Step one, do not get hit with the acid spray from his rifle.

  Step two, kill the fucker.

  Timt celebrated his victory over the harvester, completely ignoring his surroundings. “Dead bug!” he yelled.

  Unfortunately, he stepped closer to the carcass just as I hit. My knife sunk into his shoulder holding the rifle, and the impact knocked him to his knees.

  He fired rapidly into the trees in all directions, screaming loudly.

  I yanked the knife back and stabbed again at the back of his neck, but a green barrier formed all around him, burning a fern that touched it.

  The two other Forgers raced in this direction, and I leaped away, landing on a mushroom, before jumping to a different one in the shadows.

  Nele made it to the clearing first and searched all around Timt, who still screamed. “Shut up!” she said sharply.

  Timt snapped his mouth shut as Toma raced to his side. “Timt! You shouldn’t have gone after a harvester.”

  The barrier surrounding him fell before she touched him.

  “I got it… I got it…” He pointed at the harvester as Toma helped him to his feet.

  “We need to get you patched up. You can’t get injured like this, we don't have a ton of supplies,” she muttered, as she helped him into the bushes.

  Nele stood staring at the harvester with a frown before looking around at the rest of the surroundings. He pressed his lips into a tight line, before two swords appeared in his hands. He cut each of the legs off the dead harvester with only a couple of slices, then started dragging the body back the way they’d come.

  Yet, he moved slowly and kept a sword out. His eyes kept going to the trees. He clearly worried about something, which was good for him and bad for me.

  Once they were out of view I relaxed a little, before heading back to the guest hut. Birds chirped high overhead, but I couldn’t get that look out of my head. He’d stared at the treetops, like something up there had hurt Timt.

  The flier from Lenna's world had been in this part of the forest. It might still be around.

  The communication stone flared, and Lenna let me know they were headed back as well.

  I beat everyone but Asceto back, and detoured to the stream to wash my face and take a moment to think about what happened.

  It didn’t help that we weren’t that far from the group. Far enough they were unlikely to randomly stumble on us, but not so far that they might not smell our fire. After all, we had smelled theirs. We needed to stay on alert.

  Lenna arrived back with Kabi. Both chatted softly as they approached the entrance at the same time as me.

  “You got him good,” she said with a grin. “They had to pay Kaelen to speed up the healing of the injury. Though, he kept blabbing that he didn’t see what attacked him.”

  “I would have finished him, but he uses acid, and even has a barrier shield thing of it.” I hadn’t wanted to get caught in that. Not at all.

  “Meatzo and Nele headed to the dungeon entrance after telling Toma and Timt to stay behind in the time bubble,” said Kabi.

  “We could ambush them in the dungeon, but I like the idea of picking them off one by one,” I said with a frown.

  “We should stick with our plan and study them for a bit,” said Lenna. “Dengu is creating some interesting tracks on the far side of their camp.”

  “I’ll go watch the fort some more then,” I said. An idea came to me though, a good one. “If they have to stay below, who is in the fort in the trees?”

  “Just be careful,” said Lenna, shaking her head.

  I rushed off into the underbrush, taking a roundabout way to the fort. We did not want trails winding through the forest to lead them right to us. The thick canopy created so many places for me to hide as I traveled through the trees.

  The bright blue bubble contained the three that showed up on my radar, so I backtracked a bit before launching myself into the trees, landing on a mushroom much higher up.

  As long as I didn’t look down, I was okay. I kept one of the massive trees between me and the fort on my much higher approach. The mushrooms deadened the sound of my footsteps. Finally, I reached one of the trees holding up the fort.

  They hadn’t removed all the mushrooms growing up it.

  I couldn’t see the bubble below, but the dots on my radar hadn’t moved. A gaping hole for a window loomed nearby, and I peeked in.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  One room made up the entire space. Metal covered the floor, and a burned out fire sat near one window. Canvas protected the room, only held up with ropes.

  Piles of cloth indicated sleeping areas.

  There wasn’t much to it.

  But it gave me ideas for later. The traps from the Runic Challenge came to mind, but first I had an even better idea.

  Several of the ropes holding up the canvas had dangling ends. I used my spear to nudge one of those dangling ropes closer to the fire. I sent energy through my spear tip, causing it to flare a bright red as the tip started to smolder. Once the rope truly caught fire, I backed away and left the way I’d come.

  I hung around in the distance, close enough to see the bubble, but not too close.

  Eventually, smoke poured from the top of the hut, but it wasn’t easy to see from below.

  I waited. Impatiently.

  Time passed slowly, and I even nibbled on some meat, but eventually the bubble dropped. The pop echoed through the leaves, and even came with a little burst of wind.

  “Pleasure doing business with you,” the strange alien said. That slow drawl made a shiver go up my spine. I just couldn’t help it.

