I had been dreaming of this day for years, literal years. This was not a dream; this was a nightmare. For the last decade, my only companions had been the image of a human and a blob of ink. I was not prepared for monsters covered in blood.

  Calling them monsters was unfair and probably a bit racist. They weren’t humans for sure. The initial screaming of a redhead, whom I thought was human until I saw the cat ears and tail, alerted the others to my arrival.

  First on the scene was a true-to-life minotaur. All seven angry feet of him, eight with the horns. He picked me up and slammed me into the closed boss doors. He had me gripped by the throat with one hand at just about head height. It gave me a good view as the red seeped in from the edges of his brown cow eyes. I could feel the muscles in his hand and arm tighten. Great, a Minotaur barbarian.

  I was about to get my first test when I remembered Mord’s words about playing innocent and meek.

  “Hey…hey..hey I’m unarmed I’m nowhere to hurt you. I don’t actually think I could hurt you.”

  “Human lies.” His voice was deep and full of hatred. He punctuated his words by squeezing harder. Too much harder and he would crush my windpipe. Would being the operative word if I hadn’t reinforced it with Mithril. Even if he did crush it, it’s not like I needed to breathe in this room. I tried it once, held my breath to a count of ten thousand before I got bored and was satisfied. He pulled his axe across the ground with a scrape. At first, I thought he was aiming for a decapitation. I wasn’t keen on trying my Mithril against a blade like that quite yet. Then I noticed the blood again. A great deal was running down the remains of his arm. It looked like it went through a meat grinder, or something with big fucking teeth.

  “Graygorn! Drop the vermin and come help me like I said!” my head snapped to the angry feminine voice. It came from a creature that looked as if you put the fur of an Arctic Fox on a human’s body. I supposed she had white fur and white robes, but both were caked in a myriad of colorful things, mainly red blood that seemed to be coming from the gray creature at her feet. A creature that was an honest-to-god werewolf, with a giant tooth sticking out of his unarmored chest. His gray fur was soaked in blood, mostly obscuring the dark tribal marks and beaded trinkets.

  Holding the severely impaired wolf was an uparmored rhino. The most shocking thing about this individual, besides the humanoid rhino part, was the armor. His armor was bolted directly to his skin. I was starting to see a pattern here. A full party of non-human humanoids. The cow already made it clear how it was going to go. I needed goodwill and I needed it fast.

  “Hold him steady. Who has potions left? Mana or health or whatever, I don’t fucking care!”

  I did, but wasn’t about to volunteer that. I’d be dead before the wolf. Plus, I knew the secret of this room.

  “I’m out,” called out the now hysterical cat girl.

  “Rogan?”

  “Never brought mana. Use health already. Sorry,” The rhino had a deep, gravelly voice that was clipped and almost a stutter.

  “Gorn, you better have the potions.”

  “Shy…Do you think my arm would look like this if I had a potion. His stupid tail should have dodged anyway. I say let him die.” The Minotaur was a fucking asshole. I was wrong about the catgirl being hysterical. She wasn’t hysterical until he mentioned letting the wolf die. Then she lost her shit and collapsed into a heap of ugly tears.

  “Gorn help hold so I can search him. Hopefully, he has something.” I was unceremoniously dropped as the raging bull went over to help search the dying wolf. Though I don't think the holding was necessary as the wolf’s thrashing had abated. I could still hear his ragged breath. It was short and shallow, a very bad sign.

  “Noooothing!” roared the horned barbarian, the first bits of sadness entering his voice, turning it from a bellow to a moo.

  The Fox, Shy, strode over to me quickly. She was quick but not even half as fast as Mord. She pressed me against the wall. I moved with her and made a little noise as if it hurt. She put a small dagger up against my throat and spoke in a threatening tone.

  “Give me your potions. NOW!” It was getting hard not to laugh at these ‘Adventurers’ if I didn't think I needed them to open the door at the stairs, I might have tried my luck. I could feel Ink hiding deep within, almost laughing, trilling. Still, I was untested, and there were four fighters all pissed about the imminent death of their fifth stuck in here with me. Discretion being the better part of valor. I replied as meekly as I could muster.

  “I don’t have anything. Please..please don’t kill me.” Nailed it!

  The Fox’s eyes flashed in what I know knew was an identify skill or spell.

  “Phaa. Mortal. Probably followed us for scraps.” Her shoulders dropped like part of the fight had left her.

  “Gorn, do it. He doesn’t deserve to suffer.” The defeat was clear in her tone.

  “Make the cat fucking do it. My arm is wrecked. Plus, he would finally get something from her. He’d die happy.”

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Does she look like she can do shit right now?” Pointing over to the puddle of cat who now just figured out what was going on.

  “Re…o-o-W-O-U-H-u-u..rr!” the cat screeched bloody murder and dove for the wolf, trying to cover the body. The rhino was so shocked, he fell back onto his butt with a ‘I don't know what to do with my hands’ look on his face. He tried to get up and received claws to the face for his trouble. Kitty had claws, though they didn’t do much damage.

  “Fine. Rogan get her off of him.” The Minotaur had some compassion after all as he shifted his axe to his good arm and started back to the body.

  “Wait.” My voice was meek. I hated it. I could see the cat and fox’s ears twitch.

  “WAIT!” a little louder for the boys.

  “Ahh, so the human is holding out after all.” Sly’s words were laced with venom.

  “Finally. I’m gonna enjoy gutting you, boy.” Bellowed Gorn. As he hefted his axe in my direction.

  “I don’t, I really don’t. But this room it heals people. It’s healed me dozens of times.

  “Does it look like he is healing?” Cry screamed the cat girl. She was an ugly crier.

