Shade sprinted into the room and threw the Darkblade, which . . .

  Didn’t work.

  The knife flew through the air with surprising accuracy, but bounced off a metal ring and tumbled to the black floor. Shade stopped, turned to look at Owin, and flinched as a few small lasers bounced off his skull.

  “I think I messed up.”

  Owin rushed in, grabbed the skeleton, and yanked him back out just as a fireball launched from the occultist.

  “Now what?” Owin asked. He shivered as chitin regrew, starting at his spine. The breastplate quickly reformed. It was unpleasant, like a million little spiders crawling all over his skin. That was a sensation he had experienced before. He didn’t like it then, and he didn’t like it now.

  Crab Chitin Armor

  Level Up

  The Crab Chitin Armor set has reformed.

  Owin lifted his hands up, watching the rest of the armor regrow all at once. It hadn’t done that before. Not all at the same time. He opened his index and tried to find more information, but nothing appeared.

  “Why do you look surprised by your hands?” Shade asked. “First time seeing them?”

  “It just told me armor leveled up and reformed, but it didn’t say what that meant.” Owin hit his gauntlets together. They clinked like armor. “Does it look different?”

  Shade crouched, flinched as a laser flew through the doorway, leaned close to Owin, and squinted his eye sockets. “You look like a crab.”

  “Does the armor look different?”

  “No. Do I?”

  “Oh. Right. You also got a new bone. Do you have a new ability?”

  Shade opened his index so close that it blocked most of Owin’s view. It was like someone shined a light directly into his eyes. The skeleton’s eye sockets widened considerably.

  “That is interesting.” Shade popped up to his full height. “Do you remember that special shield I gave you against Chaudius?”

  Owin nodded.

  “That was the Withered Shield.”

  Owin waited, expecting the skeleton to say more.

  He didn’t.

  “And?”

  “Well . . .” Shade continued looking at his index as he backed toward the door. “With Withered Abilities, we can both use whatever I have at the moment, which I think has been helpful since you’re deficient and all that.”

  “I think being level 1 is the bigger problem.”

  “You have a lot of problems.” Shade held up a hand. Dust swirled briefly before gathering into a thin bow in his hand. A quiver filled with arrows formed at his hip. “Withered Weapon is going to make me more helpful.” He grabbed an arrow and dropped it. As soon as it left his hand, it crumbled to dust.

  “Can I use it?”

  Shade shook his head. “It’s got a long cooldown. I don’t think it would be worth a try.” He grabbed another arrow, nocked it, and straightened his posture. “This is my true calling.”

  “Prove it.”

  Shade took a step into the doorway and pulled the bowstring back. Ocular swarmers immediately shot lasers. As Shade activated Dipped Arrow, his arrowhead glowed red with the energy of ocular lasers. He let the arrow fly, which vanished in a beam that released enough energy to toss Shade onto his back.

  Owin cleared out the last of the smoke and watched the ocular occultist wobble in the air. A hole was punched straight through, even having burned off a section from a ring. The eyeball dropped to the ground, squelching as it released a long stream of blood and gas from the new, burning hole.

  Shade, still on the ground, held up the bow. “I’m an archer!” Three more little lasers smacked him in the face.

  Owin sprinted into the room, grabbing and smashing every ocular swarmer that remained until dead eyeballs were scattered around the room. By the time he was done, Shade was already at the occultist checking for loot. He pulled out some gems and kicked the huge eye until it was obvious nothing else would come out.

  They both spent a few minutes collecting ocular hearts from every dead mob in the room.

  A plain chest was in the corner near the door to the next area. Owin inched forward slowly at first until he realized the black door was shut. He rushed forward, opened the chest, and pulled out a bright pink potion.

  He had only seen one before, back when Arkasti had given it to Ernie.

  “A revive potion?” Shade asked. “Can I drink it?”

  “You can’t drink anything.” Owin put the master level potion into his bag before Shade could grab it. “Can I try your bow?”

  Shade shrugged and passed it to Owin. At first, Owin was able to feel the rough stone-like texture of the dust. The bow was surprisingly solid. At least, it was until Shade let go. As soon as the skeleton’s hand left the bow, it collapsed into dust.

