The Dungeon Survival Guide, Rule 4: Preparati the right gear, potions, and equipment – all the gold in the bank is not going to help you if you find yourself with too little armor to tank a hit, or in desperate need of a health potion because your healer got disrupted. Study what is known about the dungeon before entering and have a good pn for each boss. Make sure everybody knows the pn.

  - The Unexplored Lands, by Lyeneru Silverleaf, Elven Pathfinders Guild.

  Mato Mato shifted impatiently from paw to paw, peering ily into the darkness. He was gettier at seeing down here, Survival Instinct progressively enhang his natural senses as it leveled up.

  He felt it through the ground first – the telltale rhythmic vibration of a heavy elemental of bone running fast. In the distance up ahead, the light flickered and suddenly, he could hear the thudding ch of bone as emerged from behind a ruined building at a dead sprint, his light magic h above him and his catch.

  Mato growled, ing forward, but mindful of the range limits of the healers’ magic. The Piercer Scorpion was gaining on , inch by inch, but his friend had calcuted his pull correctly. As soon as he got inte, Mato charged.

  He thrilled with the rush as his movement skill accelerated his massive body across the ripped and tstones, until he crashed into the powerful elemental, unleashing his Challenging Roar. He looked up at the scorpion’s spears – its main attack on – judging the timing carefully. As soon as Survival Instinct prickled in the back of his mind, he blocked, left and right, damping the damage and diverting the spear strikes with his armored shoulders to crash through the stone underfoot. Even though he had successfully blocked both attacks, the Piercer Scorpion’s strikes were so deadly that a substantial amount of damage bypassed his guard. And as he felt the strikes, he also felt something else.

  Battle Trance.

  Despite the blurring speed of the Piercer Scorpion’s coiled strike, his mind stilled, suddenly calm and somehow serene in the face of the deadly attack. And with it, the sensation of his regeion stepped up in two distinct jumps. It was the first time he had experie, and it was unlike anything he had imagined from the terse text description. While it veyed no material advantage in bat, other thaamina regeion boost, he felt as if his mind had expanded somehow, creating an enormous amount of space within which he could choose how to fight – free of extraneous distras. He blocked effortlessly.

  Let’s see what this skill do. It was not just Battle Trance he was trying out for the first time. He had earhe Living Rend adva for Bestial bat too, and now that he had experiehe Battle Trance, he was eager to see what he could do with Bestial bat.

  He attacked with his empowered Swipe, simultaneously feeding mana to Brutal Restoration ah to his Bestial bat’s new advahe health was ripped away from within him in a pierg pang, p his magic. Holy crap! Instead of his cws boung iively off the dense bone armor exoskeleton, he crushed and pulverized the ptes with each double-enhanced melee strike. His restoration magic settled within him, infusing his muscles and bones with the energy of his nature magic. It pulsed, a shog rush of power that coursed through his body – a visceral respoo the rength of his attack.

  At the first taste of the Acolyte’s healing magic, Mato struck again, and once again he maximized his Swipe with both his powerful enhas. His life ripped a an eveer attack crushing boes and sending a satisfying shower of splinters and fragments spraying into the air in front of his face.

  It’s strohe sed time. Nice! Just as had predicted, his Living Rend would progressively weaken the armor of whatever he attacked, making subsequent attacks more and more powerful. Keeping a close eye on his health and the state of the healing magic supp him, he struck again.

  In a blink, an indest arrow buried itself inside a sundered gash in the armor, leaving only the fletg showing, and Malika appeared out of nowhere, striking with her flurry of punches, sending more and more shards of bone flying. He roared another challeo ehe monster would not get distracted, but he could see the huge, happy grin on Malika’s face as her strikes nded effectively, rather than being denied by the previously impervious bone armor.

  This is more like it! He bared his fangs in a broad bear smile, being more and mgressive with his new powerful skill advance, spending his health more and more freely as he learo bance his restoration and trust the healing from the Acolytes.

