Xrgl spread his mouth open wide, revealing a vacuous tunnel of black. Chunks of earth crumbled inside as Xrgl attempted to wriggle upward. The intruders fell to their demise while Zeke clung to the wall, his cumbersome body halted, blood dripped from his open wound into Xrgl’s mouth.

  Casios sighed as he fell down in nothing but his underwear, “Come, everybody! The dwarf wants to ruin our fun.” Casios dug his rapier into the earth and stopped himself from falling. The dwarf tossed a grappling hook, it snagged on Casios’ rapier. The rope ran taut and the dwarf swung from one end of the cave to the other. He grabbed Raka’s hand as she fell. Baela did not need saving. She stuck her staff up and cast a levitation spell, cancelling her fall. She then placed her staff toward the worm, “Indignant Ray” A blast of pure pain overloaded Xrgl’s senses. Xrgl let out a monstrous roar and turned to the right, burrowing into the earth next to them.

  Kip cursed to himself as the intruders secured their safety. To Sal, Kip said, “Can you help Zeke?”

  Sal shook his head, “Way too big, Kip.” Sal said, “Also, Xrgl’s probably never met Zeke. He’s going to think he’s an intruder if he gets into that mouth.” Kip sighed and looked down at Zeke,

  “Well, I have to help him somehow.” Kip let go of Sal’s hands and dropped, “KIP!”

  “Tell Maeve it was never going to happen between us!” Kip said as he fell downward.

  “I’ve got a returnstone on me!” the dwarf shouted.

  Casios rolled his eyes, “We can not return empty handed. Let’s at least take the minotaur’s head. He’s half dead anyway.” Casios pulled the grappling hook off his rapier and dug it into a crevice himself with ease. Then he placed his ear to the cave, “Baela, can you hear anything?”

  Baela stayed neutrally buoyant with the air. She took her staff and pushed herself off one side of the cavern to the other. She landed awkwardly, then put her elven ear to the rockwall.

  “It’s circling. It’s going around and twisting… should be about 30 seconds.”

  “Plenty of time. Dwarf. Raka, collect yourselves, please. You’re making us look imbecilic in front of the new dark lord” Casios winked at Kip as he sailed downward. Once Raka and the dwarf collided with the tunnel wall, Raka leapt off the dwarf and stuck two hand axes out. She dug them into the earth and crawled up. Pulled the axes opposite her feet and dug them in at the same time. She moved with as much agility as Sal did.

  Kip felt the wind pull at him as he fell. Through short breaths he said, “Wings!” And wings appeared. They were tiny and feathered and were good for a few bounds, “Come on, Kip. Every kobold wants to do this. Every kobold except you.” He covered his eyes and opened his wings. They outstretched and ceased his falling. Kip let himself glide safely to the wall.

  Casios said, “Let’s get this blood bull’s head and head off.”

  “If you want my whole head, you’ll have to deal with my whole body first.” Zeke said, “Cannonball!” Zeke let go of his position on the wall, falling right toward Raka climbing up. Raka’s eyes went wide as the two-ton man bull dropped toward her, bottom first. She attempted to jump to the other wall but was smacked by Zeke. She jettisoned further down into the tunnel. Zeke kept sailing downward toward his demise.

  “Baela,” Casios said, “Can you please get Raka. I shall have to finish this brute myself.”

  Baela pointed her staff into the darkness, “HOLD ONTO YOUR WEAPONS RAKA!” Baela said, “Metalos Iman Mio!” A bolt of lighting shocked out of her staff and lit the darkness. The bolt held from her staff onto Raka’s axes like a fluid thread, and began pulling Raka upward.

  Kip would manage to take her down first.

  “How are we on the worm?” Dwarf yelled to Baela.

  Baela yelled back, “Kind of busy!”

  “I can hear him,” Casios said, “Worry not, I touched the gecko earlier.” And with that, he touched both his feet to the tunnel wall and stuck to them. Then he ran upward. Xrgl burst through the other side, right where Casios was, missing him but knocking the dwarf’s grappling hook off the wall.

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  “The returnstone!” The dwarf said as he fell further downward.

  “I’ll be there shortly. But I will not leave this place empty handed.” Casios ran up toward Sal.

  Kip clung to the wall, whispering to himself, “Use burst and then you’ve got three flaps upward. Come on, you can do it. You can use your… chewed claws or pitiful sparks to…” he heard the whistling of wind as a huge boulderous minotaur headed his way, “ZEKE!?” The dragonling screamed.

  “Sorry buddy!” Zeke said as he fell past Kip, “I ain’t going to no human farm upstate! I know you said no grenades, but I couldn’t resist.”

