Rankers Part 2

They stood knee-deep in a wide marsh basin. Mud sucked at Mal’s feet.

Their interfaces pinged.

TRAINING ENVIRONMENT 32
CRYSTAL HARVEST
OBJECTIVE: COLLECT 1,000 MONSTER CRYSTALS AND REACH TERMINAL MARKER WITH ALL PARTY MEMBERS
CONDITION: MUST REACH TERMINAL MARKER WITHIN THE TIME LIMIT
FAILURE PENALTY: PARTY RANK REDUCTION
DURATION: 90:00

“Crystal harvest sprint?” Harker squinted. “Fun.”

A countdown flashed across their interfaces.

3

Mal scanned the terrain.

2

A dry canyon rose north of the marsh.

1

Frank pointed north. “Canyon.”

BEGIN TRAINING

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 0 / 1,000

90:00

The session clock started.

89:59

"Move," Mal said.

They pushed forward through the marsh toward dry land.

"Evil bastards just had to drop us into water first, huh?" Harker said.

"Someone's having a laugh," Frank answered.

“No one cares about training,” Mal said.

The water around her knees rippled unevenly.

She slowed a fraction.

The movement wasn’t from their steps. It gathered inward, as if something below had shifted its weight.

Mud cinched tight around her left boot and pulled.

Not the usual drag of suction.

A deliberate tug.

“Contact,” Harker said.

The surface ruptured.

Long, slick bodies surged upward in a spray of peat and stagnant water. Their shapes sagged and reformed as they lunged, tension holding them together more than bone.

Mal met the lunge with a fast cut. The outer mass parted and slid off her blade without giving her purchase, then reknit in the same breath. She shifted her angle and drove deeper.

The blade struck something solid inside.

There.

She extended her purple flame. It hissed on contact.

A sharp crack split the mud creature apart.

It dissolved.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 1 / 1,000

"Crystals are their cores," Mal said.

One slammed into Frank’s thigh and wrapped.

Mineral plating crawled across him instantly, dark and dense. The thing still clung to his thigh.

Frank dropped his mace. The spikes bit through slurry and found the core.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 2 / 1,000

Harker lifted his mallet. Blue static crawled along the iron head.

“Don’t,” Mal snapped.

Harker looked down.

“Right. Water. Wouldn’t want to electrocute you again,” he barked.

“Appreciated,” Frank said.

Harker swung the mallet. “Brute force it is.”

Iron punched through the outer mass and struck the embedded crystal within.

Mal drove her blade through another creature at the same time.

Two sharp cracks split the marsh air.

Both creatures lost cohesion at once, sliding back into slurry as the red crystal cores shattered.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 4 / 1,000

“Join the club,” Frank yelled. The plating thickened his voice, turning it gravel-deep.

Another shape surged up in front of her.

Mal pushed through the suction of the marsh and drove her blade straight into it. The outer mass resisted for an instant before the steel forced through and struck the crystal within.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 5 / 1,000

Two more bodies burst upward beside her.

Frank tore one free from his leg and crushed it inward.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 11 / 1,000

Another wrapped around Mal’s calf and yanked hard enough to tilt her balance. She cut too shallow and felt the blade shear through slurry without hitting the core. The red crystal floated higher within the mass. She adjusted and drove upward.

To her right, Harker and Frank were already buried in a thicker press of bodies.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 23 / 1,000

Everything was close. No space to run. No room to swing wide. The creatures latched and dragged, forcing them to fight for every step.

One nearly took Harker’s footing before Frank wrenched it off his back and slammed it down hard. Mal split it cleanly.

They pushed ahead in short, ugly bursts, trying to keep the creatures from stacking on them.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 52 / 1,000
67

Mal edged a little farther from the others.

Another body surged up at her left.

Then another at her right.

Three more ruptured the water in front of her.

Mal shifted her footing and extended her flame.

She turned once. The rigid flame swept wide. Bodies around her lost cohesion at the same time.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 74 / 1,000
89
103

“Mal! Keep doing that!” Harker yelled.

She widened the flame again as more surfaced.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 118 / 1,000

Several shapes ruptured the water in her path, forcing her to break stride.

She pivoted, shortened the flame for precision, and drove the blade through one's chest, then the next.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 124 / 1,000

The water stilled.

