I hate goblins. Goblins were a staple of nearly every fantasy RPG, so I shouldn’t have been surprised to find them in this dungeon, but I was. They were short, with slimy green skin, big pointy ears, lots of sharp teeth, and bad attitudes. A group of them had also ambushed us a couple minutes ago.

We were in another large room, where we were still fighting with the goblins. I hadn’t been able to count them, but was sure that we were facing around a dozen. Unfortunately, they weren’t standing out in the open so I could count them, or where Cassandra would be able to conveniently shoot them.

“These things are getting on my fucking nerves,” Cassandra snarled.

Cassandra was crouched down behind a large chunk of stone debris, using it as cover. She popped up just long enough to let loose with an arrow, then ducked back down, right before a ball of fire passed through where her head had been.

I was crouched down behind a chunk of rubble too, as were Teri and Matt. Don was the only one who wasn’t bothering with that, as his armor and shield protected him for the most part. Still, I hit him with a ‘lesser healing’, just to top off his health since some of the goblin’s attacks were managing to do a little damage.

“It’s gonna take forever to beat them like this,” I said in frustration.

“True,” Don agreed in a calm tone. “It would help if they’d stand still and fight…”

These goblins weren’t behaving like the mindless mobs from a lot of games, where they’d attack Don all at once, and conveniently, get within easy range of his mace. Instead, these ones were taking cover, hiding behind various pieces of rubble, then trying to ambush us. Some of them would sneak around and try to attack us and then run back to cover, while others remained there and threw fireballs or spears. It was getting pretty damn frustrating.

Three fireballs hit Don at once, and though he blocked one with his shield, two others got through. His armor took the brunt of the damage, but not all of it. Since he wasn’t one of my companions, my ‘protect companion’ ability didn’t work on him. I’d already tried. All I could do was heal him a little.

While I was focused on Don, one of the goblins snuck around the rubble where we were hidden and leapt at us from behind. Matt jumped at the goblin and slashed him with his bowie knife, then jumped back, right before the goblin could impale him. Teri swung her baseball bat and connected with the goblin’s head.

“Gross,” Teri cried out. “This is totally gross…” However, that didn’t stop her from smacking the goblin a couple more times, until it stopped moving.

“I need a better angle,” Cassandra called out. “I can’t see any of those little pricks well enough to hit them…”

“Good point,” I said, stepping out from my cover and throwing up a shield wall. A fireball immediately bounced off it. “I’ll cover you…”

Cassandra gave me a look of surprise and then nodded agreement. A moment later, she left her cover and raced over to join me behind my shield. Teri stood there beside us, ready to smack any goblins that tried to come at us from our exposed side.

Matt didn’t say anything, but he faded from view and snuck away. I smiled faintly at that, knowing that he’d be helping us in a different way. Any goblins that he took out, especially any of the ones throwing fireballs, would be a huge help.

I put up another shield wall and we moved behind that one, right before the first one faded out. I repeated the process, creating one shield wall after another, which gave us the cover we needed to move across the room. Cassandra shot at any goblin that tried approaching us, so Teri only had the opportunity to hit one of them.

“This should do it,” Cassandra said, once we were positioned on top of a mound of rubble. “Don, get back…”

Once Don had backed up, Cassandra formed another arrow, though unlike most of her arrows, this one appeared to be made of silvery light. She fired the arrow into the air, not seeming to be aiming for any specific target. Then the arrow split and split again, until there were a dozen arrows that rained down in the area. This attack didn’t seem to be very accurate, but it was enough to hit at least one goblin and to make several more dive out from their covered positions in order to avoid getting hit.

“Gotcha,” Cassandra exclaimed, firing several quick shots and killing these goblins.

Another goblin jumped out into the open with a fireball in each hand. He was in the process of throwing them at us, when Matt suddenly appeared behind him and stabbed him in the back.

“Pawned you,” Matt announced. He was a serious gamer, so of course, he was really getting into this.

I threw a shield on Matt and then on Teri since I didn’t want to leave them open to ambushes. While I was doing this, Cassandra fired another glowing arrow into the air, raining more arrows down onto the goblins and driving a few more out of their covered positions. One of them immediately leapt back behind cover, but Cassandra pulled out another glowing arrow and shot it right through the rubble, as though it wasn’t even there. It didn’t take long to finish off the remaining goblins.

Once we were done clearing the room, Don went up to Cassandra and commented, “Heather seems to be taking a much more…active role.”

