We stood around, hashing out a plan until it settled into something workable. Then everyone looked at me. Mostly at me.

  “OK. Let’s do it,” I said. “Get in position. Biggest and ranged first, then clean up anything dumb enough to bang on our shields. Shadow, you’re up.”

  The door creaked open. A breath later, our shields surged forward…just enough time for Shadow to slip through. Orcs. Lots of them, with four Goblins pressed among them.

  Except for Bhaarrt, whose job was to TAUNT them into Blaze’s FIRE SHIELD, Blaze and I opened with MANA and FIRE BLASTs at the far group. The acrid stink of charred flesh hit even before I felt the first CURSE sink into me. My gut twisted. Shaman. Just one, but enough. And two Orc mages behind him.

  “Shit. Stop the casters!” I barked.

  I cast CHARM MONSTER on the armored Orc with the sword and shield. He was bigger than the rest, bristling with scars. The spell nearly slipped; he was Level 7. “Yikes,” I muttered as the control took hold.

  “Kill the Shaman. Then the mages,” I shouted at it.

  The Fire Mage flung a FIRE BALL that splashed across my shield, searing hot. Goblins yelped as the backlash burned them. The other mage conjured a METAL BALL that burst into brass shards, shredding his own allies. Another Goblin crumpled, Blaze’s shield buckled, then reignited as she clenched her jaw and reset it.

  My charmed Orc ripped into the Shaman, cleaving it down, then turned on the nearest caster. Out of nowhere, Shadow flickered into existence, her blade buried in the Metal Mage’s spine. He sagged before she darted back, her second blade flashing in her left hand. The dagger gave her strikes an edge, the kind that made her dual attacks crackle with extra power when used together.

  Bhaarrt flattened the last Goblins with brutal swings of his maul. Soon the charmed Orc was the only one standing. He’d killed the final caster and turned, shield up.

  Bhaarrt shouted and CHARGED through our shields, as I saw the CHARM MONSTER fade out.

  They smashed shield together, steel ringing in the close air. The clang reverberated, harsh against the stone walls. The Orc was good…too good…but Bhaarrt had Ingrid feeding him steady pulses of healing. The Orc had no such lifeline. Shadow hamstrung him low while Blaze and I launched spells into the cracks. Another SHIELD BASH knocked him flat. A FIRE BOLT ended it.

  We stopped. Exhausted, we entered and closed the door behind us.

  Clapping slowly, I said, “We did it. First time against something higher-level than most of us. Let’s loot, then take a breather and recharge.”

  No one disagreed.

  We got a Moon, fifty, just from the big Orc. One Moon from the Shaman and 75 Shields from each caster. 50 Shields each from the four Goblins.

  It totaled 5 Silver Moons. Even with a five-way split, we all could get something at the STORE and maybe end the day with one or maybe two of their Good Beers.

  “OW! Damn it!” Shadow cried out. “Ingrid, help.” She was holding on to her right hand with her left, tight around her wrist. My REVEAL STATS showed POISONED on her information.

  Ingrid cast a spell, then a second. The POISON went away, as did a few points of damage.

  “OK. I forgot to check for traps. I won’t do that again. Promise.” She was fine now, so we got some laughter from her oops.

  “What’s in the chest?” Blaze asked her.

  “Don’t know yet. Let me look. Two potions, these are a little bigger and darker colored than the last ones.”

  I went over to look. DISPLAY MAGIC said they were Level 2 MANA and Healing potions. 20 points instead of 10. “Nice. More healing and MANA per drink. What else we got? She held up five silver coins.”

  “This is a money room,” Shadow said. “You splitten’ all this five ways?”

  “Always,” I told her.

  “We need to talk about the bank and new members,” Ingrid said. “With the dungeon opening up, we should do it sooner rather than later.”

  We sorted loot, talking about splits and the Guild Bank. Ingrid brought up recruiting. Blaze mentioned maybe hosting a meeting at the Convention Center. Normal conversations in the middle of stone rooms, halls, and death fights. It was oddly grounding.

  Then Shadow held up a dark brown box. Solid looking. DISPLAY MAGIC lit it up, but strangely.

  “OK Will. Stop stalling. What is it?” Blaze said.

  When I finally twisted the end open, a statue slid free. An Orc Warrior, eerily like the one we’d fought.