The pull at her boots weakened.

They reached the edge of the marsh.

72:42

“That wasn’t so bad,” Harker said.

“Easy for you to say. Mal handled most of it,” Frank said.

“I couldn’t use my electricity. Be thankful.”

The mud thinned beneath their boots and gave way to dry grit. The ground shifted from suction to loose dust and gravel.

Each stride made a damp, hollow squelch inside Mal’s boots. Water shifted against her feet, cold and unpleasant, the sound small but constant.

A canyon rose ahead, steep and sun-bleached. Beyond the entrance, the floor disappeared into shade.

“Perfect ambush setup,” Harker said.

A loud roar tore through the canyon.

“Not even a trap," Frank chuckled. "We’re just running in to find monsters.”

“Insanity,” Harker said.

“Focus,” Mal said.

Her eyes adjusted as they crossed into the canyon’s shade.

The dust hit them first.

It rolled down the canyon like a wall, dry and thick enough to sting the back of Mal’s throat.

Then something moved inside it.

Massive four-legged bodies burst through the haze, thick through the shoulders, each stride hammering the canyon floor. Long, narrow skulls split open as they ran, revealing rows of serrated teeth.

The ground shuddered under their charge.

“Distance!” Mal snapped.

Frank dropped into a runner’s stance.

Mal and Harker slowed.

Stone surged over him again, thicker this time. The plating pushed outward along his shoulders and forearms, forming jagged ridges.

He burst into a run straight down the middle of the oncoming herd.

The first beast he hit folded under the impact.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 125 / 1,000

The herd broke around him.

Another slammed into the canyon wall hard enough for its crystal to fracture.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 126 / 1,000

Two more went down in the chaos, bodies tumbling under his charge.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 128 / 1,000

He didn’t slow. He vanished into the dust, mace rising and falling as his armored frame drove forward.

The herd split around the gap he’d carved, shapes scattering through the haze.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 138 / 1,000

“That’ll never get old,” Harker whistled.

“Clear!” Frank bellowed from somewhere ahead.

“You’re up,” Mal called.

“Right.” Harker broke into a run.

He sprinted straight into the lane Frank had carved.

Blue light crawled along the head of his mallet, brighter than before.

The first beast lunged through the dust.

Harker swung.

The strike landed and the charge erupted outward through bone and muscle, racing along the air and snapping to the next charging body.

Several convulsed mid-stride and crashed.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 145 / 1,000
149

He pivoted and slammed the mallet into the canyon floor at the center of the herd.

Lightning flared low across the canyon floor, arcing through three bodies at once before fading.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 158 / 1,000

The herd faltered.

Mal kept to Frank’s wake, just outside the path of Harker’s arcs, cutting down the stragglers with her flame at full reach.

Frank broke them. Harker punished the clusters. Mal cut what slipped through.

Only a few beasts remained. When the last one went down, they closed the gap and moved as one again.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 168 / 1,000

The canyon walls groaned.

Dust shook loose from the rock face above them.

High along the cliff face, shadowed openings yawned where the light didn’t reach. Mal hadn’t seen them before.

Something shifted inside one of the openings.

“Above!” Mal warned.

Long, segmented bodies tore free from the rock, pale and ridged. They dropped hard to the canyon floor and uncoiled at once.

Frank didn’t break stride. He plowed through the first cluster.

“Stand clear!” Harker slammed the mallet into the canyon floor and drove current into the stone.

The charge raced outward through the rock face and into the fallen creatures still in contact with it.

Their bodies seized.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 181 / 1,000

More dropped.

Harker struck again.

This time the current spread through the canyon wall itself before snapping into the clustered bodies below.

They convulsed and fractured where they lay.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 199 / 1,000

Mal cut down the few that broke free of the shock, finishing them without breaking stride.

Frank bashed stragglers with his mace.

Harker’s arcs punished anything that tried to regroup along the walls.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 234 / 1,000

The canyon narrowed and dust thickened.

Crystals jumped in uneven bursts.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 271 / 1,000

More segmented bodies tore free from the walls.

“There’re so many of these bastards!” Harker yelled.

He swallowed. Then he started swearing again.

