Tim turned around and strode over to the adventurers, who watched him with eyes rimmed with fear and exhaustion. The warrior was the first to come to his senses and point back towards the opening in the wall:

  “Please help. Our friend is dying.”

  But that wasn’t quite right. By the time Adama reached the place the trapped adventurers had been hiding, the third member of their party was already dead. The short, brown-haired duelist was lying on his back, eyes glazed over and staring at the ceiling. Black blood trickled at the edge of the man’s mouth and his tongue was stained the same unhealthy color. He wasn’t breathing, and Adama confirmed he had no pulse as well before silently shaking his head and putting an antidote away. He had recognized the dead man’s symptoms immediately. The man had died from acute Dark Fungus poisoning, and judging by the temperature of his body, it had happened recently. He turned to look at the two remaining adventurers and shook his head. The woman hung her head in grief, sobs clearly echoing from her small form, but the man only narrowed his eyes and nodded slowly.

  Tim gave them space to grieve, choosing to walk around gathering the spoils of his recent victory. The Hornets had dropped an enormous number of magic stones, and a few items as well, so he ran around picking up as many of these as he could reasonably carry. The Hive had also dropped a large magic stone, as well as a single Sanguine Crystal. The item sparkled prettily, even in the low light, and Adama handled the valuable treasure with care as he scooped it up and placed it in his pack, which he had retrieved from where he had dropped it before starting the Hive fight.

  Adama would have liked to give the others more time to mourn, but they were still in danger. He could hear the howls of monsters all around them and knew that they could stumble into their area at any moment. Adama was still taxed from that hectic battle, and he could see that these kids were at the end of their rope. The swordsman threw the dead man’s body over his shoulder, getting the attention of the others. He walked towards the exit and beckoned for the others to follow him, saying:

  “Plenty of time to grieve when you make it to safety.”

  Obediently, they followed him back down the path. The adventurers walked in silence back towards the main path, Adama taking the lead and clearing out any dangers mostly by himself. They reached the main path without incident and began their climb back to safety. But the Dungeon wasn’t quite done with them yet.

  The first sign of danger was when they saw the Moss Huge. The large, muscular, humanoid creature was made entirely of moss, and it stared at Adama with intelligent crimson eyes from the other side of the room that marked the midway point of the main route. Tim struck out with a Rippling Sword, which bisected the towering creature without incident. When he went to investigate, however, things were not as they seemed. The pile of moss that had been left behind had no magic stone, damage or otherwise, and it didn’t disappear into dust. Adama’s frown deepened as he thought back to his reading. The Moss Huge was an intelligent monster, and it could create clones of itself to facilitate an escape. It was much more than mere raw aggression, though it was capable of brute force nearing Level 3. Much more disturbing than that was the fact that this enemy had chosen to run from him rather than fight outright. If it were a mere Goblin, he would have written this off as cowardice, but Tim’s instinct was screaming at him that this was much more than that. He gave the body of the fallen adventurer to the shield wielding fighter to carry. He wanted both hands open for what was coming.

  They made it out of the 24th floor with thankfully little issue, but Adama still felt malicious eyes on the back of his head. He kept one eye open as he chopped his way through whatever minor obstacles came their way, but he still wasn’t entirely prepared for the enemy's first move. As they neared the exit of the 23rd floor, they noticed that a large figured loomed in the distance, blocking their way. A gigantic, rounded, ivory tusked and red-furred creature stared in hostility at the trio from the other side of the final room. The Mammoth Fool trumpeted angrily at the adventurers but held its ground. Clicking his tongue at the obstruction, Adama glanced at their resident mage:

  “Have another one of those flying rocks in you?”

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  She nodded at him and began her chant. Adama could kill this thing, but not quickly. Her magic was tailor made to clear the big monster out swiftly and see them on their way. The moment she began her song, however, a cacophonous rumble echoed down the passageway behind them. Tim motioned for the other warrior to join him at her flank, and both men took what few seconds they could to brace for the fresh hell coming their way. It came in the form of a pack of Sword Stags rushing through the dark tunnel and into the brighter light of the room. Their bellowing was a wall of sound that heralded incoming slaughter.

  Tim and the big man dug in their heels and met the wave with uncompromising strength. Adama was already calling out the opening bars of the Endless Sword, but the sparkling points of the Stag’s horns were upon them before he could finish. Neither men could move, for fear of exposing the more vulnerable mage to the deadly charge, so they shielded her with their bodies. Adama got his sword between him and several antlers, halting the monsters in their tracks, but there were always more stags. Several other blades made contact with his armor, and he frowned in concentration as some of them pierced through. His blood watered the ground of the Dungeon, but his chant continued undaunted. In a herculean effort, the duo held fast in front of the stampede, straining with all their might to do so. The Stags broke around them like a wave breaking against a rock, and in that fateful set of heartbeats, swordsman and mage finished their chants simultaneously:

  “Endless Sword!”

