The first level of the dungeon was exactly as I remember. I passed out some of the zombie lanterns and activated my flashlight. Cyrus had said dungeons did not respawn monsters very quickly, but I still remained on high alert. New monsters might have ascended from lower levels or crept in from outside.

  We found nothing. The Cinder Jelly cavern remained empty and spotlessly clean. When we headed through the Tasty Cake Mushroom tunnel, I warned everyone to watch for another Octo-Mole ambush. The ground was still torn up where I’d fought it last time, with the deep hole plunging 20 feet down.

  When I described the monster, the ladies all grimaced and Lana said, “It sounds disgusting. Glad you already killed it.”

  “Me too.” I pointed at one of the few mushrooms I hadn’t picked before. “I harvested most of them. When we get back to town, you’ll have to taste them. It makes anything you eat the best food you’ve ever tried.”

  “Sounds good,” Jane said, and Tomas teleported up to one mushroom high on the wall and picked it for her.

  “Wait till you get back to town to try it. They’re super distracting,” I warned.

  “Ospreys have reversible toes,” Nigel suddenly said.

  “Thanks for the heads’ up.” His abrupt shifts in topic never got boring.

  The Gloom Spider mazelike area was clear. No illusions, no monsters, and no indication Fulvia or the rift in space had ever been there. I hated keeping that experience to myself. In moments we reached the circular chamber with the stairs. With a final check to make sure everyone was ready, I led the way down.

  The stairs emptied into a wide, low cavern with a rough ceiling barely 10 feet high. The space was covered in stinking mud, with clumps of marsh weed sticking through.

  “This is gross,” Lana grimaced, covering her nose with one hand.

  “I don’t see any monsters,” Scott said, eyes glowing faintly with the fire of his eye beam.

  “Maybe they’re through there,” Ruby said, pointing at a distant glow of a light across the cavern.

  Stupid Fulvia. Again I couldn’t use Spellseer’s Gaze. The lack of my zooming vision was really hurting. Squinting at the distant light, I couldn’t make out any good details. The ground did look like it rose from the mud, but the low ceiling blocked my view.

  I closed my eyes and focused on the feel of mana around me with Mana Sense. Most of the mana I sensed felt warm, attuned to fire, with a little that felt more like earth. “Stay on your guard. There’s fire mana down here, so if there are monsters, they might be attuned to it.”

  “How can you tell?” Tomas asked.

  “I got a mana sense ability.”

  “When?” Ruby asked.

  “Kind of a long story. Let’s talk about it later.”

  “Over a nice, private dinner, just the two of you?” Steve interjected.

  Ruby rolled her eyes and I led the way forward. My new boots sank out of sight and mud reached almost to my knees. Nasty. With a squelching sound, I pulled my foot out to take another step. The mud resisted and made a loud sucking sound, but I powered through.

  “These clothes are new,” Ruby complained as the others followed. Lana talked Scott into carrying her. Jane just walked across the muck without sinking.

  “How are you doing that?” Tomas demanded as he slogged through the mud after her.

  “Telekinesis, my love,” she grinned. “Pressing down on the mud to condense it gives me a stable platform.”

  “Why don’t you do that for all of us?” Ruby complained.

  “I would have if you hadn’t all jumped in so fast. Now, what’s the point?”

  She ranged ahead of us like Legolas walking on snow in the Lord of the Rings movies. We squelched our way after until Steve snapped his fingers and chuckled. “For a former plumber with water manipulation powers, sometimes I’m an idiot.”

  He made a gesture with one hand and water started fountaining out of the mud in front of us as it faded from muddy black to a soft brown. When I stepped on the dry ground, my boots only sank in about an inch. That made walking so much easier. Steve even drained the water off our pants and boots, leaving dry dirt behind that was easy to brush off.

  “Thank you,” Ruby said with a sigh.

  Steve pushed his water-manipulating powers farther, drying a path of earth through the center of the muddy ground. About 20 feet in front of us, along with the fountaining water, a huge form suddenly wriggled up from below.

  “Look out!” Steve shouted, summoning his bow and unleashing an arrow before I even registered what we were looking at.

  The arrow exploded in a burst of flames against the long form rising from the mud, catapulting the thing all the way out of the mud and sending it tumbling and squirming through the air. Identify kicked in.

