Anomaly

The desert hit like a wall—so abrupt it felt like stepping through a painted backdrop.

Sand hissed underfoot, endless dunes beneath a ceiling that never bothered to change. No sunrise, no sunset—just glare.

Nathan had lost track of the days. Three? Four? His body said forever.

He stank, his tongue was sandpaper, and he was so sick of Nyx’s stylus tick-tick-ticking that it haunted his dreams.

I’m losing it. Full-tilt, bargain-bin survival show crazy.

They had a rhythm now, but it felt less like training and more like the world’s longest treadmill. Everyone was running on fumes, and Nathan felt a guilty, microscopic burst of relief—he wasn’t the only one. We all want out of this stupid desert.

Bren still set the pace, but even her steps had dulled—more grind than march.

Sera called halts with the same clipped flicks, but they came faster now, sharper, like she was cutting fatigue out of the group before it could set in too deep.

Tamsin’s knife only twirled when the path was easy; most of the time it sat quiet in her palm, like even the blade was tired.

Alia ghosted between them with fewer words, heavier blinks, pressing vials like she wished she could dose them with sleep.

And Nyx—Nyx had cooled. The stylus still ticked, but slower now, with long pauses, like she had to wind herself back up. Nathan thought about her at the start—all gossip and crooked smiles. Now the switch felt permanent. Scientist mode. He was the subject, not the rookie. Less teammate, more lab rat. Every tick of her stylus felt like she was cataloguing how long until he cracked.

The desert pressed on all of them—endless sand, leather creaking, nobody wasting anything: not water, not steps, not breath.

And when the silence broke, it was always the same.

Monsters.

They came like weather—sand bursting, claws skittering, stingers snapping in and out of reach. Things that lunged up from the dunes with bear-trap jaws. Beetles that clamped shields and wouldn’t let go until Tamsin carved them loose. Spindly limbs clicking glass on glass before vanishing back underground. Dozens of scraps, none glorious. Just a steady bleed of strength and patience.

“Sand-lurkers, shield-gnawers, glass-limbs,” Nathan muttered, counting on his fingers. Easier than the mile-long Latin Alia kept spouting. “Smash, pry, or run—that’s the only instruction anyway.”

Between fights, the desert gave them just enough breath to talk, the rhythm of combat bleeding into scraps of conversation.

“Xyloclast beetle,” Alia corrected mildly, toeing a cracked carapace. “Not shield-gnawer.”

“Gesundheit,” Nathan said. “Do they evolve into ‘Please Stop Biting My Knees’-asauruses, or is that a later dungeon?”

“Silicaptera,” she added, pointing at a stick-thin limb. “Glass-limb.”

“Right, noted. Collect-’em-all desert edition.”

“Limited run,” Tamsin said, twirling the knife. “Very exclusive. Must pre-order with your blood.”

“Focus,” Bren said—though the corner of her mouth twitched half a millimeter.

The jokes bled off with the heat, and the rhythm reasserted itself. Everyone adapted in small ways.

Bren angled her shield lower, letting the bugs slam into iron instead of legs. Her sword stayed ready at her side, but she always trusted the shield first.

Sera called rests faster.

Alia rationed doses into half-sips, catching them before they staggered.

Even Tamsin’s knife work shifted—more jabs than flourishes.

Nathan tracked his own progress like coins in a jar: a rock throw that actually struck, a shield brace that didn’t buckle, remembering to breathe through the sandstorm when the ground erupted under him. His sword moved where he told it now; the problem was distance. What he needed was reach. Something to strike farther than his arm could go.

And every scrape of grit made him think of Ronan—the shove that had come out of nowhere, one hard arm knocking him clear as the wall came down like a guillotine. If not for that, he’d be dead.

Gratitude sat heavy, but it tangled with something worse: if Ronan showed up again, breathing and whole, would Nathan have to put the Boss mask back on when they finally got out of this godforsaken place? The thought twisted his gut harder than the heat.

He forced his focus back to his boots, each step heavier than the last.

The desert stretched on, unbroken. How many sideways cuts and hidden layers could a place like this have? Back home, Nathan would’ve called it bad map design—two parties starting five feet apart, sent down corridors that never connect. Here, it wasn’t a game. Just maddening.

Nathan spat grit. “I thought dungeons looped or reconnected or something. Shouldn’t we have run into the others by now?”

“Dungeons don’t flow in straight lines,” Bren said. “Levels tilt. Paths cut sideways. If they’re breathing, they’ll find their own.”

“Comforting,” Nathan muttered.

“Accurate,” Bren returned. “Rooms shear. You can walk beside a voice for a mile and never touch the same floor.”

Sera flicked him a look, sharp even through exhaustion. “You expected a straight march back to your friends? That’s not how it works. Dungeons decide their own shape.”