  “It’s an Orc Warrior. If you set it down, it comes alive. Level 7. Fights for an hour or until killed. Has three charges and it’s gone.”

  “Who gets it?” Blaze asked.

  The debate on ownership ended quickly. It wasn’t about power…it was about survival. Ingrid. Protect the healer. She accepted with wide eyes, turning the box over in her hands like it might break.

  “Use it if you need it, and use it before you are out of time to use it. If there is one of these, we may find more,” I told her.

  “Thank you. I hope I never have to use it,” she said. We all agreed.

  We found the usual junk too. Two more leather ponchos, a staff, a regular ax, a crude leather cap, and two more INVENTORY bags.

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  We sat and rested a while. There were five more rooms to go. Which one of them was the Boss room?

  When our rest time was over, we moved one room closer to the center. I got the same result from the previous room about mana sources in there. There were three bright ones.

  “Same thing as before?” I asked. “Or what do we do different?”

  “I’m good with the same plan,” Bhaarrt said. “Now we know what to look for, and how to do it.” The rest of the party agreed.

  “Then let's do it. Shadow, do your thing. Or is it thang?” I asked.

  “Don’t you start it, white boy. I gots hard ‘nuf time talkin’ dat way. So youse shuts it.” She said, laughing. We joined her and fell silent when she VANISHed. Bhaarrt opened the door, and a few seconds later, I cast my shield spell. I made it extra strong this time.

  It looked like the same configuration. A big Orc in back, a Goblin Shaman. And two Orc mages of some sort. We’d find out what when they started casting. The Goblin fighters rushed us and Blaze set her shield up just before they reached mine.

  She has her timing down on this move.

  Leading with my CHARM MONSTER on the big Orc. “Kill the Shaman then the mages,” I screamed, as I took a hit from a Shaman’s CURSE spell. The two mages shot FIRE and WATER Bolts at us. The WATER BOLT did heavy damage to Blaze’s FIRE SHIELD. The FIRE BOLT did less. The fun of opposing magical elements.

  Shadow BACKSTABbed the Water Mage, almost killing it as I shot a MANA BOLT into the Fire Mage.

  Blaze dropped a FIRE BALL directly behind the Goblins in front of us, catching them between both sets of flames. Bhaarrt did what he did best, smash in heads with his heavy steel maul. I added an enhanced MANA BOLT into the Shaman and it went down.

  “Attack your Fire Mage,” I commanded the Orc, changing his target, and he did. The mage shot the Orc once with a FIRE BOLT before it died. Shadow appeared behind the big Orc and BACKSTABbed him. He wasn’t dead yet, but it didn’t take long. Blaze concentrated on the Water Mage, killing it, while and I concentrated on the big Orc and it died as well, but not before killing its own mage.

  Ingrid stepped forward and speared a very injured Goblin and it went down.

  “Well done, everyone. That went better than the last room,” I told them. My shield had dropped just before Ingrid speared the Goblin.

  We rested and collected our loot for the room. Shadow found the poison trap on the chest this time and avoided it. We only got 1 Moon from the Orc, but the same coins from the others.

  Plus, another ax and an INVENTORY bag. The total from the rest was the same, three Moons and fifty Shields. Another crude sword, and a buckler.

  The special items from the chest were another 5 Moons and a Ring of INTELLIGENCE +2. We weren’t sure who to give it to as several of us could use it, so I held on to it until we could decide.

  Replenishing our MANA was easier because we used less and we were better prepared for it. As we rested, Blaze asked if maybe we’d started on the high end, not the low.

  “Could be,” Bhaarrt answered. “Nothing says it has to go only one way.”

  “If that’s the case, we start at the closest room on the other side and expect them to get harder? It sounds like the best way to go,” Ingrid told us.

  We all agreed with her. “But if that’s the case, and the symmetry holds true, then where is the Boss room?” I asked them. They looked at each other and at me like they hadn’t thought about it.

  “Easy,’ Shadow said. “It's back by where we came in. That area we couldn’t get in.”

  “Duh!” I did the theatrical, hand slapping my head for not thinking of it. She was right. We all knew it. The thought sat heavy in the air, like the stone pressing in on us.

  “You’re right. And that small area is the entryway into it. It also means we win or there’ll probably be no way out of the room. That’s the way they usually work.”

