Well, you'll certainly give it your all

A hulking 10th level slab of human muscle bursts around the corner, wearing nothing but pants and a strap holding his backpack. He holds a huge mace in one hand and a shield, each looking like a normal person would require two hands to hold them. Not eager to repeat the mistakes of yesterday, you put Rishukan in charge of the front lines, ordering her to harry the enemy's advance and use traps and corners to minimize losses. To her credit, she actually does an admiral job: you aren't sure if it's the transformation or skills from her time as a goblin chieftess, but she seems to have a certain brutal cunning under her incoherently babbling exterior. The group retreats while firing volleys at the warrior to keep him advancing slowly behind his shield. He seems to be tanking for a group of lower-level casters and archers, and with a few well-placed fireballs you **** them to rest and recover long enough for you to regroup.

Retreating back to the next fork in your new, less linear series of hallways, you divide your forces in two. The main group, led by you, will keep the warrior busy. The other group, led by Tlax and Rishukan, will ambush the lower-level ranged characters when they see their chance. Moments after everyone is in position, the adventurers start advancing back down the hallway. The warrior advances carefully at first, but soon the roar of flame fills the passage as he triggers a fire trap. You snap your fingers, hoping to freeze him in place, but unfortunately your spell doesn't take effect. Alerted to your ability and without any protection from fire, he gives a roar and charges straight at you. That works too!

A few steps later, he gives a surprised and somewhat comical yelp as the ground collapses under his feet. With a hearty battle cry, you hear the clash of steel as your minions charge into the confused group on the other side of the inferno. You feel rush after rush of experience as two of the unprotected casters are easily dispatched in short order. With a yell the warrior climbs out of the pit, but when he turns to defend his allies a wave of arrows and firebolts strike his unprotected back. He spins around and begins advancing back on you, but quickly stumbles as yet more projectiles hammer into his exposed flank one after the other. Realizing he has nowhere to run, he gives a **** battle cry and charges at full speed, barely making it forward before he collapses shuddering with Tlax's fangs lodged in his leg. You step forward to finish him off.

Suddenly, you hear the calm tap-tap-tap of high heels coming from... behind you? There shouldn't be anyone behind you: none of your minions wear heels and your guard hasn't alerted you to any intruders. You spin around, and with a loud crunching sound your vision goes blurry as you are encased in ice, struggling to no avail. Out of the corners of your vision you can see each and every one of your minions is similarly indisposed. Damn it: you were so close! Peering through the frost you can see the faint outline of a tall woman in a heavy blue, fur-lined robe and wearing a blue crown. Her character sheet simply identifies her as Auril "The Ice Queen", and where her level ought to be there's nothing but an ominous red skull. No! You recall that the red skull means she's more than twenty-five levels above you. Well, there's nothing for it: you simply relax your muscles and accept your fate, cursing whoever came up with the idea of unique cosmetics. With a lazy flick of her hand, your glacial prison shatters and you find yourself skewered by a giant icicle. At least it was fast, you think, as your vision fades to black.

You find yourself floating in a sea of darkness. It's eerily quiet, and the only thing that proves that you still have your senses is a popup in front of you.

You have died!
Experience reset (Level 7, 700xp needed to level up)
Respawning in 4:57... 4:56... 4:55
(Respawn rate increased due to being the target of a world bounty)

Sure enough, five minutes later you see a red light above you and feel the irresistible urge to swim towards it. Reaching out, you grip the familiar floor of the summoning room. You've scarcely pulled your body out of the hole when you hear a snick as your head is separated from your neck. It spins through the air and you stay conscious just long enough to see a heavily-armoured woman holding a long, curved sword: Chanra "The Blade of the Heavens", also with a red skull in place of her level. This is going to be a long day, isn't it?

Sure enough, the cycle repeats itself, with new adventurers far above your level waiting to kill you the moment you respawn. Some of them are low enough level that you can at least see the exact number, but even if you might normally have a chance against them you can't do much if they're ready for you right when you appear. Night brings no reprieve: while the lower-level adventurers have left by now, higher-level ones with nothing to fear from Imporne after dark still show up one after the other. You're about to question whether your life as a dungeon boss is over when a trumpet burst finally announces the end of the day's special reward. With a chorus of complaints from the adventurers still waiting their turn, you see them suddenly pull out scrolls and begin to read from them, seemingly not caring you've now respawned and are now futilely flinging firebolts at them. One after another they're engulfed in pillars of green light and vanish, as the few who don't have access to this power simply jog past you, up the steps to the tower, and out through the long-since-opened iron gate.

World Bounty: Enileve's Wrath (Day 4 of 4)
Living monsters: 7/29
Monsters killed are guaranteed to drop one of a variety of potions.
Azazel will drop the Armour of the Fire Magi set when killed, normally only available from the Upper Warren. Set items dropped in this way can be equipped by characters of any level.

You collapse in bed and read the popup with a sigh of relief. The Upper Warren is a cave a ways up Imporne with monsters around level 15, so higher-level adventurers won't have much reason to slaughter you tomorrow like they did today. Perhaps someone is having mercy on you, or perhaps it's all just luck. Whichever it is, tomorrow you should at least stand a chance. You drift off and dream dreams of buxom blonde priestesses.