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

  Because it had been other-Natalie, the affeate alie used for the bat-illusion she’d been practig. Her illusory armored form parted like mist by the giant bde, and not only had the troll wasted an atta an enemy created from light and magic, but it found itself overextended and off bance.

  Illusions. Even not meeting her potential with them, they were so damn useful. The upgrade frressioression two had made it so much more funal, 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 advahe heavy k of metal nded into the troll’s knee, and a grotesque ch filled the air. Its leg bent inward, and it toppled, an imbance from overextending itself being a total failure. It roared, guttural and somehow pierg at the same time.

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

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

  In slow, methodical fashion, Natalie aeam dispatched the crippled mohey had been managing the beast even before a broken knee, so now, uo even stand, the -up was a formality. Still, they did so meticulously—a textbook execution. No point iing sloppy in the final stretch.

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

  The gss orb that appeared ihe bck ribbons p from the disiing monster was uhe smaller, mundane ohey had gathered from their dozens of other enters. Stronger.

  ***

  Greater Monster Core - Tier 1

  ***

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

  “Lucky us,” she said.

  Natalie nodded in agreement. Higher-tier monster cores were more likely than the one-in-three drop ce frur monsters, but still not guarahey’d been fortuh 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 sistently ing up dry.

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

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

  Seeing the enemy charge her bae robably the most nausea-indug part of any given fight. It was uood that tanks couldn’t lock dopo permaly, but Natalie would still bme herself if anything happeo her teammates. She hadn’t ever expected to fill the tank role, but sihat was the fate that had befallen her, she took her responsibilities seriously.

  She leased to see that everyone was fiired, 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 pete least. Even the half-week each of them had been down in the dungeon, practig each evening, aying dividends. They were noticeably better thahey’d started. Aer at operating as a unit, too. That was almost more important than individual skill.

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

  Natalie s 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 immuo the excitement of shiems, but Sofia in particur had a glint in her eye whehe potential for loot appeared.

  Putting her hammer away, Natalie ied 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 on 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 dires was generally unwise. Keeping to trails and clearings came with enough threats; the shadowed copses were best left unexplored.

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

  The miniboss clearing they’d retly fiheir fight in was a gde encircled by tall, crooked trees with gray trunks and blue-green leaves. Cast under a night sky, their surroundings only illuminated by the white light of their nterns, a rather ominous atmosphere hung around the Wispwood. She kept catg glimpses of elongated shadow-monsters runniweerunks, but it robably her mind pying tricks orying to track the shadows never yielded anything. Plus, there were real moo worry about—no point in ing 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 gde itself, where they’d fought the troll, was torn up from their battle. Ground y ripped and cleaved into, the hulki’s attacks and even movements tearing grass wherever it had rampaged. It had been by far the stro enter they’d faced—obviously, being their first mini-boss. It made Natalie hesitate, sidering 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 oskirts of the battle-worn arena. The way she sched up her nose and used her rapier to scrape away the dirt and bugs ging 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 oo track the chest down. “Hopefully, this time it’s something we use.”