  “No….he is pretty bad, but look at the rhino’s face.” They were all confused by the word ‘rhino’, thankfully, I had also pointed. Rogan even crossed his eyes trying to look at his own face. He was a smart one for sure. It was clear that the minor scratches she had inflicted were already mostly healed.

  The fox looked over at me with pure hatred.

  “I don’t know, the room just heals you. I’ve had cuts and bruises and…”

  “It’s worse than a cut.”

  “It fixed a broken bone in a few hours instead of months.”

  “Pha…the trash is lying. If he’s been here for months, he’d be a skeleton in the corner.”

  “Yes, quite worthless worm, while I think of something.”

  “But Doshy’s cuts are already healed. That’s something, I got him deep too. Sorry, Doshy.” At the same time, the blushing cat girl was on my side. At least I thought she was blushing; it could have been blood.

  “I think I can help him.” I needed goodwill, and if I could get one, I could sleep a little easier. Also, the now almost dead wolf hadn’t said anything negative, so I wasn’t keen on letting him die.

  “Let the filth try,” the words were faint, but also fuck that wolf.

  I was picked up and tossed at the body by an irate side of beef. I was pretty sure I was going to kill that heifer. Anything else and it would be on, lock or no lock.

  I was at least close enough to the corpse-to-be to assess the situation. My turned-up sense of object gave me a detailed look. First was the three-foot tooth that my sense told me belonged to a dragon. It was in the way and preventing healing from progressing. That was the minor part. Worse was the gaping hole in his lung that the tooth resided in, allowing his collapsing lung to be replaced with blood in all the wrong places. A glance at his throat showed a telltale deviation. If that was the only issue, it wouldn’t be a problem. He could recover with only one lung. The problem was the quarter-sized hole that the tooth was maintaining in his heart. He would bleed out faster than the room could fix him. Probably. Time to play ‘how the fuck do you know that’.

  “Is his blood normally this red?” I pointed to a stain on his loincloth-like kilt.

  “What do you mean by ‘this red’?” asked the ever sly fox.

  “I mean, is this his blood? Because if it is, he is bad. Because this brighter red means his lung is shredded. I think the room can do that.”

  “Then we pull and he heals.” Stated the not-rhino very matter-of-factly.

  “No,” I threw my body across the patient.

  “You said it would heal.” The sniffing cat girl spoke up.

  “It would..probably… but the hole in his heart would kill him before it could heal”

  “A…a….hole…in…his..he..hea…heart?” The cat girl was losing it again.

  “How can you tell?” The Fox wasn’t angry; her tone was inquisitive.

  “The dark blood. There is too much of it to be from the superficial wound to the chest. It’s fresh and flowing amongst the bright blood from the lungs. It has to be a hole.” I mean, I knew it was a quarter-sized hole. I just had to lie how I knew. I felt my explanation made sense.

  “Shy? What do we do?”

  “I don’t know what we can do besides listen to the human.” Shy was showing the signs of shock and coming off of the adrenaline or whatever her species produced. They all were. I’m guessing the final boss was a dragon. I was letting them think and decide while I tried to figure out how to learn me some dragon bone.

  “Ok, human, what is your plan?”

  “Simple, really. The big guys hold him down. You strong girls pull out the tooth. I seal the hole. Then we just wait.” This pissed off everybody.

  “Never. He would rather die than let a human touch his heart.” There was a lot of human hate in the room, and I was on the receiving end of it—diplomacy check time.

  “Look, I get it, you hate me, think I’m filth and whatnot. You want to know what I’m not? I’m not exhausted. All of you are. Hell I think the Cat-girl has already passed out. The healing isn’t instant in here;, it’s going to take time. Time sitting here holding a beating heart together. In silence. As you all pass out.” I lowered my voice with each word and got them nodding off ever so slightly to accentuate my point. I continued.

  “Can any of you be certain that you will keep it closed and not fall asleep when the only sound is the gentle beating of a dying heart? You can’t. But I can. Listen, I’ve been stuck here for years. The only door out is locked, and so was this one until five minutes ago. So you are my ticket out. I’m pretty sure that if he dies, one of you will kill me. Pretty sure one of you will do it even if he doesn’t. I’m going to make dammed sure that when you do, it’s knowing you killed the filthy human that saved your friend’s life. Now let’s do this!”

  I guess I succeeded because they lept into action. It ended up being the cow holding the wolf, and the rhino pulling, while the fox watched and the cat slept. The tooth came out with the anticipated sucking sound. A fat squirt of blood hit the rhino in the face, and he fainted, some warrior that one. The exposed cavity shocked the bull enough that his grip slipped right as the waves of pain caused the body to thrash. Thankfully, I wasn’t knocked out of the way. Hopefully, nobody noticed that I wasn’t either. I was able to get my hand around the heart before too much more blood came out. I palmed the beating organ, keeping a good seal, timing a gentle squeeze to the dying wolf’s heartbeat.

  The Minotaur and Rhino were out in a few minutes. The cow had to get a few threats in first. The Fox was the last to go. As she started to slip, I pressed my luck.

  “Shy…Shy before you sleep, toss me your dagger.” That was like an instant jolt of caffeine.

  “So it’s treachery after all.” She punctuated her statement with a yawn.

  “Nah ye daft fox. His chest wound is closing faster than his heart. I may need to cut it a little to keep my hand from getting stuck.” My request was meant with silence as she started to drift away. I turned to check on my patient and heard the dagger clatter at my feet. I turned back to thank her, but she was out as well. Soon, the only sounds were the sleeping sounds of giant animals and the heartbeat of a recovering wolf. Thus, my watch began.

  How should I release my batches when I want to catch RR up to patreon (And KU)?