“Great,” Nathan said. “So the GPS is busted and the roads don’t meet. Love that.”

Nyx’s stylus ticked against her bracer, faster now, like she’d been waiting for the opening. “Ancient dungeons sometimes stabilize into loops. Mana-born don’t. They shift until collapse or closure.” She added, almost idly, “Left alone too long, pressure builds. That’s when you get a break.”

Her stylus paused mid-scratch. “There was… a third type. Portal-born. But no one’s seen one in centuries. Likely a myth.”

Nathan’s head lifted. “Portal?”

Bren cut in, flat and immovable. “Don’t chase it. Old ghost stories waste breath.”

Nyx’s eyes lingered on him a moment too long, sharp again, before she bent back to her notes.

Nathan’s pulse quickened. He filed it away—portal. Ghost story or not, it was the first word in days that felt like it mattered.

Alia murmured, not looking up from her vials, “That’s why the Guild sends sanctioned parties. To keep the flows steady. Otherwise… marauders slip in, strip what they can, and leave the rest to rot.”

Nathan dragged a hand down his face. “So what—you’re not even trying to finish this thing? No big boss at the end? Just keep it stable so the Guild can keep looting the gift shop?”

No one laughed.

Tamsin blinked. “Gift shop?”

Nathan waved a hand. “Never mind.”

Bren cut in, steady as stone. “There’s a guardian. High-level. Kill it, and the dungeon shuts. A door will open.”

Nathan’s brows shot up. A door? He bit back the urge to ask more, because if Bren was being that short, he wouldn’t get an essay out of her. But the thought still rattled him: beat the boss, then the dungeon itself spits you back out? That’s… disturbingly convenient.

Figures. Demon swords for some, fate marks for others. I get sand rash. At least the dungeon’s got a built-in fast-travel system. Maybe I’ll luck into a cursed trinket on the way out.

By the time Sera lifted a hand, the dunes had already erased every point of reference. No horizon, no end—just the same painted backdrop of glare and sand, stretching forever.

“Camp.”

The hollow they found cut the wind, and for once the desert didn’t feel like it was trying to flay them alive. Packs hit sand, torches hissed, and Nathan collapsed against his bedroll, brain looping shower, burger, Wi-Fi.

He was so sick of sand, sick of Nyx’s stylus ticking in the corner of his vision—

Tick.

She drew a tighter sigil. The glow breathed, sagged toward him like heat over stone. Sparks spat, but instead of collapsing, the lines bent toward his boot.

Alia’s hands stilled. Bren stared at the glow like it was a blade.

Nathan flinched. Fantastic. I’m a compass.

Nyx tapped her bracer. “Something marked you.” Her mouth twitched—sharp, not warm. “Voids can cancel or even collapse. You bend.” She muttered half to herself, “Maybe ‘bend’ has been the wrong word all along...”

Her stylus tapped three sharp dots into the sand. “Resonant types. Mana-resonant: most of us. Void-resonant: cancel or collapse on contact. Neither explains how the motes have been reacting around you.”

Nathan blinked. “Great. Not even on the chart.”

Nyx’s mouth curved, all teeth. “You anchor. Different resonance entirely.”

She ticked the theories off with her stylus, sharp as knife points. “Residual mana—fed once, cut off, scarred. Tether—a fracture branded you when it shut. Hairline, but enough to lean. Relic imprint—old pattern answered you, like a key slotting into the wrong lock.”

Nathan raised both hands. “Glad I could be your dissertation.”

She didn’t blink. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t fit Guild doctrine.” Ink scratched fast across her slate, furious, like she’d been holding it back for days.

The others were still watching him like he might sprout fangs any second, and the air felt brittle with tension.

Nathan slumped deeper into his bedroll, grit biting his lips, heat clawing at his skull. Days of hawk-eyes and scribbles just so she could hit me with a thesis defense. Who’s actually losing it here—her with her glowing doodles and murder-journal, or me hallucinating about burgers and Wi-Fi in a death desert? Either way, not comforting.

Nathan’s stomach turned. He remembered the chamber days ago—Nyx’s spiral dragging a mote until it cracked open, birthing a beetle with snapping mandibles and sparks spitting off its shell.

And afterward: the whisper. Cold. Wrong.

Right. Not fireflies—starter kits for monsters.

He’d seen motes lean toward him before, sliding closer whenever Nyx sketched her spirals—but never close enough to brush skin. Everyone else treated them like live wires.

Alia’s voice cut calm, clinical. “It isn’t light. It’s raw mana. Treat it like venom and keep clear.”

“Unstable motes collapse,” Nyx went on. “Sometimes they blister. Sometimes they… shape.”

“Shape. Collapse,” Nathan echoed, throat dry. That’s code for monsters, right?

Her eyes gleamed. “Touch it.”

