The walk back toward the Warren felt… different.

  Yesterday, they’d taken this same road with tight nerves and limited expectations, measuring each step and wondering if they’d even have any success. Today, their strides were surer. The weight of new enchanted gear sat right on their bodies, not awkward or intrusive, but settled, as if it had always belonged there.

  Josh rolled his shoulders as they walked. The ache from yesterday was still there, but underneath it was something else. Strength that didn’t feel borrowed.

  They all felt it.

  Bhel moved with an easy, coiled readiness, beard braided for battle, his steps carrying more spring than before. Brett walked straighter, eyes clearer, thoughts clicking into place with unfamiliar precision. Perberos’ gaze swept the street with heightened sharpness, awareness stretching effortlessly. And Carcan… Carcan carried herself with calm confidence, her new jewellery catching the light as she moved, her presence grounded in a way it hadn’t been yesterday.

  A few adventurers lounging near the outer wall recognised them as they passed.

  “Hey!” someone called. “You’re the lot that went in yesterday, yeah?”

  Josh lifted a hand in greeting. “That’s us.”

  “Didn’t think I’d see you back so soon,” another said with a grin. “Guess the Warren didn’t chew you up after all.”

  “Yet,” Brett replied dryly, earning a round of chuckles.

  Bhel thumped his chest once in salute as they passed. Perberos gave a short nod, already scanning the crowd out of habit, while Carcan offered a polite smile to a pair of mages who paused mid-conversation to openly assess her robes with interest.

  The outer approach to the dungeon was as busy as ever.

  The stone walls loomed ahead, dark and scarred, banners marking the Warren’s entrance snapping lazily in the breeze. Adventurers queued in loose lines, some tightening straps and checking blades, others murmuring to themselves or loudly pretending not to be nervous.

  Josh took it all in, then exhaled slowly. They joined the line without hesitation. The low hum of anticipation settled over them.

  “Same plan as yesterday,” Carcan said quietly. “Clean run. Focused. No heroics,” she said, pointedly looking at Josh.

  Brett glanced sideways at Josh.

  Josh raised both hands. “I heard that.”

  When it was their turn, they stepped forward together, boots crossing the faintly glowing boundary etched into the stone floor.

  Dungeon magic washed over them. But instead of dragging them forward immediately, the world paused. Light unfolded in front of them, forming a translucent pane that hovered in the air.

  Warren Dungeon Access

  Select Destination Floor:

  ? First Floor – Upper Warren

  ? Second Floor – Lower Caverns

  Brett let out a low whistle. “That’s new.”

  “Makes sense,” Perberos said. “Saves time.”

  Carcan didn’t hesitate. Her fingers hovering for only a heartbeat before pressing against the glowing text.

  First Floor – Upper Warren

  The selection locked in with a soft, decisive chime.

  For half a second, nothing happened.

  Then the sensation hit.

  Josh’s stomach lurched violently, like being dropped off a cliff while standing still. The world folded inward, light stretching and twisting as the ground vanished beneath them. Brett swore as the force slammed through him. The familiar lurch in their stomachs hit the moment they crossed the threshold. The dungeon’s twisting sensation tumbled through their senses, but this time they remained steadier, the memory of their first stumble-through helping them brace mentally.

  As the vertigo eased, the Kobold Warren reformed around them: the dim torch-lit tunnels, the musky scent of earth, and the distant echoes of scraping claws. Stone rushed back into existence. Cold air snapped into their lungs. The scent of earth, dust, and faint copper flooded Josh’s senses as reality snapped into place.

  They stood once more within the first floor of the Warren.

  Rough-hewn tunnels stretched away from the arrival point, torchlight flickering against stone walls scored by claw marks and old pick lines. Somewhere in the distance, something skittered.

  Josh tightened his grip on his shield, feeling the weight of it, the solidity and smiled faintly. “Well,” he said, tightening his grip on his sword. “Round two.”

  They set off down the same winding path they had taken the day before, Perberos leading with silent steps, eyes scanning for disturbances in the dirt.

  "Tracks look about the same as yesterday," he murmured. "Fresh ones, kobolds move constantly, but the paths are familiar."

  "Let’s hope they’re not all upgraded or something," Brett muttered.

  The first ambush came at almost the exact same junction as before, but the difference was obvious the moment the kobolds burst from cover. They were leaner now. Meaner. Their movements were sharp and practiced, not the frantic scrabbling of desperate vermin. Bone spears gleamed with ugly metal tips, edges uneven and dark with old stains.

