Chapter Five

Dantenar's POV:

Level thirteen. Lots of monsters are on level thirteen, in case you were wondering. Kile, who had leveled up like forty times, had no trouble dealing with them, but Zara and me did. I had only leveled up twelve times! I had a quest to fulfill, though. Gimbo Tel, the Zombie in the graveyard, had charged me with killing "Foolchewer the Kobold" and it's Tunnel Crawler minions. My reward was to be a "Dragonhammers Aiding Military Spear," or something like that.

"Kile?" When he looked up, I asked, "What's a Kobold?"

Kile just pointed. "That." I turned and saw this odd wolf-like creature coming towards us. He was leading six Tunnel Crawlers. The word "Foolchewer" floated above his head.

I smiled happily. "What luck!" I said, and got started with a will. I had to admit that the poleaxe I had, even if it did do +24 electrical damage, was a little hard to handle and not to mention heavy. If I ever find a spear or sword or something that's good, I"ll use it, I decided.

Finally, Foolchewer died and I had finished off the last of his Tunnel Crawlers. At least, I assumed it was a guy. Foolchewer could've been a girl, for all I knew.

"You have completed a quest," the creepy voice said.

I ignored it. I was getting pretty good at it, too. I used a town portal scroll, popped up to town, talked to Gimbo Tel and was looking at the spear within the minute. It was nice. It had a lot of fire damage, hence the name Dragonhammers Aiding Military Spear, probably. I liked the feel of it, and so I put my poleaxe in my storage trunk by the Dungeon Gate and used the spear instead. When I returned to Dungeon Level twelve, Kile and Zara were waiting for me.

"Sorry to take so long," I told them. Zara rolled her eyes expressively, managing to get her point across without saying a word. She had an uncanny ability to do that, I noticed.

Kile coughed uncomfortably. "Well, let's keep going. No sense in waiting any longer than we have to, right?" He led the way through the little passages, letting us take on most of the monsters. They weren't to hard, at this point. Kile said they'd get harder as we descended. He said that Yeti's lurked on level seventeen and down. I had gulped at that. I broke an urn and a flawless Ruffy plopped onto the floor. I fed it to Fiddlestix, and she turned into a Gryphon.

"She'll stay that way forever, you know," Kile said. "That's what Flawless means. You feed your dog fish, it turns into some kind of animal for a varying duration of time, unless it's a flawless fish. Then it turns your pet into that animal forever. Until you get out of the game, of course, or feed it some other fish."

That was the longest speech I'd ever heard him utter at one point in time. Maybe that meant he was feeling more comfortable with us. I sure hoped so. After all, he was in his twenties (twenty-two, to be exact) and hadn't seen another soul in six years.

Zara rounded a corner in front of us and stopped short, and we ran to her side. A guy, his cat helping him, was fighting a cursed sword. He eventually beat it and, spotting us, came forward. He was wary, gripping his weapons tightly, until he could talk to us.

"Hello," he said, cautiously. He had nice armor on, not quite as nice as the white Guardian Armor Kile had, but then again, he probably hadn't been trapped in the game for six years. "I'm Jaron, and this is my cat, Juute." His voice was quiet, as if he hadn't used it in a while. "Why are you here? Who are you, anyway?"

I stuck out my hand, which he hesitantly shook. "I"m Dantenar, and this is my dog, Fiddlestix. These are my companions and family members. My twin sister, Zarathel, and her dog, Trouble," I said, gesturing to them, "And Kile, my older brother, and his dog, Kaos. Pleased to meet you, sir."

Jaron looked slightly taken aback. "Um, hi. Nice to meet you all, I'm sure. How are you in my game?"

Kile stepped forward, shook Jaron's hand and told him, "I was just about to ask you the same thing. I thought it odd when my little sisters showed up, but now a third? This is getting even more bizarre."

Jaron shrugged. He looked confused, tired and dirty, just like everyone else I'd met. Except for the ones in town. Which amounted to my twin, my older brother and him. "I don't know. All I know is that I have to get to level forty-seven and defeat Khuzoragul the Ghastly."

Zarathel invited him to travel with us, an offer that Jaron gladly excepted. I found a weapons rack and touched it. Another spear, unidentified, and a large axe dropped onto the ground. I picked up the unidentified spear and identified it. It said that it was "Imikugal's Spear of the Tortoise," which had a lot of ice damage. I happily put it in my other hand.

Now, whenever I walked, a cloud of white followed me on one side, a cloud of red on the other. That and my spiked gloves and the spiked boots I'd found on level seven made me feel more safe in the game. By this time I also had studded armor and a full-face helm with little bat wings on the side.

When I leveled up next, about two minutes later, I gave myself both spear points on the second page, sticking to my original plan on the first: two Strength, two Vitality and one Dexterity. Jaron and Kile talked quietly while we walked, no doubt comparing stories.

Jaron, we found out, had been in the game for a while, but had yet to get to level forty-seven. He was coming up one level at a time from level twenty-four, deciding that he needed to level up more and get better armor and weapons.

Zarathel and I were also talking. Only we were talking about what to do when we got out of the game. Neither of us said the words we were both thinking: If we got out of the game. It was almost starting to seem that way.

