When Liz had left her shop and walked into the strange portal, she had hoped to get through the tutorial quickly. Maybe it would be something theoretical, where she and everyone else would have to sit through a video or two, then head home for a well-deserved shower and dinner.

  That had been too optimistic. She could admit that. But she didn’t think she’d be so off the mark. She hadn’t expected to find herself in a cage this quick. She also didn’t expect to have to comfort a stranger while the woman had a meltdown. “I’m sure they’re fine,” said Liz for the tenth time as she once again studied the cage she was stuck in. “The aliens gave us a choice, didn’t they? You don’t give a tutorial to someone you want to kill, and it’d make no sense for them to bring children in here. I’m sure they’re somewhere safe. But we’re not, so we’ve gotta get out of here. Whatever has them riled up won’t last forever, and I’d rather not end up in a stew.”

  Martha loudly hiccuped and wiped at her eyes. “But what am I going to tell their parents? It took me away without letting me make sure they’re safe! What if—”

  “For the love of god, lady,” snapped Gerald. “We’re in goddamn cages and these monsters keep smacking their lips at us whenever they come by. How about you worry about yourself for a second?”

  Liz gave the man an annoyed look. She agreed with the sentiment, but not with how it was said. Though she couldn’t blame him. Martha’s mood was contagious, and Liz herself was barely holding the panic at bay while Gerald was growing more agitated by the second. Now wasn’t the time to comfort the distraught older woman.

  The mechanic turned her attention back to the cage. She could break out of this. That was the easy part. The problem was, how were they going to deal with all of those lizard things surrounding them? Most of them were above level 4, while Liz, Martha, and Gerald were all level 1.

  Her eyes fell on the pool of blood next to the second broken cage and her stomach twisted itself into knots. If they broke the cage, the lizardlings would fall on them like a bunch of feral rats.

  Someone had tried, and the screams were still echoing in her ears.

  Liz shook her head and pushed the fear gnawing in her chest down.

  We’re going to need a lot of therapy if we survive this.

  Thankfully, the severity of the situation seemed to have given her some mental boost of sorts. Her thoughts were frantic, but clear. So Liz looked through her system again. The crossbow she’d selected was a good weapon. But she’d only discovered that she had a crappy aim once she was inside the tutorial. The thing took too much out of her. When she woke up and found the lizardlings, she was only able to shoot one arrow before getting dizzy. And then that was it. She got caught.

  As she stewed on her failure, she narrowed the cause down to one thing, and one thing only: Mana. She needed to raise that stat and its regeneration.

  The guide said fragments. From dead things. We need to kill the lizards. At least a handful.

  She turned to Gerald and found him looking at her. He looked resolved. Pale, and still jittery, but his eyes were set. He must have been thinking the same as her.

  We can’t stay here.

  She gave him a small nod, then asked. “Risk it?”

  The man looked at their surroundings for a second, then turned and nodded and swallowed. “Once they give us a chance,” he whispered back.

  They couldn’t keep waiting. They couldn’t wait for the lizardlings to get hungry.

  Liz looked away for a moment, wondering what the chance would look like when she saw it.

  Down the tunnel she’d been brought in from, two torches were moving. At first, her stomach dropped. She thought it was the little army of lizardlings that was coming back. But when the young man stepped into the room, hands burning with fire, Liz jolted up to her feet.

  This was it.

  Liz gripped the flimsy rods that made up the cage and turned to the other two. “Help’s coming. Get ready,” she told them, as her simple metal and wooden crossbow appeared in her hand. A glowing bolt was already set, and Liz exhaled and aimed.

  I have to hit something. I need the levels. I… holy shit.

  She lowered the crossbow just a bit and stared at the carnage that was taking place. As soon as the alarm was given, lizardlings ran at him, weapons out, and within seconds, blood and smoking viscera began flying all around him. A lizardling got knocked down with a punch, while another got grabbed and swung by its tail into another group right before he turned his attention back to the first one as it tried to scramble away from him. The man kicked once more, then stomped on its neck with a crack she could hear from across the room.

  The level above the man’s head changed from 9 to 10.

  In a way, it reminded Liz of an adult roughhousing with toddlers. The difference here was that the lizardlings were being stabbed, kicked, and left burning, bleeding out, or both.

  It was just so… one sided. The remaining lizardlings rushed to the man, only to be quickly dealt with. The spear tips—whenever a lizardling managed to get to him—barely went into his flesh.

  They might as well have been toothpicks.

  Within seconds, barely a handful of lizardlings were still up.

  [Lizardling - Level 5]

  [Lizardling - Level 8]

  [Lizardling - Level 14]

  [Human - Level 10]

  “He’s already level 10… How?” mumbled Liz, mostly to herself.

  Gerald had been staring as well, but he looked away from the spectacle and focused back on the cage. “Probably got lucky somehow. Let’s get out of these cages and get something for ourselves.”

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Liz looked sideways for a moment, then shook her head. That didn’t look like luck. The stranger looked too comfortable fighting, and those feints and leg-grabs were way too smooth for a beginner. This was either a very privileged person who’d had personal trainers since they were four years old, or it was someone who’d grown up in some sort of violent environment.

  What am I doing?

  Liz shook herself awake and raised her crossbow, aiming at the closest lizardling. The level 5. She exhaled, then pulled the trigger. The bolt of blue light flashed forward and struck into the lizardling’s back.

  Liz lowered her shaking arm and leaned against the wall as the world spun around her, but it was worth it. She’d hit her mark. It would have been embarrassing to miss the lizardling when it was barely ten feet away.

