The gate swallowed them whole.
One moment, Los Angeles. Sunshine. Food trucks. The distant hum of traffic.
The next, darkness.
Rome's eyes took a second to adjust. The interior of the gate spread out before them like a cave system someone had carved from nightmares. Stone walls. Uneven ground. Patches of bioluminescent moss that gave off just enough sickly green light to see by. The air tasted stale. Old. Like breathing in a tomb that hadn't been opened in centuries.
"Kobolds," Reyes said from the front. His spear was already in hand. "Not goblins. Watch your ankles. These little bastards like to go low."
Kobolds. Great.
Rome had fought kobolds twice before. Nasty little things. Looked like someone had crossbred a lizard with a gremlin and given it anger issues. They came up to about waist height on a grown man, but they were fast. Mean. And way smarter than goblins.
Goblins rushed you head-on like idiots. Kobolds set traps. Flanked. Went for the tendons.
The party moved forward in a loose formation. Tanks at the front. Damage dealers in the middle. Kiona and the other support at the back. Standard stuff. Rome drifted toward the edges, near the cave wall, where the shadows pooled deepest.
Some hunters liked being in the center of the action. Big weapons. Big swings. Big glory.
Rome preferred the margins. The angles nobody watched. The places where a guy with a knife and no shame could do the most damage.
Stay low. Stay quiet. Let the heavy hitters draw attention.
Twenty minutes in, they found the first pack.
"Contact!" Rodriguez's voice bounced off the stone walls. "Six of 'em! Maybe seven!"
The kobolds burst from a side tunnel like roaches when you turned on the kitchen light. Scaly bodies. Yellow eyes. Claws that clicked against stone. They shrieked in that high-pitched way that always made Rome's teeth hurt.
The tanks surged forward. Rodriguez's hammer came down on one kobold and turned it into paste. The woman with the spear skewered another through the chest. Reyes was a blur of motion at the front, his weapon flashing green with each kill.
Chaos. Beautiful chaos.
Rome moved.
Not toward the main fight. Around it. Along the wall. Into the shadows where the moss light didn't reach.
A kobold broke from the pack. It had spotted something the others missed. An angle. A gap in the formation. Its yellow eyes locked onto Kiona at the back of the group.
Oh no you don't.
Rome's hand closed around the hood of his jacket. One smooth motion. Over his head. Off his body. He closed the distance in three steps and whipped the fabric forward.
The hoodie caught the kobold square in the face.
It shrieked. Clawed at the cloth. Stumbled. Blinded.
Rome was already there.
His knife punched into its throat. The kobold gurgled. He ripped the blade free, spun it in his grip, and drove it down through the top of its skull.
Once. Twice. Three times.
The body dissolved. Turned to dust and scattered across the stone floor. Two small crystals clinked where it had stood.
Two essence crystals. Not bad.
He scooped them up and pocketed them in one motion. Retrieved his hoodie. Shook off the monster dust.
Dry cleaning's gonna be a bitch.
"Nice one, Rome!" Someone shouted from the main fight. He didn't see who.
He raised two fingers in acknowledgment without looking.
The rest of the pack went down fast. Rodriguez crushed another two. The spear woman got one more. Patterson, the old bastard, somehow managed to bash one's head in with a rock he'd picked up off the ground.
"Clear!" Reyes called out. "Anyone hurt?"
A chorus of negatives.
"Good. Keep moving. Stay sharp."
They pushed deeper.
The tunnels twisted. Branched. Opened into wider caverns and narrowed into chokepoints that made Rome's claustrophobia itch. More kobold packs. More fights. The rhythm of it settled into his bones. Move. Fight. Loot. Repeat.
Rome collected crystals where he could. Took shots when they presented themselves. Stayed out of the spotlight. Let the big names do big things while he picked off stragglers and watched the flanks.
It was working.
It was going well.
Too well.
The thought crossed his mind right as they entered a larger chamber. Stalactites hung from the ceiling like stone teeth. The moss here glowed brighter, casting everything in that eerie green wash.
Something prickled at the back of Rome's neck.
He stopped.
What is that?
It wasn't a sound. Wasn't a sight. Just a feeling. A wrongness. Like the moment before lightning struck or the half-second before a car crash when your body knew something your brain hadn't caught up to yet.
Move.
Rome threw himself sideways.
A claw raked across his arm.
Pain. Hot. Immediate. A line of fire from his elbow to his wrist.
He rolled. Came up with his knife already swinging. The kobold that had dropped from the ceiling barely dodged. It was bigger than the others. Darker scales. A crude blade in one hand, coated with something that glistened wet in the green light.
Ambush. From above. Clever little shit.
"Contact from the ceiling!" He heard someone yell. More kobolds were dropping. A second wave they'd walked right into.
Rome didn't have time to think about the others.
The big kobold came at him again. Fast. Faster than the regular ones. Its blade slashed toward his face.
He leaned back. Felt the air part an inch from his nose.
Too close.
His knife came up. The kobold blocked. Metal scraped metal.
Strong too. Great.
They separated. Circled. The kobold's yellow eyes tracked him with an intelligence that made his skin crawl. This wasn't some mindless monster. This thing was thinking. Planning.
Rome grinned.
"Alright, ugly. Let's dance."
The kobold hissed.
Rome grabbed a fistful of dirt from the ground and hurled it at the creature's face.
