“Entrance clear,” Copperfield announced.

  Not under immediate attack, they found their footing and looked around. It reminded Heath of the Forest Path, the first dungeon his crew had delved. Not that there was a forest. Or a path. But it was a nature scene, one that would be idyllic if everything inside wasn’t a murder-machine out for blood.

  Stereotypical plains. A few little clumps of trees in the distance, but mostly just a sea of waving grass that Heath was certain hid any number of monsters. A faint scent tinged the breeze, which he couldn’t identify as anything other than ‘plant’. The scene had no relation to the area outside, a region of rocky foothills abutting the largest mountain range on the planet.

  In the distance, hovering above one of the tree clumps was a shimmering ball of light, the color fading from orange, to yellow, to white before it flashed red and repeated the process. The dungeon shouting the location of the final boss in case they might have missed it.

  Heath took a slow, deep breath. They had faced down a kaiju, they could handle this.

  “We’ll stay in a diamond formation. Copperfield leading and taking hits. There won’t be any warning when things come out of the grass so stay sharp. Jenny Mae and Ekaterina on damage. Emerald snipe anything we miss, I’ll be on defense. Let’s go.”

  In another nostalgic reminder of their first dungeon, creatures leapt out from the grasses. In contrast to that nerve-wracking delve, defeating each beast was routine. They were usually either cut out of the air by Copperfield’s saber or Jenny Mae’s gun before Heath could get a full read on what they were.

  Flat rats crossed with a spider was the best way Heath could describe them. Covered in tufted brown fur and with far too many legs, they stood only about as tall as his knee, but with shoulders twice as wide. The bastards preferred running leaps out of the grass to attempt to surprise the team. None worked. The occasional monster tried to sneak in by their feet, and ended up either dangling on the edge of an earth spike or with a burning hole through the head, courtesy of Emerald. Heath felt a bit superfluous, but he forced himself to stay focused, calling out encouragement and keeping the team moving.

  At one point he thought to look back and realized an initial mistake they had all made. The plain wasn’t flat, but graded so lightly they didn’t notice they were going uphill. From his new vantage, Heath could see the entrance, wavering in the air, and the plains stretching into the distance. Not that the dungeon was truly so large, but if there was a way to see the edges, no one had taught it to him.

  All that meant the grass was growing shorter, and the number of flat-rats (he was keeping the name) slowed proportionally.

  “Running scared,” Copperfield said.

  “Boo!” Jenny Mae shouted back. “You know the rules.”

  “I’m sorry. I realized as soon as it came out.”

  “Just keep an eye out. Drinks are on you later if you pull the Trickster down on us.”

  Another hundred yards, then two, and still nothing attacked. A breeze across his nape was his only warning. “Duck!” Heath shouted.

  Long practice sent everyone to the ground, while something slammed into Copperfield’s armor. It cawed, long and loud, while tentacles flailed and latched onto the mech suit’s arms, keeping the sword from reaching anything vital.

  A sizzling sound preceded acrid smoke as whatever the monster was started to melt its way through the armor.

  “Ekat–” Heath hadn’t gotten through her name before a shard of ice as thick around as Heath’s fist punched straight through the body.

  It stopped flailing, and Heath was able to parse what he was seeing. Like its friends the flat-rats, it had more limbs than any respectable creature. Like a feathered jellyfish, the thing had no internal structure to speak of, and was now leaking acid all over Copperfield. Which none of the rest could help him with, without burning through their much-less-resistant armor.

  After a few minutes of jumping around, he managed to dislodge the attacker, but the mech suit looked worse for wear, large blotches covered in a dark residue, even after he rolled in dirt and scraped with the grass.

  “How bad?”

  “Eh. Not great,” Copperfield replied. “She’ll need some tender love and care when we get back to the ship, but she can take it.”

  “We can head back.”

  “No!” The rest of the crew, sans Emerald, shouted in unison.

  “Heath, Cap, we’re so close.”

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  “You’re armor…”

  “Betsy’s fine. We can do this. Now we know to look out for the octobirds, right?”

  Heath nodded. “Fine. Then let’s form back up. Emerald, we’ll trust your eyes.”

  Back in formation, they continued towards their final destination, this time watching out for the feathered jellies.

  Heath was not as bold as Coppefield, which meant he would never say it out loud, but the dungeon felt almost…easy. They arrived at the final boss lair without any more surprises, after dispatching a series of larger versions of both the falt-rats and jellies.

  They paused outside the trees. This close, they could see they formed an unnatural ring, circling the crown of a hill.

  “How is everyone doing?”

  “Half mana, no injuries,” Ekaterina reported.

  The others indicated similar statuses. Besides the one run in with Copperfield’s armor, none of them had taken damage. Even his [Shield] skill had only come in handy once, when he blocked the coordinated leap of a flat-rat and dive of a jelly long enough for Jenny Mae to shoot both.

  At every previous dungeon delve, this was the point where they had turned back. Resources too depleted to continue, or a boss too strong to face. But here they were, not fresh, but not too far off from it either. His crew was eager and ready.

  “What do we know about this thing?” He asked Jenny.

  “The team just said it was a pretty normal direwolf. Ice and lightning attacks.”

  “That’s like saying a ‘pretty small star’ but I take your meaning. Seems out of theme for this place,” Heath said.

  Jenny Mae shrugged. “They said they thought it was probably young, for a dungeon. Not everything is crystalized yet.”

  “Okay. We know the plan. Same as before. Copperfield, tank damage. I’ll try to keep the lightning off you while you get in close. Ekaterina, if you can deal with the ice, do it. Jenny Mae, Emerald, light it up.”

