It was a quiet, shadowed moment, and the dark cloaked the Cutter like a goddamned ninja.

  Cutter lurked at the end of the passage, back pressed to the wall. Lita hovered just a few feet back. He was slow to round the corner. He could have sworn he’d heard movement and was slow to give himself away. They couldn’t know that two kobolds were patrolling just a few yards beyond the bend in the wall.

  “Two?” Cutter hissed, glancing upward.

  Shit. Gotta be better at that.

  “Anytime, narrator guy. Thanks for the heads up!”

  Lita looked from Cutter to the point on the dusty wall he was staring at, and back again. “Bruh… I don’t want to say you’re weirding me out. But… You’re totally weirding me out!”

  Cutter made a chopping gesture with his hand, silencing the automaton.

  He turned back to the end of the stone wall and listened. Waiting. The instant he heard a movement, that scrape of a tail against dusty stone, he erupted. He had the location and wasted no moment.

  Expecting two and finding two, he stunned even himself with the decisiveness of his actions. His cudgel smashed, and his axe bit, and seconds later he stood over two more bodies.

  “Git some!” Lita growled behind him. “Freakin awesome, dude.”

  “Thanks,” Cutter smiled. “This is crazy shit, right here.”

  He bent to gather the sigils. “Dammit, I’ve no pockets. How do I keep this shit?”

  Lita shrugged. “Guess you don’t.”

  Cutter gestured to the weapons on the ground. “And those? Like, I know I’m just gonna wake up in a minute, but I don’t want to leave shit behind. It’s like… I’m dungeon diving, I’m meant to be looting as I go, aren’t I?”

  Lita nodded. “That’s the idea. This lame kobold gear isn’t worth much, but it all adds up. Sorry, dude. You need a pack or something.”

  Cutter extended his hand, showing the two sigils. “Are these worth something?”

  “Heck yeah, bruh. Sigils are always worth denero, a lot more than tomahawks and pointy sticks.”

  “Dammit… What have we got here? Another dark vision and this looks like a picture of a spear?”

  “Yup! Spear sigil. But listen, dude, grab some knowledge while it’s hot. It’s not worth putting in without a spear to use.”

  Cutter gestured to the aforementioned pointy stick, and Lita just made a noise of derision, enough to answer all questions about the value of wielding it.

  “Hey… Tutorial bot, can you carry these for a minute?”

  “Uuhhhh… I dunno…”

  Cutter barked, “Nobody is watching you! You told me about the boss and nothing happened. Here, just bring them along until I find something for carrying shit.”

  He tossed the sigils at the floating stone creature and the stone arms rose to catch them. It was at this moment that Cutter realized that Lita had no actual hands, just flat panels of stone that floated where hands should be. Somehow though, Lita caught the sigils. Not fingers closed to grasp them, they simply stuck to the stone where the hands should be. Cutter didn’t overthink that. If that had been the weirdest thing he’d seen that day then he’d have been having a very different day.

  Cutter quickly came to find the dungeon to be somewhat lacking in imagination. He would enter a room, kill a kobold, occasionally two, lament over his inability to gather and carry their loot, entreat Lita to carry the sigils gathered at least. As the kills accumulated Cutter noted three things. The first was that a sigil was not always dropped. Lita explained that very low value creatures, like kobolds, did not always drop a sigil. Lita reminded him that even a high value target with many sigils would only drop one, and sometimes it would still not be very valuable.

  The second thing that Cutter observed was that he was already becoming disinterested in the fighting. It had been a thrill at first, but the kobolds, with just a little practice, had become unthreatening and uninteresting quite quickly.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The third thing he noted, as they moved down yet another generic dusty passageway, was that “I’m hungry?”

  “Whassat, bruh?”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “Totally makes sense. You’ve been stuck down here for hours, you fleshy bags of enzymes and juices constantly need refilling, don’t you? Dunno if there’s hella chow to be found down here though. That’s probably more of a ‘when we get out of the pit of monsters that are trying to kill you’ sort of concern.”

  Cutter waved his arm at Lita, “No, no. I get that. I mean I’m hungry. We’ve been doing this long enough for me to get hungry. This is… this is turning into a pretty long dream… don’t think I’ve ever been in a dream long enough to get hungry before…”

  Lita’s only response was a flat, “Uhhhh…”

  The next chamber contained three kobolds. These were slightly better armed and armored than the previous individuals the duo had encountered. They were all three protected by leather armor. One of them bore a cudgel, but Cutter looked on this weapon with some slightly peeved envy for it bore spikes and embedded nails, unlike his own. Another wielded a stone axe, but this one larger than the tomahawk-like weapons he had encountered thus far. The third had a little bow and arrow. Seeing the three turning on him in the open space Cutter moved in quickly. He was long jaded of the fighting by now and thought there might be more excitement with these three.

