Harper leaned back, lips unlocking from Davis. She smiled up at him, not sure if he could see it in the dark. He moved his hands, one from around her waist and the other from her neck, leaning against a tree. Harper shifted, leaning into his shoulder. She looked up at the moon above.

  “Mr. Millman, you take me to the most interesting places,” she said.

  Davis laughed.

  “That Dungeon was fun,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  Her father had taken his group to a new Dungeon that had been found. She’d convinced him to let her join Davis’ team in exploring one of the former Silver Bark Claimed Dungeons. It’d been in the side of a hill just past the old Bennet’s Bridge beach. She’d spent so much time at that beach in the summers. The Dungeon had been up the old dirt road. It’s been paved through the one lane bridge and just past the beach then became dirt.

  There had been a Marsh Troll living under the bridge, which before the Connection had been solid with just a couple of small openings between Bow Lake and a small pond, but now was an actual bridge. The Troll had been relatively easy for the group, even with its regenerative Abilities.

  The dirt road had been a mess, with new cliffs up the slope formed when sections had been forced up. They’d climbed to the top and found the Dungeon. An arch, with the stones made out of the same stones as the bridge, led to a cave that sloped down.

  And down and down.

  They’d entered the Troll Cave Dungeon at the bottom, stepping into a large cavern. The ceiling was high, the ground filled with water only a couple feet down from the entrance. A long and wide bridge led across the space, supports every hundred feet, where the bridge widened for twenty or thirty feet. The whole thing was five hundred feet long, ending at another flat area outside another cavern entrance.

  The Objectives had been simple. Kill a lot of Trolls and free the Goatmen from the King Troll.

  Harper had laughed when the Objectives had appeared.

  They’d killed their way through the Dungeon. At each support, a large Cave Troll had climbed onto the bridge. Once they’d crossed into the next Dungeon, they’d faced their first miniboss of the Dungeon. Harper hated calling them Bosses and Minibosses, but it was gamer terminology her father and others used, so it was something they were all using now.

  There were official names, Cerie had told them, but none of the Clan used the names. They’d even gotten the elves in the Clan to start using Boss and Miniboss.

  The entire Dungeon, and it was a short one compared to others Harper had been in, was trolls and bridges. Different kinds of trolls, but still trolls. The final boss, the Troll King, had been with two Stone Trolls guarding a half dozen prisoners. They hadn’t been goats but goat people. Evaluate had called them Hircun. Once the boss was dead, and the Hircun freed, they had gotten their rewards.

  Even though the theme of each room was the same, Harper had found the Dungeon fun. Each type of Troll was pretty different, making them need different tactics to take the enemies down. The regeneration added a new element. She’d had yet to face an enemy that could heal itself. There’d even been one type of Troll that could see into the Shadow Realm.

  Someone cleared their throat, loudly, bringing Harper back to reality. She shifted to look to the side, seeing Kim Hudson standing there, arms crossed, tapping her foot.

  “Back to bed children,” she said, emphasizing the last word.

  Harper started to get angry. Kim wasn’t that much older. Mid-twenties. But she sighed instead. It had been kind of stupid for the two of them to wander out of camp in the middle of the night. She had promised her father she wouldn’t do that, knowing that her father had meant not sneaking off with Davis. And she had done just that. If Kim told her father, the chances of her going on another run with Davis again were pretty slim.

  Harper quickly got up, holding Davis’ hand to help him up. Releasing his hand, she brushed off her armor, walking over to Kim. Davis trailed behind. Neither of them looked up at the slightly older woman.

  She chuckled. Harper looked up to see Kim smiling.

  “I get it,” she said. “Just don’t let it happen again or I will tell your father,” Kim finished, smile fading.

  “Right,” Harper said, moving quickly past.

  Davis mumbled something but she didn’t hear it.

  It was a short walk back to the tent. No one was up, Kim had been on watch and tending the fire. Harper quickly got into her tent, pausing at the entrance as Davis walked by. He leaned down, smiling and blew her a kiss. Smiling, Harper crawled into her tent.

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  ***

  Instead of heading back over Bennett’s Bridge the next morning, they had decided to cut straight through the woods to reach Bow Lake Road and the trip back to the Clanhold. Harper hoped the angle she chose would take them past where her road came off Bow Lake. It had hurt, memories flooding her, as they had walked past it on the way to the Dungeon.

  She loved her home, wanted to go back there, and grab some more of her stuff. But that wouldn’t be fair to the others back at the Clanhold. Her father had told her and Piper that they couldn’t take advantage of their positions in the Clan. They had to be equal to everyone else. Harper understood, but there was so much in her room that she wanted to get.

