The Beast Glastisant’s roar echoed in my ears as I spun in place, head spinning. This close, the sheer volume of it was disorienting. I stumbled toward the behemoth’s leg, revving up the Trip-Hammer, but my swing only caught air. A second later, a hoof punched into the brick near me. Red dust filled the air as it ground the paver into rubble.

  I looked around as the dozen hounds’ barking stopped, getting my bearings.

  The lake blocked us from one side, while the dungeon’s towering brick wall loomed over us to the other. We’d be fighting the Beast Glastisant on a narrow walkway no more than a few dozen feet wide and a few hundred feet long. Branches rained down on us as its crocodile head tore through the canopy.

  Its eyes locked onto Tori, glowing red, and the boss started lumbering toward her. It wasn’t fast—at least not at first, but as the Beast picked up speed, the gap closed far too rapidly. I shouted, trying to get its attention. It ignored me, eyes locked on Tori.

  I tried to stop it; I was the closest thing the team had to a front-liner, even if I hadn’t been investing my points in Body like a real warrior. She still hadn’t caught up on rebalancing her stats, and none of her items were designed to help her take a hit.

  It ignored my hammer blow to the rear leg, too. Its stride didn’t even break. Tori tried to run, but a hoof reached out and slammed into her back. Blood flew as she hit the bricks. She screamed, rolling to the side—right into the lake again.

  Then, suddenly, I had the Beast Glastisant’s undivided attention.

  Its eyes locked onto me; they weren’t red anymore, but black and lifeless. I shivered as the howling, baying roar echoed again, but readied my Trip-Hammer. Tori dragged herself out of the water, sputtering and coughing. She curled up into a ball, grabbing for her back.

  I only had eyes for the Beast Glastisant. As the crocodile head lunged toward me, I charged up the Trip-Hammer. Its engine howled, and the ratchet engaged. A split second before the massive jaws could snap shut on me, the two hammers whipped through the air. They hit its lower jaw, and the boss shrieked like a hundred puppies whining. A tooth flew off toward the lake. I watched it flip through the air, spiraling blood behind it.

  Before it could even hit the water, something erupted from the water next to Tori. She screamed and rolled as a white-furred, clawed seal the size of the Explorer landed next to her. Its flippers ended in bears’ claws, and its eyes had every bit of the mercy and humanity of a polar bear’s, but its tusked mouth jutted out below a small, blubbery trunk. It started dragging itself toward Tori.

  Bear Lion: Level Twenty-Two Monster

  I couldn’t get there in time. The Beast Glastisant was on me, hooves and clawed back legs turning the brick path to gravel as I dodged and tried to find an opening. “Calvin, do something!” I shouted.

  “Like what?” Calvin yelled back. He’d kept his distance so far, but he’d dashed toward Tori when the Beast kicked her. He was still a few yards away.

  “CC it!” Tori rolled again as the Bear Lion’s claws ripped the brick to pieces. It towered over her, ready to smash down, and I broke into a sprint. “Use the mask!”

  “Feel the weight of your terror,” Calvin said. The voice coming from behind the mask didn’t sound like the homeless man I’d befriended at Lake Station, or like the military-esque voice he’d used to talk tactics with us around the fire. This one felt cold and uncaring, and it chilled me to the bone.

  The Bear Lion spun, its weight crushing a bush as it motored away from Calvin. I swung the hammer toward its back, sinking both spikes into the blubbery thing’s body, but even though it roared in pain, the monster kept fleeing. The Beast Glastisant was catching up behind me, but I didn’t have time to deal with it. We had seconds before the Bear Lion re-joined the fight.

  No, we had even less than that. The Bear Lion whirled around, and I barely kept a grip on my hammer. It rushed right toward Calvin. Blood trailed from its back, and one of its short back flippers refused to move; I’d done some damage. But it was still a ton and a half of muscle.

  Before I could get another hit in, the Beast Glastisant was on me. Its hooves punched into me, and I crumpled into the brickwork. I rolled, dodging another set of front hooves.

