Throughout the night, we saw no further sign of our mysterious pursuer. But I heard plenty more from Leif. Whoever taught that elf to track had done a terrible job. She watched our camp closely, but had obviously fallen asleep in the middle of the night.

  How did I know that? She snored.

  Frey was asleep by then too. Which was good. He probably would have assumed it was a bunny monster and freaked out.

  Ultimately, the trip the next morning was quite uneventful. A few monsters interrupted us and required a well aimed to scare off. But otherwise, the mysterious pursuer never appeared. A part of me wondered if I had imagined it all. But the rest of me knew it had been real. And I wondered where they were now if not near us.

  But once we arrived at the dungeon itself, my mind became consumed by it.

  It was massive. No wonder Frey and I had seen it from so far away back when we traveled on the highway together. The dungeon wasn’t as large as the tree in Artemis, but its height was still very intimidating.

  The dungeon itself, however, looked nothing like I expected. From my former life, the word dungeon brought about glimpses of caves hidden in mountains, or temples overgrown with vines. This dungeon instead looked like a needle the size of the guild tower piercing the ground. Like a white quill from a porcupine the size of a moon.

  A large door was carved into the side of the needle-looking tower, which Meebur opened with ease.

  The Almanac has been updated with the entry for “Dungeon”.

  Dungeons are the name given to large buildings that appeared on this continent over three centuries ago. They are towers with numerous floors, filled with treasure, traps, and are home to mysterious creatures known as "Golems".

  The Almanac has been updated with the entry for “Golem”.

  Unlike monsters, Golems do not appear to be natural in origin. They are creatures made of the same unknown material that the dungeons themselves are composed of.

  Golems are considered unintelligent automatons that pose little threat unless attacked.

  Golems exist only within dungeons and have never been seen outside of one before. Thus, golems are considered to only be of concern to those who venture within dungeons in search of treasure.

  I waited for the Almanac to update with more information, but it either had nothing more to say or didn’t feel like saying anything else. It was finicky like that. Nothing to be done but move forward.

  Meebur took the lead, followed by Frey, and Astrid was in the back. I took my usual position draped around Meebur’s shoulders. Though the outside of the dungeon had the look of clean, smooth metal, inside was very different. The walls looked like stone, but were soft to the touch. It felt like textured fabric. The white walls made me feel a little uneasy because it seemed unnatural for a building to be made of this material. If not for I wondered what this environment would do to me. But when I looked over and saw Frey’s knees shaking, I stopped wondering.

  The first floor of the dungeon immediately reminded me of a maze. The white labyrinthian hallways felt like they could go on forever. Luckily, the inside was illuminated by numerous tiny gems within the walls that let out soft light. We walked down the white washed halls of the dungeon, but after only a few minutes we came face to face with our first golem. It was taller than Meebur, but very thin, as though it was actually quite short but was stretching every limb as far as possible. It walked like it could tumble over after every step, waving its long arms back and forth to keep balance.

  Frey immediately started sweating but Meebur and Astrid barely blinked. A single golem on the first floor of a low-level dungeon clearly meant nothing to them. It barely even registered as nearby, let alone as a threat.

  Meebur and Astrid turned to look at each other, and didn’t need telepathy to understand what the other was thinking.

  “You’re up, Nid.” Astrid said, and after Meebur placed me down on the ground, they both stepped aside. Meebur nudged Frey towards the nearest wall so he wouldn’t get in harm’s way.

  “This should be no trouble,” my tamer said after ensuring there was plenty of space for me to battle the golem. I slithered forward and the golem finally turned its head towards us. It didn’t have any eyes but it had a wide mouth that looked like a slash across its head. As creepy as the golem looked while it began moving towards me, I felt as my tamer felt: completely unafraid. And I didn’t even need to use the skill. I simply felt confident.

  I decided to remain in my cute form and test out what these golems could do. Unlike fighting another monster in a monster arena, a fight with a golem in a dungeon was as real as it gets. Any damage here would not be healed once the fight was over. Most tamers fought alongside their monsters in a dungeon, but Meebur didn’t even unsheathe his spear. This one was all on me.

  The golem struck at me with unimpressive speed, and my small cute form made it even easier to dodge. Its massive limbs flailed about wildly, and to less adept eyes I could see how the sporadic movements would be difficult to avoid. But to me it was simple.

  Once I felt confident in its movement, I decided it was time to end things. And why not do so with a new skill? I already had a strong grasp on skills like and so I decided to try something I hadn’t used before.

  As the golem continued its attack, right when I would have dodged, I stayed still. Instead of avoiding the attack, I let it make contact. It did almost no damage, even in my cute form, and allowed me to wrap myself around its wrist. And at that point, the fight was already over.

  Like Leif’s Warden had once tried to do to me, I used the skill . Vines and roots burst from the ground and tied up the golem, holding it in place. I paired this with the skill to stretch my small form and wrap myself around the golem’s entire body like one of the vines. It struggled and wriggled against me, but even in my cute form I was strong enough to hold it in place. Even if I hadn’t used the vines, now that I was wrapped around it, I knew it was too weak to do anything against me. With no ability to dodge, I sank my teeth into it. It was much softer than I expected. Utilizing a skill called I unleashed a toxin into the golem. After moments, I could feel the attack take effect. The golem spasmed inhumanely in my entangling grasp, twitching wildly, but not enough to break my hold on it.

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  The venom from this bite skill had different effects depending on what enemy it was used on, so I was curious what would happen to a golem. I got my answer. The golem stopped spasming and started to fade away. Bit by bit parts of the golem broke off and crumbled before me. Soon I was only holding white sand, and after a few seconds even that was gone.

