1

The team armed their weapons as they trekked deeper into the darkened throat of the tunnel. The hunters and mages directed their Fire Glow spells, aligning the illuminating orbs with different sections of the unit. The mud they trod upon wasn’t as thick as it had been on the surface.

“The flush of water probably drove much of that gunk into the dungeon,” Zack commented.

Still, enough silt had remained, and it wasn’t long before he and Jackson slipped and knocked down the members in front of them like a set of bowling pins. Hammer and Silo, who were at the back of the orc line, laughed raucously as the other orcs slid fifteen feet deeper into the tunnel before they were able to stop themselves.

Both enraged, Jackson cussed at them while Damon grabbed a handful of the sludge and threw it at the two orcs. It splattered onto Hammer’s battle armor.

“Shut the hell up,” the orc general shouted.

The two revelers piped down quickly. The teammates decided to unequip their weapons and extended their arms to help them balance. As they advanced deeper into the passageway, they struggled to breathe against the thick and humid air.

“I think the tunnel is closing in on us,” Zack panted as sweat trickled down his face.

Damon agreed. The diameter of the hole was down to six feet, and the orcs had to crouch as they navigated down the chute. Soon their helmets were scraping against the wet surface on the tunnel’s ceiling, dislodging mud onto their shoulders.

A few minutes later, Damon motioned for everyone to stop and turned to face the crew. “I don’t know how tight this is going to get,” he said, “but it looks like we’re going to have to go the rest of the way on our hands and knees.”

In unison, the members groaned.

Damon called Jordan to the front and asked him to move his Fire Glow spell down the shaft. As the orb descended, the tunnel shrank even more. When the spell reached its thirty-meter limit, it burned out, but not before they saw the opening that led to the first floor of the dungeon.

“Man, you’re going to have to cram through those last few feet,” Jordan said to the orcs, but the optics of the tunnel had deceived him. The tightest section, which was only three and a half feet wide, spanned for more than forty feet.

As the orcs got down on all fours, Damon told the members to stay six feet apart. “We might need to maneuver in there,” he said, then started crawling through thicker mud.

“Looks like the dislodged mud had accumulated as it passed through the bottle neck,” Zack suggested.

Damon grunted in response and cursed as the mud squeezed through the gaps in his armor, pressing against his skin like a cold tongue. Thick, broken roots scratched across the top of his steel helmet like the clutching arms of a skeleton.

The light orb that slowly floated ahead of him inched closer to his face, creating a glare that made it difficult to see. “Harper, can you move Fire Glow further ahead?” Damon called out.

A moment later, the orb moved deeper into the throat of the tunnel.

Soon, the tunnel reached its tightest circumference and the large-bodied orcs struggled against its walls. Their heads, shoulder, elbows, and knees jammed against heavy layers of mud.

“Maybe we should unequip our armor,” Zack said from just behind the orc general. “We’ll be able to move more freely.”

Damon considered the option. Before he could answer, a section of mud near his face exploded. In his peripheral vision, he saw a flash of movement. Then something attached to his cheek, evading his helmet’s cheek guard, and started chewing through his skin.

2

Damon grimaced and turned his head to get a better look at the creature. It pulled against his cheek, constraining his movement. Still, he glimpsed enough of it to realize it was some kind of worm, still anchored into the tunnel wall. Its brownish-pink body, four inches in diameter, wiggled in the space between the mud and his face. Creature Description appeared in his field of vision.

ANNELIDA EINSTEIN (Level 4)

HP: 78

MP: 10

STRENGTH: 7

CONSTITUTION: 7

DEXTERITY: 44

INTELLIGENCE: 1

WISDOM: 35

XP: 30

DESCRIPTION: Brainy common earthworm.

If that’s a common earthworm, I’m the king of France, Damon thought as he heard his teammates’ screams echo through the narrow passageway. The worm burrowed deeper into his cheek and blood splattered onto his steel gloves with a metallic tapping sound.

