There was a hand in the darkness and it held an axe.

  Cutter could do nothing but brace himself. He was weaponless, wounded, winded. The axe whistled down and he found himself squeezing his eyes shut instinctively.

  There was the sudden crack of stone on stone, his eyes flashed open. Lita stood between them, the score of the axe blow fresh on his arm where he’d blocked it.

  Without words, Cutter leapt. The kobold had staggered back from the recoil of the block. Cutter’s fingers closed around the other kobold’s fallen cudgel. He twisted and swung as the axe kobold rushed him. It hadn’t time to attack and dodged back. Staggering and weak, Cutter summoned the intensity to drive through, following the spinning dodge with ferocity, driving one more swing.

  The spiked cudgel hit the kobold in the chest, wreaking bloody havoc. Cutter was shocked, even given the force of his attack, by the scale of the damage. Blood rose in a sheet from the wound, flesh exploded in chunks, the spikes and nails entangling in the creature’s chest, splaying the rib cage half open as it fell in a twisting arc to bleed on the ground.

  Cutter backed up, staggering, awkward, and fell on his ass, gasping for breath. It was panic as much as exertion that drove his rapid respiration.

  “GIT SOME!” Lita roared as was his want.

  Cutter just sat, chest heaving, clutching his hand, feeling the pain and coldness of wounds and ebbing dread.

  Lita turned to him, excited.

  “You saved me.”

  The automaton’s eyes became tiny, panicked. “Whuuut? Oh no! Bruh! I’m not meant to do that! I’m tutorial!”

  Lita spun left and right, urgent terrified movements, scanning everywhere as though expecting the judgment of God himself to punish him for intervening.

  Cutter had no attention for the antics. He felt cold and confused. “This fucking hurts. Shit, my hand.”

  Not even thinking, he grasped the arrow in his shoulder and ripped at it. It did come, the stone arrowhead a crude wedge without barbs, but the sucking exit drew more blood and a shriek of searing pain.

  “Lita! Something’s wrong here. This fucking hurts.”

  “Dude, I cannot understand what you’re so riled up about! It’s an arrow. It was like totally inside you, in a bad way. It’s gonna hurt.”

  Cutter eyed him coldly, now clutching his bleeding shoulder in favor of his wounded hand. “This dream is turning shitty…” he said it with a kind of concerned wonder.

  “Yeah, bruh, about that…”

  Cutter kept talking, “And look at my hand! It’s cut, and that sucks, yeah, but it was an axe wound. Shouldn’t that have like done worse? It felt like being sliced by a knife.”

  Lita said, “That? Totally. But you’re stoneband and they were clay. I told you, your band changes your physical composition. You can take more damage, wounds mean less, the higher your band goes.”

  They rested in silence for a few moments, then Cutter spoke weakly, distractedly, “This doesn’t feel like a dream at all…”

  Lita just looked at him.

  Cutter said, his voice quavering, “I think I’d like to wake up now. I’d like to see my family.”

  The construct’s voice was sincere. The rough voice spoke low, a soft compassion emerging that had never been so much as hinted at before, “Oh, buddy…”

  Silence then. Contemplation. Cutter thinking, staring at a point on the floor where the blood dripped from his hand and formed a small pool. The emotion worked across his face, fear morphing and contorting his expression until, as quickly as it arrived, it was gone, his lips setting in a firmer, harder line.

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  He looked back up suddenly to Lita, and a shallow smile crossed his face, “The fuck was I saying? This is the dream of a lifetime, I want to ride it out. It’s only a dream. Is the only way out of here through the boss?”

  Lita’s voice was still lacking its normal bombast, “Yeah, that’s it, bruh, the only way.”

  Cutter gathered himself and stood. “Right. Well let’s deal with that then. Is there anything I can do about my wounds? Any special tonics or potions or special skills?” he tilted his head, smiling, wryly and shallowly, his eyes still a portrait of a new and blooming worry.

  Lita seemed to shake himself, casting something off. “Sure is, bruh. But not here. You got nothing on you to do it. Shake it off, rub some dirt in it. You’re stoneband, you’ll be okay. A bit of bleeding is good for you. Builds character.”

  Cutter said, “They were the hardest yet. If this was a video game, the next chamber would be the boss.”

  Lita nodded, “Ding ding ding. One door left!”

  Cutter turned to the corridor that led away from the chamber. It ended in a slab of stone. He swallowed. “These guys were tough… how much worse is the boss going to be?”

  “How much worse is the boss going to be? DUDE! The boss is gonna be hella worse! He’s a freaking boss!”

