Anika and her companions did not rest and relax during the lesser portion of the week. Even Lily felt the pressure of the upcoming Chaos Eruption, and didn’t try to distract Anika with trips to the village or a swim in the springs. She understood, like Anika, that they needed to prepare for an unknown number of monsters in an environment that could result in harm to villagers or their homes.

  The temple leaders took Weyami to make plans, so Anika and her companions focused on practicing their magical and combat skills. Leka found them in the evening, where Panu and Philip had joined Anika and her companions at a table. Zola had already left, having been informed by their trainer that they would depart for Asiwek in the morning as part of the defense team for the Major dungeon. Morigan, on the other hand, hadn’t returned to the dining hall that day.

  Leka informed the group that they would all take part in the defense of the temple and village of Kanewek. Until then, they would spend each afternoon in the dungeons. Panu and Philip would return to the higher level dungeon, as they hoped Philip might level before the eruption. Anika and her companions would continue to level with Sinaya, helping to clear out the future site of the eruption. The priests believed that monster spawns would increase this week leading up to the eruption, and that clearing the dungeon daily would reduce the impact of the eruption on the surrounding area.

  Lily took the news that they would not spend time with Philip and Epona that week relatively well, surprising Anika even more. The capybara had chattered all day about how she wanted to level with the pair this week, but she accepted the decision with little more than a sad trill when Leka made the announcement.

  Anika had mixed feelings about the assignments. She wanted to level as much as possible, but Leka said they would still do their normal morning practices and only attend the dungeons in the afternoon. They also planned to have many groups in the dungeon, and Anika and Sinaya would be on squirrel duty for the week, only straying into the prairie for pantopu or water buffalo if they spawned close to the trees. Four other groups would join them in the dungeon, each with their assigned areas. This would allow them to handle any increased spawn rate.

  When Anika and her companions returned to their room that evening, Lily finally made her opinion known.

  “We get to go dungeon party alone! Yay! I am going to kill all the squirrels with my rock and we will get lots of experience!” Lily excitedly jumped around the room, her earlier sadness at not leveling with Philip and Epona nothing compared to her ‘I’m a big kid now’ energy.

  “We need to be careful, Lily. They don’t know how many monsters will spawn, and they could spawn in larger packs than we are used to. You have to promise me you won’t run off ahead of Hawthorn when we are alone without Leka to protect us.” Anika didn’t think they would have any difficulty with the squirrels, but it didn’t hurt to be cautious. Lily had demonstrated good restraint since the giant hummingbird incident, but overconfidence fighting the same low level monsters day after day could easily cause her to regress into more reckless habits. Ultimately, Anika was just happy they didn’t have to be on lidok duty for a week. The thought made her shudder.

  “I’ll be careful! I will follow Hawthorn! We will kill lots of monsters! But I wish we could fight more than squirrels. We killed them easy last week! Oh, I want to go to the dungeon right now!”

  As Lily passed Hawthorn, the bear hybrid reached out a paw and pressed Lily onto the rug next to him, forcibly halting her zoomies as he gently held her down.

  “Let me gooooooo!” Lily squealed, her body wriggling under Hawthorn’s hefty paw.

  “Sleep now,” rumbled the capybeara, who proceeded to lie down and pull Lily into him like she was a stuffed animal to snuggle with.

  Anika laughed, “I think you’re a little too excited for Hawthorn. He’s right, we should get sleep. Tomorrow will be a busy day!”

  Lily calmed down after a few moments of forcible snuggles from the teddy bear of a capybara that was Hawthorn, and she drifted to sleep without even joining Anika in bed. Once sure Lily wouldn’t run off to the dungeon alone at night, Anika allowed herself to sleep, only slightly anxious for the coming trials.

