“There,” Kat whispered, one hand dug into the massive tree’s bark while she pointed with the other. A white shape popped its head out of a knothole on the next tree over, looking back and forth before climbing out entirely. It was segmented and insectoid, clinging to the surface of the tree with six pointed legs while its antenna and vestigial glimmering wings waved in the breeze.

“Good eye,” Jaalin said with a grunt, squinting as she looked at the other tree. “Hiver mites are an unpleasant opponent. Even if you can defeat one or two of them without much trouble, a hive will have hundreds if not thousands of mites. If you aren’t careful and prepared, you will get swarmed and you will die.”

“Unfortunately,” Dorrik chimed in, “that is the location of our next dungeon. That leaves us the choice of sneaking in or killing our way in. Either option will be a challenge.”

Jaalin’s crest rippled gently, swaying in a wind that wasn’t there as she thought. Finally, she shrugged, turning her attention to Dorrik.

“We aren’t kitted out to raid a hive, but at the same time we do have a six person team, and all of us are above or near peak performance for this level. It’s a risk, but mite jelly is a valuable commodity. I’m not going to pretend like the whole party won’t benefit from taking that risk. Ultimately, it’s your coming of age that we are preparing for Dorrik. It’s your call.”

“Kaleek? Miss Kat?” Dorrik asked, digging their hands into the side of the tree as they looked to their companions. “What are your thoughts?”

Kaleek shrugged, ramming the toe of his armored boots into the tree and letting its point embed itself deep enough in the bark that it could support his weight. Without pausing, he shoved a gauntlet hand into the tree, sending an avalanche of wood chips into the air as he continued his steady descent down its side.

“I don’t care overly much,” he remarked. “If the battle will be too difficult, I can see the point in not pushing ourselves too much before the dungeon. Still, it would be nice to swing my sword around a little to limber up. I’m starting to feel a little antsy.”

Kat paused, one hand halfway to the next crack in the bark. She looked down at Kaleek below here and narrowed her eyes at the desoph.

“Was that a pun? Are you joking around right now?”

“What mite make you think that?” Kaleek replied, innocently blinking up at her. “The idea of bringing levity into a serious situation like this one practically has me breaking out in hives.”

Above her, one of the lokkels snickered. Kat glared up at them, but by the time she was able to snap her head up, all four of them were as stoic and grave as ever.

“And your opinion Miss Kat?” Dorrik asked earnestly. “Should we try and sneak through the hive, return to the adventurer’s hall and make preparations for an assault tomorrow, or assault the mites tonight?”

Kat shook her head, returning to her climb. Their group was running low on time, so missing another dungeon was a major setback. It was true that they hadn’t been able to finish a dungeon a day, as the dives had gotten more difficult. Sometimes it would take Dorrik and Jaalin two to three days to gather the information as well as the materials needed to assure success.

“How hard are hiver mites to fight?” Kat questioned, sliding her shoe into a divot carved by Kaleek’s claws. “Are we talking ordinary dungeon spawn difficult or like, mind powers and ripping your brain apart from the inside out level difficult?”

“Only the queens have psi abilities,” Jaalin responded, “and they aren’t particularly impressive ones. They can make the inside of your eyeballs itch, but it’s pretty easy to distract them. They don’t have thick hides and even a small amount of damage will force them to lose their focus. So long as you have a ranged person pelting them from afar, they’re basically a non factor in the fight.”

“The normal mites mostly just spit,” Toorvu said helpfully. “Not anything damaging like acid, but they shoot a stream of mulched up wood at you that hardens pretty quickly. Normally they use it to build their nests, but enough of them spray that gunk on you and you’ll find yourself frozen in place fairly quickly.”

Kat nodded thoughtfully. Toorvu didn’t talk much, but the big lokkel bearer was almost a cross between Dorrik and Kaleek in combat. They used two heavy swords and a variety of skills to carve out a combat style that didn’t quite have Dorrik’s speed and grace, but at the same time captured some of Kaleek’s brutal ferocity. Even given their higher level, Kat would pick her teammates over the other lokkel in a heartbeat, but Toorvu was absolutely an elite warrior. If they had experience with the hiver mites, Kat would listen.

