“Any word from Cinder?” Falcon asked.

  At the mention of the dragon, Gideon and Lioness stopped their discussion and waited for him to respond.

  Forge sighed and stored the kabob he’d been eating back in his ring.

  “No word, but he’s with us, soaking in everything happening around me while he sleeps.”

  “And the constant eating?” Lioness asked.

  “It’s honestly a bit concerning. Based on the amount of food I’ve been consuming, I wonder if he’ll return to us the size of a house,” Forge laughed.

  Gideon laughed as well, then leaned in, his voice barely above a whisper.

  “I, for one, will be ecstatic if he comes back big enough for us to ride. Then we can stop taking these blasted carriages everywhere.”

  Lioness smacked the swordsman. “That’s a Guild driver. He might be able to hear you.”

  They heard a voice from the driver’s seat of the carriage outside.

  “Oh, don’t worry miss, I can’t hear anything you say over the sound of the horses and wind.”

  Gideon grinned at the cleric. “See…”

  Falcon rolled her eyes at the pair, and Forge laughed at their antics.

  Summoning his kabob back to his hand, he took another bite of the spiced meat and considered their situation.

  They still hadn’t heard back from the Sturdevant, so the team decided to run the dungeon that Lioness had requested. Afterwards, if there was still no word regarding the job, they would move on to other jobs.

  “I need at least five points from this run,” Gideon said.

  Falcon frowned at the mention of points.

  “Seeing as how we won’t be getting any more ‘firsts’ this time, I’m not sure what we’ll get.”

  Lioness poked Gideon.

  “We also don’t have a certain treasure finding…cat, this time.”

  Gideon swatted her hand away.

  “I need to bind my sword, the scroll, and take the Dungeoneering skill.”

  Forge could see the excitement on the swordsman’s face. Like him, Gideon’s magic class passively increased as he opened mana-gates. Though, while his Elementalist class gained both spells and magic abilities, Gideon’s provided exponential increases to his Sword skill.

  As the Sword Adept class was on the Somatic Mage path, he could bind a single power from a scroll to each of his mana-gates. Something his own Elementalist class couldn’t do.

  Falcon’s Druid class followed the more standard caster classes, in that she could bind spells directly from spell scrolls. Like his own spells, she could cast them at different tiers and was only limited by the amount of mana available.

  Finally, there was Lioness’s Enchanter class, which didn’t have any direct combat potential, but was a force multiplier, allowing her to create various foci.

  The one thing they all had in common was that, unlike most adventurers, they all needed to actively work on opening mana-gates to grow their power.

  He had thought the System had provided his team with the Path of Magic in order to protect him and Cinder, but recently he’d come up with a different conclusion.

  Cinder was like a sponge, absorbing everything going on around him, and intrinsically attached to Forge’s own mana-gates. But what if he received some benefit from all the open mana-gates around him?

  He didn’t know, and it didn’t really matter. They would all grow stronger regardless, and if it helped Cinder, all the better.

  “How many kabobs do you have?” Lioness asked, breaking him from his thoughts.

  He looked down at what remained of the kabob in his hand, and checked his ring, seeing sticks from ten kabobs he’d apparently been eating one after another while lost in his thoughts.

  “I bought and ate ten,” he said with an apologetic smile.

  She whistled in response. “That’s a lot of spiced street meat. I hope your stomach will be okay; a dungeon isn’t the best place to have stomach issues.”

  “I’ll be fine. My regeneration ability will fix me up before it becomes an issue,” he laughed.

  Gideon turned from the window to gaze at him.

  “You’re pretty much hemorrhaging money. So, we need to make sure we get enough to keep you in food and dragon cookies on this run, because there’s no telling when we’ll get paid for a job.”

  Forge furrowed his brow, curious where the swordsman was going with this.

  “We had a talk, and we figure you can use the money we’re saving as a team as needed,” Gideon said.

  Forge smiled warmly at his teammate.

  “I appreciate it, but let’s save that as a last-ditch solution. Since I’m craving meat, I think a little hunting may be in order.”

  “…and since we have our own chef…” he trailed off.

  Gideon grinned. “Alright, I’d planned on using my cooking skills for the team when we got our own place, but there’s no reason I can’t get started immediately.”

  Lioness laughed. “Didn’t you specialize in Survival Cooking? Between you and the ranger, we should be able to catch and cook pretty much anything.”

  The cleric reached over and plucked the kabob stick from his hands, and Forge laughed.

  “And that means no more spending your money on street meat,” she said.

  Forge looked at each of his teammates in turn.

  “You know you’re my family now. If everything goes well, we’ll be together for a very long time.”

