Entering a dungeon in progress was rarely a good, or even neutral, thing. In the context of the transitional dungeon, Cyn assumed that meant that people had died. At least five of them, in order to have enough room for her entire party. People dying meant something had probably gone very wrong, and they would be dropped, entirely unprepared, right into the thick of it. There was no interruption between floors this time, so Cyn noticed a handful things immediately upon arriving at the third floor of the dungeon.

  First, because the emotion felt very loud inside of her head, Spam was pissed. She had no idea why, and, unfortunately, now was not the time to figure it out.

  Second was the mountain of notifications flashing over the corner of her vision, all quickly being dismissed. It was not the time for that either, she would have to check in on it all later.

  Third, also inside of her mind, was a flood of information. Specifically, the health of a hell of a lot more people than were in her party. The health of the party members she had been fighting with for the earlier dungeon floors were much clearer and more distinct, but the new arrivals created an instant headache as she tried to quickly adjust to the perceived pressure of too much information. It did not help that none of the new health pools she felt seemed to be having a good time, probably in part because of the final thing Cyn noticed.

  Fire.

  The System had dropped them directly into a disaster-in-progress, just as she had predicted. The party stood near the top of a small rise, roughly in line with the tops of the huts Cyn could see burning around them. The red and orange flames were pumping spark-filled black smoke high into a moonless night sky and providing limited illumination of what appeared to be a village. Only a few of the people she could see were attempting to put out the fire, while many more were fighting violently amongst themselves.

  It only took Cyn a few heartbeats to realize that there were at least two distinct factions here. She was able to sense the health of around half of the people she saw, and until she was shown otherwise Cyn would have to consider those people their de facto allies. For a fraction of a second, she was concerned that she would be the only one able to tell the difference, until she got a better look at one of the people she was not able to feel.

  The man passed close to one of the houses engulfed in flames just below her, wearing what looked like light leather armor and holding a crossbow in his hands. For a moment he turned his face towards Cyn and her party. Bright crimson eyes widened in surprise, and the single slit that existed where a nose should be flared open as he raised his weapon to shoot. The clear threat seemed to spur the party out of their shocked stupor and into action, unlinking arms and drawing their own weapons.

  Vampire - Level 16

  Scott was barely able to move in time to use his shield and deflect the crossbow bolt that the vampire shot towards them. The power behind the shot caused the Standard-Bearer to stumble, barely keeping his footing. As Dana returned fire, hitting the vampire in the shoulder with her first shot, Cyn frantically tried to explain her thoughts. “Some of these people are supposed to be our allies, I think. I can feel their health.”

  Dana made an exasperated sound. “Do you think you could have said something before I shot him?” The Tactician sent another arrow at her target, either knowing Cyn didn’t mean the vampire in front of them, or simply not caring. It ended up being a close miss. The vampire was fast, but struggled to raise and aim his crossbow with the arrow still lodged in his shoulder. His second shot missed entirely, digging into the ground about half way up their hill.

  “If it helps, I don’t think that one is friendly.”

  The Tactician snorted a laugh before shooting a third time, landing a rapidly shot pair of arrows into his throat before he could load and fire the crossbow again. As Dana nocked another arrow to finish him off, a stout woman wielding a large sword in two hands lunged out from an alley near the vampire, impaling him on the weapon and driving both of them to the ground.

  Human - Level 11

  Luckily, despite the woman’s low level, it seemed to be enough to put the vampire out of its misery. Most likely because Dana had done most of the work already. “She should be friendly?” Cyn posed her statement as a question, since she was not completely sure, but did not want Dana to end up shooting the sword-wielding woman too.

  Scott, Sam, and Hex had remained clustered around the point the party had entered the floor while Dana shot down the vampire, unwilling to separate without knowing what was going on, but ready to act. At Cyn’s words, Scott raised his flag, waving it in the air while calling down to the woman who was stumbling to her feet. “Need some help?”