Mal cut what slipped past the lightning. Frank crushed the rest. She stayed just outside Harker’s arcs.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 309 / 1,000
342
371

The rock on either side thinned.
Sky cut through the gap ahead.

Stone gave way to packed earth, fractured roots, and scattered foliage.

Harker braced his hands on his knees. “I’m tapped for a minute.”

“You did well,” Mal said.

“You bet.”

64:52

“We keep moving,” Frank said, still catching his breath.

Mal scanned the treeline. “No idea how much further to the marker.”

"Yeah." Harker straightened. "Let's go."

They stepped beneath the canopy.

Within a few strides, the light changed. The sky disappeared behind overlapping branches, and what sunlight remained filtered through in narrow beams that never quite reached the ground. The earth softened underfoot, layered with moss and old leaf rot, roots twisting across the path like ribs pushing through skin.

Low growls rippled through the trees.

Shapes shifted between the trunks.

“Guess we’re headed the right way,” Frank said.

Wolves emerged, heavy through the shoulders, moving in a loose crescent that angled across their line of travel.

“Push through them,” Mal said. “We don’t stop.”

Frank stepped into the first lunge and brought his mace down hard, keeping his swing tight between the trees.

Harker swore under his breath. “Too many trees.” He snapped a short burst of lightning low between the trunks, catching another mid-leap.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 373 / 1,000

Mal shifted right, angling for the narrowest opening between trunks. “With me.”

She dove through the gap, branches tearing at her sleeves.

Behind her, wood cracked and splintered. She glanced back in time to see Frank forcing his way through, smashing thinner trunks aside with his shoulder and mace.

Harker was already through and close on her heels.

The wolves were right behind them.

"Mal watch—" Harker started.

She ran into something elastic. It snapped across her face and chest.

Sticky.

She dragged her palm down her face.

Web.

Mal glanced up. Thick clusters hung higher in the branches, dark and swollen. Shapes skittered between them.

The canopy shifted.

Strands trembled. Spiders dropped on silk lines, legs unfolding as they descended.

“Spiders!” she shouted, already cutting a path through the hanging strands.

Web clung to her blade. More lines dropped, layering over the first.

She glanced back.

Frank’s mace swung tight between trunks as wolves forced through the gap.

They were closing in from both sides.

“Help Frank!” Harker said, moving past her. “I’ve got these.”

“Yeah.” She ran toward Frank. “Behind!”

Frank dropped another wolf.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 389 / 1,000

Mal cut down three more.

Wood gave way behind her.

She turned.

A trunk split and toppled, tearing silk loose from the branches.

Flame raced along the fallen strands.

The swollen clusters ignited.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 406 / 1,000
432

“What the hell?” Harker yelled. “Why’s it jumping?”

“Fire’s spreading,” Frank said.

“Eggs. The count.” She pointed to a sac.

Harker squinted up. “Eggs?”

She cut down another wolf without looking back. “Yes.”

Frank crushed two more with his mace. “Wolves cleared!”

The smoke thickened.

"Let's go," Harker started to jog left.

“No.” Mal cut the opposite direction. “This way.”

Frank followed close behind her, finishing anything that hit the ground in their path.

The smoke lessened.

"Why this way?" Harker asked.

Ahead, through the branches, a mountain tip cut against the sky.

“That’s our heading.” She pointed.

“How do you know?”

She didn’t slow. “It isn’t this forest.”

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 438 / 1,000

They were running again, toward the mountain, when small shapes shot from the brush in erratic arcs, fur slick with mud, narrow skulls tipped with short hooked horns. They didn’t charge straight. They ricocheted off roots and trunks, veering low for knees and ankles.

“What the—?” Frank barked.

One leapt at him. He crushed it under his boot.

Bunnies. With horns.

Mal cut one mid-leap. Another rebounded off a tree and came at her from the side. She pivoted and drove her blade through its chest before it hit the ground.

Harker planted his mallet and drove current straight into the forest floor. Lightning raced outward through damp soil and tangled roots, snapping up through the small bodies as they bounded. Three seized mid-air and dropped hard.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 444 / 1,000

Dozens of rabbits leapt from bushes.

Mal skidded to a halt.

“We got fliers!” Frank yelped.

Mal looked up.

