The entrance to the Dungeon was a cave in a hill along the water’s edge. Stepping through and I found myself in a small cavern. It was lit by moss growing along the rough sides, the ceiling about fifteen feet high, a ten foot river flowed through the cavern, disappearing in a tunnel at the far end.

  The low ceiling might suck as it could limit my jumping around.

  Plants grew along the edge of the river and I could see glowing fish swimming with and against the river's current, that led deeper into the Dungeon. It looked pretty deep and if the Dungeons on Earth had taught me anything, there would be something dangerous swimming in the depths of the water.

  I didn’t get any odd feelings from the plants along the shore, the rocky ground sloping down to the water. No Resources in the first room, but at least there were things to kill.

  Frogs hopped around the back half of the cavern, both sides of the river. As big as medium-sized dogs, their skin glistened with water, their ribbits echoing through the cavern. It was loud. They talked over each other and at odd times, just non-stop ribbiting.

  MOSSY CAVERN FROG

  I saw about three shades of frog, with even more different colored spots. All were called the same. Six Mossy Cavern Frogs.

  WELCOME TO THE MOSSPOND COVE DUNGEON

  THE OBJECTIVE OF THE MOSSPOND COVE DUNGEON IS TO FIND THE MOSSPOND KELPIE STALLION AND DESTROY IT’S HEART. THE STALLION IS FOUND IN CAVERNS OF THE MOSSPOND COVE. YOU MUST FIND AND DESTROY THE MOSSPOND KELPIE STALLION.

  OBJECTIVES:

  DESTROY THE MOSSPOND KELPIE STALLION 0/1

  DESTROY MOSSY CAVERN FROGS 0/20

  DESTROY CAVE KELPIES 0/10

  TIME LIMIT:

  18 HOURS

  17:50:19

  Extending my arms, hands clasped, I cracked my knuckles, looking at the hopping patterns of the frogs. I crouched down, picking up a decent sized rock. Waiting until one of them was further away from the others, I threw the rock. It smacked into the rubbery flesh of the Frog. It ribbited, a short hop turning it to face me. Another rock smacked into its nose. With a ribbit that sounded like a growl, the Frog hopped toward me.

  I glanced past it, glad that no others were following. They just kept hopping around and ribbiting.

  It landed in front of me and I punched it in the side of the wide head. The rubbery flesh flowed around my fist as I pushed against it, not penetrating. The Frog shifted to the left a bit from the blow but not as much as I thought it would.

  I’d hurt the thing but just barely.

  It kept turning, and I hopped back. A long tongue shot out. I dodged, glancing back to see the tongue hit the cavern wall like a hammer. Hadn’t expected that. I jumped onto the top of the Frog and started punching, using my Motion Essence to keep the thing from moving. The rubbery flesh was good protection against blunt and bashing damage. I added Force to my punches, which added just the right edge to start cutting into the flesh. Once through and into the meaty parts underneath, it didn’t take long to kill the monster.

  YOU HAVE SLAIN A MOSSY CAVERN FROG

  YOU HAVE GAINED +10 TUTORIAL POINTS AND +10 MULTIVERSAL POINTS

  I shook Frog guts off my hand, jumping off the thing and looking at the other Frogs. I grabbed a rock and started the process over again.

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  ***

  Didn’t take long to kill all six. The Frogs dropped something called Frogskin. I wasn’t sure what my people could do with it, but they would have a bunch to experiment with. From the six dead Froggos I got four of the skins. Nothing else though.

  I’d had to jump the river as the Frogs had been spread out on both sides. I stayed on the left bank and walked into the next room. I entered a short tunnel, with none of the moss to brighten it up. The fish swimming in the river still glowed, so there was some light. I could see the next cavern about twenty feet away. Besides the fish, there was nothing in the tunnel.

  I stepped out into the next cavern. It was larger than the last, with four frogs spread out but all on this side of the river. The river curled to the left where it became a large pool against the wall, then continued across the cavern to the next tunnel opening.

  Picking up a stone, I threw it at my first Frog and started the sequence again.

