“GRICK'S ARM! GRICK'S ARM!” the goblin cried out as I continued to pull on the vine. It was quite difficult; despite them both being smaller, Lily was soaking wet, and finding purchase on the slippery stone bridge wasn’t going well.

  I growled involuntarily as I yanked back, finding a good place to hook my paws under some stray vines and pulling back with all my might.

  Sorry, Grick! Just hold on a little longer!

  Though at this point, holding on wasn't his choice as much as Lily's, but if he lost his grip on the vine, they would both plunge into the water, and it'd be all but impossible for me to fish them out.

  I pulled back again; they were so close now. I saw the tip of Grick’s elbow then—

  I slipped!

  My paws skated on the stone, tearing through the loose vines that clung to it. Grick and Lily lost several feet of height until I found my footing, and their descent stopped suddenly, causing Grick to cry out even louder.

  “GYAAAAH! Grick’s arms!”

  Sorry! I'm sorry!

  I continued to pull them up, being extra careful. Occasionally, my paw would slide, but I took shorter, surer steps. I couldn't risk a full slip like that again.

  A few more tugs and I could see the crook of Grick's elbow again and I gave one last hard pull to bring them up.

  The goblin instantly rolled onto his back and cried out, “Grick’s arm! It hurts Grick!”

  Lily sniffed the damaged arm, whining softly, and gave it a lick. She was soaking wet but didn't even take a moment to shake herself dry.

  “I-It's okay, puppy. Grick happy puppy safe!” he said with a strained voice and patted her muzzle. She let out another apologetic whine. I could see in her eyes that she was torn up over having hurt him.

  “Look, puppy, Grick has something nice from humans.” He dug through his little side pouch with his good arm and produced a small red bottle he must have looted off one of the corpses. “Makes Grick better!” he assured her as he popped the cork off and drank it.

  Soon his wound was closing, and he stretched the healed limb. “See? Good human thing! Nice human thing!” Grick said as Lily continued to investigate, sniffing aggressively at his arm.

  When she determined he was indeed going to be okay, she finally shook herself dry, the goblin laughing and flinching back from the spray of water.

  I gave Grick an appreciative huff, then looked back up the river path. We hadn't finished off that red mask, and he would be running for reinforcements.

  I growled and nodded, then started running. Lily shook herself dry one more time as Grick snagged his lantern, then he jumped onto her back.

  I had a big head start, but Lily surprisingly was right at my side in a moment. I was running as fast as I could, but even with Grick on her back, she was clearly faster than I was.

  Grick really had surprised me back there; I didn't think he was actually capable of being selfless and risking himself for one of us. I had to keep in mind to be nicer to the goblin. I wasn't sure where Lily would have ended up if she continued to be swept down the river, but even the red masks sounded like they wouldn't want to go that way alone. There must be stronger monsters down there.

  I was just glad this path back to the skylight cavern was so long, because the human surely healed by now and had a huge head start on us. I just hoped we could catch him in time.

  Sure enough, we soon saw him ahead of us, but just a little beyond was the glow of the skylight cavern.

  I tilted forward into my sprint, running with everything I had. Grick hopped off of Lily's back, and she tore off ahead of me. I was always nervous about her fighting without me there for immediate backup, but we had no time to delay!

  Luckily, the human was panting heavily. “Damn Hell Hounds!” he growled, realizing he couldn't outrun us, and he turned around, lifting his weapons.

  Lily dove in, dodging his shock pole, then his sword, then running up the wall beside him, where she split into three, jumping in all different directions.

  Each clone landed on a different side of him and began circling, baring their fangs but not growling. She must have known only the real her could make sounds, and that would give her away.

  Then all three clones pounced at once. He batted at one, which disappeared, but the real Lily chomped his arm and then retreated before he could retaliate.

  “DAMN IT!” he screamed, clearly coming to his wits' end with frustration. “You're just pups! You're supposed to be helpless pups!”

  Heh, yeah… sorry about that. No, actually—sorry, not sorry.

  He was now panicking as Lily cloned herself again, each one making feint lunges to force him to defend.

  Then, I was there. I dove right in and went for the same leg I previously broke.

  {Crippling Bite}!

  He jammed the shock pole into my side, but I was able to endure the shock as I twisted and snapped his leg once again. With that done, I retreated and shook the static feeling out of myself.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Now, where were we? I thought as I eyed him up.

  He got back to his knee and was trying his best to keep Lily at bay, but she was overwhelming him with her clones. Whenever he thought he had the right one, he'd guess incorrectly and be punished with a quick bite to one of his arms. Her attacks didn’t seem to follow a discernible pattern, and I suspected she would be very good at playing rock paper scissors.

  Despite her jaws being far weaker than mine, she was slowly breaking him down, one chomp at a time. His screams had gone from anger, to frustration, to fear, to panic. He waved his weapons wildly at the clones, losing all sense of strategy.

  Seeing my opening, I dove in. I latched onto his wrist just under the shock pole and snapped it with another {Crippling Bite}.

  I was too close for him to properly swing his sword at me, so he hit the top of my head with its hilt.

  It hurt, and after slamming the metal nub down on my skull for the second time, I was forced to let go.

  But then Lily was subduing his remaining good arm as he tried to roll and throw her off, but I already knew this battle was over.

