As she slid sideways a few inches at a time, Reeve’s booted toes were the first to find the edge. She swung her legs over, let them hang, and then pushed back to drop the remaining yard. She landed on a stone floor and turned to find her party arrayed around her, all with their backs to the low entry they’d just used to access what looked to Reeve like an old, partially collapsed fruit cellar.

“Hey, what’s…” Following everyone’s gaze, Reeve found the focal point of their attention. “…oh…fork.” Reeve wasn’t sure, but the distinctive pug-nosed face of the gnome holding a tiny, shielded lantern looked familiar—a face she’d seen in either the tavern or cave and in her recurring guilt-laced nightmares since.

The gnome made a quarter-turn on his doll-sized heeled leather boots and gestured that they follow through a dark, litter-strewn passage that lead out of the cellar.

Reeve glanced at Dusk, whose face was downturned, as though trying to prevent the gnome from getting a good look at her. Dusk’s eyes rose and met Reeve’s briefly and then looked away.

I don’t think my stomach can handle another gnome fight right now, Reeve thought. She looked at Leaf’s and Thomanji'yheri’s bodies, which lay sprawled on the stone floor, and wondered how to get them back up and through the low entry to the outdoors before the gnome caused trouble. Reeve looked over her shoulder through the dark entry and stopped breathing.

Two impossibly large paws were planted on the ground beyond the stone she’d only just crawled under. A dark, black snout appeared and sniffed at the ground between the paws. Reeve glanced back at the gnome, who again waved them toward the passage. Door One, Reeve thought. She looked back at the snout sniffing sideways along the ground toward her, only a yard or two between them. Or Door Two.

As quietly as she could, Reeve took a breath, raised her naginata, and extended it through the entry, until the end of its blade was a few inches short of the entry’s opening. Sensing the beast was about to turn away and her chance would be lost, she shook her head once and jabbed the naginata forward into the black-furred cheek.

Expecting a howl of pain and rage, the complete silence that followed was unnerving. Reeve withdrew her naginata and watched as the beast pawed once at its cheek and then lowered its head to look under the stone. The eye that stared at Reeve had a black iris surrounded by red sclera. In the center was an elongated, vertical pupil.

Vertical pupils—never, ever a good sign, Reeve thought and pulled up her UI.

You stab a Level 23 Duskhound (alpha) with a naginata for 1 point of damage.

Level 23? She reread the entry three times. No way should that be in this Standard Difficulty story mode, she thought. Alpha. And, sure, my strike was hindered by the space, but 1 point from a shot to the face by a bladed weapon?

Reeve dismissed her UI and looked at the red eye, which narrowed. She turned back to her party, nodded, squatted, pulled Leaf up under one arm, and rose. The gnome, who looked slightly taken aback by the delay, gestured once more down the passage from the cellar and walked into it. Reeve followed.