Panic and fear crept along the bond from Alpha. I curled up tighter in the pocket, readying my ability to turn like air. My Alpha feared for me, but not for themselves.

  We hit the hard ground.

  I landed on my front claw, which hurt, but it wasn’t as bad as the Alpha’s pain through our bond. Alpha had protected me.

  I rolled out of the pouch she kept me safe in and wobbled to my feet, ignoring my pain.

  Alpha didn’t respond as I nudged her with my head. After waiting, I tried again, but still nothing. Alpha needed help.

  Something breathed deeply down the darkened tunnel.

  Alpha needed food to heal. I could find food.

  I zoomed down the tunnel, staying quiet. The uneven ground made it hard, but shapes slowly flickered into view as my eyes became used to the dark.

  [Pyre Wyrm, Level 80, Predator, Dangerous.]

  It slept curled up next to a pile of something that smelled tasty.

  The smell distracted me, and I shook my head.

  Alpha needed food.

  My eyes lit up as I sneaked forward to see what the beast had killed. Instead of a dead thing, my eyes landed on a roundish object.

  Glee raced through me at the sight of the egg. Eggs were tasty.

  [Egg.]

  I couldn’t steal something like this on my own. I needed Alpha for that.

  The tunnel kept going onward, and I added this section to the map inside my head. Continuing on, I searched for something easy for Alpha to eat. The tunnel turned back, but kept the downward trend.

  More breathing came from ahead, and I slowed down from zooming.

  [Pyre Wyrm, Level 82, Predator, Dangerous.]

  This one didn’t sleep, but stared out over the ledge of a hole away from me.

  I backed away slowly, not wanting to draw its attention. I couldn’t deal with either of these creatures, and there wasn’t anything but the egg that might be edible.

  Zooming back to the sleeping beast and the egg, I stared at the situation. An idea came to mind, and I crept toward the prize.

  I felt Alpha stir and touch our bond, but I resisted heading back just yet.

  Alpha would like this discovery, this delivery. Dengu would like this story, once I saw the big one again.

  Closer. I needed to get close enough to touch the egg, then it could vanish into my space pocket.

  My nose barely touched the warm shell when I used the skill. Poof, it was gone just like I hoped.

  I backed away slowly. Once the tension left my tail, I zoomed back the way I’d come. Going uphill was slower than down, but still I zoomed.

  Dengu would be proud. I was sneaky, like he said. You needed to be sneaky to hunt without a pack.

  Time to make my delivery.

  ###

  I focused on the healing crystal on my necklace, pulling the cooling energy into my body. Strangely, this time it felt warm as it worked. First, it flowed up to the spot on the tip of my head that had touched the first Wraith. The warmth helped my thoughts clear.

  Only then did some of it flow to my frozen fingers.

  Meat appeared in my mouth from my stash, which I swallowed without chewing.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Energy. I needed energy. As much as possible.

  That drain attack from the Wraith had stolen my heat, and my health. Part of me wanted that skill. If I could steal health from something, that’d be a game changer.

  Yet, first I needed to get back to my feet and warm up. I wanted to be warm so freaking bad.

  It didn’t take long for my hand to feel better as my stomach worked overtime. As soon as energy came from my stomach, I cut off the energy from the healing crystal, before it ran out. Having that as a last-ditch option was too important for me to drain it completely. It took longer to recharge if completely emptied, and my natural healing couldn’t help others the way the healing crystal could.

  I sat up to lean against the wall as I waited for my healing factor to take care of the rest of my injuries. The pain in my shoulder felt better once I shifted my weight off a sharp rock.

  Mentally I reached out for Strange, since he wasn’t in the pouch anymore. I didn’t know when he crawled out, but it had to be after we landed. Hopefully, he was in better shape than me. If a Wraith got him, I wasn’t sure he’d survive.

  Based on how far we’d fallen, we were at least a quarter of the way down the hole in the ground. This tunnel continued downward, which was the direction Strange had gone to explore.

  I resisted the urge to chuckle, thinking about a joke with us taking the ‘fast way’ down.

  Accidentally.

  It was all I could do not to get frustrated at myself, but I couldn’t have known what would happen by touching one of those Wraiths. It’d floated out of the rock without warning. Still, we were both alive, though a little worse for the situation.