  As soon as he rolled and exposed his neck, I dove in, sinking my jaws right onto the sweet spot.

  “I'll kill you! I'll kill you damn mutts!” he cried out in agony. “Ahhhhhhh!”

  I gave a good hard shake, finding his neck a little hard to break, but at this point he could not defend himself. A shake or two later it was over.

  Prey Eliminated - Lvl 12 Homo Sapien - Bloody Peaks Tribe

  Experience Gained!

  I let out a relieved huff now that it was over. Once again I felt we had struggled too much to take this one down, and we still had nine more to kill.

  I checked both my and Lily's vitals and was also curious to see if she had leveled up in all that.

  Vitals - Lily

  Health: 140 / 170

  Mana: 53 / 240

  Stamina: 250 / 310

  As I thought, Lily got at least one level up but burned through too much of her mana in that fight. She probably only had a couple of uses of her clone abilities left unless we managed to fit in a hunt. Her stamina, however, was doing considerably better than mine, and I could feel it with each heavy pant.

  Vitals - ???

  Health: 350 / 480

  Mana: 220 / 615

  Stamina: 190 / 436

  On the bright side, four more red masks were down, and that meant there were only nine left. On the not-so-bright side, most of my abilities cost 30 mana, so that meant I had less than one skill left for each red mask I had left to kill.

  I didn’t have a chance to test Moon Harvester, but it would reduce mana costs so long as enough moonlight made it into the skylight cavern. The question was by how much?

  Once Grick was finished going through the corpse’s pockets, adding a few more coins to his sack that was now starting to sag with the weight, I grabbed the human by the arm and started dragging it.

  Grick and Lily both turned their heads, curious over my actions, until I dragged him to the riverbank, then used my head to start pushing him the rest of the way. The water soon carried the lifeless body downstream.

  Grick snapped his fingers in understanding. “Puppy gets revenge! Throws small puppy in water. Bad human goes in water now too!”

  Uh, not quite, Grick.

  Of course, it was really all about hiding the body, giving the remaining red masks less of a warning that something was going very wrong for them right now. This way, the next body they would see wouldn’t be until the tight tunnels, which would be a perfect place to try to ambush them again.

  I then scanned our little battlefield, and I began dragging my paws lightly along the dirt, trying to cover the blood stains and whatever tracks our fight had left. After doing this a little, I frowned at the area and realized anyone with half a brain would see that something had indeed happened here. If I had proper hands and feet, I might be able to cover things a little better, but I just had to hope that the red masks wouldn’t even think to look at the ground.

  Or, better yet, we could kill the next group before they ever even make it this far.

  “Puppy does strange things,” Grick said innocently after scanning along the ground and then following me.

  It was a short walk later, and the dim glow of the skylight cavern was just ahead of us. I gave Lily a soft growl to stay behind as I stuck close to the wall and moved ahead, doing my best to stay in the shadows.

  Upon reaching the end of the tunnel, I found a good boulder to hunker behind and scanned the area.

  The first thing I noticed was a Direwing fluttering around the cave, but it had no rider. Once I noticed that one, I spotted two more flying around, and there were five hanging upside down from the ceiling, packed closely together.

  The first one I had gotten my eyes on dove down to the cave floor, disappearing momentarily until I heard an animalistic screech and it dove up again. It was carrying a plump mouse struggling in its taloned feet. After gaining some height, it dove down again, this time much faster, releasing the mouse at the last second, throwing it the opposite cave wall.

  I couldn’t see the fate of the mouse very clearly, but its silenced screams told the story.

  Another Direwing detached from the ceiling, going to kill the first’s prey, but the first one nudged it midair and screeched threateningly, causing it to back off, then swooped down to claim its kill.

  It perched on a high rock, grabbing the mouse with the ends of its wings and digging in greedily.

  I continued to look around, confirming the Direwing count was actually nine. That meant four of these belonged to the red masks we had just killed, and five more were likely nearby.

  But I didn’t see any of them at the moment…

  Of course, since the entrance was right there, that meant that this cavern was one of the first they searched. Once they failed to find me and Lily here, they split off into groups, one going above and the other going to meet with the lower team.

  My ears folded back as I thought over what this could mean. Actually, this was perfect… I can lie in wait here in the skylight cavern, waiting for the red masks to return. They might even just plan to camp here for the night, if I were really lucky. It was already getting darker outside, and based on how most of those Direwings were hanging upside down and folding their wings over their faces, the strange creatures seemed ready to sleep as well.

  I doubled back to my allies, who watched more, awaiting my verdict.

  I started by nudging Grick’s lantern and growling softly.

  He turned his head but seemed to understand as he lifted it and frowned. “Where should Grick put?”

  That lantern was actually somewhat of a problem for us if we wanted to sneak around. I suppose it wouldn’t be terrible if the red masks found it abandoned somewhere, however. They shouldn’t think much of it, and I might just end up killing them first anyway.

  Either way, no need to let the Healing Shrooms inside go to waste. I pawed the lantern to tell Grick to put it down, then nodded to Lily.

  “But Grick can’t see…” the goblin muttered regretfully. Though he opened the door and scooped them out for Lily.

  Sorry, but it’s either that or go back home for the night; your choice.

  Once she ate a few, I finished them off, restoring a bit of our health. Grick didn’t seem like he wanted to separate from us, so he was just going to have to deal with following in the dark.