They started thirty minutes early.

  “Boss!” Corbah jumped off the bench next to the Elf and ran at the open gate. The gruff demihuman grabbed his hammer and swung it over his shoulder as he took off down the tunnel.

  Gnasher howled and took off after the other man, leaving me in the waiting room with the sleeping Elf.

  “Miss Arwel!” I grabbed the Elf’s shoulder and shook her.

  She shot to her feet, a knife appearing in her hand as she swung at my neck. I managed to get my arm up in time. I wasn’t able to catch her arm, but the glove wasn’t cut as she sliced where my neck should have been.

  “HEY!” I took a step back. “You told me to wake you when the gate opened!”

  “Yes, wake me, not touch me!” Her white eyes glared at me. She adjusted her armor, then took off into the Dungeon.

  This isn’t the order we’re supposed to be using. I grumbled internally as I took off at a dead sprint.

  I’d expected the Ogre to be slow considering how large he was, but I was struggling to keep up with him. Arwel quickly passed Gnasher as we dashed down the stone hall.

  “You’re lucky this is a sprint dungeon instead of a maze or hazard.” Grandpa cheered. “Just run straight to the fight, win, then do it again.”

  What do you mean, hazard?

  CRASH!

  A blade swung out of the wall and slammed into Corbah. The shaft of the blade shattered as the huge male barely slowed.

  WHAT WAS THAT! I swallowed as I resisted the urge to slow down.

  “There are always traps, but your Tank is doing a great job of springing them.” Grandpa laughed. “Imagine running this solo and having to dodge those things by yourself.”

  Those things?

  “Watch.”

  WHAM! CRACK! BAM!

  A log swung down out of the ceiling. Corbah slammed his hammer down on the front of it, breaking the chain that held the front, forcing the back end to flip up. The Ogre rammed the log with his shoulder, slamming it into the wall. The chain broke, dropping the log lengthwise down the hall.

  Arwel and Gnasher moved to the left to avoid the log as Corbah sped back up down the stone hall. He’d barely slowed to deal with the trap and the other two ran by the destroyed traps like they were nothing.

  “Vault!” Grandpa announced as I ran by the log.

  The chains were still dangling out of the ceiling and I wove around them as I brought up the rear.

  Up ahead I saw a two-foot-high wall blocking our straight run. The others jumped over it and kept going, so I did the same, vaulting over the slight barrier, then speeding up as I chased after the rest of my team.

  “There won’t be any tight squeezes since larger beings are allowed in this run.” Grandpa grumbled. “It would have been funny to watch the Ogre have to slide under a divider.”

  I’m just glad he’s in front. I ran by another destroyed blade.

  “It’s not that hard to recognize the traps and how to avoid them.” Grandpa chuckled. “The blades in the wall swing at four feet high every time. So you just look for a crack in the wall and slide under it. They also alternate, so once you see one on the left, you know another one is on the right.”

  What about the swinging log? I glanced over my shoulder. There’s not going to be a giant ball that starts rolling behind me, will there?

  “No, those are only for the slow people; you’re making great time.”

  I groaned and pumped my arms harder. Up ahead there was a barrier with a white line on the floor.

  “The barrier drops when all four of you are past the white line.” Grandpa cheered. “Hurry, you need to be only a step or two behind the Gnoll.”

  That thing is faster than an Olympian! I grumbled as I pumped my arms even faster.

  I was more than two steps behind Gnasher, but I managed to make it past the white line just before the barrier changed from blue to red.

  “IDIOT!” Arwel fumed. “I knew you were going to slow us down!”

  What happened? I took a deep breath as my body adjusted to standing still.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “The other team beat you to it and started the fight.” Grandpa sighed. “Now you can either help them or wait your turn. If you help them, then you’ll get through faster, but they’ll be on the same track as you. If you wait your turn, you’ll have to fight the monsters again and try to catch up to them.”

  HOWL!

  Six wolves appeared in front of the barrier on the other side of the circular stone room. I watched as a quartet of large snakes with arms slithered into the boss room.

  What’re those? I swallowed. While the snakemen were wearing clothes around their upper halves, it was difficult not to see them as seven-foot-long cobras with arms.

  “Thizzers.” Grandpa spat. “Disgusting creatures who will eat anything they can get down their mouth.”

  “What do you want to do, boss?” Corbah turned around to look at the Elf.

  “If we wait, we fall behind.” She glared at me. “We can clear this faster if we go in now and if you see an opportunity to one-up them, do it.”

  “LET’S KILL SOME WOLVES!” Gnasher charged through the barrier. The moment he was through, the barrier in front of us vanished, leaving only the one behind us.

  Arwel glared at me for another moment, then pulled out her sword and charged into the circle.