“Will Stekat be able to tame any of the mites?” Kat asked, inclining her head toward the other new lokkel as she climbed. “They don’t have any beasts with them at the moment, and being able to turn a couple enemies in the heat of the battle sounds like it could be a game changer in a mass attack situation.”

“Maybe,” Stekat grunted from above. “Mites aren’t terribly powerful so my ability should work even in combat. Anything bigger than them requires a trap and some prolonged time as I use my class abilities over and over again on them. We’ll have to watch out for their queen though. She can reassert mental control over them and block out taming if she isn’t distracted. I might be able to turn two or three of them at a time, but beyond that I’d be more effective putting my crossbow to use on the queen.”

She chewed her lip, weighing the various options as she climbed. The floor, and her need to make a decision were dangerously close. Stealth didn’t really seem to be an option. Stekat, Jaalin, Dorrik and her might be able to manage it, but both Toorvu and Kaleek tended to sound like bulldozers as they climbed. There was simply too much metal jingling against metal and wood to make that a credible option.

Really, the question seemed to be whether or not they would attempt to raid the dungeon at all. The Murky Depths were the last iron dungeon within a day’s walk of their starting point, and the hiver mites would be just as much of an impediment tomorrow as they were today. Either their team would regroup and purchase potions and consumable weapons to help them through a raid on the mites, or they would have to spend extra time relocating to another ‘village’ so that they could find another iron dungeon and prepare for it afresh. That would take weeks.

Kat exhaled. The mite on the other tree ducked back into a knothole. Her heart skittered like the giant pale insect. It felt like she was the one making the final decision, and that wasn’t a level of responsibility she was terribly comfortable with.

Ironic really. In the real world, her word was enough to move thousands of people, changing their lives for the better or consigning them to poverty, suffering and death. There was something abstract about it. Those people were distant, numbers on a spreadsheet that might evoke sympathy from her, but ultimately it was hard for her to put names and faces to each of their existences.

Kaleek was real. Dorrik was real. Even Jaalin, Toorvu and Stekat, as abrasive as the three could be at times, all of them were real. They mattered, and the idea of looking into their eyes and risking their lives was hard. Far harder than it had any right to be.

Dorrik probably knew that. They had already analyzed the situation and come to the only possible conclusion. Kaleek clearly wanted to go on a killing rampage, it was more or less his base state of being. The only reason that the two of them would defer to her was to turn the decision into a teaching moment. Everyone knew what needed to happen, it was just up to Kat to look the future in the eye and say it.

She took a deep breath.

“Let’s do it. If Stekat can use a couple of the mites to keep our flanks clean, so long as the rest of us keep moving, we should be able to handle the hivers.”

Kaleek grinned up at her, his teeth gleaming in the dim light of the forest. Kat rolled her eyes back at him. Her hands moved on their own as she shook her head. Of course the desoph would be thrilled at the concept of violence. His sword could probably cut a mite in half with a single swing. Having the chance to fight hundreds of the monsters must be like Christmas for him.

“Then it’s settled,” Dorrik said. “Toorvu and Kaleek will take up the vanguard. Miss Kat and I will handle the wings, cutting them free if they get bogged down in wood spit. Jaalin and Stekat will bring up the rear, keeping the queen from focusing long enough to organize a defense. Once the hive is clear, Jaalin, Stekat and Toorvu can begin harvesting the enzyme glands from the downed hiver mites while Kaleek, Miss Kat and I enter the dungeon.”

“Agreed,” Jaalin replied. “Both the battle plan and the split of the loot are sound. We will form up as soon as we are out of the tree and begin our assault.”

Kat glanced down. They were only twenty or so paces from the ground. An easy jump with Levitation or Flight, but saving her mana for the battle itself made sense.

The remaining climb took a minute, and most of that time was Kat stretching her arms as she waited for the last of the lokkel to dismount. Once they were all down on the ground, she cast Pseudopod and began checking her weapons while the rest of her group did the same.

