Book 2: Chapter 1: Reunion

  Alex stumbled forward, his boots skidding against the rough hewn stone floor. Only a single second ago, he’d been in the heart of the Dark Den Dungeon in the center of a sterile system room, and leisurely making purchases at the Dungeon Shop. But now?

  “-GET DOWN!” Someone screamed.

  A bolt of fire hissed past his ear and forced him to duck. Another blink later and Alex realized he was standing dead center in the Kobold ritual cavern. All around him was absolute, total chaos. He watched as humans and kobolds clashed like raccoons stuffed into a burlap sack.

  To his left, Garret ran headlong into one kobold with a loud Thud. Meanwhile, a second kobold hung off his broad back, was shrieking at the top of its tiny lungs. To his right, Allie slid behind an overturned stone altar. Her reposition maneuver scattered bones and other trash-adjacent ritual objects across the floor in a clatter. Drops of blood dribbled from her elbow, and a glowing purple vial was clenched in one of her fists. Meanwhile Devon ducked behind a tall stalagmite while he hurled small crystals that looked to be enchanted. He was cursing every time they simply fizzled instead of doing whatever he had apparently etched them with.

  In the far corner, Henry stood in the middle of three kobolds. His was face emotionless, his movements calm and exact. He held one kobold by the ankle and was using him to beat the other kobolds into submission. Lance was yelling something, which Alex couldn’t hear over the chaos, before disappearing under a swarm of yipping kobold warriors. Kate, of course, was barking orders. Orders which no one followed. Her hand smoldered with ash and smoke as she prepared to cast another spell.

  Tom-Tom stood in the center of it all wearing a bronze cooking pot as a helmet, flailing two wooden ladles in wild circles and shouting. “I FIGHT FOR THE DRAGON-BLOOD-ONE!”

  “What the absolute hell,” Alex muttered.

  “These are your friends. The people you trust and fight to keep alive.” Obby reminded Alex in his mind. Then a white-hot heat flashed across his face as a [Firebolt] barely missed his head and exploded against the far wall.

  “Kate!” He barked.

  She whipped around and raised a fist in adrenaline-filled reflex. Her eyes locked on him before narrowing. Recognition rippled across her face and then her eyes widened a second later. He saw her mouth open, but before she could speak, a bottle arced through the air and hit Alex dead center in the chest. It burst into purple mist that scratched at his mouth and nostrils.

  “WHAT THE FU-” He choked on the offending acrid substance and stumbled backward. He stumbled and pranced about, waving his arms like a flustered penguin.

  “Alex?!” Allie’s voice pierced through the purple fog, disbelief lacing her tone.

  “Yes!” he said after getting himself under control. Then he coughed once again. “Yes, it’s me! Stop throwing things at me!”

  “Sorry!”

  “Allie,” Alex yelled, “I need you to—”

  A kobold lunged at him from the side. It gripped a glass shard wrapped in cloth in each of it’s hands. Alex spun, but because of the purple haze of Allie’s potion vial earlier, he caught the motion too late. He was saved by a flying wooden ladle launched by Tom-Tom. It hit the kobold square in the snout. The creature squealed and collapsed into a stunned heap, its eyes watering.

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  “HA,” Tom-Tom screamed. “LICK SPOON!”

  A kobold trumpet blast sounded nearby and a table had somehow caught fire. Someone, probably Garret or maybe Peter, tripped over a corpse. The corpse stirred, as the kobold turned out to be asleep, not dead. The sleeping kobold woke up yelling angrily.

  “I cannot believe this is my life,” Alex muttered. He brushed bits of broken potion vial off his chest. Despite his efforts, some glass slivers still got caught in the folds of cloth and torn leather. He would need to buy new armor anyway, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. “Alright. Enough.”

  He mentally reached toward the aether energy in his body. Even with most of his aether reserves depleted from the Dungeon Boss, he still had something to give. He shaped the thread of energy he could still muster up from within, and cast [Flare]. His hand flashed with azure-blue light and everything within fifteen feet of him was rocketed away with surprising force. Alex had pulled back the output of the spell, but it still contained enough power to throw Allie a few paces along the floor.