  Why wouldn’t we join in? I pulled out the blue sword and ran into the room. Gnasher had already buried his axe in the skull of the closest wolf. Corbah batted a wolf away from him. The wolf rolled on the stone floor and sprang to its feet only to whimper as Arwel sank her sword in its neck. Both wolves exploded in a puff of smoke.

  “The first group in gets all the crystals and they get priority on the final boss.” Panic filled Grandpa’s voice. “On your left!”

  I expected that one of the wolves had gotten past the Thizzers, but instead it was one of the green snakemen that was charging at me.

  “DIE HUMAN!” The Thizzer hissed as he launched himself at me.

  I rolled to my right, letting him fly past me, then came up in a crouch. Why is he attacking me?

  “Because you walked into their fight, it means that you can’t win as long as they’re still alive.” Grandpa grew agitated. “Most of the time, the lead team will offer a cut to the aiding team, but it appears that they don’t trust you not to stab them in the back.”

  So now they want to kill us? I rotated to my left as I backed up, making my way towards where Arwel and Corbah were finishing off the fifth wolf. “We don’t have time for this!” I kept my sword up as I watched the Thizzer stalking me.

  “If you see a bulge in his throat, roll to the side.” Grandpa instructed. “They can spit poison.”

  Great. I glanced to my right, where Gnasher lopped the head off the last wolf. The other three Thizzers had dealt with only two of the wolves, but they were advancing on the Gnoll, who was farther away from our other two allies than he was from the snakemen.

  The barrier on the other side of the room dropped, granting us access to continue our run. But if we took off, the Thizzers would attack us from behind.

  “We don’t need aid.” A red and brown specked Thizzer broke off from the group as the other two charged at Gnasher

  “You’re going to make me late.” Arwel groaned as she charged him.

  As much as I wanted to watch their fight, I had my own problem. The green Thizzer that had tried to tackle me snapped out his head. I was able to do a backstep to dodge him, but I was torn about what to do. I’d come prepared to kill some monster like a wolf or bear, but the thing in front of me was a runner just like me. He could talk and likely had a family.

  “And he’s trying to kill and he’ll do it if you don’t kill him first.” Grandpa broke into my inner turmoil. “The longer you dodge, the farther behind you’re going to get. Just stick your sword in his neck!”

  My hands trembled as the Thizzer struck again, but this time I stepped forward, angling the tip of my blue sword into the snakeman’s open mouth. The tip of the sword burst out the back of his head and his dead weight fell forward, threatening to rip the sword out of my hands. I grabbed his hood and felt the warm scales through my gloves. I didn’t give myself time to think about what had just happened; I pushed the body to my left and pulled my sword free as the dead Thizzer fell to the stone floor.

  Green blood spread out from the body, but it didn’t make it very far before the corpse began to sink into the floor.

  What’s going on? I swallowed as my mind began to catch up to what my body had just done.

  “To the victor go the spoils.” Grandpa cheered. “All his gear is now part of the loot you’ll get at the end of the Dungeon!”

  Great. I sighed. So killing other players is actually encouraged.

  “Not really encouraged.” Grandpa sighed. “If you’d attacked them, then you wouldn’t have gotten anything and his gear would have gone to his next of kin.”

  So you’re telling me that that thing attacked me for no reason other than it wanted to kill me? I took a deep breath as rage bubbled inside me.

  “Betraying the lead team is very common and if they didn’t want to share the loot at the end, then it’s almost a certainty that you’d attack them. What’s a little bit of gear compared to a boss crystal?” Grandpa cleared the throat he didn’t have. “Don’t lash out in anger. That’s an easy way to get yourself killed.”

  I quelled what I could of the desire to hack the red Thizzer apart as I closed in on the fight between him and Arwel. They seemed to be evenly matched and he had his back to me. Corbah had gone to help Gnasher, who had just taken the head off of one of the other two Thizzers. The Gnoll howled with glee as green blood sprayed all over him.

  An overhead swing wasn’t going to do much and I wasn’t confident in my ability to take off the Thizzer’s head in one swing. Their hoods gave them extra mass on the sides of their necks and I didn’t want to just injure the leader while I was close enough for him to strike me.

  So I stabbed him in the back.

  “UGH!” The red Thizzer half turned and saw me as I pulled the sword in the opposite direction that he turned. His cat’s eyes widened. “How?”

  “Like this!” Arwel swung her blade at his neck. Her sword sank into his throat, leaking more of the green fluid on the stone floor. She pulled her sword back as he fell forward, then plunged her sword into the top of his skull. “Stupid snake.” She spat on the body as it sank into the stone floor.

  Corbah was already running for the exit with Gnasher right on his heels. The two Thizzers they’d been facing were gone, including the mess that they’d left behind.

  “We’re behind.” Arwel wiped her sword off on her sleeve, then sheathed it. “Let’s go!”

  The floor had eaten the body right off my sword, complete with all the fluids that had been on the blue blade. I slipped it back in the sheath on my back, then took off in a sprint after the Elf.

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