The first room I fell into in this universe had that altar with the desiccated body ritualistically tied to it. That body, which I’m pretty sure was human, was a great source of weapons and gear. More interestingly, that altar has engravings on the side of it with armored boars and satyrs in some kind of dance. I’ve encountered plenty of those wild boars, but what I’m looking at right now must be a flesh and blood satyr. It’s a man with dark skin, but not as dark as mine. Waist down is black fur down to big hooves. He’s carrying a short sword with a blade that gets wider towards the edge and a small round shield, probably metal from the way the torchlight gleams off it. I go transparent.

  Here in the shadows, I don’t need to spend vitality on the full invisibility. Transparency is much easier to maintain and shoots my Stealth level into the high teens. I adjust the cestus on my right hand, making sure the leather glove part covers my knuckles all the way. When I punched the spikes into that giant boar, I nearly broke my knuckles, cracking them against the metal outer piece. Luckily, healing was super fast. But it still hurts to crack your knuckles against a boar head in your metal spiked cestus.

  The satyr doesn’t hear me. He’s coming around a curve, coming down the hall toward me. I press further into the shadow and grab the labrys from my back harness. The straps were made for a guy, but over my leather breastplate, it fits fine. I heft the labrys, finding that special balance point behind the forward and rear facing axe heads where I now know I can throw it the farthest.

  Can a satyr speak? Maybe I can get some information from this guy, rather than complete vivisection. He’s getting closer. He smells like a chicken coop. He’s a monster same as all the rest. That means whether or not I get information out of him, he has to die. I haven’t met anything that can speak yet. Just slice him to bits or try and talk? He walks by, those fat, black hooves clonking on the stone floor. Maybe I can take him to the edge of death, question him and then kill him.

  He passes right by my transparent form, not noticing. One, two, three steps. If he takes two more, I’ll be out of sword range. Five more, perfect axe throwing distance. I step from the shadows and become visible behind him.

  “Hey, you,” I call.

  He turns, sword already swinging and charges at me. So much for talking. I hurl my labrys.

  He’s fast. The labrys spins by him when he dodges.

  “Shit,” I spit, teleporting behind him to catch the labrys. I let the momentum take me into a spin and immediately hurl it back before he figures out I’m behind him. The blades sink deep into his vertebrae and he stumbles away.

  It takes a thought and I’m standing in front of him. I punch him in the face, spikes of my cestus dislodging an eye. He crumbles like he doesn’t have a bone in his body. I pull the labrys from his spine.

  “So,” I say, wiping his blood off on his own leg fur. “You got any information, goat boy? No? That’s too bad.”

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  A scream echoes up the hall and I reflexively go transparent. I’ve learned I can store spell points and cast from that extra pool, not directly from my vitality. Casting spells from vitality hurts. Storing points for later makes me sweat a bit, but it’s not painful. I run to the source of the scream. Always better to be on the offensive. Take them out before they get to you. That seems to be rule number one in this place. Rule number two: don’t be stupid. Plan. The best fight is one where the opponent is dead before they see you. Invisibility is a fantastic offensive skill and, in a pinch, gets me out of trouble.

  The scream isn’t human. It’s one of those singing snake women. I keep running. I need to know what it is that can make them scream. Then I’ll show them what they can really be afraid of.

  The sounds of fighting comes from a side room off the corridor. I go to the doorway, knowing they’ll be too busy to look at me and notice my slightly misty frame standing there.

  It’s an all-out brawl. A satyr – this one looks like a girl in a toga with pale hair, one of those massive armored boars I keep killing, the singing snake thing, and some shirtless guy with horns.

  It’s a roomful of monsters all fighting over something. Probably who gets to eat the other. I will wait until one side wins, taking out part of the competition, then I will take out the other side myself. No use in spending all that energy if the monsters want to start eliminating their own foul kind.

  The horned man has a spear and he’s hooting and hollering like an idiot for no reason at all. It looks like the singing snake against the other three. The snake unfurls wings to fly and the girl satyr shoots a baseball of fire through one of its wings. Impressive, but it won’t work if the target teleports out of the way. The snake is grounded.

  “Let me try it,” the horned thing calls. They can speak. I’ll question that one before I gut him. A runic symbol on his shoulder flares bright orange before his body stretches and warps, getting sucked into the body of the pig.

  Disgusting.

  The boar charges and tusks go clean through the singing snake, which flops heavily to the floor. The horned man emerges from the boar’s body, looking like Genie from Aladdin leaving the lamp.

  He’s huge compared to everything I’ve met. He’s bigger than I am, easily one if not two weight classes over me. Shirtless, not in terrible shape, but not scary buff either, with wide shoulders under a square head with a mess of light brown hair. Could definitely use some more time outside. I can’t quite make out what kind of shorts he’s wearing, but they’re all torn up. Those legs look like he runs or does squats or something. Tight curled horns on each temple. A rune on his shoulder. His legs look human, so I don’t think he’s a Satyr. With an armored boar and the fire Satyr, I don’t stand a chance. I can’t teleport more than three times a fight yet, and I’d need to, to take down this whole gang.

  More importantly, he spoke. The satyr girl is saying something, but I can’t make it out. Maybe satyrs can speak after all, if they don’t have axe blades lodged in their spinal cord. Who knew?

  Discretion is not only the better part of valor, but also the way to survive a fight. I need recon. This gang is formidable. Which means they can take out other monsters while I rest. I could also start getting close to hear what they have to say. They’re like nothing I’ve encountered so far, so there also stands that chance that they can get me out of this hell maze. At the very least, it’s more than just wandering these repeating halls. I need to find out exactly what they’re up to.

  They clean their weapons and I swear to God, they laugh. There’s some sort of monster jokes going on. They head off. Stealth mode on. Time to study the enemy and formulate a trap.