The wind stopped when they got to the bottom.

  “Smart,” Kelsey opined. “Maintaining a wind like that is expensive; there's no point in doing it if there’s no one on the walls.”

  “And it makes Drake attacks possible,” Anton said. His sword was in his hand and his gaze was directed… not at the sky, but above them.”

  “At least we left the spiders behind,” Aris said. She hadn’t liked them. The best thing about her guns was that they killed at a distance, and one of the best things about Anton was that he kept them away from her. She shuddered, thinking back to her first experience in a dungeon. Life would be a lot less pleasant if Kelsey had found some kind of melee weapon for her.

  “The smaller ones,” Anton agreed. “We’ll still have to face larger ones.”

  Zaphar groaned, and Aris had to agree. Larger spiders? Ugh.

  “Incoming,” Kelsey stated plainly. She pointed with her torch. The drakes were bigger this time. This one was sporting a wingspan of at least three yards. It’s scales glittered in the bright light of Kelsey’s torch as it swooped towards them.

  Aris’s gun boomed. She used Trick Shot this time. It took a little longer, but it let her aim right into its gaping mouth. A geyser of blood and blue scales burst from the back of its head and a corpse crashed to the ground.

  It was the first time Aris had fired since the wind stopped, and she was surprised by how loud it had been. The drake had glided in silently, and the sound of her gun was still echoing more loudly than the crash of its body.

  From far away, out in the darkness, screeches of rage started to sound out.

  “I—I don’t like the sound of that,” Zaphar muttered.

  Kelsey was looking out into the darkness. “I think we’re getting a rush,” she said. “Your notes mention anything about that?” she asked Anton.

  “No, but I don’t think anyone came down with a weapon as loud as that,” Anton replied. “Everyone bunch up and get close to the wall.”

  The group obeyed as best they could. “Sorry,” Aris said.

  “It’s fine,” Anton said. His sword was drawn and he was looking tensely out into the darkness. “It just means we’ll get past this floor quicker. And we’ll have something to add to the records.”

  There were a few more moments of waiting, and then something about the screeching changed.

  “They’re coming,” Kelsey said. Aris raised her gun, her aim following where Kelsey’s light was pointing. Then blue scales loomed into the light.

  Aris fired, and kept firing. The fight descended into madness as a dozen drakes descended on them. Scales, teeth and ice-cold claws were everywhere. Zaphar was slashing away with his rapier, Anton was calmly lopping off limbs. Drakes were dropping on them from above and biting at them from the ground.

  Aris couldn’t look away, couldn’t spare a moment, until she’d emptied her first gun. When it clicked empty, she looked for Kelsey for a reload even as she raised her other gun to continue fighting.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tyla, about to lose her life. Glittering teeth were swooping out of the darkness, aimed directly at the elf girl. Aris stared. She tried to react in time but her gun on that side was empty. She started to shout a warning but there was no way Tyla was going to be able to act in time.

  Time stopped.

  Tyla, the drake, the entire fight around them and most especially Aris, all stopped moving. Or nearly so. They still kept moving at a snail's pace, a single moment drawn out into an impossible hour. Whatever this was, it didn’t help. Aris could see the moment of Tyla’s death approaching ever more clearly, but she was trapped in the moment as much as anyone.

  Except she somehow knew that she wasn’t.

  Last Word, Aris thought. Suddenly, she was free to act. Her gun came around to bear at the target. Trick Shot aimed it right at the roof of the monster’s gaping mouth. She pulled the trigger and—

  At the moment of the explosion, everything returned to normal. Her arm felt sore, the sound of her shot was ringing in her ears and Tyla was alive.

  “What the hell was that?” Kelsey yelled at her, taking Aris’s empty gun.

  Aris shook her head. “Last Word,” was all the explanation she had time for.

  You have completed Level 10! Please select a new class to continue your progression.

  She didn’t have time for that either. She shot another Drake and accepted her reloaded gun back.