  The woman’s head shot up to look at them, and Cyn felt the tell-tale goosebumps run across her skin as the woman seemed to Inspect them. As she quickly started scrambling up the hill towards the party, Cyn was able to get a better look at her. Short blonde hair framed the woman’s round, fair-skinned face, and she was wearing a full set of chainmail armor. Although the armor itself seemed worse for wear. Once she was close enough to speak, Cyn could make out the color of her cloak. Red, like Sam’s. “By the Stones! Are you reinforcements?!”

  “I suppose we are. Is there water nearby, so we can get these fires put out?”

  The woman waved her arm dismissively to Scott’s question. “Forget about the fire! If we don’t push back the damn vampires, we are all dead anyway.” The Standard-Bearer nodded sharply, but before he could respond the woman was jogging back down the hill towards a pair of people locked in combat. “If anyone asks, tell them Alphina approves!”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Scott sighed and rubbed his face. “Guess we just have to check who we are fighting.”

  “The vampires all seem lower level than the Doppels we faced. At least the ones I can see. But the humans are even lower.” Hex shook his head while speaking, anxiously fiddling with one of his daggers.

  Cyn was busy sorting through the mass of health pools she could feel. Almost everyone she could feel needed help, to varying degrees. Between that and Spam, she was finding it hard to focus on anything else. Hex’s mention of their levels drew her into the conversation again. “We should split our attention, and get moving. There are a few people close to dying out there, and we won’t be able to help as many if we stay together.”

  Not waiting for approval, because frankly she wasn’t sure she would get it, Cyn made a break for someone that was bleeding health rapidly. She was pretty sure they were close by, anyway. As she reached up to Pet Spam, trying to calm the still-upset familiar - who dodged her hand and burrowed deeper into the pouch -, Cyn heard Scott break into angry curses behind her. The Standard-Bearer made no move to follow, instead heading in a different direction with Sam and Dana. Hex, however, did follow after her. The Seeker caught up just as she darted between two of the huts, slowing to match her pace as Cyn turned to raise an eyebrow at him.

  Hex shrugged, “I figure where there are dying people, there are enemies. I’ll focus on removing the vampires near your targets.”

  Nodding with a smile, Cyn pushed herself to move a little faster. The planning for this little village was clearly lacking, there were no real streets and the buildings seemed to be just haphazardly placed. Combined with the fact that the only light came from the huts actively burning, it was difficult to navigate. Cyn considered activating her diadem for a second, but dismissed the thought quickly. That would just make her a target unnecessarily, and likely cause her to have to slow down even more. Not to mention, it would clearly illuminate the corpses she was passing by. Right now she could not easily tell if they were human or vampire, or see details, and Cyn would rather keep it that way.

  Whoever she was feeling was getting worse by the second, and after zigzagging past a few more huts she found out why. As she rounded a corner, a fight that had clearly been going on a while came into view. Another broadsword-wielding warrior was locked in combat with a vampire using a pair of daggers just outside the door to a hut, this one miraculously not burning yet. Bodies littered the ground around the hut, thankfully still indistinguishable in the low light. It was the warrior’s low health that had drawn Cyn over here, and as she moved closer, she also caught sight of archers exchanging arrows on both sides of the battle.

  The human archers were hiding inside of the building, shooting through the window, explaining why the warrior was at the door. The vampires on the other hand were scattered about different alleyways and even on a roof nearby. The human archers weren’t in great shape, but at least the pair of them seemed stable. So long as their cover’s point of entry remained protected. Potential targets in sight, Hex surged past Cyn to take on the vampire the injured man was struggling with.

  As she arrived, Cyn threw out a Siphon on the man, followed by trying to usher him inside and out of arrow range. She also saw the vampire attempt to disengage from combat with Hex, turning her back to sprint away. A quick Inspect told Cyn that the level 17 vampire likely knew she was outmatched facing the Seeker, but attempting to retreat did not serve her any better. Hex overtook his target easily, and he did not hesitate to go for the kill before going after the fleeing vampire archers.

