Sparks burst before Dee’s eyes, blinding him. He threw his arms up and stumbled back, trying to protect himself. His body tensed at the thought of the sharp arm slashing across his body. But nothing came. He blinked and opened his eyes. The arm was trapped, writhing in the air. Emizra’s chain was wrapped around it, holding it at bay.

  She was there, across the tunnel, clinging to her weapon, holding the limb in place with her strength. She winked at him, her amber eyes like jewels in the dark. He would kiss her, if they weren’t in the midst of battle with a rogue golem.

  She was so beautiful, a mysterious temptress who came and went as she pleased. He couldn’t help staring at her. His vision shifted and he saw the same diagram that had appeared before Yuri. This time it was clearer. He saw her stats hovering there, in a five-pointed diagram.

  Virtuoso

  “Is this my level 2 ability?” he said.

  Yuri grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away. “Pay attention, darling,” she said.

  The image disappeared and he took what was happening in the battle. Tianna was still holding down an arm, Emizra’s chain was wrapped around her arm and the golem’s wrestling with it like a fisherman fighting against a wriggling fish. The other arm was stretched back behind, trying to reach Arjelica wherever she was.

  He was saved; they were working together as a team. He couldn’t lift up his sword anyways, thank the gods they were competent adventurers.

  “Bring it to me, Emi!” Tianna called out.

  Emizra hauled on her trapped prey, dragging it towards Tianna. Despite their size difference, they were both holding the golem’s writhing limb in check, with some effort. Dee couldn’t help thinking that Tianna would win in a straight up fight between the two, she carried a lot of strength in her petite frame.

  “We wrap them up,” Tianna said. Emi nodded.

  Tianna let her arm go free as Emi whipped away her chain. The two arms flew together, propelled by momentum, sparks erupting as they clashed. They wrapped around each other like angry earthworms.

  “Pay attention, Yuri. Now with the Witch Coil!” Tianna called.

  Yuri’s magic slipped around the two arms, coiling tight and trapping them together immobile. She smiled smugly and twirled her staff.

  “Finally,” Tianna cried with relief. “The body, Emi. Let’s take the arms off.”

  She charged forward, her mace held high, toward one side of the golem, as Emizra lunged for the other side. With momentum and force Tianna smashed her target clean off. The arm joint exploded into metal shards and it fell limp to the floor.

  Emizra wrapped her chain around the other joint and pulled down with her whole weight. She grimaced with effort, her tongue sticking out sideways. The joint shrieked with strain, and then it was off. Another arm flopped to the floor.

  Arjelica was done with her task. More sparks erupted from the back of the golem. Its eye light winked out, then it toppled forward, Arjelica riding it down like a surfer. The back was shredded open, metal guts and seeping fluid on display. It was down.

  “Pretty epic,” Dee moaned. He dropped his sword and almost fainted against the tunnel wall. His arm burned with pain now, the adrenaline and Emi’s song fading.

  Tianna glanced around for the wounded, then ran to him. He was the weak link here.

  “Dee, you’re an NPC, you just play support,” Tianna said. She frowned at him and placed her hands on his shoulder.

  He gasped, it was like she was forcing the pain into his whole body, diffusing it. Then it just felt good, her hands on his shoulder teasing and testing the muscle to see that it had healed. In seconds his arm was back to normal.

  “My human henchman has many talents.” Yuri patted him on the head. That felt patronising but nice as well.

  But the greater feeling was Arjelica squeezing his other shoulder. “Well fought,” she said. That was a complement greater than any pleasure. Well apart from Yuri lying on top of him in bed. And being naked with Emizra in the dwarf farm. One of the top three then.

  Tianna turned to Yuri and glared up at her. “You never listen, Yuri! Listen to my tactics! You should have trapped the arms first, not its body. May the Kingfisher bring you enlightenment.”

  “Well, I can’t help it if my reflexes are faster than my mind. O-hohoho!”