  Cutter looked down at the dead kobolds, at their weapons, back to his own. “Shit… I struggled with these guys…”

  Lita said, “Like heck you did! You wouldn’t have made it if I hadn’t…” the construct froze, choking off his sentence, glancing around with sudden fear.

  Cutter waved him off, “Nothing happened. Relax. Okay, well at least I’ve got upgrades.”

  Cutter walked around the fallen kobolds, looking at the weapons and gear and sigils that lay on the floor.

  Lita said, “Yeah, about that. You don’t have a dual wielding sigil and that’s coming against you. Your coordination is weak AF with a weapon in each hand. Pick and stick, bruh. Sucks that there’s no sword to be had because with your sigil you’d freaking dominate with a sword.”

  Cutter bent to pick up what had been a two handed axe for the kobold. It was substantially bigger than the tomahawk he dropped on the ground. It was still more of a one handed axe for him. But the handle was longer, the head heavier, he thought it would benefit from a two handed grip. He dropped the cudgel he’d started out with. It clattered to the floor, the sound echoing in the dark tunnel.

  Cutter said, “I’ve got sigils installed now. One slot left. Not going to do me any good to keep a slot free if the boss is just going to rip my guts out.”

  Lita nodded, “Yeah, bruh. No good. This is going to take like everything you got. It’s gonna be freaking awesome!”

  Cutter said, “Yeah… awesome…”

  Only one of the kobolds had dropped a sigil at all. He pursed his lips in disappointment. He’d vaguely hoped to find a bow wielding sigil from the archer. “I suppose I’ll suck with a bow and arrow if I don’t have a sigil for it?”

  Lita said, “Oh, bruh, you won’t suck without a sigil for it. You’ll suuuuck. Like, capital S, capital U, capital U, capital-”

  “Okay, okay, I get it. So the one upgrade available here is the dodge sigil. That’s pretty deadly.”

  Lita nodded enthusiastically, “Totally! Dude, you saw how tough it was. You couldn’t touch the little guys until I told you how. The boss won’t have his own personal stone robot to help him out.”

  “Yeah, but he lives here, he’ll know how to deal with a dodge move.”

  Lita shrugged, “That dude’s going to be hella big and hella strong, but not so much with the brains. Besides, dodge is going to help no matter what. Fire it up, man!”

  Cutter sighed and dropped the new dash sigil into the last slot of his bracer. It glowed with light and he looked around, raising his shoulder. “I don’t feel any different.”

  Lita boomed, “Oh yeah? Watch this, bruh!”

  Without warning or hesitation Lita lunged forward, scooping the dropped tomahawk up and immediately spinning. The weapon stuck to his ungrasping hand as though glued on, the construct’s attack was shocking fast and sudden, his whole body spinning like a top, the axe head buzzing in the air.

  Cutter barely had any time to react. He felt the urge to pull away and jerked back. The sigil on his wrist flashed with light and he felt his body pulling him away. He spun in the air, a bolt released from a crossbow, and landed several feet away.

  “The hell, man!” he shouted at Lita.

  The construct seemed wounded, “Just showing you your new sigil…”

  Cutter fixed him with a scornful glance, then looked down at his feet. “You know… that was kind of disconcerting… it worked great, but it’s going to take some getting used to.”

  Lita’s voice sprang with interest, “Better to get used to it here than with King Kobold coming at ya…”

  Cutter grimaced. “Okay, again then.”

  They repeated the maneuver several times. Cutter was impressed with Lita’s strange fight style, spinning on his levitating axis. Lita would be a much, much tougher opponent in a real fight than any kobold or group of kobolds he’d fought so far.

  After a few minutes, Cutter said, “Okay, I got that. Am I ready then? If we’re doing this then let’s fucking do it. Waiting isn’t going to do any good.”

  Lita said, “Two ticks, chief. Got a couple more pointers for ya. You saw how lame it was when you threw your weapon, yeah?”

  Cutter nodded.

  Lita said, “Yeah, don’t do that, bruh. It won’t work out good, because…”

  Lita eyed Cutter, gesturing for him to finish. Cutter sighed, “Because I don’t have a sigil for it. Jesus, do you need a sigil for fucking everything? Am I going to be able to wipe my own ass without a fucking ass-wiping sigil?”

  Lita shifted uncomfortably. “Dude… I’m not that kind of tutorial…”

  Cutter cursed under his breath and said, “Okay, no more throwing. Dodging and fighting, full stop. What’s next?”

  Lita seemed to vibrate, excitement and volume rising. “Next up is the boss fight. The freaking boss fight, dude! It’s gonna rock!”