“That isn’t possible. No myemar has breached the city for a thousand years,” Tressa proclaimed.

  “I don’t know about that. I just know what I’m smelling,” Tim paused and then asked, “Would it be possible for myemar shadows to get into the city secretly?”

  “Shadows? Those are just myths,” Tressa proclaimed, but Simon and Kayla shared a knowing glance.

  Tim waited for them to speak since it seemed they knew something that Tressa didn’t. Finally, Simon broke the silence. “Many don’t believe they are real because none have been sighted by anyone alive, but the records are clear. There are more types of myemar than what we are commonly aware of.”

  “That isn’t exactly true,” Tim said.

  “What? Aren’t you the one who just asked about shadows?” Kayla asked.

  “Yeah, but that isn’t what I mean. Simon said that no one alive has seen one of them.”

  Simon was staring at him intently. “How do you know about that?”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about, Simon. I simply meant that I saw a myemar shadow when I was fighting in the warren.”

  “You fought one?” Kayla asked, suddenly very fierce.

  “No, it didn’t want to fight. It just kept going on about some herald and its master, but then when I tried to attack it, it just faded into the wall.”

  “Oh, that is good. They can be awfully hard to fight unless you have magic or powerfully enchanted blades,” Kayla said.

  “Wait, you’ve fought one, haven’t you? What are you and Simon not saying?” Tressa demanded.

  The two of them once again looked at each other. Kayla shook her head, but Simon just sighed and said, “No, if we might face those things, they deserve to know. About six years ago there was an attempt on Caesar’s life. Five myemar shadows somehow snuck into the palace. It was dumb luck that Charles happened to be there with two teams of sojourners.”

  Kayla took over for him. “Even with all our gear, nine diamond-level adventurers almost failed to stop one of them from getting through. They spoke as we fought them. Even though they were lower level than us, they were still so elusive it was hard to hit them at all. During it all, they kept saying that they needed blood to bring the herald of change home.”

  We did eventually manage to kill all of them, but one of them wrote in its black blood all over the floor after being disemboweled,” Simon said, then stopped speaking.

  Tressa’s eyes bulged as she asked, “You can’t stop there. What did it write?”

  “Just gibberish,” Kayla said.

  Simon added, “It wrote, 4 + 1 = 1.”

  Tim’s mind was racing. He hadn’t told them about his dreams. He was afraid that talking about them too much would bring them back. Now all of these pieces were starting to freak him out. The world ‘herald’ was being brought up too much, just as the word ‘change’ was. At least for his comfort. So, for now, he just kept his mouth shut.

  “Now we have to go in, though. If there is any chance that there are shadows in here, we will need to confirm it, and kill them if we can,” Simon said.

  Tressa grumbled, but a moment later they were crossing the threshold into the dungeon.

  You have entered the dungeon.

  Designation: Grinder. As this is your first time, you have received the beginning quests.

  No sooner had the notification popped into his head than a screeching sound like metal nails down a chalkboard sounded. Tim put his hands to his ears in pain. He closed his eyes and focused. A moment later the sharp sound ended, and he heard something that could only have been a slot machine as it was spinning.

  “Boringggg,” said a voice he knew all too well. “Beginner quests. I don’t think so. I didn’t bring you all the way here for easy mode. So, let’s mix this up a bit. Try these quests out.”

  Race to the Core

  There are myemar shadows inside the dungeon. I delayed them for you so you could have a fair chance. Now race with them to the core. They think there is a prize at the center of the dungeon, which their master wants. Are they right? Could be.

  Success conditions: Reach the core before the myemar

  Secondary success: Do it with style

  Reward: 400 XP, a shiny rock

  Secondary Reward: Dependent upon results, an item up to epic quality, and best of all, the opportunity to entertain me

  Failure: respawn rate on the dungeon will double.

  Tim wasn’t the only one to see that blue screen because they were all talking about it. They didn’t know what it meant. Apparently, the dungeon usually gave any party with a first timer in it a quest to gather certain herbs that were useful in alchemy and another to destroy a certain number of monsters.

  As they were all arguing about what the difference was, Tim couldn’t take it any longer. “That was Cal-Dakota. He is messing with the quests here. And before any of you say it, I don’t care what you think. Believe me or not, but that is why the quest is different.”

  While Tim was speaking his bit, another quest popped up into his head.

  Enemies of Humanity III

  New Sub quest: Clearing Shadows

  The presence of myemar in Terra indicates their plans may be progressing faster than expected. Learn what the myemar want in New Rome.

  Objectives:

  1) Find what the myemar shadows are looking for

  2) Keep whatever they are looking for from them

  3) Bonus: Learn who the shadows are reporting to

  Rewards: variable based upon how significant a role you play directly in completing the objectives

  1) 1575 XP

  2) One item of rare or higher quality.

  That quest was obviously from Semona. Tim couldn’t help but chuckle as he realized that the mask he was wearing was keeping the two patrons from realizing that each of them was sending him messages and quests. They had to have both been watching him as they had reacted at essentially the same time, but he couldn’t speak out loud about it to the rest of the team, without tipping off the patrons.

