I felt like I was taking a nice leisurely walk through the countryside. We were all walking down a dirt road with green grassy hills on both sides. There were scatterings of trees and boulders, but not a single monster in sight.

Admittedly, that last part was a relief while also making me a bit nervous at the same time. Sure, it was nice not to be fighting monsters, but the fact that I didn’t see them only made me worry about where they were…and WHAT they were. It was hard to relax when I had no idea what we might end up facing.

While I looked around for monsters, I noticed that Stine kept sneaking glances at me. At first, I was suspicious, remembering how that kind of thing was usually a bad sign in prison. Then, it dawned on me. He was looking at me for the same reason that Pham had. Because I was a hot chick with big tits. It was funny how easily I could forget something that important.

I didn’t mind Stine’s attention. In fact, I kind of enjoyed it. After having spent most of my life either being ignored or looked down on, it was kind of nice to have someone noticing me in a positive manner. Besides, Stine was easy on the eyes.

“You know,” I said, mostly to distract myself from the direction that my thoughts were going. “I’m looking forward to seeing what that Labyrinth gate looks like.”

“Why?” Jag asked with a derisive snort. “All the entrances look about the same. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.”

“Well, I’ve never seen one,” I told her. “I haven’t been outside the Labyrinth since I respawned.”

That got some looks of surprise from our new traveling companions, along with a bit of skepticism.

“It’s true,” Lenore said with a smirk. “Red here is a genuine noob…”

“A recently former noob,” Grayson corrected her cheerfully. “Donna has fought enough monsters that I don’t think she qualifies as a noob anymore.”

“We picked her up on our way inside,” Lenore added to the explanation. “Just like a stray puppy.”

“Woof woof,” I responded flatly, which earned a snicker from the conjurer.

“If you’re a recent respawn,” Stine asked, looking me over with an expression that was more studious than appreciative, “then how did you get such good gear already?”

I hesitated for a moment, looking at my staff before answering, “The staff belonged to the person who got killed, and the armor…” I gestured down at myself. “It’s soulbound.”

That suddenly got their full attention. Frank stared at me for a moment before asking, “Your clothes are soulbound?”

I nodded at that, already realizing that I might have said too much. I already knew that if you had something valuable, you didn’t brag about it unless you were capable of protecting it. Otherwise, you were just begging someone to steal it from you. Sure, I’d been told that soulbound items couldn’t be stolen, but did they know that?

“It looks fancier than it really is,” I quickly added, even giving an exaggerated sigh. “It doesn’t really do anything except clean itself and repair some damage.” I shrugged at that. “It doesn’t even really protect me much.”

“The self-cleaning and repair makes it pretty fucking nice to have,” Lenore told me, apparently not picking up on the fact that I was trying to downplay it. “I mean, this thing is already starting to get pretty ripe.” She gestured down at her own black leather armor.

Giles chuckled at that. “Miss Lenore is right about that.” He looked down at his own armor then scrunched up his nose as though smelling something foul. Then again, he probably did. “Most players have to do some serious cleaning after every long delve, or even replace their armor completely.”

“It does need a lot of repair,” Grayson added.

Stine nodded along. “I get that. I wouldn’t mind some armor that cleans and fixes itself too…”

“As long as it still offers protection,” Frank pointed out. “If it doesn’t protect you, it doesn’t matter how clean and pretty it looks.”

I felt an urge to argue with Frank and defend my armor, but I bit my lip instead. After all, she was just echoing what I myself had just said a minute earlier, and she was reinforcing my own efforts to downplay my armor.

“Hey,” Grayson abruptly called out. “Is it me or do those clouds look seriously off.”

Grayson was pointing to some clouds and I had to blink and take another look. They did look off. They were pure white balls of cottony fluff, but they were all around the same size and shape…and way too close to the ground. I had never really been into video games, but I had played a couple of those Mario games, and these clouds reminded me of ones from those games. They reminded me of those small clouds that some characters rode on top of.

“They’re all around us,” Stine stated.

“I think we may have just found our monsters,” Frank commented.

Some of the clouds slowly drifted towards us, and as they got closer, I became even more suspicious of them. Now that they were closer, it became increasingly obvious that those were not natural clouds. No, those things were something else.

One of the clouds was overhead, and it was slowly lowering towards us. When it was around fifty feet up, it suddenly released dozens of silvery strands that just dangled from it like hanging threads.

Lenore yelped in pain as one of the threads brushed her cheek. She jumped back and grabbed her cheek, then grabbed her short sword and sliced through the thread.

“They’re burning my armor where they touch,” Grayson exclaimed, staring at some very thin marks that were burned into his armor. “I think they’re like acid.”

