The chamber I’m standing at the edge of has stalactites hanging from the twenty-foot-high ceiling – now I remember which one hangs down – and around at least three are tightly coiled Sirens.

  Part of me says run, but I think they’re sleeping. Can we take three on three if we surprise them? The catch is if I stop to figure out the odds, they’re bound to wake and it won’t be a surprise anymore. If I run back to Sadie, will they hear me?

  A Siren stretches and cranes its neck. I really have to work more on my stealth skill.

  Some part of me chooses Fight, not Flight. I check that Sadie is looking at me. I hold up three fingers, give the signal for charge and run into the room, hurling my now-it’s-a-javelin at the closest target.

  Before it hits that crimson scale pattern, I immediately regret throwing my only weapon.

  The screech is painfully loud, my javelin going through a thick juicy part of the serpentine body and lodging into the stalactite like I thumb tacked that beast to a bulletin board. Something starts dropping from the crevices above me.

  Crawlers.

  Dozens of them start plopping to the floor, which is surprisingly dry for a change. The floor is crawling toward me, the impaled Siren is trying to bite at the javelin pinning through her and the others start singing as they uncoil.

  Yes, had I actually stopped and planned, I would have somehow re-blocked my ears. That’s not the way things happened. I run under the Siren that I pinned and reach my hand up.

  “Spear!” I shout, as hopeful and commanding as I can possibly be while stepping on a crawler.

  The spear form is distinctly shorter and stouter than the javelin. It compresses, retracts, pulls from the stalactite and falls from the wound in the Siren into my waiting hand.

  Man, I wish someone had that on video.

  The wounded Siren uncoils awkwardly and nearly hits me on the way to the floor. I get my foot onto its neck, impale and twist my spear in a wide circle, gouging a deep bowl sized wound of entrails in the scaly flesh.

  “Wait,” Sadie calls, hoofing into the chamber. I turn, and she grabs my head between her hands.

  “What?!”

  Oh. She’s stuffing pre-chewed glolives into my ears. If I wasn’t about to be under attack from multiple Sirens, I would take a moment to be utterly skeeved out by the realization that she must have been chewing those as she ran up the hallway and now my ears are full of Sadie spit.

  Now is not the time for me to be surprised by her revolting decision but instead keep the pressure of my surprise attack going. I’m pretty resistant to the song, but I think she’s trying to be helpful and took my ‘do whatever you have to’ a bit too proactively. I spin back to my opponents.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The one on the floor is dead enough that it won’t be an issue. Siren two is slightly to the left, ten paces. The one on the right is at least fifteen paces back and singing loudly. I can feel the song striking my skin as I’m kicking crawlers away from me.

  “Sadie, wing,” I say, rushing at the one nearest me. She launches a fireball clean through the webbing of that wing like a perfect fastball strike. It bares fangs in anger. “You two, get the other.”

  I spin my spear in front of me as I charge, a warning to keep distance and hopefully confuse the thing for a few seconds. It backs up from my propeller approach. I scream and speed up, going full on Viking mode. There’s a crawler on my chest. It’s making a horrible screech. I tear it off, throw it down and stomp it to jelly.

  The Siren stops getting ready to fight and screams like I just kicked a puppy.

  Oh, shit. This is a nest. Crawlers are Siren larva.

  “Sadie! Fry the crawlers. All of them.”

  Baco charges in his signature move, but the Siren takes flight and he whiffs under it.

  Sadie holds her hands out, fingers wide, and instead of fireballs, a sheet of fire flamethrowers from her fingertips. Must be a skill from Satyr Level 2.

  The Sirens screech as crawlers shrivel under the flames. I press my attack, diagonal slash after diagonal slash, inscribing an X into the Siren’s belly with the edge of the spearhead. I spin around and thrust, putting a hole in the other wing, stopping it mid-dodge.

  Out of the corner of my perception, I see fire going to the ceiling and a pained squeal of surprise. Sadie’s target is worming between stalactites on the ceiling, cowering from the fire.

  “Switch,” I yell.

  It’s not a hand signal or a command I’ve tried with Baco, but that tusky snoutface comes charging at the one I’ve been fighting.

  The impact is a glorious, pig-fused explosion of Siren guts. I throw my javelin. The Siren was busy avoiding fire from Sadie, leaving a broadside shot exposed to me. Sadie smirks and tosses a flickering flame, igniting the javelin mid-throw. It’s awe inspiring.

  Bullseye.

  Actually, Siren Neck, but that’s a stupid phrase.

  Ding.

  A notification shows up, but I shut it down. Can’t these stupid things wait until the danger is over?

  The Siren flutters in pain, javelin through its body like a toothpick through a cocktail frank. Sadie lobs two simultaneous blobs of fire up at it. There’s a tiny fireworks burst on impact and the beast drops. The crawlers that remain on the floor scatter to hide in invisible cracks in the walls.

  Not one.

  Not two.

  Team Dom took out THREE Sirens!

  “I gained a level of Fire Fan,” Sadie says.

  I wonder if Baco levelled anything. I walk to the last downed Siren, hold it underfoot and tug my javelin free, which reforms into the original metal tipped spear form.

  “Great work, team.”

  Baco busies himself with fried crawlers. I turn each of the Sirens over, but I don’t see anything of value.

  “A little more warning next time, please,” Sadie says. “Is this the exit?”

  “I don’t think so, but at least we took out a bunch of monsters. Of all the hallways I kept seeing, this chamber was the only one guarded. Makes me think we’re on the right path. Why guard this direction if it wasn’t the right way to go?”

  She considers my logic for a second and gives a curt sideways nod. “Lead on.”

  In the somewhat unintuitive conclusion, the more dangerous path seems to be the one to take. While it’s encouraging to at least have a direction to guide ourselves, it does mean that things are only going to get tougher and tougher for us. I spin my spear, leading us to the exit at the far side of the room. I force myself to picture a railroad spike.

  The spear contracts to a short fat stake. Much easier to move through the halls with and the transitions take less than a second, probably faster than if I drew it from my back.

  And I now know what to do if vampires show up.