“Jaalin,” Dorrik said respectfully. “If you would shake the hiver mites a bit, I think the six of us would prefer to fight them on the ground rather than risk a fight on the bark of their tree where they likely have defenses.”

“A pleasure,” the female lokkel replied, raising a scepter and muttering the words to a spell.

Kat could feel the energy as Jaalin pulled it from the air, twisting it with arcane words and transferring it up her arm and into her focus. The magic thrummed and crackled for a second before a bolt of pure force launched from the lokkel, crossing the distance between her and the tree in an eyeblink before a huge chunk of its bark exploded, showering the ground with splinters and parts of hiver mites as the attack burrowed deep into their warrens.

Cream colored mites swarmed out of the hole, their antenna waving wildly. Further up on the tree, a half dozen other hidden access points began releasing their own torrent of monsters.

Kat didn’t bother looking up at them, instead raising her crossbow and shooting at one of the giant insects as it spread its glittering wings. The bolt sunk deep into the creature’s thorax. One shot wasn’t enough to kill the mite, but its clawed feet did lose their grip on the massive tree, sending it plummeting a couple dozen paces to the ground where it splattered on the webwork of hard wooden roots.

She barely followed its descent, instead focusing her attention on reloading her crossbow, sliding the quarrel into place before straining to lever back the string with smooth practiced movements. When Kat looked back up, almost a dozen of the mites had jumped from their perches, wings spread wide as they glided toward the six interlopers attacking their hive.

There wasn’t any hesitation in Kat’s movements. Her bow tracked one of the flying monsters, counting on Toorvu and Kaleek to handle the initial swarm of attackers, and with a satisfying thump against her shoulder, she punctured another bug.

Again, it wasn’t enough to kill the monster, but the pain from the arrow sticking out of the mite’s midsection made it instinctively curl up on itself. Its wings pulled to its side, and that was all it took to send the creature plummeting to the ground.

A third bolt struck another mite between the eyes, killing it immediately. Kat’s arms were beginning to ache. As strong as her crossbow was, rapidly firing arrows didn’t really fit her attributes.

Stekat on the other hand was making easy work of the advancing bugs. Their crossbow was larger and more robust, but despite that they could load and fire it slightly faster than Kat. It flashed red with each shot, and Kat was pretty sure that the bolts were curving slightly in the air so that they could pass directly through one mite in order to hit a companion gliding behind it.

Her fourth bolt passed through the wing of a mite, ripping through gossamer membrane like it was tissue paper. Unfortunately, the small fist-sized hole wasn’t enough to slow the bug. It listed slightly to the left, but beyond that, the attack didn’t inflict any noticeable damage.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Then, Jaalin’s second spell finished. A hailstorm of energy pellets, each about the size of Kat’s fist, pattered into the swarm of gliding insects. Thoraxes dented and cracked, leaking steaming blood from almost a dozen wounds on each attacker.

They began to fall from the sky, their wings shredded by the spell. Only one or two of the mites made it through the huge attack, easy prey for the flashes of purple that marked Dorrik’s surgical use of their psi abilities to augment the steady twang of crossbow fire.

Ahead of Kat, Kaleek and Toorvu were diving into the stampeding herd of mites. Toorvu methodically advancing as their swords struck the joints between the thorax and heads of the mites, killing them with quick and precise blows. Kaleek was a whirlwind, battering the insects aside with his armor and bulk as much as he used his sword. Like Toorvu, each slash killed a mite, but where Toorvu focused on swordplay and efficiency, Kaleek simply tore through the mites with heavy and wild blows.

A spray of chunky brown liquid launched itself from the rear rank of the mites toward the rampaging otter. Kaleek managed to get his sword up in time, but that only meant that the spit spattered all over him, the wood pulp rapidly hardening into something resembling organic concrete.

He took a step forward only to wobble slightly, the joints on his left arm and leg frozen in place by the backsplash. Without pausing, Kaleek grabbed his greatsword in only his right hand, swinging it in a wide arc to keep the mites at bay.

“Kat!” He bellowed. “A little help here!”

