1

“Sorry, Harper,” Damon said with a mischievous grin after the Inmates passed through the one-way portal that led back to the courtyard.

“Great. Now I have to cross the first bridge all over again,” she seethed.

“It’ll give you a chance to try the new spell,” he offered.

She turned and headed for the room adjacent to the courtyard. Damon and the Inmates followed her sheepishly. They passed through the Dioskilos and mimic room before they entered the respawning skeleton room. Harper pulled the same trick with Acid Fly and watched the skeletons chase the familiar off the ledge again. She earned 525 XP from the twenty-one skeleton kills, which bumped her to level 65. She dropped her 4 attribute points into constitution. The Inmates didn’t wait for more skeletons to spawn and made their way through the spider, kobold, stoner, and fungo rooms until they arrived back at the first bridge.

“Do you want to be first again?” Damon asked.

Harper glared at him. She climbed over the guardrail and immediately felt lightheaded when she saw the length and height of the bridge again. She leaned against the rail and used her staff to cast Bridge of Vines onto the surface of the sixty-foot bridge.

“Please be helpful,” she whispered hopefully.

The green vines and brambles started growing, clinging to the orange surface of the bridge. The spell consumed 15 mana points per second, and with her MPR at 7.24, Bridge of Vines consumed 7.76 MP per second out of her mana pool of 285.

As the vine bridge continued to construct in front of her, Harper could see that each foot took one second to build, which meant every yard used up 23.28 of her mana point storage. However, she would also need some mana to maintain the spell as she climbed over it. Harper decided she would cross the bridge in ten-foot chunks. That would leave her mana pool at 207, which would give her twenty-six seconds to cross the sections. She would have to turn the spell off then and wait for her mana to regenerate. So how do I stop it?

“Stop building,” she whispered.

The vine construction stopped. The bridge looked about twelve feet long.

Harper unequipped her staff, got down on her hands and knees, and curled her fingers into the rough mesh of vines. She extended her leg back through the opening of the guardrail. “Damon, grab my foot,” she ordered.

There was a confused grunt, but then she felt his hands wrap around her foot and ankle. Harper leaned to her left and right, testing the vine bridge’s rigidity and how well it stuck to the stone bridge. The Bridge of Vines swayed a bit, but it remained solid and attached to the bridge.

“You can let go of my leg now,” she called back. He told her that was a good idea. She checked her mana; 92 and draining. Harper turned off the spell and the vine bridge shrunk, then vanished. She waited for her mana pool to completely regenerate.

Glancing once more at the Inmates, she cast the spell and started crawling forward on the vine bridge. She hurried over the green brambles and vines and noticed brown roots which were woven into the lattice of the structure. This is a godsend, she thought.

Halfway across the vines now, she checked her mana and saw that she had 97 left. Gonna be close, she thought. She quickened her pace. A bead of sweat rolled off her forehead. She felt lightheaded again. Harper checked her mana.

25… 20… 15… 10…

The mesh started to shrink. She grabbed the slick stone of the bridge with both hands. The vines pulled away from her knees, which banged against the hard rock. She looked over her shoulder and saw the vine bridge contracting toward its center. Then it just disappeared.

Feeling her palms getting sweaty, she waited for her mana points to regenerate. Harper wheezed as she hugged the bridge with her arms and legs. God, I hate these bridges.

Forty seconds later, she regained her mana pool of 285.

Here we go again. Harper cast the spell. The lattice weaved in front of her again, and she resumed her pace across the vines even before it reached ten feet. She called off the construction and kept a close eye on her mana points. This time, she made it across with mana to spare.

Ten minutes and four casts later, she reached the end of the bridge. As she climbed over the guardrail, Harper breathed a sigh of relief.

She called Janna over next and had her follow the same procedure, crossing the bridge in ten-foot sections. Jordan and Emma didn’t escort the nurse this time; Harper wasn’t sure the vine bridge would hold their collective weight. With Janna’s fear of heights, it was a harrowing experience for her, even with the protection of the spell. When she made it across, she climbed over the rail and then, uncharacteristically, hugged Harper.

“That spell is a miracle!” she exclaimed.

