The boss room looked like someone had taken a pirate ship and run it through a demented AI. Off to the left, where Gus hid, there were crates that almost looked right. Off to the right were barrels with thin middles. In the middle were a dozen thick posts, almost like masts, that went from floor to ceiling. Each one had three thick metal bands. Everything was made of blue wood, the same kind as the alien forest outside. It seemed normalish at first, but bizarre with closer inspection.

  Max threaded through the banded masts with Bisrat slithering behind him. His heart started beating faster and faster. He pulled a saw and a drill out of his belt and readied them. Both were Augmented and he didn’t want to waste them. He put his back to the far mast and peeked around it.

  The other half of the room was open with black pools scattered about. A huge shadow kraken floated on the far end, its tentacles poking up through various shadows across the room. Riding atop the kraken was an insect person. It looked like a huge mantis with four blade arms instead of two. It reminded Max of the person they talked to in the last dungeon, but this insect was red and a bit smaller.

  Max yelled, “Gus, James, now!”

  Gus activated his Warped Mirror card and a blue kraken appeared by the real one. The summoned monster sat atop the wood since it couldn’t use the kraken’s shadow powers. It screeched and wrapped all six tentacles around the real monster’s bulbous head.

  At the same time, James sent a half dozen glass shards at the red mantis, one after another. The energy attack shattered against its exoskeleton. The monster held up all four limbs in front of its face and weathered the attack without injury.

  Max used the distraction to race forward. He had to cross about thirty feet of unprotected ground to get to the kraken’s head and the red mantis. All while passing shadows that the kraken could push its tentacles through. It would have been reckless if the other two weren’t distracting both monsters.

  Even with the distraction, Max couldn’t approach unchallenged. The shadow kraken was devoting most of its attention to the fake kraken attacking its head, but it had enough presence of mind to send a tentacle flailing about when it heard Max coming.

  As he got closer, Max had to activate his circular saw early to defend himself. A silvery disc shot out from his tool, growing as it spun up. He used it to slice off the tentacle heading towards him. The limb dissolved into puddles of shadow. The augmented cutting spell created another disc an instant later, wasted because there was no other target in range.

  Max growled in frustration. He couldn’t bear the thought of the augmented spell going to waste. He would have run closer, but he had missed the window. Gus’ kraken clone had been destroyed and the shadow monster was waiting to attack Max. Four tentacles surrounded him, out of range of the spell’s twelve foot range.

  A third cutting disc was wasted while he assessed the situation.

  A sudden inspiration led him to his gauntlets. He hadn’t used the hand spell in a while, it should be recharged.

  Max let go of the circular saw and a blue hand grabbed it before it fell. The mage hand shot forward, slipping beneath a shadowy tentacle. It moved ten feet away from the kraken’s head, just in range.

  The next two magic discs cut into the shadow kraken’s head, one after another. Great gouts of black blood poured out of the monster. The blue hand cut out then and the saw fell to the ground. It landed facing the monster and the final cutting disc scored a third hit. The shadow kraken collapsed in on itself, dead. The red mantis tumbled off of the remains.

  That left one monster and one charged tool in Max’s hand, a drill. He hadn’t tested the augmented spell yet, but he assumed it would lengthen the drill’s pierce. Just in case, he got closer to the mantis before he activated it.

  A yellow light pierced from the tip of the drill and stretched out three feet, the same distance as normal. However, it didn’t disappear an instant later as usual. Instead, the magical effect persisted. It was like a three foot long magic blade.

  By now the mantis person had rolled to his feet and attacked Max. He skipped backwards and held the drill like a sword, trying to parry the scythes coming his way. He failed to stop the blades. Where scythe met yellow magic, it simply ceased to exist. Max lopped off one cutting arm and took off the tip of another. The tip spun through the air and hit Max’s thigh, but he ignored it.

  The mantis person hissed in pain and sprung to the side. That gave Bisrat the chance to join the fight. She flung two crescent blades from the trap and activated her Accelerate card. The blades spun end over end, going faster and faster the longer they were in the air. By the time they reached the monster, they were going fast enough to lop off its right legs, all three of them.