  Where the golem once stood was now only a small stone. My eyes focused in on it, so I didn’t notice both Frey and Astrid sweat slightly after having watched a golem literally turn to dust from a single bite.

  “Ah, perfect! Nanna said she needed escape buttons.” Meebur said. “Golems sometimes drop useful items, and this is a very good one to get from your first win!”

  Meebur stepped forward and picked up the small stone. “Button” was the right word for it as it looked just like a button on Meebur’s vest, or Frey’s jacket. Once Meebur picked it up, a text box appeared saying it had been added to my tamer’s inventory and an entry was also added to the Almanac. I opened it and read it quickly.

  Escape buttons allowed a person and their monsters to return to the entrance of any dungeon no matter what floor they were on. Though they could be modified to change the precise destination you ended up in after using it, outside of a dungeon they were useless. Except to sell to guild shops like the one Nanna had.

  “Any chance we can use that to leave early?” Frey asked, knowing very well what the answer would be.

  “Not just yet.” Meebur answered, and continued down the dungeon’s hall.

  Meebur moved with intention, and almost never stopped as we made our way through the first floor. However, after a few minutes we came face to face with another golem. This one looked identical to the first, but unlike that one, this one wasn’t walking aimlessly. The second it saw us, it immediately burst forward to strike at us.

  Astrid jumped out of the way with ease, and Meebur managed to lift Frey over his shoulders before dodging. And lucky he did, because Frey didn’t even seem to notice the golem. He would have been hit for sure if not for my tamer’s quick movement.

  Which left me alone before the golem’s attack.

  I had seen it coming as well, but had decided to not dodge. I figured the closer I was to the golem, the more likely my attacks were to take it out without hurting anyone else. But this was also an important chance to test out how well I could control my skills, not just unleash them. I decided upon , putting all of my concentration on keeping the flame pointed away from the tamers and towards the golem. Ultimately, they were close enough to feel the heat, but my precision paid off and none of them were hurt.

  The golem, on the other hand, looked like a burnt marshmallow.

  Meebur beamed with pride as he watched me make quick work of the golem. It was affirming to know that I could react so well in these situations. I felt more at home in this body compared to when I had almost melted that bumblebee with after we initially left the forest of death.

  Eventually, even with Frey walking as cautiously and slowly as possible, we reached a large room filled with hanging threads.

  “Time to climb to the next floor.” Meebur said, stretching his arms.

  “We have to climb ropes? Isn’t there a staircase or a teleporter or something?” Frey said, immediately feeling self conscious of his own spindly arms.

  “Dungeons aren’t that generous.” Astrid said, beginning the climb like it was nothing. This clearly wasn’t her first time traversing the floors of a dungeon. “Sometimes there aren’t even threads to use.”

  I remained on Meebur’s shoulders as he effortlessly climbed the threads. I now understood why Braum and his group were spending so much time exercising. Dungeons were hard work!

  Halfway up their own threads, Meebur and Astrid waited for Frey to catch up. He was struggling, but making progress. It immediately unlocked another horrid memory from those “school” places. This one about a vile thing called physical education. It made me shudder more than any golem could.

  Astrid decided to remain slightly below Frey as he climbed, to better help him keep pace. They were a party after all, and only moved as fast as their slowest member.

  However, with Astrid the closest to the dungeon floor, she was the one targeted by something none of us had seen. A golem had been in the room the entire time, but we hadn’t noticed as it blended in almost perfectly with the walls. It stepped forward and extended a long arm out, grabbing Astrid by the ankle and pulling her down off of the thread. She slammed into the dungeon floor with a loud crash.

  Immediately, I moved to dive down and help Astrid against the golem, which looked to be even larger than the ones I had fought. And unlike those golems, this one had a single massive eye in the middle of its head. And it was staring right at Astrid. However, as I moved to intercept, Meebur grabbed me and held me in place.

  “No need,” he said, and simply watched while hanging from his thread.

  The golem approached Astrid, who was laying on the dungeon floor. From this distance, and with the massive golem towering over her, I noticed for the first time how small Astrid was. Though an experienced tamer and guild leader, she was shorter even than Frey. She didn’t even have a monster by her side to protect her. The golem likely assumed the smallest human amongst us was the least dangerous.

  It was about to learn just how wrong it was.

  Astrid, like Meebur, was a tamer more than capable of fighting without a monster.

  The golem’s eye dilated just as its fist slammed down. But it connected with nothing but the floor. Astrid effortlessly jumped into the air and dodged the attack. Her eyes were glowing pale pink indicating that she was utilizing her special skill . With this skill she could scan even a golem’s surface thoughts, knowing exactly when it would attack, making dodging simple for her.

  But she could also use the skill offensively. Astrid scanned the one-eyed golem and found its weakest point. With four fingers extended, Astrid lunged forward and pierced the golem in the neck. Her fingers cut into its body with ease, like an unsheathed blade.

  In seconds, Astrid was back climbing the thread while the golem turned to dust on the dungeon floor.

  “Meanwhile, I’m having trouble climbing…” Frey said as Astrid quickly caught up to where he and Meebur waited for her.

  “You’ll get there eventually.” She said, but then looked intensely at Frey. “Hmm, actually maybe you won’t.”

  Frey sighed, and continued the climb with the two guild leaders. This entire journey was really showcasing how far away he was from being a real master tamer. I worried that he would become discouraged by all this, instead of motivated to keep moving forward.

  And it also made me worried about another thing.

  If every guild leader is this strong, then why the heck are they afraid of me?