  “That’s the st one,” announced as the test in the seemingly endless stream of dungeon bone elementals colpsed to the ground. They had been at it for a couple of hours non-stop, and had to admit Mato’s new skill was incredible. He had been pulling the monsters from the ruined city’s inner ring o a time – nothing like the first day’s chaotining battle – but they were still putting them down much faster. As soon as Mato ehe bone arman to shred, and his arrows could find gaps through the previously impervious boes. Sure, he had to aim better, but the bination of his dexterity and Eyes of the Arade that a ch. Mostly. One rebounding arrow had taken a k out of Malika’s left ear on the ast and he had received a deserved earful. That wasn’t even my fault!

  “What’s ?” Mato asked, having shifted out of his Bear Form.

  “I couldn’t get close enough to be certain, but there are quite a few flying things around the bridge leading to the sed ring. It looks like a vulnerable crossing, and I don’t want to fight anything on the bridge, so I’ll try bringing everything here.”

  He shivered, remembering the stark terror of falling off the suspended ruins and into the darkness, and he had absolutely zero iion of risking that a sed time.

  “Wyverns?” Ali asked.

  “Yes, as far as I could see. It looks like some of them and some giant bats fighting with the dungeon monsters. I’m guessing they’re flying up from whatever is down below.”

  “I’ll make my cure circle, then,” Ali said. They had set up an eborate pn for how they inteo deal with the flying monsters, and most importantly, the poison. Ali was already hard at work inscribing the Runic Circle she had learned, and she would mark it clearly so that everyone could see it. Everyone had a couple of antidote potions for emergencies, and Ali had eve several hours with him training her minions’ archery skills.

  Ohe runic circle was plete, gave Ali a few pointers on how to best take advantage of the ruined buildings when pg her archers before he headed out into the darkness once more.

  ***

  Time to hunt. sprinted out in total silence, ing the shadows and darkness around his body with his Eclipse skill. The tral pza around the library and most of the ruined buildings on the inner ring that had been crawling with bone elementals – drones and scorpions – were all now eerily quiet as he sprihrough.

  This whole level of the Dal’mohran ruins was holy a miraagid engineering. They had emerged from the enormous drical pilr of the library onto a broad stone pza – a disk of foundation stone half the size of Myrin’s Keep that encircled the library and upon which were endless ruined buildings in various stages of colpse.

  Past the edge of the pza was the abyss into which he had fallen. But beyond that again, suspended in the darkness, was an enormous st that bore the ruins of another city’s-worth of buildings. It hovered there, defying gravity, hanging from giant stone pilrs that seemed woefully ie to the task, ected to the pza by arched bridges. A, it still stood after three thousand years of and ruin. Incredible. Such was the power of the as.

  Past the middle ring hovered yet another lower ring, half shattered, and bearing some truly enormous stone structs, the likes of which he couldn’t even begin to fathom. He couldn’t wait to get close enough to explore them.

  As he drew closer to the narrow stone bridge that spahe gulf between the inner pza and the middle ring suspended in the darkness below, he pulled up and stopped, sing the skies and the open spaces. He could make out wheeling forms flying through the darkness, some looking like the giant bats he had seen before, and others sp the emerald-green scales of the poison wyverns. They engaged in bat with other flying forms or divebombed the ruined buildings crawling with monsters below them.

  Undead! The thought sent a chill through him as his eyes began pig out the details. Many of the flying shapes wheeling overhead in an aerial battle with the bats and wyverns appeared to be skeletons. These were not quite the size of the raid boss they had awoken in the library, but they were clearly the same kind of monster. Milling about on the ground in the tral ring below – like ants on a disturbed – he could make out shambling corpses and skeletons shooting arrows ic at the wheeling creatures above. The corpses of wyverns and bats on the ground bore sileament to the success of the dungeon’s undead horde. The streaks of bloed across the bone-encrusted pavement presented a chilling indicator, pointing to a potential source for all the undead.

