Everybody fell back. Polestar dropped Spikes to a wobbly standing position and whirled, pulling out a dinky-looking knife. The leader was down to a knife too.

Tazo called out, "Vonn, support!" She was casting something while she backpedaled. He couldn't tell what, but tried to help. They walked quickly backward, aided by their Balance ability.

"Got it," Tazo said. She knelt and slapped the ground with one hand. White light flared out from the impact point and all along the stone. Where it touched Grimace the light shined brighter and there was a sizzle. The monster wobbled, splashed backward, and squelched as it tried to re-form.

Kotta was by their side. Vonn tapped his weapon with frost. Spikes said, "Disrupt it again. Polestar, retrieve weapons."

Their caster gritted his teeth and shouted at the monster, pointing his wand from three paces away. Fire lanced out and burned all along its body. Vonn tried to help Tazo repeat whatever she'd done, but she was dizzy. "Not enough Mana."

Vonn settled for waving his gun around, trying to distract the monster. A melee man went down yelping from a long pseudopod punch. Someone dragged him away from a follow-up attack. The beast was slower now and they were able to get some distance. It wasted another few seconds trying to get Polestar, who awkwardly stomped on one end of the fallen halberd so he could grab the other end.

Then the blob slowly dissolved, harried by light slashes and Tazo's attempt at another fire bolt. Its last flailing attacks missed and it left only slime and two chips of glassy stuff that had been its eyes.

"Not magicite," said one man poking the remains with a sword.

Vonn beckoned Kotta closer and applied a minor healing spell to a gash on his arm. "Everybody okay?" Vonn himself was close to empty on Stamina but had some Mana to spare.

Several people had acid burns they were trying to wipe off or heal with each other's magic. Spikes said, "Somebody check that trench we almost went into. Strong guys, we're dragging the bassist back."

Vonn continued helping with the healing. The lead Mage scooped up vials of slime and the eyeball bits. The knife-wielding woman hopped down into the pits and came back with two sets of iron shackles. "The hell is this?" she said.

Vonn said without thinking, "The Duke said I shouldn't explain it myself."

"The Duke told you? Just who are you anyway?"

Vonn grinned. "We're the Rising World Company, at your service. Not professional adventurers, really; that's just our hobby."

#

They retreated in good order, not even going into the doorway that they spied looming in the distance. All the while they were making observations, noting multiple airways in the pits, and avoiding any more encounters. Vonn said, "You're careful about all this. Smart."

Spikes said, "That's how you live long enough to get good. Speaking of which, Kobold guy -- Kotta, right? What did you do wrong?"

Kotta hissed. "Me? I fought."

"You fought dumb. Bashing things with a club is good, but did you notice anything about how my team fights?"

"You... had tactics."

"Which only work if people follow orders."

"But it was falling apart. I had to --"

"No, I saw you keep whacking that bassist after I said retreat. Were you trying to make sure you got the kill? You don't actually have to land the last blow, to earn the Fighter level."

Kotta drooped. "Oh."

"So take a chunk of this thing for your trophy, but think about how that could've gone bad. As for the 'falling apart' thing, yeah, that happens. But we fight the smart way for as long as we can so we have the advantage when it gets messy."

Vonn suggested, "No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy."

Spikes snorted. "I like that. But the chaos doesn't start all at once." He turned to Vonn and Tazo and Polestar. "Thanks for the save, ah, Polestar. Nice magic moves, you Vulins. What were those anyway?"

Vonn explained his sonic counter. "Didn't seem good enough to fling it outward as an attack, but it broke the wave."

Tazo looked bashfully down. "I had the idea that we're dealing with death Mana here. And I'd been studying geomancy, and you can fling a bit of Mana into the ground with that. You're supposed to do it slowly but all I needed was to try a quick pulse."

The lead Mage said, "That's clever. Basically it was a healing spell, right? Flung outward like an Elementalist spell, but using Geomancy to conduct it."

"It burned through a lot of my Mana."

"I saw you were a bit wasteful, yes. It would work better if you focused that spell into a forward arc. Same with your fire. When you get more control you'll see more ways to steer the shape."

"You did fireballs without the throwing! That was great."

"I know." The Mage grinned. He briefly walked her through compressing a spell into a small point without a physical object.

"Thank you!" Tazo curtseyed to him and then to the rest of the party.

Vonn offered to shake hands, then remembered it wasn't a common thing. Spikes looked confused for a moment, then clasped hands with him. "Good work. It looks like this dungeon's a nasty one, so don't go in there without serious backup, all right?"

"Yes, sir!" said Vonn. "Our team isn't qualified. Has your group got a name?"

Spikes looked perplexed. "Never really needed one."

Kotta said, "You should! It helps the Bards spread word of you."

#

Vonn and Tazo eventually made it back to work. Urika said, "Got that out of your system?"

Vonn put a set of iron manacles on a bench. "It's rough over there. The professionals didn't even try to get underground on this trip."

Urika hefted the nasty bit of treasure. "We need to talk about the metal supply. Production on just about everything but the wooden toys will grind to a halt if the mines aren't re-opened. Worse yet, the western villagers are leaderless and the Duke hasn't said a thing about seeing that the mining crews continue being paid. What is he thinking?"

Tazo asked, "Maybe he thinks those villages are harboring Baron Kolm."

"The mine has got to be a significant income source for the Duke," said Vonn.

Urika said, "I can't make do with tin and lead. Someone has to organize enough of a mining group to continue working without monster interruption."

"We just went in with, what, ten people and that was barely enough to fend off two creatures."

The master Smith rattled the newfound chains. "We can't subsist on this, either! I've heard nothing from the westerners. No communication; did they all get sacrificed down there?"

Polestar came back from some errand, with his ears high. "What?" asked Urika.

"I saw all the inventing going on, and wanted to try something small. I just sold a... different style of hive to the local beekeepers. What they've been using is too destructive. The new method keeps the bees' home mostly intact in a removable frame."

Vonn said, "Nice. I'd been wondering if we could update those, but wasn't sure how."

"I never owned my own set but had a neighbor who talked about it."

The Kobold's claws dug into the table. "That is wonderful. Perhaps Vonn's parents can make swords out of wax and honey."

Vonn held up one palm. "All right, we do need to focus. Polestar, when you fled from Scaled Nation turf, did you pass through the area west of the dungeon?"

"Yes. I mostly followed the river. I was still hiding and wanted to get farther away, to be sure nobody would come after me."

"Anything useful to say about the mining area?"

Polestar scuffed one hoof along the floor. "I saw miners fighting goblins. The main town I saw was shabby, like your south villages. They'd started the harvest and were planting gourds right away in the same field, like they were desperate to get a second crop in."

Urika said, "I may need to check in with them myself."