  —--

  The first two days in the dungeon, the team fell into a healthy rhythm of killing squirrels. A few of the packs each day had slightly more squirrels than normal, and the squirrels seemed to have much higher levels than normal, a sign of the increasing Chaos with the upcoming eruption. They only encountered one Scurry Captain the first day, and two the second, though Leka warned them that they expected increased boss spawns in the dungeon. They did, however, encounter enough squirrels that Anika, Lily, and later Hawthorn all managed to reach level 12.

  Level 12 Achieved

  Potency: 21

  Anima: 22

  Vitality: 24

  You have [1] stat point to assign

  Anika quickly put her point into Potency and another window appeared.

  Healing Spring is now available.

  Healing Spring: A healing spring forms at the feet of an ally, restoring a moderate amount of health over time.

  “Nice, I got a new healing spell!” Anika exclaimed, excited at having an option besides Soothing Waters.

  “Aww no fair! I didn’t get any new spells again! And you got them two levels in a row!” Lily plopped to a sitting position, pouting.

  Hawthorn padded over to her and patted her on the head with his gigantic bear paw.

  “You got a lot of spells between level 5 and 10. You haven’t even tried to use them all yet.” Anika crossed her arms and looked at her, “when was the last time you used Repel?”

  “Nothing is attacking me so I don’t have to! I used it once with the dungeon boss! But my scarf does the same thing! It’s like not having a spell at all.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Your scarf won’t block everything, you should save it for something you don’t see coming and use Repel whenever you can.”

  Lily had multiple defenses now, which gave Anika excellent peace of mind. Lily also didn’t get attacked often, not when Hawthorn, Anika, and Sinaya presented much more threatening targets. But that meant Lily didn’t get much chance to use her defensive abilities, and Anika worried that she may not have the reaction time to save herself when it mattered when she didn’t practice at lower levels. Maybe she should ask Leka the best way to practice using defensive abilities. Anika could use the practice with her Veil spell as well.

  “I use it sometimes! But I want more spells to attack with!” Lily belly-flopped forward melodramatically.

  Even Sinaya couldn’t hold back a giggle at Lily’s antics. Anika laughed and rolled her eyes, “But Lily, if you had more spells your favorite rock would get lonely.”

  Hawthorn reached over to Lily’s rock, which she had dropped next to her during the battle, and rolled it away from her, “Mine now.”

  “I can do both!” Lily rolled back to her feet and ran after Hawthorn and her rock, leaving Sinaya and Anika to their laughter.

  —

  When Anika and her group arrived at the dining hall at the end of the week, Panu and Philip sat waiting for them at their normal table. Her group normally made it back earlier, as the dungeon Philip and Panu had spent the week in took longer to travel to. Panu looked a bit singed, but in good spirits despite being lightly charred. Figuring they must have a good story, Anika hurried her crew through the buffet line, Lily levitating the plates while she piled on food.

  As they sat down at the table, Anika could see Panu now sported a new hairstyle, the left side of his head now cut close to his head while the top and right remained long and wavy, as if he had gotten an undercut on just one side.

  Anika raised a quizzical eyebrow at Panu. “So… who beat you in a fight?”

  Panu leaned forward casually, resting his elbows on the table, a half smile crossing his face. “Well, we may have had a little run in with a cat.”

  “But cats are small and cute! How did that hurt you?” Lily hadn’t touched her food, already raptly interested in whatever had happened to Panu and Philip today. Hawthorn, on the other hand, indulged his appetite.

  “This was a big cat!” Philip held up his arms, indicating they faced an animal closer to a leopard in size. “Zali called it a Fire Leopard.”

  “Ohhh…” Lily nodded, “what happened with it?”

  “We had just taken out a big group of snakes.” Panu began the tale, and Anika shuddered thinking of fighting a pack of snakes. She knew that the dungeons had snakes, but she absolutely did not look forward to encountering them. She tried to pay attention to Panu rather than getting caught up on snakes.

  “Zali was helping me and Epona and telling me how to block the snakes better. I had trouble with them.” Philip added before Panu could go much further.