  The Bear Lion was only feet from Calvin when its front half crumpled like an empty beer can on Joey’s head senior year. One second, it was looming over him. Then it was on the ground roaring in agony. I stared at it, then at the panting, soaking-wet teenager crouching on the ground.

  Tori had used Crush.

  It didn’t finish the Bear Lion off, but the Beast Glastisant’s head whipped down, slamming into me and knocking me across the platform. My Body-enhanced chest took the hit, and nothing broke, but I couldn’t take another blow like that. I shook my head to clear it—I had to pay more attention, or this boss fight would be over.

  The Beast Glastisant’s eyes went red again, and its gaze locked on Calvin.

  As it did, I swung my hammer into its back knee. This time, something gave; the boss half-collapsed. More importantly, a dozen glowing orange circles lit up across its body as the thing’s weak points were revealed.

  It took me a second. Then, out of nowhere, I was reminded of my station wagon.

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  When I’d gotten it from the junkyard, a lot of the body had needed work, and I couldn’t do it all myself. Welding had never been a priority on Dad’s farm. I needed help, and I brought in Joey. He’d forgiven me for the stomp rocket incident by then. We spent a few days on the job, welding new pieces into place and reinforcing the frame where it needed it, and one thing Joey had shown me was how to identify bad joints where the weld might give.

  The Beast Glastisant was full of bad joints, and the welds were very ready to give. Nowhere was that more apparent than the beast’s neck—right where the snake merged with the giraffe. And I knew how to get there.

  “Tori, you’ll have to Push me!” I yelled. Calvin was running for all he was worth, macaque mask useless and crowbar forgotten behind him. He wouldn’t make it to safety, though. I wasn’t sure there was safety.

  “What?!”

  “Use your Push spell and Push me up!”

  She nodded, face both white with pain and tight with determination. “On its back?”

  “Yes! Three! Two! One!”

  I jumped.

  Tori’s Push hit me like a semi truck. Every ounce of air seemed to leave my lungs as it launched me high into the air, my jump and her Push compounding just like when I’d thrown the macaque. I hit the Beast Glastisant’s thin back, started sliding, and grabbed on with one hand. The other wrapped around the Trip-Hammer, my glove not releasing.

  The Trip-Hammer spun. The engine whined.

  Both sledgehammers hit, their teeth biting into the Beast Glastisant’s joint. A massive gash opened, drenching me with blood. I gritted my teeth and swung again, then a third time.

  The Beast Glastisant roared, then gurgled. Its neck wobbled, then tore off at the joint between snake and giraffe in a shower of gore. The rest of its body collapsed, and I dove away from the hulking, crushing weight.

  I hit the icy pond, went fully under, and sucked in a watery breath in shock as the System messages rolled in.

  Boss Defeated: Beast Glastisant

  Level Up! Twenty-Three to Twenty-Five.

  Dungeon Delvers who were not in the arena will receive fifty percent of your team’s experience.

  By the time I surfaced, the fight was over. We’d won. I pulled myself out of the water, shivering and soaked to the bone like Tori—who laughed at me. I glared back. “You went in twice!”

  “Yeah, but at least I didn’t belly-flop!” For a second, Tori sounded like my sister, and I couldn’t help but laugh and wince at the same time.

  I stared at the last message as Tori used a couple of points in Body to heal her injured back and Calvin limped toward the disappearing Beast Glastisant’s corpse. “Does that mean…?”

  “Maybe. We’ll have to go check on Fort Kiosk to know for sure,” Calvin said.

  Tori went cross-eyed. Then she whooped and pumped a fist. “Check out our completion!”

  “I’d rather collect our loot and get back to the entrance. We’ve still got the ‘Birds’ wing of this place to clear,” I said, but I pulled up the completion anyway.

  Completion: 46%

  I couldn’t help it; Tori’s excitement was infectious, and a smile crept over my face. Then I looked at the loot pillars where the Beast Glastisant had been a moment before, and the smile only grew.