“Fuck,” Lenore snarled.

She swung her sword through several more strands as she backed away, then she sheathed it and drew her bow. Several arrows flew right up into the cloud above.

“It’s deflating,” Grayson blurted out.

“Shit,” Jag snarled as she stood there with a knife in each hand. “They’re like flying jellyfish.”

“Jellyclouds,” I spat out. “Get down here you fluffy pieces of shit.”

The cloud didn’t accommodate my command, though other clouds had come close enough to become threats as well. Each of them released masses of silvery threads that dangled down to where we were. One of them brushed against my armor and immediately left a char mark across the arm.

“Damn it,” Grayson snarled as he swung his sword and sliced through a couple of the threads. “The main body is too high up for me to reach.” And then he chuckled. “And me, without a fire flower.”

Giles activated his shield, and as the bubble formed around us, it seemed to cut off the threads got in the way. We suddenly had severed threads falling onto our heads, but the jellyclouds themselves were trapped on the other side.

I activated ‘Cursed Ground’ beneath another cloud on the outside of the shield, but it simply floated over without being affected. I glared at that, annoyed at having wasted the ability.

“Cursed Ground doesn’t do anything if they’re not touching the ground,” I complained.

However, ‘Cursed Ground’ wasn’t my only ability. I blasted the jellycloud with a ‘Hex’ and smiled in satisfaction as it took hold. The thing was far enough away that I was worried it would be out of my range.

“It looks like its my time to shine,” Lenore said as she fired an arrow.

Multiple arrows tore through the jellycloud and it started to deflate and sink lower. As soon as its hanging threads got within a foot above my ‘Cursed Ground’, my bane took effect. The monster was already slow on its own, but it became even slower once caught in my enchantment.

Lenore immediately turned her attention to another jellycloud, filling it with small holes that caused it to deflate. She repeated this, going from one floating monster to another, causing them each to slowly drop towards the ground so that they were within reach of everyone else.

At first, everyone else was focusing on the threads, slicing through them so that we could move without being burned. However, once the jellyclouds were within range, everyone shifted focus to their main bodies instead.

Stine rushed in and actually punched one of the fluffy clouds. His fist went in all the way to his elbow, then when he pulled out out, a hole had been left behind. The monster deflated even faster.

“It’s like punching a balloon filled with cotton candy,” Stine mused aloud.

I just stood back and focused on using ‘Hex’ to layer as many banes on the monsters as I could. By this point, I could actually dish out a decent amount of damage, just not all at once. The fact that it took my abilities so long to kill a monster was still rather frustrating, especially when I compared that to everyone else.

When the fight ended with the last of the jellyclouds now looking like a torn and shredded balloon on the ground, I just stood there and took several deep breaths. I had a burn on the back of my hand from one of the threads, and my armor had several burn marks scattered across it, but I was otherwise unharmed.

“Yes,” Grayson exclaimed, grinning with excitement. “I just unlocked my fourth ability.”

“Congratulations,” I told him, wondering what he was going to get.

“After your third one, they come a lot slower,” Grayson explained.

I nodded at that, understanding his excitement. I was looking forward to my third ability, whatever it would end up being. I did notice though, that he didn’t say what his new ability was. Since he’d been pretty open with me about his abilities before, I suspected that he was just playing things close to the vest when it came to our traveling companions. We barely knew them, so I wasn’t about to share everything with them either.

Then I turned my attention to my own new popup.

YOU HAVE REACHED LEVEL 9

I immediately slotted the free point into focus, bringing it up to ten. As soon as I did so, I felt something ‘click’, though I wasn’t quite sure what it was. Then, I realized that it had come from my armor.

Grayson stared at me with a look of surprise, then asked, “Did you just unlock your third ability?”

“No,” I answered, feeling a little confused by his reaction.

“Your armor has an enchantment on it,” Grayson told me, looking me over with a careful expression. “A boon.”

“It does?” I asked, looking down at myself.

Now that I was looking, I could see a faint white and gold glow from my armor, though I wasn’t sure if anyone besides another enchanter would notice it. According to Grayson, enchanters were inherently sensitive to enchantments, so we could see them when other people couldn’t. Of course, he’d also told me that increasing perception would let other people see enchantments too, just not as well.

I quickly glanced around to see if anyone was close enough to listen in. When we seemed to be clear, I lowered my voice and explained, “I think my armor just unlocked a new feature.”

“Congratulations,” Grayson told me in the same quiet tone. “How does it work?”

I just stared down at my arms, taking in the faint glow that was so easy to miss. Then I shrugged and answered, “Not a damn clue.”