Natalie colpsed bato the dirt, releasing her hammer. She let out a long, agonized groan, her entire body ag. Being the pung bag of the team wasn’t gmorous work.

  “Fuck me,” she moaned. “I’ve gotta be one giant bruise after that.”

  She wasn’t the only oo slump into the ground, exhausted from the fight. Each of them had been drained, pushing themselves to the limit in the first of their climactic battles against a first floor dungeon boss.

  Natalie especially had been through the wringer. Being the team’s meat shield was no fun at all—though she vastly preferred it over her teammates taking hits, so each ache ad her body was satisfying in a strange way, too. Paiaken for each of her team members.

  “That wasn’t so bad, I guess,” Liz said.

  “Mages shouldn’t be allowed to move so fast,” Jordan decred. “That was pletely unfair.”

  Natalie agreed wholeheartedly. Fighting the dryad had been like fighting against a fully petent mage, rogue, and fighter all at the same time. Just how nightmarish would a fully physical batant have been? Though at least then she could have focused her full attention on dodging and trading powerful blows. With spells and lighting-fast staff strikes interspersed, she’d been juggling a dozen different factors in her head, where any tiny slip-up meant a new gigantic bruise.

  At the same time, it at least meant eadividual strike didn’t shatter bohough the kick from earlier really had broken a rib, she retty sure—it ached horribly, though Liz’s heals, and a rare usage of a health potion, were slowly patg it up.

  For a while, Natalie aeammates simply sat there and caught their breath. Curiosity aement won out, though, before more than a minute or two passed. Natalie grunted as she shoved herself bato a sitting position, wing at the sharp pain in her side.

  Ahead of her, sprouted from where the dryad’s corpse had disied, sat a chest grown from interwoven brahe dungeon didn’t want them to scour the arena for their rewards, this time: it provided it front aer. How lucky of them.

  Truth told, the fight had been difficult, and there’d been several close calls, but that was the standard for the dungeon. All of them had e out, while bruised and bloodied—even the bae—in one piece, and that was all that mattered in a boss fight. Seeing how these enters were far and away the most on way for Teudents to disappear, no critical injuries meant they’d performed beautifully. Indeed, looking around, Natalie could tell the team was satisfied with themselves. Doubly true sidering their unfortunate circumstances, having had much of their gear robbed.

  Natalie pushed herself to her feet, and the rest of the team followed. Sofia, naturally, moved quickest, arriving at the chest first. That woman had a serious obsession with shiny things—she was almost always the one pulling items out.

  Something odd happened as Sofia dug out the first item. She grunted and frowned, and where she’d reached in with one hand, she was forced to add a sed. Pnting her feet, she struggled to heave out whatever object the dungeon had given them.

  A gigantic six-foot long warhammer slowly revealed itself, and Natalie had to help Sofia lug out and stabilize the item. The white-haired girl seemed mildly a that, though had clearly he help, whiatalie smirked at. Her attention ulled toward the on, though, teasing Sofia taking a temporary sed priority.

  ***

  Stone Smasher

  Unon

  Lv. 1

  Effects

  - Minor increase to magical Prowess.

  - Minor increase to physical Tenacity.

  - Smash. Greatly empower your attack.

  Description

  An oversized two-haone hammer engraved with are markings. Clumsy if devastating in strength.

  ***

  “Now that’s a on,” Jordan said, sounding vaguely impressed.

  “No kidding.” Resting the gigantic sb of stone on the ground, so the shaft stuck straight up, Natalie firmed the two-handed beast was quite literally taller than she was. She grabbed the shaft and grunted as she heaved it up. The weight was seriously unwieldy. Everuggled to trol it.

  She gave the on a test swing, and while she admitted there was a certain satisfa in the cumbersome monster, it was frankly too heavy for her, even strengthened by her css. Maybe with some gear that boosted her further it would be a viable option, but as it stood? No ce.

  “It’ll sell well, for sure,” Natalie said.

  “Don’t wanna use it?” Jordan asked. “Has magical prowess and tenacity buffs. It was made for you.”

  “’t,” Natalie said, a bit relutly. “Just too heavy.” She set the enormous thing down with a thump. “Plus, maybe not the best tank on.”

  “There’s merit in tanking through sheer inavoidability,” Sofia said. It didn’t sound like she was disagreeing, just pointing it out. “Swinging that thing around, even a boss would be forced to deal with you before moving on.”

  Natalie chewed her lip. If she were pletely ho, that sort of fighting style appealed to her more than the smaller hammer and shield set-up she had right now. She’d more than adapted to it, but the pairing didn’t sing to her either.

  “Seems more you, too,” Sofia said, mirr her thoughts.

  Natalie chewed her lip before sighing. “Maybe. But not this one. Just too unwieldy.” It was the frank truth of the matter.

  Sofia eyed it, nudging the block of stoh her boot. The white-haired girl hadn’t even been able to pull it out of the chest, and while Sofia was more of a fighter focused on prowess and teique, she wasn’t some weakliher. Nobody with a physical css was. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

  “Just feels like a shame to get a on like that and none of us use it,” Liz chimed in. “If you want to give it a test run, that’s fine?”

  Natalie wrinkled her nose. She was tempted, but it simply didn’t feel safe. “Not in the dungeon. Maybe I’ll try it out back at Te. Might take some getting used to.”

  She rummaged out a monster core, then sucked the item into the orb. She turhe gss ball bad forth, intrigued despite how many times she’d used the ve feature of the magical core. A tiny copy of the stone warhammer floated is depths.

  “Maybe a level up will help, too,” Liz said. “There’s good odds some of us will hit that, tonight.”

  After so many diligent trips into the dungeon, and taking down a boss, it was within the realm of possibility to be advang to level two, idnight. Not guarahough. And Liz was right—the boosts to her stats that came with a level up might make the unwieldy on usable. She perked up at that. She’d gotteo her hammer and shield, but she would admit the idea of swinging around an oversized on had instantly appealed to her.

  She paused, finally making the e. Oversized ons. Well, this would be the sed one, if she chose to use that fighting style. She coughed and ighe inappropriate thought. Though really—her first skill was called [Heavy onry]. Maybe it was fate. Was there even some kind of hidden bonus for it? That might be too hopeful—she hadn’t felt anything wheing the warhammer out.

  More items were being lugged out of the chest by Sofia, so Natalie turned her attention that way. Her final decisions on a potential on s could e ter.