  In the end, I got two new items, while Tori and Calvin each picked one.

  Calving grabbed the Pocket Tattoo. It appeared on his neck, right next to his salt-and-pepper beard; it looked less like a pocket and more like a bag of pirate gold. It’d let him store more items in his inventory, which he said was perfect for him.

  Tori took a necklace that, according to the description, allowed her to delay up to one non-Ultimate spell per day, letting her stack spell effects. It also increased her Mana stat by two. The item description read a lot like the Thunder Mage class had, and I approved of her taking it. Besides, it wasn’t useful for me at all.

  That left me with two Magic Items.

  You received Imbuing Rod (Common, Charge 12)

  User may cast buff spells into this device, then place them into their tools and weapons or those of their allies.

  You received Fast-Hoof Boots (Common, Charge 10)

  +1 Awareness, +1 Body

  Wearer may dash once per fight, moving to a nearby location almost instantly. Requires line of sight and an unobstructed pathway.

  Both solved problems for me. The Rod was full of parts I could use for new Creations and the Charge to power them, while the Fast-Hoof Boots would let me cover the rest of my party in the event of ambushes. Still, I’d tried to make Tori take them; mages had to need mobility.

  She’d declined. According to her, I’d earned two pieces of loot. Calvin agreed. “You bailed me out there at the end, Hal. Besides, you need the Rod for your class.”

  It was odd that we’d gotten two of those in two dungeons, but I wasn’t complaining. After a little more convincing, I accepted both of them, unequipped the stat-increasing Surge Protector, and equipped the Fast-Hoof Boots. Then I put a point in Body, two in Charge, and one in Awareness. “Alright, let’s go check on Fort Kiosk,” I said.

  Sure enough, Brian was Level Sixteen when we got back. Zane had hit Fifteen, and so had Carol. She’d dumped most of her points into Body, and had both legs under her. “Thanks,” she said, gingerly putting weight on the leg as she stretched out.

  “No, really, thank you,” Brian said. He stepped out of Fort Kiosk’s door, sword in hand, and pointed toward the ‘Birds’ wing. Then he paused. “Did you see any of our people?”

  I shook my head. “We had our hands full. Uh, sorry.”

  “Can we go look?” Brian asked.

  I thought about it. We’d taken out everything we’d seen in the ‘Beasts’ wing, but that didn’t mean we’d seen everything. The fog had been everywhere, and we couldn’t guarantee that Zane, Brian, and Carol would be safe.

  On the other hand, I also couldn’t stop them from going, and if we’d learned one thing, it was that even Calvin—who refused to fight and kill—could be the difference between victory and defeat. I glanced at Tori, and she shrugged. “There’s probably some trash pats we missed. If you take it slow and plan your pulls, you should be fine. Do you have CC?”

  “No, but with Carol up again and those boss levels, we should be okay,” Zane said. He seemed to speak Tori’s language. He elbowed his sister playfully, and she glared. Now that she was back to normal, his mood had shifted, and he seemed almost too excited to get going.

  In the end, I couldn’t say no—not even if Brian’s party had been part of mine. I nodded. “Just be careful. I know you want to find your people, but…”

  “What Hal doesn’t feel like he can say is, if you get in trouble, there are no reinforcements. According to the kid, we’re clearing one hundred percent of this dungeon, so if you aren’t sure you can win, retreat to Fort Kiosk and wait,” Calvin said. “I don’t need no heroes.”

  Brian nodded. “Understood.”

  We watched them grab their packs and walk under the ‘Beasts’ sign, disappearing into the fog. Then Tori stared at the mist until I put a hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”

  She jumped a little. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good!” she said, spinning on one foot and starting to march toward the Twilight Menagerie’s second wing. “Let’s finish this place up, yeah?”

  I nodded and fell into place next to her. She looked away, but not before I saw her wipe a tear off her cheek.

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