Medium-sized red winged shapes were diving through the canopy, membranes stretched between elongated fingers, mouths split wide enough to show rows of narrow fangs. They screeched as they closed.

“I got those!” Harker shouted.

Mal widened her swing and cut through two rabbits at once as they launched at her knees. Frank’s mace rose and fell beside her, crushing bodies mid-bound.

Above her, Harker’s lightning snapped upward into the descending shapes.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 451 / 1,000
458
460

They kept moving after the monsters thinned.

“I think we’re close,” Harker said.

The ground answered him.

A deep grinding shudder rolled through the soil beneath her boots.

Ahead, a trunk wrenched sideways.

Not falling.

Pulling itself upright.

Soil ripped loose from a tangled mass of roots as the tree tore free of the ground. Its branches twisted inward, bending like jointed limbs.

Frank swore. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

It lurched forward.

He dropped low and launched at an angle, barreling into the tree with his full mass. The impact rang like striking stone, hard enough to split the trunk.

Mal felt the reverberation and stepped toward him, sword raised.

The tree’s roots stabbed back into the earth, digging for leverage. Dirt sprayed as they bit deep.

It stayed upright.

“Frank,” Harker said, moving in.

“I got it,” Frank growled, jagged stone growths along his arms biting into bark as he drove forward.

Mal stopped.

Frank roared and forced his weight through it.

His boots carved trenches.

The roots tore free with a sound like wet rope snapping.

The trunk tipped.

It toppled.

Frank went with it, climbing the fallen mass and bringing his mace down in brutal, vertical strikes.

“Die!”

Bark exploded outward.

Wood split.

A faint glow pulsed somewhere deep in the grain.

He kept hitting until the glow died and the branches sagged and stopped moving.

Frank halted his strikes, panting.

Just a log now.

He jumped down.

"Feel better?" Harker asked.

"I do," Frank said.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 462 / 1,000

“Was it worth two crystals?” Frank said.

“Appears so,” Mal said.

The ground shuddered again.

Two more trunks tore themselves free, roots dragging long furrows through the forest floor.

Then another.

And another.

“Looks like we woke up the tree army,” Harker said.

“Work,” Mal replied.

Frank moved first, crashing into the nearest trunk before it fully righted itself. His mace split bark wide.

Harker struck low, lightning racing through the exposed root network and leaping from one dragging mass to the next.

Three trees convulsed.

Mal didn’t chase individual trunks.

She cut along the collapsing bark, moving through openings Frank created, flame extending just enough to bite through the inner grain before the wood could reset.

One fell.

Then another.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 470 / 1,000
474

A branch whipped past her shoulder.

She pivoted inside it and carved upward.

The cut split bark and exposed the faint inner glow.

A heavy limb tore free and spun through the air.

Mal caught it mid-flight.

Flame bound along the splintered length.

She drove the burning branch straight into the exposed crystal.

The tree convulsed and dropped.

“Nice move,” Harker said.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 482 / 1,000

“Move,” Mal barked. “We’re almost out of here.”

She started jogging.

The trees were thinning out.

Something struck her shoulder.

Another hit the ground beside her.

Mal looked up.

High above, the canopy hummed.

A winged shape tore loose from the branches above her.

Then ten.

Then dozens.

Amber bodies with glowing wings dropped, diving like living harpoons.

“Run faster!” Mal yelled.

Her blade ignited and she swung.

The first wave hit the arc and split apart, cauterized mid-dive.

Harker and Frank surged past her.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 489 / 1,000
494

“Really hate bugs,” Harker said.

He didn’t break stride.

A bolt leapt from his mallet into the canopy.

It struck one mid-dive and chained through the swarm in a jagged web of light.

They burned and fell in smoking spirals.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 501 / 1,000

The frantic buzzing intensified.

Two dove low.

Frank ran straight through them.

Stingers shrieked against stone.

Wings tore free.

Their bodies burst apart against his mineral-plated chest and fell in fragments.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 509 / 1,000

The trees grew sparse. Shadows lost their depth.

The ground sloped upward, roots giving way to stone.
Loose gravel slid underfoot between rising boulders.

58:11

“Not much time left.”

“Five hundred more?”

“There better be a lot of monsters.”

“And the marker.”