  Timt marched out of the bubble like nothing had happened. The wound on his shoulder was gone. The cut up carcass of the Harvester remained behind with Toma.

  Toma had blood splatter all over her as she stood. “Do you smell that?” she asked into the air.

  Timt said nothing as he started the climb up the wooden ladder with his lips pressed together, gritting his teeth.

  “You can’t ignore me forever,” said Toma when he said nothing. “We are stuck in this horrible jungle until we get to the second level of the dungeon!”

  “You don’t believe me that something attacked me,” he growled back, yet he kept climbing.

  “You don’t need to be ashamed that the Harvester got a hit in,” she yelled from below, shaking her head as she wiped bloody gunk off her hands. She let out a deep sigh and pulled a literal bucket out of her inventory that she used to clean her hands and face.

  His speed suddenly picked up, and he climbed far enough up for me to lose sight of him. “Fire!” he yelled from above.

  Toma knocked the bucket over as she scrambled to the ladder.

  The hammock swayed as Kaelen leaped out of it, like he didn’t have a care in the world. He untied one end, then the other, before marching off into the trees. Thankfully, not in my direction.

  Chuckling to myself, I backed away even more, wanting to put a little more distance in between me and the Forgers. Not that I worried about taking the two of them. If I was willing to let his acid hit me, I bet I could take Timt out without any real effort.

  But, acid.

  I shivered.

  That, and lava, felt like the things you just didn’t mess with if you didn’t need to. More importantly, I didn’t know if my armor scales would block it. If I’d gotten them from the magma lurker mini boss, I wouldn’t worry so much, but I hadn’t.

  Instead, I sat down on the mushroom with the pretty overhang from the one above and watched the chaos, keeping an eye on my radar.

  I didn’t need anyone sneaking up on me.

  Either the fire burned out, or they put it out, but sometime later both of them crawled down the ladder and collapsed on the ground.

  They spoke in low voices, and someone touched the far reaches of my radar. Two people darted through the forest from the direction we were positive led to a dungeon entrance.

  Nele appeared first, covered in dirt, and part of his armor had been torn off his shoulder. He stopped at the site of the two others on the ground.

  Meatzo almost ran into him. The buff guy didn’t even blink, just moved closer to a tree and used it to lean against.

  Timt waved half-heartedly.

  Conversation passed among the four of them, and I slipped away into the shadowy forest.

  My communication stone warmed. Lenna let me know they’d found the dungeon entrance, and they’d found the path the Forgers took to it.

  A plan slowly formed as I took the long way back to the stream to wash off.

  Dengu appeared first, resting next to the pool, though his eyes remained on the water. The bones of several fish sat beside him.

  “Good dinner?” I asked as I washed up.

  “Tasty fish,” he said with a growl, before standing. “Boring tracking without attacking.”

  “Well, I have a plan for us for tomorrow.” This time I smiled as I walked back to the guest house.

  The door remained shut, but Lenna and Kabi were inside, along with Asceto.

  We both entered, and I paused before Dengu nudged me out of the way.

  Asceto tinkered with a partially destroyed hover craft, dismantling it.

  Lenna had a stack of arrows next to her, while Kabi danced with his swords off to one side.

  “I have a plan,” she said as soon as she stopped working on her current arrow.

  I chuckled. “Let’s hear yours first.”

  “We ambush them after a dungeon run.” She nodded to Kabi, and he smiled.

  “Whatever they faced inside, they aren’t doing great,” said Kabi, pausing his dance. “They had to rest outside the door for a long while, using creams that helped heal wounds.”

  “Weird,” I muttered, thinking about the impression they gave the other two. “They appeared at the fort like it’d been hard, but not any real threat.”

  Lenna shook her head. “They were wiped, like, completely.”

  “Well, they are trying to find a way off world, and get access to a different dungeon entrance…”

  Lenna's eyes went wide. “That’s what I didn’t get. There are only three portals off-world: one in Steadfast, the one with the Water Tribe that Dengu used, and one far to the north.”

  That comment on the map, ‘Potential allies’.

  “So, they need to reach the dungeon entrance in the north to leave.” While we had access to other entrances to the dungeon, all of them were only working through level 1. They needed to reach level 2. Plus, I wasn’t sure how you’d use other entrances without the courtyard.

  Last time, Havi, Kabi’s father, had taken us to Steadfast.

  “My plan works with your plan. I’m thinking… traps!” I said the last word excitedly, waiting for the others to get excited.

  No one did.

  “Traps?” asked Lenna.

  “Yeah! I learned a bunch of traps from that runic challenge. I can cover the trail they use to leave the dungeon, plus a good amount around their fort, depending on how much time we have.” My mind raced through all the different ones I knew. Exploding ones, fire ones, sticky ones.

  “So, tomorrow it is,” said Kabi. “You place traps all throughout the forest, so when they flee from our attacks they get even more distracted. We will stomp the Forgers out of my village.”