  “Left group, six! Right, four!” Perberos snapped, already moving.

  A spear screamed toward Josh’s face. He didn’t flinch.

  The new shield came up on instinct, the reinforced surface catching the blow with a solid clang instead of the bone-rattling jolt he remembered from last time. The impact still shoved him back half a step, but the force bled harmlessly through the shield instead of his arm. The spearhead skidded away, sparks biting off the rim.

  Josh grinned despite himself. “Yeah. That’s better.”

  “They’re getting bold,” Brett hissed, fire blooming in his palms. The mana answered him eagerly. Where yesterday it had felt slippery and wild, threatening to surge out of control, now it flowed like a steady current. Heat gathered cleanly, tightly, no wasted energy. Brett shaped it without thinking, threads of flame coiling between his fingers as naturally as breath.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Bold?” Bhel roared, charging past Josh. “They’re getting crushed!”

  The clash was immediate and vicious.

  Josh planted himself at the choke point, shield locked forward. Spears slammed into it again and again, metal screeching as kobolds stabbed desperately for gaps that were no longer there. One spear glanced off the enchanted face and snapped at the haft, the broken shaft spinning uselessly to the floor.

  Josh drove forward, shield-first.

  The impact caved in a kobold’s chest with a wet crunch. Bone popped. The creature folded around the blow, coughing blood before Josh finished it with a brutal downward strike that split skull and snout alike.

  Fire lanced past his shoulder.

  Brett’s spells punched through the melee in precise bursts, flames slipping cleanly between allies. A kobold on the right shrieked as fire wrapped around its torso, skin blistering and blackening before it collapsed, twitching and smoking. Brett barely noticed, already pulling mana again, the strain minimal, the control intoxicating.

  Perberos was a ghost on the flanks.

  His movements were faster now, sharper. He didn’t rush his shots. He didn’t need to.

  Each arrow left the string with a quiet thrum and found something vital. An eye socket. A throat. The gap beneath a raised arm. One kobold spun as an arrow punched clean through its knee, another dropped mid-leap when a shaft buried itself to the fletching in its jaw. There was no wasted motion, no correction after the fact. Just clean, lethal accuracy.

  Carcan stood just behind the line, calm amid the chaos. Light flared from her hands in controlled bursts, barriers snapping into place just in time to turn glancing blows. When a kobold slipped through, she answered with a pulse of radiant magic to heal any wounds.

  Then there was Bhel.

  The dwarf hit the kobolds like a natural disaster.

  His axes rose and fell in a relentless rhythm, biting deep, tearing free in sprays of blood. One kobold tried to parry and lost both weapon and arm in the same swing. Another took an axe to the ribs and screamed until Bhel kicked it off the blade and crushed its skull under his boot.

  The fight was savage.

  Within moments, the junction was a mess of bodies, broken spears, and darkening blood pooled in the cracks of the stone.

  Silence crept back in, broken only by heavy breathing.

  Josh lowered his shield, its surface smeared with blood and dents that had not made it through. His arms burned, but they held steady.

  “Stronger,” he said, wiping gore from his cheek. “No question.”

  Bhel snorted, rolling his shoulders. “Aye. That lot almost scratched me.”

  “They did scratch you,” Carcan said, eyes flicking to the torn leather and the red line beneath.

  “Almost mattered,” the dwarf shot back.

  Brett flexed his fingers, feeling the lingering warmth of mana without the usual ache. “I could do this all day,” he muttered, half in awe.

  Perberos retrieved an arrow from a corpse, wiped it clean on fur, and slid it back into his quiver. “Good,” he said. “Because they’ll come faster now.”

  Without another word, they pressed deeper into the Warren.

  They cut through the next stretch of tunnels with a rhythm that surprised them all.

  Another patrol of kobolds rushed them from a side passage. Four this time. Josh stepped in, shield up, and the fight was over in seconds. One bounced off his shield hard enough to snap its neck on the wall. Bhel split another from collarbone to hip. Brett scorched the last two where they stood, the smell of burned flesh lingering long after.

  “Was that it?” Brett asked, lowering his hands.

  Perberos wiped his blade clean. “They’re sloppy. Rushing.”

  “Because we’re faster,” Josh said. “And louder.”

  “Stronger,” Bhel corrected, grinning beneath his beard.

  Two chambers later, it happened again. Then again.

  Each ambush collapsed quicker than the last. Kobolds tried the same tricks, the same angles, and paid for it. Josh barely felt the impacts anymore. Brett didn’t have to stop to breathe between spells. Perberos barely missed.