  Once inside, Cyn found herself facing a fully drawn arrow at point-blank range. Thankless job... The woman holding the bow was middle-aged, with wispy, brown hair pulled back into a bun. Any further details were obscured by the shadows in the hut, lit only from more distant fires.

  “Stand down, Juls. If they wanted us dead, her high-level friend would have gutted me, not the vampire.” It was the warrior who spoke as he slid down the wall and into a sitting position, panting for breath. Cyn might have improved his health, but there was not much she could do about the warrior’s flagging stamina.

  “Who are you?” As Juls lowered her bow slowly, backing up a few steps in the process, Cyn glanced around quickly to find the second archer, a very pale woman with dark hair, rapidly looking between her and out of the window, seeming to not be sure where she should be anticipating the next threat. At least her weapon wasn’t actively aimed at Cyn.

  With the apparent high risk of friendly-fire, Cyn decided she would try to use Siphon sparingly for now. The pair of archers weren’t at much risk anyway, hovering around half health. Mimicking what she had once seen Hex do, Cyn started cycling her potions in and out of her storage ring in one hand, looking for a stamina potion without additional effects while she answered. “Reinforcements. There are five of us, we split up to cover more ground.” Finding what she was looking for, she handed it to the warrior. “I’m Cyn.”

  “Geoff. That’s Juls and Taesh. Reinforcements? From where?” Geoff, the warrior, drank the potion after spending a few seconds looking at it.

  Cyn hesitated, remembering Kreeble’s reaction when he found out they were in a dungeon. But this was different. Not only was she aware there would be other parties on this floor, but she could also feel the health of these people. That was not something she was able to do with any of the System-created soul impressions in Cogtopia. “The System sent us here after the second floor. We barely got a warning we would be entering a floor-in-progress before arriving into...” She waved one hand around aimlessly. “Whatever is happening here.”

  The trio nodded along to her explanation, not seeming too surprised. “Bad luck for you. We’re screwed.” It was the second archer, Taesh, who surprised Cyn with the bout of such extreme negativity. Even worse was that neither of the other two spoke up to disagree.

  “I have no intentions of dying anytime soon. And there are other people in need of healing, so I’ll be going.” Cyn was annoyed now, and it bled heavily into her voice as she shook her head and carefully stepped back into the night. She might not know exactly what was going on yet, but a defeatist attitude definitely would not help. Hex felt pretty far away now, and she did not feel like she needed to wait for him to come back to move on. There was someone else at very low health she wanted to find.

  Despite her earlier decision to use Siphon sparingly, Cyn found herself absent-mindedly using it as she passed by an unfamiliar dark-skinned guardian in combat, distracted by her own thoughts. The guardian too, barely seemed to notice her. He was only level fourteen, and just barely holding his own against multiple vampires at least two levels above him. If we all got the same dungeon, they must not have completed the labyrinth. It was the only explanation she had for why everyone so far seemed to be at such a low level. The trio she left behind in the hut ranged between fourteen and sixteen, with Alphina being even lower at twelve. Cyn also felt a few other people who were not in immediate danger as she ran, but the sensation of the person she was looking for actively inching closer to death made her hesitant to stop and look for others.

  Thankfully, it did not take her much longer to find the location of the second person she felt near death. Unfortunately, that person appeared to be inside one of the burning huts. The wooden structure was entirely engulfed in flames, and the scene made Cyn hesitate. She wasn’t even sure how someone could survive inside of that.

  But the nagging feeling at the back of her mind, the sensation of someone right in front of her steadily losing what little health they had, was maddening. She might be able to reach them with Siphon, but that would not solve the problem. So instead, after scooping a loudly protesting Spam out of its pouch and setting it on the ground, Cyn took a few deep breaths and boosted herself with circulating mana before sprinting into the inferno.