I opened my eyes to see a red glow emanating from outside our silken house. It flickered and crackled, like fire.

It was fire.

“Mira!” I shouted, shaking her awake.

“Wha?” She said sleepily.

“Fire!” I shouted. “We need to leave!”

“The hell!” Mira said, waking fully. “What happened?”

“I don’t know!” I said. I cut a gash through the back wall and slipped out. Mira followed me, and we crawled out of the rocks. I crawled along the wall and onto the ceiling, so they couldn’t find us.

“Humans,” Mira said, looking around. A group of humans, all of them holding torches, swords, or both, were gathered around. They set fire to the silk nest that we had made.

“Move the rocks,” A taller person said. The rest of the people lifted the rocks out of the way, revealing more of the silk.

“Collect it,” A tall person in a red robe said. “It may be useful.”

“Do what he says,” The tall guy said when the others hesitated. The other people gathered up the remaining silk and balled it up.

“There’s a dragon egg here!” One dude said, pulling the gray egg out of the wreckage.

“A fine prize,” The robed person said. “The king will be pleased?”

“What would the king of the Renxandt Kingdom want with a dragon egg?” Someone asked.

“Silence!” The robed person said. “Do not question your superiors.” The person who had spoken hung his head.

“Where are the taratects?” The tall person said. “I didn’t think they abandoned nests, especially if they had anything inside them.”

“They usually don’t, Captain,” A female voice said. “The monster that made this nest either was out hunting or was driven out recently by a danger nearby.”

“They don’t know we’re here,” I said to Mira.

“What was that?” Someone said, looking around. “I thought I heard something.”

“Me too,” Another soldier said. “It came from the ceiling.” The captain pulled out a small globe of some clear material. He held a hand over it a muttered a word, and it glowed with bright white light.

“Ah!” I said, squinting against the brightness. The humans all looked up to see the both of us, on the ceiling.

“Taratects!” The Captain said. “They’re here!”

“Run,” I said. Mira and I dashed into a small side tunnel, and the humans followed. We dodged the silk that we had put there, but the humans didn’t. The lead person missed the first and second layers but slammed into the third. They struggled to free themselves, but both Mira and I dropped down onto them and bit down on their hand.

They yelled in pain, trying to swing their sword. I dodged and quickly used silk to entangle them more.

“Halin!” Another soldier said. They stepped forward with their hand out, but the captain held them back.

“Leave him,” He said. “We can’t do anything now.” He turned to the robed person. “Mark this location on the map and get us out of here.”

“Sir,” The robed person said. They held out their hands, which began to glow. Then a glowing blue rune appeared at the humans’ feet. A flash of light enveloped them, and they disappeared.

For a moment, nothing happened. Mira and I waited for something else to happen, but nothing did. The human slowly stopped struggling.

“Experience Threshold reached,” A voice suddenly said. “Level has risen from Level 2 to Level 3. You have acquired the skill [Appraisal].” Then my skin cracked and crumbled around me. After that, it was back to normal, and all of my minor injuries were gone.

“Nice,” Mira said, examining herself. “We leveled up!”

“Cool,” I said. “Now we’re stronger.”

“Strong enough to get out of here?” Mira asked.

“No way," I told her. "We still need to grind levels."

"First we need a new home," Mira said.

"Well, let's get to work on that," I said.