The Party Misfits

Verra raised her staff, her voice low but steady.

“Veins of shadow, answer my call. Mark the path with your Sigil. Let the gate be drawn and the way made open.”

The rune in her staff flared into being before her, the shape of a flower, pulsing like a heartbeat. It spun once, twice, then stretched into a column of violet light that swallowed us whole.

A blink later, the Copper Gates loomed in front of us

Inside, the road wound through farmland long since abandoned. The skeleton of a windmill jutted against the sky, its broken blades creaking faintly in the wind. The air smelled of wet soil… and something faintly metallic, sharp as iron left out in the rain.

Lira led the way. Every step she made was sharp and precise, like she was trying to stab the earth itself. Her bow never left her hand, string thrumming occasionally as if she just couldn’t resist testing it.

“You walk heavy,” she said without looking back, words aimed squarely at me. “For someone carrying nothing of value.”

I swung my shovel onto my shoulder. “You’d be surprised how many things a shovel can do. Dig. Smash. Bury.”

Her eyes flicked — the closest thing to flipping me off.

Keiji, ever the peacemaker, tried to step in. “Let’s not fight before we even get there. We’ll need each other.”

“Correction,” Lira said. “We’ll need competent fighters. He’s dead weight.”

“Funny,” I said. “Most people wait until after I screw up to call me dead weight. You must be an oracle.”

That earned me a glare hot enough to melt the string off her bow.

Verra’s soft voice cut through before it could escalate. “Bickering serves no purpose and it only feeds them.”

The wind blew softly, a new smell clinging to the air.

“Smell that?” Verra asked, sniffing. “Means the Magna saturation’s rising. The breach is close.”

And then we saw it.

In the middle of a ruined field, the air tore itself open: a ragged black wound, edges flickering with pale light. The ground around it warped. Grass curled into spiral patterns, stones hovered like marionettes being pulled on invisible strings.

“Entry point,” Dorran said, lowering his shield. “I’ll go first.”

“Not so fast,” Lira cut in, drawing an arrow with almost theatrical precision. “We go in formation. Shield front, hero center, mage rear, archer covering.” She gave me a look. “Scrap-picker… stay out of the way.”

“Of course,” I said, stepping back. “Wouldn’t want to ruin your perfect little formation.”

Crossing the breach was like stepping into the throat of some vast, breathing beast.

The world inverted — sky folding in on itself, ground buckling beneath our boots — and then we were inside.

The dungeon breathed. Literally, the walls flexed inward and outward like slabs of muscle wrapped in veins of glowing copper. Each throb sent a shiver through the air. Various runes moved across the surface like insects scuttling just out of sight.

Dorran planted his shield. “Tight formation.”

But the floor moved first.

The ground beneath us shuddered, cracked and rose. These weird plates of chitin—exoskeletons of insects and crustaceans—forcing us apart like a hand spreading fingers. From the seams, creatures spilled. At first, they looked like shattered armor, fused to crawling limbs, their faces were blank helms, hollow but watching.

“Contact!” Lira let her arrow loose, pinning one through the eye. The creature was thrust to the wall where it crumpled into copper shards, but three more crawled forward.

Dorran roared, shield slamming down, holding the line. Keiji lifted his sword cutting down any that sneaked by, arcs of raw light trailing after each swing. Verra traced runes into the air with her staff, layering Keiji in a shimmer of protection.

Meanwhile, one of the creatures broke from the pack, lunging straight for me. I wanted to avoid fighting this early on but since no one moved to intercept. I swung my shovel in a tight arc, the flat edge caving its helm with a crack. Lira turned, catching the moment as the creature burst into fragments.

“What luck, huh? It just fell onto my shovel,” I muttered, pretending like nothing happened.

Her eyes narrowed. I don’t think she bought it.

The walls pulsed harder—shifting into darkness, then snapping back again. Cracks spidered upward, veins of light racing along them like molten rivers. Runes shifted on the surface, rearranging themselves into new patterns. The entire corridor squeezed in, the air pressing against our lungs.

I thought we were done.