  He was very much correct. Exceedingly so.

  “Exceedingly so?” Cutter shouted to the ceiling moments before weapons clashed, a small note of alarm ringing in his voice.

  The axe kobold swung at him, and he dodged back, almost lazily, used to this by now. He counter-attacked, lashing out with his cudgel. His eyes widened as the kobold spun away easily, performing a sort-of spinning leap. The cudgel kobold immediately filled the space, Cutter parrying the attack without much concern, but again his counter was frustrated. He turned to the axe kobold again, who was circling, starting to wonder if caution might have been the better part of virtue, when there was a whizz that literally brushed his ear, followed by a clatter as an arrow rattled off a far wall. Urgency truly began to spike with this; he found he needed to turn and back up, keeping the fighters between him and the archer. He found his heart rate starting to jump a little for the first time since the beginning.

  Hoping to thin the crowd and give himself less to be concerned with, he made a risky lunge, trying to catch the cudgel kobold with his axe. Again the spinning leap away, the frustration.

  “I can’t hit either of them,” he called, sweat gathering as he worked his weapons in defense of a dual assault.

  Lita called back, “Yeah, dude, these guys have dodge sigils. That’d be totally sweet if you could get one of those, be super helpful with the boss!”

  Cutter parried an axe but felt the cudgel graze his midriff. Pain flared, though it was a glancing blow. “Shit! That fucking hurts!”

  “Uhhhh, yeah, dude. It’s called an injury…”

  Cutter backed up, touching the wound with the back of the fist clutching his axe, feeling the sting, seeing the knuckles come back red. “This is a weird fucking dream…”

  “Yeah… about that…”

  Cutter backed up again, felt the stone wall of the room hit his back, and panicked with no room to maneuver. An arrow cracked off the wall by his head, stone shards stinging his cheeks. With no option, he charged, swinging wildly, and both of the fighter kobolds spun away to either side.

  “Lita! How the fuck do I hit them?”

  “Gotta focus up, champ! Dodge comes with a cooldown, a couple seconds, get one to dodge then follow up, pick and stick, bruh, pick and stick!”

  Cutter had his eyes on Lita for just that one moment, when the arrow appeared in his shoulder.

  “Jesus fucking Christ! Ah! This hurts!”

  Lita shrugged. “Whatcha expect? It’s like totally an arrow buried in your sticking, leaky flesh. It’s gonna hurt.”

  Cutter’s face was a mask of pain. His heart was humming now, sweat pouring and near panic emerging.

  He followed Lita’s advice, feeling a dreadful urgency to finish the fight. He needed to thin them down. He couldn’t account for the archer while the other two kept him so engaged.

  Axe kobold attacked from the right and Cutter sidestepped, countering, drive it, dodging backwards. Cudgel kobold swung immediately, Cutter parried, and countered. With the axe kobold having leapt back, Cutter immediately gave chase to the cudgel kobold’s dodge, closing on it as it landed, and swinging down hard with both of his weapons. It was an awkward attack, he could feel the clumsiness of it, but he struck a glancing blow with the cudgel and the kobold fell to a knee. He proceeded quickly, a hack from his axe striking the collarbone, blood erupting and the small creature sagging lower, stunned. A full-body turning uppercut with his cudgel deforming the creature’s head, its body tumbling back lifeless.

  He turned immediately, the axe kobold was circling, the archer was levelling another arrow at him. Not even thinking he threw his tomahawk at the archer. It clattered ineffectively to the floor near its feet.

  “BRO! What was that? You don’t have a throwing sigil!”

  Lita’s voice was not without concern, but the incredulity in that moment irked Cutter. His throw had caused the archer to falter so he gave himself to the moment, charging the gap, smashed it with three savage blows, laying it to the floor.

  He turned his head, opening his mouth to make some comment to Lita, when he felt the impact in his right hand, then the flare of pain. His remaining weapon clattered to the floor, he grasped his hand in a sudden hiss of pain. There was an instant of confusion. The axe kobold had struck him in the hand. It hurt like shit, yes, but the wound was still just a cut. He had a sense of discord, the axe should have taken fingers off or smashed him worse than that.

  The moment of consideration flashed by as quickly as it came. The kobold followed with a shoulder charge, knocking the wounded man to the cold dusty floor.

  Then it was standing over him, weapon rising, preparing to deliver the death blow to the wounded and weaponless enemy.

  Cutter had no means of escape or counter.