"See anything Rick?" James, a trigger happy greenhorn was watching my six while I poked my tan wrapped head over the lip of the sand dune we were hiding behind.

"Yeah, It looks like... like a full raid convoy. Three Dragonflies with eight or nine raiders each with plenty of ammunition." I said gravely.

"Shit shit shit! They're gonna go after them traders that just left Oogla, I know it," James Cursed.

"You're probably right. Call in to station three, callsign echo-alpha-bravo. Report in and we'll keep ghosting them until further orders. Understood?"

"Yes sir!" snapping into action, James slid down the dune before trying to make contact, a trick to help dampen any loud voices coming from the radio. I kept my binoculars on the group of raiders, searching for any kind of hierarchy or a raid chief of sorts.

"Rick, I can't patch through, something's blocking the signal. All I've got is static, you think they got jammers?" James crawled back next to me to report.

Confused, I turned my head back around to search the enemy camp for any special equipment, but all I saw were guns, raiders and big fucking insect mounts. Pulling away the binoculars, I lifted my hand a little bit to see which direction the wind was blowing and aimed my glass in that direction.

"Oh Shit."

"What, what do you see?" James was looking down the scope of his high powered AR, special loot from the third floor dungeon boss of the Techno Dungeon in the ceter of Oogla. Classic.

"I see one big fucking sandstorm ready to blanket this whole area in grit. I want goggles on and all guns wrapped in one minute. Storm hits in two, three tops," I ordered.

Looking pale, the kid gives me a weak affirmative and starts capping off the barrels and taping the chambers off on his slug throwers. I just have to cap my barrel, no chamber to worry about.

"Listen, I need you focused. We are a pair of godsdamned desert rangers and when that storm hits, we'll have twenty four sitting ducks over there waiting for us to bleed them out. Are you with me ranger?"

"Fuck yeah sir. For Blood,"

"For Glory," I answer back. Fuck yeah. The wall of sand rapidly approaching us was devouring the land at breathtaking speed, ready to swallow us up.

"Count to ten after landfall, the heat from the dunes should be sucked right out and our targets will be clear as day," I told James.

"Yes sir! What if that storm leaves and we still got boggies?" He asked.

"Well then I hope you're as fast to get your gear straightened out then you are when you come in and out of a brothel, because we'll have some pretty pissed off raiders. Happy hunting ranger," I said.

"You too sir. For Blood."

"For Glory." With that, the storm hit us like a battering ram, shoving it's grainy fingers in all the wrong places. Man we are gonna be so chaffed after this op. Following my own advice, I count to head before flicking the switch. The 'goggles' are refitted eyes that belonged to an unlucky droid rapter found in some of the deeper levels of the Oogla Dungeon. Just one pair of these costs more than I make in a year, it's ridiculous.

Those were the thoughts running through my mind, mundane topics to keep the tension low while we stalked forward with our backs hunched over and leaning into the wind so that we don't fall flat on our faces. Walking up and down sand dunes in the middle of a storm without falling is pretty damn difficult, but then again we're trained for these kind of things as evidenced by our preparations. The raiders are not.

We see them cowering besides their agitated dragonflies, using their cloths or their bodies to cover their first and second floor slug throwers. Because if sand is good for something, it's getting into places it shouldn't. And it does it real well.

As we approached the closest bug, I used hand signals to instruct him to focus on the same bug as mine, but start from the other end. Curling around to it's back, the bug seemed more agitated then just a few moments ago and there's a good reason for that. It senses predators nearby.

Gripping the closest raider in a tight choke lock with one arm to cut off his oxygen and to block his vocal cords from screaming out, I dragged him away from the others while stabbing him in the gut several times with a handeld droid raptor claw. Say one thing about the Techno Dungeon in Oogla, it might be dangerous as all hell but the gear you can harvest is truly outstanding. Taking time to find his heart after his struggling stopped, I gave him one more stab before letting his corpse roll down the dune to hunt for more prey.