  “So, Withered Weapon is just for me.” Shade pulled an arrow from the quiver that had remained at his hip. “I guess I’ll just fight with this for now.”

  Owin brushed the dust off his hand. “You could go grab the Darkblade and use that.”

  Shade turned his head without turning his body. “I don’t see it.”

  “Shade.” Owin pressed his metal hand against the next door. While the black room with no visible floor had been interesting, it wasn’t big enough to be the entire fifth floor. There had to be more beyond, but he couldn’t imagine what. The occultist’s room had been structured like a floor boss.

  “Are you saying I need to take responsibility for my own actions? Me? Impossible. Foolish, even.”

  “Fine. I won’t let you use my weapons anymore.”

  The skeleton turned the rest of the way around and sprinted to the ocular occultist’s corpse. He kicked things around until he found the knife, then ran back over. “I got it.”

  “I know.” Owin pushed the door open and stopped. The room beyond looked solid. That was the first thought that crossed Owin’s mind.

  It also had dead mobs.

  A checkerboard tile floor spread out before him in multiple forks. White stone walls were placed haphazardly with no clear structure to the room.

  “Oh, a real maze.” Shade stepped past Owin and crouched beside the dead mob. It was one Owin hadn’t seen before.

  Broken glass surrounded a pool of green fluids with small ocular mobs spread throughout. Shade poked at each with the point of his knife, but all were already dead.

  “Do you know how to get through a maze?” Owin asked. He walked a bit away from Shade and leaned around a corner. A dead swarmer had been pushed against the base of a wall. A line of blood disappeared around a corner.

  “You get to the end, obviously.” Shade appeared behind him. “Uh.”

  “It’s a common floor, so mobs respawn after a half hour.” Owin looked up at him. “Someone else is here.”

  “Someone was here.” Shade gestured to the blood. “We might want to check.”

  Owin didn’t hesitate. He immediately took a few turns, following the blood. It lightened up after a few feet, then turned frozen. Crystals of frozen blood coated the wall. Some of it was clearly ocular blood as they found another dead swarmer.

  Owin turned a corner and flung Isotelus up as an axe blade chopped down with lethal speed. The floppy sword backed by Owin’s strength was enough to stop the swing.

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  “Whoa,” Shade said. “Calm down!”

  A woman pulled the axe back quickly and lifted the goggles from her eyes. She had bright red hair with what looked like scars of ice across her face.

  Hero

  Roese Dorsey

  Berserker

  Level: 71

  Strength: 422

  Constitution: 541

  Dexterity: 106

  Intelligence: 239

  Wisdom: 292

  Charisma: 203

  “Who—” She brought her axe up again. Ice shards sprouted all over the blade and handle. “What—” Her index flashed in front of her eyes. “Hero?”

  “I think, perhaps, we should help explain,” Shade said. He stuck his hand out. “Good afternoon. I’m the Withered Shade. I’m a sexy little skeleton who guides this little goblin boy through the dungeons.”

  “Shade.” Owin grabbed the skeleton and pulled him away. “Sorry about him.”

  “Are you a child?” Roese asked.

  Owin sighed. “No. I’m a mob from the Great Forest. I somehow awakened.” Owin gestured to the shard hanging over his shoulder. “I’m a Shard Hero with the Nimble Hog Hero Company.”

  Her eyes widened a little. “I hid a while ago, you know. It said a shard hero had entered the floor.” She pulled her goggles back down. Owin didn’t know many berserkers, but she didn’t look like the ones he had met. She wasn’t splattered with blood or covered in armor. Roese wore a breastplate with suspenders over it, holding up a long, icy blue skirt. Her muscular arms were entirely exposed with only odd looking gauntlets covering her hands and forearms.

  Her weapon was what kept catching Owin’s eye. It was a long shaft for an axe that clearly had an ability to activate, meaning it was a high rarity weapon. When she relaxed, the chunks of ice melted away.

  “I think I’d heard of you.” She gestured to Shade with her weapon. “What’s that?”

  “He’s my familiar. Just ignore most things he says.”

  Shade leaned his elbow on the white stone wall. “Now, I don’t want to say you two are being rude, so I won’t. But I want you to know that I’m thinking it.”

