Pandora waited patiently while the glow dimmed from her other party members. As they all came back to themselves all of them were smiling.

  “Did everyone make level 12?” Callum asked.

  A chorus of “Yes’s” was heard until she said, “I only made level 8, but you all know my situation. Congratulations!”

  “Thanks, Pandora,” Pythias said. “If I remember right you said you didn’t have a class chosen. You really should decide soon, all of us received our level 10 skill. “

  “Really, What did you get?” Pandora asked.

  “I received a skill called Lay on Hands. Once per hour, I can heal someone up to my maximum hit points. The ability says I can also bring someone back that has recently succumbed to their wounds so long as their head is still attached and the healing I do gives them at least 1 hit point.”

  “I received a skill called ‘Cleave’ Callum said. It doubles the damage I’m doing and if that damage is enough to slay my target my attack continues into the next adjacent target for normal damage. It costs 50 stamina to use, so it’s not cheap in combat.”

  “My skill was a bit more refined and required that I had at least a 25 in Agility and Dexterity. It’s called ‘Bullseye’ and for 20 Stamina I can hit any target I shoot at that my weapon can reach. It’s basically a guaranteed critical hit. Considering it costs 5 stamina to shoot normally so that’s not too bad. Also, if I’m low on stamina I can rest for two seconds and fire. It could also be useful if we need to hit something like a rope.”

  “That does sound useful,” Callum said thoughtfully.

  “I can now Detect Magic within 50 feet automatically,” Robert said.

  “Nice, that will come in really useful. Wait, as an ability, not a spell?” Pythias asked.

  “As an ability,” Robert confirmed.

  “That’s almost unheard of. Detect Magic at all times means that we’ll find every magical item and treasure, as well as secret magical doors and containers so long as they’re not shielded. That is an outstanding ability,” Cedrik said.

  “I know it is, I just wish I’d received an ability that helped us with combat, I could see that as being more useful right now?” Robert said.

  “You think so? Go walk around the room and take a look around,” Cedrik said.

  “What did you get Cedrik,” Pandora asked, redirecting the attention from Robert to Cedrik as everyone looked to see what he said.

  “My multiplier for surprise attacks went up. With Shadow Step that should allow me to take down important enemies before they can hurt us too badly,” Cedrik said.

  “Sounds like you all did get some abilities that will help you, and us out. What happens if I don’t choose a class,” Pandora asked.

  “Nothing much, I guess. The Class ability at 10th level probably just goes into limbo. You’ll probably get it after you choose a class,” Robert said.

  Pythias turned to look at the tunnel on the other side of the cavern just as Pandora did, They’d both heard something coming from the tunnel.

  Callum noticed and said, “I think we’re about to have company.”

  “Thanks, Captain Obvious,” Cedrik said sarcastically.

  “No time for that, fight, hide, or run,” Asling asked.

  “Hey, there’s a magical square over her, Robert said as he moved toward a wall, reached out, and fell through,”

  “Every, on Robert, now!” Callum called.

  Asling followed first, then Cedrik, then Pythias, Callum, and finally Pandora. As she stepped through the Illusionary wall Robert was on the ground clutching his stomach as a Goblin was toppling over with an arrow sticking out of its eye. Cedrik had appeared behind another Goblin she’d noticed that was standing next to a lever on the wall and stabbed him through the base of his skull up into his brain, killing him instantly.

  “Lever, possible trap, everyone further in by Cedrik, now,” Callum called.

  Everyone moved further into the hidden passage which ended up being a tunnel.

  An evil smirk crossed Pandora’s lips as she said, “I have an idea” and commanded the anti-orb to her hand as Pythias moved up to Robert as Cedrik pulled his dagger out of the dead goblin. Pythias reached down and healed Robert.

  “What are you going to do with that?” Pythias asked.

  “Well, you remember how one of my orbs doesn’t like anything and it continued to attack the Sandworm Matriarch even though I was unconscious?”

  “Yeah,” Callum said as they all looked at one another questioningly.

  She plucked the orb out of the air, went back over to the illusionary wall, and pushed her hand through as she sent two thoughts to the orb. Stay in the room, Have fun. She felt the Orb leave her hand and a moment later she received a message prompt.

  “What did you do?” Pythias asked.