  He squinted, urgently sulting his Explorer skill, but his advanced identification insisted that these were ‘only’ dungeon spawned monsters, and they weren’t about to walk into the secret ir of a Neancer or worse. Maybe. rust a dungeon. Then, he gnced guiltily at Ali. Sorry.

  Carefully, he studied the chaotiation of the ongoing battle. As soon as he fired on something, his presence would be revealed, and he did not want to attract more than the very minimum number of monsters.

  There! His eyes picked out a group of three shapes flying far overhead. Two sleek, graceful wyverns flew zy circles, followed by the agile jagged flitting trajectory of a bat. Each circle moved them closer and closer to his position, and soon enough…

  He nocked an arrow, sighting down the shaft with his enhanced eyesight. It would be close, but with his enhanced range, he should be able to make the shot. Just one more circle. As the monsters drew closer, he rexed, holding the b taut till the st possible moment. And the it fly.

  The arrow shot from his bow with a brief swooshing noise, and he held it carefully in his mind, waiting as it soared up into the darkness. As soon as it was close enough, he unleashed his light magitment and a brilliant fre of light sho from the sky. The arrow smmed into the fnk of the bat, elig a shrill screed all three monsters instantly turned and dived.

  turned and sprinted down the a street. It was quite a run back to the waiting group, and he hoped that the monsters would not lose i halfway there.

  As he reached the end of the first street, the air about him suddenly shimmered and an intense wave of dizziness crashed through his mind. His vision bed around the edges, vibrating angrily as his field of vision shrunk to nothing.

  Ugh. What the fuck was that? He came to; his face pressed down into the stony ground, his head feeling like it was about to burst with pain. He groaned, but a deep roar behind him made him spring to his feet in a fsh, ign the shooting pain stabbing through his head.

  A searing bst of liquid sprayed across his back, spshing everywhere, burning at his eyes and tearing at his lungs.

  You have been afflicted with Poison. +3 Poison damage per sed.Poison – Duration: 10 minutes. t: 1Your Poison has increased to 3 (+2).

  Fuck!

  Ign the pain, forced his battered and poisoned body into a sprint. The bat swooped down and opes mouth letting out what looked like a silent scream. The air rippled and shimmered as the attack tore past him, plug at his arm and sending waves of pain and dizziness c through him far out of proportion to the physical attack.

  Down to two hundred and fifty health. Avoid the bats. Noted. He charged dowreet, dodging around a house to avoid aream of poison. He pulled out an antidote potion. He was already taking nine damage per sed, and it was far enough to run that not even the health potion he had in his ring would save him.

  I hope this works. He dowhe green liquid, f himself not to gag at the foul taste. A flicker of wings in his peripheral visio him diving for the dubious cover of a ruined building, and the space he had just occupied shimmered with the bat’s almost invisible ultrasonic attack.

  197 health…

  His chime sounded.

  Poison weakened.

  He sprinted out of his hiding spot and dowreet, making evasive dire ges whenever he could. He k would slow him down, but aun would be fatal. As he turhe er, a twi of toxic green spshed across the wall beside him sending a deadly spray sh into the air. He ducked into a darkened doorway and dove out of the window and into the street oher side as the shadowy bat darted overhead.

  148…

  Poison weakened.

  He sprinted along the alleyway, leaping over broken spines and ridges of bone, and dodging sideways to avoid another sweeping wyvern attack. His zigzag path through the buildings was the only reason he hadn’t been hit, but it made the path back take a lot more time.

  Time he did not have.

  94…

  Poison removed.

  He ducked inside a house while the bat and the two wyverns circled overhead. With oack of poison removed and the others doing reduced damage, he had a little more time. gnced out of the window, but his three pursuers were simply cirg overhead, waiting for him to emerge.

