Ultimate Level 1

“They’re biting my ankles!” Fowl shouted as his hammer bashed in three more goblins in a single swing.

As the three died, four more goblins half their size burst from their chests, sharp teeth and claws trying to tear into the plate-covered dwarf that had foolishly stumbled upon them.

Max groaned as his poleaxe cut through the horde of goblins. They weren’t strong but their numbers were pissing him off.

“Fire Nova in five!”

Max grunted and continued swinging his weapon, taking out as many of the stupid green creatures with blindfolds as he could.

Flames rolled out from Tanila, and the group that was still alive died, more goblins springing out as it had before, and the second wave of fire destroyed those, leading another group of even smaller ones to burst forth. As the third wave went from her body, all the goblins finally were burnt to a crisp.

“What in the gods was that!” Fowl shouted as he spun around, making sure no goblin was trying to wiggle their pointy fingers in his nose, ear, or mouth.

“Not what I had expected,” Max replied. “How many goblins was that total?”

Cordellia came up and began picking up the green gems that littered the burnt ground.

“Over three hundred,” Tanila said. “They seemed to replicate four times after you killed the first and always twice as many but half as tall.”

“Who cares?” Fowl replied. “None of you had fingers where they don’t go!”

The dungeon was starting to be fun in ways Max didn’t want to discuss. The brown dirt with almost no vegetation that led to a massive goblin city didn’t seem like that big of a deal. He wasn’t sure why the goblins had on blindfolds, but it appeared they had some sort of sonar or something else like his.

A dozen or so notifications had popped up about the skill being lower and powered being stored, but after that, it stopped, unsure if no more could be taken or if that was just his skill turning off the messages.

“I’ve got a plan,” Max informed everyone as he smirked. “You might like it, and you might not, but I’m pretty sure we can do this a lot easier.

“I’m tired of bending over,” Fowl said, giving Max a wink. “How many of these gems are there?”

Everyone was just grabbing and breaking the green gems that were like a sea of green.

“Four or five thousand? Sorry, I didn’t keep track.”

He had run along, collecting groups, fireballing them, causing a build-up of goblins that stretched for hundreds of meters.

The sound of their voices had been almost deafening, but still, he just kept killing them all, running back and forth, easily staying out of their reach.

“Guess I’m back to sitting in a chair,” Batrire said as she crushed another gem between her fingers. “Wish there was an easier way though to collect this many.”

“Are you all okay with me grabbing the other group? I think there is maybe one more large pack I can get, and then we can access the portal in the city.”

Getting a shooing motion from Tanila, Max laughed and took off running.

“That floor was well worth it,” Fowl said as he pinched another green gem. “The gems seem to be worth far less, but there were thousands of them. I’m level fifty-nine now, and we hit level fourteen for the tower. After that rocky start, we’re ahead of where we hoped to be.”

Nodding, Max watched as everyone seemed in good spirits. Easy experience always made for a good day.

“Would we like to try the next floor? We could spend the night there if we want.”

Their dwarven warrior turned and looked at Max like he had just offered to punch them in the face.“There isn’t a bathroom in the tower. Why would we want to spend the night?”

“Because, at some point, we’ll have to,” Batrire replied as she frowned at Fowl. “Better to get used to it when it's easier than later when the floors are harder.”

Tanila and Cordellia both nodded, overruling the outhouse-loving dwarf.”

They had almost gone back out of the tower when they came through the portal and found a three-hundred-meter-wide field with a massive hole in the middle of the rocky soil.

Fowl had wanted to turn back, accepting the days they would have to wait to attempt a floor again, but the four ignored him and had hammered in spikes and let Max go down the rope first.

As if life could never be dull, at the bottom of the cavern was a sunken area that ran up and out about seventy-five yards in each direction. The incline looked like a person had punched a fist in a ball of dough, leaving a sunken pit with a high edge.

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When Fowl let go of the rope and touched the ground after everyone else, the rocky roof above them closed in, turning the place into absolute darkness.

It was at that moment Fowl screamed, and things went sideways.

Snakes of different sizes and shapes began descending down the incline at the five of them. As the place they were at became dark, everyone put their rings on, giving them some vision.

“Get on my wall!” Max called out as he summoned a stone wall between him and Fowl. “Tanila swap off as needed. Tell me when to recast!”

He grabbed Batrire and tossed her upward to the ledge that was about eight feet high on his wall, ignoring her cry and shock.

The other two moved on their own, jumping and pulling themselves up.

“I blame you!” Fowl yelled as his hammer crushed the head of a massive two-foot-wide snake.

“Stop complaining and focus!” Batrire shouted back.

Long snakes, two-headed snakes, snakes that spit acid, and more came at them from all directions, turning the sunken area into a pit of death and destruction.