He equipped his steel skelchion sword, but struggled to move the weapon in the confined space. His wrist ached as he craned it at a sharp angle and positioned the blade under the attacking worm. He swung the sword forward and sliced through the creature’s body. The appendage that clung to his face smacked against his glove before bouncing onto the excavated soil. White rows of teeth contrasted sharply against the blood smeared on the worm’s head.

I didn’t know worms had t—

A sharp pain flared in the side of his knee, and Damon knew another worm had chewed through the leather binding of his steel-plated pants. Damn, these things are smart. As he groaned with agony, he pulled his knee inward, but the monster clung to him and burrowed deeper into his flesh. Another worm ripped through his ankle, below his plates and above his boots. Another bit into his forehead.

Damon screamed and canted his sword at the monster attacking his head. Once again, the blade cut through it like butter and the creature’s head landed in front of him. More screams were coming from behind him. God, this is a death trap, he thought. As he shook his legs, trying and dislodge the mobs, he angled his sword backward but couldn’t reach them. Their jaws drilled deeper.

More worms attacked the exposed parts of his body: his knees, his neck, his elbows. Behind him, he could hear the other orcs screaming and yelling with frustration. Another worm slapped his cheek guard back and burst through the skin of his jaw. His vision blurred as his blood loss took its toll. He lethargically chopped at the two worms attached to his head and neck. Then the strength in his arms vanished and he sagged against the muddy bottom of the tunnel. We’re not even gonna make it to the dungeooooon, he thought drunkenly as his vision started to fade.

3

Angie watched the orcs’ predicament with growing dismay. The tunnel walls restricted most of their movements. As a result, the warriors looked like octopuses with multiple worms drilling into their bodies. The situation wasn’t as dire for the other members behind her; they had smaller bodies and were able to maneuver enough to kill the attackers. She tried to telepath Damon, who was at the front of the orc line.

No response.

Bleeding from her own wounds, Angie slashed at the barrage of worms. Their rubbery carcasses fell onto the dense mud. Small horns circled their triangular protruding jaws, which were lined with rows of sharp teeth.

Angie looked over her shoulder, past Jordan and Thao, and spotted Harper. “I need you up here with me!” The veteran mage quickly squeezed past the Grimalkin members and crawled alongside her.

Angie gestured to the orcs. “The boys are in trouble,” she said with a note of desperation in her voice. She had seen Damon slump at the front of the line. “They’re practically defenseless. You attack from the right side. I’ll take the left.”

“What if we hit the orcs?” Harper asked.

Angie shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Look!” She pointed again at the orc unit. The warriors were trying to defend themselves with their swords, but were pinned in awkward positions. Angie rose to a kneeling position and shouted to the men in front. “Orcs! Make your bodies as small as you can. Move away from the walls.”

The brown-skinned warriors shuffled, creating a space. Angie saw about fifty worms elongate their bodies as they clung to the orcs. She looked over her shoulder again, just as two worms pierced through the skin on her knee. Ignoring the pain, she stared at Jordan and Thao. “You guys are going to have to defend us—and yourselves.”

Even as more worms stormed him, Jordan stretched forward and drove his bastard sword through the two worms attacking Angie.

As she nocked an arrow against her bowstring, the female Marine turned to Harper, who had a fully charged Fire Bullet. “Are you ready?”

The mage nodded.

“Here it comes, boys,” Angie screamed. She released the arrow and quickly grabbed more in succession. To her side, she felt the burst of heat as Harper threw her fireball. It tore through half of the mobs on the right side.

As she fired more arrows, Angie heard strange popping sounds from behind her and turned to see what it was. The worms that were attacking the teammates behind her suddenly retreated back into the earth. A moment later, the muddy walls around Harper and Angie collapsed, driving them to the floor, and eighty worms descended upon them.

4

Harper launched the fully charged Fire Bullet as close to the right wall as she could. It incinerated the top half of the worm horde, but the flames still flashed against the orcs’ bodies. Silo got the worst of it. His right leg was burned and started to blister immediately. As the British rookie shouted profanities, Harper queued up another bullet.