  I don’t have time to wait them out, he realized. His health was still dropping, and they seemed tent to stake out his hiding spot.

  63…

  I o make a run for it! He was rapidly approag the danger zone, where any hit would bee instantly fatal. He sprang from a side door, dodging around a house he recalled from his scouting earlier, but he wasn’t quite quiough – the shimmer in the air sent a jolt of pain ripping through his arm and spraying his blood on the wall as he rushed past. Gritting his teeth, he forced the waves of dizziness down.

  28…

  careened around the er onto the st street and sprinted for his life. In the distance, he could see his friends waiting.

  It’s too far. He k with a sense of certain dread. The wyverns and the bat were still in hot pursuit, and he could still feel the searing toxins tearing him apart from the iill, he ran, sprinting as fast as he could, his breathing already ragged.

  11…

  He was still more than fifty yards out.

  6…

  With a thunderous roar, Mato charged him, tearing across the open square and sending dust flying with the force of his accelerated speed.

  He looked at his friend sadly ahe pulse of the poison.

  6…

  What? He had definitely felt the poison tearing at him – in fact, it was still doing so. But his health refused to budge. Mato spun as he sprinted past and began following him even though he was falling behind. What the – Mato?

  Oh! How did he know? He slowed down a touch, making sure he didn’t outrun his friend. He had fotten Mato’s incredible ability to redirect damage to himself. As long as he remained close enough…

  Malika was also in motion, sprinting across the square to join them, sending searing healing through his body and he finally reached the marked Runic Circle and stopped within it, amid the storm of arrows, bone spears, lightning, fire, and are magic that Ali unleashed toward the monsters closing in.

  Poison removed.

  The soft warmth of holy magic settled into his body, like the kiss of a warm sun on his skin, and his health surged, his arm knit itself back together, and his headache ebbed and faded.

  That was way too close. Damn! He mentally sent a thank-you to all his friends for saving him. Agairieved his bow from his ring and began unleashing his arrows. Time to make these shots t.

  Mato Ugh, this is stupid!

  Mato stood in the middle of the battlefield while all the a raged on in the air above, well out of reach. After the first near disaster, they had moved their ambush spot much closer to the bridge and made certain had a few more antidote potions. This had radically improved the safety of their fights and now they were tearing through the bats and wyverns rapidly.

  He angrily watched the test group wheel around, diving toward Ali’s minions or to attack. They didn’t even bother with him, even standing in the open.

  I’m just standing here doing nothing. It was humiliating. His only useful skill in this battle was Arboreal Sanctuary. And while he had saved with it during the first fight, he was nated to rushing around the battlefield, giving whichever of Ali’s minions had been hit with poison a little extra time to get a heal. He stooped down and scooped up a fist-sized rock. Winding up, he threw it at the annoying bat with all his might. It made a satisfyingly loud whoosh and vanished from sight, but the pesky bat simply dodged, taunting him with a shrill screech.

  He tossed several more, but he just didn’t have the dexterity or skills fed bat. Frustrated, he switched to Bear Form, simply to have access to his Charge skill.

  If only they would fight a little closer to the ground… Ali could send me up there on one of her barriers – but if I fell, I’d be a ton of bloody bear pancake. No thanks. Even the idea of floating high above the safety of the ground on a flimsy transparent disk made his stomach lurfortably.

  As if in ao his prayer, a rge crack of lightning lit up the sky and one of the bats spiraled out of trol, crashing to the ground nearby.

  With a surge of excitement, Mato charged, tearing toward the downed monster and his ce to finally be useful in this terrible fight.

  The bat turo face him, and he received a chilling premonition of danger before the air rippled and shimmered, sending pain stabbing through his mind.

  Awareness crashed bato his sciousness. Mato found himself spread-eagled on the ground with a splitting headache. He opened his eyes just in time to see the bat taking off, returning to the air beyond his reach.

  Fuck these fliers! This is totally stupid.

  timewalk