“Let’s find some monsters.”

They scrambled up the steep gradient until the angle eased enough to run.

The air grew thinner, harder to breathe as they climbed.

“There.” Harker pointed.

A rock moved.

“Those have to be worth more than a tree,” Frank said.

Mal narrowed her eyes.

At first she thought they were boulders scattered along the slope.

Stone split from the slope as a massive hand punched through the shale. Fingers gouged deep grooves as it hauled itself upright.

A second shape tore free a few yards behind it, gravel cascading from its shoulders as it stood.

They were broad and uneven, slabs of mountain stacked into something almost humanoid. No faces. No eyes.

The first one stepped forward.

Loose stone skittered past their boots.

“Spread out,” Mal said.

The golem’s arm came down without warning, smashing into the slope where they had been standing. The shock traveled through the ground and up her legs.

Harker struck on instinct. Lightning flared across the creature’s torso, racing along stone before bleeding uselessly into the air.

“Blunt force, then,” he said, already adjusting.

He drove the mallet low into its leg joint. The impact rang deep and heavy. The golem did not budge.

"Well shit."

Frank drove his shoulder into it.

A large fracture split open in its upper body.

Mal slid in beneath the descending arm and carved into the gap Frank had opened.

The blade bit deep and stuck.

The golem swung with its other arm.

Mal ducked under the sweep, leaving her sword lodged in the opening.

She snatched a slab from the rubble at her feet. Flame engulfed the stone at her touch.

She drove the burning rock into the opening beside her blade, grabbing her sword as the golem folded. It collapsed in a grinding avalanche of stone.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 514 / 1,000

“Five?” Frank barked.

“Move,” Mal said.

Another rose.

Frank shattered it without slowing.

“Frank, they’re like your family!” Harker yelled.

“Shaddup.”

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 519 / 1,000

More boulders hauled themselves upright along the slope.

Frank drove into one and knocked it sideways into another. Both collapsed, but the falling mass shifted the loose stone under them. His footing slid and he caught himself before it could take him down the incline.

“Watch it!” Harker barked.

Gravel slid in sheets as another leaned into them. Harker braced and hammered through the overlapping stone before it could settle into place.

Stone burst apart around them.

Loose rock rolled past their boots.

They fought for footing until nothing else tried to rise.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 584 / 1,000

The wind cut harder as they climbed. Mal kept her head down and counted steps instead of breaths.

Something dropped from the outcrop above.

A pale, corded mass of muscle wrapped in tight, hairless skin the color of a bruised lung.

“The hell is that?” Frank said.

“Creepy,” Harker muttered.

The creature hissed.

More dropped.

They came in tight, snapping bursts.

Mal cut the first down mid-leap. Frank smashed another into the slope. Harker broke the third before it found footing.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 594 / 1,000

For half a second, everything went still.

Then the slope above them moved.

A dozen pale shapes tore free at once and cascaded down the mountain in a sliding wave.

“Here we go,” Frank muttered.

They hit as a mass.

No clean lines. No spacing.

One latched onto Harker’s shoulder before Mal tore it free. Two slammed into Frank at once and nearly took him off his feet. Gravel avalanched under their boots as they fought for balance.

Mal cut until nothing moved.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 608 / 1,000

They barely had time to breathe.

More shapes appeared.

Faster. Trying to slip past instead of overpower.

“Creepy bastards!” Harker snapped.

Frank fought with tighter swings and heavy stomps now. Mal pivoted tight, blade flashing. One slipped past and she felt teeth rake her thigh before she drove steel backward without looking.

The last of them tumbled down the slope in broken pieces.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 624 / 1,000

“You okay, Mal?”

“Fine.”

Frank caught her arm and dragged her half a step to the side of the slope. He tore a strip from his shirt and wound it tight around her thigh.

“Thanks.”

The slope turned into a path that hugged the mountain.

It widened in places.

They could run faster now.

The path curved around the rock face and ended in horn and muscle.

Massive antlered beasts stood across it, red eyes fixed on them.

“Get out of the way,” Frank growled.

The herd broke under steel and lightning. Hooves thundered, bodies toppled, and the path became a blur of gore.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 649 / 1,000

More poured down the path, heads low, breath steaming in the cold air.