She set her crossbow down, leaving it next to a distinctive looking rock and drawing her knife before taking off in a run. A moment of concentration summoned Gravity’s Grasp around Kaleek. The desoph staggered under the spell, but after countless nights fighting by Kat’s side, he was more or less used to the spell’s effects.

The same could not be said for the mites. All of them near Kaleek stumbled, most falling to the ground with only a few able to shakily maintain their feet. Amongst the standing, only one managed to take a hesitant step or two before Kaleek’s greatsword, burning crimson with the power of an activated ability, slammed through its face and thorax, snuffing it out in a moment.

Now that the mite charge was stalled out, more and more of them were launching streams of brownish saliva and wood pulp at Kat’s party. Toorvu was quick enough to dodge the jets of wood slurry, but Kaleek could barely move. Gravity’s Grasp redirected most of the attacks, jerking them toward the ground and away from the immobile desoph. Still, the splash and spatter managed to coat both of his legs.

By the time Kat reached Kaleek, both of his legs were frozen in place, a waist high wall of dead mites in front of him. She jumped to her left, dodging a streak of wood spit as her Pseudopod went to work, reacting to movements she couldn’t even see as it stabbed repeatedly into the faces and thoraxes of the insects crowding around the two of them

“Hurry,” Kaleek grunted, swinging his sword to cut another hiver mite in half. Gravity’s Grasp had bought them a couple of seconds, but the monsters were growing accustomed to the extra weight. In dribs and drabs they were standing and lurching toward the two of them.

Kat’s dagger flashed back and forth, chipping the hardened wood from Kaleek’s armor even as her Pseudopod protected her back. It didn’t quite have the same precision she did, but its quick stabs were effective in their own way, wounding mites badly enough that Gravity’s Grasp would pull them to the forest floor.

Another spray of wood spit arced through the air, and Kat spun to the left. Kaleek stabbed downward, skewering a mite and wrenching it up into the air where the stream of wood slurry coated its body. The flamboyant attack left him open, and another bug clanked its mandibles tight on his right leg, but a brief red burst of stamina was all it took for the desoph to ignore its jaws entirely.

Kaleek swung his sword, sending the solidifying insect flying through the air and back into its swarm of companions while Kat continued her work, sliding her dagger into the gaps in his armor and freeing his limbs so that they could move once more. He swung again over Kat’s shoulder, prompting her to smoothly duck the attack as it split open a leaping mite.

Finally, barely three seconds from when she started, Kat slapped the desoph on the back with an audible clank, dropping Gravity’s Grasp the moment she gave the signal. Kaleek sprang forward with a bestial roar and a savage smile on his face, bowling over a pair of mites and trampling them with his heavy boots as he charged once more into the horde.

Kat took a brief moment to assess the situation as she shifted her mana into Levitation. Dorrik was more than holding their own, moving quickly enough in Toorvu’s wake to avoid the saliva attacks and mite jaws with equal ease. Toorvu’s advance had slowed, and monsters were beginning to surround them, but with Dorrik’s help they hadn’t been completely mobbed yet.

In the rear, Stekat had acquired three mites that were spraying wood pulp all over any attackers that drew near. Between their minions and their crossbow, they were managing to hold back the wall of white insects, but it was a losing battle. Every second the wave of onrushing monsters drew closer.

As she watched, Jaalin unleashed a spell, lifting her scepter up into the air and summoning a swirling cloud of blue energy that began to pelt the horde with blades of pure force. Not every attack managed to kill a mite, but most of the attackers were hit two or three times in the first second, more than enough to put them down.

Kat Leapt back toward the rear, landing atop the back of a mite that had paused and was rearing up onto its hind legs to fire another jet of wood cement. Her weight, lightened by Levitation, wasn’t enough to knock it over, but the impact did shift it off balance. Before it could register that she was astride its thorax, Kat’s knife slipped into the soft connective tissue linking its head and thorax, severing the nerve bundle in a quick, sure stroke.

She kicked off of its back, flying through the air toward another cluster of mites even as her Pseudopod stabbed and cut at the teeming mass of white chitin underneath her. In the sky, the blue storm grew in size, absorbing more mana as Jaalin continued her arcane chant.