  After the third, I was forced to move deeper into the cavern as the other Frogs were in the back half of the cavern. I had to slide down along the bank of the river, stopping around the pond, trying to get a good angle at one of the Frogs, without pulling another. I threw the rock, bouncing it off the Frog’s head, right above the eye.

  With that weird growling ribbit, the thing started hopping toward me.

  I set my feet, ready to start fighting, when I felt something behind me. There was a strange watery noise, drops of rain falling into the pond, the sound of water crashing down a fall. I dove to the side, but not quick enough, feeling a blast of water slam into my side. It knocked me forward, tumbling across the rocky cavern floor. My side hurt. Water could be hard when hit or thrown at a high velocity. It was like getting hit by a boulder.

  I barely got up before the Frog’s tongue came toward me. I rolled to the side, jumping up and staring at the pond. What had hit me?

  Water had grown out of the pond, the top taken in the shape of a horse. The front hooves kicked at the air, drops of water falling to the ground. Everything was made of water, but looked somewhat solid, only the lower half the stream of water.

  CAVE KELPIE

  It neighed, a front leg kicking out followed by a long stream of water. I dove to the side, the water striking the ground and cracking the rock. I stood up, feeling something smack into my leg, knocking me down. If I hadn’t had the field up to absorb most of the attack, the damn frog’s tongue would have broken my leg.

  I dodged another water stream from the Kelpie, jumping over a tongue attack. I pulled an axe out of my Storage as I landed on the ground, charging at the frog. I swung at its rubbery body, the axe managing to cut it with the Force I’d applied to the edge. The frog quick hopped up, driving me backwards. I saw the tongue coming out and slammed the axe into it. The frog ribbited in pain, a huge chunk cut out of the tongue.

  A blast of water slammed into my back, knocking me onto the Frog. It opened its wide mouth, trying to catch me and start chewing. I didn’t let it, punching the beast in an eye. It let out a loud ribbit, backing up. I turned, glaring at the Kelpie.

  It hadn’t moved, just floated on a column of water, front legs kicking at the air. It shot out another water stream, which I stepped to the side to avoid, smiling when the one-eyed Frog that had been trying to sneak up on me got slammed with the water.

  Before it could recover, I slammed the axe into the thing's head, cutting deep. Pulling the weapon out, I aimed for the other eye, which exploded under the force of the blade, which cut deep and found the monster’s brain. The body shook and it dropped to the ground, pus or something leaking from the wound in the eye. Whatever leaked out was gross and smelled.

  I dodged the next stream of water shot out by the Kelpie. There were puddles everywhere from the Kelpie, making the cavern floor slippery. I twisted out of the way of another shot, studying the Kelpie. It floated on its column of water near the shore. I’d never fought a Kelpie before. I’d heard of them of course, another one of those old Earth legends that had turned out to be real. The problem was that it wasn’t a foe that I was really equipped to deal with.

  How do you punch water?

  The Kelpie itself looked pretty solid, kind of. But it was also like ten feet off the ground, formed out of the column of water.

  Pushing some kinetic energy into my feet, I ran at the Kelpie, using the energy to push myself up. I slammed a fist into the chest of the horse body. My first splashed against water, drops flying all over the place, soaking my clothes. I fell backwards, landing on my feet, watching the wound seem to close in on itself, the water flowing and replacing the water I’d punched off the beast.

  I ran backwards, avoiding two water jets. Had to be careful not to go too deep into the cavern as I’d aggro the frogs and I didn’t want to fight them with the Kelpie-cannon behind me. It didn’t look like the Kelpie could do anything but shoot streams of water. My foot kicked a rock.

  Bending down, not taking my eyes off the Kelpie, I picked up a couple of rocks. Holding a couple of them in my left, I held one in the right. I’d played baseball back in the day and had a pretty good arm. It had only gotten better with the coming of the System.

  Pulling my arm back, I slung it forward and let the rock go.

  It flew across the cavern and slammed into the Kelpie’s head. Water exploded from the impact. The horse made a strange wet neighing noise.

  I threw another and then another. More water disappeared from the Kelpie. I watched the small wounds closing as the water flowed over them, but then noticed that the Kelpie looked a little smaller. It only had a limited amount of watery substance to use.

  Now I knew how to kill it.