It didn't take long for the rest of the raiding teams to arrive, as there were enough of us that we couldn't move terribly fast. After arriving and learning of the three deaths, I watched as two whole teams just gave up. Nobody stopped them, but it was easy to tell that none of us would be trusting them with watching anyone's back in the future.

The dead were sent back with the two retreating teams, a fate I doubted all of us would recieve. Being buried as a dungeoneer was both a blessing, and an honor, as it meant there was at least enough success to bring your body back. A failure meant never seeing the corpse, as the dungeon would take them. How this was done, nobody knew. Until the corpse was abandoned by humans, it would remain where it fell. My own guess was that the monsters took them.

One of the senior team leaders stepped out from the group. He was a larger man, mostly around the middle, with a bald head and a scar across his left eye. "Alright, it looks like this is where we start dancing with the bastards. The raid team will split into groups of three teams, with one of the veteran parties in each team. From there, we'll commence the sweep of the third floor, all the way until it's clear. From there, make your way down to the fourth floor, and head for the fort. That's where we'll reconvene, before moving out to destroy the main hub of skeleton activity. Don't leave until you have a veteran party with you. I'm sure I don't have to explain to you lot who qualifies at this point. Good luck, and keep your heads." He stepped back toward his party, who had already pulled together two other teams I'd seen before, who mostly explored on the third and fourth floors like my team had been doing.

"Blueberries, you're running with Nightshade." The hand on my shoulder tightened slightly in its grip as Nick spoke, his tone brooking no argument from the rest of us. I saw a large man holding what looked like a giant slab of solid iron haul over another party, herding them like sheep as he went. It turned out their team name was Kingsfoil. "I'm gonna be keeping an eye on all of you if I can, but make sure not to get careless. Careless dungeoneers get dead pretty quick, from my personal experience. Mages and clerics in the middle, rangers form a secondary perimeter, and tanks up front. Keep this formation, keep your wits about you, and we'll be fine." Nick pulled us all away from the other teams, getting us into his desired formation.

Serena was enamored with Mary, Nightshade's mage, who was well known for her destructive capabilities, yet reasonable temperament. Lilly was being shadowed by their cleric, a man whose name I couldn't recall, partially because when I saw him, he almost never spoke. Vance was speaking with Nightshade's tank, although I couldn't hear anything they were talking about, as Nick had put me near the back of the group, to make sure nothing snuck up on us.

Before we set out, Mary came up to each of us and used one of her spells, causing a shimmering sphere of faint light to envelop each of us. "It's a basic barrier. It should stop a few attacks, but don't count on it to keep you alive. You're dungeoneers for a reason, and I'll need you to keep that in mind. Make a wrong move, and that barrier won't stop you from dying."

After we finished our preparations, we set out into the dark halls, torches held by the other team's cleric, me, and by Vance. It didn't take long for us to encounter a group of goblins. I was very surprised at how much their group numbers had swelled in the past few months, and this group was no different, numbering somewhere around fifteen.

Johnathan stood in front, his shield held in front of him as he pulled out a rather nasty looking hammer, which he held like it was nothing more than a child's toy. What met him was a hail of rocks, bones, sticks, and other various items, most of which bounced harmlessly off his shield, while a few others passed by, sailing into our group, falling harmlessly against the barriers, although we all did our best to dodge them.

While I wanted to watch what happened, it was my job to keep an eye out for anything coming up behind us, and so I ignored the ringing of steel, the sounds of fire and wind flying away from us, and the thuds of small bodies hitting the ground. I simply watched way back, darkness greeting me like the old friend it was, especially since I hadn't gotten any skills to see in the dark yet, like Nick had.

Vance was up in the front, helping Johnathan, so that left me with the other tank, a woman who introduced herself as Ivy. She would sneak a glance behind her every now and then, looking past me at the battle. I wasn't sure if she was watching for the entertainment value, or to make sure nothing made it to me, but regardless, I was grateful for her watchful eyes. Her shield was a slightly larger wooden variant, thicker around the arm, but thinning a bit more around the edges. I assumed it was meant to be lighter, while still retaining enough size to stop a blow.

