Something rammed into Carey’s side, tossing him out of the way.

Chik-chik! Chik-chik!

Two battle-axes sliced across the room in a scissoring motion, both hanging upside down. Carey and Will tumbled out of the way just in time.

Carey watched the axes slice deadly paths through the air, each hanging by a chain. They all waited in silence, until finally the weapons dangled harmlessly and then disappeared.

“Thank you, Will, old buddy,” Carey said, rising and brushing off dust.

“Hey,” Will said. “You said my name.”

“What?”

“You called me ‘Will’ instead of homie or some insulting nickname. I don’t think you’ve ever called me by my actual name.”

Beatrice approached, smiling. She grabbed Carey’s and Will’s shoulders and gave them a light shake. “That sounds like progress to me. Maybe our narcissistic friend here is finally developing a little empathy. Feels good, huh, DrollTroll?”

“Actually, it feels kinda weird,” Carey said. “Let me sleep on it. But first…” He looked around. “I’m gonna get that little bastard thief.”

“Maybe,” Beatrice said. “Maybe not. We might never see him again.”

“Nah,” Carey said. “He took a pretty bold risk. I think he wants us to notice him.”

They descended deeper into the dungeon, making sure to look out for traps along the way. Anything suspicious—like a section of floor that appeared slightly raised, or a glint of light that could have been a trip wire—was worth examining, even if it made their journey longer.

“Anyone catch his name?” Carey asked. “Stats, at least? Anything?”

“Still raging against the thief?” Will shook his head. “Trust me, we got bigger problems.”

Carey sighed and checked his map. Since they hadn’t explored very far, the majority of the shrine’s rooms and corridors were obscured. It was a fairly large map—probably would have taken an entire day to see everything. But Carey was only interested in three things right now: leveling up, getting Muriel’s gold, and teaching that thief a lesson.

It wasn’t long before they found more enemies. As they silently crept through yet another darkened corridor, Carey used his sharpened senses to pick out the sound of Torgs whispering in the room up ahead. The thick wooden door was shut. He pressed his ear to it and listened.

“Sprinkle it on, that’s it.”

“Can I light it?”

“Oh, oh, I want to light it.”

Carey eased the door open.

Inside what appeared to be an abandoned banquet hall—several of the dining tables missing, flipped over, or bashed into pieces—three Torgs stood inspecting a massive, pale, fuzzy egg sac hanging in the corner, suspended by spider webs stretched across both walls. There must have been a million baby Lichroot Spiders inside that thing. Carey shuddered as he imagined himself covered in a tickling carpet of those little bastards.

One of the Torgs was easily a foot taller than the others. The impressive muscles in its rippling red back contracted as, bent down near the ground, it raised itself from whatever it had been doing. The creature turned to face its two companions, and Carey almost recoiled, so intense was his revulsion at the sight of it.

Clearly a female, the taller Torg had the bulky frame of a bodybuilder, two pointy bare breasts that stuck out like traffic cones, and enormous, horn-like teeth jutting from the lower half of her jaw and curling halfway up her cheeks. Flashy earrings dangled from her perked-up ears.

“Let me light it,” the Torg said in her raspy voice. “You lit it last time. Don’t make me angry again.”

Those last two words had come out a low rumble that frightened the other two.

“Here, here, take it,” one of the males said, passing over a flask.

Will whispered to Carey, “That must be the flammable mixture from the note.”

BIG LEG FLAMER, Carey remembered, for kill lickroot spiders.

The female Torg snatched the flask from the male’s hand. The two males stepped back.

Once the males stepped aside, Carey was able to see what else the room contained. There seemed to be a makeshift laboratory for brewing Big Leg Flamer potions on one of the tables against the wall—not an actual, serviceable crafting bench, but a smaller Torg version. Several flasks were half-full, and a couple looked ready to cork.

“She’ll blow the entire room,” Will said. “We have to cross.”

“So? We’ll just take fire damage,” Beatrice said. “I can heal us up.”

Carey shook his head. “No. Absolutely not. We can’t keep treating this game like some cakewalk. If fire can kill, cripple, or maim us in real life, then that’s how we should treat it here. Or else we’re going to keep stepping into traps and getting our asses kicked.”

Beatrice nodded. “Smart. I like that.”

Carey was ashamed to admit just how much he appreciated the compliment, especially coming from her.

The female Torg—labeled a “Torg Brutesse,” but only a Level 4 despite her intimidating musculature—whipped her arm back and launched the flask as though she were trying to catapult it across a baseball field rather than a dining hall.

It smashed into the egg sac, the fuzzy surface of which instantly became soaked with liquid that gave it an oily, rainbow sheen.

“Now,” Carey said.

He crept up to the female and initiated a Takedown attack that managed to chop off a quarter of her HP bar while also staggering her. Not that he had expected her to die right away, the creature being above his level, but it would have been nice to be rid of one demon bitch from hell intent on tearing large chunks out of his body.

Desperate, Carey activated Fight Like a Man...er...Bear. The ability had a three-hour cooldown, so he had to be sure this was the time to use it. On the bright side, it was three hours of game time, which (according to Will’s explanation earlier) was approximately 35 percent faster than the “real-world” time they were used to.

