Aureus twisted to the side just in time, the two black bat creatures nearly smacked into each other as Aureus dodged their attacks. Before he could get his bearings the brown bat dove towards him from above. A large slab of earth appeared between them, slowing the bat just enough for him to escape its claws.


    Don’t hold anything back for these, use whatever you need to. I don’t care if some of those little woobles get burnt in the process. Make sure to keep yourself safe.


    Master, the little ones might swarm you while I try to fight these, I don’t think I can manage both your defense and this fight.


    Don’t worry about that. I can handle myself for a while. If things get too bad we can always give up. No biggie.


    Understood.


    My new vantage point was helpful in comprehending just how immense and convoluted the area we were in was. Helpful, but not completely. It was insane, I had never been good at estimation – especially when it came to spatial recognition – but it felt like we were in nearly fifty acres worth of land. With huge and intricate structures littered throughout. I stood on an upsettingly tall thin spire that rested in the center of a small valley and was surrounded on three sides by what I could only consider a mini mountain range.


    I sent up a general thanks or prayer? To the Collector for making this labyrinth at the very least – well lit. It was already hard to distinguish since it was made of dark stone, I didn’t want to imagine what it would’ve been like if the lighting was closer to that of the red dim light we’d been in before.


    He took off, snaking his way through the pillars, archways, valleys, and tiny mountains in the area. The fight was hard to follow – well Aureus was easy to follow – the bats blended in with the dark surroundings exceedingly well. Despite that, he was doing a good job of limiting the bat’s attacks, the three of them couldn’t follow his intricate path and attack him at the same time. The black bat with white on its chest peeled off from the others flying directly towards the corner that Aureus was sort of heading towards.


    Aureus, one of the bats is trying to head you off at the corner ahead of you, or at least somewhere, it’s flying parallel with you. Be careful.


    A vague feeling of understanding came from him, but no words. I wondered if we were getting better at communicating mentally without actual words or if I just never noticed the small things like that before. I anxiously craned my neck as I tried to keep track of Aureus’ battle, as he soared he threw various attacks backwards. Many of them were missing and kicking up bodies of wommi when they landed on the rocks around him. It was difficult to know for sure from my distance from the fight, but it looked like he had caught the brown bat in the jaw once and the wing immediately after. Either way, it was still flying fine.


    My attention was urgently needed elsewhere as the little gremlins started trying to climb up onto my tower. Maybe I should let down mine hair. I chuckled to myself, despite my dumb literary joke. These things were certainly not prince charmings. For a moment I wondered if our princess was stuck on a tower of his own. The wommi screamed at each other as they failed to scramble their way up to me. I had chosen a particularly steep column with this exact situation in mind. Unfortunately for me, I hadn’t thought too far ahead since neither I nor the monsters below could do much to each other.


    A few rocks whizzed by when I glanced over the edge at the sea of wommi around me. One got uncomfortably close and my hair fluttered around as a response. I groaned and leaned back, settling into a criss-crossed seated position while I pondered on how to go about this situation. A group of the fiends separated and stood atop a close mountain, attempting to throw their gems and rocks at me. Angry complaints erupted from their friends below as their projectiles failed to reach me and rained down on them.


    Before I got comfortable enough to look back towards my familiar, the ground beneath me shuddered slightly. I calmed my queasy stomach as I tentatively looked over the edges of the tower. The wommi had started creating little holes in the tower with their picks, and climbing up as if they were scaling a frozen mountain. After the first two got several paces up the cliff significantly more followed suit easily. They began to put their pickaxes into the pre-existing holes created by their predecessors and would have climbed faster if the first few weren’t directly above them.


    I flopped back for just a moment, this wasn’t the worst case scenario. They couldn’t all swarm me, but wouldn’t this tower fall apart after a while of this? Would I come tumbling down into the thick of it at that point? If Aureus was still busy at the time there’d be no way for him to protect me. I groaned and stood up again, pulling my hood up for maximum protection.


    A faint sting on my hip caught my attention, a rock had managed to make its way to me, smacked into my side and fell at my feet. It was interesting to see a rock that wasn’t the familiar dark color I’d gotten accustomed to over the last few days. I scooped up the light tan rock, coated it with mana and launched it with all my ability down the side of the cliff. The first two wommi I hit were smacked back down into the swarm, but the rest that the rock came into contact with just growled.