  Together, they entered the trees.

  Across the clearing prowled the direwolf. As tall as Coppefield in his mech suit, and three times as mean, its snout curled into a snarl exposing razor-sharp fangs. Behind it came the rest of its pack.

  The half dozen smaller wolves were just as angry looking, but not nearly as intimidating as their larger leader. But each had a line of hard spikes trailing down the spine, and an extra pair of legs. On second thought, “wolves” might be a bit of a reach.

  Too late to backtrack.

  “New plan. Ekaterina, Emerald, deal with the little ones. Copperfield, keep the big guy busy, Jenny let’s get some damage going.”

  “Aye aye, Captain,” came the chipper reply.

  Discussion stopped as the wolves charged.

  The direwolf’s jaws began to glow, as lighting coalesced and shot towards Copperfield. Heath’s [Shield] intercepted the blow, feedback from the skill causing him to stagger back. But it gave their tank the time to close with the monster. His mana-saber scored a deep gash along the beast’s left flank.

  In his periphery, Heath could tell Ekaterina was dealing with the lesser wolves handily, and focused on the fight at hand.

  Jenny Mae’s [Sharpshooter] skill had benefited from their kaiju battle, as a slow but steady stream of plasma slugs sought out the weak spots on the wolf.

  It tried for another lightning attack, which Heath blocked again. Angry, it switched strategies. A burst of freezing air spread from the body. He grabbed Jenny Mae’s collar and pulled her back, activating [Steady] to keep balanced. The grass where she had knelt froze and then crumbled. Copperfield fared better in the mech suit, though Heath winced when a few pieces fell off.

  It was looking like they might need to retreat. He opened his mouth to make the call.

  Then it was over. Jenny Mae hadn’t stopped shooting at the change in position, and she wasn’t alone. Emerald’s pistol was barking beside Heath, while Ekaterina stopped the spread of ice. Then, with a flourish of her staff, replaced it with fire.

  The direwolf howled as its coat caught aflame, Copperfield’s saber putting it out of its misery a moment later.

  The Captain looked around. His team was fit and ready to go, no one even showing signs of fatigue. If anything, Betsy was the member of the crew that had taken the most damage, and even the suit would be fine after a few days and a shipload of mana.

  “Huh. We won.”

  “Fuck yeah we did!” Copperfield cheered, and that broke the floodgates. Jenny Mae started pumping her fist, even bravely pulling Ekaterina into a hug.

  “Not bad, kid, not bad at all.”

  “Thanks. Still not a kid though.”

  Emerald snorted and Heath let it pass, glad they could return to the old joke. It was good to see the older crewmember smile openly. Heath couldn’t remember the last time it had happened. No more long hauls.

  “How about we loot this thing?” they said.

  Heath turned to watch, not wanting to miss the finale they had been working up to for most of a year.

  The smaller wolves stayed where they had fallen. If they could muster the motivation for skinning, the furs would be worth something back on the Rim. But that would just be icing on the cake. The main event was just getting started.

  Heath watched as the direwolf dissolved into motes of argo, which coalesced in three pieces. The fist was the beast’s pelt, though this one was pristine instead of riddled with bullet holes or soaked in blood. The second was a pair of fangs. Useful and expensive. It was like festival week back home, more and more presents piling up on the mantel.

  The last item was a crystal. Not argo, like he thought at first, but something else. From the light blue color and ring of frost around it, he assumed there was some sort of ice magic involved.

  Even watching an enemy transmuted into pure profit wasn’t the best part. When the argo from the direwolf settled, Heath and the rest of his crew looked up. Above them, the flashing orb of light was sinking. As it dropped, the light compressed, until it hovered at chest height. It bobbed for a few moments before a shape pushed out of the light.

  It was small, maybe the size of his fist, as Heath held out cupped hands to catch their prize. As the light winked out, it fell to his hands with a light smack. His whole crew gathered around to examine a chunk of glass. Or crystal. It was hard to say, none of them were trained in valuations, or had a Skill for it.

  “Any ideas?”

  “Yeah. Let’s get out of here and ask the explorers,” Copperfield said.

  Heath laughed and tucked it away. “Okay everyone. You know the drill. Back out.”

  What had been a tense, if routine journey outward was anything but on the way back. Like a hyperactive child or a giant metal dog, Copperfield bounded around in the mech suit, stopping and poking at any point of interest they had skipped before, then running to catch up as the rest of them trekked towards the exit.

  Smiles and laughter billowed around the crew as they exited the dungeon. Their grins only got wider when they remembered there was no managing guild around to take a slice of their hard-earned materials. Eager spacers stormed the bridge in a stampede of boots and rattling gear.

  “We did it!” Jenny Mae shouted. “Cleared the dungeon and beat the final boss.”

  “Excellent news. I am naturally unsurprised that my superlative crew was able to overcome all obstacles.”

  “Yes. A good delve.” Even Ekaterina was feeling chipper if she wasn’t criticizing anyone’s technique.

  Heath listened with half an ear as Copperfield rejoined them and regaled the Loon with a highly stylized version of their delve. The chunk of glass sat heavy in his hand. Each of the thousand facets was polished to a shine, though no matter how he held it, he couldn’t get a rainbow to refract out. With a shrug he placed it in the corner of his station, opposite the good luck charm that had seen them through so much.

  “Take us back to base Loon.”

  “Aye Captain.”

  The rest of the crew shuffled into their seats, not stopping the story for a moment as the Loon lifted off and brought them back to their temporary home among the explorers.