The three hunters came across next, using Harper’s spell. The orcs, on the other hand, had to make it across the bridge without the aid of the spell. Based on the experiment she’d conducted earlier, Harper knew the vines wouldn’t hold their weight.

It took about an hour for the whole Death Row team to make it across the bridge. Harper gazed at the aperture above them. It was getting close to noon. The team walked through the portals to get back to the Pygmalion room.

2

After taking a drink from their wineskins, the Inmates passed through the right-side portal in the Pygmalion room. The next chamber was dark, and they knew they were somewhere in the basement again. Damon cast his Firefly spell and turned to Harper as she came through next. “I think this is a quantity over quality kind of thing,” he quipped, and despite her annoyance with him, Harper snickered.

Laid out in the vast, murky chamber were a bunch of different mobs. They saw crabs the size of dogs, more skeletons, and a giant slug that reached the ceiling at the far end of the room.

They heard the pffft portal sound behind them as Zack entered the room. “Alright, more seafood!” he exclaimed.

While the other Inmates entered, Harper called up Acid Fly to draw the skeletons’ attention. She sent the skeletons over the guardrail, hoping they were high enough to kill the mobs off. The crash of bones against the muddy floor below answered her question.

Damon approached a crab, and its details popped up for him.

CRUSTACRAB (Level 1)

HP: 36

MP: 0

STRENGTH: 7

CONSTITUTION: 3

DEXTERITY: 9

INTELLIGENCE: 1

WISDOM: 3

XP: 26

DESCRIPTION: Mysterious experiment to end world hunger.

He equipped his hammer, raised the weapon, and smashed it onto the crab. The crustacean’s shell splintered, and the mob was pulverized. “Well, that was easy,” Damon muttered.

The hunters tried their ranged weapons on the crabs, but the arrows and spears bounced off their hardened shells.

“Looks like you guys will have to take care of business,” Jordan said.

The orcs stomped around the room, killing off the twenty-five crabs that inhabited the room. The giant slug, which was about ten feet square and thirty feet long, was the only mob remaining. Its brownish-green skin was covered in a thick layer of clear slime. As the Inmates approached the huge beast, its two optical tentacles curled toward them and small, black eyes that were couched in the tentacles observed them passively.

“Hey there, beady eyes,” Zack quipped. He switched from his hammer to his bone-axe.

Harper looked around the room. “You know, I can’t see the next portal, it must be behind this thing.”

Zack laughed. “That’s okay. I don’t think this slug is going to be too difficult.”

Their Creature Description details appeared.

SLUGOMATIC (Level 25)

HP: 285

MP: 215

STRENGTH: 12

CONSTITUTION: 28

DEXTERITY: 5

INTELLIGENCE: 21

WISDOM: 33

XP: 72

DESCRIPTION: Mystifying gastropod mollusk with an automated gonopore.

Zack swung his axe at the giant slug, slicing through a layer of its gelatinous skin. The creature reacted quickly. It curled the top of its body in toward the bottom of the room, transforming into a tighter, bulbous shape that clung to the stone wall. Its skirt fanned out against the wall, reinforcing its adherence.

The slugomatics’ HP dropped from 285 down to 239. Then a red light shimmered through its body and the wound sealed over. Its hit points rose back to 285.

“Did it just heal itself?” Zack asked Harper.

“I think so.”

A skin flap on the slug’s body curled back. Under the fold of skin, two more crabs crawled out from its body.

“What the hell?” Zack exclaimed. He switched to the hammer and smashed the two crabs. “May as well try this,” he muttered as he bashed the giant slug, but its body just jiggled and the hammer bounced off without dealing any damage.

“The axes, boys,” Damon grunted.

Zack re-equipped his axe and the three orcs buried their blades, carving three deep gashes into its rounded body. The mob flashed red, and the wounds healed instantly. A second later, two more crabs crawled from its body. The orcs smashed them with mounting frustration.

Over the next fifteen minutes, they threw everything they had at the slug. The melee weapons did direct damage, but with the same slug-healing results. The ranged weapons sunk into the monster’s flesh, but the arrows and spears popped back out of its body when the healing process began. The fire and acid spells did some damage, but it was nothing the slugomatic’s healing process couldn’t keep up with.