  “That’s not a good thing, Yuri,” Arjelica said.

  Tianna grabbed her helmet and pushed it over her eyes in frustration. Her colourful feather bounced back and forth like an angry parrot. She growled.

  “We succeeded. Even with our chaotic Mist Witch, we took it down without a fuss,” Emizra said. She squeezed Tianna’s shoulder.

  Tianna looked slightly mollified.

  “Yeah, I think your tactics were great,” Dee said.

  Tianna narrowed her eyes at him. “Complementing me now?”

  “I’m just, playing support?” he said. Emizra and Arjelica chuckled.

  Tianna’s eyes widened and her cheeks flushed. “Oh, you’re clever, very funny. But don’t think that means I’m attracted to you! You big brute.” She huffed and turned her head away.

  “If we are all healed up then we should carry on,” Arjelica said, wasting no time urging them on.

  They took a moment to regroup and continued into the deep. Dee tested his shoulder, moving it around. There was no pain, it was just like the healing fountain in the frog dungeon. I guess magic makes all the flesh and muscle repair itself? Or maybe it accelerates the natural healing process. But then there would be scars? As long as it works.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  As they moved deeper, Dee had the feeling of breaking into a museum. They passed checkpoints and guard stations, old bars and gates long ago broken open, into the mine proper. There were rotten mining picks, broken rails and carts, bunks carved into stone walls. Everywhere the sign of hard, dangerous work and the people that had done it. But only the memories of the hard work.

  There were also more guard golems, some of them waking up. The party took them out easily, or avoided the twitching remnants. None of them were as dangerous as their first fight, but Tianna was getting more and more tense.

  “This is just the edge of the dungeon, it’s going to get more dangerous the deeper we go.”

  “Yes yes, I know,” Yuri huffed. She was still sulking about being told what to do.

  They were tired, so they took a rest in an abandoned sleeping quarter. There were bunks carved into the stone, shallow shelves where miners would have slept. Old remains of mining activity, broken tools and discarded clothes, lay around the room. It must have been cramped with a full group of miners sleeping here, but for a group of five it was a fine resting place.

  Tianna and Arjelica sat beside the doorway, listening out for anything approaching. Tianna sat upright, alert, her attention never wavering from the door. Arjelica lazed against the wall, but her ear was angled to the corridor, ready for the slightest sound.

  Dee settled against another wall and tried to bring up the stat view he had seen before. Yuri had her notebooks, writing notes about the golem they had fought. He looked at her, concentrated, and there it was.

  Mist Witch

  Five data points. She was a bit more unbalanced than Emizra. A Mist Witch was all about the mana and magical attacks he guessed. No Force, she wasn’t a fighter, and medium Finesse. But Wits and Will were max, just like Mana. Will must be the magic stat.

  He looked at Arjelica, she was studying her axes, testing their edge and sharpening them. He was surprised at her Force, but thinking about it made sense. She was an ambush fighter, leaping about and using the element of surprise to disorient her foes. A Claw Stalker must be good at solo hunting, but in parties they really excelled at taking advantage of their team-mates’ distraction.

  Claw Hunter

  And Tianna? He saw a brief flash of her stats, then she leapt up and ran at him.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Woah what? Nothing, nothing,” he blubbered. He thought she was going to run straight into him.

  “What are you shrieking about, darling,” Yuri said.

  Tianna pointed a finger at Dee. “He was doing something! I felt it. Some kind of spying. You set off my Battle Sense.”

  “Oh. Yes.”

  They all looked at him. “I think I found out what my level 2 ability is.”

  “Ooh, do tell.”

  “I can see your stats.”

  “Our what?”

  “Your strengths and weaknesses. Like Arjelica and Emizra have high Finesse, they’re very skilled in battle. But Emizra and Yuri, you have high Wits. Which I guess is quick thinking in battle? Or magic attack maybe. And Yuri has the highest Mana.”