  Tim hated not being able to know when they were watching him. Finding a way to do something about that rose to near the top of his priority list now. It was hard, though. Most of the people he knew in Iocusinte didn’t want him to talk about the patrons and thought it was a sign of mental instability. The rest of the people thought the patrons were gods to be revered. Tim didn’t believe either position.

  Simon said, “Well, we got the quest. The rewards are decent. But if we accept it, then we won’t be able to play this safely.”

  “I don’t really like the wording of it. Part of the reward is based upon a subjective outcome that we don’t actually know how to meet,” Kayla added.

  “You already pointed out that we don’t have any choice. We can’t let the spawn rate double for this dungeon. It is hard enough to manage already,” Tressa reminded them.

  “I know. Hold on a second while I give a message for the guard captain to carry to Charles.” Simon didn’t wait as he spoke. Instead, he had already leapt down the stairs, taking them three at a time in his rush to pass on a message.

  Tim got to thinking, then said out loud, “This is a race. Simon is doing what he needs to do, but I need to get busy clearing a path to the core. Which way do I go?”

  He looked around the first room of the temple. It was a rectangular room with four doors leading off it. A green door, a red door, a blue door, and a white door. The room was lit by torches around the wall, but Tim’s keen eyesight had no trouble making out small details.

  Kayla said, “There should be a couple of monsters, at least, in this room.”

  “Maybe the shadows already cleared them,” Tressa replied.

  “I wouldn’t count on that. Tim, I guess now is as good a time as any to see if you are ready to tank these things. Remember what we told you earlier. The monsters come in two basic varieties here. They are all called grimlocks. But there are shield grims and blade grims. The blade grims have sharp bony protrusions jutting off their body and can be hard to close with because they cut you up. The shield grims don’t put out as much damage, but they can take an incredible beating. Each time you strike them down, they tend to get back up,” Kayla instructed.

  “Okay, so which door?”

  “None. First, walk to the center of the room, but do it slowly,” the assassin said.

  Tim couldn’t help but snicker at that, as he remembered an old movie he had watched as a teen. She glared at him, so he focused and started moving to the center of the room. As he walked, he could see that there were gashes in the stone floor where something powerful had hit it. He was careful as he moved, making sure to look for traps.

  He realized he was not well suited to this and hoped that he never ended up with a rogue class. They were cool to have with you. It just didn’t fit his personality. He liked the idea of being a mage, cause, well, magic was cool, but there was also a rush in smashing things. He had found he really enjoyed that.

  When he got close to the center of the room, he saw that there was a stone circle carved into the floor there. When he reported that to the others, he realized Simon was back. Kayla told him to pick up a rock and toss it into the circle.

  As the small projectile he tossed landed on the floor, the ring pulsed and two creatures appeared. They looked something like turtles but closer to the teenaged type in that they stood on two legs. Their skin was green with white veins running through it. The end of each arm had two fingers and a thumb, but it was more like a pincer than a hand; there was no actual palm, just the smaller appendages sticking off the arm.

  Their backs were covered in a dark green shell that was mottled with black spots in the shape of squares, but it wasn’t a true turtle shell as it was more like a fused carapace. All in all, both creatures were perhaps ten feet tall. Their faces had red eyes, and rather than a mouth and nose, they had a beak that looked like it could snap down rather powerfully.

  Simon shouted out, “They are shield type!”

  Tim wanted to say ‘well duh’ but kept it to himself. Both of them held long wooden staves in their hands. They each took their weapon and looked ready to attack. Tim didn’t wait to cede them the initiative, though. He was on them before either had gotten more than halfway through their swing.

  Behind him, he heard Kayla shout out, “Both level 15 with 680 HP.”

  A faint blue glow appeared around the one to his left. Mostly around its legs. He trusted it was Tressa’s slowing spell. If so, that meant that he needed to focus on the right one first. He wished he had access to his tackle skill, but he fought with what he had.

  In a blur, he was on the first one. He didn’t bother to draw his weapon as he hit it with a Greater Stat Hex, targeting its Flexibility.

  Spell successful: targets Flexibility reduced from 12 to 2.

  Tim grinned at the message as his claws sunk into the flesh of its shoulders. Each hit landed. The skin was tough, but not so tough that he couldn’t rip it apart. His strike with his left hand was just a normal blow while the right hand managed to crit. It was going to take some time though as even combining the two blows didn’t take more than 10% of its health.

  The second creature was moving towards him but was sluggish. Still, they had started out close to each other, so Tim needed to create some distance. It was almost like fighting enemies who were moving in slow motion. He slipped around the one he had hexed and kicked against its shell, sending it sprawling into the staff of its partner.

  His peripheral vision showed him that both Simon and Kayla were moving around the edges of the battle, looking for ways to strike at the enemy. Tim lashed out with claws against the back of the closest enemy but immediately regretted it. He felt like he had cracked his claws. Pain and numbness shot up into his hands.

  Fortunately, he had a solution for the damage. He cast Life Tap, and while it didn’t crit with the added Acuity from his mask, the spell landed for 57 damage. It also healed his hands enough that he was able to pull his new sword out of his soul pouch. He prepared to step forward and attack one, but the next second he saw Kayla flash in.