Harper fired a fully charged Fire Bullet at the giant mob, which blew a twelve-inch hole through the creature’s body. The Inmates stared through the hole, dumbfounded, at the glowing green light of the portal behind the creature. They watched its tissue growing and filling in the gaping hole which had been punched through its body.

The team resumed the attack, but with every blow, more crabs popped out of the flap in the slug’s body. They killed forty more crabs before giving up and leaving the crustaceans alone; they were docile and didn’t pose a threat.

The room smelled like a seafood market on a sunny day. Not knowing what else to do, the orcs kept attacking the slug. Harper backed away from the fray, trying to assess the battle from afar. “There must be a clue or pattern we’re missing,” she muttered. She directed the orcs, having them swing at different parts of the slug, hoping to find its weak spot but found no success.

The room was filled with crabs again. Ethan started bashing them with the hammer. Harper watched, then had an idea.

“Ethan,” she yelled, “stop. Leave the crabs alone.”

He looked at her, perplexed, but stopped and went back to attacking the slug with his axe. Harper counted the crabs in the room. There were eighteen.

Damon swung his axe at the slug. Now there were twenty crabs in the room.

“Guys, keep attacking the slug,” she shouted.

Ethan struck next, and two more crabs emerged from the slugomatic’s body. Zack swung. Now there were twenty-four. Damon attacked, but this time, only one crab crawled out from under the slug’s flap.

Harper smiled. That’s it.

3

“We can only kill the slug if all twenty-five crabs are still alive,” Harper said as she walked to the orcs. “So go nuts on the slug, boys.”

The orc warriors started swinging rapidly at the giant slug. The injuries were no longer getting healed. The crabs suddenly became very aggressive, attacking all the team members.

Harper pleaded with them to not kill the crabs. “You can push them away, even injure them,” she yelled as she jumped away from an attacking crab. “But do not take down the crabs!”

Angie yelled from a corner of the room. One of the oversized crabs had cut through her calf with its pincer. She pushed it away with a spear, using the weapon as a defensive device.

Harper looked for Emma in the room and spotted her. “Emma, try Song of Distraction. Maybe it will distract the crabs.”

She did, but the spell had no effect.

Harper cast Dirt Storm at the crab attacking Angie. The spell worked; it made the crustacean scamper away blindly while the circling dirt cloud followed it. She checked on the slugomatic battle. The monster was down to its last ten hit points. Visually, the giant slug was a mess of severed layers and leaking fluids. Damon glanced disgustedly at Harper. A long patch of slime had stretched between his body and his attacking arm.

Zack dealt the final blow to the slugomatic, which promptly dissolved into a thick gush of green slime that flooded the area. The orcs retreated quickly from the rush of liquid, revolted.

With the giant slug taken out, Harper informed the Inmates they could attack the crabs. Most used their swords, while the orcs reverted back to the hammers.

“Damon, Zack, Ethan,” Harper shouted, “use your swords!”

Zack glanced at her, confused, but switched. They finished the twenty-five crabs quickly. Zack walked up to Harper and asked her why she had insisted the orcs use their swords.

Harper pointed at one of the crabs, which had been pulverized by the hammer. Its shell was splintered and white flesh was flattened against the dirt floor. “Would you want to eat that?” she asked.

Zack grinned.

4

The Inmates walked to the room’s exit portal where the giant slug had been ensconced. The slime that had flooded the area had seeped into the dirt floor, and the resulting mud was both thick and very wet. Harper grimaced as her foot sank into four inches of the slimy mud, but she was intent on checking out the slug’s Epiphany cloud.

Congratulations, Harper! You have found an Epiphany that contains the spell: Mana Heal. This healing spell will enable you to have a continuous flow of healing energy directed at yourself or your allies. Ranked advanced and available to Healers, Hunters, and Mages, so tell all your friends. Mana Heal will cost you 5 MP for every hit point reclaimed, and has a cooldown of 20 seconds and a range of 100 meters. All your war party members are sure to say, “Mana, I can really use some hit points!”