  “Remember what you said when we first entered that chamber, it looked like it should be able to house at least 1,000 goblins. Now, I might only be just over a year old but even I know that just over 200 is a lot less than 1,000. As to your question, well, all my other mage orbs require constant commands to attack and such. That one orb is completely the opposite. If I don’t lock it down, it’ll attack everything it can get to. I told it to go have some fun in that room. In the time I’ve been talking to you I’ve received 10 messages indicating it’s killed something, and just now, another one,” she said as another message notification appeared.

  “What about the rest of us, are we going to get any XP?” Cedrik asked.

  “Callum, the party is still set to Equally Distributed Experience?” Pandora asked.

  “It is,” Callum said.

  “There you go. It looks like the orb is killing a goblin about once every two to three seconds. Also, I’m sure after it goes through some…

  “Shhh,” Cedrik said cutting me off, “I think we have something rushing down this tunnel towards us from wherever this tunnel leads to.”

  “Callum made his way forward and Pandora set two of the mage orbs to kill anything that came through the illusionary wall and three orbs a piece to defend each of them as they all prepared to fight whatever was coming down the tunnel. As Pythias increased his glow so everyone could see. Suddenly, they could see goblins making their way toward them. About 30 feet away there were at least twenty red-eyed goblins running toward them with axes, swords, and daggers. Pythias stepped up beside Callum and they braced for impact.

  Callum swung his sword and must have activated his new ability because three of the Goblins were cut in half at the waist and toppled over. Pythias used his hammer and shield while Robert used his Wand of Magic Missiles and Asling used her bow to deadly efficiency.

  Luckily the tunnel acted as a bottleneck which prevented Callum and Pythias from being overwhelmed. Pandora’s Mage Orbs helped as a few stray crossbow bolts were intercepted here and there. In less than a minute the tunnel was clear again. Pandora checked her messages. She was still getting “Kill” notifications from the main room.

  Cedrik moved forward and started looting the 24 goblin corpses as she turned her attention back to the illusionary wall. The two orbs she’d placed there had hovered lazily while they took care of the goblins. The illusionary wall was also preventing any sound from coming to, or from them, into the giant chamber on the other side. Even so, Pandora needed to see how bad it was over there.

  “What are you doing Pandora?” Callum asked.

  “Just going to take a peek,” she said.

  Callum and Pythias quickly moved to the side of the party she was on and stood against opposite walls as Callum motioned for Robert and Asling to do the same, “Okay, take a look, anything tries to attack you fall back down the middle of the tunnel, Pythias and I will close up behind you,” Callum said.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “Sounds good,” Pandora said as she leaned her head into the illusionary wall until her face and eyes barely went through and she could see on the other side. She looked around quickly then withdrew her head.

  “What did you see?” Pythias asked.

  “Well, there’s good news and bad news,” Pandora said.

  “What’s the bad news?” Robert asked.

  “The bad news is that the estimate that there were 1,000 goblins down here at least was probably accurate.

  “What’s the good news?” Pythias asked.

  “The good news is that the goblins don’t seem to know what’s killing them and have started an all-out war in the cavern fighting amongst themselves,” she said.

  “How is that good news? We won’t get all the XP,” Cedrik said as he rejoined the party after looting the corpses.

  “Quick math, 1,000 is way more than 21, which is the largest number of attacks I can help defend against. Callum, how many hit points do you have?”

  “I have 6,” Callum said.

  “As do I,” Pythias said.

  “Well, I don’t,” Cedrik said

  “Neither do I, Asling said as Robert also concurred.

  “I also have 6 hit points. With the Symbiote, I have 152. We do not need to kill everything on this floor, we need to get past this floor so if they want to kill themselves we should all be fine with that. Besides, if we wait around we should be able to loot the corpses after,” Pandora said.

  “We should be able to, you’re right,” Cedrik agreed.

  “Okay then, we wait. Cedrik, can you scout this tunnel a little way and see where it comes out? Don’t engage unless you absolutely have to. We’ll wait for you here,“ Callum said.

  “Can do,” Cedrik replied as he stealthed and headed down the tunnel.”

  “I’m going to keep an eye on my messages, I’ll let you know when they start to slow down,” Pandora said.

  Cedrik came back in about five minutes, “The tunnel opens into another room about a third the size of the big cavern. It’s mostly empty. It has two tunnels leading out of it, one that comes back this way and one that heads away from here,” Cedrik said.