    I smiled, well at least if I could get the rocks from them when they arrived I’d have some ammo to pelt them with. With a glance around I decided I still had about a minute to kill until the fluffy murder pups arrived. Straining my vision towards the last area I’d seen Aureus I searched. He wasn’t within my line of sight at all, nowhere near where he’d been. That made sense though, both him and the bats were faster than I could keep track of really. Plus even from my tall vantage point I couldn’t see all of the land that surrounded me.


    I let my eyes roam the scenery while I waited for either Aureus to appear or for the wommi to. For a few moments I considered whether or not the Collector had modeled this place after somewhere that existed already. There were what looked like rivers and branching streams that cut between mountains and surrounded strange structures that littered the valleys. If it weren’t for the wommi, I would have been excited to explore the area and buildings. They looked too organized to just be random towers and structures, but weren’t detailed enough for me to make out – especially from a distance.


    Rounding a corner around a thicker mountain Aureus popped into the open, but only just for a split second, he was already diving down into the valley and curling around a tower there. I couldn’t tell from the distance, but there was definitely blood on him. Pushing the panic down I searched for his pursuers while I asked, hey, you ok?


    He sent a wave of assurance and I accepted that. I’d told him we should quit if he got too hurt, I’d trusted that he wouldn’t disobey me. Shit, I should’ve grabbed my staff. I reminded myself, I’d been kicking myself every fight about how I needed to hold it the whole time for the mana benefits. Angrily I pulled it out of my inventory, settling it into my left hand as I pulled my bone knife into my right. It was time to fight. Maybe I’d get another level from this, there certainly were an innumerable amount of enemies and new ones as well.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    The grating sounds of nails against stone pushed their way into my ears from behind me. Carefully I adjusted my stance and prepared to fight the monster attached to the fluffy brown paw on my territory. An angry wommi pulled itself up, its head and shoulders above the floor I stood on. Instinctually I smacked my staff down on its skull, a satisfying and almost cartoonish sound rang out as it disappeared from view. I struggled to stifle the laughter that brought me. If the worst the challenge consisted of was whack a wommi I’d be very pleased.


    A few more popped up at varying times on all sides, each one was dispatched in the same way. I gave up and allowed my thrill to take over me, it was quite fun. Every time one of them made eye contact with me I gave them a rough whack on the head and sent them back down the tower. My thoughts roamed as I wondered if they were dying from the hit, the fall, or even dying at all. Then I considered that if time went on the minigame I had been enjoying might become tedious and tiring.


    I had lost track of time when a stray thought floated through my mind. How was everyone else doing? I pulled up my system and glared at it when I realized, apparently I’d been removed from my party. As a result I couldn’t view any of my friend’s conditions. Despair and panic boiled in my stomach, burning in my throat and on the back of my tongue.


    No. No, it’s fine. This is an individual challenge. Even if Reid died, the other two have been at max health and fine for ages. The likelihood of them all dying at once…


    I rubbed at my eyes, willing the tears to dry up and take the fear with them. It wasn’t a good time to be getting distracted about things I couldn’t change. Taking a deep breath I smacked two more wommi off of my platform and back into the rolling hoard of monsters. Suddenly I wondered if I was being foolish, hadn’t I just determined that I could use their rocks from their bags as weapons against the pack of them?


    I cracked a few more skulls and decided there wasn’t any time to allow one up, and ensure my safety. Each time one arrived the next arrived even faster. Eventually one would end up here without my intervention anyway. I swiveled around a bit too fast when trying to keep up with my deadly game of whack a wommi and nearly lost my balance when a mostly white wommi popped up to jump scare me.


    “God!” I yelled while swinging my staff like a bat at it. Suddenly concerned about whether or not using my staff this way was an awful idea, I pulled up the item window.


    [ Durability 98/100 ]


    I let out a relieved sigh, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about using it this way for a while. Still it’d be better to use it for its intended use so that Caro had less to repair when we finally met back up again. I made a mental note to use the hilt of my dagger instead of the staff when possible. While I was knocking heads I wondered about what Caro and Noel had been doing while we were gone. Maybe they had busied themselves creating new items and hunting little rats. Maybe Noel had found a way to escape from the pit they were in… I really hoped they weren’t eating that rank worm meat.