  You have defeated [Lizardling - Level 5]

  You have reached Level 2. 1 stat point awarded.

  You have reached Level 3. 1 stat point awarded.

  Liz immediately put the points in Mana, then began working on the fibers that held the cage together.

  ***

  Well, they aren’t completely defenseless, at least, Ethan thought to himself as he noticed the crossbow shot. He kicked away the lizardling he’d just stabbed, then stepped toward the highest leveled lizardling. The chieftain.

  Ethan had hit level 10, which meant there was a trait waiting for him. He wished he could get his trait right now or look at the new quest, but now was not the best time to look through his interface. Not when his enemy was another enhancer-wand user who was slowly positioning himself to use that massive tail of his.

  Seriously. The thing was as long as the lizardling was tall.

  The two kept circling each other, which frequently opened Ethan’s back to a wanna-be ambusher. Of course, they were quickly dispatched, which seemed to progressively worsen the chieftain's temper until it finally spoke in a scratchy voice.

  “You will pay, human. We will fe—”

  “Shut it,” said Ethan as he lunged forward.

  The chieftain’s eyes narrowed, and it whipped its tail forward, aiming straight at Ethan’s face, and as he noticed the trajectory, a smile stretched across the man’s lips.

  Jackpot.

  Ethan parried with his left hand and grunted at the impact that rattled his shoulder. With his right, he swung down and tore four deep, smoking grooves in the thick tail. Deep enough to expose bone.

  Blood spurted out of the freshly cauterized wound and the chieftain screeched with pain, but Ethan didn’t let it recover. He stepped closer and aimed a clawed hand straight at the chieftain’s neck, but that tail was a lot faster than he expected. It slapped Ethan’s hand away before it came back down toward his legs while Ethan recovered from his deflected strike and readied another, only for a second tail to come out of nowhere and catch him in the side of his stomach.

  Ethan threw himself back and wheezed with pain. The chieftain had two tails now, and it leered at him with its slitted eyes. A forked tongue slipped out, tasting the air as Ethan straightened back up.

  “Crafty little shit.”

  Ethan stole a quick glance at the others. The three prisoners had broken out of their cage and were fighting one of the lizardlings. Well, two of them were fighting. The third woman was just watching the surrounding chaos, shaking and shuddering at every impact.

  Not everyone’s going to be able to handle all of this well, Ethan grimly thought as he focused back on his opponent. He had to finish up here quickly. The others were fighting a level 8 lizardling, and they won’t last long without help.

  Ethan eyed his opponent and thought of the fastest way he could drop him. He could feint. He could throw stuff at him. He could lure it away. But somehow, the worst option appealed the most to him. Enough that a small smile crept across his lips.

  It would be the fastest too. I’d have to take a hit, though.

  The chieftain narrowed his eyes and dragged both tails back, ready to strike. Ethan took a step forward, then broke into a sprint. Straight at the chieftain.

  The lizardling was taken aback for a second, but it reacted quickly by whipping both tails, one at Ethan’s feet and one at his head. But only one of them would find its mark.

  Ethan leapt, left arm raised to guard from the higher tail and his elbow dung into his side as the thick tail impacted, but it didn’t throw him off course. His right claws shot toward the lizardling’s throat, but he barely missed as the chieftain dodged back. A tail whipped up at his face, and Ethan’s right arm barely managed to stop it while he swung with his still numb left arm and raked the chieftain’ shoulder. The lizardling stumbled back, growling. It looked around as it created some distance between them, as if searching for a weapon, but Ethan didn’t let it recover and rushed forward once more.

  The lizardling turned as if to run, and both tails came down at Ethan as he stabbed forward with his right claws.

  The first tail he blocked. The second twisted at the last moment and cracked him on the temple. Ethan felt the world twist, but that was okay, because his claws tore through chest scales. Blood gushed against his digits, and soon the smell of burnt blood and flesh reached his nose.

  The tails fell limply against the stone floor. Stumbling, Ethan wrenched his claws back. They had been wrist-deep into the chieftain’s chest. Yellow slitted eyes stared at him in surprise and Ethan gave the chieftain and bloodied smile. “No feasting for you.”

  You have defeated [Lizardling - Level 14]

  You have reached Level 11. 1 stat point awarded.

  Ethan touched his face and winced. Blood was seeping down from a cut on his brow, but other than the ringing in his head, he felt fine.

  I hope Toughness is effective against concussions, he thought as he collected the chieftain’s fragments with a quick crouch before he moved to give the others a hand.

  Wand #1: 8 fragments collected.

  As he approached, he found the lizardling toying with the man. The stranger had opted for a sword, and even though he didn’t seem that proficient with it, it still kept the lizardling at bay. The second fighter, a young woman wearing blue and stained overalls, had a crossbow in her hand, and she seemed to be struggling to breathe as she turned toward him.

  The lizardling finally noticed his arrival, then its eyes drifted to the smoking corpse of the chieftain.

  It began turning its dagger toward Ethan, and he tore half of its neck out with a quick clawed swipe right as a blue glowing bolt hit it in the chest.

  You have defeated [Lizardling - Level 8]

  Ethan eyed the arrow for a second, then turned to the shooter, a question on his lips. Had she also received the notification?

  He quickly realized his question would have to wait. The crossbow-wielder stumbled, her weapon dissolving into motes. She panted, a hand on her chest, and Ethan thought he recognized the phenomenon.