  “They must have known about the tunnel and thought to get behind anyone who was trying to take out their camp. I wonder where the other goblins came from then?” Robert said.”

  “More likely, they hid in rooms cut into the side of the cavern and came back out when the fighting started,” Pythias said.

  “Well, whatever the reason, I’m not getting notifications as often. They’ve slowed down and I’m only receiving one about every 10 to 15 seconds,” Pandora said.

  “That’s okay, let’s wait until at least a minute passes between notifications,” Callum said.

  “More than likely, we’ll have to go in there and clean up goblins that are hiding or playing dead to avoid being attacked, “Asling said.

  “True, I know I’d have dropped to the ground and started playing dead as soon as everyone around me started dying,” Cedrik said.

  Everyone settled down to wait while Pandora watched as the messages she was receiving continued to slow down. Finally, about 45 minutes later there was a minute between messages, “That’s it, a minute and ten seconds since the last message,” she said.

  “All right, form up, let’s all go back into the room and see if we can make sure the goblins are taken care of. We don’t want to leave sentient creatures on any level of a dungeon, especially goblins,” Callum said.

  “Why is that?” Pandora asked.

  “Because creatures that are made from a dungeon find it hard to exist once they leave the magical density of the Dungeon. If they go outside they need to stay close. Creatures born in a dungeon are under no such restrictions. Goblins breed like hamsters. In just a few months 20 could turn into 200 hundred. Within a year 1,000. Also, these goblins probably weren’t created in this Dungeon, new dungeons usually don’t create sentient mobs. There is probably a cave system that comes up into the dungeon from the depths. We’ll need to watch for that as well and add it to our report to the Adventurer’s Guild,” Robert said.

  “Everyone ready Callum asked?”

  Pandora set the Mage Orbs to defense, 3 on each of them. She kept the last three in reserve. Well, the last two anyway. When they all stepped through the illusionary wall she recalled the Anti-Orb which looked tired as it made its way back to her. As it came to hover in front of her she held out her hand and caught it as it dropped out of the air. One thing she did notice as the orb came within a foot of her, her mana regeneration had dropped by 25% from 8 to 6 per second. She’d have to watch that going forward. Maybe the orbs had a maximum energy supply. She stowed it in one of her pockets. She’d have to figure that out later. Right now, she had to be more careful when relying on the orbs. Pandora had no idea how the duration of these things worked.

  They looked around the cavern to find even more goblin bodies strew everywhere, though they didn’t see any goblins moving around in the open. Callum looked around, “All right, everyone in twos; Robert and Pythias, Asling and me, and Cedrik and Pandora. Let’s split up, make sure every one of them is dead, and watch for ambushes.”

  They split up and went to work. The next hour was grizzly. Not because she got her hands dirty. No, she had two orbs. As they made our way around she’d have an orb strike a corpse, if it wasn’t a corpse and reacted, Cedrick would finish it off if the orb didn’t. Then Cedrick would loot the corpse. They heard a couple of squeals as the others found living goblins and ended them.

  After they finished in the room everyone came together. Cedrik started looting corpses and Asling moved to watch his back. Everyone else checked the adjacent chambers in a clockwise fashion from the illusionary wall. While Cedrick went through the large cavern and looted the goblins everyone else cleared the side caves. With Callum and Pythias in front supported by my orbs for defense and Roberts’s magic the 30 or so goblins they found hiding died quickly. Cedrick went through and looted them when he was done with the main cavern.

  They found a total of three additional exits out of the cave, so four total. The one they entered from, one small one off to the left that was behind a door that seemed to lead down, and two across the room. The one on the right led into the chamber to the tunnel behind the illusionary wall which it opened into. The one on the left seemed to slant down and go deeper.

  “Which way?” Robert asked.

  “First, let’s review our gains,” Callum said.

  Pandora opened her messages and skipped all the way to the last couple.

  Cedrik has shared loot from 1,076 Goblins with you.

  Your share of the Loot is as follows; 630 copper pieces and 75 silver pieces

  You have received 198,250 XP from assisting your party in slaying 1,076 Goblins. ? XP penalty for 375 level 3 Goblins and 236 level 4 Goblins (More than twice their level). Half XP Shared with Caspa. Total XP Award: 99,125

  Congratulations! You have reached Level 16! You now have 80 attribute points to allocate.