“Fire Nova in four!”

Max cast his Frost Nova, using the added range of his new intelligence to help slow the attack from all around. He and Fowl fought the incoming creatures with only a few feet between them and the wall of earth he had summoned.

His pole axe sliced through the snakes with ease, and occasionally, one spit acid at him, the pain of it burning, but he never did so much damage that his regeneration couldn’t keep up with it.

Fowl’s new hammer appeared to be up to the task as ever swing devastated whatever the dwarf hit and kept his life topped up as well.

Tanila’s Fire Nova swept across the ground, consuming the bodies of all the snakes who were unfortunate enough to experience it.

Max alternated his spell with hers and also cast a fireball, using the advantage of his constant supply of mana from everything he killed.

Minutes turned into ten and then thirty, and as sixty minutes of nonstop fighting came about, Tanila was almost out of mana.

“I need to save for the walls!” she cried out.

“I got it. Try to rest!”

“Why won’t these things end?!” Fowl yelled. “Is this a time limit? Is there a certain number? Could it be another puzzle?”

Max had considered all those questions, but nothing had given him the chance to really know.

“Tanila! If I summon an air wall, can you three get on that, and you cast another and stay a little higher? I can try to explore.”

“I can just say when!”

Casting the air wall, Max watched as they helped Batrire climb on it, and then the other two got up. Now, about twelve feet in the air, they were safer than before.

“Don’t die, Fowl!” Max shouted as he raced up one of the inclines, slicing at the snakes and casting another Fire Nova to help clear the way.

Laughter came from his dwarf friend, fully enjoying every second of his awesomeness.

Climbing up the steep incline wasn’t bad as his legs and strength easily made it upward. As he got to the top side, his sonar revealed a bunch of cages along the wall, their bars lifted high and allowing snakes into the room.

Cursing under his breath for Fowl having been right and for them fighting this long, Max used his halberd to slice the thick rope holding a gate open. The cage door snapped shut with a clang, and a snake slammed into it, not budging the gate.

Groaning that this had been so easy, Max began his journey around the entire cave area, making his way to each cage along the wall, slaughtering everything that got in his way.

“Need an air wall!”

Tanila’s shout came, and Max gave a quick slice with his weapon, sheering the snake’s face off. Racing toward the edge he cast his airwall and put an ice one under it.

“It’s ready!”

He watched the three jump to his and then returned back to the job at hand, already noticing the number of snakes rapidly dwindling.

As the last gate clanged shut and the hissing of pissed-off and angry serpents echoed through the room, openings above the cages appeared in the wall, and torches appeared.

Shrieks came from the snakes as they fought to escape wherever they had come from, and Max frowned, unsure what would happen next.

“I guess I was right,” Fowl declared. “There was something we needed to do.”

Bobbing his head, Max helped Batrire down and caught the other two as they dropped. He got a kiss from Tanila before setting her down.

Grinding noises came from one of the sides, and with the light starting to flood the area they were in, a passage opened up in the wall between two cages.

“I guess that’s the way to go?”

Batrire gave Fowl a playful kick in the rear for asking that question.

“Warrior’s first, my love.”

Grunt, he moved toward the incline, moving up it much easier than before with the added strength and dexterity his weapon now provided.

As they got to the top as a group, not a snake was seen at the edge of the bars.

“Where did they go?” Cordellia asked. “I can hear them, but what happened?”

“The torches lit, and they scattered like crazy,” Max replied. “It was the weirdest thing, honestly. One moment, they were bashing against the bars, and the next, they turned tail and slithered away.”

Fowl started laughing, and Tanila groaned.

“Turned tail…”

Fowl glanced down the tunnel and saw that torches lined the four-foot-wide section of stone that appeared to have been cut out with one item. Not a single chip or crease could be found in the stone.

“I’ll go first,” he sighed and moved ahead, leaving Max at the back and the others in the middle of both of them.

Walking for a while brought them to a circled room with a massive emblem on the floor and the portal right in the middle. Torches lined all around, and a small chest sat near the portal like the bat one had.

“Ewww…” Cordellia said as she pointed at the relief on the floor. A massive ball of snakes reached out in every direction, and the heads pointed away from the ball in the middle.

“Not what I want hanging on the wall of my bedroom,” Max said.

“Especially if you ever hoped for me to step foot in there again,” Tanila added.

Fowl was already at the chest and dropping pouch from it.

“Only five… I guess we were slacking.”

Laughing, each person picked up a pouch and stored it.

“I’m ready for some sun and a dungeon that doesn’t have darkness.”

Max laughed and nodded at Batrire’s imitation of Fowl.

“Wait… was that supposed to be me?” their warrior asked.

“Oh… sorry I didn’t whine enough,” their healer replied.

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