Shade hit both skinweave specters with Chain Lightning, which fried their skin. Unfortunately, the actual specters were much faster than the skeleton. The black string-like forms darted to other bodies and quickly rose up as mangled, beaten elves.

  “What class are you?” Owin asked as he opened his index.

  “Well, let’s see.” Shade fully stopped as his index opened. An elf punched him in the face, sending him skidding across the ground. “A wizard!” He was lying near Owin. “You can be a real wizard.”

  Chain Lightning was in his spell list. He smiled and held out just his metal hand. He activated the spell and tensed as bolts of lightning shot from his fingertips. The mana battery inside his hand glowed briefly as the spell launched.

  Bolts of lightning ripped through the skinweave specters, once again destroying the elf bodies. Owin ignited the Incandescent Blade and dashed through the brewery. Both specters flew into the air, darting like insects. He leapt and slashed through one just before it dove toward a new body.

  The other skinweave reached another elf corpse, but was promptly fried by an electricity spell. Shade firmly kicked the body and swung with the staff as the specter’s true form emerged again. It crashed into Shade’s face, knocking the skeleton over, and tried to control him. The specter thrashed about inside his skull, unable to take over his body.

  “I guess this is helpful. Or something.” Shade sat upright. He electrified the Darkblade and stabbed it through his eye socket. A limp black string fell from the bottom of his jaw. “It’s a good thing I don’t take apparition damage.”

  “Yeah. You would’ve taken a lot.”

  Shade narrowed his eye sockets. Some elf blood leaked from his eyes, leftover from the skinweave. “Does losing all of my mana count as taking apparition damage?”

  Owin pulled the skeleton off the ground. “Yes.”

  “Oh, bad news. I took a lot of damage. Well, not that much. I don’t have that much mana. I use yours.”

  “I know, Shade.” Owin walked away from the skeleton toward the two doors. One had green smoke leaking out from the bottom while the other was normal. He had already found the secret, so what would be the benefit in fighting more specters than he had to?

  He opened the normal door and sighed. There were five elves fighting two others. The two were obviously dead and inhabited by skinweaves.

  “Is this floor anything other than specters?” Owin asked as Shade walked up.

  “Uh, no.” The skeleton walked through the green smoke to the other door, opened it, and took a frying pan to the face. “If I had a nose, that would’ve hurt.” He blasted the elf with Lightning. “That one wasn’t a skinweave! Wow, I fried that elf. Oof.”

  Owin closed his door and hurried over. “There are no specters in here?”

  Just as he asked, a black string darted from the ceiling and dug its way into the burning elf. Shade hit it with another Lightning and kicked it aside. A quick swing of the Incandescent Blade killed the skinweave before it could fly away. Not that it had anywhere to go. The rest of the kitchen was filled with rotting foods, but no bodies.

  Shade slinked through the smoke, glancing back a few times to see if Owin was watching. The skeleton reached the far corner and pushed aside a broken cabinet.

  “Is that a door?” Owin asked.

  “Not just a door. It’s the door.” He stuck his head through. “More sewer. Your favorite!”

  “Are you sure that’s the right way?” A somewhat hidden door in the back corner of a room that didn’t feel like it was required was a weird design for a dungeon floor. Usually the right way was obvious.

  “I have a hunch. Some might call it constipation, but there’s a faint memory or idea or something telling me we go this way.” Shade glanced at Owin and stepped through without another word. “Wow, is this water thick.”

  “Thick?” Owin waved smoke out of his face and leaned out the door. “What’s thick about it?”

  Shade kicked his foot, moving a chunk through the opaque water. “I would say turds, but I don’t want to dissuade you from following me.”

  “If that’s the right way, I’ll have to go in there eventually.” Owin scowled at the foul water. The smell was already stronger than the other sewers he had ventured through. “You’re sure?”

  “Do you want me to go to the corner and see what’s ahead?” Shade took a step and kicked another chunk of something aside.

  “Kind of.”

  Shade started down the sewer, using the staff to disturb the thin film on top of the murky water. “Big, strong goblin can fight krakens but is scared to wade through a little diarrhea.”

  “What?”

  “Hm? I didn’t say anything.” Shade reached the corner, looked back with wide eye sockets, and sprinted. “There’s a boss! A boss and stairs!” He ran in the most awkward, ridiculous way, pumping his arms way more than he actually needed to.

  Owin jumped into the water and felt his chitin boots sink into a squishy layer at the bottom. Something like wet clay. “I hate this.”

  “Oh, really?” Shade stopped just in front of him. “I couldn’t tell. You hadn’t complained or anything, so I was just assuming you loved running around in other peoples’ filth.”

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  A giant ball of flesh floated around the corner. It hovered above the water, creating little ripples in the muck as it squelched against the walls. Whatever the creature was, it was pulsing and looked like mismatched meat tied together with random strings of sinew.

  Shade turned his head all the way around without moving his body. “That’s the boss.”

  “What is it?”

  “I have some guesses, but I would suggest going and asking. Make sure you use your manners.” Shade’s head snapped back around. “I’ll be here ready to blast it on your command.”

  “Couldn’t you have done that before it even got around the corner?” Owin lifted his knees high, unsticking his boots from the bottom.

  “And deprive you of an opportunity to win? I would never.”