  “Venomous Fire Worm. Level 35. Uncommon. Always ready for an impromptu barbecue, the Venomous Fire Worm prefers to lay in wait until its prey shows up for dinner. Its 345 venomous teeth are curved inward to ensure prey can never escape once it latches on. And since they’re not super fast, they can spit jets of superheated fire up to 50 feet.”

  We’d walked right into the middle of a trap.

  “Fire and poison,” I shouted as the mud erupted all around us. At least a dozen more long worms rose. They only exposed about 5 feet of their torso, but the one Steve had shot looked about 30 feet long.

  Close up, I got a better view of the nasty worms. An enormous maw, ringed with rows of those inward-curving teeth made up the entirety of the front of their bodies. I spotted no eyes or nose slits or ears, but they knew our position anyway. All turned to point those nasty maws straight at us.

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  Every single one of them unleashed jets of white-hot flames in our direction. I grabbed Ruby, and spun to shield her with my body from the closest stream of fire. I almost triggered Energy Ward out of pure reflex, and only remembered at the last second I couldn’t risk using mana yet.

  Flames splashed against an invisible shield, outlining curving walls that surrounded the entire team. Jane groaned, dropping to one knee, her face going pale. Through gritted teeth, she growled, “I can’t hold them back long.”

  Everyone leaped into action. Steve’s clones spread out to either side, all firing elemental arrows of ice and water and fire, and Lana unleashed exploding bolts with her crossbow. Scott fired a couple ocular laser blasts, ripping apart 2 more monsters. They might spit fire, but they weren’t immune to his bolts.

  They all targeted worms on one side of us. Tomas blinked behind one of the monsters blocking the path ahead and slashed through its long, fleshy torso with his blade, carving it open in a single stroke.

  Nigel leaped out of my arms, soaring over the waves of incoming fire, nearly hitting the low roof. At the last second, he swelled to full size and pounced onto the face of the worm closest to Tomas. The impact drove it into the ground and he ripped and tore at it with fangs and claws. Flesh shredded under his brutal attack.

  I turned the other way and used that bit of energy I’d absorbed from the mandrills to trigger Phantom Step. Colors faded as I slipped into ethereal form. Leaping into a sprint, I raced across the muddy ground toward one of the monsters on the opposite side of the team. I decided to run through its stream of fire, expecting it to pass through me without effect, but searing pain washed across my torso.

  Cursing, I dove out of the flames and circled around. It wasn’t pure fire, but magical, containing some spiritual power that could hurt me even in my phased form. 30% of the magical damage was absorbed into that secondary charge, and the power bar grew, glowing orange in the corner of my vision below my mana bar.

  Returning to the physical world, I charged the monster, Echo and Scalebiter dropping into my hands. The monster cut off its fire stream and lunged out of the mud at me, fang-filled maw gaping wide.

  I jumped aside and brought down both blades as its head shot past. They easily sliced through the soft body, severing all the way through. I got the kill notification and triggered Loot, trying not to think about not being able to cast Soul Feed.

  My health pool refilled quickly through my normal fast regeneration, with help from my bracelet. My mana pool remained mostly empty. It was starting to fill, but only with agonizing slowness.

  I charged the next Venomous Fire Worm, but it seemed to have sensed my presence. Like the previous one, it cut off the fire stream and rotated toward me, rising higher out of the mud and preparing to lunge.

  I poured on the speed, tearing across the short space, and triggered a mana potion from my hotlist, focusing it on Sapper Charge. The Fire Worm lunged like a snake, but I stepped to the side. As its long, surprisingly dry body slipped past my ribs, I lashed out with a fist and unleashed the spell.

  The worm’s entire body convulsed and it collapsed to the muddy ground in a twitching heap. I called forth Echo and finished it with a single swipe.

  A scream pulled me around. Another worm had risen right in the middle of the group, sending everyone tumbling. Jane’s telekinetic barrier broke. Thankfully, the worms didn’t seem to be able to keep up a long stream of fire and most were already petering out.

  One started spitting again, though and Ruby charged into the middle of the stream. My heart lurched, but she raced through without slowing. As she emerged from the river of flame, her red hair billowing behind her, flames licked down her entire torso and I just had to stare.