  Kip dodged arielly and as Zeke headed downward, he tossed up a shrapnel grenade, “Property of traps department” printed boldly on the side of the bomb that Zeke had chosen to ignore.

  As Zeke disappeared down the well, his voice trailed off as he said, “It would have been awesome…”

  “ZEKE!” Kip yelled. He grabbed the shrapnel grenade out of the air. He no longer just had his nubby claws and dim fire breath, he had a grenade now too. Kip felt the newfound confidence alight in his belly, “Burst!” Kip headed upward. Raka was being pulled by the magnetic burst of Baela’s spell. He coughed up a spark and flapped toward them. “One flap!”

  As Raka was being pulled, she could smell the dragon approaching. She looked downward. Nothing.

  “Behind you!” Called Baela from above.

  The orc turned her head but was hit with a punch from Kip’s foot. He tried again but the orc unhinged her large jaw and bit into Kip’s foot.

  “Ahh!” Kip howled in pain. The orc would not let go of his foot. Kip reached over and grabbed her with his claws. He scratched at her but his dull claws did not break her skin. She remained undeterred. No matter what he did he could not harm this person or get her to let go of his precious tootsies. He dug his claws into her bald head and sunk his teeth into her skull. The result was a weakened tooth. “OW!” Kip yelled. “Uncle! Uncle! I give!” I’ll go!”

  The orc spit out his foot, “You’re lucky kobolds aren’t worth anything on the market. Get!”

  “Two flaps.” Kip burst upward with his wings, moving past Baela. The dwarf had collected himself, perched in some foot holds and fastened into another crevice. He kept his axe up, waiting for the worm.

  “I can hear its rumblings,” Dwarf said.

  He stuck his axe out.

  “For the love of the gods, Dwarf, Look downward.” Baela said.

  The dwarf did, once again seeing Kip race toward him, “You really don’t know when to quit! I like that about ya. Too bad that gets people killed.”

  The dwarf, unlike the other foes, was fully armored. There was not much Kip could do about him. Kip flew up and dodged an errant slash from the dwarf’s axe. Kip leapt over and bit at the dwarf’s foot. The dwarf chuckled as he kicked Kip off. But Kip didn’t come off the dwarf. Kip stayed, scratching and nipping. Being nothing more than an annoyance but doing an amazing job at it. Each punch or kick from the dwarf opened up more wounds for Kip but despite the blood dripping and the contusions forming, Kip persisted.

  “Get outta here or you’ll get us both killed,” The dwarf said, “Things are getting serious now, no time to be funny.”

  “I’m not being funny,” Kip said, “I’ll keep distracting us until the worm eats us both.”

  “Very funny, but there won’t be no distraction. Just a bloody axe through the skull, so.”

  “No distraction?” Kip asked, “Then what’s that explosion under us?”

  The dwarf gave Kip an inquisitive look but didn’t look downward. It was at that moment that the shrapnel grenade that Zeke had given Kip, the shrapnel grenade that Kip had lit, was a half a second from detonating. And it was… in that moment, that Baela was about done pulling the orc by her hand axes up to where Baela was. So when the shrapnel grenade that Kip had stuck in through the orc’s belt loops, exploded, it exploded right when the orc was as close as possible to Baela. The huge orange explosion did cause the dwarf to finally look down. This caused Kip to cast Burst and fly upward, and for Xrgl to stampede through the tunnel and slam into the dwarf, taking him in his mouth. As the dwarf looked up, all he could do was sever the rope he had tied himself to and fall downward, the worm bull rushed into him like a train. It took his arm clean off the shoulder as he continued to fall.

  Kip kept leapt upward, yelling “Third flap!” With giddiness as the last burst of flight to him to the a ledge he was safe on. He looked up at the ceiling as Cas jetted downward to meet with his crew.

  “Returnstone, dwarf. Now!”

  “Give me a second, I’m a leftie now!” The dwarf took out the returnstone as the party fell downward.

  “Sal?” Kip looked all over the ceiling and then the wall for the minion. Kip felt a pit in his stomach as he heard Sal’s voice get more distant.

  “KIIIP!”

  Kip looked over the ledge. Cas was on fire.

  “Two can play at that power,” Casios said. Sal had lit himself on fire, Cas had lit himself on fire right back, in the exact same way that Sal could. Kip wanted to jump off, he wanted to dive down, but his wings had disappeared. Poof, gone. Like they were never there. He could only watch in horror as the crew joined together as they fell through air. The dwarf stuck up the stone and snapped it between his fingers. A great blue light overtook Baela, the dwarf, Raka, Casios, and Casios’ hostage.

  “Salamander meat is a delicac-” The blue light took them and they were gone. All of them. The intruders, and Sal.

  Sal was gone.

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