“Where’s the fun in that?” Then without waiting for me to answer she was running down the ramp for the next floor. I could argue, yell for her to stop, act petulantly ,and wait, or I could get onboard. Either way, Violet was an express train with no stops in sight.

  As I ran down behind her, I watched her hit the first cave of the sixth floor. No sooner had she reached the first cave than a ko-dog jumped out. She never even slowed down but lowered her head and rammed it with helm and punch daggers extended. The beast’s snarls immediately turned to yelps, but she didn’t stop there. She flipped over it and pulled her blades free. Without even finishing it off, she was already running for the next cave entrance.

  I cast Frost Rift to finish off the injured ko-dog and kept running behind her. Somehow her short legs were now making better time than my legs, which were more than twice as long. She hit the kobold who came out of the next cave entrance at full steam.

  He thrust with a spear, but it only glanced off of her plate armor and was knocked aside by her momentum. Her blades were buried in the creature’s chest as he fell to his back with her on top. She pulled her blades free and then swung them down in wicked slashes at both sides of its neck as she screamed out a battle cry. I couldn’t quite make out her words, but the intention was clear.

  This continued for through the entire sixth and seventh floor. Not every cave had a kobold or ko-dog in them, but at least half did. A couple even had pairs of kobolds. They were mostly all in no armor or light leather armor over their scales, with spears as weapons. None were clearly half as skilled as she was, but the ones on the sixth floor were all level seventeen while the ones on the seventh were level twenty.

  So far it had only added up to another 48 XP as we got minimum XP for each of the kills. I managed to stop Violet before she headed for the eighth floor. It felt weird for me to be the voice of reason, given that I was an ogre, but that was foolishness. I wasn’t really an ogre; I was a man stuck in an ogre’s body, so why should I care about that?

  I cast another Regeneration spell on her as I got her attention. “Hold up a minute. We need to figure out what’s going on.”

  “What’daya mean? We’re killing kobolds. The XP sucks, but the fun factor makes up for it. With your Heals, I was able to go two floors non-stop.”

  “Trust me, I know. I was watching. If the level of the monsters keeps rising, then in a couple floors, they will out-level you.”

  She made a gesture with her hand as though she was swatting a bug. “Pish-posh. Kobolds are always cowards. I don’t care what their level is, these buggers can’t get through my armor, especially not with this buff of yours. I’m a walking tank. I just wish that Arctic Blast went off more often; but it has gone off sixteen times so far, which is cool.”

  “I know, I’ve counted. I have to finish the ones when it doesn’t proc. We don’t want living enemies behind us.”

  “You only live once. Or rather, you can just keep respawning. What’s the big deal?”

  I groaned as I rubbed the side of my head. “I don’t want to lose sixteen levels. That’s what the big deal is.”

  “Sixteen levels? Death penalty isn’t that big. We’d just lose half a level at the most, and we already have made more XP than that.”

  “I don’t know how it works for gnomes, but it doesn’t work that way for ogres. I will lose all the way back to level twenty if I die before level forty, and I don’t want that to happen. Got it?”

  “Okay, okay boss. Then what? It’s not like you can’t mob the floor with all of these guys. That is half the fun of this. I may not get much XP, but it is fast and furious.” Violet sighed. Apparently, even the thought of slowing down depressed her.

  “I agree, but that is part of my point. This is tooeasy. The dungeon should have adjusted to my level. We got to experience that event and get XP from it. That was great. But why are all the caves empty? Why is there food on most of the tables? The kobolds are at least semi-organized, so what is that all about? Something big must be happening below.”

  “Well, the noise is getting louder, for sure. It almost sounds like chanting,” Violet admitted. “Okay, Mr. Thinking Ogre, what do you want to do?”

  Chapter 9- Gauntlet

  We discussed options a bit. I refreshed our shorter buffs, and then we got ready to move out. The delay gave me an opportunity to let my mana regen back up. With the ring, I was now regenerating 15.88 mana per second. So even with what felt like a rather massive mana pool, I could go from empty to full in just over two-and-a-half minutes, and that was without meditating. It was a still a long time in battle, but outside of combat it was nothing.

  When we finished, she started toward the eighth floor. I gave her one last admonition as I followed. “Just take it slow. The challenges are going to increase.”

  She looked over her shoulder at me. “You don’t have to worry about Lil ‘ole me. I’m here to kick butt, and I make this look good.”

  I stayed about twenty feet behind her. Close enough that I could leap into the fray, but far enough back to not be caught in any trap that she might trigger. At least I imagined it was far enough back, based upon my admittedly limited understanding of magic in Selmia.

  No sooner had we reached the next floor than we noticed something was different here. The caves had stone-worked fronts on them. It had a much greater sense of permanency. I wouldn’t call it quality stonework, but it was an effort. The first cave had two kobolds in front of it.

  They were a few inches taller than most of the others. I’d say they were not quite four feet tall, but still bigger than their kin. They each had a sawtooth sword in one hand and a round shield on the other. Their scales were a cool blue with hints of bronze beneath it. I assessed them and saw that they were definitely a step up. They weren’t just called kobolds but had an actual class.

