“Tell me about Tammy,” Sunie said, holding his staff out.

  A bright blue glow emanated from the tip, shooting a blast of sleet at the Raptor charging him. The creature, all feathers, wings, sharp claws, toe talon that curled up from the top, and lots of teeth, flew back. It slammed on the ground, rolling, another one leaping over it.

  “Nope,” I said, catching a jumping raptor by the throat.

  I couldn’t get a solid grip, but that was okay. I had enough to twist and slam the thing down onto its buddy that was laying at my feet, struggling to get up with broken wings and legs. The two crashed together, claws tearing into each other, feathers flying everywhere. I ducked and turned, punching out and catching another leaping raptor in the chest. The impact drove it backwards where it crashed into a fourth. Standing up, I kicked the two on the ground, then stomped on their heads.

  “Come on, just tell me a little about her,” Sunie said, throwing off another spell.

  The ground under the feet of the dozen or so charging raptors grew icy, making the things slip and fall. Their claws dug in, trying to find their footing. I picked up one of the dying raptors and threw it into the crowd. It knocked a couple over.

  Just like bowling.

  I missed bowling. That seemed like something we could get going again easy enough.

  “Like I told her, I’m not getting involved.”

  A raptor screeched, rushing out of the grass. It charged at Sunie, who twist, smacking his staff into the things head, sending it reeling. I had one charging me. I stole the inertia from it, making the creature slow down. These raptors were smaller than the ones on Earth. Those were about five feet tall. These were three at the most. Basically the size of large dogs. They were covered in feathers and had the wings instead of arms, unlike the raptors from those old movies about cloning dinosaurs from DNA found in amber of all things, but they were still vicious pains. Raptors were all about the pack, like wolves, but raptor packs tended to be larger. These raptors also had scales mixed in with the feathers.

  And a screech attack.

  It didn’t do much to either Sunie or I. More of an annoyance.

  “She was asking about me?” Sunie said.

  “Nope,” I repeated.

  He laughed.

  We finished off the raptors, standing in the middle of a circle of dead reptiles. Were they reptiles still? I had no clue. When the System had hit, paleontologists had still been debating if dinosaurs were scaled or feathers. When dinosaurs returned with the System, no one had time anymore to worry about classification. We just had to survive.

  And it turned out that some dinosaurs had feathers and some scales.

  We’d gotten a good amount of Tower Points and Multiversal Credits from the raptors that, thankfully, ran in large packs. It made hunting them down easier. Of course, their small size and the tall grass made it easier for them to ambush as well. Like this pack had done.

  I was fine with that. We had a bunch of the things to kill in the Plains Biome.

  “Think that Dungeon is around here?” Sunie asked.

  “I hope so, we’ve been walking for a couple hours and I’m tired of grass.”

  The raptors didn’t give us any Essences but got a good amount of Screecher Hide and Screecher Feathers. Even got some Raptor Talons, which looked like the curved ones that grew off the top of their feet. The things were vicious looking, sharp and the curve meant they could dig in and rip out a lot of flesh when pulled. They’d make good blades for daggers.

  “We’ve had good luck with the ‘just walk straight’ plan,” I said, pointing in the direction we’d been heading before the raptors attacked.

  “Sounds good to me,” Sunie said, with a shrug.

  We started walking again, the grass bending as we walked and snapping back up behind us, obscuring our path. Thankfully Sunie had his compass. I wondered how many people got lost in a Biome like this.

  From my research a Plains Biome was one of the most dangerous environments that the Infinite Tower produced. It was full of ambush predators and easy to get lost in. Nothing but grass as far as the eye could see. The other worst were the snow and swamp biomes.

  Not that anywhere in the Tower was all that safe and all biomes on a floor had to be completed so people had to take risks. Some were just easier than others.

  I’d only been in the two Biomes so far. I really couldn’t compare. The Endless Plains Biome wasn’t that bad. We’d been attacked a couple of times by the many ambush predators that lived in the tall grass, but for us it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. There were probably some parties that had a harder time.

  Once we were done looting, we kept walking, following the same plan we had before. Pick a direction and hopefully find the Dungeon. At least the walk was helping us collect items and kills that we needed. There were still a lot that we hadn’t even encountered yet. I was beginning to think we might need to hit the Biome at night for a couple of the targets.