  If it was even still there. It had been weeks since they’d been to the house. Who knew what kind of creatures were living there now, or if the house was even standing. A tree could have fallen, lightning or anything. If there were creatures living in the house, she knew she wouldn’t be able to hold back and would attack them. It was best to just avoid the street and any temptations.

  She wasn’t worried about getting lost. From Bennett’s Bridge to Bow Lake was a straight walk through the woods, which had increased in size, but it was still surrounded by the two roads. And if her angle was too steep, they’d come out on Shelburne or Pender. Two roads that she’d recognize on sight. They weren’t going to get lost. Maybe get turned around, but again, they’d end up on some streets that she knew.

  The woods were all new. She’d never walked this part before. Once she’d gotten old enough, and her parents let her go down to the beach herself, she’d just bike along the roads, never walking through the woods. Since the roads all sloped down toward the lake, so did the woods.

  They were constantly walking up the slope.

  There were a lot of fallen trees, the winds had knocked them over, the roots pulled out as the trees tried to fall down the slope but got caught on others. It made for slow hiking, as they either had to force their way through the broken branches, over and under the trees, or go around.

  The occasional monster slowed them as well. There was nothing that any of them couldn’t have handled on their own, just slowing the hike by minutes. Mutated Chipmunks, Coyotes and Foxes. A couple of Lynxia. Even some giant spiders, that Harper did not like dealing with.

  “I could have killed that for you,” Davis said, leaning against a thick tree trunk.

  Harper glared at him, wiping spider guts off one of her tonfas. He smiled. Her glare softened and she stuck out her tongue.

  “I hate spiders,” she said, kicking the carcass as the multi-colored sparks flowed up and out of the monsters, dancing around her until they entered her core.

  Her Evaluate had told her the thing was a couple Levels below her, which accounted for why her mental experience bar didn’t budge that much. The Giant Spider hadn’t been much of a challenge. She just wondered, why did there always have to be spiders?

  The Challenge Dungeon had been horrible, and she hadn’t seen a spider since. It had been months and all of a sudden, a Giant one had dropped out of the trees above. It had been very silent, she’d barely avoided sensing it as it leapt on her, venom dripping spike leading. The fight hadn’t lasted long.

  “Anyone got a Harvesting Skill,” she called out to the others as they gathered around.

  Spiders were horrible, but they did drop some good Resources. Chitin, mandibles, claws from the legs, a poison sac and a silk-making gland. Harper hadn’t heard of anyone able to use the Resources yet, but Cerie had said they would prove valuable in the future, so the Clan had been collecting them. They had a huge, and still growing, collection of harvested Resources that the Clan’s crafters could barely use.

  “I can,” Ricky replied, drawing a long bladed knife from a sheath, walking toward the spider’s body.

  Harper stepped back, walking over to stand next to Davis as Ricky got to work. The hiking had been slow because of the terrain and the monsters, but also the time to harvest the Resources. They could have left it all behind, but all of it was useful now or in the future. The meat and hides were especially useful now. Any that they could get went towards the Clan’s supplies for the upcoming winter. There would never be enough meat and hides to help keep them warm.

  A sharp crack behind them caused the whole group to turn, weapons drawn. Harper and Davis moved to where they could see better, trying to make out shapes through the trees. A group of people were moving downslope, away from them. They weren’t trying to hide, intentionally making their presence known.

  Branches snapped as they walked, moving further away. One of the shapes detached, walking closer. Harper gasped as the humanoid was revealed. A Hircus, like they had found in the Dungeon, stared at them. The goat man was larger than those in the Dungeon, dressed in rough hide armor with metal plates sewn in. It carried a large axe, the shaft wood and the head sharpened stone.

  Harper used Evaluate, the Hircus feeling almost as strong as she was.

  FOREST ROAM CLAN WARRIOR

  The Hircus watched them as they watched it, neither side moving. Harper didn’t sense any hostility, not even curiosity. Once all the other Hircus were gone, the one watching them turned and ran after the rest, disappearing into the shadows downslope.

  “Wasn’t that the thing from the Dungeon?,” Jim asked.

  “Yeah,” Kim replied. “I guess there’s a tribe of them around.”

  “What are they doing in the forest? Don’t goats live in the mountains?”

  “No idea,” RIcky said, standing up from the corpse of the spider. “All set.”

  “Let’s get moving,” Harper said, looking where the Hircus had disappeared.