  “Cornerstone!”

  Several things happened at once. The Stags surrounding Adama erupted in fragments of blood and gore. Their antlers were outstanding conductors of sword energy, and the echoes that they created were unusually strong. Their horns rang with the shrill bells of the sword magic as they emitted miniature domains of green slashes that decapitated the distressed creatures. More than half of the horde was settled just like that, the bloody mist they produced drifting in a fine fog across the battlefield. Many of the stags who had tried to go around the fighters were also killed before they got to the well protected mage.

  This left an open path for the girl’s magic, the boulder hurtling through the open field milliseconds after Adama’s magic was triggered. The Mammoth Fool braced for the impact, but it wouldn’t be enough. Right up until another large figure, made entirely of moss, suddenly came from seemingly nowhere and interposed itself between the projectile and the monster. It held a large rock shield, but exploded all the same when it contacted the magic. That was still enough to slow the threat down, and the Mammoth Fool took the strike without keeling over dead. It bled profusely from the subsequent head wound, trumpeting in blind rage, the pain sending it into an uncontrollable rage. It charged the trio, leaving the exit unguarded, but they were surrounded by the remnants of the Sword Stag stampede. There was nowhere to run.

  Mind firing on all cylinders, Adama pivoted, racing to the front of their party, and sheathing his sword. As he did, he called to the mage as he passed her:

  “Put up a shield.”

  Obediently, she started chanting, but the mammoth was almost on top of them, and the Stags were leaping over the bodies of their comrades to close the distance. She would never complete her spell in time. So Adama ran to meet the charge of the beast head on. Its tusks were lowered to gore them, but Adama widened his stance and grip at the last second before impact. He dexterously grabbed the pointed milky spears before they skewered him, muscles bulging as they strained against the inevitable. Adama’s feet dug troughs in the ground as he was pushed back toward his friends, the mammoth’s momentum too great to arrest. His cuts sprayed fresh blood through unhealed wounds, heart pumping to accommodate the Sisyphean task of stopping the unstoppable.

  But Tim wasn’t trying to stop the shaggy tank. At just the right moment, he reversed the situation entirely. Muscles straining in new way, Adama shifted from a pushing motion to a powerful upward throw. Using the beast’s momentum against it, he heaved it upwards, over the duo just behind him and onto the Sword Stags that were closing in on their rear. Mammoth and stag screamed in agony as the former landed on the pointy horns of its erstwhile comrades and the latter were crushed by a falling hairy body. The mammoth’s legs kicked helplessly in open air, still alive yet entirely impotent.

  The duos eyes were wide as saucers as they stared at the massive creature that had nearly trampled them, but Adama was still moving. He leapt up and towards the monster’s exposed underbelly and ran across it, sword unsheathed and dragging vertically across the vulnerable area. To the further surprise of the onlooking adventurers, Adama continued his sprint as he reached the monster’s tail, leaping off its belly and charging back up the passage with nary a word.

  That charge had been too coordinated, he thought grimly to himself. Something he been waiting in the wings, and it had given the command for the Stags to charge the moment the girl had begun her offensive magic. It was obviously the Moss Huge, and that slippery bastard had confirmed it was still in the area by having one of its clones defend the mammoth. There was always the chance that it was hiding in the route to the 22nd floor, but Adama doubted it. That was their destination, so it would be a risky place to hide. And the stampede had come from behind them.

  Sure enough, when he burst out into an open room he locked eyes with a large green figure. He detected a hint of fear in those crimson orbs and the Moss Huge quickly split off two extra clones and began sprinting away from him. Adama grinned a bloody grin at the thrill of the chase, and Hearthblade windmilled as he churned through the distractions. He launched a Rippling Sword at the retreating figure and lopped its right leg off, causing it to stumble and fall. The moss creature hurriedly twisted around and threw a large clod of dirt at its pursuer, which Adama gracefully ducked. The last thing the fiend saw was a glint of bright white and another green flash.

  Adama quickly pivoted again, chugging a healing potion as he dashed back down the passage again. He found his two lost sheep huddling within the mage’s barrier, which she had finished casting after Adama had sprinted away. There were enough Stags remaining to threaten the duo while he was gone, which he had accounted for when he had told the girl to cast her defensive spell. The moment he returned, there was little trouble clearing out the last of the demoralized creatures. Adama tossed the wounded man another potion, before looking off into the distance, saying:

  “Sure as good steel you’ll have to do better than that if you want to drown me with numbers.”