Wanting to avoid it expanding as much as the last shot, she threw the baseball-sized projectile. It didn’t kill as many worms, but it also didn’t burn the orcs. That’s better, she thought, glancing at Angie, who was rapidly firing arrows. I’ll help her when I’m done with—

Suddenly, a blunt force knocked Harper off her knees and she fell against the Marine veteran, who also went down. Earth and clay caved in around them as Harper realized what had struck her.

In the shower of dirt, the eyeless worm seemed to look right at her, then burst forward and clamped onto her forehead. Incredibly, the unanchored creature curled its body around her head, completely obscuring her vision.

Harper clawed at the attacker as other worms burrowed into her flesh. Pain erupted all over her body as she lay pinned by the weight of the collapse. More wet mud and earth slid against the bare skin of her legs, just below the edge of her steel scaled armor.

Blinded by the worm that circled her head, she reached to her left to determine if Angie was alright. Through the mounds of mud and clay, her fingers found the back of the Marine’s splint mail. She’s face-down and immobilized too, Harper though. Then she felt the slimy flesh of a worm wrap around her hand and drag it closer to her waist. She cast Mana Flash, hoping the red beam would kill off a bunch of the attackers, but they didn’t react. More worms curled around her right hand and pulled it in toward her body. They’re binding me, she thought. Grime slid into her mouth as she gasped for air through the worm’s tightening grip.

She struggled against the army of worms that had clamped onto her body, but their numbers were too great. Distantly, she could hear the cries of her teammates behind her, but the sound was muffled under the earth. Has the tunnel completely caved in? she wondered as acute pain from countless wounds screamed throughout her body. She felt a worm pull on the flesh in her leg like a string, and that agony surpassed anything she was experiencing. She screamed, but it was muted against the mud.

Is this how we’re going to die? she thought wildly. After all we’ve been through, we’re going to die at the hands of a bunch of worms? She tried another spell, Acid Fly this time, but again the worms didn’t flinch. She telepathed the team, Is everyone buried under this collapse?

After a moment, Jordan responded. No. The back end is clear. We’re trying to get to you.

As her blood seeped into the mud that compacted her, Harper’s thoughts became more elusive, like the seeds of a dandelion wisped away by a cold breeze. The pain was broader now, harder to pinpoint, lost in a sea of agony. However, she did detect more worms as they wrapped around her ankles. They drove her legs apart, binding her further. No! No! No! Under the hood of the worm that continued to blind her, Harper’s eyes widened with panic and began to shriek uncontrollably.

5

After the tunnel capsized, Jordan looked back at what was left of the team, quickly determining who was the strongest member. He pointed at Vlad. “You. Up front with me. Start digging!”

“Wit what?” the Russian mage asked.

Jordan glanced back at the mound of earth and roots. “With your bare hands, goddammit. Anything. Fuck!” He leaped at the soil and extended his claws, but they just shredded through the muck, not pulling any of it away. And you can cut one of the teammates, you idiot, he berated himself. He retracted the claws and started heaving the soil towards him. Behind and around him, the walls were dotted with the empty holes the worms had retreated through. The mobs had directed all their forces against the two women and the orcs. Divide and conquer, Jordan thought grimly.

Vlad rushed to his side and helped him quickly dig a foot into the mound. The soil shook and they pulled back more to uncover the first layer of worms. After answering Harper’s telepath, Jordan extended his claws again while Vlad moved back a step and equipped his Bonebase sword. They chopped through the writhing mass of pink flesh as the team’s muffled screams rang in their ears.

Kneeling in a pool of brown worm slime now, they dug through to the next wave of mobs. Jordan killed off more worms and dug through to Angie’s feet. Harper, who was shorter, was still covered by the mass of earth and monsters.

Jordan wrenched away the worms that had coiled around Angie’s ankles, then skewered them with his claws. Muffled under the wet earth, he heard the veteran hunter moan, “Aooah. Thank you, thank you, thank you…” before she was overtaken by Harper’s shrieks. The earth in front of Vlad started quaking and the two men plunged their hands into the heap, dragging a large chunk of it away.

