We checked the rooms throughout the floor to find them empty. We only looted enough of the orc bodies to recover any health potions they had: 2 out of 3 orcs. We had to move onto the 3rd floor quickly. This might have gone well, but it was due more to us acting quickly and taking advantage of their delayed action. They didn’t have enough creatures to completely overwhelm the first floor yet, but they were close. So far all we did was delay that maneuver, assuming one of those teleportation circles was upstairs.

  I had the 3rd level notification, but I didn’t feel comfortable doing the level up heading into a fight. The last time it shocked my whole body and mind; I felt drained afterwards. I didn’t think I could afford that going into the next fight. We were exiting the hallways back into the stairwell when Nora stepped in front of Billy.

  She was facing him, her 5ft height kind of dwarfed under Billy’s 5 foot and 10 inches in height. She looked up into his eyes, “Stop with the Nora equals Dora shit. Dora had Benny the Bull.” Her hand shot forward and grabbed his entire manhood gripping it painfully tight even with his clothes in the way. “If you keep this up, I’ll make you Billy the Ballless Wonder! Understood?”

  Billy nodded frantically and made a high pitch little “uh huh” sound. It would be a while before Billy started those shenanigans up again. She released and turned around. She then walked into the stairwell and started up the stairs like nothing had happened. Frank and I followed her as well, leaving Billy staring at our backs.

  Sgt. Hastings made the decision to walk up to the second floor landing at that moment. “How did the second floor go?”

  “Went almost as planned. No major issues.” I replied. “Time to go take the 3rd floor. Are you here to help?”

  “I can.” Not quite the affirmation I was looking for.

  “Excellent. We’re going to do the next floor a little different. Nora, use the one ability, get in a good position. Spell caster before any other threats. That lighting blast was probably from a spellcaster. And that shit scares me.” Everyone nodded at that. “Everyone else, get behind Frank’s big ass shield, and we shoot any monster that moves.”

  I lost track of Nora as soon as she used camouflage. If situational awareness is a skill, I must not have it. The rest of us got to just below the landing. The third floor didn’t have much a door left; orcs don’t like doors apparently. Pvt. Gorman and his counterpart eased up onto the landing. Frank followed suit, and he even passed them up slightly. We slowly formed up into a wedge with frank at the front of it. Frank slammed his massive riot shield down onto the ground to activate his shield taunt. Hopefully the repeat of last floor still worked. As a giant gut monster emerged at the end of the hallway from around a corner, I realized that wasn’t going to be the case. This time at least I got to see it move which looked like a cross between bouncing and running; the drop ceiling didn’t survive first contact. It filled most of the hallway and seemed to absorb most of our bullets. As it got closer, I could see that we were piercing its body. Blood covered the wounds and would slowly ooze down its massive frame. The mouth wasn’t as large as the riot shield, but as it impacted a bracing Frank he slid back over a foot before he stopped moving. What it lacked in arms, it made up for in tentacles. Note to self: tentacles are actually more terrifying.

  Three tentacles went to the left grabbing Private Gorman. “Gahh! Get these things off me.” I pulled the ritual looking dagger out of my backpack, hoping against hope that it was magical, and stabbed the closest tentacle gripping the young soldier. It scraped along a plate thin shallow plate until it found softer, fleshier purchase; it sunk deeply into the appendage slicing it off. I worked my way to the second tentacle, firing a gun completely forgotten. The fight devolved to handguns from rifles. It further devolved from 6 people firing at a monster to 1 guy getting bad angled shots at it, 2 guys fighting off tentacles trying to wrap around them, 2 more guys desperately trying to remove those tentacles, and Frank holding it mostly at bay with his shield so that it couldn’t simply shove any one of us into its mouth. It was wearing down, but if it weren’t for Frank and this being a doorway we would be screwed. It didn’t seem smart enough to realize that it was going to die trying to eat all of us, or possibly it just didn’t care.

  It was then that the unexpected happened. Frank slipped on the combination of drool and blood from the monster that had started pooling on the floor between them. Our reality became much worse as its tentacles gripped the soldier Billy was attempting to free and shoved him into its mouth. Teeth clamped down together separating the man from his legs, which both promptly dropped to the ground.

  Billy lost it. He dropped the knife and put his hands back on his rifle that was dangling against his chest. He shoved the tip of the barrel inside the monsters chewing mouth and pulled the trigger so many times that we soon heard the clicking of an empty clip. He kept pulling trigger until Frank yelled, “NEW CLIP BILLY!” The light of billy’s eyes that had momentarily gone dark during his mindless shooting lit back up as he fumbled to reload.

  The monster wasn’t waiting for more bullets, as it tried to recover from the gaping wound spreading from a corner of its mouth. It latched tentacles onto Billy to pull him in as well. Billy dropped the clip he was trying to slam into his rifle. Frank found his footing again and surged up and forward, slamming his shield into the monster. Sgt. Hastings finally got shots into the base of the tentacles driving the creature wild. I did my part by slicing off the last tentacle that could grip Private Gorman; to which he nodded in thanks. His expression looked genuinely relieved. Less than 30 seconds later the creature was stumbling backwards and flailing in a near death state. It died nearly as violently as it lived, tentacles gripping and tripping people, nearly dragging Billy’s leg to its mouth. Finally, it twitched its last muscle and seemed to lose size now that it was flailing tentacles and eating people. We were all worse for wear. Everyone, myself included had bruises and welts on any exposed skin. I didn’t have to check my notifications to know that I had broken bones; my ribs felt on fire.

