A few hours after the impromptu lizardman-on-lizardman riding action, the trio had settled at their usual spot and commenced their training.
Groans and moans were heard aplenty, torrents of sweat peppered the dry ground, and the trio thrust as one.
All over the ground were various poles that had been crafted from the special trees that created the forest within their Dungeon.
The trees were of a unique variety that did not exist in the human world; unfortunately, the extremely sturdy wood from those trees could not survive after traversing through the portal, near instantly withering and dying.
Lying next to the poles was a plethora of rocks, several of which were in a state of near completion in making a spear point.
Bob, Ted and Suzy all held a spear in their hands, one of their own creation and a weapon no lizardman had wielded before.
Bob had put forward the idea that more lethal weapons were needed, and creating a different type rather than a club would surprise the enemy. With the others agreeing with his logic, they all continued practising their spear thrusts.
In the middle of their training, Bob fell to the ground without warning, his spear bouncing away and coming to rest with the other half-completed spears.
“I'm exhausted! I'm so hungry!”
Ted and Suzy looked down at Bob, with the former not caring in the slightest, and Suzy becoming frantic.
“Ahh, what do I do!? What do I do, Bob? Food, you need food....Where's food?”
Suzy's head was on a swivel, her eyes darting around the entire area as she frantically searched for any food. By that point, Bob had fully collapsed under his own weight, a pitiful sight if Ted had ever seen one.
Deciding to take full advantage of his exhausted brother, Ted stood on Bob's back and began to use him like a surfboard, not that he had ever seen one, or knew of one.
With Bob too tired to shrug Ted off, or even chastise him, Ted continued his act of playful dominance while Suzy searched for some food.
Unfortunately for Bob, Suzy had acquired some 'food' and diligently chose to insert said food into his mouth.
Before Bob could react, a handful of tree bark and small sticks had been rammed down his throat. Contrary to Suzy's hope, Bob reacted quite angrily while he fought for air and to cling to life.
“Egh....Krghh.....Kggg....Suzy!!!!”
Now risen to his feet with his spear in hand and a multitude of sticks protruding from his mouth, Suzy looked on, still not realising her mistake.
“Huh, what's wrong, Bob? Was that the wrong food? Do you want a different flavour, like grass and leaves?”
The veins in Bob's face were pulsating, his anger boiling over; he quickly quelled it as he knew it was misplaced for a female just trying to help.
Ted leaned into Suzy and enlightened her on the issue.
“Suzy, nothing in our Dungeon is edible.”
A terrible pain assaulted Suzy in the depths of her stomach, not from an external force, but from her own guilt for doing such a stupid thing.
Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on the view, the trio's eyes went bright red, and the pain was a distant memory.
All three lizardmen held their spears tight; their animalistic brains that were now in control luckily remembered the time and effort they had been putting in to train with the spear.
With a mouthful of twigs and chunks of tree bark, Bob led the charge towards a newly arrived and bewildered party of Adventurers.
The four humans stared at the incoming monsters with looks of pure confusion. Before they had entered the Level 1 Dungeon, they had all diligently studied the manual for said Dungeon.
The manual was created and distributed, for a cost, by the Guilds that managed each Dungeon, and was a means for the Adventurers to be fully informed and prepared for what they were to face.
In a situation where they were putting their lives on the line, and one misstep would result in disability or death, information was key.
The lead Adventurer was also wielding a spear; his hands gripped the shaft tightly while he spoke to his comrades behind him.
“Hey, hey, the Guild's screwed us! I knew we shouldn't have paid for those shitty books. It said they had blunt weapons, not piercing ones!”
In answer to his statement, the noise of an arrow being nocked and a bowstring being pulled taut could be heard. The petite woman aimed her weapon, her eyes focused on her target while she spoke.
“Hmmm, maybe a typo?”
The man scoffed at the idea and replied, just as the woman's arrow whistled past his head towards its target.
“Pfttt, typo my ass!”
“No thanks.”
The arrow found its target, a perfect shot that contained equal parts accuracy and power.
Bob was the unlucky lizardman to take the first hit; the arrow hit his chest and pierced through his tough scales, rupturing his heart.
To everyone's surprise, the blow did not halt the monster, nor slow him down.
At the very rear of their party, an inconspicuous bespectacled Mage skimmed through a book. Quickly, he looked up from his literature; the robe he wore slipped off his skinny shoulder.
Fighting to remain dressed, he hurriedly spoke up.
“Two, they have two hearts! Karoline, fire another!”
Listening to his instruction, Karoline readied another arrow, speaking while doing so.
“You're not the boss of me, four eyes.”
The second arrow struck Bob on the other side of his chest, ripping apart his remaining heart. All of the power left his legs, his head went dizzy, and he coughed up a torrent of blood, coating the twigs and bark that filled his mouth.
Falling forwards with his legs no longer responding, Bob enacted a last-ditch effort to attack and launched his spear with all his might.
Owing to the extreme strength that lizardmen possess, Bob's spear cut through the air, clearing the distance between himself and the humans in an instant.
The Adventurer at the front took the full force of the blow; the thrown spear slammed into his shoulder with enough force to knock him off his feet and send him tumbling to the ground.
The thick armour he wore was perfect for defending against blunt weapon damage, but was weak to piercing weapons; luckily for him, the spear used was quite crude and did not obliterate his shoulder.
The spear had penetrated his armour, lodging in his shoulder and turning him into the early stages of a pincushion.
Ted and Suzy ran past the now-deceased Bob and attacked the Adventurers. A relentless barrage of spear thrusts was levelled at them, barely allowing the Adventurers to counterattack, their whole focus being on evasion.
Karoline had long since dropped her bow and was dodging while clutching her dagger tightly.