The kobold flinched. Blinked. Just for a second.
Rome closed the gap.
His knife took it in the shoulder. The kobold screamed. Twisted. Its blade came around in a wild swing.
That prickle again. That warning.
Duck.
He dropped. The blade passed over his head. He drove his knife up into the kobold's gut and ripped sideways.
The creature's eyes went wide.
Rome stood. Grabbed its head with his free hand. Drove the knife into its throat once, twice, three times until the shrieking stopped and the body turned to ash between his fingers.
Crystals clattered to the ground. Four of them this time.
Elite. Had to be an elite.
He was breathing hard. His arm throbbed where the first kobold had caught him. Blood dripped from his fingers and pattered against stone.
Just a scratch. Walk it off.
The battle around him wound down. The second wave hadn't been as big as the first. More of a harassment force than a real attack. Designed to pick off stragglers and test defenses.
"Sound off!" Reyes shouted. "Anyone down?"
Names called back. All present. A few injuries, nothing major.
Rome shoved his wounded arm behind his back.
"Rome?"
"Fine."
Totally fine.
His arm felt hot. Too hot. And there was a numbness creeping up from the wound that he really didn't like. But Kiona had already burned essence on him once today. He wasn't about to make her do it again.
We're not even at the boss yet. She needs to save her power.
They moved on.
Thirty minutes later, Reyes called for a rest in a defensible side chamber. A dead end with good sightlines. Perfect for catching their breath and checking gear.
Rome found a spot against the far wall. Slid down. Let his head tip back against stone.
His arm was screaming at him now. A dull roar that pulsed with every heartbeat. And that numbness had spread to his fingers. He couldn't quite make a fist anymore.
Not good.
Not good at all.
His breathing came shallow. Quick. Harder to fill his lungs than it should be.
Definitely not good.
"You're pale."
Rome opened his eyes.
Kiona stood over him. Those sharp eyes of hers moved from his face to the arm he'd tucked against his side. Blood had soaked through his sleeve. It dripped onto the stone beneath him in a slow, steady rhythm.
"I'm always pale. It's called being indoors too much."
"Rome."
"I'm fine."
"You're sweating."
"It's hot in here."
"It's a cave. It's literally fifty degrees."
"I run warm."
Kiona crouched in front of him. Her hand shot out and grabbed his wrist before he could pull away.
"Don't—"
She pushed his sleeve up.
The wound wasn't deep. Just a scrape, really. But the skin around it had gone an ugly shade of purple. Dark veins spread outward from the cut like cracks in glass.
"Poison." Her voice went flat. "You idiot. That's venom from a blade-coated weapon. Why didn't you say anything?"
"It's not that bad."
"You can barely breathe."
"I breathe plenty."
"Your lips are turning blue."
"It's a good color on me."
Kiona's fox ears flickered into existence. Her eyes flared gold. She was already pulling essence before he could protest.
"Wait." He tried to lift his hand. His fingers barely moved. "Kiona, stop. Save it for the boss. You don't have to—"
"Shut up."
"I'm serious, I can—"
"If you say you're fine one more time, I'm going to let the poison kill you and then resurrect you just so I can kill you again myself."
Her palm pressed against his arm. The warmth came. Deeper this time. Hotter. It burned through his veins like someone had replaced his blood with sunlight.
The numbness retreated. The purple faded. The dark veins dissolved.
Rome sucked in a breath. A real breath. His lungs filled all the way for the first time in twenty minutes.
"There." Kiona pulled back. The golden light faded from her eyes. The fox ears dimmed and disappeared. "Happy now?"
He flexed his fingers. Everything worked.
"Kiona, you shouldn't have—"
"You would have died."
"I've had worse."
"When? When have you had worse than systemic neurotoxin poisoning?"
Rome opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"...I'll get back to you on that."
Kiona sat back on her heels. She looked tired. Using that much essence twice in one run wasn't trivial. Even for a Three-Star, it added up.
"Why?" she asked quietly. "Why didn't you just ask for help?"
"Because you were already low from healing my head. And we haven't hit the boss yet. And you're the only dedicated healer we've got. And if something goes wrong in there and you're tapped out because of me—"
"That's my decision to make. Not yours."
"I was handling it."
"You were dying."
"Slowly. I was dying slowly. Big difference."
Kiona stared at him. Long seconds passed. The sounds of the other hunters talking and resting filled the silence between them.
Then she sighed. Her shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch.
"If you're so worried about wasting my essence..." She looked away. "You can pay me back."
"Pay you back how?"
"Dinner."
Rome blinked. "What?"
"Dinner. You. Me. A restaurant that doesn't have a dollar menu." She still wasn't looking at him. "Consider it reimbursement for medical services rendered."
Did she just...
Is this...
Wait.
"Are you asking me out?"
"I'm invoicing you."
"That sounds like asking me out."
"It's a business transaction."
"A business transaction with candles and wine?"
"I didn't say anything about candles."
"But you're not ruling them out."
Kiona finally looked at him. Her cheeks were definitely pink now. No mistaking it.
"One dinner. Somewhere nice. You're paying."
Rome felt a grin spread across his face.
"Yeah. Okay. I can do that."
"Good."
"It's a date then."
"It's not a date."
"Sounds like a date."
"I'm leaving now."