Before long another swarm showed up, and they fought off that one marginally better with the help of Podge's captive scarab swarm.

However, even with Bradley's continued leveling into Medic to stretch their supply as far as it would go, they were still using up their potions altogether too fast. Bradley and Jeff both managed to level from the conflict. Fighting in an overleveled dungeon was doing wonders for their experience gains, even if each fight lasted about a half hour too long and they never had enough time to properly recover.

"Did you get any abilities?" Laurence asked, too impatient to wait for him to finish looking over his stats, notebook poised for the answers.

"Not yet. It's only level 4, I wouldn't expect it to." Jeff had reluctantly agreed to increase his Fighter to level 4 instead of continuing to level primarily Ranger, but he wasn't happy about it. He grumbled something under his breath that sounded like, "complete waste," but Laurence ignored the complaint and continued counting the number and level of their defeated opponents.

He had a theory, and he needed data to verify or refute it. He did note that the increase had flipped Jeff's official total level up to 10, which was more data for his chart. But even moving as fast as he could, Laurence only managed to catalogue a dozen or so scarabs before the dungeon finished reclaiming them.

When Laurence stood, as much information recorded as he could find, he surveyed the battered group. Any pride he'd felt keeping him from speaking up was gone.

"We can't stay here."

Several faces turned to him at this bold proclamation, but no one spoke. He could see the judgment in their eyes, the 'so you brought us all this way for nothing' look growing, and hurried to clarify.

"Right now, this is a war of slow attrition and we're going to lose. Sooner rather than later, we'll run out of potions. We have to either turn back now while we can still survive crossing that acid lake, or press on hard to reach the first treasure room. There, we can rest as long as we need to without being in any danger. But if we stay here, we're going to slowly wear down until there's nothing left."

Steele didn't even hesitate. "I vote we press on. We came here to level up fast, not to run away the first time we got a boo-boo. Sitting around isn't the fast-track to anything."

"We're with you, sensei!" Xander called out, not willing to be outdone by a Frire, and the other Doom Raiders quickly followed in voicing assent.

Jeff appeared reluctant, but in the end the vote was unanimous. No more waiting around; they'd press on into the second room immediately.

Steele stepped to the front, followed closely by Xander who tried to step in front of him. Steele, of course, wasn't about to let someone from the Doom Raiders take the front uncontested, and began walking faster.

A gremlin jumped out at them from the shadows, silent as death, its claws gleaming.

"Look out!" Jeff raised his manabow in a single smooth motion and fired.

The bolt slammed into the gremlin's back, but only dropped its health by a small percentage. The gremlin didn't even flinch. Its claws dug into the back of Xander's neck, left exposed by his headgear of a simple circlet.

Laurence's mana was still low, too low to jump in and help, but he glanced around hastily for a rock or any weapon he could use.

Then mentally smacked himself. He had his staff! It wasn't only good for channeling spells.

Steele was no slouch. He spun on the gremlin without any hint of the adversity or rivalry they'd just been displaying, slicing into its stomach with an orange-glowing Destructive Slash and knocking it away from Xander.

Running into the fray, Laurence began smacking gremlins left and right. Exhilaration at the sheer ridiculous physicality of it bubbled up in him. It wasn't until the gremlin screeched and leaped away from their combined attacks that he realized he was laughing and roaring at the top of his lungs.

The gremlin's tail thrashed in pain as it fled, Xander's blood dripping from its claws. It jumped for the pitted wall of the passageway, but Laurence was faster. Three more manabow bolts whizzed past his cheek as he lunged, snatching the gremlin out of the air and hurling it back toward Steele and the rest.

Its health had dropped to 62%. The gremlin screeched and twisted in midair, aligning itself so it hit Steele feet-first, its claws grating across the warrior's armor with an ear-piercing shriek.

"This thing should be dead by now!" Steele shouted, as Podge swatted the creature to the ground with his shield, his scarabs swarming in on it, and Steele followed up with another empowered Destruction attack. All their attacks combined managed to drop its health to 50%. "No way a level 10 should be this sturdy."

"Yeap, just go ahead and tell reality how it should be, that's sure to work," Jeff retorted, firing another arrow into the gremlin's exposed back. It hissed and whirled on him, but the Frires were a well-oiled unit. Podge intercepted the attack, shielding the ranger from the irate gremlin, as the combined attacks dropped it further to 46%.

Laurence glanced back up at the fight, which was about to end decisively with the gremlin pinned to the ground and hissing feebly in protest as its final percents of health drained away.

"Move on," Steele commanded tersely, pushing to the front.

Laurence abruptly realized he'd been about to continue out in front with his staff. What had gotten into him? He'd gotten caught up in the moment and forgotten that the mage belonged at the back of the group, safely protected from the most dangerous adversity, not in the thick of things.

He pushed away the image of gleefully smashing more gremlins, instead taking his place at the rear. He kept watch on the ceilings, the floor, the walls, as they made their way cautiously through the maze that comprised the second room.

Three more gremlins jumped out at them next, these waiting until the group wast past before attacking from the rear. Laurence only caught the glint of horn before he shouted out and spun to blast a Gust into the nearest gremlin's face.

It screeched and kept coming.

He cast again and then a third time, but unlike the scarabs gremlins were heavy enough that the spell didn't push them back. Laurence had to retreat instead. He knew his meager armor wouldn't shield him for long. He'd watched Skarm and Two in action for too long to believe gremlins anything but deadly adversaries, and he wasn't ready to die to something as basic as a gremlin. He'd much rather go out fighting a dragon or demon prince. For the future founder of Earth's first magic academy to die before he could really accomplish his life's goals would be unacceptable!

He found he was screaming again, smashing the nearest gremlin again and again with his staff, no time to cast as he backed away. It felt like he'd been fighting alone for an eternity, though it couldn't have been more than a few seconds.

Then Steele and Podge ran to take over, slashing down at the gremlins as their adversaries clawed and stabbed at their arms and legs and anything within reach.

Laurence took only a second to steady himself before switching spells and beginning to fire Air Blades at the gremlins with high precision. He had slotted both spells and wasn't going to waste the chance. Air Blade was higher damage per mana output but it was slower to cast than Gust and did less damage over an area. Single target, rather than multi-target, but he could cast three of them now he had space to breathe.

Jeff fired off shots from his manabow as fast as he could. Too fast for Steele or Podge to take aggro.

The second gremlin reached the ranger and jumped, stabbing its horn straight through the center of Jeff's palm and savaging his arm with its claws.

Jeff screamed, clutching his arm to his chest as he tried to swat the clinging gremlin away, punching its head again and again, choking on his own sobs as blood dripped down his arm and onto the floor.