The hail of knife blades condensed and lances of force began to fall, each of them exploding and shaking the ground as they killed two or three of the mites at once. Between Jaalin’s mass assault cleaning out the center of the white tide and the work of the other warriors, the pressure from the mites was beginning to abate.

Still, Kat didn’t lower her guard. Even if hundreds of the bugs were dead, there were hundreds more on the battlefield. She landed in another cluster of mites, a whirling dervish of movement and flashing knife blades as she killed another four of the monsters in a matter of seconds.

Brownish spit lobbed through the air, one blast catching Kaleek straight in the chest. Just as Kat turned to help him out, another stream coated Jaalin’s legs, freezing her to the ground as well. Kat hesitated for a fraction of a second, eyes darting from her companion to the lokkel.

Then a massive head pushed itself through a knothole in the tree, eyes glowing a dull amber and spikes of chitin forming a crude crown of thorns above its head. Its antenna waved, and every mite in the rear perked up at once.

They swarmed toward Jaalin and Stekat, movements quicker and more precise as they sought to bring down the trapped arcane spellcaster that had caused the hive so much trouble. Kat launched herself into the air toward the rear, counting on Dorrik to free Kaleek.

She touched down on the back of a mite, halfway to her teammates. Kat didn’t bother to attack herself, letting her Pseudopod drive a knife into the creature’s back as she kicked off once again. While in the air, the three mites that had been defending Stekat and Jaalin shuddered.

“Kat!” Stekat screamed, “the queen is trying to-”

They never finished the sentence as one of their captive mites broke free of its control, spraying its former master with wood pulp and sealing their muzzle shut.

Kat dropped Levitation mid air, switching instead to firing Dehydration in rapid succession. The spell wasn’t strong enough to kill the monsters, but it did disrupt them enough to drop them to the ground, legs clenching in uncontrolled spasms.

The second she landed, Kat sprang into the crowd of monsters that had begun to surround Stekat and Jaalin, careful to keep herself moving as fast as possible as she stabbed and cut the clamoring swarm. More globs of wood spit splattered on the ground around her, but Kat ducked and wove through the storm of droplets as they hung in the air.

After ten hectic seconds of combat, Kat’s stamina was beginning to run low, but most of the nearby mites were on the ground. More were still stampeding toward the three of them, but she had a moment of freedom to slash the wooden bindings off of Jaalin and Stekat.

Jaalin couldn’t say anything, her mouth was occupied with the repetitive nonsense chant that kept the storm of magic active in the center of the battlefield, but Stekat spoke up the minute they could.

“You need to use Ward Kat! The hiver mite queen is coming out of her nest to join the fray, but there are still hundreds of mites left inside. Block the exit she’s using while you cover Jaalin and I. You’re going to need to count on Toorvu, Kaleek, and Dorrik to handle the rest of the swarm.”

Kat just nodded, grabbing her spare knife from Pseudopod and whipping it at a nearby mite as she let the spell fade. Even with her repeated use of Levitation and Dehydration, she was still above half mana, not as much as she’d like, but enough for her to seal the hive’s largest exit.

She took a deep breath, darting forward on instinct to stab her knife between a monster’s eyes. The strange words of the arcane spell bubbled up from inside her, pouring out between Kat’s lips as she kept her mind focused on the large knothole that sat just behind the queen.

The huge bug stared balefully a the three of them. Where the regular mites stood somewhere between waist and shoulder high, she was huge, at least as big as a semi. Her body was covered with small spikes that grew in size until they formed a sharp crown atop her mandibled head where purple sparks of psi energy leapt and jumped from tine to tine as she asserted her control over her children.

Kat barely processed her body’s actions as her spell snapped into place. Distantly she was aware of herself spinning past a pair of snapping bug jaws and reversing her grip on her knife before slamming the blade into the side of its head, but that was secondary to the plane of magical force that sealed the exit shut.