A horde of slithering worms flopped out from the compacted earth, landing at their knees. The mobs clung to Harper’s gyrating ankles, and the two men had to rip the creatures from her skin. Bite marks ran up the length of her legs.

The men thrust their arms into the two halves of the soil again, freeing more of the women’s slime-covered bodies. The worms’ severed flesh lay jammed into the ground and the side walls. Jordan’s stomach clenched in revulsion as his tongue seemed to double in size.

“I think I’m gonna puke,” he groaned. He grabbed Angie’s ankles and pulled her body out from under the mound. Dozens of worms still clung to her exposed skin like a throng of piranha.

“Pizdoon,” Vlad gasped from his side as he momentarily stopped digging.

“Keep going,” Jordan barked, then turned to the veteran hunter. “Don’t move, Angie.”

She remained still as he slashed his claws at the wriggling monsters. Within seconds, he sliced through forty-eight worms, which lay strewn like piles of sushi on the soaked black earth.

Despite bleeding from numerous wounds, Angie knelt and dug from her side, pulling more earth away from Harper. She equipped a throwing knife and stabbed at the mobs covering the veteran mage.

They finally uncovered Harper, who was inundated with the worms. The three members eventually killed every worm that had leeched onto her skin, including the one that had wrapped around her head. She coughed violently into the slime and gulped for air.

When the veteran mage didn’t move from her face-down position, Angie rocked her shoulder. “You can get up now.”

Harper remained still for a second, then scrambled to her knees and clutched at Angie, sobbing. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” the hunter whispered as she wrapped her arms around Harper. The mage wailed and trembled uncontrollably

Angie called Thao to the front of the group. “Take her to the back. We need to keep digging.” The Grimalkin hunter guided the shaken Harper back to the front of the passageway while Angie, Jordan, and Vlad continued shoveling the soil away. A minute later, they cleared the blockage and found the orcs.

6

Despite their confinement, almost fifty worms were killed by the orcs. Jordan and Vlad made quick work of the remaining worms. Afterward, the orcs stayed in their positions while the other teammates slumped against the walls. They inhaled deeply, trying to replenish their bodies, but the air was still too humid.

Angie called out to Zack, who was behind Damon at the front of the line. “How’s my man doing?”

“He’s still lightheaded,” he answered. “I sent a few Basic Heals his way. That helped.”

As the team wiped the grime from their skin, they examined their injuries. Harper, Damon, Silo, and Angie had the worst of it, with wounds that hadn’t fully closed despite the constant healing spells.

Harper had a large cut on her forehead and a long one on her leg, and her skin was dotted with smaller abrasions. Even more, she appeared rattled by the worm assault.

“It seems you always get hammered in those initial battles,” Jordan told her. “Just like the Dioskilos room in the tower.”

She eyed him. “Are you trying to cheer me up?”

The Grimalkin hunter laughed, but said no more. Zahra told the team they’d be lucky if half of them didn’t end up with infections. Silo groaned; his right leg was swollen from the burn he’d sustained.

The healer laughed. “Yeah. You’re candidate number one.”

The exhausted group debated staying where they were for the night, but the healers argued against it, saying the risk of more infection was too great. In the middle of the orc pack, Jackson became irate. “Hey, y’all, we’re still pinned here,” he hollered at the team. “Aah ain’t stayin’ like this all night.”

Silo, who had been unusually reserved, reverted back to his confrontational self. “Well, it isn’t all about you, mate!”

The Alabama orc twisted his head and glared at the Brit. “Who asked you, prissy gamer boy? You wanna make a fracas? You can stay here. Ahh ain’t.”

Despite his injuries, Silo lunged at the heavier warrior, but Hammer blocked him. “Prissy? You watch your words, you dumbass hick!”

