Of the six of us: only Dawn, Elsbeth, and I have a way to see in the dark. Granted, my ability needs to be activated every hour to work, it did leave my hands completely free. Kona and Victoria can light torches with one of their abilities, and someone makes sure Ramona's torch stays lit. All in all, its not a bad way to travel across an unlit dungeon. The first couple of caverns still had several Shadow Beetles but they are no longer a threat to us. They're impeding, smelly, and gross but not a threat.

Victoria had gotten some people in the cave to gather the loot by the dungeon entrance for us, but here we managed quite well. With everyone now wearing at least one magical storage item, we had no trouble with the loot ourselves. For the most part, the shadow beetles dropped something called, Shadow Carapace. Though initially weak, the carapace hardened like a metal once inside the loot bag.

My Survival Skill now adds more details to the things I Analyze for improvising. It doesn't tell me anything specific just yet, but it does show the carapace as a crafting material for possible armor pieces and shields. It also hints at a possible weapon, but I can't tell what it is quite yet.

My newest skill, Echo Strike, is an overpowered and undercosted wrecking machine. By looking at it's design, I can tell that it was originally meant to deal far less damage. The cost of the second, off hand is to divide the Strength or Dexterity modifier in half before adding it to the weapon damage, essentially dealing far less damage than the main weapon.

When you use Echo Strike it essentially deals that same exact amount, but as Arcane damage, like some ghostly third hand. Because my claws ignore the penalty and have been steadily increasing in base damage AND Dexterity, I'm dealing almost twice the damage I'm meant to. One hit on an unlucky test beetle dealt it 64 damage, 32 as Arcane. If I was using a weapon of similar stats to my claw, the damage would only be 36, 18 as Arcane. I might not be Min-Maxing intentionally here, but combined with a possible 84 from dealing a vital Critical Stab, that's 144 damage right off the bat. Of course, I won't be stopping at just two good hits and calling it quits. I'll be raining down strikes like a mixed martial artist going for the championship belt.

For now, my claws are gripping onto the wall of a pit trap. Having set it off while doing calculations in my head and I was oblivious to the world around me. The funny thing about my reflex, is it can only work with a clear mind and at the time mine was as clear as mud.

"Just don't look down at the spikes!" Kona helpfully shouts from the other side of the ten foot wide pit. I had pierced the wall with my claws at such an awkward angle that I couldn't scale the four feet to safety. My Strength (2) actually prohibited me from doing anything but dangle, the one extra point from the mask doing nothing for me.

"Thanks, Kid."

"Hey!" she yells back, a growl in her voice this time, "I'm twenty four years old!"

Dawn looks at her incredulously, "Seriously? Or, like, in cat years?"

"People years, thank you very much."

"Can we crack the secrets to eternal youth a bit later?" I'm not angry, but I do want their focus to remain on the task at hand, "I'd hate to respawn back in Kes Rentas."

"Oh no," Victoria chimes in matter of factly, "You Travelers come back in the last place you slept or where ever you set a Soul Anchor." That's actually useful information, though not the kind of useful to get me out of this mess. Unless I release the wall, fall to my death, then jog my death-sick butt back over here.

"Elsbeth wonders why you don't do your teleport thing?"

I hit my face against the stone hard enough to deal a couple points of damage, before appearing in a dull flash slightly above the ledge. I turn around to see Elsbeth pointing an arrow and me. She fires and I barely manage to dodge it, watching a rope trail and fall behind it. An inch before it hits the ground I scoop it up and search for an anchor point.

"You know what would be helpful in a place like this?" I query to no one in particular as I pull Victoria, the last one across, up and onto her feet.

"A personal Iron Golem?" she answers back.

"Magic Carpets?" joined shortly by Dawn.

I'm staring at Elsbeth as she tries to create a word using the ones she knows but its coming out like (many arrow crossbow) and I'm really not sure what that means, but I like it.

"No, no. A rogue type. Don't they have trap senses or dungeon specific abilities?"

"There use to be an elite class called Relic Hunter, " Ramona casually informs us as she gets Kona to relight another torch for her. "They evolved from the Thief class but running around dungeons was too dangerous for people. Eventually, they all died. Apparently including the woman who claimed the Primary Class Feat."

"What's a Primary Class Feat?" Dawn asks before I do.

We're all moving forward in formation again, except I'm giving up on Wolf Senses. The musk of the beetles is everywhere and burying any available trails. The echoing of their chitters disrupts my radar. I can't see far enough without being blocked by a rock wall. So, I might as well conserve my MP without taking the chance of being short at a moment's notice.

Victoria continues in a more subdued voice, "The first being who claims the title of a class is granted a special Feat depending on the mother class. There are five: mage, archer, rogue, fighter, and cleric."

A host of beetles and a few stalkers await us in another large cavern. Victoria continues her lesson, weilding her spear like a painter creating a happy landscape, "There are many classes in the line of First Class, though it is still possible to create new ones, however rare that may be."

The rest of us are listening as we get covered in smelly ichir and carapace bits. "That's the only way now, though, since many classes and subclasses have been discovered since the beginning. Each Primary Class Feat can be passed down freely to anyone, but mostly it goes to an apprentice." She punctuates her sentence with a spear thrust into the open mandibles of a stalker.