This pattern of choke, pull, stab and kill was how we took care of the first group and we started making our way towards the second when out of the blue the air stilled and sand was no longer raking against our skin, but falling back to the earth at a gentle pace. Unfortunate enough, we were still standing with bloody knives out and the raiders looking in our direction wore looks of confusion and shock when they noticed the blood on our cloths and in the sand.

"Rangers!"

"Kill em!" the raiders cried.

"Take cover!" I yelled at James while diving to the side while slinging my rifle to my chest to uncap it. I finish first and shoot at the nearest raider I see, missing by just a few inches but giving him a nice sunburn while I was at it. Gotta wait another ten seconds to charge so I crouch run out of their immediate view and try and find James. Who's behind a small mound of sand that I swear wasn't there before. Oh wait, I forgot. James is a mage, lucky son of a bitch.

Up until now, all I've seen him able to do is start a small fire or fill our pounches with water, but I guess when your life's in danger you find new limits. Unfortunately it looked like he reached a little too deep, cus he was shaking like a hookers tits.

"Shit," I whispered. Bullets began to fly overhead as the sand wasn't jamming as many rifles as I was hoping for. One ranger down and sixteen angry armed raiders left to kill. We are fucked. Looking around, I tried to look for a way out of this mess that didn't end with our names on some hanging pieces of metal. My eyes rested on the dragonfly behind us and I felt the little tug on my heart that we all get every now and then, hope. Sprinting towards the kid, I took a nick in the back of one my legs, sending me tumbling to the ground and right next to James.

"Ah that fucker! Take this, asshole!" manually twisting and arming, I armed the heavy steel ball in my hand and threw it backwards with a strained grunt. Moments later a loud boom followed by several screams echoed across the sands while acrid smoke drifted in our direction.

"James, can you hear me? I need you with me, kid. If we stay here any longer and we're dusted, but I got a plan. Ever rode a dragonfly before?"

--------------------------------------------------

"So what do you think? Curvy enough or should I make her bust a little more full?" I asked Fang. He was staring slack jawed at my beautiful stone babe that I was using as practice for what eventually be the true boss for this floor. Because let's face it, anyone coming in here is going to get their asses beat. Hard.

"It's hideous! Is that supposed to be a head? It looks like it fell down the stairs a couple thousand times. I'm sorry Carl, but maybe you should call Krystal over and ask her for help," the cold blooded bastard said. I don't think my heart has ever hurt as much as his words did, truly a menace to the world.

"NO! I'll get better and you'll see! I mean, what kind of Dungeon am I if I can't even make my own boss," I said dejectedly.

Patting my spherical body, Bloodfang reassured me, "Hey Carl, it's okay. I'm not saying to let Krystal do all the work, but maybe she can teach you how everything works, yeah? And you wouldn't have to worry about her mocking you either, she seems like the sweetest out of the three." As if on cue, we turned our vision towards the battle where she had Edge pinned to the ground with her two front legs in his chest, filling him with liquid mercury while at the same time lifting Azure off the ground with one clawed hand around his throat as he was being stabbed in the gut repeatedly with the other three.

"Remind me not to piss her off," I said quietly.

"Agreed."

"Okay, fine. I'll see if she's willing to help me out if she's not too busy recovering from the battle," I told Fang.

"Somehow, I don't think she'll be the one doing much of the recovering. Those two are gonna have to really step up their game if they want to stand a chance."

"You know... I think it's a good time to start introducing weapons for them, what do you think?" I asked.

"What do you have in mind?" Fang asked, his tone not doing anything to hide his obvious interest.

"Well for starters I was thinking Edge should have...do you hear that?" Listening intently, I heard oddly familiar sounds coming from the other rooms.

"Hey, tell me if I'm wrong but are those..."

"Gunshots?" He finished for me.

"Yeah, gunshots. Tell those three to get ready, we might have some fresh meat for them." As Fang scampered towards our three bosses, I focused on the tickling sensation I've been having for awhile and my vision transformed to the tunnel leading into the core room. One human was dragging another who was aiming down sights in the direction they had came from using a...what the fuck, is that a gauss rifle? Sure enough, a increased burst of magnectic waves and a discharge of electricty fired a heavy slug close to super sonic speeds out of a cherry red barrel at some other human that was charging at them with old automatic rifles.