  It fell to the ground with an anguished cry. Max put it out of its misery with a swipe of his new laser sword. Sadly, the magic cut out right afterwards, so he wouldn’t be getting into lightsaber fights anytime soon.

  Nice. He hadn’t even used up all his points from the last level up and he already had more. Bisrat whooped with joy behind him, so she must have gotten a similar message.

  “Looks like you sprung a leak, my guy,” Gus said and pointed at Max’s leg.

  His upper thigh was bleeding heavily, blood dripping down his jeans. The tip of the mantis blade had been sharp enough to slice deeply into his leg. Max groaned as the pain hit him. There was a bit of frustration too, he knew he couldn’t buy a new pair of jeans.

  He dropped to his butt and pulled out his first aid kit. He moved to bandage himself up, but Gus took the kit out of his hands.

  “I got this,” Gus said and started dressing the wound with brutal efficiency.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Max lay back and let him. The waves of pain with each jostle let him know that he wouldn’t be able to do a proper job himself.

  James hurried over and said, “Max. Dude. Are you alright?”

  Max turned his head away and didn’t answer.

  Gus said, “Give me some space.”

  James awkwardly shuffled back.

  Gus finished a moment later and took a step back. Max closed his eyes and tried to breathe through his nose. It wasn’t that serious of an injury, no major arteries were cut. But it was still jarring. He felt the pain radiate out. His whole body felt a little sore, like his other nerves were crying out in sympathy.

  It was crazy to think that this was better than it would have been otherwise. Mana was rapidly healing his body and an injury that might take months to heal on Earth would take hours here. It still hurt. Like a bitch. It itched too. He had to ball up his fists so he didn’t reach down there to scratch.

  He lay there for a half hour before Gus came over and said, “You done loafing about yet? We wanna see the loot.”

  Max sighed. “Dammit. Now I want to get up. I wanna see the loot too.” He held out his hand. “Let’s go.”

  Gus carefully helped him to his feet. Max blinked away tears and put an arm around Gus’ shoulder. He wished that James wasn’t a terrible person. Gus was too tall to make hopping around with his support comfortable.

  They slowly made their way back through the twelve rooms, one hop at a time. They would leave through the same door they came in through and their loot should be in the first room. Bisrat mentioned that if they had done two levels, they wouldn’t have to backtrack at all, there would be stairs leading down to the first room. Every even numbered level was set up that way so it was easier to head out.

  When they finally reached the first room, there was a table set up near the exit. It hadn’t been there before. There were three objects on the table; a scarf, a glass ball, and a clay pot.

  Bisrat said, “This is very good for only completing one floor. The dungeon probably gave you better loot because the five of you are underleveled for this dungeon. At least, that’s what I assume. If they are all cursed, then the dungeon doesn't care what level you are. I always find it fun to guess which items are cursed before I inspect them. What’s your guess?”

  Max thought for a second and said, “I bet the scarf is fine and the other two are cursed. No way we are getting more than one good item.”

  “Nah, it’s the pot that’s uncursed,” Gus opined.

  James and Lily stayed silent. They stood off to the side of the room. It was clear that Lily had decided to throw in with James, even if the others didn’t like him anymore.

  Bisrat slithered closer and stared at each of them in turn. “Ah, it looks like our golden Cup has a leak. All three are uncursed, but they are all single use items.”

  “Really? What do they do?”

  “I find most people prefer I read out the full description,” Bisrat said. When Max nodded she continued, “The scarf’s description says: Scarf of Time. When worn, this scarf will reverse any changes to your body within the last hour.”

  She tapped the scarf and said, “That one’s worth more than a few orbs because it can probably reverse a mortal injury or refill a mana pool. If it wasn’t single use, we could retire after selling it.”

  “The other two are good, just not as good. The glass ball is a Ball of Enlightenment. When held for more than three minutes, your mind will expand to its greatest potential, particularly along the lines of creativity or innovation. Lasts twelve minutes. The clay pot is a Soap Pot. When the liquid inside is poured over anything, dirt and grime are completely removed.”

