,” she said calmly. “I’m the only one who isn’t injured or exhausted.”

“Alright,” Kyle decided kicking away a Scorprat before whipping his crackling chain into another. “I’ll try and draw it out.”

Sasha hesitated slightly glancing meaningfully at Kyle’s injured shoulder before nodding.

“Alright, I guess we don’t have a choice,” Sasha sighed shaking her head.

“I have enough Mana for one more Mana Barrier,” Amy said making them jump in surprise and making Kyle miss a Scorprat as it leapt at his face but luckily Sasha had also been keeping an eye on it and managed to intercept it with her spear.

“That’s great Amy but next time can you try and time your interruptions better please,” Kyle gasped looking at the skewered corpse of the monster that had tried to eat his face before a disgusted Sasha ripped it off and tossed it back towards the remaining Scorprats.

There were only around 15 Scorprats left of the swarm which Kyle had estimated was over 50 before he had fallen unconscious, but they were still outnumbered, and he was uneasy about the idea of Sasha throwing herself into their midst alone. Of all the people in the party Kyle was the one who understood best what Sasha was capable of and he greatly respected her abilities, but he would’ve been more confident of this gambit succeeding if they had one more member who was able to help her out, but it wasn’t like they had any other choice.

Just as he thought this a loud snarl rang out from the group of Scorprats and they parted to finally reveal the monster that had wounded two of their party members. The Scorprat Impaler was slightly larger than an average Scorprat and had several spikes running down its back but its truly distinguishing feature was its strangely shaped tail which currently looked abnormally short as it had somehow retracted in on itself with folds the folds of skin that resulted from this giving it a very strange look. The end of the tail was covered in barbed spikes that all dripped with a viscous fluid; the poison that had been causing them so much trouble.

“Well shit,” Kyle said smirking at the sight. “I guess that it’s had enough waiting around as well.”

“Let’s end it,” Sasha agreed her body lengthening slightly as she activated her Beast Form and screeched her defiance at the hideous creature the flaps of skin opening up on the side of her neck and fangs only adding to the intimidating effect.

Seeing that the Scorprat Impaler was now completely focussed on Sasha Kyle launched his attack bringing a Lash crashing down on the distracted beasts which shrieked in pain and launched its spiked tail at him in its anger.

“Now!” Kyle shouted as both he and Amy cast Mana Barrier deflecting the attack to the side and slowing it down enough that Sasha was able to leap on top of it, her sinuous body showing its massively increased flexibility as she quickly wrapped herself around it and bit down hard injecting her venom into the beast her face turning slightly green from the taste of the monster as she did so.

“That… does not look like its going to taste pleasant,” Amy whispered to Kyle mentally as the Impaler reflexively retracted its tail, dragging Sasha along the ground towards it.

“No, no it doesn’t” Kyle agreed. “Let’s not remind her of that later.”

Unlatching herself from the tail Sasha leapt at the Impaler spitting on it as she did so, this wasn’t her poison spit she just wanted to get the taste of dirty Scorprat out her of her mouth. Slamming her foot down on the things head she unslung her spear from her back and thrust it out at the monster, but the attack was knocked away by the things stubby tail which was looking rather worse for wear thanks to her poison.

The other Scorprats backed away intimidated by the two dangerous beings in their midst. The Scorprat Impaler had been forcing them to attack the party against their will despite their injuries from the trap that had been set for them decreasing their combat capabilities, so they were more than happy to wait and see who won this fight much to the Impaler’s obvious anger.

Sasha snarled as she once more spat at the monster in front of her, this time she was using her Poison Spit Skill and the effects were obvious and immediate, the Impaler screeched again as the caustic fluid struck its eyes and then again when Sasha followed through with a lunge that ripped into its shoulder. The creature then attempted to retaliate with one of its usual attacks where its tail extended at high speed but the poison from Sasha’s bite and the venom in its eyes had obviously taken a toll and she easily dodge the inaccurate attack spinning her spear around to reveal the twin spikes of her addertongue on the other end and stabbing the monster once more injecting even more poison into the quickly weakening beast.

The fight didn’t last much longer after that, Sasha’s Beast Form increased her ability to dodge the clumsy close-range attacks of the monster and counter faster than it could recover injecting time and time again with the poison in the large compartment behind the head of her addertongue which was actually a concentrated version of her own venom as was traditional for her people and it wasn’t long before the Impaler expired.

Sasha panted as she looked around at the remaining Scorprats warily, the monsters had been watching carefully for any signs of weakness and seeing that her stamina was obviously flagging they started to creep closer.

“Shit,” muttered Sasha glancing towards the others to see that Kyle was rushing in her direction as fast as possible.

Just then a large number of needles flew down the tunnel and skewered the remaining Scorprats causing Kyle to halt in his tracks as he stared in shock at what had just happened.

“So,” Zerah said as she walked towards the group. “You look like you guys got dragged behind a horse for half a day, what did I miss?”