[Vital Spot! You deal 39 pierceing damage!]

[You defeated Shadow Stalker!]

I'm climbing the back of another. The broken half of one of its scythes is sticking out of my side, the other half is on the floor. I stab my claw into the top of its head, "And what if the people die without passing it on?" A blast of arcane energy rocks the creature's body below me. I leap off and a crunchy beetle softens my landing. I perform an expert backflip, narrowly avoiding a swipe from the remaining stalker in the room and parry its continuous strikes, "Would it be lost?"

"Actually, the very next being to obtain the class would get it by default." Victoria answers before skewering two beetles at once, withdawing her spear, and flinging the ichir into oncomming beetles, "I've always thought that strange, but its random and fair." I'm gliding through the beetles untouched while the stalker slices it's way through it's shadow brethren. I jump over and behind a waiting Dawn as she suprises the stalker with a glowing mace.

[Weakness! You deal 56 radiant damage!]

The move sends the stalker back a step and completely off tempo. With it's guard wide open, she finishes it off with another Smite. The cavern is clear and the party regroups. Elsbeth collects as many arrows as she can. Romana cleans and maintains her weapon with a rag and whetstone. Kona stays near the Saurean, as her MP refills. Dawn, Victoria, and I go on a loot sack hunt.

[War Party Leader II Bonus: +20% shared XP]

[Total Shadow Beetles killed: 32*4XP

[128+25XPBonus

[153/6members

[Received: 25XP]

[Total Shadow Stalkers killed: 3*9XP

[27+5Bonus

[32/6members

[You received: 6XP]

In total we received 23*shadow carapace, a whopping 7*shadow scythes, and 1*stalker wing. The Stalkers had the same physiology as a typical mantis so a wing didn't seem all that strange, but we haven't seen it f-- Wait. One of the main rules of dungeon crawling is "Don't say it, don't think it, and it might not happen." Its a superstition shared by veteran RPGers from tabletop to digital.

I shake my hands loose of smelly goo, distracting my thoughts with the image of my next bath, when the next words uttered in the dark cave chill my blood more than any creature I've encountered so far.

Dawn's voice is cheerful and innocent, "Wow. That wasn't too bad, was it?"

My jaw drops, as I glance around at everyone else stunned by her words. She finally notices her faux pas, "What?"

Kona jumps into her face, bonking her on the head with her staff, "You can't say that while we're still in here, dummy!"

"Ow! Why not?"

"Aaaargh! No!"

Everyone else is on high alert, back in formation. Only Dawn is hesitantly gripping her shield and mace, looking for hidden dangers. "What did I say?" she whispers to Victoria.

"Don't pay them any attention. It's just a stupid belief that saying something like 'That was too easy!' is an invitation for something much worse." I try to steady my breathing and match it to the rythmic pounding of my heart. Wait. Its too slow. And my whole body can feel it. Oh. That's not good. I activate Wolf Senses just in case.

Magical flames light up the walls in what we thought were normal indentations in the stone. The flames glow a bright purple, almost like a blacklight and a debuff symbol glows beneath my bars. The magical light is a little disorienting, especially after the dim light from our torches and darkvision. It's almost like my eyes can't decide between the grays of darkvision and the purples of the magical flames. I hunch over, gripping my knees to steady myself.

"Ardacen!" Kona cries out as she and Ramona rush to steady me.

"I'm okay, check on Dawn and Elsbeth." They, too, are feeling the effects but they can't turn theirs off like I can and do, dismissing Wolf Senses again. My vision is taken over by violet light and the debuff notification goes away. I stare a little at Ramona as she blends in well with the new world color.

The rumbling approaches our cavern in a cadence of six beats. Victoria looks Dawn and Elsbeth over, "Distance yourself from the danger. Range support only if you have clear shots."

The cavern we're in is vast enough to host the small army of beetles and stalkers we just killed while leaving room for a similar sized group. The ceiling is about two stories up. The connecting tunnel at the opposite end is just as tall and just as wide. I really did not like what that implied. Everyone's points just barely topped off when a sound swept through the cavern. It was the ear rupturing union of high pressured air escaping and nails on a chalkboard.

The creator of this horrible sound enters the room ass- first in the form of a giant stinger hanging just below the ceiling. The jet black tail and body look like it is carved from living granite, the light bathing it giving it a strange glowing look. Six long, large legs effortlessly carry the massive form into full veiw. It's long flat body hiding behind two boulders of black that split horizontaly in the middle, two claws that could easily pick up a person and crush them to death. It's midnight eyes had a small glowing dot that searched the room for prey.

Kona sighs and signs some letters, charging up a spell, "If we live through this, I'm going to kill her." I watch Dawn and Elsbeth unsteadily position themselves far against one of the walls behind a big enough rock, both look close to throwing up.

The monstrosity's glowing eyes lock on to us, making another sound, the same as earlier, we all clutch our ears almost tearing them off for causing so much pain. It raises it's claws and readies itself for battle. We form a diamond formation with me in front, Ramona and Victoria on my left and right, and Kona in the back. Our main healer and main ranged attacker out for the moment.

[Shadow Tria, Level 10, Boss Tier 1, ??/??HP,

[??/??MP, ??/??SP]

[Analyze ability too low to discern description]

Here. We. Go.