  “What level did you guys just get to?” Pandora asked.

  “We received a penalty for all the goblins except the level 7 ones for being more than twice their level, so we only received half XP for a majority. Still, that gave us 147,500 XP and raised us to level 21. Hold on for a minute we’re all choosing our next Class Ability that is awarded at level 20,” Robert said.

  It looked like only being level 8 had helped Pandora. She’d only taken that penalty for the level 3 and 4 goblins. Still, it looked like that gap was closing, though it would still be a long time before Caspa leveled, she still needed 535,484 XP. By the time she earned that much XP, she’d be level 33.

  Pandora opened my Personal Interface and allocated her points. When she was done she had 19s and 20s in all of her attributes which brought her combined attributes with Caspa over 500. Next, she needed to decide on a Class but she was hesitant to pick one as nothing called out to her, at least not yet. It was probably better to wait than pick a class that she wasn’t going to like.

  “Now that’ is what I’m talking about!” Cedrik declared excitedly.

  “What?” Pandora asked.

  “One of the Abilities I was able to choose was Shadow Walk. It lets me move through shadows and I don’t need to exit immediately anymore. I can’t do it for very long because it requires stamina but it looks like I can use it to scout out an area without being detected,” Cedrik said.

  “That does sound useful,” Callum said, “I was able to pick up Charge. It’s a pretty solid ability that lets me move quickly to either help an ally or cross an area quickly while in combat. It’s not as fast as Cedrik’s Shadow Step, but it’s pretty close. Using it doesn’t allow others to make attacks of opportunity against me either. If I combine that with a shield bash, it could be very useful if I’m trying to disrupt an attack or spell.”

  “That does sound useful, “Asling agreed, “I picked up Quick Shot. For 10 stamina I can fire two arrows in quick succession, either at the same target or different targets. It’s also stackable to Bullseye, though I won’t be able to do that very often,” Asling finished.

  “I picked up a skill called Quick Cast, If I pay twice the mana cost of a spell I can make it an instant cast as long as the cast time wasn’t more than a round. If more than a round it halves the casting time. I have a couple of spells I haven’t used because they take too long to cast. This could be a game-changer,” Robert said.

  “I picked an ability that became available because of my race, ‘Divine Strike’. It allows me to imbue my hammer with divine energy that will increase damage and gives me a 1% chance per level to banish any infernal being that is equal to or less than my level. Even if it doesn’t banish them, it’s gonna hurt,” Pythias said.

  “Sounds like we all came away with something really cool,” Callum said before he asked, “Everyone make level 21 except Pandora?”

  Everyone answered in the affirmative. “Okay then, looks like we’re all about ready to go, except for loot, Cedrik, I noticed that this time around you didn’t share weapons and such?”

  “Yeah, I didn’t want to burden you all with everything we found. I didn’t notice any magical items, and everything was daggers, short swords, crossbows, blots, and a bunch of other crap none of you use. I plan to sell it when we get back to town, I’ll share the money we make on the items then,” Cedrik said.

  “Your word on that?” Callum asked.

  “My word, Pandora just helped us gain 21 levels in a day, a day! We’re all supposed to be on assessment so we can join a party when we get back. I think they expect us to come back at level 2 or 3. I don’t know about the rest of you but barring any major upheavals I want to stick with this team,” Cedrick said.

  “Me as well,” Asling agreed.

  “And me,” Robert said.

  “You can count me in. The stars seem to have aligned so, of course, I’m in,” Pythias said.

  Callum looked from the others to Pandora, “That just leaves you, Pandora, what do you say to sticking together after this assessment?” Callum asked.

  “I say, better the devils I know, than the devils I don’t!” I said.

  “Wait what?” Pythias said.

  “It’s an expression from where I came from,” I said, “It just popped into my mind for some reason. Has to be one of the memories from my mom.”

  “Okay,” Callum said shrugging, “Looks like that was a yes. If we’re done here which way are we going next?”

  “Finish the dungeon,” Asling said.

  “Yeah finish the dungeon, we’ll have to send a team back if they want to follow that one tunnel down into the depths. We’ll just need to be careful when we come back through here, in case something else makes its way into this level, “Callum said. “Now that we’ve had our little break let’s get back to work!”