“Mason and Fairlan killed her and both of her old companions,” Cassandra responded. “I think it was an eye-opening experience. Heather isn’t the same person she used to be.”

“I can see that,” Don said.

“Hey,” Teri suddenly exclaimed. “I found something over here…”

I looked over to where Teri was crouched down beside one of the dead goblins, and saw what she was referring to. There was a small wooden box beside the goblin, maybe about the size of a brick. I might not even have noticed it if not for the fact it had some symbols on it that were glowing.

“It looks like we get some loot after all,” Matt commented, though he looked a little disappointed that there wasn’t more. “What is it?”

“This could be good,” Cassandra said with a smirk. “Or it could be worthless…”

“We’ll take that!” a new voice announced.

I snapped around and saw another group of champions, three of them, standing halfway across the room. I grimaced at that, since the last thing we needed after dealing with these goblins, was to get into another fight before we had a chance to recover.

The one who’d spoken was a woman, who appeared to be in her early to mid-twenties, with shoulder-length blonde hair, and some lightweight armor that seemed to be white cloth with bits of golden metallic armor over it. In her hand, she held a spear with a glowing gem set into the head.

Standing beside the woman was a figure dressed in grey and black, with a dark grey cloak that leaked smoke and shadow from the edges. I couldn’t make out many details, other than that this one was a guy.

The third member was a guy, who looked like he was around my age, maybe twenty or twenty-one. He was tall and well-muscled, similar in size and physique to my old body, and he was wearing brown leather armor with bits of bronzed metal armor added to it in various places, such his shoulders and chest. In his hand, there was a rather nasty looking, one-handed battle axe.

“I didn’t hear them coming,” Cassandra said with a scowl. “Careful. They might have some kind of stealth ability.”

“You were supposed to be quiet until AFTER we ambushed them,” Cloak exclaimed, turning to glare at the woman. “Are you SURE your patron is the goddess of light and wisdom, because I’m noticing a rather obvious lack of the latter?”

“It looks like we’re going PVP next,” Matt said.

The guy with the axe grinned as he called out, “I’ve got dibs on the cute redhead…”

I looked around for the cute redhead, only to realize that he meant me. I was the cute redhead.

“Aw, crap,” I grumbled. Teri snickered beside me while Cassandra just smirked.

“You cost us the advantage,” Cloak told Spear Chick in a disapproving tone. “But we still need those points… Get them…”

At those words, all three of the new champions came at us. I was tired from the goblin fight, as were the rest of my team, but we didn’t have time to rest and recover. Instead, we braced ourselves and prepared to fight.

In spite of calling ‘dibs’ on me, Axe Guy found himself facing Don, who’d calmly stepped in front of him. Axe met shield, then mace met air as Axe Guy dodged Don’s attack. They continued going back and forth, though I was too busy to pay much attention to the details.

Cassandra immediately opened fire on Cloak, though I couldn’t tell if she hit him or not. Smoke and shadows poured out around him, covering him in darkness and leaving little more than a black cloud in the middle of the room. Cassandra scowled and fired several more shots into that cloud, though nothing seemed to change.

Spear Chick came right at me, seeming to ignore the fact that I had two companions. When she leapt at me with her spear, looking like she was going to try impaling me, I threw up a shield wall and she ran right into it. I almost burst out laughing, though for Teri, there was no ‘almost’ about it.

“You’re going down, Sievers,” Spear Chick exclaimed with a smirk. “Everyone knows you’re one of the weakest champions…”

“Then it’s a good thing that everyone knows wrong,” I responded.

As soon as my shield vanished, Teri rushed forward, swinging her baseball bat. Spear Chick swung her spear and knocked the bat aside. I managed to get a shield on Teri, right before the head of the spear hit her. If I’d been a second slower, my friend and companion would have gotten a nasty slice right across her chest.

Teri didn’t seem too worried about the loss of her bat, because she used the brief opening to grab onto Spear Chick and throw her to the ground. I’d seen Teri do this kind of thing a couple times and knew that in a couple seconds, Spear Chick would be pinned, and would probably have her arm pulled back into some painful position.

Spear Chick went down, but when Teri moved in to pin her, she responded by releasing a brilliant flash of light that blinded me for a moment and did even worse for Teri. Teri scrambled back, unable to see, while Spear Chick quickly got back to her feet.

“Don’t you dare touch me,” Spear Chick exclaimed as she kicked Teri.

She lunged at Teri with her spear, but I reacted, first by throwing another shield on Teri, then blocking the spear with my staff. For a moment, Spear Chick gave me a look of surprise, then she slashed at me, though I knocked it aside.