  “It gets easier to ignore him.” Owin opened his index again, but instead of looking at Roese’s stats, he flipped to the Shard Heroes tab. Before he even scanned through the names, something she said finally made sense. “You’re not a Shard Hero.”

  Roese shook her head. “Just gathering loot.” She gestured to her weird ice backpack.

  “It looks like you have a lot of stuff already.”

  Roese winced as she placed the butt of her axe on the ground and leaned on it. “I’ve been through the Subterranean and Tundra a few times. I leave at the seventh or eighth floor.”

  Owin pulled a health potion from his pack and held it out.

  Roese lifted her goggles and looked at it for a long, awkward moment. “Why?”

  “You got hurt because I made the mobs more difficult, right? You weren’t ready for the floor to change to 1 Shard.”

  She leaned forward, took the potion, and immediately drank it. “You keep these?” She asked, shaking the empty bottle.

  Owin shook his head.

  Roese tossed the bottle against the wall, breaking the glass. “Thank you.”

  “Do you want to stay with us? I can help you through the floor so you don’t get hurt again.”

  She scratched the skin around her ice scars. “I could. Why are you being nice?”

  Owin frowned. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “I’ve heard a few stories.”

  “I’m not some evil monster.” Owin walked out of the dead end they were hiding in. Shade was poking the mortar between stones with the Darkblade, and quickly turned to follow behind Owin when he moved.

  “Sorry,” Roese said. “I would like to follow you.” After a moment, she made a noise. “You’re only level one?”

  “Yeah.” Owin didn’t bother turning around. “Where are we going, Shade?”

  “Well, you know I was only helpful in the other room because there weren’t walls. Now that there are walls, I am as useless as a bat in a toilet.” Shade leaned around a corner. “More maze this way.”

  “I know where a small boss is. I saw it right as you entered the floor, so I backed away.” Roese stood at a fork and gestured with her axe. She was keeping her distance, which Owin understood. Trusting other heroes inside any dungeon wasn’t easy. He had experienced enough of that himself.

  “Can you show me?”

  She set off. Her axe left a chill in the air, even causing Owin to shiver a little. He wanted to Examine the weapon, but doing that now wouldn’t earn him more trust.

  They only took a few turns and walked down a few halls before stopping. Roese gestured with the head of her axe toward the opening to her side.

  Owin looked inside. A giant eye embedded into the wall looked straight at him. He backed away. “It’s another ocular lord. I think it’s close enough that I should be able to kill it before it can attack.” Owin held Isotelus up to Shade. The sword flopped over. “I don’t want to use a charge just to attack this. Swap with me.”

  “That isn’t a weapon,” Roese said.

  “It’s actually divine rarity.” He pulled it away before Shade could grab it. “Want to see?”

  Roese looked unsure, but still reached her hand out.

  “I need a bigger weapon to kill the lord in one hit. Can we swap for a moment? I’ll give you the axe back right after.” He let her grab Isotelus so she could Examine it and see he wasn’t lying.

  Her face scrunched as she looked at the sword, then she nodded. “Wow. Those abilities are incredible.” She looked at her own axe, then handed it over. “It seems a little big for you.”

  “Oh, just wait to see what he does,” Shade said. “You will be amazed.”

  The axe was definitely too big. He had to hold it near the bottom to not hit the butt on the ground as he moved. It wasn’t too heavy, so keeping it balanced was easy enough. It was just awkward to move with.

  Isoks

  Unique Divine Magical Item

  Discovered deep in a forgotten cave of the Tundra, Isoks is an axe of unknown origin or creation. The Tundra’s permafrost clings to the weapon, chilling the world around it.

  Note: Magical item may vary by location

  At least Owin knew he wasn’t just imagining the cold air. Even his flesh hand got cold while holding onto the weapon. He looked back at Roese, trying to figure out how she was holding it all the time without getting cold.

  The berserker was moving Isotelus, letting it flop back and forth. “This is a ridiculous weapon.”

  “A ridiculous weapon that Owin has killed a lot of mobs with,” Shade said. He nodded toward Owin.

  An ocular lord wasn’t that scary. It wouldn’t be stronger than the one he had killed earlier, and that one had only done so much damage because he couldn’t reach it. He sucked in a breath, turned the corner, and pushed off with all his strength. He soared across the small room and chopped with the axe. He had really underestimated how long the weapon was and only cut through part of the ocular lord before the blade smashed into the stone wall.