What the hell is going on? Why does everyone have guns?! I was expecting swords and shields for some reason, not this crap. We might have our work cut out for us.

"What would you have us do, Father?" Krystal, the most physically sound of my three bosses said. Looking over them, Edge was still on his hands and knees, launching streams of mercurial vommit out of his mouth while Azure was in a similar position trying to get oxygen through his nearly crushed windpipe. My lord is this girl dangerous.

"Those two seem like they're out for now, so it's up to you. They're two injured humans running in our direction from around fourteen others. Save those two and kill the rest, how you do it is up to you.

"As you command." Krystal scuttled towards the tunnel while her mandibles clacked cheerfully as I've come to understand. Behind her, waves of mutated earth worms made of stone swam through the earth as easily as fish in water while large quartz based scorpions snapped their claws in anticipation, their tails swaying back and forth dangerously. Seriously, I almost feel bad for these humans who are about to be stoned to death. Key word: almost.

"Seriously Fang, we need popcorn for this kind of shit."

"I've heard you say that before but was distracted before, but what's popcorn," he asked. Gasping, I plunged straight into what popcorn was and the significance they held for events such as these. Least to say, my friend was looking forward to it. And it will happen, I swear upon that with all my spherical Dungeon heart.

-----------------------------------------------------------

"Damn, it's overheated again!" I yelled at James in hopes he could hear me over the bullets pinging off the walls.

"Can't you go any faster? I think they're getting closer!"

"I'm trying...to go...as fast...as I can, sir! But you're... kinda fat!" That whelp! He should've been in top physical condition before he joined the rangers. I'll have to rectify that. Cursing, I let my gun go sideways, the smoking barrel far from either one of us and pull out an old pistol of the slug throwing variety. Tch, I'm not a fan of the early level tech but if it's the only thing between us and the Great Chandelier then I'm not going to complain. Too much, that is.

"Piece of shit, I'm out of ammo already!" Unloading it's small clip into the direction of the last raider he saw, Rick heard the satisfying sound of a body slamming into the ground, tripping others. Hopefully that should buy them some more time. Time for what, I have no idea but maybe some miracle will save us. I've been known to be a believer in similar type situations.

"Shit!" The sound of bullets tearing through flesh made me turn my head to see James trip and fall backwards while cradling his leaking arm.

"James, give me your Beast Breaker," I said gravely. Pale from the sight of his own blood leaving his body or the fact that we're about ot meet our makers had him visibly shook. And it is a fact, because if we're not filled with holes in the next ten seconds then the blast from the Beast Blaker will do it. But it'll take them out too and if that's how we're gonna die, then I'd rather ride my way to hell on a raft made of raider scum.

"For Blood."

"For Glory. It's been an honor, ranger." Closing my eyes, I start to twist the heavy metal ball's arming trigger at the top before it was suddenly snatched from my hands. Panicked, afraid the raiders had already caught up to us and decided to let us live as slaves instead of butchered for food, I saw a monstrous four legged and armed metallic creature stare down at us with faint glowing blue eyes embedded deep within it's heavy skull.

"Come on boys, no need for drama. Please, don't struggle. I'm here to help," our savage savior held the metal bomb in one of her smaller lower arms while her longer more deadly ones reached out to James and I with a gentleness only a mother could have. Cradling me with one long arm behind my back and the smaller one holding my legs, it began to scuttle away from the raiders.

Looking over, I could see James hanging off of it's wide shoulder, dripping blood down on the ground below us by his wounded arm. Thinking about our savior, I began to sweat.

Monsters don't speak and if they do then there's only one reason that explains how. They just got stuck balls deep in a Dungeon they had no idea existed and they were all out of ammo, their weapon of last resort taken away like candy from a baby. I have no idea what kind of Dungeon this is, but if I'm not mistaken we are being taken to speak with the Guardian. Who's in the Core Room. Where most people die and their screams are recorded to be played throughout the Dungeon in Oogla to make a point.

No one comes out of the Core Room alive.