Frank drove through them without his mace, shoulder-checking one clean off the edge. Mal cut tight to keep their footing clear. Harker’s lightning cracked and staggered anything that refused to fall.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 672 / 1,000

The wind grew louder the higher they climbed.

Dense, squat bodies crowded the path ahead. Not tall, but wide, built low to the ground and packed with raw, shivering muscle. Dark, pebbled skin gave off a sharp copper scent.

Vertical slits split their faces, grinding molars flashing as they surged forward.

“Damn ugly things,” Harker spat. “This keeps getting better.”

Frank hit them first, stone-plated fists smashing teeth and snapping bone to stop the lunges.

Mal cut through the cluster, carving just enough space to keep them moving.

Once they broke past, Harker turned and sent lightning cracking through the pile behind them.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 701 / 1,000

They hit a cluster of small, frantic things boiling out of the fissures in the rock. They looked like fist-sized knots of fingers and bone, scraps of spine threaded through clumps of matted hair. No clear front. No clear back. Just twitching grab and scrape.

They made wet, choking gurgles as they came.

Mal grimaced. “That’s vile.”

“That’s what got you?” Harker asked, dead serious.

“Kill them and move,” Frank said, already stomping.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 728 / 1,000
748
756

“At least they’re worth something,” Harker muttered.

“How much farther to the marker?” Frank asked.

“How should I know?”

“Do we even know if we’re going the right way?”

“Little late to worry about that.”

31:42

“We’re running out of time,” Harker said behind Mal.

“Keep it quiet,” she whispered.

He stepped up beside her and looked.

Ahead, the path widened onto a rocky outcropping, where figures nearly ten feet tall stood waiting. Bleached skulls crowned their shoulders. Horns spiraled outward in tight black coils. Heavy clubs hung at their sides.

“Weapons?” Harker said. “I count seven.”

“That’s horrifying,” Frank breathed. “Why not just break through them?”

Mal pointed past them. “Cave.”

Harker squinted. “That’s it.”

“The marker?” Frank asked.

“Has to be inside,” Mal answered.

“Even has guards. Plan?”

Harker’s foot shifted.

A pebble skittered across the outcropping.

The nearest skull snapped toward them. No eyes filled the sockets, but the head tilted, listening.

“Not yet,” Harker hissed.

The creature crossed the distance in a long, jarring stride and swung a massive club.

“Shit.”

“Hold right here,” Mal yelled.

Frank brought his mace up and caught the first blow. The impact drove him back a step, boots sliding in the dirt. The guard stepped into him and swung again, faster this time.

“Strong,” Frank huffed.

They tightened into the choke point so only two guards could reach them at once.

Harker struck high, snapping its skull sideways. Electricity crawled across the bone and went nowhere.

Mal cut across its chest.

The blade split rib.

Bone cracked apart under the strike.

Fragments slid back into place with a dry clatter, locking together as if nothing had happened.

She stared.

The break was gone.

“Regeneration,” she said.

“That’s not fair.”

“Don’t get pinned.”

Another club crashed down. Frank raised his mace to meet it.

The impact tore the weapon from his hands.

It spun once.

Twice.

Then vanished over the edge of the cliff.

“Seriously?”

The growth along Frank’s arms thickened as he surged forward, slamming shoulder-first into one guard and driving it into another behind it.

“I liked that mace!”

Harker moved with him.

“Wait—” Mal started.

A guard forced through the gap.

Its club caught her across the ribs and drove her into the rock wall. Air left her lungs. Her sword clattered to the stone.

The guard seized her right arm and lifted her off the ground. Her boots kicked as it brought her closer to its skull.

She grabbed one of its horns.

Flame erupted from her palm.

The wrappings around its skull ignited instantly. Purple fire raced along the bindings.

It howled.

It tried to fling her away. She locked both hands onto the horns.

The flame flared brighter.

It tore her loose and threw her aside.

The fire guttered.

The guard staggered, blackened but knitting itself back together.

She rolled, came up behind it, and grabbed its ankle with both hands.

Flame surged again.

“It can’t regenerate fast enough!” she shouted.

Cracks split through its torso from within. Light bled through the fractures.

The guard convulsed.