  “It’s us five against the forces of evil!” Gideon proclaimed.

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  “Five for now…” Falcon said, winking at Forge.

  Gideon’s face went white.

  “Wait, is someone having a baby? Because I did not approve this.”

  Falcon kicked the swordsman in the shin, and he laughed at her expression.

  The ranger’s face turned up in a smile, and she leaned in to whisper conspiratorially to the others.

  “No. Someone’s been getting marriage proposals.”

  All eyes went to Forge.

  “Anyone we know?” Lioness asked.

  Gideon held a hand up. “It’s got to be Sapphire. She always seems to come and take him somewhere.”

  Forge’s face turned red as he remembered the incident in the carriage.

  Using this as proof that there was something going on, the team mercilessly teased him.

  He laughed along with them while vehemently denying any sort of matchmaking.

  “You see, Cinder? This is what it means to be part of a family. One part love, and one-part merciless teasing,” he sent.

  The pulse of heat from the dragon in response warmed him as he continued to trade friendly barbs with his team.

  ***

  The entrance of the dungeon differed from the last one they’d been in.

  It had the same protective stone wall around it, guarded by a small cadre of Guildies, but instead of a cut stone entrance, a carved hole in an enormous tree was their way inside.

  A guard held his hand up to get their attention as they walked towards the entrance.

  “While it’s customary to not tell Guildies about what lies inside a dungeon, it’s important that you know two things.”

  He held up a leather pouch and set it down on a table.

  “Wild and unculled dungeons will not allow you to exit once you enter. Since this one is ran fairly often, it means any of you can exit at any time. Also, while technically a Tier One dungeon, this dungeon kills more adventurers than any other known dungeon. So, if you get in trouble, leave. Finally, I have a pack of health potions available. I can’t give them to you but will sell them to you at cost if you want them.”

  Forge stepped forward and saluted the guard.

  “Thank you. We appreciate the warning.”

  He gestured to the rest of the party.

  “I believe we’re prepared. We each have a health potion, and two members of the party can provide healing.”

  The guard grinned.

  “It sounds like you’ve got it covered. Just remember, you can leave at any time.”

  With the warning fresh in their minds, they entered the dungeon.

  Forge summoned his armor and took the lead.

  “I thought I was going to scout?” Falcon asked.

  Forge turned and faced the team.

  “I felt something when we entered. So, I checked my System screen. This dungeon is called Death by a Thousand Cuts.”

  Falcon frowned, and her eyes went distant for a moment.

  “I don’t see a dungeon name on my screen,” she said, eyes coming back into focus.

  “That’s because you don’t have the Dungeoneering skill,” Forge said.

  “Oh. That makes sense. Still, why are you taking the lead?”

  “Think it through. Between the guard’s warning and the name of the dungeon, I have a feeling this place kills slowly.”

  Lioness spoke up from behind them.

  “Small cumulative injuries that are ignored until they kill people. Rather insidious.”

  “Hey, Falcon. Why don’t you let the heavily armored paladin go first for now,” Gideon said.

  Bowing her head and taking a step back, she grinned at Forge.

  “Alright, get out there and tank, and we’ll attack them from behind.”

  “Thanks,” he said, turning back towards the tunnel.

  Another difference between this dungeon and the last, was the more obvious decline of the tunnel as it led underground.

  Large, thick roots formed long steps as the tunnel widened into a twisty corridor that ended in a loamy cavern.

  “Uncanny,” Gideon whispered as they all looked around the room.

  Forge wasn’t sure what the others were seeing, but to his sight, the room had forest like paths that ran through the dense foliage.

  Looking up, he could see how the trees seemed to jut through the top of the cavern, high over their heads.

  His mace appeared in his hand as he stepped out onto the path and walked ahead ten paces.

  As was protocol, he held up a fist, signaling his team to wait.

  He could see movement around him as the brush gently swayed, then he felt something.

  It was light, but something had landed on his shoulder. He reached up with his hand and a tiny creature jumped onto his gauntleted hand, biting and tearing at it.

  At first glance, it appeared to be a chipmunk, but a closer inspection saw the face of the creature had sharp insectoid pincers, and each of its six fuzzy legs ended in a sharp tip like an insect.

  He heard a gasp from Falcon, and realized he was now covered with the little beasts, trying to bite and claw their way through his cloak and armor.

  Raising his fist again to have the group stay back, he cast his Magma Tentacles spell and encircled his body with the glowing coils.

  The creatures made a chittering sound as they dropped from his body, fried by the heat, and landed at his feet in piles of smoldering fur.