Harper was so excited about the spell that she sprinted to more solid ground. She jumped repeatedly in the air. “Mana heal, mana heal, mana heal!” she exclaimed.

Emma, who knew what the spell would mean to the team, rushed to her side, grabbed her arms, and jumped with her. They squealed girlishly. “Mana heal… mana heal… mana heal!”

Zack glanced at Damon and the brothers. “That’s a little too much estrogen.”

The men belly-laughed.

5

The Inmates picked up the crabs they had skewered with their swords.

“I think lunch is in order,” Zack said happily.

They carried eight huge crabs back to the thirteenth room, passing on the slug and druid rooms so they could have lunch on a relatively clean floor. After pouring water on the dead crustaceans to clean them, they chopped the raw crab meat and lined the small pieces against the wall. Harper cooked them with an extended burst of Fire Scorch, and the Inmates sat down to have lunch across from the bridge they had crossed twice that day.

They discussed the experience points they had gained from the skeletons, crabs, and giant slug. Harper had started off the battle by running seventeen skeletons over the guardrail, which earned her 425 XP. That nudged her to level 66. She deposited her 4 attribute points into constitution. Zack did the honors on the slugomatic, which, along with his fourteen crab kills, earned him 436 XP. That raised him two levels to 58. He dropped his 8 points into dexterity and endurance.

Ethan had the most crab kills at twenty-five, which earned him 650 XP and moved him to level 61. He placed his 8 points into dexterity and endurance. Damon bagged a dozen crabs, which boosted him to level 58. He dropped his 4 points into dexterity. Angie killed seven crabs, which bumped her to level 54. She placed her 4 points into endurance.

Jordan killed six crabs, which nudged him to level 51. He invested his 4 points into endurance. Janna nailed one crab with her flamberge sword. Since she was on the threshold of her next level, the 26 XP bumped her to level 56. She applied her 4 points to constitution. Finally, Emma bagged five crabs, which wasn’t enough to reach her next level.

6

The Inmates ate the delicious crab Harper had grilled for them, wondering what else the day had in store. With the sun beaming a direct line down the middle of the courtyard, Zack was certain it was high noon. He could even see dust particles floating in the rays of light. “I wish we had some garlic butter,” he commented.

“Yeah, maybe some lemon too,” Angie replied.

Zack glanced at her incredulously. “Girl, you don’t know how to live,” he exclaimed.

She laughed out loud.

They ate quietly for a while until Harper broke the silence. “I wanna talk about the Mana Heal spell.”

Zack looked at her playfully. “Sister, you know how to liven up a party.”

Harper snickered but continued. “We can run Mana Heal from our MPRs if they are above five MP per second, which is only the case for Janna and myself, and only if we’re not running any other spells. For instance, my regen rate is 7.32, so I can run Mana Heal at 5 and still have enough MPR to run a spell like Fire Scorch.”

She grabbed another chunk of crab and went on. “So, Angie, I’ll use you as an example. If you run Mana Heal, it will draw from and eventually deplete your overall mana pool.”

The Inmates stared back at her silently.

“Look, this is the kind of stuff that was too advanced for me and Miguel to teach you at the beginning. Now that you’ve been acclimated to this kind of system, you need to manage your mana points and know where to spend them wisely.” Harper paused. “The point being, if you can run your spells from your MPR, you won’t have to worry about depleting your mana.

“It comes down to this. You need to know when to use spells and when to conserve your MP. You all have offensive spells. You’ll probably be using them in the bigger battles which lie ahead. Even the orcs have the acid spells, Poison Sphere, and Boulder. You’ll each need to make judgment calls, based on what I am telling you right now.”

Damon shook his head. “Uh-uh, we’re not there yet. You’re going to have to make those decisions for us.”

She glared at Damon, then looked at Emma, who shrugged. Harper sighed. “Okay, okay, make sure your telepathy is on and listen to my instructions carefully, even if you are in the midst of an intense fight.”

The Inmates murmured agreement.

“That’s okay, Harper,” Damon said as he plunged his long fangs into more crab meat. “We trust you.”

Harper glowered at him, frustrated. Her face turned red. But, like before, she stayed silent. You only trust me when it’s convenient for you.