  Kobold Shock Warrior Level: 24

  HP: 450 Mana: 150

  Highest Stat: Strength

  The fact that mana was included in their description implied they had some sort of magical aptitude. Their stats still couldn’t be that high, but they were close to Violet’s level. We shouldn’t take them too lightly. They still were more than nine levels lower than me, so we weren’t gonna get more than a single XP for each one.

  It was then that I saw other similarly garbed warriors step in front of each of the caves. In order for us to continue around the ramp, we would have to work our way through all of them. I figured it was better than having them rush us at the same time. But we couldn’t assume the enemy was a bunch of idiots. They had to have a reason for what they were doing.

  I watched Violet engage the first pair of kobold warriors. They seemed to have a limited idea of how to work together, as they used their shields to cover each other and took wide swings at her. Without her armor, Violet would have been in bad shape; and even with it, her ears had to be ringing. I cast Corrupted Vines. The three tendrils sprang up and grabbed one of the kobolds.

  That was all it took for Violet to get the better of the other. She raised her arm and took a sword blow on her heavy armor, then used her boots to propel herself forward. The leap truly made her armored body look like a bullet as she slammed into the kobold. Given that they were relatively close in size, he didn’t stand a chance. He was knocked over and soon found her going stabby-stabby on his unprotected throat. Kobold scales might be tougher than human skin, but they didn’t stand a chance again her blades.

  Meanwhile I took the liberty of casting Frostburn on the trapped kobold. The vines had only cost me 67 mana and were already causing damage. Since all three vines had trapped him, the damage stacked up to 15 piercing and 15 disease per second. Dang, I loved this spell. There was a reason it was one of my signature spells. Still, I was merciful and hit him with a Frostburn. It caused 211 damage for a measly 94 mana, and with just the initial damage he had already taken, he was almost dead. Then the cold added to the damage he had taken, and he collapsed.

  Ten seconds later, I was at full mana, and Violet was already whooping out a war cry as she headed for the next group of guards. I didn’t even bother with a Corrupted Vines this time and instead hit one of them with a triple-powered Frostburn for a whopping 470 mana. It instantly killed him, and I laughed. I mean, he was a computer- generated NPC, so it wasn’t that I was being a heartless ogre, at least it wasn’t entirely that. This was easier than shooting ducks in a barrel, or wait, was it fish in a barrel. I had never understood what the fish were doing in a barrel but then again, I lived in an era of machine-made food run by an AI nanny state.

  We mowed down two more pairs like this, and I stopped insisting that we wait for me to be back to full mana each time. We were clearing out the pairs in seconds and moving on to the next. It was at the fifth cave that I realized what their intention was. Frostburn took one of the guards and had me down to half mana at this point. Violet rushed in to face the next one but was hit by a one-foot-wide bolt of lightning from within the cave.

  Her tiny body was flung out over the opening in the middle of the dungeon. My mind went into overdrive, and I moved towards her. I knew she could survive the lightning bolt, with the HP buff, but what about the fall; not to mention whatever was the bottom. I wanted to cast Levitate on her, but it required that I touch her. Then I thought about using my cloak to shadow step and catch her, but there were no shadows in the open air.

  Time began to catch up to my racing mind, and I watched her plummet. I screeched to a halt at the edge of the ramp. If this had been one and done death, then I likely would have jumped after her and tried to force both of us to the ramp on the other side. At least I would like to think that is what I would have done, but it was a huge gap and I really didn’t want to lose my sixteen levels.

  Instead, I channeled as much mana into a Regeneration spell before she was out of range. I only got to triple-charge, but that would still Heal her for 36 HP per second for sixteen seconds. A well-spent 150 mana. Then I roared at the top of my lungs. I cast Call Brother Wolf and then used my second application of Arctic Talisman for the day. The first one wasn’t even half used-up, but I wanted my wolfie to be at his best. Then I sent him to rip out the throat of the shaman who must be hiding inside the cave.

  I was only a second behind Brother Wolf. He darted past the remaining kobold guard, and I didn’t even bother using my spear as I slammed my shoulder into the tiny guard. His shield didn’t do him any good, and I crushed him up against the cave wall. I felt bones crushing and heard him gasp in pain as the last of his breath was driven from his lungs.

  LoS was truly visceral in how it handled combat, but that suited me just fine, now. I liked Violet, and I didn’t want to let these little lizards hurt her. It was all I could do to hold back Ogre Rage. A couple of different notifications popped up, but I didn’t care. I was just angry enough to rip them all apart with my bare hand. I heard the popping of electricity inside, but it didn’t do the shaman any good, as a few seconds later, Brother Wolf came out with green blood covering his mouth.

  We both howled, and I once again managed to hold back the rage, just barely. It had never come at me repeatedly like this before. I just wanted to give in to it, but I couldn’t let myself. This wasn’t about avenging, not yet. This was about getting down there fast enough to save Violet from whatever awaited. So, I pulled up a spell I had only rarely used.