“Bring it on,” I said, not about to let her hurt Teri.

I swung my staff at Spear Chick, who blocked it and then tried to slice me. We danced back and forth, spear against staff, though I quickly realized that she had the upper hand. She was stronger than I was as well as more skilled with her weapon. Still, I was too damn stubborn to let that stop me.

We fought without using anything but our weapons for about half a minute, and I was slowly being pushed back. I grimaced and tried to think of how I could turn this around.

STAFF FIGHTING HAS INCREASED TO RANK 4.

I grinned at that, though didn’t let it distract me. In the blink of an eye, I was doing better. I was actually able to fight with a staff better than I had before, but Spear Chick still had the advantage, just not as large of one.

While I was fighting with Spear Chick, I was somewhat aware of the other fights going on. Don and Axe Guy were still going at it, and seemed to be at a stalemate. Cassandra also seemed to be at a stalemate with her opponent, Cloak. She kept shooting arrows at him, though the mass of smoke and shadows just kept moving, seemingly unphased by it all.

“You’re jousting at shadows,” Cloak said in an amused tone. “Such a waste of time…”

“Conrad James,” Cassandra called out to Cloak. “Champion of Lequettra, goddess of smoke and shadow. I know too much about you to fall for your fucking head games…”

I was momentarily distracted by everything else that was going on and Spear Chick took immediate advantage of that. She lunged forward and past my guard. I managed to shift to the side enough so that she didn’t impale me, but she would have sliced through my side if not for my armor deflecting the hit.

“Nothing personal,” Spear Chick exclaimed, “but my patron and I need the points… You understand…”

Suddenly, Spear Chick began to glow, bright enough that I couldn’t bear to look at her. She tried to impale me again, but even though I couldn’t see, I could still activate my shield wall.

I didn’t know what Spear Chick planned to do next, because she screamed instead. The bright light stopped, though I still had a lot of spots in front of my eyes. I rubbed my eyes while backing up, and was then able to start making things out again.

Matt was standing off to the side, and I saw that he’d finally decided to break out his secret weapon. He held a paintball gun in his hand and was blasting Spear Chick with it.

“Ouch,” I said, almost feeling sorry for the girl.

I knew from personal experience that normal paintballs could leave some nice welts, but Matt wasn’t using paintballs. He was firing ball bearings, with a gun that had been modified with a larger and more highly pressurized air canister.

The only reason Matt had been reserving this gun until it was really needed, was that he couldn’t carry much extra ammo or the spare canisters. That would have been too much too much weight and too bulky, especially for a sneaky type that relied in speed and agility.

“That’s going to leave some bruises,” Matt exclaimed, firing a couple more shots.

Spear Chick’s armor seemed to be protecting her fairly well, but part of her armor was still just cloth, and there was only so much that could do. Matt fired several more shots then backed up, ready to dodge if she retaliated.

“You CHEATER!” Spear Chick yelled. “Guns aren’t allowed…”

There was a flash of light, though this time it didn’t come from Spear Chick. It took me a moment to realize that I was froze, unable to move. I felt a moment of panic, until I saw the Referee was now standing a short distance away from us.

Spear Chick grinned triumphantly and exclaimed, “Her companion is using a gun…”

The Referee turned to stare at Matt with a flat expression. “Firearms are strictly forbidden in any competition…”

“This isn’t a firearm,” Matt quickly protested, holding the paintball gun out sideways so that the Referee could get a better look. “It doesn’t use gunpowder or bullets, just compressed air.”

The dark-skinned woman stared at the paintball gun for several long seconds before announcing, “Objection overruled. This weapon fires projectiles via stored energy in a similar manner to bows, crossbows, and slingshots. This is not a firearm, and technically, does not violate any rule.”

“WHAT?” Spear Chick exclaimed with a look of disbelief.

I wasn’t surprised by this ruling since Matt had asked Cassandra a lot of questions about the rules, especially the ones concerning firearms. When he found out that the rules specified that ‘firearms’ were banned, not ‘guns’, he’d come up with the idea of using a paintball gun. He was too much of a fan of paintball and first-person shooters, to not take advantage of this opening.

“The contest may proceed,” the Referee announced, right before vanishing in a burst of sparks and sparkles. As soon as she was gone, I was free to move again.

With the Referee gone, the fight immediately resumed. Teri picked up her baseball bat and swung it at Spear Chick while Matt fired several more shots at her with his paintball gun. I stood back, cursing my lack of offensive power while throwing shields around my companions.