  All of her exposed skin was covered in silver scales like dragon scales. That’s right! She’d gotten the upgrade to her Battle Bio Morph utility spell that included the 500% defense boost. Magical golden chains erupted in front of her, wrapping the monster and twisting its dangerous maw away as she rushed the worm.

  It wasn’t Ruby who was screaming, though. I finally tore my gaze away from her to see that the Fire Worm that had crashed up through the team had seized Lana’s left leg. Its hundreds of inward-curving teeth had sealed around her leg and its hideous maw was sliding up her calf, passing her knee.

  Lana was screaming in agony, flailing at the monster with her arms, but in her panic, she wasn’t accomplishing anything. Andy arrived almost instantly and severed the monster’s torso, but the head remained attached to her leg until he triggered Loot.

  Dummy. I shouldn’t have let myself get so distracted by Ruby. She was fine. If I’d reacted faster, could I have saved Lana?

  We had to end this before anyone else got hurt. I leaped into a sprint up the line of Fire Worms on my side. I ran so fast I skipped along the surface of the mud. Before the worms could launch another volley of deadly fire breath, I sped down the line, swords slashing as I raced past each monster.

  The closest one started to turn, but the others didn’t even sense my approach before I killed them all. Then I skidded to a halt and raced back the other way, returning to the hardened earth near Lana and the others.

  Tomas and Nigel were finishing off the last two worms. We’d turned the tide fast, but Lana’s leg had been stripped to the bone. She was convulsing under the effects of the worm’s poison tearing through her system. Already her skin had reddened and was swelling and splitting in places to leak a nasty orange puss that hissed with foul-smelling steam in the air.

  Ruby gave her a full regeneration potion, and I poured a full poison resist potion into Lana’s open, gasping mouth too. She gagged, but managed to swallow.

  Instantly, the swelling began to fade and she sagged back, head flopping into Scott’s lap. Tears streaked her face and she sobbed as she gripped Scott’s hands. The flesh of her leg visibly regrew after Ruby gave her another specialty potion. Lana ground her teeth against the ongoing pain as the regeneration process continued.

  “I think we’re clear for now,” Tomas said. The others were all arrayed around us in a circle, weapons at the ready, scanning for more worms.

  Andy suddenly exclaimed, “Hey, I got the last level I needed to unlock my class!” Then he cringed and glanced down at the still-weeping Lana. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” she panted, her face covered in sweat and locked in lines of pain. “You deserve it.”

  I dropped to one knee on the other side of Lana as Andy outlined his class options to everyone. “Hang in there. You’ll be fine in a minute.”

  “Sure, jefe,” she gasped between clenched teeth, her entire body tense with pain. Scott rubbed her forehead and spoke soothing words.

  Ruby sat back, wiping her brow with the back of a hand. “Those potions should do the trick.”

  “Good work. You’ve been burning through a lot of potions. How long can your med kit keep up?”

  “A while. It will auto-replenish with new potions over time.”

  “Good. I saw that battle bio morph upgraded defense of yours. It looked pretty amazing.” It even somehow seemed to keep her hair from burning.

  She grinned. “It felt incredible. For a second I could understand how you race in, despite the danger. I felt nearly invincible.”

  “Don’t get addicted to that feeling. I get hurt a lot.”

  While Lana healed, we looted the worms, but only got some basic loot. Not even any good crafting materials.

  Andy chose the class Maverick Forge Raider. I hadn’t even known he had any blacksmithing skills, but the class boosted both his fighting skills and forging. One class spell allowed him to unlock special abilities from crafting materials he worked into his weapons and armor.

  Within a few minutes, Lana’s leg looked as good as new. Her pants were shredded and did not have a self-repair option, unfortunately. She still looked shocked by the whole experience, but got back to her feet and tested out her leg.

  “Are you okay to continue?” I asked.

  She didn’t look okay. Sure, physically she was healed, but she still shivered occasionally as if from remembered pain, and she kept glancing around nervously. I had to remind myself not everyone had gotten hurt as much as me.

  Lana still seemed to treat the trauma like we might have back on Earth, even though here we could down a potion or two and regenerate from most wounds and get back to hunting. Hopefully she’d figure that out soon.

  Lana took a deep breath, scanning our group before her gaze lingered on Scott. He gave her an encouraging smile and she squared her shoulders.

  Nodding once, she said, “Si. Good to go.”