    That sudden jolt of energy pulled me out of my thoughts, we had finally leveled up again. Me and Aureus were at level 17 now, just three levels away from me finally becoming decently useful. Thank the gods. I had started to get into a rhythm, it was easy and comfortable. Keep an eye on my surroundings and smack the heads of little fluffy boys. Easy. I glanced over at the GGC and hoped that my confidence wouldn’t bite me in the ass any time soon.


    “So, Collector. Can you tell me anything at all? Is this at the very least the last part of the labyrinth?” I waited, again nothing. “Well then, at the very least can you tell me once we do complete this place, will we exit back where we entered? Will we have to wander around the Underhollow to find our friends?”


    [“Collector of Gems and Stones” sighs and states that you don’t need to worry so much.]


    Rolling my eyes I said, “That’s not really an answer so it seems I should worry so much. How am I supposed to know if your cause for worry is even kind of similar to mine? I mean the Seeker – no offense Seeker, love you doll – is awful at human relations so you might be too.”


    [“Seeker of Magic and Knowledge” throws up his hands and whines while motioning air quotes and saying that he was ‘catching stray’.]


    [“Whispering Playwright behind a Mask” cackles.]


    [“Traveling Spring Painter” gently corrects “Seeker of Magic and Knowledge” stating that it’s catching strays.]


    [“Seeker of Magic and Knowledge” complains about idioms and colloquialisms under his breath.]


    “Maybe you should spend a little bit of time researching them on the earth’s internet?” I asked, wondering if there were other internets or if I was being weird.


    [“Seeker of Magic and Knowledge” agrees that research is the best option when ignorant of topics.]


    I chuckled and smacked down another wommi. I spun around out of habit, I had gotten used to the tempo at this rate, a couple popped up behind me, then one to my left and two infront and then two to the right and back again. Though the terms of front or back were really just arbitrarily chosen based on where the first wommi popped up. To the front there was a wommi that had somehow managed to make its way up to stand on the platform. In a panic I swung towards it with my staff, it ducked down, dodging my attack. Unfortunately for this little ball of fur I followed my swipe with a slash of my dagger which caught it at the base of its neck.


    Blood flowed out of it, my comfortable platform became coated with slick blood that would likely become sticky with time. I cursed under my breath as I stepped back slightly in an attempt to keep the rancid substance off of my shoes. Thankfully I caught myself before I stumbled and fell, but not before one of the creatures latched onto my calf. Grimacing, I swung the bottom of my staff at it a few times until it released me.


    A couple seconds passed before the blood from its grip started to flow, I was already taking up my position in the center of the platform yet again. Three of the creatures had almost pulled themselves up onto my safe haven, but I couldn’t have that, could I? I clasped two blood soaked rocks from the dead wommi and chucked them at two behind me while smacking the other to my left with my staff. The two were struck with the rocks, but only one went down.


    Thankfully I had mostly regained control of my territory. Just as I was wondering if I should ask Aureus how he had been doing, a streak of gold swooshed past me. The wind of him and the bats following him nearly caused myself and several wommi to go tumbling down the rocks.


    You gotten rid of any of em yet?


    No, give me some time.


    I’m not trying to rush you, just askin’.


    I really wasn’t trying to rush him, I wasn’t sure how long we had been fighting, but I knew we were still early on. Or at the very least we both had the mana reserves and stamina to keep fighting for a good bit of time. Well, I hoped it would be fine. We had leveled up a good bit and we had both been pouring our all into our mana reserves. Even if Aureus ran low, I rarely used my own so it’d be fine for him to eat it up.


    That was my whole plan. Put points into mana, create more familiars and hope for the best. I guess soon I’d have to actually pay attention to my mana as well as Aureus’ mana usage, since soon I’d have the ability to use his skills as if they were my own. Well, I would be able to based on my own understanding of the skills, or at least that’s how I understood the description of the skill sharing ability. Would I even be useful? Even using mana emissions was extremely taxing on my reserves, let alone trying to change my mana into an element before shooting it or shaping it or whatever I wanted to do with it.


    A loud explosion resounded and was followed by an even louder crash, with a quick glance over towards it I saw a tower smushed down on one of the black bats that had been chasing Aureus since we started this bloody battle.


    Good job, one down… maybe? Two to go!