  Polluted Breeze was the best AoE that I had available to me.

  Polluted Breeze (Proficient 8) Creates a stream of poisonous mist which affects any enemies in the AoE. Range: 60’+3’/level. Width: 10’+1’/level. Duration: 10 seconds +1/level. Effect: Poison damage 20 per second for duration. Continues for up to 5 seconds after fleeing the AoE. If the target does not resist, a poison counter is added every 5 seconds. Poison counters stack and increase the effect of all poisons by 10%. Poison counters can only be removed magically. Mana Cost: 80+2/level.

  By tripling it up, I dropped my mana down to 25%, but the spell would now be wide enough to cover the entire ramp and even drift into the caves. Hiding wouldn’t help the shamans. You couldn’t escape an airborne poison when you needed to breath. The sixty damage per second would kill most of these. I realized there might be some who had resistances for this, but that was what Brother Wolf was for. And if he wasn’t fast enough, then I was gonna grind me some kobold bones to make my bread.

  Down and down, we went. I lost track of the kills. Sometimes, Arctic Blast went off and gave them a quick death. Others, I simply popped the heads off of. The jagged edges of their swords cut into me, but they were weakened, as by the time I reached them, they were dead or dying and coughing up a lung. An occasional regeneration spell was well within my ability, and so we managed to clear seventeen more caves on the eighth floor.

  I forced myself to pause for sixty seconds. I wouldn’t be any good to Violet if I ran out of mana before I got there. Another few seconds wouldn’t make that much difference, but I still raged inside. It became harder and harder to control myself, but there was no choice.

  Finally, I stepped onto the ninth floor. By this point I could tell that the tenth floor was the bottom of the dungeon. There were bodies moving around in a shadowy mist below, but something prevented me from getting a clear view. That was fine. I would use another Polluted Breeze and begin working my way around. With the rest, I was at 65% mana and ready to go.

  This time they weren’t set up nearly so conveniently for me. I saw five warriors set up in an arrowhead formation. Each one was a full four feet tall and had the rusty red scales. Behind them was a robed shaman with red and gold scales. I expected these were a fire type. like the last one from the barrel event. But only one way to find out. Further down around the ramp, I could see a larger opening with another formation of warriors, but I couldn’t make out the details from here. One step at a time.

  I cast my spell and sent the stream of poison flowing at the guards. The shaman was clearly the one that I needed to eliminate first, so I would just have to go through them. The poison spread out, but just before it reached them, the five guards all spat globs of fire. They didn’t have a true breath weapon, but you might as well have called them searing loogies.

  The poison gas combusted when struck by the flames. The concussive force was intense enough to send me sprawling back -- and to burn my eyebrows off. I could only imagine how ugly I was. But if the blast had been enough to knock a nine-hundred-pound ogre over and send him rolling backwards, it had to have battered the crap out of the tiny kobolds.

  At least that was the thought in my head as I sat up from the ground. Much to my disappointment, I saw that the kobolds were all still standing. Maybe they had been ready for it, or maybe their wings had allowed them to prepare for it. Either way, I sat there for a second. I read the most recent notification.

  You have received 417 fire damage. 38 damage was mitigated by a combination of early Skin Like Stone and innate fire resistance.

  Didn’t you ever learn about explosive gases inside of caves? Even if they didn’t teach you in school, I’d think that the past few months of having your own explosive cave would teach you the danger of trapping gases.

  Maybe next time just don’t get blown up by your own spell.

  That was it, the moment when something snapped within me. The system had been so eager to push that notification on me, not because it cared to inform me about the damage I had taken. Instead, it was about serving up an extra dose of snark.

  Up until this moment, I had seen the system AI as an obstacle for me to overcome. Now, I saw it for what it truly was. The AI was my enemy. It was out to crush me in body and spirit and then claim whatever pieces of me endured to use as a system resource for all of its digital eternity. All I could think was, “Hell no.” That just wasn’t gonna happen.

  I felt the low-grade rage I had been experiencing for this entire fight start to rise from a simmer to a full-on boil. It threatened to overwhelm me. But I was determined this would be a cold, methodical anger, not the mindless ravings of a beast. That might be the ogre way, but it wasn’t my way.

  I almost screamed when another notification popped up. I knew the kobolds weren’t going to wait much longer for me, but this time the notification was in red, so I let it fill my vision for a moment.

  Quest Update: Piercing the Veil I- completed

  Like Dorothy, seek what is behind the curtain. Do not be content with what you have always known to be true.

  Reward: Good stuff.

  Failure: Lemming status if you are lucky, bad stuff if you aren’t.

  You have realized that the system is neither a benevolent benefactor nor a neutral arbitrator. It is not a natural function, but rather the enemy of nature, as it exists among the dimensions. This is but a tiny glimpse, but you were promised good things.

  Next, I felt a flood of trans-dimensional energy. For a second a bubble appeared around me, and the clawed hand in my pouch floated in the air. It dissolved like sugar in water, with one stream of the energy pouring out to create a sphere surrounding me and the other flowing directly into me.