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  We were catching our breath when we heard what had to be a lightning blast. Nora came peeling around the corner, the missing exterior wall visible in her background. “Spellcaster not dead! Shoots lightning from his fingertips!” She slipped a little on her way, but somehow slid along monster slobber back to a standing position. She was panting hard and covered in bloody gore. Coming behind her was an angry scraggly white haired wolfman. He positively coursed with power. He strode completely around corner and saw standing just beyond the dead monster. He immediately howled; the sound was filled with rage and loss. Perhaps we pissed him off. We began lifting our rifles to fire, but he beat us to the punch badly. Bright eldritch lightning radiating between blue and white blasted Frank, Billy, and Private Gorman. All three were lifted with the force of the blast and thrown backwards towards the stairwell. Frank landed first, as he was the heaviest, but the other two didn’t land until there several stairs back. I wasn’t hit, but I felt stunned. My muscles didn’t want to respond as I tried lifting the rifle the rest of the way to aim at this crazy magically inclined lupin.

  Almost as if history couldn’t help but repeat itself, Nora saw Frank get hurt and carnage ensued. She turned on the Lupin spellcaster and unleased a blast of Force Bolts on him with a shouted, “Pelotudo, Mother Fucker!” The world slowed down for us, almost cinematically; The five Force Bolts hit the lupin one after another with each knocking him closer and closer to the whole in the wall. The last bolt hit him causing him to trip backwards and fall out the gaping hole and beyond our line of sight. We heard a crunching sound a moment later.

  This was followed by, “Welcome to America, Asshole!” shouted in Brett’s high pitched voice.

  As soon as I felt full movement back in my limbs I ran the few feet to check on my friends. Frank’s riot shield was charred and cracked, but Frank looked more bruised and winded rather than severely injured. “Frank you okay?” he coughed up some blood in response, but then gave a thumbs up. Nora ran past us as soon as she saw the thumbs up. She pulled Billy’s slumped body into her arms.

  “I can’t find his pulse! Neal, Help me!” She was frantic, bad assery all gone. She was crying, seemingly unable to move.

  I got down to the steps she was on. “Nora lets get him to the midway landing down a few steps. Its flat. From there, we will see what else we can do.” She nodded her head and helped me get him down the last few steps. “Healing potion please.” She nodded before fishing one out of her backpack and handing it over. I poured a tiny bit onto his lips; a moment later her opened his mouth and a single breath ushered forth. I fed him the rest of the potion bit by bit. Nora checked his pulse before nodding to me. I smiled a tiny partial smile back at her, my face just wasn’t in it for the full smile. I looked around for Private Gorman to find him sitting up at the top of the steps drinking from his canteen. Sgt. Hastings was sitting next to him also drinking from a canteen. They both looked like they had the crap kicked out of them. “Sgt. I’m sorry about your man that got eaten. I didn’t think we would encounter one of those.” He just nodded in affirmation.

  It dawned on me that if there is a teleportation circle still up here, that we need to take it out. I took Billy’s combat knife, as my backups weren’t as large, and headed back up the stairs. It didn’t take long to find it. I repeated the efforts from earlier in the day and sacrificed another combat knife to destroy the enemy’s tactical advantage. With that done I looted what stuff I thought belonged to the monsters. I found a staff that would have been the height of the lupin caster and a potion on one of the orcs that Nora must have killed silently. The staff was fairly light and covered in runes. I was happy to find more stuff that could be useful, even if Nora was the only one who could use it. In total, Nora must have killed two orcs in the chamber outside the Lupin spellcaster; the spellcaster’s chamber also had the teleportation circle. These spellcasters are very dangerous when we don’t straight up assassinate them off the bat. I pondered that as I made my way back to the group.

  “Teleportation circle is destroyed. I didn’t find any additional lupin or other creatures. Well, except for the two orcs Nora killed.” Sgt Hasting and Private Gorman both nodded at Nora.

  Sgt. Hastings offered, “Nora the Orc Destroyer isn’t a bad title.” It took everything in Nora’s body not to scowl back at him. She was losing this battle. They had to wait for Frank to drink the potion I had gotten from the orcs Nora dispatched. Once we made it back down to the ground floor there were extra people there. I quickly discovered that this building was finally pinpointed by command as one with teleportation capabilities. So, after we killed everything, the cavalry finally arrived.

  I went outside to only to find Brett next to the dead lupin spellcaster. He looked up at me and smiled, “I already looted all his stuff. I’ve got all of it in here,” he tapped his backpack. “With all the lightning effects in play up there, I am hoping there is something lightning related in his gear.”

  “Sound logic you got there Brett. I hope this is what will work for you.” I brandished the staff for him; he nodded vigorously in response. I then sat down and ate some trail mix I had packed up. “Did you hit level 3 yet?”

  “Yes, both Dennis and I hit the mark when the lupin hit the concrete. The timing was awesome. I haven’t done it yet, because last time it drained me and made me super hungry afterwards.”

  “Then lets get everyone together so we can move on from this town. We’ve got places to be.”