  Fortress Mob

  Sewer Filth

  Flesh Golem

  Level 22

  “Sewer filth? Gross. It’s a golem, not a specter.” Owin opened his index to the list of wizard spells. Even his Power 1 spell list was longer. “What’s good against flesh?”

  “Cook the meat. Fire.”

  Twisted flesh tentacles ripped through the flesh golem, turning the big ball into what looked more like a monstrous spider. Limbs dug into the walls and propelled the creature forward.

  Shade shot Chain Lightning from the staff, which arced toward the water but dissipated before reaching them.

  Fire was the better choice while they were standing in water. The problem was that Owin didn’t know what any of the fire spells actually were.

  He pointed with the Incandescent Blade. “Explosion?”

  A small light flashed on the flesh golem, and just as it reached Shade, the spell detonated. Owin used the flat of the blade to throw Shade back, dunking the skeleton into the murky water as fire roared through the sewer.

  Burning flesh tentacles wrapped around Owin’s face, legs, and torso. Before he could try to attack, he felt the world flip around him. He was out of the water, out of the thick green gas, and swinging beside a slick brick wall.

  Shade shouted something, but Owin couldn’t hear it as he was dunked back into the sewer water. The Incandescent Blade fell from his hands at some point while flying all around.

  Since he wasn’t able to do anything else, Owin opened his index. There were neutral, fire, electric, wind, and arcane focus branches of wizard spells. It was no wonder he had been overwhelmed when he was picking his Power 1 spells back in the Great Forest.

  Owin’s boots smashed against a brick wall, immediately shattering the chitin. He wiggled his feet a bit.

  Shade’s current list of spells was split between fire and electric focuses, but it was difficult to tell what each spell actually did by just seeing the name. Things like Fireball and Explosion wouldn’t help at all while he was trapped.

  “Remember Electro Tempest?” Shade shouted.

  That was a spell on the staff, but not in their current list. Owin tried to reply, but his mouth was firmly covered by a damp, wriggly tentacle of flesh.

  “I—”

  The list of wizard spells vanished.

  Shade was dead. Again.

  Owin felt around, moving his hands as much as possible while his arms were pinned to the sides. When he was confident both hands rested on flesh, he squeezed his eyes shut and cast Discharge. A bigger mana bar meant more electricity.

  The Sewer Filth roared from some unseen mouth and threw Owin. He crashed against the far wall, cracking more armor, before falling back into the water.

  Before long, all of his armor would be wrecked again. He needed to let it regenerate before getting to the higher floors.

  Not that it was going well now. Focus.

  Even low level mobs were stronger than usual. He wasn’t worried for his life, but a boss was still a boss, and this one was twice as strong as it otherwise would’ve been.

  Gray dust floated on top of the water nearby, clinging to chunks of whatever was floating within the sewer. Owin reached down, feeling for the staff.

  More flesh tentacles launched for him, but this time he was ready. Owin dashed to the side, stopped, pivoted, and dove forward. He waited, watching for the next attack. The flesh golem’s main body moved slowly, especially without help from the walls. It repositioned itself and sent a flurry of strikes again.

  Owin had to punch a few tentacles to keep them away, but he managed to avoid getting grabbed once again as he retreated to Shade’s corpse and felt around until he found the staff.

  Sewer Filth reached once again. Owin shifted his weight to move, and his foot squelched in the thick layer at the bottom of the sewer.

  A flesh tentacle smacked him in the face, but he stayed upright with the help of his stuck feet.

  “Electro Tempest!”

  The electrified winds appeared again. Owin quickly yanked his feet from the bottom layer, dropped the staff, and leapt at the flesh golem. He crashed against it, shocking everything around him. Even as flesh tentacles wriggled and reached for the goblin, they were shocked and burned.

  Owin dug his fingers into the golem with his real hand and punched it with his metal hand. Each strike sent chunks flying. It was like each individual section was barely connected to the next. With the help of the spell, he fried most of the flesh golem and soon felt the whole floating creature lurch.

  As it splashed into the water below, a black string shot up from the chunks of flesh.

  Owin sighed.

  The skinweave specter darted straight for his neck. It was fast, but Goblin Cunning kept Owin faster. He snatched it out of the air and held it tight in his grip.

  Owin felt around in his bag until he found a mana potion. He drank it while still holding the skinweave as far away as possible. It flailed like a fish, but couldn’t escape the grip.

  Using Discharge would use up all of his mana again, so the better option was to just repeat Bolt until the specter died.

  He shocked it once. The creature flailed even more.

  Twice. It stopped moving.

  But it wasn’t dead. He never got an experience notification. Owin brought his arm a little closer, making it look like the specter would be within range. It lurched into motion and tried to strike his face.

  He shocked it again. And again. And again.

  Two more and it finally died.

  Owin tossed it into the sewer water where it belonged.

  Summon the Withered Shade

  “I am sorry!” Shade kicked the flesh golem. “It was a skinweave, wasn’t it?”

  “You knew?”

  “I had a hunch.” Shade looked around. “Time for the stairs?”

  “I thought about waiting to summon you until I was on the fourth floor, but I need help finding my sword and the staff.”

  Shade fully immersed himself in the murky water and crawled along the bottom.

  Owin made a face and went to the stairs. He walked up a couple and waited out of the filth.

  After a minute, Shade returned holding both weapons with all sorts of disgusting things dripping from him. “Ready to ascend!”