  When the fight had finished, everyone but Anton and Kelsey crashed to the ground. Anton stood over them while they recovered, staring out into the darkness in case there was a second wave. Kelsey looked them over, handing Zaphar a potion. Then she moved out into the circle of corpse they’d created, sending them back to her dungeon one at a time.

  “This is some good stuff!” she crowed. “Maybe we’ll outfit all of Suliel’s soldiers in dragonscale, what do you say?”

  “Sure,” Anton agreed. He looked at Aris. “Are you all right?”

  he asked.

  “Yes, I finished my level,” Aris answered. “I have to pick a new class.”

  “I got a new—a new level as well,” Zaphar said, wincing. He was looking suspiciously at the potion Kelsey had given him. His armour had been torn by a nasty gash on his arm.

  “Just take it,” Aris advised. “It hurts, but you’ve got to be hurting already.”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “True, true.” Zaphar winced again, but drained the potion bottle. Then he hissed, screwing his eyes shut. “Hurts… so much much more…”

  With Anton keeping watch over her, Aris felt safe taking the time to select her new Class. She started reviewing the options, skipping over the ordinary ones. There were a few that were anything but.

  There was one that looked like the continuation of Gunslinger:

  Original Gunfighter (Tier 3, Unique)

  Requisites: Complete Gunslinger

  Ability Improvement: 8 points per level. STADPWC (1 Free)

  But there were some others…

  Blackpowder Widowmaker (Tier 3, Epic)

  Requisites: Complete Gunslinger, More than 50 human kills

  Ability Improvement: 9 points per level. STAADDPC (1 Free)

  Gun Saint (Tier 3, Unique)

  Requisites: Complete Gunslinger, Save 50 entities

  Ability Improvement: 8 points per level. STADPWWC

  Deadeye Harbinger (Tier 3, Epic)

  Requisites: Complete Gunslinger, Last Word Trait

  Ability Improvement: 9 points per level. [S|T]AADDPPC (1 Free)

  “I have Epic Classes,” she squeaked. She didn’t mean to say anything; it just slipped out of her.

  “Congratulations,” Anton said. “Do you know what you want to take?”

  Aris didn’t know. She looked at the options again. It would be a waste to take a class that was merely Unique, right?

  Merely Unique. Hard to imagine thinking that. But that left just two Classes, and… choosing between those two was fairly easy. Blackpowder Widowmaker was all about death. Deadeye Harbinger was just as ominous a name, but the requisites were the Last Word trait, which she had just used to save a life.

  That criterion made Gun Saint more attractive, but it was only Unique, so…

  I choose Deadeye Harbinger, she thought.

  Applying Benefits for Level 1

  Strength + 1

  Agility + 2

  Dexterity + 2

  Perception + 2

  Charisma + 1

  Assign free point:

  Feeling giddy, she assigned the free point to Perception. My perception went up by three!

  She quickly went over her status to see the changes.

  Aris Lucina, Deadeye Harbinger (Level 1)

  Overall Level: 16

  Paths: Scullion/(broken), Original Gunslinger/Deadeye Harbinger

  Strength: 10

  Toughness: 13

  Agility: 21

  Dex: 21

  Perception: 26

  Will: 21

  Charisma: 13

  Traits

  Eye for Freshness

  Heat Resistance

  Sonic Resistance

  Sure Shot

  Trick Shot

  Camouflaged Lurker

  Last Word

  “I’m ready,” she stated, getting back on her feet.

  “We’ll be a bit longer yet,” Kelsey said. The drakes had all been cleared away, but Zaphar was still writhing on the ground under the influence of his potion. “You want a bite to eat?”

  Aris and Tyla gratefully accepted some kind of meat in a bun from Kelsey’s kitchen and a bottle of water. They both watched Zaphar slowly recover from his potion. Kelsey—Aris assumed it was Kelsey—had put a pillow under his head so that he would be more comfortable.

  Eventually, the potion ran its course. Zaphar had never lost consciousness, but he would have been hard pressed to defend himself.

  “Why does everything have to hurt so much?” he complained, rolling to his feet.

  “Life is pain, Highness,” Kelsey said. “Anyone who tells you differently is selling something.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Anton countered, “When your body doesn’t feel pain.”