Cloak tried closing in on Cassandra, but her arrows were keeping him back, even if they didn’t seem to be doing much. Don and Axe Guy were still going at it, with neither of them making any progress. For a moment, I considered trying to help one of my allies, but the truth was, they were too far away for me to hit with my healing ability, not that they really seemed to need it. So, I once again turned my full attention to my own fight.

Spear Chick snarled and slammed the base of her spear into the ground. There was a flash of light, and I was suddenly flung backwards, where I hit the ground and rolled a couple times. I scrambled to my feet, feeling a little dazed. Then I realized that not only had I dropped my staff in the process, but that there were now seven Spear Chicks standing there.

“What the hell?” Teri demanded as she scrambled back to her feet. “Is she a rabbit or something?”

“Probably illusions,” Matt responded, opening fire with his paintball gun. Only one of the Spear Chicks yelped in pain.

Teri grinned and ran at the real Spear Chick, while Matt kept the girl focused on him. A moment later, Spear Chick was slammed into the ground, while her spear was sent flying. Teri immediately went to work, elbowing the champion and trying to get a good grip on her.

“Judo for the win,” Teri exclaimed, just a little too quickly.

“Get away from me,” Spear Chick exclaimed, somehow slipping right out of Teri’s grip and scrambling back to her feet.

I rushed forward, hesitating to put another shield on Teri because I was low on mana and didn’t want to use up what little I had left, unless I had no choice. When I was almost on them, I realized that I’d left my staff behind. Fortunately, there was a spear on the ground beside me, I snatched that up instead.

“Switch opponents,” Cloak yelled out to his people.

As soon as Cloak announced this, a thick cloud of darkness poured out from his personal patch of shadows and began spreading out, making it difficult to see much in the large room. Fortunately, it was strongest near him, so I wasn’t completely blind. When it started to thin out, I saw Axe Guy was running straight for me.

“She has my spear,” Spear Chick protested, hesitant to leave me with her weapon, but also not wanting to attack since she was now unarmed.

Axe Guy reached me a moment later, and he swung his axe ahead of him, causing Teri and Matt to leap back. When he swung at me, I used the spear to divert his axe. Fortunately, fighting with a spear wasn’t much different from a staff, so I was able to use the weapon fairly easily. I managed to divert a couple more attacks, and even retaliated with one of my own, though Axe Guy’s armor protected him from taking any real damage.

YOU HAVE LEARNED A NEW SKILL:

SPEAR FIGHTING- RANK 1
-YOU KNOW HOW TO FIGHT USING A SPEAR. HIGHER LEVELS OF STRENGTH AND DEXTERITY INCREASE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THIS SKILL.

I was startled by this popup, though I didn’t let it distract me. Instead, I focused on dealing with Axe Guy, and mostly, on keeping him distracted until Teri and Matt could sneak around to attack him from the other side.

“You’re cute when you’re fighting,” Axe Guy said, giving me a cocky grin.

“Too bad I can’t say the same,” I responded with a shudder.

When he swung his axe at me again, I created a shield wall between us, which blocked his strike. From this perspective, I was able to take a moment to glance at the others. Don was fighting Cloak, and not appearing to have much luck. Cloak was still a mass of shadows, and he was right on top of Don, slowly whittling the tank down. Cassandra, on the other hand, kept shooting arrows at Spear Chick, who kept dodging them and running away.

I looked back at my own opponent and smiled faintly as an idea came to me. While Axe Guy battered at my shield until he could break through, I dodged to the side and went around my own shield in order to hit him in the side with the spear. This time, I got through enough to do a bit of damage.

“Not bad,” I said, feeling rather pleased with myself.

But before I could repeat this trick, the spear suddenly vanished from my hands. I looked around in surprise and confusion, until I saw the spear reappear in Spear Chick’s hands.

“Crap,” I exclaimed, realizing that she must have sent her spear back to wherever it was stored, and then summoned it again. Well, if she could do that, then so could I. A couple seconds later, I had my staff in hand again, just in time since my shield wall was fading away.

Matt suddenly appeared behind Axe Guy and tried to shoot him in the back, at nearly point-blank range. There was a loud ‘BONG’ sound from Axe Guy, which sounded like massive bell or gong. The sound was deafening enough to make me grab my ears. Axe Guy just grunted and swung his axe at Matt, who barely managed to jump back in time.