  Strange appeared in the tunnel heading right toward me, yet he didn’t jump into my lap. Instead, he paused.

  [Would you like to accept a delivery from Strange?]

  The notification made me jerk, sending pain down my shoulder, but I accepted.

  A still warm egg appeared in my lap, about the size of Strange.

  Mentally, I asked Strange about it, and I received several images of what he’d been up to.

  Yet, I couldn’t get over how he’d used his profession to make a delivery for himself to give to me. It felt like a cheat code, though I wasn’t going to complain if it helped him grow. It fit how sneaky he was.

  I sent a wave of approval to him.

  Before we continued on, we had a snack to eat. I pulled out a pot I’d stolen long ago and cracked the egg inside.

  My mouth watered at the sight, even though it looked like a slimy blob.

  I paused.

  I could see the pot and the broken eggshell, along with Strange. I traced the light source to the hole we’d fallen down. More red light came from below.

  I peeked over the edge, and the lava moved.

  [Magma Lurker, Ambush, Level 90, Predator, Unknown.]

  I jerked back from the sight, almost spilling the pot, and shook my head. That wasn’t a right-now problem. Right now, we needed to eat our snack, then continue on our way.

  I pulled out my blob of fire crystals and molded them around the bottom of the wooden pot. Then I sent energy into them to create heat.

  The makeshift stove glowed as heat pulsed from the crystals. I quickly set it down on the gravelly stone floor and pushed gravel all around it so the stones blocked the light source.

  I didn’t want anything to investigate the new light. I didn’t want another fight just at the moment.

  The desire not to be attacked was also why I didn’t add any meat from my inventory, though I wished I could. The smell of cooked meat would travel far in the tunnels. Too far.

  Strange watched me intently as I stirred the eggs with a wooden utensil. While we could drink it raw, something warm sounded better.

  A chilliness lingered inside me from the Wraith, a coldness that the raw meat didn’t get rid of. Hopefully some hot food would help.

  Once the eggs were solid, I put a pile in front of Strange and ate my serving out of the pot.

  He dove into it with pleasure.

  “Warm, nice warm,” he growled in my head.

  I nodded.

  The warm eggs pushed that last bit of lingering coldness away, just as I’d hoped they would.

  The dirty pot went back into my inventory. I carefully stood up, stretching.

  Based on Strange’s scouting, we had two more wyrms to kill, both high-level for Strange, but doable for the two of us.

  The first was almost too easy. It slept deeply, and I quickly dispatched it by cutting off its head with my knife. It didn’t even have a chance to wake up. Unfortunately, that meant Strange didn’t get a hit in, so the experience all came to me. Still, neither of us had gotten hurt or were even out of breath, so that was a good thing. The entire corpse of the Wyrm slid into my inventory to deal with later.

  The next was hanging halfway out into the hole we’d fallen down, trying to catch one of the Wraiths. It didn’t even notice as I approached from behind until I shoved it the rest of the way over the edge.

  We leaned over the edge as it fell down.

  Each Wraith it hit caused it to slow its descent, and, more interestingly, the Wraith that touched it vanished. Even using Aura sight, the entire glimmering creatures vanished after the Wyrm passed through them.

  It didn’t kill the Wraiths, since I didn’t have any notifications. They just… vanished.

  The Wyrm hit the bottom. It slammed into the glowing lava, then sank.

  [You have gained experience from combat.]

  [You have gained bonus experience from defeating a level 81 Pyre Wyrm.]

  I paused and pulled out the carcass of the last Wyrm. I dug out its heart, since I didn’t need to worry about being attacked.

  [You have devoured a Pyre Wyrm and have gained an additional understanding of Perceptive Awareness - I. Perceptive Awareness - I: Your augmented senses grant you an awareness. All five senses have been expanded, and a sixth added: Aura awareness. Furthermore, you can analyze creatures, objects or crystals to glean basic information and uncover their skills with greater ease. Darkness holds no secrets from you.]

  Everything shifted into a little better focus. The last time I’d eaten a heart, my awareness had increased as well. It made sense now. It hadn’t changed the skill name or given me any stats, but it had changed something, since my sight improved.

  Unease came from Strange as he stared at the gap we needed to cross yet again. I couldn’t blame him. All I could do was hope that this time, things would go better.