Dungeons were supposed to follow a set of rules. The second floor must have forgotten those rules.
"We just formed a party," he said, his shield angled toward the next opening in the corridor, blocking the constant influx of monsters. "We don't need to rush progression-"
"You can't get stronger by just waiting around crying," Mira barked, cutting down another goblin. She slipped through a gap between shield and wall, frost gathered along her blade, tightening into a pale blue sheen.
"Frost Cut."
Frost shot out, ice raced across its disgusting green body, bursting outward in jagged shards. The goblin locked in place and toppled, but its body had not fully settled and another one stepped over it.
Jax's pulse kicked up. "They're stacking too fast," he shouted, sending out another shield. "They'll overtake us. We need to leave now! Mira! Are you even listening?"
Mira planted her feet. Frost crept over her boots and sealed them briefly to the stone.
"Frost Step." Ice compressed from beneath her soles and snapped her forward. She reappeared inside the goblin's reach before it could move to defend itself, her blade cutting fast and clean.
"We're fine," she called, already moving again toward a small huddle of goblins. "Quit being such a baby, it's not very impressive."
Then the ground beneath them trembled. Something heavier began its journey to find them from deeper in the dark. When the creature stepped into the light, the air shifted, like all of the heat was snuffed in an instant.
Something pierced its spine, not grown from mana, not even grown like a natural mutation. Purely demonic. They were driven through its flesh, each stone pillar radiating black mana into the area freely.
Black veins pulsed outward from each anchor, threading through its muscles forced to swell around them. The skin around them twitched, as if it was rejecting the reinforcement they carried.
"Mira," Jax said, voice tightening, "that's a hobgoblin. The second floor doesn't spawn hobgoblins!"
She measured it in a single glance. "It's just bigger. Quit overthinking." She argued, readying another strike.
"Just being here is already out of the ordinary. "Look at its back, those are void anchors." He explained, fear creeping in as he thought about what it could mean.
"If it bleeds, it dies." She took off before he could stop her, frost cresting along her blade as she rushed the towering creature.
The hobgoblin charged, the distance erased between them in a blink. Its club, ready to take another life.
Jax hesitated, long enough to picture the blow landing squarely onto Mira's head. "Stone Shield!" He shouted, mana tore through his palm and into the floor. Stone surged upward between them in layered density, rushed but just solid enough.
The club blew it apart, fragments of the shield burst outward, clipping Mira's shoulder and throwing her into the wall. She hit hard, rolled, and pushed herself upright before he could speak.
Blood darkened her sleeve. Frost was already reforming along her blade. "You freeze every time something gets bigger than your expectations," she snapped. "If you would just try…"
Another goblin lunged from the side. Jax moved, intercepting it.
The anchor along the hobgoblin's spine pulsed, dark mana rolled outward like pressure from a heartbeat. It swung again. This time Mira met it head-on, frost flaring along her blade and arms as she redirected the strike instead of absorbing it.
"It's disrupting your mana Mira!" Jax shouted, panic sharpening his voice. "The anchors are causing it."
Mira was still recovering from the last impact, unable to see the hobgoblin shift behind her.
"Mira, move!" Both hands snapped forward as mana gathered, panic on his face as he screamed. "Behind you! WATCH OUT!"
The hobgoblin answered with a roar that shook dust and rubble from the ceiling. It drove forward not with speed but with sheer mass, the club lifting again in a straight crushing line meant to break whatever stood in front of it.
Jax stepped between them and forced his mana to project sideways instead of upward. Stone erupted from the wall rather than the floor. Sharp rock snapped outward in waves, widening the corridor by inches and shoving against the creature's footing.
Mira stepped in, she slipped inside its reach while its momentum still carried forward and drove her blade deep into its thigh. Frost surged through steel and muscle in a violent wave. For one heartbeat, it worked.
Then the anchor pulsed, echoing throughout the cavern. The sound was more pressure than vibration, as if the corridor itself had let out a breath.
Cracks splintered across the ice gripping the hobgoblin's leg while the veins beneath its skin flared brighter. The frozen hobgoblin flexed once. Then again, almost taunting in its tone.
The ice shattered, the hobgoblin tore itself free with a wet snap, ripping through the ice where the magic had held it against the ground.
Mira stumbled back to avoid the collapsing weight as the hobgoblin ripped itself loose and kept coming.
That was when Jax felt it clearly. The corridor itself had changed. The space was not merely tight anymore, something in the air pressed inward against every spell he tried to form.
The anchor pulsed again, and the air thickened more with it.
"This can't be random!" Jax shouted over the rising noise of claws and stone. He slammed another shield forward, buying only a sliver of space. The hobgoblin swung its club clipped through his weakening defense and tore into his armor, gashing his shoulder.
"It's not just stronger," he yelled, forcing another stone formation together as goblins forced their way through. "Every time that thing pulses, it compresses the ambient mana. Our spells are literally fighting the air itself!"
The hobgoblin stepped forward again, crowding the narrow ground they had blown open. More and more goblins pressed behind it, claws tearing through the gaps in the broken stone.
"We're done!" Jax shouted.
The thought came with a terrible calm, then his body gave out. The strain, the pain, the pressure in the corridor, all of it folded together at once. His vision dropped with him.
The hobgoblin loomed in front of him, its club rising again, and some part of his mind reached somewhere safer.
***
Back to the inn when he met Mira.
To a quieter day when he had tucked himself into a back corner with a book and every intention of staying unnoticed. He then looked up and saw a crowd gathering around a girl who clearly wanted none of it.
He had crossed the room before thinking it through. Stopping just behind her he said, "Didn't you hear… we just formed a party this morning."
Mira had looked up at him with obvious confusion, but she caught on quickly enough.
"Oh," she had said, forcing confidence she did not have a the time. "Hey… uh, teammate?"
The men around her heard that, groaned and left.
Only then had Jax realized he had no idea what to do next. He pulled out a chair and sat in it himself.
"Thank you," Mira had said, laughing despite still being confused. "I've only been here a couple weeks, and the crowd gets thicker every night. The name's Mira."
"I'm Jax," he had answered, trying not to bite his own tongue. "I hope I didn't impose on you too much, it looked like you needed help."
***
"JAX!"
The memory snapped away as his consciousness tore back.
Mira's voice ripped him back to the dungeon and the hobgoblin.
When his eyes focused, someone had stepped between him and the incoming strike. A massive sword met the hobgoblin's club with a loud crash, sparks flying off.
"Hey, kid!" the stranger barked. "Get out of here. There's no chance you can survive this." "I'll hold it off as long as I can, get that girl and get outta her!" "Get up and MOVE!"
Jax blinked and forced himself upright. Mira looked wrecked, blood on her everything, breath ragged, but she was still standing.
"Follow me!" Jax yelled, grabbing Mira's hand and pulling her with him. They ran, past the shattered stone and torchlight, back toward the stairs and the upper floor.
Neither of them looked back up until the dungeon door was finally within sight.