The other member of their party who was engaged with Ted's spear attacks was a teenage boy holding a large shield and wielding a mace.
Suzy's spear thrusts finally hit home and sliced a gash open on Karoline's thigh, making her leg buckle and dropping her to the ground. Before a finishing blow could be applied, the Mage unleashed the Spell he had been preparing.
“Rock Spear!”
Two Magic Circles appeared on the ground behind Ted and Suzy a split second later, and the ground erupted outwards. Two spears made of rock grew from the centre of the Magic Circles and ploughed through the lizardmen's bodies, killing them instantly.
Ted and Suzy's lifeless bodies were suspended in the air, supported by the rock spears that perforated their bodies.
Everyone collapsed to the ground, utterly exhausted and their nerves set on edge. Lying on the ground with a spear still sticking out of his shoulder and pointing to the air, the man named Jake spoke up.
“I think we're lucky to be alive; let's call it a day.”
The other three party members all spoke at the same time; usually there would be discord within their newly formed party, but this time was not one such occurrence.
“““Agreed!”””
Several hours later, the cheers of three people went up in the middle of the village. The newly respawned lizardmen had been so ecstatic at their performance that the first action they did was to shout as loud as possible and unilaterally punch the air.
Bob, Ted and Suzy were the only ones to have died and, as such, were the only ones to be respawned while the rest of the village looked on.
It was a spectacle they had never witnessed before, with their entire number, apart from Bob on occasion, being wiped out every time. Terra stood with his two friends, and the group watched the newly respawned trio intently.
Calling out, Terra fired a question towards Bob.
“Oi Bob, why did they only kill you three and then leave?”
Bob went to answer, but an enthusiastic Suzy got in his way and took that honour with a smug look on her face.
“We messed them up, Terra! Bob pierced one in the shoulder, and I even slashed one of their thighs and nearly killed her!”
Each lizardman who was in the vicinity and covertly listening in on their conversation was flabbergasted. They had never wounded the Adventurers and barely ever landed a hit on them, but now they had just been told that they inflicted serious wounds and nearly killed one.
From the side of Terra, a black lizardman whispered in his ear and immediately after, Terra spoke again.
“Pierced, slashed? You lying bastards, we have clubs...Ccccllllluuuuubbbbsssss!”
Suzy was nearing a rage from the insult she had just been levelled at her, but to everyone's surprise, Bob got angry on her behalf.
“What would a coward like you know, Terra? We made spears, and we actually want to escape this fate.”
Everyone was left speechless as the trio turned and left, leaving the village behind them and the stunned Terra.
They all walked on in silence; each one was remembering the fight before they respawned and overlaying it with a solitary word: fate.
Before they had started acting of their own accord and not following the unspoken dictations of the Dungeon Core, they had gradually begun to yearn for freedom; even so, they knew not what it was.
Bob stood at the centre of their usual meeting spot. With his hands on his hips, he puffed out his chest and addressed Ted and Suzy.
“Ted, Suzy, the next strategy: we need to be closer, faster and harder!.....Suzy, stop grinning.”
Suzy quickly corrected her face, after not even being aware that her emotions had leaked through. Ted mulled over his words and then replied.
“Bob, that would mean waiting near the portal, but we wait at the logs, and the logs are here....So do we move the logs?”
A strange silence persisted with none of them moving, the only movement being that of Bob blinking in amazement.
Suzy was not sure what was going on, but remained quiet. Ted could not take it any longer and grumpily spoke again to his brother.
“Why are you not saying anything, Bob? Don't worry, I'll move one of the logs if that was your concern?”
Bob swore under his breath, uttering a curse word that would result in any lizardman being forced to wash his mouth out with soap. Turning away from his dense brother, Bob started walking towards the portal while replying.
“Just follow me, and leave the logs!”
Bob reclaimed the spears they had dropped and then positioned himself about twenty metres away from the portal. Handing the weapons over to Ted and Suzy, he grasped his own spear and then spoke again.
“All we have to do is wait here; we don't need the logs, we're not that attached to them, Ted! So now when the portal opens, the humans will have less time to react to us.”
Now that they understood the situation and Bob's intentions, the trio all fell back into their combat practice. As it was approaching the usual time for Adventurers to enter their Dungeon, Ted began to get giddy with excitement.
Stopping his spear thrusts, Ted walked towards the portal, leaving Bob and Suzy to look on in confusion at the back of the blue lizardman.
Standing in front of the portal, Ted turned to face them with a massive smile on his face.
“This is where we should be, Bob! Stand over here with me; you're both too far away.”
Bob and Suzy both looked at one another and began to whisper.
“Hmmm, what do you think, Suzy?”
“Wherever you go, I go...You go to play, I go to play with you....You go to the toilet, I go to the toilet to spy on you....You go to sleep, I sneak in and sleep with you.”
“Ehhh, wait, what did you jus........”
Bob's words were cut off; his rationality slipped away, and so did it for everyone else.
At that moment, their eyes glazed over with the vibrant red that only brought trouble. Gripping their spears, their eyes drifted to the portal activating and then witnessed something they had never seen before.
Energy filled the portal, and a near-imperceptible blast of energy flowed outwards, smashing into Ted and launching him off his feet.
The trio were taken completely by surprise; Ted exhaled a spray of blood, his body soaring through the air until a solid object halted his flight.
The only problem was that the objects in question consisted of two lizardmen.
Ted ploughed into Bob and Suzy and drove them all to the ground in a dazed heap.
Two Adventurers stepped out of the portal and immediately took action, unleashing a barrage of Magic flames towards their target.
The lizardmen did not even get a chance to clamber back to their feet before they were incinerated.