Vera froze mid-chant, serving as our guardian angel. She slammed her staff down, the sound cracked like stone splintering.

“Hold on,” she hissed. “The dungeons are merging too quickly. I’ll fortify it and buy us more time.”

The runes etched into her staff bled, glowing erratically, disintegrating slowly, anchoring the corridor in a net of violet light. For a moment, the walls stopped pressing in.

Then it changed again.

The floor softened beneath our boots, reshaping into roots and flesh. The corridor stretched into a forest, but wrong. Trees rose too tall, their bark bending like cloth. Leaves glowed faint purple, flickering between solid and translucent form. A waterfall to our left flowed…upwards, while a river beside it ran sideways through the air, cutting reality into ribbons.

Despite Verra’s efforts, the merge was proceeding quickly.

A system screen flashed in front of Keiji:

[SYSTEM NOTICE: Spawn Effect– Mid-Tier Dungeon / Pre-Merge]
• All enemy types have enhanced attributes.
• Environmental Magna density increased.
• Core instability: 72%

He flinched, staring at me. No one else reacted. They couldn’t see it, even Dorran, who was literally being covered by it.

A distant roar echoed down the corridor. Low and hungry.

“Rovers?” Dorran asked, raising his shield.

“Not yet,” Verra said, breath sharp. “But they’ll come when the merge completes…”

Then Keiji stiffened — another warning flickering before Keiji

[SYSTEM WARNING: Magna spike detected – Predators incoming]

“Guys? Something is coming!” he yelled.

A wet, chittering hiss echoed all around us.

“Contact,” Dorran rumbled.

From the forest, they charged —wolves, or what had once been wolves, now twisted by the merge. Too many to count. And not only their numbers, but everything else. Their eyes in places no eyes belonged, teeth like broken glass all over their mouths.

Unfortunately, for us, their forms were stable and the first one jumped its jaws wide open. Dorran met it with a thunderous shield slam that shook the ground, then crushed its skull before it could recover.

Another broke for me. Before I could lift the shovel, an arrow tore through its throat mid-leap.

“One,” Lira said flatly, already drawing the next.

“What?” I asked

“That means you owe me.”

She pivoted and fired again without looking, the arrow splitting the air just past my ear. The beast behind me crumpled, choking.

“That’s two. I guess you really are lucky.”

Something was very wrong with this woman.

Keiji stepped forward, his sword shimmering with golden light. He carved two in half with a single swing. The air around him rippled with raw energy.

Behind us, Verra’s staff burned violet. She muttered a spell and the runes from her robes crawled from there to her staff to replace the already disintegrating ones. Before she could cast another spell, the wolves rushed towards her but one by one got taken out by arrows.

Verra stepped back.

“Thank you, Lira but there are still too many of them,” she hissed. “Dorran…! Form a barrier so I can cast another spell!”

“Got it!” His shield glowed, the rune on his shield materializing and glowing green.

Dorran shifted his weight, slamming his boots into the ground as if anchoring himself to the dungeon floor. His free hand pressed against the face of his shield, and his voice carried like a drumbeat:

“Earth Form — Barrier of the Enduring Bastion!”

The rune etched across his shield flared bright green, the glow spilling into cracks across the floor. The stones and hardened chitin surged upward in jagged plates, knitting themselves into a wall of solid earth and skeleton. The wolves that lunged crashed headfirst into it, their claws screeching uselessly against the barrier.

The impact wasn’t just physical — the rune pulsed outward with a deep vibration, like the heartbeat of the ground itself, and the dungeon shuddered in answer. Dust rained from the shifting ceiling, runes crawling faster across the walls as if the place itself recognized the call of his Earth power.

Keiji’s eyes widened. “Whoa…that was awesome.”

Dorran’s jaw flexed. Sweat rolled down his temple, but his stance didn’t break.

“Don’t be too impressed yet. The Bastian will hold so long as my feet don’t move, but I can’t do this forever, so it’s more of a temporary fix.”

Behind the barrier, Verra’s staff hummed as she spread her palms, violet runes spiraling outward like constellations.

“Good work, Dorran. You can release the barrier now. I’ll burn them down.”