  Fiery red energy flared inside the lord.

  Owin took a half step back and chopped down, easily cutting the mob in half. Owin shivered as he walked back to the doorway and swapped weapons with Roese. “Thanks,” he said.

  “You cut that thing in half even when it’s powered up.” She shook her head slowly. “I think some of those stories I heard about you are true.”

  Owin shrugged. He walked back in and pulled the ocular heart from the mob. In the past, he would’ve eaten the glass-like gem, but now he could have Althowin, Miya, or Ernie make it into a buff that would help a lot more. If he got enough of the hearts, they could probably make intelligence his highest attribute.

  “Mind if I look in the chest?” Roese asked.

  “Go ahead.” Owin dropped the heart in his bag.

  Shade crouched and leaned in close to Owin. “Do we trust her?”

  “No, but she’s not with a company and she doesn’t have a shard. If she wanted to hurt us, there’s nothing she could really do.”

  “She could stab us in our sleep.”

  Owin just looked at Shade.

  “If we slept.”

  Owin rolled his eyes.

  Roese pulled a pouch of coins from the chest. “This is incredible.” She pressed her lips together as she looked at the bag. “It’s yours. You killed the boss.”

  It wasn’t a boss, but telling her that wouldn’t help.

  “You can keep it,” Owin said. “I’m not here for money.”

  Roese watched him as she took off her ice backpack and put the pouch inside. “Why not?”

  “I work with Althowin Alegarra now.”

  “Ah. Understood.”

  He was glad he didn’t need to explain that more. Even before joining Althowin, he had barely been collecting coins. They were obviously helpful, but they also took up space that he wanted to use for other things.

  “Any idea where to go next?” she asked.

  “I was going to ask you.” Owin walked back into the maze. They could currently go three different directions, and they had previously passed a few other forks.

  “Where you found me is about as far as I got. It took me a long time just to get through that first room. You got through it fast.”

  Shade pointed at his face. “It was easy because I can see a lot because of how good my eyes are.”

  “I—” Roese pressed her lips together again.

  “Ignore,” Owin said again. “Do you think there are a lot of mobs here?”

  “It’s hard to say. You can’t use dead ones as landmarks though because they’ll respawn.”

  That also meant things like blood splatters or scratches on the wall would disappear after a half hour. The only thing they had was the map that would slowly be filled out as they went. He opened his index and looked at what they already had. The revealed area was incredibly small, only showing exactly where he had stepped. It never passed the walls or extended to the end of a passage, even if he could see it.

  “I guess we just start walking until we discover something,” Owin said. He looked both directions, then started to the right.

  Shade hurried ahead, continually referring to himself as “bait.” Roese stayed behind a few feet. Owin wanted to glance over his shoulder, to let her know he was watching and ready, if needed. But she didn’t pose a threat. Not really. Her weapon was powerful, but he had survived fights against stronger.

  The last time he had been on a fifth floor, he had nearly killed two heroes. Multiple times. Nikoletta and Siora barely walked out. For a while, Owin wasn’t even sure Nikoletta had survived. But she had, thanks to Vondaire.

  Because of Vondaire, Owin kept his word to Katalin and Ernie.

  He wouldn’t kill them.

  And now, on the fifth floor again, he was choosing to trust this human.

  “Being a hunter has not proven to make me a navigator,” Shade said after a while. “This is a dead end and I am lost as . . . I don’t know. Give me a metaphor.”

  “A what?” Owin asked.

  “Compare something without using the words ‘like’ or ‘as.’ This maze is shit, for example.” Shade turned around and tried a different turn. It was also a dead end. “Who let me lead?”

  “Is he always like this?” Roese asked.

  “This is actually less than normal,” Owin said.

  “The last time we were on a fifth floor, I was being exploded by grenades every twenty seconds, so I have to say this is an improvement. Yet, I will let you all know, my grateful audience, that I do oddly enjoy being bait, but I also enjoy being the hero. The looks of awe and wonder. The praise. Oh, the praise.” Shade stuck his arms up. “Praise me!”

  Owin gestured. “There you go. That’s normal Shade.”