  Shadow broke the tension with a grin. “Hey, Will. Any way you can make that shield red, white, and blue with a star in the middle?”

  The laughter that followed was easy, nervous. Needed.

  I made a show of looking at the SYSTEM RULES and said, “Nope. Nothing I can see up to level fifteen lets me make it any color but mana blue or invisible with a modifier. Sorry. If the president had been a Fighter, instead of a Healer, it would have been perfect for her.” That got more laughter.

  More laughter. Then quiet. Torches burned steady, throwing sharp shadows against pale gray stone. We snacked on Blaze’s biscuits, rehydrated, and let our MANA recharge.

  We relaxed for another fifteen minutes, had some snacks and drank water, then we felt ready to go. We left this room, after Shadow looked to see if there were any wandering patrols in the corridor. There wasn’t.

  The next room? Same configuration. Orcs, Goblins, Shaman, mages. Same rhythm to the fight too. We’d done this fight before.

  Blaze FIRE BLASTed the group to soften them up. I MIND CONTROLLed one mage and told it to kill the other one. It used a WATER BALL on it right after the other one cast a FIRE BALL on us. Or on my and Blaze’s shields.

  I felt the CURSE hit. It was getting a tiny amount easier to take each time. The soothing feeling of Ingrid’s Healing Over Time spell helped as well.

  Hitting the second Mage with my MANA BOLT, it went down. So did the Shaman, because of Shadow’s attack from the back.

  “Kill the Goblins!” I yelled. And strengthened my shield. They screamed as their caster’s FIRE BALL hit them from behind. One made the mistake of turning away from Bhaarrt. That was the last mistake it would ever make.

  The last one down was the mage and Bhaarrt CHARGED through our shields and SHIELD BASHED it to the opposite wall, where it bonelessly collapsed.

  “Well done folks. 5 Moons worth of coins and we got our first clothing. A brown Mage Robe. Size? Sorry, no size or washing instruction tags on it. It wraps around you like a bathrobe and has +1 INTELLIGENCE and +5 DEFENSE."

  “I’m sure it’ll be all the rage in a few days. No caster will want to be caught dead not wearing one of these.”

  “Two Goblin caps and a sword. No staff this time. What have we got in the chest? Blaze? Think it will fit you?” I held the robes up. Her hand lit up as she was holding a Fire spell and looked at me like I was her target. “OK. I got the message,” and she laughed and canceled the spell. “What’s in the box?” I asked Shadow.

  “Hang on, I’m opening it now. It’s got a needle, so takes longer.” Shadow said, disarming it carefully. Her hands steady despite her earlier sting.

  “There! Open. A hundred Shields, one each of the Level 1 potions, and another mystery box.”

  She held up a box like the one Ingrid’s statue was in, except smaller. “Who gets it?”

  We just laughed. “Open it,” Blaze told her.

  Shadow took her time carefully inspecting it for more traps, listening to hear if it rattled. It didn’t. I’m certain she had a big grin, but with only her eyes showing, we couldn’t tell for certain. Another advantage of being a Ninja.

  When she finished teasing us, she simply pulled the top off. “Huh?” She slid two items out. A tiny black bottle with a white feather next to it. Someone had sharpened the end of the feather’s shaft. “What is this?”

  “It looks like a quill and an ink bottle to me.” Laughing, DISPLAY MAGIC said I was right. “It’s a Pen and Ink of Scroll Making.”

  “If you have the scroll making profession, or maybe if you’re a Scribe, you can add a +1 to any scroll you make. Anyone take that profession?” I asked. No one answered. “OK. Put it back in the box and we’ll hang on to it.”

  Shadow surprised us all. “I could take that profession. Pair it with cooking. I can write some Kanji and Hiragana. Doesn’t have to be fancy. And I could make scrolls.”

  “I don’t have to be a mage or anything. I just have to spend for the spell like they would. The rules on it say I can learn any spell I could learn at my level if I could cast the spell. That includes healing spells. This is way powerful.”

  No one argued. We knew how valuable that could be.

  When she tucked it into her INVENTORY, I thought, She’ll be practicing the second we get out of here. I smiled.

  We were getting closer. A few more rooms. One Boss. And the dungeon wasn’t done with us yet.

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