Then collapsed in burning fragments.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 768 / 1,000

Mal pushed free, staring at the remains.

Another guard barreled toward her.

Behind it, Harker and Frank were losing ground.

She ran for her sword, snatched it up, and sprinted back toward them.

“I can burn them!” she shouted.

“I thought you couldn’t do living things!” Frank yelled back.

“They’re undead,” she said. “Not alive.”

“Good,” Harker snapped. “Burn them.”

They fell back into the bottleneck.

Frank caught the next guard at the waist and locked it in place. Harker hammered its legs until it dropped to one knee.

Mal stepped in and grabbed its forearm.

Flame roared up the limb and raced across its body.

It convulsed.

Collapsed.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 804 / 1,000

After that, they stopped trying to break them.

They held them.

She burned them.

One by one, the remaining guards fell apart in blackened fragments.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 840 / 1,000

24:12

“Inside,” Mal said.

“We’re not even close,” Harker huffed as they pushed past her.

“Find the marker,” Frank added.

They crossed the threshold at a run.

Cool, damp air hit her face as her eyes adjusted to the dim light.

A broad cavern opened before them. The ceiling disappeared into shadow. Stalactites hung in uneven clusters, thin at the tips, thick at the base. Water dripped steadily from their points, striking stone below in soft, rhythmic taps.

One above her twitched.

“Above!” Mal shouted.

The ceiling came alive.

A dozen shapes tore free at once, splitting open mid-fall. Dark segmented bodies unfolded, hooked limbs snapping outward as they dropped.

Frank caught one midair and slammed it into the wall. Harker knocked another aside before it could latch onto his shoulder.

Mal cut through several as they hit the ground, shells parting under her blade.

Nothing else dropped from the ceiling.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 855 / 1,000

They followed the tunnel at a run.

It opened into a wider chamber.

Chittering echoed ahead.

“More bugs?” Harker said, almost annoyed.

“Good,” Frank said. “Need the crystals.”

Beetles poured toward them, broad-shelled and low to the ground, mandibles clacking as they charged.

Harker stepped into the first and crushed it under a downward swing. Frank seized another and hurled it aside before it could clamp onto his leg.

Mal drove her blade down through its carapace as it skidded past.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 864 / 1,000

Dozens of beetles.

Mal didn't keep count.

She just kept hacking and moving.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 876 / 1,000

The chittering faded.

“Need to find the marker,” Mal said.

Frank was already ahead of her.

The tunnel stretched on, narrow and unbroken.

Something lunged from a side crevice.

Frank smashed it without slowing.

More followed. A slick mass poured from the crack, writhing over itself as it tried to spill into the path.

Harker struck it with a hard burst of lightning.

Bodies seized.

Mal ran straight through the cluster, blade flashing twice. Three times.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 901 / 1,000

Glowing yellow eyes shone through the darkness ahead.

Small bodies. Lean. Bare skin stretched tight over bone.

They shrieked and rushed as one.

Frank met the front rank and didn’t slow. Bodies folded under his charge.

Harker’s lightning ripped through the center. “Disgusting.”

Mal cut down anything that slipped past them, her blade rising and falling without hesitation.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 928 / 1,000

10:21

“Still not enough,” Harker huffed.

“We’re going to run out of time!”

Shrill screeches tore through the tunnel.

Dark shapes burst from the ceiling and walls, wings snapping open in tight arcs.

“Great,” Harker muttered.

The air filled with them.

Claws raked across Mal’s shoulder as one tore past. Another latched onto Frank’s back, claws shredding fabric before he slammed into the wall to crush it.

Harker’s lightning flared upward, snapping through a cluster mid-flight. Bodies spasmed and dropped.

Mal pivoted and cut one clean from the air. A second slammed into her and she drove her blade through it point-blank.

The swarm shattered.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 940 / 1,000

“Closer,” Frank said.

They stepped into a cavernous chamber and stopped.

The ceiling rose high above them. No visible exit.

“I don’t see a way through,” Harker said.

“This must be it.”

“Where’s the damn marker?”

“We still need crystals.”

Mal scanned the chamber.

At the far end stood a raised pedestal.

Empty.

She started walking toward it.

“That's it,” she said.

A hiss answered her.

Then another.

The sound rolled across the chamber floor.