Mana flowed up from her core and through Kat’s steadily working mouth before it jumped across the gap and continuously reinforced the magical barrier. She could feel spearlike legs and frantic mandibles clattering against it, each blow sapping the magic invested into the spell.

Absently, she rushed at another mite, jumping over its snapping jaws before her left hand darted downward, snagging the chitin behind the back of its head and pulling herself downward onto its back. Days and hours of training with Dorrik at maintaining her focus while moving and fighting showed their worth as Kat’s knife rose and fell three times without a single hitch in the arcane chant.

Stekat’s crossbow entered the fray, and that was the beginning of the end. Each bolt struck with enough force to punch through a half inch of steel, more than enough to defeat the queen’s armor. She jerked backward, ichor leaking from a hole in her thorax, and the flashes of purple light around her crown dissipated.

Around Kat, the mites paused, their antennae waving as they sought further instructions. Before the queen could reestablish control, Stekat shot her again. This time the quarrel hit further up on the mite’s thorax, driving the huge creature back a half step.

The swarm’s pause was put to good use. Jaalin’s storm began to move, sliding horizontally through the huge crowd of opponents and killing dozens upon dozens of bugs under its thundering, explosive rain. At the same time, the melee fighters slashed and fought their way through the crowd, careful to keep out of the path of the destructive spell.

Finally, just as Kat was slashing the connective tissue between yet another mite’s head and thorax the swarm began to move again, albeit sluggishly and without any sense of purpose. Stekat reached out with their lower set of arms, hands glittering with a faint golden light while they reloaded their crossbow. Ten paces to Kat’s left, a similar yellow aura surrounded a mite a half second before it began tearing into its companions without warning.

Kat threw herself to the side a half second before another jet of brownish mite spit coated the area, coming out of her roll with her knife extended and stabbing it into yet another bug’s side.

She could feel the insects pounding at Ward, almost as much a threat to her concentration as the monsters snapping their mandibles at her from within arms reach. Mana flowed out of her, dropping her reserves dangerously low in order to reinforce the barrier, but it was nowhere near as severe as before.

Whatever the queen had been doing, disrupted yet again as a fourth bolt appeared in her thorax, it had increased all of the mites' speed and ferocity along with their focus. Without her participation, their greatly depleted numbers wouldn’t be sufficient to turn the tide of the fight.

Kat slipped her knife in between yet another bug's clattering jaws, stabbing upward at the last second to skewer the monster’s head. Near the front, she watched Kaleek burst free from the teeming swarm of angry bugs. He sprinted past the edge of Jaalin’s storm, jumping up onto the side of the tree.

Stekat shot the queen with another quarrel, cracking her armor yet again. Ichor ran down her chitin like rivers, dripping onto the tree’s bark as she clung to it tightly, no longer even trying to reassert control over her children. Kaleek’s entire body erupted in red light, and he practically galloped up the side of the huge tree, sending sprays of wood chips flying into the air as his gauntlets and boots carved huge divots out of the bark.

The queen looked up at the last second, antenna quivering as she sighted the rampaging desoph. Before she could do anything, Kaleek swung his greatsword, one clean stroke cutting through both of her front legs.

She teetered for a second as Kaleek pulled himself tight against the tree. Then, with a third of her legs gone and a half dozen arrows sticking from her ruined armor, the queen fell, plummeting past the desoph and down almost twenty paces to the ground below.

Kat didn’t know whether or not the drop had killed the huge hiver mite, but Kaleek didn’t take any chances. With a delighted, warbling yell, he leapt from the side of the tree, armored body rushing downward as he shifted his sword into a double handed grip and thrust downward.

He hit with the force of a meteor, sword leading the way. The queen’s thorax more or less disappeared, replaced by a crater and a heavily armored otter covered in gore.

“Of course he did,” Kat muttered to herself, rolling her eyes. “I don’t know what else I would have expected out of that idiot.”

Around Kat, the mites froze, their movements slowing even more. Whereas the fight had been a foregone conclusion, now it barely felt sporting. Level one players without a class or training could easily dodge the remaining bug’s clumsy attacks. The remaining battle would only be a matter of time, and not a very long time at that.