  Max shrugged. They were all nice, but nothing that special. A super healing scarf, an inspiration ball, and a pot of crystal wash. Max motioned for her to hand them over and he tucked them away in his belt. It was getting close to night time, they would have to find a place to camp and he would empty out his belt again. Hopefully the boar-wolves were long gone.

  When they listened at the dungeon’s exterior door, they didn’t hear anything. They lined up to fight just in case. When they opened the door, they didn’t see any monsters. The ground was torn up from hundreds of hooves running over it. The trees in the immediate area were knocked down.

  Yang gave Max a nod and faded away. He shook his head with a smile. She was clearly going to go scout around, but she didn’t want to say that. She wanted to be all cool and mysterious.

  She returned a short while later and appeared in the middle of the group. Max and Bisrat were expecting it, but the others jerked back in surprise.

  The corner of Yang’s mouth quirked up and she said, “Monsters are gone. Everyone is staying in the dungeon antechambers.”

  Bisrat sucked in a breath through her teeth. “That’s bad news. The dungeon doesn’t like it when we spend too much time in the antechamber. More than a day or two and it starts sending out bosses to clear them out. Let me go talk to them and find out why they haven’t left yet.”

  She wriggled away and made a circuit around the tower, stopping at each of the occupied alcoves. When she completed the circle, she wore her backpack and a smile.

  “Good news for you, bad for them. The boar-wolves are still in the area, so they’ve all decided to head back to the first layer. They’ll set out at first light, and I told them we’ll come with,” Bisrat said.

  “Why is everyone still in the antechamber though? Didn’t you say that was dangerous?” Max asked.

  “The dungeon expert says that only happens after twenty-five hours. We should be fine if we leave first thing in the morning. They are fairly sure the pack will attack at nightfall, so everyone plans on closing up and sleeping in the dungeon tonight.”

  Max nodded. “That’s the plan for us too then. Settle in, everyone. I’ll make dinner.”

  Before that, he emptied out his belt completely. He didn’t want to forget to do that later and lose everything. He stacked everything up against the inner door to the dungeon, just in case it opened in the night. Couldn’t hurt to be sure.

  He got out his camp stove and put together a stew. He used a pouch he bought on Earth and supplemented it with preserved veggies from Spinworld.

  Everyone got a bowl, even Bisrat. She complimented him on his cooking skills. Conversation was stilted. Max couldn’t help but stare daggers at James on the other side of the room. Eventually, they closed up the outer dungeon door and went to sleep.

  ...

  The next morning, Max checked his leg wound. Just like Bisrat said, it had healed completely overnight. Lily’s arm was better too. Max threw together a quick breakfast of oats. They didn’t taste good. He really shouldn’t be the squad’s cook, but no one else wanted the job.

  Gus sat down next to Max and said, “We’ve collected a lot of loot over the last few days, orbs, cards, and trinkets. Why don’t you divvy everything up? That way it will be easier if we decide to split up after we get to the first layer.” He pointedly looked at James as he said the last bit.

  “Yeah. I’ll pass out the rewards this time instead of having us pick stuff in order.” Max said.

  He pulled out everything valuable they had collected. It had been an eventful few days, but that could be said of every day since they got here.

  They had eleven white orbs, three larger orbs, six cards, and the dungeon loot Gus called trinkets. The squad gathered around closer.

  Max thought about it for a bit, then pushed the scarf over to Bisrat. “That’s your share for today’s dungeon run. It’s a bit more than a fair split, but I figure that can be your bonus for joining the party. The rest of the loot will go to the original members.”

  “Thank you, that’s more than fair.”

  He pushed a large orb over to Yang, another to Lily, and kept the largest. He gave James ten white orbs. He rolled a single white orb over to Gus.

  Gus opened his mouth to complain, but Max rose a single eyebrow in response. He had promised him this would happen when the troll ate orbs. Gus grumbled a bit and snatched up the white orb.

  Next he flipped through the magic cards. They picked up four of them when they escaped the city of Twelve Meditations and got two more in the forest outside. The only question was who got what.