As Nyssa and I slowly made our way away from the site of the fight, I tried not to think about the stickiness between my sandals and feet. It felt like walking in flip-flops after spilling juice. Every step made me want to run outside and find water, but I kept going.

  I held the torch ahead, its cone of light not penetrating the darkness as far as I felt it should, as if the light were traveling through murky waters.

  “Depending on the boss at the end of all of this, this is my least favorite keep. I slowed. The door was only a few minutes' walk away. I’d never missed the daylight so much.

  “We could leave and find somewhere to explore that has windows.”

  Nyssa, like a lion stalking its prey, continued forward, her wings tucked in tight against her body. I felt no change through our bond, only a certainty to press forward. I sighed.

  We came to a branching hallway. “Right or left?”

  Nyssa chose left. Now that more than seconds had passed since the fight, I was calm enough to actually look at our surroundings. The hall was stark, simple stone about eight feet wide. There was no sign that the floor had ever been carpeted or the walls decorated. Sconces, empty of candles or torches, were spaced periodically, but beyond that, there was nothing but stone.

  I felt like we were walking the corridors of a dungeon rather than the ruins of a once-beautiful castle. Honestly, it seemed that whoever built it did the bare minimum, just stacking one stone on another. However, no sunlight pierced broken walls, the integrity of the construction holding up better than I’d seen in the other two keeps I’d explored. The air was stale, still, ancient. The scuffling of my sandals on the stone was the only sound, even the normal ambient sounds of wind or water were absent. I was suddenly very aware of the noise Nyssa and I… well, was making. Whatever hordes of vampire goblins were here, they hear me coming.

  We walked down corridor after corridor. The long, black hallways began to feel more like a maze than a building. Nyssa continued to make the choice whenever we came to a junction. I was desperately praying that her mental map was much better than mine. I was confident I’d have no chance of finding my way out if we ended up having to backtrack.

  For the first time since this all started, death didn’t seem like the worst thing that could happen. The feeling didn’t last long, however, as thoughts of being slowly torn to bits, bite by bite, destroyed any sense of peace regarding death. I stopped.

  Nyssa walked a bit farther forward before turning to look back at me. She stared, questioning.

  “Just give me a second.”

  I took a waterskin out of my inventory and took a long drink, savoring the coolness spreading in my stomach. I returned it and then put my hammer on the ground, flexing my hand a few times. My grip had been so tight for so long that my hand was pale and numb. I looked back the way we’d come. I wanted to go back, to get outside of these stone walls, but I couldn’t. The only two options to me were death or continuing.

  “All right,” I said, picking up my hammer. I gestured forward and we continued.

  The corridors continued, dark and oppressive. A panic attack accompanied me for an hour after I’d wondered if the torch could run out of fuel. Being stuck in the darkness with no light would have driven me insane. But the monotony of our exploration eventually began to calm and then even bore me.

  Just as the boredom truly settled, it ended.

  “It’s a goddamn trap room,” I said, staring at a narrow walkway with massive blades swinging at differing intervals. Darkness as far as my torch could pierce engulfed the sides of the walkway. It looked to be about one hundred feet long, but a good ten feet was missing from the center, broken and caved in.

  “Nope,” I said. “There is no fucking way I’m going across that.”

  The ten blades cut the air with a whooshing sound, their massive size enough to cause a slight breeze to come and go as they swung. Nyssa didn’t even look at me; she just went. She scurried across the walkway, timing it perfectly, so she didn’t have to stop or even slow down. She came to the gap and gracefully leaped over it, landing on the other side without breaking stride. In only seconds, she stood on the room’s far side, barely a smudge of black in the light of my torch. The glint of her eyes peered back at me, waiting.

  The goblins attacked.

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  Forms, dozens of them, silently extricated from the darkness beyond the bridge, their red eyes glowing in the darkness. Others, still shadows that shifted into motion, climbed up the edge of the pit, cutting off her retreat back to me. She was surrounded.

  Fear and anger roiled through our bond. She made a sound somewhere between a screech and a hiss. I lost sight of her behind the encircling goblins. One fell from the ledge, the pit swallowing the red glow of its eyes. I didn’t hear anything hit the bottom, but a blue light rose from the pit, hitting my chest and causing my fragments to tick up to two hundred and twenty. Another vampire goblin fell, but that was it. They’d moved too far from the edge, and Nyssa couldn’t keep pushing them off.

  I stared across the long, impossible-to-overcome obstacle, not knowing what to do. I looked at the swinging blades and the enormous gap at the bridge’s center. I had to try.

