Jeremy swam frantically for the shore.

  “Get out of the lake!” Flint shouted. “It's coming, and it's mad!” The lake's turbulence threatened to sweep Jeremy off course and pull him back into the water. He grabbed a small boulder near the shore to anchor himself as the current pulled at him. Considering that the monster was stuck in the lake, there was little Jeremy could do but wait on the shore and hope the poison worked.

  Uinguit exploded from the water, creating a wave that threw Jeremy onto the rocky shore. The monster had removed Jeremy's spear and crackled with electrical energy. Maybe it was his imagination, but the monster seemed more sluggish and sickly than before. The monster let out a thunderous, paralyzing roar he could feel as much as hear. He froze for a second, quivering in fear. But the approaching monster snapped him out of it, and he sprang into action.

  Jeremy ran across the stone cave floor in bare feet, grabbing his bow and arrows and stopping at the edge of the cavern.

  “That monster Uinguit is poisonous, so it should have some poison resistance!” Flint shouted. “You released a lot of poison, but it may not be enough!”

  Flint had a point. If Jeremy were a powerful fighter like Rampage, he'd have cut the thing in half by now. But he didn't see how he, a rogue, could inflict any damage on this monster, let alone kill it. How much monster would he have to hack through to get to its brain? Three feet? More? How long would that take? This was a problem. At least he'd be able to take his time with the monster confined to the lake.

  Uinguit roared a second time and continued forward, somehow sensing Jeremy at the edge of the lake's cavern. It slithered onto the lakeshore and headed toward him.

  Uh oh. He strung his bow and began firing arrow after arrow, praying one of them would do some actual damage while backing out of the cave and down the hallway.

  “If it can enter the passageway, we may have a problem,” Flint said.

  “Squeak!” Squeak agreed.

  With another roar, Uinquit did just that. Its giant form somehow pushed its head and body into the passageway and slithered forward. Its body barely fit the passageway, but barely, was good enough to allow it to come after him.

  Uh oh.

  “Run!” Flint shouted. “Back to your base cave! It's the only place it can't get to us!”

  “Squeak!”

  But instead of turning to his comparatively safe passageway and base cave, he stopped at the passageway to the giant hive. As he activated Sneak, he grabbed his boots and armor from his pack. “Squeak!” he hissed, mentally telling his familiar what to do.

  Squeak picked up the armor and boots and walked with them into the giant hive passageway. Jeremy held very still, not breathing, trying to slow his heart and suppress any life signs.

  Uinguit had no eyes, so it was every other sense he had to worry about.

  For several long seconds, Uinguit hesitated at the fork, but the sound of Squeak walking his boots down the passageway convinced it to follow Jeremy's familiar.

  Jeremy continued to hold still, watching through Squeak's senses as Uinguit slithered into the cavern, crushing the giant hive in its efforts to get at Jeremy.

  Jeremy felt the hive stir—a subtle vibration of hundreds of thousands of angry insects coming to life before exploding from the hive, countless thousands of them perishing in their efforts to attack the giant monster.

  Jeremy ran for his base cave before Uinguit realized its mistake. He wasn't sure whether the hive could hurt Uinguit, but it certainly wouldn't do the big creature any good, and any hive insects Uinguit killed would be fewer for Jeremy to deal with.

  Uinguit, realizing Jeremy had tricked it, let out a roar that shook the dungeon.

  Hiding in his cave base, Jeremy used stones and his pack to block the entrance.

  The hive arrived first, its noise a deafening buzz. They battered themselves against the cave opening with sounds of scratching and burrowing.

  Then Uinguit arrived, slithering through the passageway. Unable to enter Jeremy's base cave, it emitted another unearthly booming roar. Its tentacles forced open his barrier and reached for him.

  “Cut the tentacles!” Flint shouted.

  Its tentacles entered the base cave, crackling with electricity, doing Jeremy the favor of killing the swarm that followed its tentacles into the base cave. He drew his sword and hacked at them frantically. The first few tentacles were joined by many, overwhelming him as Urguit tried to drag him from the cave.

  Jeremy wrapped his charmed rope around his waist and attached the other end to the opposite side of the cave. A brutal tug of war ensued as the tentacles squeezed him so tightly his bones cracked. He somehow kept hold of his sword and hacked at the tentacles.

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  “Squeak!” Squeak attacked, doing its best to drain the life from the monster and transmitting a small amount of health to its master.

  Jeremy wasn't sure how long this continued. Uinguit was unable to pull him out of his base cave, but it wasn't for lack of trying. The monster attempted to poison and electrocute him while brutally slamming him into the walls, floor, and ceiling of his small cave, breaking his bones. Eventually, Jeremy became too exhausted to swing his sword, and the waiting game began.

  Uinguit's attacks weakened until they stopped. An eternity later, he gained another level, and 5273 dungeon coins appeared in his inventory. The boss monster was dead.

  You have leveled up!