"Zara, do you miss mom and dad?" I asked suddenly. Wow, what an out of the blue type of question was that, and where had it come from?

Zara looked thoughtful. "Well, I miss dad. I don't know if I miss mom. We never met her. She died right after we were born, remember? We never got the chance to bond with her."

I nodded. "Dad was always so kind to us. Even though he missed mom terribly, he always found time to play a game after he got home from work, or to read us a story, or some other thing that we needed. Especially after Kile disappeared," I added. "I think that's what did him in." Come to think of it, we'd never really learned what had happened to our father. I resolved to find out as soon as we got out of the confounded game.

"Yeah," Zara said. She walked forward and got attacked by a large chest, that was actually a "mimic" according to the floating words. They'd never steered us wrong before. Zara sighed. "Yet another monster to deal with." She finished it and kept walking.

The four of us walked single file, the dogs sort of looking at the cat with distrust. The cat, Juute, had large green eyes and looked very innocent. Yet I'd seen him fight. He was deadly. Fiddlestix, who usually didn't like cats, for some reason liked Juute. She was walking with him, talking, I supposed. I couldn't actually hear her, but that's what it looked like she was doing.

When we descended to level fourteen, we walked into a whole room filled with monsters. Mostly spiders and gels, but there were a few Goblin Scouts, Bugbears and Jackal Fiends.

A/N: Bugbears look kind of like big cats walking around on two legs, Jackal Fiends like those statues protecting King Achmen'Ra from Night at the Museum.

Anyway, after fighting a Jackal Fiend, my health was down to almost zero.

"You're health is dangerously low," the creepy voice said.

I looked at Kile, and I knew my terror showed on my face. "I don't have any health potions," I told him in a scared voice. Kile got a determined look on his face, but his eyes widened as two Bugbears came up on us.

He spun his sword, stepping in front of me, and started fighting them both. At the same time. I started feeling guilty, and looked around for a health potion of any sort.

While the other three were occupied, I ran around the room, looking in all the urns. There were three traps, which I was fortunate enough to avoid, and I finally found a major health potion. My health restored to almost full, I ran back and assisted my friends (and family, except for Jaron) with the rest of the monsters.

I was starting to like Jaron. He was quiet, not real outgoing, but had a nice personality. In fact, I was beginning to think of him as a brother. If we ever got out of the game, I'd adopt him. Even if he already had a family.

Kile finished off the last of the Bugbears and turned to me. "Are you all right?" He asked, breathing hard. I hugged him, feeling the frantic beating of his heart against my cheek.

"I'm fine, big brother. Thanks," I told him. He was breathing hard after all the fighting, but he managed to smile at me.

Zarathel broke in. "Well, I'm sorry to break up this little conversation, but we really must be going. We still have 39 levels to go."

Zara had a point, so we went on. Six levels (and to many monsters to count) later, we were on level twenty. And that's where I encountered my first Yeti. I had gone ahead of the others, chasing after Fiddlestix, who had decided to run off. I skidded to a halt next to me dog, who was staring in shock at the huge white thing in front of us. I don't know how to describe it. It was much, much taller than me, or even one of the boys, and it had white fur.

It spotted us and roared, coming towards us. I held my spears at the ready. He started pounding the floor at Fiddlestix, who nimbly avoided his fists, distracting him. I took the oppurtunity to start on the Yeti. A couple seconds later, it was finished. The Yeti had been to busy fighting Fiddlestix to notice me until it was to late.

Kile came into the room, followed closely by Jaron and Zarathel, who were followed closely by the pets, and they all saw me standing by the thing. "That was hard," I remarked to them, and Kile started laughing.

"Trust Dantenar to make light of the situation," he said between chuckles. "That's definitely my sister."

I almost glowed with pride. I had killed my first Yeti, even though I didn't like killing at all, without getting hurt. And I had done it humanely. That was always my goal. Get the killing done with as soon as possible and avoid hurting the thing to badly.

Jaron just smiled. I got the feeling he felt a little uncomfortable being the only member of the group who was not in the same family. Zarathel went up to him and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Jaron, I adopt you as an honorary brother." In a strict voice she added, "And don't dare abuse the power."

Now Jaron laughed outright. I grinned, Kile grinned, Zarathel grinned, and the dogs panted. Juute just sat down and started cleaning his front paws. Just like a cat to clean in the middle of a battlefield, I thought.

Kile stood abruptly. "Time to go. We can't linger here to long, or more monsters will find our position. And believe me, they'll come in waves."

At these solemn words, we all started walking towards the nearest down stairs. Most of us had quests on level twenty-one. Mine was to Torvus, a monk, who wanted me to destroy some Naga and its Goblin minions. I had no idea what a Naga was, but I bet it wasn't nice.

When we descended, we were in a small room that had no monsters, for once. Fiddlestix, who was no longer a Gryphon since I'd fed her a Fingerling Darter, was half dead. I resolved to find a health potion for her as soon as possible. I couldn't for the life of me remember what a Fingerling Darter turned your pet into, but it was good, whatever it was.