As the female Torg bore down on him, all teeth and muscle and pointy breasts, Carey could think of no better time.

“RAWWWWRRRR!”

The bone-shaking roar erupted from Carey’s mouth, disrupting the flow of battle as Will, Beatrice, and all three Torgs froze, staring at him in open-mouthed shock. Both of Carey’s arms had sprouted coarse, black hair and had become about five inches longer and several times thicker. For a moment, Carey could only blink stupidly at everyone present—until finally, the battle swung into action once more.

He swung one of his black-bear arms at the Torg female, catching her in that snapping, elongated maw of hers. She staggered, but only for a second, after which she whipped her claws at Carey, doing a nice chunk of damage.

Too much damage!

Despite his Constitution and Strength being 2x higher thanks to the Fight like a Man...er...Bear ability, he was now down to about 80 percent of his HP. The Torg Brutesse was much stronger than the males. What the hell had they been thinking, picking a fight like this?

He managed to hit the female again, this time with his right bear claw. The damage was significant. His attacks managed to bring her HP down to about 70 percent.

Thirty seconds had passed. The bear claws disappeared, and Carey was his old self again.

This time, he used his Feral agility to get away from the female. He ducked and leaped to avoid her claws and teeth, striking when he could with his dagger. The +3 bleeding damage was a nice touch. Occasionally, blood would spurt from the female’s chest, making her even more enraged.

A weirdly musty, spicy scent invaded Carey’s nose at one point.

“Uh oh,” he said. “Uh, guys?”

Beatrice and Will were down to one Torg fighter, Will at about 60 percent of his HP. Beatrice wove a healing spell meant to save his life.

“Not now,” she shouted at Carey.

Will readied a lightning spell, probably avoiding fire so as not to ignite the egg sac.

Speaking of the egg sac...

The smell was coming from it, and with good reason. As Carey backed away from the approaching Torg female, he noticed a dark tear in the egg sac’s surface—a tear that doubled in length suddenly, as if something trapped inside were struggling to get out.

“Oh boy.”

Baby spiders spilled from the sac and formed a spreading black carpet over the floor.

“Guys,” he shouted. “Spiders!”

The Torg female leaped toward Carey, one arm rising to block his defensive dagger strike. She clamped her jaws around his shoulder. He felt every tooth like nails being driven against the bone.

“Ah, good Christ!”

Immediately, without thinking, Carey made his quick-access inventory appear and selected a Minor Nectar potion. He gripped it in one hand, uncorked it, and began to drink, but he spilled it everywhere as the female Torg used her powerful jaws to thrash him about like a rag doll.

The potion only helped a bit. His HP was maybe 40 percent full.

He was going to die.

“Help!”

The cry had come from Will.

Wide-eyed and terrified, he shouted for help again as a blanket of tiny baby Lichroot Spiders swarmed over his body in a dark, writhing mass.

Beatrice looked terrified, a forgotten healing spell burning in her hands. The party could have taken advantage of her buff spells before the battle, but then they would have risked calling the Torg’s attention. Now, all she could do was respond and heal—but heal which of her allies?

“Me,” Carey shouted. “Heal me!”

Before she could comply with his request, the Torg female whipped her body around, Carey still clamped in her jaws. He was flung across the room, his shoulder feeling like it had been torn off completely. He struck a wall and landed on a pile of broken table parts.

Bea’s healing spell hit him a moment later.

“Yes,” he said, feeling like he was rising in a brilliant, heavenly geyser of pure pleasure.

The Torg female went for their healer this time.

A swipe of her right claw sent Beatrice tumbling across the floor, white wings flashing, her HP bar down to around 80 percent. The female clamped her jaws around one of Bea’s wings.

Carey would never forget Bea’s shrieks of agony combined with the terrified half-screams, half-choking sounds coming from Will, who clawed at himself as baby spiders swarmed into his mouth and got into his eyes.

Everything seemed lost, their lives over.

Then, to make things worse, Carey heard a jingling sound.

Glancing over his shoulder, he caught sight of the Feral thief darting across the room.

Another player pickpocketed DrollTroll and took (2) Minor Nectar potions

“Motherfu—”

The Torg female tossed Beatrice against Carey hard enough to send him staggering with barely enough time to prepare himself for the female’s next attack, which involved sprinting toward them in a headfirst tackle.

A fiery burst hit the Torg female instead.

“Thank God, Will,” Carey said.

Will had found a way to escape the baby spiders by literally lighting himself on magical fire. He was now a walking, flickering, smoking pillar of flames. Burnt baby spiders leaped off his body like sparks.

His Fireball spell had saved his companions. The only problem was, the egg sac was flammable.

“Run,” Carey shouted wildly.

Will launched himself away from the egg sac, which had just started to catch fire.

Beatrice pressed her wrists together, clawed fingers suddenly burning bright. She threw her arms apart, the spell arcing between them, pure sizzling energy, yellow as a field of dandelions in the sun.

The crackling energy of Bea’s spell engulfed them, just as the room exploded.