  “Yes of course,” Yuri said, throwing her hair back and fluttering her eyes. “I’m positively replete with magical power.”

  “And me? I suppose you want your magic gaze to pierce my helpless defences and learn all about me?” Tianna was blushing. She put her arms across her body, as if she were in a revealing nighty and not chain armour.

  “Not if you’re going to slap me in the face again.”

  “I need to know! The Kingfisher never turns away from advantageous information.”

  “I can look.”

  War Priest

  She had huge Force and Will. “You are very strong. The strongest here. And high Will. Could be magic defence or resistance.”

  “I’m a War Priest. Battle is a playground for me to master. By the Kingfisher’s beak I bring fortune to my friends and misery to my foes,” Tianna said haughtily.

  “And your Mana is pretty high too. You have a lot of magical reserves.”

  “Yes, the Kingfisher blesses me with a wealth of magical power!” She raised her hands up to the sky, as if she were about to call down lightning.

  Yuri was writing this all down in her book. “And her Wits and Finesse?” she asked.

  “Below average.”

  “Ha! A War Priest is a bulwark of resilience! I don’t need trickery or whatever this Wits is.”

  She marched up to him and grabbed his shirt. “No more spying on my stats! I can feel it you know. Oh, I knew you were a damn spy or something. Setting off my Battle Sense, what a horrible ability, you disgusting brute of a human! Just when I was starting to think about liking you.”

  She dropped him and he breathed a sigh of relief. He really had expected a punch in face.

  “Well, Dee can promise not to use it on any of us. But I want you to use it on the next monster we face, promise my sweet little Games Master.”

  “That was my next idea. I promise no spying on you. I didn’t even know I could do it, really.”

  Tianna cast her gaze over the others. “You know what it’s like? That’s an ability that a- a- I can’t say it! But you all know!”

  There was an awkward silence. Dee remembered the conversation about reading class manuals with Yuri. He hoped he didn’t have any more rude abilities this was how they reacted to the idea of seeing PC stats. His stomach turned and he felt acid buildup. It had been going so well, he used his sword in battle, that was a first. Maybe if they saw how useful it could be against monsters? He closed his eyes and tried to relax.

  I’ve got to figure out ways to show I’m helpful. For them and my own confidence. I got this, don’t freak out. I don’t want them to abandon me down here. Don’t think about that.

  His head was hurting. He rubbed his temples and tried to think about something relaxing.

  Thankfully it was time to continue. All of them were eager to leave the room and plunge further into the deep. There was a crest calling to the group, power to be won.

  Dee felt the presence of it even now. The air, the walls, sounds that lived just on the edge of hearing. There was something here. He remembered this feeling from the frog dungeon. He had thought it was just the shock of waking up in a new world that had made his senses so sensitive, but it was the dungeon. It was alive. Goldmeadow and Copperjack Climb had PCs and NPCs, and noise and activity, but it was a different feeling to a dungeon. This was like walking through the insides of a great machine or living creature. Dee felt like a mouse sneaking through a house, knowing that the cat could wake up at any moment and notice him.

  Tianna screamed and they all tensed. “Ambush!” she cried.

  “Where?” Arjelica snapped.

  “Everywhere?” Tianna spun around desperately, trying to understand what her Battle Sense was telling her.

  “It’s ahead or behind, dearie,” Yuri said. The crystal in her staff glowed purple, ready for battle.

  Dee looked around for what might be attacking them. The far ends of the tunnel were dark outside their light source. The rough tunnel walls shifted, and light made faces on the walls. It was too realistic to be his imagination; he saw eyes and a mouth moving as if it were speaking.

  He concentrated on one, and a stat view of it popped into his vision.

  “These faces have stats. They’re monsters!” he shouted.

  They flowed out of the wall, flat shiny-slick mud bodies. Dozens of them, flat like rays but cragged skin, like shavings of stone from a mine face.

  Freed from the wall, the faces began to scream. The cursed wails of dead miners assaulted the party’s ears.