“Everything I’ve heard and seen about your runs tells me that you’re improving consistently,” Hans said. “But try not to make this run about doing better than previous runs, even if this is technically an assessment. Comparing it to other attempts in the middle of a battle will only mess with your minds.”

  Bridun’s party nodded.

  “Like we discussed, we’re going to take a route that brings two armorbacks at you at once. They might not show up at the exact same time, but it will be close. The second usually gets there within ten seconds or so of the first engaging. So stay sharp and trust your training. Any questions?”

  The party shook their heads.

  “Alright. You know the way. I’ll follow.”

  Of all the dungeon expansions, Hans disliked the armorbacks the most. The monsters themselves were dangerous, sure, but the heat and humidity of the jungle environment were awful. When the air was this heavy, breathing was a labored effort to get the moist oxygen in and back out. Beneath Hans’ armor, sweat trickled down his skin, and he felt as though his body temperature never stopped rising. It just ticked up and up the longer he lingered.

  Was he always this soft? Hopefully not.

  The hike was uncomfortable, but this run would be relatively quick, he told himself. Two hours from now, he’d be enjoying the comfortable temperature of New Gomi, and not long after that, he could take a long bath.

  Yes, a bath sounded nice.

  Jason the Ranger raised his hand to signal that he heard a monster nearby. The party halted and scanned the dense foliage for signs of movement. Jeremy the Fighter drifted backward toward the Bard and the Black Mage, positioning himself to provide cover if the armorback attempted to target them first.

  The jungle parted as an armorback charged forward, running on all fours in a sort of gallop, its hands already bunched into fists, its knuckles striking the earth with a steady rhythm as it closed on the party.

  Bridun strummed his lute and played a sad, somber tune accompanied by lyrics about a traveler who had been thrown from his ship and desperately fought to keep his head above the waves as he watched his boat get farther and farther away. Hans had heard Bridun play it enough that he knew the song from just a few chords.

  The armorback resisted the debuff and continued its charge. Next, it dispelled a Force Wall and then broke through three Spectral Gauntlets. As it neared Jeremy, ready to smash the Fighter beneath its fists, Jason put an arrow in its eye. The armorback recoiled and roared.

  The second armorback would be here any second now, Hans thought.

  A small cry came out of the jungle from somewhere behind and to the right of Hans. He listened closely, trying to separate the noises of the battle from the sounds of the jungle, and it came again. A child called for help.

  Hans didn’t believe his ears at first, but when he heard it a third time, he was certain of it. There was a child in the jungle. How it happened, he couldn’t begin to imagine, but a kid was out there, lost in a dense wilderness patrolled by armorbacks.

  “Bridun, do you hear that?” Hans risked asking. Distracting adventurers in the middle of a fight was unwise, but he needed the sanity check.

  “Yeah! We’re fine here. Go help her, and we’ll catch up.” Bridun turned back to the fight and played a fast tune about cavalry charging into battle. Hans felt the same invigoration as the rest of the Bard’s party.

  New Quest: Save the child.

  The magic of the music made Hans feel sharp, strong, and alert, like all the best parts of adrenaline surged through him without the tunnel vision or the feeling that it would soon burn out.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Hans pushed through the jungle in the direction of the cry.

  He emerged in a slightly thinner section made possible by several large stones occupying space where trees and other plants would have grown otherwise. The jungle was still dense by any typical adventuring standards, but the change felt like a reprieve to Hans.

  He paused to listen as he scanned.

  “Can you hear me?” Hans yelled. “Call out! I’m coming to help!”

  Branches splintered and cracked in rapid succession. Hans barely got his shield up in time.

  The blow from the armorback sent him rolling across the jungle floor. His left knee and left ankle twinged with the tension of a serious injury, the kind that would swell to the point of being immobile within the hour. But for now, his body spared him the pain, leaving him only with the awareness that it would hurt a great deal later.

  Hans rolled to avoid a hammer fist. It cracked the rock beneath where he lay only a moment before.

  As he came up to his feet, Hans slashed at the armorback’s elbow, hoping to sever a tendon or ligament–anything to slow the beast’s attacks.

  Hans ducked a looping swipe and thrust his sword into the armorback’s ribs and withdrew just as swiftly. That enraged the armorback even more. Just as Hans’ body delayed the pain of his injuries, so did the armorback delay its own. Even with blood leaking out through a hole in its lung and ribs, squirting in time with the monster’s breathing, it advanced with unhindered ferocity.

  The monster lunged, and Hans shuffled to the side. The armorback’s shoulder slammed into a tree, its fingers just grazing Hans’ shield. Hans shot forward and thrust into the armorback’s neck, again slipping right back out of range.

  Another minute, at most, of keeping his head was all Hans needed to win this fight. Adrenaline couldn’t compensate for the monster’s blood loss. If Hans stayed aware and mobile, he’d outlast the armorback just fine.

  A hand that was nearly as wide as the length of Hans’ shin snatched his leg from behind. He caught a glimpse of a second armorback in the fleeting moments before the monster whipped him into a tree. Hans felt his hip dislocate and his pelvis crunch.

  His world spun as his body ceased delaying his pain. At the same time, a wound on his head leaked blood into his eyes.

  How was there a second armorback?

  Hans, kneeling on one good leg, flailed with his sword, cutting wide sweeping motions meant only to keep an enemy at bay.

  But the armorbacks didn’t rush in. They circled like predators who knew victory was in hand.

  Though his vision shifted in and out of focus, Hans was certain he saw two more armorbacks moving through the jungle around him.

  Four. How could there be four?

  Oh gods, the kid was still out here.

  “Run!” Hans yelled, gurgling on his own blood. “Go!”

  He nicked the hand of an armorback who dared to reach in to grab him. As it recoiled, another struck him from the side. His left side. Hans didn’t see it traveling through the darkness of his one blind eye, so the blow was flush, completely undefended. When the monster had taken that position, Hans didn’t know. But that didn’t matter now.

  His mind begged his body to move, to get up and keep fighting, but no part of him listened. He lay with his face in the dirt, a tree root and his own blood the only thing in his field of vision.

  He told his head to turn. It wouldn’t.

  For years, he heard adventurers talk about this moment. They would say that right before it happened, there was a serene peace, a moment where there was no pain. There was no fear. There was only calm. A flicker where you felt the weight of a lifetime finally lift, a sort of quiet mercy.

  Hans felt none of that.

  The body that wouldn’t move when he told it to was an inferno of pain. His mind was a torrent of fear and anger and shock. A shadow passed over his vision.

  I don’t want to die.

  Then Hans could think no more.

  Quest Failed: Monitor for independently grown sections of dungeon.

  Quest Failed: Complete the next volume (Bronze to Silver) for “The Next Generation: A Teaching Methodology for Training Adventurers.”

  Quest Failed: Continue the momentum of establishing a Hoseki-grade library in Gomi.

  Quest Failed: Learn to help your advanced students as much as you help beginners.

  Quest Failed: Decide how to manage breeding requests for monsters like mimics and shadow scorpions.

  Quest Failed: Relocate the titan bones to the dungeon entrance.

  Quest Failed: Evaluate the progress of Bridun and his party.

  Quest Failed: Consider revealing the existence of the Blood wards to the public.

  Save the child.