Jackson growled right back at him and clenched his fist. “Watch your own words, you filthy…”

While their tempers flared and Hammer kept them apart, Zack started laughing. “Hey, Jackson, your face is turning beet red. You better stop before you blow a blood vessel.” Soon, the other teammates started chuckling at the spectacle, which lifted the post-battle tension. While the two agitated orcs cooled down, the laughter among the teammates became more sporadic. Then Vlad started chuckling at the other end of the tunnel. “You two are like a couple of dolboyob bitches in heat.”

Silo turned his attention to the Russian. “Who asked you, VD? Mind your freakin’ business. If I’m looking for an STD, I’ll come to you.”

The laughter that still trickled amidst the members came to a dead stop.

“Vat did you say?” the Russian mage asked with a heavy tone.

Silo laughed sardonically. “Yeah. I heard about the prostitutes you used to take back to— ”

“Everyone shut the fuck up!”

The shout echoed even against the dense and porous walls of the tunnel. There was no mistaking it as Damon. A deathly silence hung in the musty air.

After a few moments, the orc general continued. “Now, I know we just went through a tough battle. We’re beaten. We’re sore. We’re hot. We can’t even fucking breathe,” he grumbled. “But we are going to listen to the nurses, and we are going to get ourselves out of this jam. Am I under-fucking-stood?”

Even though some of the rookies had concerns about what might be in the first room, no one raised a word. With their wounds closed now, but their bodies still covered with dirt, slime, and sweat, the tired crew started shuffling forward.

7

As they crawled toward the end of the passageway, Damon discarded his steel-plated pants. The worms had chewed through the leather bindings and the armor would no longer stay fastened to his body.

“I didn’t like wearing them anyway,” he grumbled.

As the smaller teammates passed over the item, they examined the discarded plates to see if they could be salvaged for another use, but no one thought so.

The members compared rough numbers for their kills and realized that there had been over two hundred worms attacking them.

After another thirty minutes, Damon reached the end of the passageway. He called to Harper to move the light orb, which floated ahead of him, further into the room so he could survey the enormous circular space. As he had expected, muddy water had flooded the floor, but he couldn’t tell how deep it was. The surface of the water was a good twelve feet below the rim of the tunnel. Along with what had been flushed down the tunnel, clear water flowed in a torrent, from the ceiling down the eastern side, along dark limestone bricks.

“Hey, we might be able to clean ourselves,” the orc general called back, and the team roared with delight.

He didn’t see any portals, but observed the sculpture of a human head mounted in the center of the room’s ceiling. Sculpted from the same dark gray stone, the face frowned forebodingly down at the floor. Its convex mouth protruded outward, and Damon could see a distinct line between its stone lips. Remembering the Pygmalion battle in the tower, he understood that entry to the second floor was likely through the sculpture’s mouth.

He scanned the room for mobs but couldn’t see any obvious adversaries, other than a series of large, bright flowers that ran along the right side of the circular wall. Yellow petals had unfurled from green bulbs that appeared to have sprouted from the limestone. Their unusual color and brightness, and the absence of any other threats in the room, led Damon to believe the flowers were the room’s mobs. He cast a Boulder spell and bashed the marble projectile into one of the flowers. A yellow petal fell into the murky water, but there was no other reaction from his attack.

As Damon relayed his observations, the team discussed strategy.

Harper checked each member’s mana regeneration rates, then told them to run Defense Buff and Offense Buff. “These will boost your constitution, endurance, strength and dexterity stats by 25% respectively. Your MPRs will cover them, so you’ll still have your mana pools to cast spells.”

She suggested the members move quickly as they entered the room, warning that the first few orcs could become outnumbered. “Let’s converge somewhere in the middle, but not directly under the face sculpture.”

Not knowing how deep the water was, Angie reminded the team that Thao couldn’t swim. They moved the Grimalkin hunter up in the formation.

“Hammer, I want you to watch out for her,” Damon said, then raised his voice to be heard. “Everyone, make sure you equip your weapon as soon as you land in the water.” There was a murmur of assurances, then the orc general jumped into the water.