This didn't help as the battle came to a close, when multiple arrows flew out from the darkness, a few of them aimed at me. Ducking down, I watched as two slammed into my barrier, the magic flashing before it broke, as another four sailed over my head. Ivy had been looking away at the time, and four more arrows I saw fell against her barrier, with the last one nailing itself into her shoulder as the magic shattered.

"Lilly!" I shouted on instinct, throwing the torch as far as I could down the hall, then pulling an arrow from my quiver. Another sailed over my shoulder down the hall, and I heard the sound of bones breaking just as I finished nocking it to the bowstring. The torch had gone just barely close enough that I could see a group of ten skeletons behind us, with two of them having been felled by an exploding arrow.

They were in varying states of readying another volley, some clearly being faster than others. I chose to target the one closest to aiming at our group, channeling an [Arcane Missile] into my arrow. Pulling back and releasing the bowstring, I watched as the arrow leapt from my bow, splitting into three bluish white streaks of magical light, all striking the skeleton even as it tried to move out of the way. The arrow it had drawn clattered harmlessly onto the ground.

"Johnathan!" I heard Mary yell out, as two bolts of fire flew by me. Before I knew it, the man was standing at the forefront once again, blocking the majority of the return fire the skeletons sent out, with only two arrows making it past him, and falling harmlessly against the barriers Mary had set up.

Nick sent out another arrow, and I watched as the remaining skeletons scattered and ran as another of their fellows went down. Lilly had already run over to Ivy, and cast a healing spell while Kingsfoil's cleric was pulling the arrow out of her shoulder. The whole process lasted less than twenty seconds, and Ivy was testing her arm again. "Why didn't you warn me?" She asked, her eyes narrowed. "I don't have a skill to see in the dark. It wasn't to get you hurt on purpose." I responded, feeling somewhat defensive.

"No arguments between teams." Nick said quickly, intervening. "Your name is Ivy, right? Jakob doesn't have that skill, so there's no way he could have seen that coming. Not every ranger gets that skill early on, especially the earliest versions of it, which are made useless by torchlight. Not his fault, not your fault, not anyone's fault, got it?" He looked around at everyone, his tone suggesting that arguing with him would be a mistake. "Good. I don't want our healers wasting their magic only to have people arguing over who made a mistake."

With the internal strife crushed before it could really begin, we continued on, with Ivy rotating with Vance in order to help decrease friction between us. With Vance being the only tank at the back, he took his job much more seriously, taking the torch from me in order to see better, ready to use his heavy club to shield both himself and me, if anything came out of the void behind us.

The next several encounters we had were mostly goblins, with an occasional volley we had to deal with, although the skeletons were no longer trying to loose more than a single set of arrows at a time. This made it clear that while they couldn't kill us outright, they could definitely tire us out, as none of us were willing to risk chasing them into a trap. I could see it in Nick, as he began rubbing his eyes, which had been glowing faintly from his own nightvision skill.

Our progress was slow, as once the goblins were slain, we had to check, double check, and triple check that we'd finished off all the skeletons. When we finally decided to head for the stairs, we had managed to kill a total of twelve. What was interesting, was that all of them had been named monsters, and thus they had skills of their own. I'd only been grazed by an arrow, but it turned out to have been magically laced with poison, though it was quickly cured by Nightshade's cleric, whose name I learned was David. He didn't say much to me other than to check the wound itself, and cleanse the poison.

"We were cautious, but those were clearly set against us to wear down the raid team, and I doubt that was the bulk of their forces. Probably just a small fraction of them, if my guess is correct. If we end up pushing ahead, we'll be at a disadvantage on the fourth floor, but if we rest, we give them time to not only regroup, but to make a last minute effort to recruit more skeletons and maybe goblins to their forces. Whichever monster is commanding them clearly doesn't want a straight up fight. Until we get to the fort, keep your eyes scanning the darkness." Nick spoke calmly, with both Mary and Johnathan agreeing with him. He took a flask out from his pocket, looking at it for a moment, before grunting softly, putting it away.

Reaching a set of stairs that was open, we headed down, preparing to face the next floor of horrors.