“My patron is the goddess of bells and some other stuff,” Axe Guy commented with a smirk. “Not exactly what you’d call combat stuff, but it does come in useful…”

“What did you say?” I asked, having a hard time hearing him through the ringing in my ears.

“I can’t hear you,” Teri yelled.

Axe Guy slammed his axe into the ground, sending out a shockwave that sent Teri and Matt flying backwards. Matt rolled as he hit the ground, though Teri hit with a nasty impact. I pulled up her status screen and saw that her health was down to 74%. I used almost every last bit of mana I had left to heal her. However, a moment later, I realized that I may have made a mistake since Axe Guy turned and charged straight at me.

“Awe, crap,” I exclaimed, using my staff to deflect his blow, though the force of it nearly tore my arms off.

I scrambled backwards, trying to avoid one axe swing after another. And since I no longer had the mana to use any of my abilities, all I could do was try to buy myself some time until someone came to my rescue. At that moment, I REALLY wished that I was playing a tank.

Suddenly, the ground beneath me crumbled and fell away, just like it had to Matt in the rat chamber. And unfortunately, I wasn’t nearly as quick or nimble as my friend, so I fell down the hole, along with Axe Guy. I hit the bottom pretty hard, leaving me a bit stunned. It took a couple seconds to realize that I was actually pretty lucky because there were no spikes, just a rocky floor.

“Ow,” I grumbled as I slowly got back to my feet. My entire body felt like one solid bruise, but at least nothing seemed to be broken.

Axe Guy was getting back to his feet and was giving me a cocky grin. It was only then that I realized I’d dropped my staff…again. Not that it would do me much good. I didn’t have the physical power to really go toe to toe with him in a melee fight. I was a squishie clothie, not a tank, and a clothie without any mana at that. I was damn near helpless, though that didn’t mean I was going to just give up.

I looked around in desperation, trying to find something…anything that I could use to my advantage. I was in another large chamber, but there didn’t seem to be any monsters in this one, just us.

“Great,” I grumbled as I ordered my staff to go back into storage, then summoned it back to my hand. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. “Just frickin great.”

I needed a weapon, something other than this staff. I was out of mana, so couldn’t use any of my abilities, but I realized that I did have one option…if I was willing to use it. Axe Guy was still coming towards me with a cocky grin, so I made my decision.

“There’s no way I can beat you,” I gasped, shifting my body language and the tone of my voice. “You’re too strong…”

“You’ve got that right,” Axe Guy said, looking pleased by the compliment.

I just stared at him as though he was the most impressive person I’d ever seen, then I smiled faintly in appreciation. Axe Guy puffed up right before my eyes. Even with a charisma of thirteen and a flirtation rank of five, I couldn’t believe how easy this was.

“Maybe,” I said with a faint smile and putting a note of suggestion into my voice, “when this contest is over, we can…talk.”

“I’d like that,” Axe Guy responded with a grin.

He continued moving towards me, though he’d lowered his axe and no longer seemed hostile. I just backed away and moved to the side, leading him around like a puppy on a leash. Still, I couldn’t let myself get too relaxed, or show how disgusted I really felt. So, I gave him a fawning look, let out a faint gasp, and moved to the center of the chamber, where I’d noticed something a few minutes ago. The bricks didn’t look quite right. I’d seen that same thing in two previous chambers, and was counting on my guess being right.

As soon as I’d lured Axe Guy to the right spot, the ground crumbled beneath him. He tried twisting around so he could grab the ledge as he fell, but I reached out with my staff and pushed him back. He fell down the newly formed hole with a scream that abruptly shut off. When I peeked over the edge, I saw that like the first trap hole we’d encountered, this one had spikes lining the bottom. I shuddered at the sight.

YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY DEFEATED AN OPPOSING CHAMPION.

REWARD: +20 MANA POOL, +20 MANA RECOVERY, +20 HEALTH, AND +20 REGENERATION. YOUR COMPANIONS GAIN +20 HEALTH AND +20 REGENERATION.

I stared at the popup for several seconds before letting out a sigh of relief. After the goblins, then fighting with two other champions, my health had been down to 32%, though that was mostly due to the nasty drop. I’d come too damn close to getting killed, but in spite of that, not only had I survived, I’d come out of it even stronger.

“Now for my next problem,” I muttered, looking up at the ceiling and the hole I’d fallen through. How the hell was I going to get back up there to my crew? And of course, I also had an even greater problem. If Matt ever learned that I’d actually flirted a guy to death, I’d never hear the end of it.