A mound of scaled bodies lay coiled in on itself.

Then it moved.

The knot loosened.

Coils slid free, separating, unspooling across the cavern floor.

Nine-foot lengths peeled outward in every direction.

“Snakes?” Harker muttered.

One rose higher than the rest.

Thick-necked. Crested. Red eyes.

“Yup,” Frank said. “Big snake.”

The smaller snakes struck first.

"Go for the big one!"

One snapped at Mal’s calf. She kicked it aside and cut downward, splitting its neck.

Frank caught another and hurled it into the wall hard enough to leave a smear.

Harker’s lightning cracked across the stone, stunning two long enough for Mal to finish them.

The larger one slid forward in a smooth arc, head rising as its body coiled beneath it.

“Watch it—” Harker started.

It struck.

Mal twisted aside. Its jaws snapped shut inches from her shoulder.

Frank hit it low, trying to break its balance.

It didn’t fall.

Its tail whipped back and caught Harker across the ribs, sending him skidding.

Mal lunged in and cut deep along its flank.

Blood sprayed.

The snake reared higher, mouth opening wide.

Harker drove lightning straight into its skull.

It spasmed.

Frank locked both arms around its neck and dragged it down.

“Now!” he shouted.

Mal drove her blade through the underside of its jaw and up into the brain.

The body convulsed violently.

Frank released and staggered back as the massive coil thrashed once. Twice.

Then it collapsed in a heavy sprawl.

Around her, the smaller snakes were still snapping and striking.

CRYSTALS COLLECTED: 1,003 / 1,000

The pedestal flared.

Runes ignited across its surface.

Stone folded inward and rose, reshaping into an onyx pyramid etched in glowing script.

00:09

"The marker!"

00:08

They ran.

00:06

A snake darted from the dark and clipped Mal’s shoulder. Frank slammed it aside.

Snakes hissed and slithered behind them.

Harker grabbed her arm and pulled her forward.

00:02

All three reached the marker at once, hands striking the surface in the same breath.

The marker flashed once more and vanished.

They landed in a heap.

OBJECTIVE CLEARED

TRAINING ENVIRONMENT 32
SESSION COMPLETE

They got to their feet.

The snakes had disappeared.

For a half-second, nothing happened.

Frank let out a sharp breath. “Is it—”

Blue light swallowed them.

Mal’s boots hit solid flooring.

A small enclosed space.

The elevator.

The doors were closed.

"Hate that!" Frank yelped.

For a moment, none of them moved.

They breathed heavily.

Harker lowered his mallet. The stone along Frank’s arms withdrew, leaving only skin.

The doors slid open.

She stepped out into the tower.

Morning light filtered in from the lobby windows.

Mal looked down at herself, filthy.

“These were new boots,” Harker said.

Mal looked at them and up at him. “Not anymore.”

Frank snorted. “We're alive and mostly unscathed. How are you complaining?”

“Very easily.” Harker flexed his fingers once. “You feel ready?”

“For Floor Forty?” Frank asked.

Mal met Harker's eyes.

“Floor Forty.”

Harker held her gaze a beat longer.

"Floor forty."

Frank exhaled slowly.

“Here we come.”

They walked further into the lobby waiting area.

"Why's it so quiet?" Harker asked.

Mal looked around. Every head in the lobby was turned toward the largest screen.

She moved closer.

RANKED DUNGEON ENGAGEMENT
ZONE 3 VS ZONE 1

"Zone One?" Frank said beside her. "That's a rare match up."

Four parties from each zone. The match had only just begun.

"I'm ready to get cleaned up," Harker said from her other side.

"Yeah," Mal said and started to turn when one of the screens caught her eye.

A man from a Zone One party stepped into frame, his profile catching the light.

Mal's throat locked.
Her breath hitched as she pushed through the crowd.

People grunted their disapproval.

"Mal?" Harker and Frank called in unison from behind her.

She made her way to the front.

The man turned toward the camera.

Mal would have known that face anywhere.

Her vision blurred.

"Pardon," Frank said.

"Excuse us," Harker said.

They caught up to her. "Mal? What is it?" Harker asked.

"You're crying," Frank said.

She pointed at the man on the screen.
“My husband.”
“He’s alive.”