An enormous two-handed cleaver rocketed down at an armored woman with red hair—and landed true. The mighty blow bisected her down the middle, and the over-sized blade bit into soft dirt, embedding, carving all the way through. Meeting so little resistance, the troll nearly toppled over.

Because it had been other-Natalie, the affectionate name Natalie used for the combat-illusion she’d been practicing. Her illusory armored form parted like mist by the giant blade, and not only had the troll wasted an attack on an enemy created from light and magic, but it found itself overextended and off balance.

Illusions. Even not meeting her potential with them, they were so damn useful. The upgrade from progression one to progression two had made it so much more functional, too.

Natalie didn’t waste the opportunity her spell had opened up. Grunting with exertion, she winded back, then swung her hammer with everything she had—a blow slow and cumbersome enough she never would have tried it without such a clear advantage. The heavy chunk of metal landed into the troll’s knee, and a grotesque crunch filled the air. Its leg bent inward, and it toppled, an imbalance from overextending itself becoming a total failure. It roared, guttural and somehow piercing at the same time.

She stumbled back barely in time to dodge another vicious slash—a desperate attack flung out with surprising speed—and with the eight-foot reach granted by its gigantic weapon, the troll almost reached her despite Natalie having expected the attack.

But with the last ditch retaliatory strike missed, the fight was over.

In slow, methodical fashion, Natalie and her team dispatched the crippled monster. They had been managing the beast even before a broken knee, so now, unable to even stand, the clean-up was a formality. Still, they did so meticulously—a textbook execution. No point in getting sloppy in the final stretch.

Shortly, their team had their first mini-boss kill.

The glass orb that appeared inside the black ribbons pouring from the disintegrating monster was unlike the smaller, mundane ones they had gathered from their dozens of other encounters. Stronger.

***

Greater Monster Core - Tier 1

***

Jordan plucked the ball from the ground, holding it up to inspect it.

“Lucky us,” she said.

Natalie nodded in agreement. Higher-tier monster cores were more likely than the one-in-three drop chance from regular monsters, but still not guaranteed. They’d been fortunate with their loot in general, so far. Not to any incredible degree, but on the upper half of what could be expected. Which was good. Nothing soured a dungeon run like consistently coming up dry.

Natalie wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, still heaving in breaths—it had been a tough fight, as expected of a miniboss—then swept a gaze around, checking on the rest of her team.

She’d kept the troll’s attention for most of the fight, but doing so one-hundred percent of the time was hard to manage. Dungeon monsters were more than happy to focus on whoever was getting in their face and making themselves an easy target, but not always. It was inevitable they’d break free from the tank, here and there.

Seeing the enemy charge her backline was probably the most nausea-inducing part of any given fight. It was understood that tanks couldn’t lock down an opponent permanently, but Natalie would still blame herself if anything happened to her teammates. She hadn’t ever expected to fill the tank role, but since that was the fate that had befallen her, she took her responsibilities seriously.

She was pleased to see that everyone was fine. Tired, of course, but fine. While difficult, the fight had been routine, as far as these things went. They’d dispatched the monster without real difficulty. Natalie wasn’t sure if they could have done so even just a few days ago—not to the same level of competence, at least. Even the half-week each of them had been down in the dungeon, practicing each evening, was paying dividends. They were noticeably better than when they’d started. And better at operating as a unit, too. That was almost more important than individual skill.

“Now,” Sofia said. “Time to find the loot.”

Natalie snorted at that. Still panting from the fight, and Sofia was already suggesting they crawl across the arena to find their rewards? She seemed to be the one bringing their attention to that most often. No delver was immune to the excitement of shiny new items, but Sofia in particular had a glint in her eye whenever the potential for loot appeared.

Putting her hammer away, Natalie inspected the arena with the rest of her team. There weren’t any chests just sitting around, so it would take some digging around to find their reward.

They’d arrived to the Wispwood, one of the less common first-floor zones. Most dungeon floors were enclosed spaces, as the Cave had been, but the Wispwood was the opposite: wide and open, a sprawling forest set under perpetual dusk.

Even the dungeon’s open spaces were limited, though. The trees grew dense where the dungeon didn’t want its delvers to venture, and attempts to push in those directions was generally unwise. Keeping to trails and clearings came with enough threats; the shadowed copses were best left unexplored.

As for how there was an open sky underground … well. Who knew? Whether the dungeon sprawled beneath the surface, or some stranger place between dimensions, was debatable. Portals did lead them in and out, so it was hard to say.

The miniboss clearing they’d recently finished their fight in was a glade encircled by tall, crooked trees with gray trunks and blue-green leaves. Cast under a night sky, their surroundings only illuminated by the clean white light of their lanterns, a rather ominous atmosphere hung around the Wispwood. She kept catching glimpses of elongated shadow-monsters running between tree trunks, but it was probably her mind playing tricks on her. Trying to track the shadows never yielded anything. Plus, there were real monsters to worry about—no point in concerning herself with the fake ones.

And even if they were real, that just meant more monster cores. Always a good thing, in her book.

The glade itself, where they’d fought the troll, was torn up from their battle. Ground lay ripped and cleaved into, the hulking beast’s attacks and even movements tearing grass wherever it had rampaged. It had been by far the strongest encounter they’d faced—obviously, being their first mini-boss. It made Natalie hesitate, considering what a real boss would be like. Then again, Natalie only had a sore shoulder and slightly dented shield to remember this fight by, and that would be gone in minutes as Liz’s lingering healing effects patched her up.

The loot was trickier to hunt down than usual. Sofia found it in a hollow log on the outskirts of the battle-worn arena. The way she scrunched up her nose and used her rapier to scrape away the dirt and bugs clinging to the decayed lock-box was so aggravating. Aggravatingly … not cute. Because really, what kind of delver cared about getting her hands dirty? She was even wearing gloves.

And Natalie really wished that awful word kept intruding. Cute. Why did it appear whenever Sofia did something … Sofia-ish?

“Let’s see what we got,” Sofia said, sounding pleased that she’d been the one to track the chest down. “Hopefully, this time it’s something we can use.”