  “Careful,” Carcan warned quietly as they walked. “Confidence becomes carelessness.”

  Josh nodded, though his grip tightened on the shield. “I know. But it’s good to feel like we belong down here.”

  They turned a corner and the dungeon answered.

  The tunnel widened abruptly, stone opening into a rough-hewn chamber with a ceiling lost in shadow. The air changed, thick and stale, carrying the sound of hushed clicks and low growls.

  Eyes bloomed in the darkness. Not a handful. Not a patrol.

  Dozens.

  Kobolds spilled out from behind broken pillars and jagged rock piles. Fifteen at least, maybe more still lurking beyond sight. These wore scraps of scavenged armour and carried real weapons. Sharpened metal. Crude, but deadly.

  Brett swallowed. “Oh. That’s… fun.”

  Josh didn’t hesitate. “Tight formation. No chasing.”

  The kobolds charged as one.

  The impact was immediate and savage.

  Josh braced, feet grinding against stone as the front line smashed into him. Spears and blades slammed into his shield, the reinforced metal ringing again and again, sparks flashing with every strike. The force drove into his shoulders, down his spine, but the shield held. He shoved back, bashing one kobold hard enough to cave in its snout, then caught another on the rim and crushed its throat.

  Fire roared past him.

  Brett worked in short, brutal bursts, flame punching holes through the press without burning too wide. Kobolds screamed as fire tore through armour gaps, skin blistering and peeling. He cut the spells off cleanly every time, mana flowing steady, controlled.

  “They’re circling!” Bhel shouted.

  He vanished into motion, blades flashing as he slipped along the edges of the melee. A tendon severed here. A throat opened there. One kobold lunged and lost both legs at the knee, collapsing in a wet heap before Bhel finished it with a quick thrust through the neck.

  Carcan stood just behind Josh, staff blazing with soft gold light. Barriers flared into existence as strikes slipped through the press, turning killing blows into glancing ones. Healing warmth washed over torn skin and bruised muscle, over and over, her jaw clenched with concentration.

  Then the numbers started to tell.

  A kobold leapt from above, slamming onto Josh’s back. He staggered, nearly losing his footing as claws scrabbled for his neck.

  “Josh!” Carcan cried.

  Josh slammed backward into the wall, crushing the creature between shield and stone. It shrieked once before going limp.

  Two kobolds darted low and stabbed at Brett’s legs. One blade sliced leather and drew blood.

  “Damn it,” Brett hissed, stumbling.

  Fire erupted outward in a desperate pulse. One kobold caught it full in the face and dropped screaming, skin sloughing away. The other was dragged down by Bhel, who buried an axe in its spine and wrenched it free with a snarl.

  “Stay behind the shield!” Josh barked.

  Perberos ducked under a wild swing and nearly paid for it. A blade flashed toward his ribs.

  Josh caught it with a shield bash that shattered bone and sent the kobold tumbling.

  Carcan cried out as a spear nicked her arm. Blood welled. The light around her faltered for a heartbeat.

  That was enough.

  Bhel took a spear clean through the thigh. He didn’t slow. He grabbed the shaft, roared, and ripped it free in a spray of blood. Before the kobold could retreat, Bhel reversed the weapon and drove it straight through the creature’s chest, pinning it to the floor. He tore the spear loose and charged back into the fray, limping but unstoppable.

  The chamber erupted into chaos. Screams pierced the air, the acrid tang of blood mingling with the dust of stone. Metal clanged against metal in relentless rhythm. Josh’s arms screamed under the assault, shield shuddering with every blow, but he pressed forward, slashing with his sword through the frenzied mass, each strike sending shocks up his shoulders and sparks against the walls.

  One by one, the kobolds fell.

  The last charged blindly, shrieking in panic. Josh stepped forward and smashed it flat against the stone.

  Silence crept back in, broken only by ragged breathing and the drip of blood onto rock.

  They stood amid the carnage, dust settling around them.

  Brett bent over, hands on his knees. “That,” he wheezed, “was too many.”

  Bhel planted an axe in the floor and leaned on it. “Aye. Too many.”

  Josh straightened slowly, shield heavy in his hands. “But we held.”

  Carcan nodded, already moving. “Barely. Hold still.”

  Warm light flowed as she worked, knitting cuts, easing burns, closing punctures. None of them spoke until the worst of the pain faded.

  Somewhere deeper in the Warren, something shifted.