Jake landed next to Aspen, who quickly hauled him to his feet before freezing as they saw the Drake round on them, its quills glowing bright.

  Before either of them could move, the Drake opened its mouth, and a flat plane of Wyrd formed in front of it.

  The fire hit the Wyrd shield and curled around it, destroying it swiftly, but the momentum of the breath had been wasted.

  The Drake thrashed angrily, but all five of them were attacking it now and the wounds were starting to add up. Blood was pooling amid the fragments of rock and the dust. Thankfully, it wasn’t boiling hot as it was with the snakes, instead simply providing a chance for one of them to slip.

  They were finally finding their rhythm with the fight when the Drake landed a solid blow to Aspen with its tail.

  The spearman was thrown into one of the huge rocky spires that they fought among, and he slumped limply to the ground, either unconscious or worse.

  Roaring in triumph, the Drake tried to do the same to Nepthys, but it was slow and sluggish now, and slowly growing more so.

  The Hidden Fang might not have killed it, but it had added to the blood loss and was weakening it. Now, with his spear resummoned, Jake had a chance to further weaken the beast.

  The effect wouldn’t last forever, though, which meant it was time for him to act.

  Charging forward as silently as he could, Jake felt Moby catch his intent and dive down at the Drake, raking its face.

  Moby lacked the power to pierce the Drake’s scales, so instead went for its face, trying to blind the monster. While he didn’t quite manage it, he got close enough to aggravate the wounded Drake.

  Flames washed up after the fast-moving duck as the Drake roared its displeasure, only for Moby to bank lazily away with a derisive quack.

  The distraction had given Jake the time he needed to close in with the Drake and he drew on his dwindling supply of Wyrd to infuse his spear with a piercing effect one last time.

  Fittingly, Jake found the wound that he’d first inflicted right in front of him and lunged to drive his spear into the existing injury.

  Bypassing the scales allowed his spear to go far deeper this time, and from the high-pitched cry the Drake made, he’d caught something important.

  Grinning savagely, Jake triggered the leeching effect of Dauhaust’s Root and clung on as the Drake tried to shake him free.

  Tendrils stabbed into Jake’s palms as the spear shifted under his grip. Inside of the Drake, much larger tendrils would be burrowing out into it to feast on its energy.

  A euphoric trickle of raw power fed into Jake from the spear, along with a sort of warmth that fed up from his hands and into his wrists and then the rest of his arms.

  Realising his plan, Jake’s friends had redoubled their efforts to kill the Drake, and between Jake leeching it dry and the poison within, it began to slow.

  Bit by bit, the Drake’s struggles faded, and by the time it finally died, Jake felt as though his entire body was suffused with a pleasant warmth.

  Glancing over at the others, Jake saw Gargan heading for Aspen and relaxed. Gargan hadn’t drawn his dagger, which hopefully meant Aspen would be able to finish the Dungeon on his own two feet.

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  Satisfied, Jake pulled his spear free of the Drake, only to frown. That had been easy, too easy. Frowning, he looked down at his hands before hefting his spear to feel its weight.

  Whatever that leeching effect had done, it had made Jake stronger. Now that the spear was free, Jake could feel the heat starting to fade.

  A temporary effect then, but a powerful and unexpected one, nonetheless.

  Shaking himself, Jake went to reach for a potion before noticing that the cuts and puncture wounds he’d gained had healed over.

  Another side effect of the spear, it seemed.

  Giving his Boon an impressed look, Jake dismissed it for the time being, feeling his Hunter’s Grace Boon fading at the same time.

  The loss of the empowerment from both Boons left Jake feeling strung out and tired, but he shook off the feeling as best he could and drew out the Wyrdgeld from the Drake.

  Fifty Wyrdgeld sat in Jake’s hands, split between five blood-red coins which were thicker and more dense than the usual ones he dealt with.

  A lot, but hardly enough for such a dangerous fight on its own. It would add nicely to their rewards for the Dungeon as a whole, though.

  Slipping the coins away, Jake looked over to where Gargan had finished feeding Aspen a potion and had got the spearman up into a sitting position.

  “That was a dangerous fight,” Nepthys said, walking over to Jake with a tired smile. “Good job at the end there, whatever you did really drained it.”

  “Yeah, it worked better than expected, actually,” Jake said, giving her a brief overview of the healing and the strength it had provided. “I knew that it would heal a little, but I had a lot of small wounds I’d picked up.”

  “We all do,” Nepthys said, motioning to an empty potion bottle on the floor behind her. “Nasty of the Dungeon to give us a flaming breath to dodge but to fill the floor with razor sharp rocks.”

  Jake nodded wearily before glancing around and perking up as he saw the distant reward chest at the base of the Drake’s boulder. “Care to join me in seeing what we just earned?”

  “It better be good,” Nepthys said, shaking her head as the two of them set off for the chest. “While the Woadite was tough and dangerous, the Drake was something else. The fight went well, but we were on a knife’s edge the whole time. One bad dodge, and those flames would have been the end of it.”

  Jake nodded with a grim expression, thinking on the ambush from the rear and the bad terrain involved. This was a tough Dungeon, there was no getting away from that.

  It was workable with a good group and relevant abilities, but he could easily see this place being death on unprepared delvers.

  They’d made it though, and while none of them had come through in pristine condition, they were all in decent shape.

  Keeping that positive thought firmly in mind, Jake opened the rewards chest and let out a low whistle.

  The chest held a large bag of Wyrdgeld, three hundred in total, along with five bundles of twenty obsidian tipped arrows and a chunk of rock.

  The rock was a dusky red with lines of dimly glowing fire running through it like veins. Something fire related, of course. Perhaps the equivalent of the galestone they’d received previously?

  Calling Alan over, Jake passed the arrows over with a grin, enjoying the wide-eyed surprise on his friend’s face.

  “Now this is exactly what I need!” Alan beamed at them as he stowed the arrows away, having to work to fit everything in his pack. “I used a couple on the Drake and they take to infusions very nicely. I might see if Varin can make something more of them, though.”

  “Not a bad idea, especially if we can get more fairly easily,” Jake said, pausing before clarifying. “Well, if not easily, then reliably.”

  Alan chuckled and nodded. “Yeah, not exactly easy. Still, when we come back through here we should be tier three, and who knows how that will change things!”

  Jake couldn’t help but laugh at Alan’s excitement, though in truth he was pretty excited himself. Especially for the Boon he was about to get. After all, a Dungeon like this would surely have something interesting for him.

  By the time they were all finished with their looting, Jake was buzzing with restrained energy. Waving them on urgently, he waited just long enough to be sure that they were all heading through before he hurried on and through the exit.

  As soon as he stepped through to the other side, Jake knew that they had a problem.

  Jake had bound enough Dungeons by this point that he could pick up on some of the smaller details of the Dungeon current condition from what he could see around him in the Throne room.

  Most importantly, he could feel how thick the air was with potential power. Like a thunderstorm just waiting to happen.

  “Fuck!” Jake raged for a long moment, angry at everything. The damn Dungeon was close to reaching the next tier itself.

  How close, he couldn’t tell, but it could be that the moment he bound himself to it, the Dungeon would advance. If it did, then his whole plan was in danger.