Nathan laughed weakly. “You want me to poke the dungeon’s piñata of death? And everyone else is just… fine with this?”

The camp answered with silence, but the silence had teeth.

Bren’s shield angled up, steady but tight.
Tamsin’s knives lifted into a fighter’s stance.
Alia’s hand hovered over a vial on her belt, fingers tense on the glass.
Sera’s stance braced, hand hovering near her hilt.

Well, that’s a terrifying response.

Nathan groaned. “I really, really don’t want to do this.”

“Do it,” Nyx said, quick and certain, like the word itself was a scalpel.

He squeezed his eyes shut and stuck out one finger like a kid testing a hot stove.

Cold fizzed up his skin—like dunking his hand in carbonated water. But instead of snuffing out, the glow slid inward, humming under his ribs as if he’d swallowed static straight into his veins. The mote didn’t just vanish—it got pulled into him, sucked down until nothing was left.

He yelped, jerking his hand back. “What the hell. Did I just eat that? Was that supposed to happen?!”

Their incredulous silence pressed heavier than the desert.

Bren’s shield hadn’t lowered all the way.
Tamsin’s knife hovered mid-spin.
Alia finally exhaled, breath shaky.
Even Sera’s hand still lingered on her hilt.

Nathan’s voice cracked. “What? What does those looks mean? Did I just grow a tail or something?”

Nyx leaned closer, eyes hawk-bright. “You didn’t cancel or collapse. You didn’t blister. You… absorbed.”

“I absorbed? Like stored it?”

Nyx’s shoulders shook with a laugh, sharp and gleeful. “Yes. Absorbed. Not a void. Definitively an anomaly!”

Nathan’s stomach flipped. Glad you’re happy. Right, sure. Alia’s got her bug textbook, you’ve got your shiny new label. I’ll just file it under things I don’t care to memorize.

“Fantastic. Human power bank—that’s somehow worse.”

“Not worse. Different.” Nyx’s stylus scratched faster, lines furious across her slate. Her grin sharpened, not childish but feverish, the way a scholar might when a theory finally clicks. “Stabilized. That means anomaly.”

She snapped her slate wider, notes spilling. “We need to test further. Anchor strength, resonance drift—”

“No, no, no—there’s no further,” Nathan said, jabbing a finger at his chest. “Experiment’s over.”

She leaned closer, taking a sharp sniff, then wrinkled her nose like a cat catching scent.

“Mana,” she said, flat and certain.

Nathan instinctively started to lift his arm, sniffing for himself—then recoiled at his own stench. Brilliant move, genius. How many days has it even been since a real shower?

“I what? I smell… like mana? Fantastic. Add glowing air perfume to my résumé.”

Nyx’s stylus didn’t stop, scratching harder, faster, like she’d just found her prize specimen. “Resonant bend—yes. But you—” she jabbed her stylus toward him—“you absorbed. That doesn’t happen.”

“Nyx.” Sera’s voice cut like steel, flat and final. “Enough for now. We’ll speak of it later.”

Nathan sagged back, the memory of his proud little rock throw souring in his gut. “Fantastic. I wasn’t a hero—I was the idiot who started choking it with mana. You were already there to kill it before it turned into something bigger, scarier. My rock just hurried it along. And I thought…” His voice cracked, low and bitter. “I thought it was this big moment.” He swallowed hard. “Guess not.”

Bren’s shield dipped a fraction. “It was still clean. Precise.”

Alia added, calm as ever, “It mattered. You saw the line.”

Tamsin flicked her knife upright. “Most rookies just flail. You aimed.”

No wonder Nyx hadn’t thought it was a big deal.

Nyx didn’t look up. “If left longer, it may have reshaped.” Then, with a grin razor-sharp: “Unless the mouth breaks. Then nothing recycles—monsters, mana, even stone. A dungeon bleeding itself dry drags everything nearby with it.”

Tamsin muttered, “Cheery thought.”

Nathan’s gut dropped. He remembered the crysplings in the crystal cavern, pip-pip-pipping as they clung, stubborn and insistent. Not attack—testing. Drawn in like iron filings to a magnet.

“Oh my god! The weaponized candy weren’t just biting me. They thought I was… feedstock.”

Tamsin grinned. “Rookie, that’s the nicest way I’ve heard someone say ‘bug chow'.’”

Nathan swallowed hard. “So basically, I’m walking bait. Fantastic. Love that for me.”

Bren’s shield angled back into place with a dull thunk. “Exactly. Stay alert.”

Sera’s eyes swept the camp, jaw set. “Move.”

Motion and clipped conversations carried them forward.

Back into the monotonous routine: march, camp, eat, drill, eat, march.