  The grass stretched on in all directions. I could see distant clumps of trees, which we’d have to check out at some point. But they were pretty far away. Some of the Floors had Biomes that were so large Adventurers had to camp out for a couple of days to get the farther objectives. I didn’t think the first floor of the Tower would have any like that, but I could have been wrong.

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  I tried to research what I could, but there was a lot and some questions just slipped through.

  Even someone like Sunie that had access to people that had been in the Nexus for decades didn’t know everything.

  We walked another hour or so, mostly in silence. Sunie wasn’t a talker, which was fine with me. I didn’t mind the silence when walking. But the landscape ahead started to change. It was hard to tell but looked like a dark line against the horizon.

  “I think it’s another ravine,” I said.

  “Good, I’m tired of staring at grass.”

  The dark smudge started to grow as we walked toward it. The grass wasn’t as tall and I could see stones sticking up through the green grass. It was another ravine. This one was more rounded, almost a hole in the ground. I wasn’t sure what the technical term for it was.

  A ravine was a long crack in the ground? What was the official name for a hole?

  We stood at the edge, looking down.

  It was a deep hole, the edge ragged, with clumps of grass hanging over. The walls were a dark stone, disappearing into the depths. They sloped inward, the bottom not as wide as the top.

  “Think that’s it?”

  “The Crawler’s Well?” Sunie asked. “Matches the description I was given.”

  “Great,” I said, looking all around. I couldn’t see a ramp, stairs or anything that indicated a path. “How do we get down?”

  “We climb,” Sunie chuckled, pulling a length of rope out of his inventory.

  I sighed. Of course he hadn’t bothered to tell me that part.

  ***

  The rock of the walls was jagged and sharp. We had to be careful or it would slice through the ropes, and our flesh. It was a slow climb down. We could push off and let ourselves fall for a bit because of the way the walls angled in and how sharp they were.

  Instead we walked backwards down into the well, hand over hand. It was an odd climb since it was on an angle. Not difficult at all, just odd.

  There was nowhere up top to tie off the rope, so I’d tied it to a spike and drove the spike into one of the rocks nearby. A big boulder that I was sure would take the weight of both of us. I had been tempted to just let Sunie fall, but I was a nice guy. He could have warned me about this descent.

  I did find some of the Ravine Side Mushrooms needed for one of the gathering quests. That was a bonus. I looked up, seeing the blue sky and clouds floating by. And Sunie, making his way down. A little slower than I was.

  “What are the mushrooms used for?”

  “I don’t know, I’m not an alchemist.”

  I laughed.

  We were pretty far down and I realized the well wasn’t as deep as I’d first thought. The way the walls angled, the dark black of the stones, the shadowed floor, it all worked to make the place look deeper. The sloping sides stopped at an almost perfectly round opening.

  Holding onto the rope, I crouched down and looked into the hole, which wasn’t really a hole.

  It was a Dungeon portal.

  “The bottom is the entrance,” I said, feeling the familiar hum or Arcanum around the black opening. “What are the chances that the entrance drops us down into a cavern?”

  “Drop? Chances are very good,” Sunie said, feet touching the ground near me.

  The end of the rope dangled over the edge, passing through the portal.

  “Think there’s enough rope to reach the bottom?” I asked.

  “Of course not.”

  “So no living this Dungeon early.”

  “Did you have plans?” Sunie asked.

  “Naw, but I heard Tammy wanted to go out to eat tonight was was looking for someone to take her…”

  “We can do this Dungeon some other day,” Sunie said.

  I laughed, standing up, facing away from the edge. I moved closer so my heels were hanging over.

  “Naw, we’re here, might as well do it. Give me a couple minutes before you follow.”

  Holding onto the rope, I jumped into the hole.

  ***

  Not a great feeling jumping out into nothing.

  Normally when I jump, and I’d had some epic ones through the years, I knew what I was jumping into or towards. I could see the ground or the group of monsters. Now there was nothing. I was leap of faithing into the Dungeon portal.

  I felt the familiar tingling as I passed through the portal and into another dimension. At least I thought it was another dimension. With the Multiverse, it could have been a whole other planet or something. My legs passed through, which was odd to see as I was half-in and half-out of the portal. I fell quickly, so didn’t have long to process it, which was a good thing.

  My chest and then my head passed through. I had a moment of complete and utter darkness and then a little bit of light.

  Not much, but enough to see that I was hanging in the middle of a large cavern,the glow coming from moss on the walls. The portal was above me, about twenty feet of rope below and then another fifty foot or so drop to the ground.

  Great.