  His cloak was completely unaffected by the heat, and he sent a silent thanks to Polto and Ratface for the gifts they’d provided him.

  He was largely resistant to heat himself, but with the dragon sleeping in his soul space, he had full immunity to fire, and the Cloak of Diffusion, now bonded to his third mana-gate, protected his armor.

  More and more creatures jumped on him, and he rotated his tentacles over his body, frying each as they landed on him from above, or climbed up his legs from below.

  Finally, the attacks ended, and he dismissed the tentacles.

  Tens of the creatures lay at his feet, and he gestured for his team to proceed to him carefully.

  Falcon picked up one of the tiny corpses and wrinkled her nose at its insectoid features.

  Lioness chuckled. “From where we were, it looked like you were being attacked by chipmunks.”

  “Like you said, insidious,” Gideon agreed, nudging one of the tiny corpses with the toe of his boot.

  Forge crouched down to loot the creatures, and the entire pile disappeared at once.

  He checked his System logs and saw the message.

  System Message: You Have Looted Bitemunk Swarm. 30 Bitemunk Meat Awarded! 30 Reagents awarded! 1 Tier Two Core Awarded!

  “They’re called a Bitemunk Swarm,” Forge said.

  Gideon suddenly yelled, and his sword seemed to leap into his hand and slice through a nearby bush.

  The team got ready for an attack, but none came.

  Gideon sheathed his sword and looked back at the group with a sheepish smile.

  “The…uh…bush touched my arm,” he offered.

  Lioness and Falcon both took a wide step away from the swordsman, and he glared at them.

  “Those things are creepy! And look how small they are. How were we supposed to kill the little buggers, anyway?”

  “Clear a space and start wacking them with our swords?” Lioness said.

  “Shooting them at range, with my bow,” Falcon added.

  “A lot of fire!” came a voice to their heads.

  Cinder seemed to appear at Forge’s feet.

  Their worries about his size were instantly put to rest. As while he had grown, he’d gone from the size of a small cat, to somewhere between a large cat and a medium-sized dog.

  Gideon put his hands on his hips and stared at the dragon.

  “As much food as Forge has been putting away, I was expecting you to come out the size of a house.”

  Cinder gave him a saurian grin. “Nope. Still small and cute,” he sent the team.

  Falcon put her hands out towards him, and Cinder jumped up into her arms and rubbed his head against the side of her face.

  “I missed all of you,” he sent.

  “Team hug!” Gideon called out.

  Lioness laughed, but didn’t hesitate to first hug Falcon, then smoothly extract the dragon to her arms.

  “Listen to you. Your grammar is so good,” she said.

  She nodded over to Forge.

  “Does he have a little school inside him or something?”

  The dragon shook his head.

  “No. I learn from other dragons,” Cinder said.

  The team paused to digest that little fact, and Forge clapped his hands sharply to get everyone’s attention.

  “Why don’t we do a little more clearing, and when we camp, we can catch up.”

  The party agreed, and Cinder flew over to land on his shoulder.

  “Hey buddy, I missed you,” Forge said softly.

  “I missed you too,” Cinder sent.

  “Feel up to doing a little treasure hunting?”

  “Absolutely!” Cinder responded, leaping into the air and flapping his wings hard.

  The party all stared at the dragon. At this angle, they could appreciate the changes the little dragon had gone through.

  While it didn’t originally seem like much, he’d obviously doubled in mass. His wings were longer and sleeker, and he flew smoothly through the air.

  “Going to fire the brush,” he sent.

  Preparing himself, Forge sent his assent, and the dragon opened his mouth, exhaling a 50-foot cone of blue flame that engulfed a large area of the room’s brush.

  Forge had to move closer to gain control of the fire, then reached out to control it.

  The dragon’s fire was so hot, he found he didn’t need to manipulate it to burn hotter, and instead just contained it to the area.

  The blue dragon flame seemed to almost whisper to him, but he couldn’t understand it.

  “I need to increase my Pyromancer ability,” he muttered.

  It was his only magical ability still at Tier One.

  “Stop the flames,” Cinder sent him.

  Not questioning the request, Forge reduced the raging blue fire until it disappeared completely.

  Cinder beat his wings against the air once, then folded them to his sides and dived down like an arrow.

  At the last minute, he opened his wings wide, which caught the air and slowed him as he landed on a half-buried chest.

  “Still got it,” Cinder sent, happiness radiating with his words.

  The rest of the party jogged over.

  “How in the world do other teams run dungeons without a dragon?” Gideon asked, eyes on the chest.

  Cinder grinned from his spot on the chest.

  “I’m a great dragon!” he sent.