  “Right,” Panu agreed, “and Kane saw some mushrooms he wanted us to harvest. So I headed to one patch, and he headed to another.”

  “And Malik stayed with me and Zali.” Philip jumped in.

  “Who is Malik?” Lily asked.

  “Zali’s partner. He’s a Water mage, a pure healer type. He has Essence as his secondary magic.” Panu answered instead of Philip. “As I was saying, I was picking some mushrooms in some trees. Next thing I knew, a big black thing smacked into me, and I landed hard on my side. Its claws couldn’t penetrate old Magma here,” Panu patted his own shoulder, indicating his robe, “so I wasn’t too worried about it. Just a little bruising.”

  Lily gasped appropriately with the story, fully engaged in Panu’s retelling, “Oh no!”

  “How did it surprise you? Weren’t you using the mini-map?” Anika had used it to prevent herself from being ambushed by a frog, so she knew it would work against a much larger creature like a leopard.

  Panu waved a hand at Anika dismissively, “Ah, that kept making me think something was in my eye, so I turned it off.”

  “Then you deserved to be snuck up on.” Anika rolled her eyes, immediately lacking any sympathy for Panu’s situation.

  “Anyway,” Panu glared at Anika as he continued his story, focusing on Lily. “So, I started wrestling it off me.”

  “He didn’t call for help, so we didn’t even know the cat was there!” Philip exclaimed.

  Panu waved dismissively at Philip, “As I said, Magma protected me from its claws, so I figured I could take a little cat. I thought it would be fun! I managed to flip over and face it, grabbed its front legs to keep its head away, and rolled it off me. It was going great!”

  “Then what happened?” Lily asked.

  “I figured I would just hit it real quick with some fire spells and it would be taken care of. So I cast Fire Blast. It knocked the cat away like it was supposed to, but instead of burning it, it lit up with red spots all over. Turns out fighting fire with fire when facing a Fire Leopard is a bad idea. They absorb it and shoot it right back out at you. I, of course, didn’t know this, and by the time I realized, I couldn’t quite get out of the way of the fireball it spit back out at me. And it burned my glorious hair.” Panu rubbed his now short hair on the left side of his face dramatically.

  “Oh no!” Lily cried. Anika just rolled her eyes.

  “That’s when I heard him yell.” Philip said. “I ran over with Zali and Malik and Malik put the fire out with his water.”

  “Why didn’t you just control the fire and turn it off?” Anika asked.

  “Well, I was rather shocked! My glorious hair was burning! Such a tragedy.” Panu sighed.

  —--

  Aether looked at the full pantheon of gods arrayed before him in the control room.

  “Are the priests prepared for the Eruption tomorrow?”

  “They’ve brought in every high level individual in the Degeta region with any combat experience. Crews are stationed in Asiwek and will move to surround the dungeon.” Space replied.

  “Do we have an exact time for the eruption?” Aether looked towards Time.

  “We expect the eruption to begin shortly after sunrise outside Kanewek. The second eruption will begin closer to noon the second day in the dungeons outside Asiwek and Kanewek.”

  “And what of our heroes?” Aether looked at the rest of the gods who had spent the day monitoring the plans of the priests.

  “My hero will fight at the Kanewek dungeon with Fire and Earth. Air’s princess,” Water said the word with a derogatory tone, while smiling smugly at Air, “still refuses to leave her room.”

  Air glared back at Water, but kept his mouth shut, having no defense for his hero at a time when they needed everyone to support the eruption.

  “The priests assigned them to work as a group along multiple other groups, composed primarily of the lower-ranking acolytes and priests, including some of the town priests that will form a ring around the dungeon to contain escaping monsters.” Fire added.

  “And the highest level priests and warriors from the temple and town have all traveled north with Aether’s mercenary to do the same at Asiwek.” Earth volunteered.

  Aether nodded along while looking at the reports on his monitors. “Let us hope our preparations are enough.”