  She must have been using one of the skills that she had told them she possessed. It was sorta scary to see in action, even if the name hadn’t been scary enough. Eye Gouge was definitely a skill he would look into if he ever ended up being an assassin.

  She executed it twice in quick succession, but now the skill would be on a long cool-down if Tim remembered correctly. Besides doing significant damage, the skill also had the added benefit of blinding the creature it was used against.

  Not to be outdone, Simon triggered his own attack combo. A sweeping kick took the legs of the other shield grim out from underneath it, then a precision punch struck it in the throat. Even the toughest opponent could be brought down if it couldn’t breathe. As Tim understood it, the punch applied a debuff effect and damage-over-time effect beyond just the power of the initial strike.

  Blue lances of force leapt off Tressa’s fingers and scored gouges into the soft spaces on one enemy's body. Tim jumped in and went to town with his sword. It still took a depressing amount of time to hack them apart after how easy it had been to kill lower-level monsters.

  When they finished, the others all cheered. Tressa said, “I have to admit that I was worried, but that was far easier than I expected.”

  Simon replied, “This is only the entry room. The harder challenge comes when we have to fight both blade grims and shield grims at the same time.”

  “Okay, let's get moving,” Tim said.

  “We need to loot them first,” Tressa said.

  “I’m more interested in winning the quest. Besides, isn’t it up to Simon as party leader to loot everything?”

  The monk didn’t answer but simply held his hand out and the corpses disappeared. Tim got a notification that Simon had gathered loot for the party and what he had gotten, but he went into his soul interface and set it so all those notifications would be turned off. At the same time, he turned on notifications for damage and buff or debuff effects from party members. Call him petty, but he wanted to try to rack up the most damage on this dungeon run.

  He was impressed that Simon could loot without saying anything. While Kayla was scouting the various tunnels, he said, “I thought you had to say the word loot to gather loot.”

  “Nah, monks are very spiritual. My soul interface is upgraded. Don’t worry, probie, if you last long enough, we will get you there too,” Simon answered.

  Kayla called over, “I think they went down this tunnel? Do we follow them or go a different route? It’s been years since I was in the Grinder, but from what I recall, the blue tunnel is the longest. We could save time by going through the red tunnel.”

  “Isn’t red the one with the most monsters in it?” Tressa asked.

  Simon nodded. “You are both correct. The question is how much we are willing to risk to beat the shadows. It is important that we not fail at this quest.”

  Tim’s blood was boiling by this point. He wasn’t angry at any of them, he simply felt like they were beating a dead horse. If the red tunnel was the fastest, then so be it. That was the way they needed to go. “Follow me if you can.”

  Then Tim was rushing down the red tunnel. Unlike the warren, this dungeon was all worked stone. The tunnel wasn’t big enough for him to make use of his wings, but he could still run fast. His bare feet powered him along, boosted by the anklets of speed. The stone felt cold beneath his feet, but it was smooth and the tunnel was mostly straight.

  It was odd because the temple didn’t seem large enough for this, but given the mechanics of his soul pouch, it seemed likely that there was a bit of spatial manipulation in play here too. Fifteen seconds of running had him covering a couple football fields worth of distance before he came upon a triangle-shaped room.

  The walls were perfectly shaped, all set in carved stone. Each corner of the room was at a 90-degree angle. It couldn’t be made this way except on purpose. As he thought back to it, he remembered that the first room had been a perfect oval. It hadn’t seemed significant before, and he still didn’t know if it mattered, but apparently, this dungeon had a thing for shapes.

  No sooner had he entered the room than he was attacked. Six grims in total. But unlike the big shield type, these were the sword kind. They didn’t have the shell on their backs, which definitely took away from the turtle look. He wasn’t really sure what to compare them to or why his mind was always looking for ways to equate things in Iocusinte to things on Earth.

  Their bodies did have the same green skin, with white veins running all over them. Absent the shell, it was more obvious. They were also missing the staves but didn’t seem to need them. Each of them had about forty jagged bony blades protruding out of their bodies. Tim felt juvenile, as the last thought to cross his mind before the battle was joined was to wonder how they could possibly get busy with all those pointy parts.

  As Tim lunged for the closest of the creatures, the others fell into a circle around him. They moved much faster than the shield grims. Likely they were every bit as fast as he was but a little slower than Simon and definitely slower than Kayla. His opening attack had already landed in the form of a Life Tap spell, but it still felt good when his broadsword scored a hit, too.

  He missed his ability to Assess them but could still tell that they had far less health. The spell had shriveled its body, and the sword blow had severed an arm. Tim had aimed for its head, but the creature’s speed had saved it. He snorted. This was gonna be easy if this was all the monsters had.

  That was when he learned why this dungeon was called the Grinder. Probably would have been more accurate to call it the blender. The other five blade grims all surrounded him and attacked. Their motion was fluid as they spun like tops. Each swing of an arm or kick with a leg fed into the next motion. It was like some kung fu form they were doing in synchronized form.