The women moved like it was habit, seamless as shifting gears, and Nathan had no choice but to keep step. Sometimes Sera barked counts to keep their strides aligned—a rhythm Nathan tripped over more often than he caught.

When she finally called, “Halt,” Bren was already hauling her shield into position, and Nathan realized too late this wasn’t rest.

They ate salted rations, then drilled: shield on a three-count, short rush and brace, how to fall without smashing your face.

“Hold,” Bren barked.

Nathan locked his knees. Her shield slammed into his, harder than he thought possible. His teeth rattled, the impact buzzing through his arms like a tuning fork.

“Congratulations,” she said, calm as stone. “You didn’t topple like a sand-beetle on its back.”

Nathan wheezed. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me in here.”

Bren blinked once, then added, “Your grip was less pathetic than yesterday.”

“Oh my god, stop—too much praise, I’m gonna cry.”

Tamsin snorted loud enough to carry. Even Alia’s mouth twitched like she had to bury a laugh.

Sera only said, “Again.”

Nathan groaned and braced. Abuse, thinly disguised as mentorship.

“Chin down,” Bren added. “Keep your teeth for later.”

“Want me to paint a target on your back?” Tamsin called. “Help the wildlife with aim.”

Nathan huffed, shield up. “Pretty sure they’ve already got my measurements.” His tone dripped sarcasm, even if the words made no sense to anyone but him.

“You’re dropping your left,” Alia noted, dry as the desert. “Also, your sarcasm is dehydrated.”

He blew out a breath. “Good to know one of those is fixable.”

Small, useful things. He stacked those, too, each correction tucked away like gear he might actually need later.

By the time Sera called halt again, it felt like they’d been grinding forward forever, the rhythm of march-and-drill stretched thin.

Even Nathan had stopped trying to mark time; sweat and grit blurred one step into the next, the endless glare beating any sense of progress flat.

Their next stop came at what Nathan swore was water until they drew close—crystal shards jutting from the sand, glittering like a mirage. The light off them painted the camp in fractured blues and greens, pretty enough to sting.

Alia warned them not to touch—the shards were so cold they burned, leeching warmth from skin in seconds. From a distance, their faint chill felt like mercy after the heat, but up close that mercy would strip the skin from your fingers.

Nathan wiped sweat from his forehead and muttered, “Great. Air conditioning you can’t get too close to. Love this dungeon.”

Tamsin called it “romantic.”

Nathan called it “another cosmic joke.”

They camped anyway, ringed by false water and the faintest cool breeze.

Nyx’s hand clamped his elbow before he could sit. “Come.”

She dragged him a dozen paces beyond the others, where the shardlight fractured across the dunes. Her stylus tapped once against his palm before she pressed it into his hand.

“Try.”

“Me? I can’t even draw stick figures.”

“Draw.”

Nathan thought back to Mason’s manor, to the books he’d stared at until runes seemed to twitch on the page. Back then it had been desperation, seeing things that weren’t there. Nothing had ever lit for him.

Still… worth a shot.

He scratched a crooked loop in the sand. Awful. Sloppy.

For a breath he just stared at it, waiting for the obvious nothing. Just grit and a dumb mark in the dirt.

And then—light. Faint at first, bleeding off the line like it didn’t care about the shape. Nathan’s breath slammed short. It’s… glowing?

The shimmer slid to his boots, pooled, and crawled up his legs, thrumming through his ribs like static trying to find ground.

His throat dried. “No way.”

Nyx’s grin was sharp as glass. “See? Absorb. Not void. Not bend. Anomaly.”

Nathan licked his lips, eyes wide. “So… what the hell do I do with it?”

“Choose a target,” Nyx said, voice low and hungry. “And aim.”

“Right.” His pulse hammered. “Okay. Fine. Aim.”

Beyond them, a dune swelled, sand hissing as though something big rolled under the surface. Nathan flinched but forced his wrist to flick toward it, desperate to prove it hadn’t been a fluke.

The glow convulsed, bunched—then snapped wide, detonating three paces short with a sharp crack.

The dune erupted—but not from the massive shape. A smaller creature shrieked as the blast caught it: a spindly lizard of glass and chitin, its plates spiderwebbing as it tumbled sideways in a scatter of grit.

Nathan gaped. “Holy shit—I hit it?”

…Well, not what I was aiming for, but whoa.

The creature vanished with a hiss, ripples fanning outward like warning bells.

Nathan stumbled back, stylus slick in his grip. “Oh hell no. Tell me I didn’t just wake its bigger brother.”

Nyx’s grin gleamed sharp as broken crystal. “Direction. Control. That is next.”

The desert seemed to shiver with them, shardlight scattering uneasy colors across the sand.

Nathan’s pulse buzzed to match. Clumsy or not, he’d aimed—and struck. Against all odds, his first shot had landed.

Huh. Guess I can do magic stuff now.