  You poisoned Mighty Uinguit, Lord of the Deep… And the Swarm poisoned and infested Mighty Uinguit, Lord of the Deep. Well, Mighty Uinguit, Lord of the Deep, is dead, and that's what matters. You have gained your third title!

  Slayer of the Mighty Uinguit!

  Once again, Jeremy received a title in tiny letters. He sighed. More sarcasm from the dungeon.

  With a groan, he passed out.

  The racket from the swarm woke him up. Uinguit might be dead, but the swarm was alive and well. Uinguit's huge, dissolving body provided temporary protection from the swarm, but it wouldn't last long.

  Worse, he could hear them burrowing towards him through the rock. No matter what he did, the swarm would reach him soon.

  When Uinguit dissolved enough to create a tiny opening between the cave and passageway, he sent Squeak to investigate. The insects attacked Squeak immediately, driving it back to the base cave, but not before Jeremy learned that there was no dungeon loot of any kind near the monster. Since Jeremy's right leg, left arm, and at least one of his ribs were broken, this was a problem.

  “It would seem Uinguit's monster loot would be in its lair, at the bottom of the lake,” Flint said.

  “I never would have suspected,” Jeremy said with a sigh.

  “That's why I'm here,” Flint responded. “I have a plan for getting us there, but it's less than ideal. Fortunately, Uinguit reduced the swarm population.”

  ***

  Soon, Jeremy and his pack were wrapped up in every layer of clothing he had, each layer held in place with velociduck tape, the outermost layer being his poisoned cloak. He could never have done it without Flint's directions and Squeak's help with taping up the outermost layer first and working inward. He would have preferred to leave his pack behind, but that wasn't an option.

  This left him little air to breathe. Hopefully, it would be enough.

  “This will not protect you for long,” Flint said. “But if it gets you to the lake without you taking too much damage, it will have served its purpose.”

  With difficulty, Jeremy pushed and pulled his makeshift rock wall aside and squirmed out of his cave.

  The swarm attacked him instantly, covering him from head to toe, fighting to get through his multiple layers of clothing.

  Many swarm monsters died from his poison cloak, but others took their place.

  The combined dungeon swarm pile-on was so heavy that he had trouble moving. With a moan, he ignored his broken bones and forced himself to squirm forward as fast as he could. Without his Maxed Trauma Resist, he wouldn't have been able to move. He knew it wouldn't be long before the swarm chewed and clawed their way past his layers of clothing.

  His internal map guided him as he crawled/squirmed worm-like down the passageway, mirroring the creepy crawlies he was trying to avoid.

  “Faster!” Flint shouted. “They're getting through!”

  “Squeak!” Squeak pulled him forward, ignoring the swarm attacks on his essence.

  By the time he'd made it to the end of the passageway, he could move more easily. This was because they'd eaten through his poison cloak. His only protection now consisted of his spider silk cloak and the layers of clothing beneath it.

  He smelled smoke.

  He took the left fork and forced himself to squirm/crawl faster, ignoring the pain from his injuries. At first, he thought he was getting warm from his exertions, but then he realized the swarm would land on him and somehow emit fire to burn through his clothes.

  Was spider silk flammable? He wasn't sure.

  The warmth changed from heat to a burning sensation. The swarm was getting through. His toughened skin held them off for now, but it wouldn't be long.

  The velociduck tape sealing his spider silk cloak was gone. Jeremy forced himself to crawl frantically toward the lake, hands covering his face and eyes. Everything hurt a lot.

  He received poisoned and infested notifications.

  Ignoring Flint's shouting, he crawled faster.

  Reaching the lake, he flung himself into the water.

  Bliss. He'd never been so happy to be in water in his life.

  The lake's ice-cold water soothed his bites and burns and numbed his broken bones. His clothes and spider silk cloak were gone. It was just him and his pack. He vomited parasites into the lake.

  After braving the swarm long enough to take a final breath, he grabbed a stone from the shallows—heavy, despite being underwater—and pushed off toward the middle of the lake, dropping down, sinking through the darkness.

  His drop to the bottom of the lake was uneventful. The deeper he went, the darker it became. He summoned a light to see.

  Finding Uinguit's lair was easy. As he sank toward the stony lake bottom, an opening on the lake bottom appeared out of the darkness.

  It occurred to Jeremy he needed to breathe...

  Just a little longer.

  The cave opened into an endless cavern. He kept swimming forward.

  He reached the back of the cavern and found a smaller hole he could barely fit into. The hole turned into a narrow passageway that curved upwards and ended in a smaller cavern, about the size of his base cave on the surface that he'd just left.

  A large chest sat in the middle of the cavern, surrounded by a golden glow.

  Jeremy reached into his pack and removed the several cubic feet of air he'd figured out how to get in beforehand, making his dimensional storage work for him. The air rose to the top of the cavern.

  Jeremy swam up to the cave's ceiling and took a few breaths. There wasn't much air, but it should be enough to get him back to the surface.

  “SQUEAK!”

  Jeremy had just enough time to draw his sword before something grabbed his foot and pulled him down.

  The chest was a mimic.