  I watched the blades swinging ponderously through their arc.

  I sprinted as fast as I could, which was much faster than I expected. I flew by five blades, my shoulder clipping the edge of the last blade before the gap, opening a large gash. I ignored the pain and blood and focused on the gaping hole I was just about to plummet into.

  I jumped.

  My takeoff was too early by at least five feet. I squawked in fear as I realized I wasn’t going to make it, but as with my speed, I underestimated how far I could jump. I sailed over the gap, landing on the other side with a few feet to spare. However, I couldn’t keep my feet, and I stumbled forward, landing on my stomach.

  One of the swinging blades sliced deep into my back. I bellowed in pain and clambered to my feet, scooting forward to avoid the blade’s return.

  I made it.

  I’d braved the gap and was now on the other side. I shook my head, focusing on my goal.

  My height and the goblin’s lack thereof allowed me to see the whole of their mob. A small circle had formed around Nyssa—though I couldn’t see her. Vampire goblins tested her with quick lunges and swipes with their claws. Her pain was mounting. Their attacks were more timid than I would have guessed, but she wouldn’t last long. I was out of time.

  I rushed forward, only taking a moment to check the remaining blades’ timing. The last blade clipped the back of my leg as I ran by, cutting deep into my calf, but I made it through.

  I barreled into a large pack of vampire goblins for a second time that day.

  The pain of getting sliced by on my back and leg ignited something in me, a burning rage that burst from me in the form of a swinging hammer. My hammer battered into the goblin's small bodies, throwing them aside. At least two goblins died with each of my swings, but that wasn’t enough to sate my anger. I grabbed a goblin, my hand easily large enough to palm its skull, and, both arms swinging with as much force as I could muster, I whipped hammer and goblin about, breaking flesh and bone. After only a few arcs, the goblin I’d grabbed was bodiless. I threw the head into the mass.

  The goblins matched my rage with their frenzy. With horrifying screeches—the first sound I’d heard them make—they swarmed, teeth biting and claws digging. Nyssa, no longer their focus, was able to use her agility to fight back. I was only barely aware of her feelings and position as she darted around the goblins, adding to the carnage.

  Nearly bogged down to immobility by the swarm, I jumped and fell backward, slamming the goblins between my back and stone with a satisfying crunch. I rolled to my knees, using the momentum to swing my hammer in a wide arc, crushing the bodies of four goblins.

  The remaining beasts didn’t last much longer, the last flying through the air and into the abyss of the pit.

  My rage evaporated as quickly as it had come once the final goblin fell, and I fell to my knees, gasping for air. I was too spent to be disgusted by the pool of pale blood under my hands.

  Eventually, I stood, wiping my hands off on my shirt. It was soaked with both my own blood and that of the goblins. I cast about, finding the still-lit torch on the floor. I’d dropped it when I grabbed that goblin by the head. I recoiled at the thought of my savagery. Old memories from the real world started to surface. I took a breath. Anger was not an emotion I'd allowed myself to express for a long, long time.

  A feeling bubbled up from the weakest depths of my character. The anger, the consuming rage, had brought freedom. Freedom from my self-doubt. Freedom from all the negativity that consistently bounced around in my head. All had been turned to ash in the fires of my rage. I had been . I tried to ignore that fact, but it planted the seed of .

  I stooped to pick up my torch, my back aching as skin and muscle stretched.

  Torch in hand, I scanned the battleground, finding Nyssa sitting by the trap room’s exit, looking at me. At least, I felt a modicum of chagrin coming from her.

  “You have to be more careful,” I said, my voice barely more than a rasp after my bellowing.

  She nodded, and I nodded in return.

  “Give me a sec.”

  Having no option but to continue, I took a moment to get a drink, offering Nyssa some as well, which she took, and then I looted the bodies. I found a few more copper pieces, another torch, and nothing else of value.

  My skin burned where teeth had punctured and claws had scored. I burned everywhere but my head. I looked down. Blood and gore covered my skin and tattered clothes. My weapon of choice had turned out to be a messy tool. A part of me was still disgusted at the horrifying mess, but it was a diminishing majority, far from overwhelming. I gritted my teeth and looked up, back the way we had come, past the viscera and blood-strewn stone and swinging blades, then turned toward the darkness we had yet to explore.

  I did feel fear. Usual. Known. But something else also mixed in with the familiar, something less so. Desire. It was small, tiny even, but it was growing. I to find another horde of monsters. I to fight. But really, I wanted the consuming rage.