  “EVERYONE! STOP PUNCHING EACH OTHER, RIGHT NOW!”

  Silence followed Alex’s booming shout. All around him weapons froze mid-swing. Spells flickered and fizzled mid-cast on the fingers of humans and kobolds alike. Garret had somehow paused halfway through suplexing a kobold into a pile of rags and debris. One of the kobolds couldn’t help but belch nervously. Even Tom-Tom stopped mid-attack and slowly allowed a ladle to slip from his clawed fingers and clatter to the stone below.

  All eyes turned to Alex. He lowered his arms and took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said, his voice now calm and even toned. “Hi. I’m back. Um... surprise.”

  Devon peeked from behind his stalagmite home. “Did... did you win?”

  Alex grinned. “Would I be here if I lost?”

  Allie snorted out half a laugh and half a sigh. “I’m gonna need a blood pressure potion after this. This is craziness”

  Kate lowered her shoulders in apparent relief, even if ever so slightly. “If this is somehow an illusion or trick, I swear to every god in this system—”

  “It’s not,” Alex said. “It’s really me. I beat the dungeon.”

  Before the relief could fully settle in, a new sound thundered through the chamber. It was a set of heavy footsteps. Rhythmic and powerful. Alex didn’t need more than one guess to know what was coming. The many kobolds immediately turned as one, and dropped to their scaley knees on the cavern floor. The crowd swiftly parted for the arrival of a figure, and from the shadows of the tunnel Alex saw the being approach.

  What emerged was a tall, broad kobold wrapped in animal furs and bone totems. A fury and rage sparkled in the center of his dark eyes. His scaled skin showed a faint dark-green light in Alex’s aether sight, making it look as if the kobold’s body shimmered faintly as he walked. It was the kobold Chieftain.

  The large kobold’s gaze swept the room slowly as he stepped towards the center of the chamber. On either side of him, his warriors walked in silence. Alex and the other humans raised their hands again, uncertain if another fight would break out. The Chieftain halted before Alex and starred him down.

  “You returned,” he said. His voice was low, weighted.

  Alex met his gaze with squared shoulders and a straightened spine. “I did.”

  “So then you survive trial?”

  “I didn’t just survive it. I conquered it.”

  The Chieftain’s nostrils flared. Then he stepped forward again, his snout coming within inches of Alex’s chest. For a brief moment, Alex braced himself for a challenge, or a rebuke. Maybe a sudden spike in aether. Instead, Alex saw the energy around the Chieftain relax and settle. A second after, the Chieftain gave an approving nod.

  “Then you are truly Dragon-Blood-One friend. The Rite is fulfilled. This battle ends.”

  There was a long pause that followed. Then he turned to the kobolds and raised one clawed hand high above his head. “FEAST!”

  The kobolds exploded into cheers. Suddenly the drums resumed and music ignited. Someone shouted “PARTY TIME!” in perfect, if broken, common tongue. Alex watched in amazement as tables were dragged from the shadows behind a boulder that absolutely should not have been big enough to hide them. Fires were quickly re-lit. Half a dozen kobolds rolled barrels of neon colored drink toward the humans with giddy grins on their faces.

  “Wait,” Lance said as he extricated himself from a mass of twisted kobold limbs. “Feast? Like... with us?”

  The Chieftain nodded solemnly in response. “Your pack has proven courage. You are now honored guests. Tonight, we break fermented bread.”

  Tom-Tom screamed. “YESSSSS!”

  Alex turned, looking at his team, at his friends. They were bleeding, and bruised... but alive. Over the last month they had been kidnapped twice (three times for some), forced into labor and then made a mad escape attempt. And now, somehow, they were all welcomed by these lizard people who had captured and enslaved them. To top it all off, a party was coming.

  And for the first time in what felt like forever, Alex felt like he didn’t have to be afraid.