Chaney fished out one of his heal candies and popped it in his mouth. The energy from the candy flowed to the slash across his stomach and to various burns and scrapes he had acquired. The slash, thankfully, wasn’t too deep but it hurt enough that Chaney would have screamed in pain before all the stealth training he had done with the moon cat. While he waited for his wound to seal together, Chaney considered his next move. The majority of the bandits are probably in the otherworld worldlet by now, so we would have to hide in the lava worldlet until they left. He thought. Better to head back to the safe tunnels and look for stragglers.

  “Well, let’s go.” Chaney said. He and the cat turned to walk upstream to escape the lava tunnels. They had gone nearly halfway when the stream of water reduced to a trickle and began to bubble. “Run!” Chaney screamed. He pressed one hand firmly to his stomach and sprinted up the tunnel as fast as he could. The moon cat yowled in pain as the water on the ground began to boil. The pair struggled to breath as hot steam replaced air in the tunnel. Chaney urged the moon cat to go ahead, since she could run faster than him, but she refused. Together, they raced across the burning ground and into the acid rain tunnels. The man and the cat fell to the ground and panted in the cooler air. Chaney pulled out a handful of healing candies and gave three to the moon cat. He could see the blisters and burns on the pads of her feet and feel her pain through their bond. Chaney took only one candy for himself, since his footwraps had partially protected his feet. The pair lay on the peat floor of the tunnel until the discomfort of the sideways rain was greater than the pain in their feet.

  —————

  Sajaa swung her saber through an owl’s wing and into the neck of one of those miserable spider cats. She kicked at the pair of ice rabbits that threatened to trip her and leaned backwards to avoid being hit by a frog tongue. The attacking dungeon monsters were beginning to overwhelm the retreating bandits, despite being limited in their approach by the size of the tunnels. Sajaa briefly wished they hadn’t broken so many of the useless stone walls that partially blocked so many of the nearby tunnels–smaller areas were always easier to defend.

  “Back!” She shouted. “Back to the next intersection! If you can’t stay ahead of me then lay down and die!” The goblin woman had shouted this command multiple times already during the retreat. A few bandits valiantly hauled their last few crates of treasure, but Sajaa wouldn’t shed many tears at loosing either the bandits or the treasure. She backed down the tunnel, slashing and kicking at the monsters to make space.

  “Sajaa, this is the last intersection. We’re almost to the cavern.” Lochock reported as he stabbed out with a flint-tipped spear.

  “Finally!” Sajaa let lose a Flurry of chops, killing everything at least ten strides in front of her. “Run to the exit! If you can carry it, it’s yours but I’m not hanging around to kiss you goodby!” Sajaa turned and shoved her way past the bandits who suddenly had a lot more help carrying the crates. In the cavern under the exit floor, she circled a few times, killing all the spawned monsters before climbing the ladder to the floor above.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  The situation was much the same on the exit floor. Monsters spawned in incredible numbers. Carcasses were piled so high in places that bandits were crouched behind the piles for defense. Sajaa kept monsters away from the tunnel entrance until Lochock appeared. “The rest are dead.” He reported. “They refused to leave that last crate.”

  “Greedy fools!” Sajaa grumbled. “Retreat!” She yelled as loud as she could. “Retreat to the exit!” She and Lochock acted as rearguard as the bandits carried or dragged the treasure they had managed to bring up from the tunnels. It was more treasure than the bandits had ever had, so far as Sajaa knew, and it was less than half of what they had gathered from the dungeon. Sajaa considered how fortunate they were that the gold they had repeatedly stolen from the underwater floor had been stored closest to the exit.

  The bandits trickled through the exit one by one. It was a retreat, but not an uncontrolled retreat. The bandits fought defensively and covered for the bandits with heavier burdens. Soon, it was only Sajaa and Lochock left. Right before they stepped backwards out of the dungeon, Shtorrr, the huge troll rushed in from the side, smashing half a dozen monsters with each step.

  At first, Sajaa thought the troll was carrying Punch’s corpse, but the man was using his spear to stab at monsters trying to attack the troll from behind. Sajaa shoved Lochock through the dungeon exit and held the creatures back until Shtorrr and Punch were safely through. The goblin woman yelled a few choice and vulgar insults at the monsters and the dungeon in general, then she too stepped through the exit.

  —————

  Yrryth cried tears of stone as she gently pet the head of the giant snake. The paralysis from Violet’s spell had worn off, so she had needed to pin it to the floor by projecting stone out of the walls and ceiling. The snake continued to struggle and its eyes wouldn’t focus on anything. The dungeon fairy stood nearby, awkwardly shuffling his feet, but remained silent.

  After long minutes of weeping. Yrryth wiped her face and turned towards the fairy. She mimed playing a flute. The fairy looked confused. Yrryth tried to hum one of the fairies tunes, the ones that constantly played throughout the tunnels. The fairy looked a bit afraid at the noise. Yrryth glared at the fairy.

  “I don’t understand.” He said.

  Yrryth kicked the floor and a tube of stone rose up. She broke it off at the base and held it to her mouth like the fairy’s flute. She pretended to prance about like a useless fairy while wiggling her fingers along the stone tube. She stopped and pointed at the dungeon fairy. He still looked confused, so she shoved the stone tube into his hands and glared harder.

  “Oh!” He said when enlightenment finally reached him. “You want me to play my flute? You think that will help the snake?” He summoned his real flute from wherever he kept all his things and held it up. He dropped the stone flute behind him.

  Yrryth nodded and turned back to resume petting the giant snake’s head. The Fairy had to play loudly to be heard over the noise of constantly spawning dungeon creatures and the hissing of the snake.

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