  “That is true,” Kelsey admitted. “But I have to feel the pain of no one getting my movie references, which is a bitter, bitter pill.”

  Clearing out all the drakes meant that the passage across the chasm floor was relatively uneventful. They still had to fight territorial spiders along the way, but they came in small groups and weren’t much of a threat. Anton explained that normally, you’d have to defend against a swooping drake at all times, which made the spiders more difficult to deal with.

  “Is the final boss a big drake?” Kelsey asked as they neared the far side of the chasm.

  “No, that’s further down,” Anton said grimly. “The boss of this floor is a spider.”

  “A boss spider?” Aris asked with dismay.

  “I’m afraid so. It's big and lives in a cave on its own,” Anton said.

  Soon enough—or, rather, far too soon for Aris’s liking— they were standing in front of the cave. It was dark inside, even Kelsey’s torch having trouble penetrating the thick silk shrouding the interior.

  “We’re supposed to go into that?” Aris asked.

  “I’m afraid so,” Anton said. “It will hide in the silk, which is sticky. We have to clear it out bit by bit before we can engage with it on equal terms.

  “We could burn it out?” Kelsey suggested. “I bet the silk has some sort of fire retardant, but I’ve got some accelerants that could deal with that.”

  “But then we wouldn’t get to collect the valuable silk,” Anton pointed out.

  “Oh…” Kelsey said. “Yeah, you should definitely risk your lives for my profits.”

  “I think I may be able to help,” Tyla said, stepping forward. She reached out to touch the silk at the entrance.

  “Careful,” Anton said, “It’s really sticky. We’ve got some washes to get it off, but if it sticks to you in a fight, it’s there for the duration.”

  “I should be fine,” Tyla promised. The silk shivered under her touch, a shiver that ran through the silk nearby. The webs started twisting, tearing themselves free from the walls, wrapping themselves into a cord of fine silk.

  The cord itself lashed about, finding more silk in the cave to wrap around itself. It cleared away all the silk that Aris could see, extending into the darkness of the cave. Then it twisted back, curling up on its own length, coiling into a compact package.

  Tyla turned to Kelsey. “This is what you wanted, yes?” she asked.

  “Hell yeah,” Kelsey said, taking and vanishing the rough coil of silk. “How much did you get?”

  “The range of the spell is limited,” Tyla said. “I will have to enter the cave to clear the rest, but the entrance should be clear enough.”

  Unable to hide, the spider boss did not last long. For once, its level was high enough for Anton to join in the fray. He chopped off its legs one by one, while Tyla and Aris shot out its eyes. That left the final blow for Zaphar, who plunged his rapier deep in the ugly, mottled carapace until it died.

  “You know,” Kelsey said, holding up one of the legs prior to disappearing it. “I hear that giant spider flesh tastes a lot like lobster.”

  Aris ignored her, choosing to focus on the floor reward. Anton had already opened the chest. He frowned in surprise.

  “It’s called Widow’s Mercy,” he said, drawing… something out of the chest. It looked like a loose net made out of frost-silk. Anton found the right way to hold it, and it became clear that it was a vest, made entirely out of thin bands of silk.

  “Is it a sex thing?” Kelsey asked. “Tell me it’s a sex thing.”

  “The main ability is Spider’s Descent,” Anton said. “It looks like it’s designed to be worn?”

  He turned to Aris. “You’re due for the next item,” he said. “Do you want it?”

  “Um, sure, I guess?” Aris said, taking the light garment. “Are items ever dangerous?”

  “Not normally,” Anton said.

  Aris shrugged and pulled it on over her armour. It felt awkward at first, but once everything was tightened up, it felt like it had always been a part of her armour.

  “It has a warming effect,” she reported. “But as for the descent thingy…”

  Anton pointed at a nearby ledge. “Try jumping off of there.”

  Aris did so, finding that her fall was much slower than it should be. Repeating the jump, she found that she could slow herself down more, or speed it up.

  “Not bad,” Anton said. “No need to worry about falling any more.”