Ar'Kendrithyst

It was almost go time.

Kiri took Poi, Jane, and Teressa to the top floor, into the command room, where she walked to the file cabinets and scrounged around, saying, “Now I know they wrote up a primer for these soul beasts to hand out to every… one… Not sure where it is.” She opened and shut a few cabinets before turning to say, “I’ll get one from the Adventurer’s Guild.” Sunny vanished from around her neck and then reappeared almost as fast, clutching onto paperwork. Kiri handed out the papers, and began, “Okay. So. In case you didn’t notice, Spur has more people than ever. Current population is at 300,000 and climbing. We might not have Erick, but we have archmages and rain and we’re in the middle of a desert, so it’s an attractive proposition now that the Shades are almost all gone. But add to that the fact that the largest, most dangerous amalgams— The official names of the monsters are ‘Dead Soul Amalgamation’ according to their Kill Notification, but everyone calls them amalgams. Well. They’re high level. And that means a lot of experience.

“As you can read, we’ve got a lot of basic intel on them, for we’ve fought at least three to ten every night for the last three weeks. One time we had twenty. That was not a good night.” Kiri said, “The Kill Notifications for all of them are the same, no matter the size, but the level does vary considerably. The bigger they are, the more varied or powerful they are.

“Thing-to-know One: They go after living souls. That is their goal. So far we’ve found no correlation between level or Class or Mana pool or Health pool size, to whether or not the amalgam will chase you, or not. Number of clumped living souls does matter, though, as well as distance to the nearest clump. An amalgam will almost always chase a group of people running in one direction rather than a single person running in the other direction. If they get too close to Spur, then we’ll have to evacuate because then there will be no way to correct their trajectory away from large population centers.

“There are variations of this normal behavior, though, because of number Two: How odd they look correlates to crazy, and the larger they are, the more they have a chance to look truly odd. It is generally easier to fight the larger, messed up amalgams in groups of three or more, because they’ll be distracted with so many nearby living souls to chase.

“Beware the amalgams that look like normal monsters.

“There are variations of all of that, though, because of number Three: In almost all ways, and especially if you give them a single target, the amalgamated souls will work together. This usually means cooperative casting producing some very, very large, singular-direction spells. [Force Bolt]s the size of a person; or a thousand at once. [Force Beam]s the thickness of a tree, or a thousand beams at once. That sort of thing.” Kiri frowned. “Though since both Teressa and Jane have reflective spellwork, then that might not be a problem. You might be expected to kill the larger, magically inclined ones. Those are the dangerous ones.”

Teressa said, “Chances are I’ll either duo with Jane or hang back and prognosticate. Depends on Liquid and Killzone, but I’m guessing that a prognosticator is more important than a warrior.”

“You’re right,” Poi said, half listening, but mostly reading notes.

Teressa shrugged; she had known that this would happen.

“Well then! More for me! I’ll be ripping it up as the biggest, baddest spider you all have ever seen,” Jane said. “And I’ll do it while fully reflective and immune to most magics.”

Poi looked up from the notes, to look at Jane. “I am hesitant to sign off on you looking like a monster around people… But in this case it might be for the best, since you will be expected to go solo.”

“Ah!” Kiri spoke up, “That reminds me. Thing-to-know Four: the amalgams go after the bigger threats. Orcols, usually, but a giant spider would certainly make you a primary target. You might end up drawing too many of them, but if you have a good reflective magic, then that should be fine.” She asked, “What is your reflective ability, anyway? Spell? Skill?”

“Monster body Skill called Radiant Presence. I have to be a spider to use it, but it works well. It’s from a variant Nacreous Weaver known as a Radiant Nacreous Weaver.” Jane said, “Spells won’t touch me.”

“My current reflective spell breaks too easily,” Kiri said.

Teressa said, “I’ll work with you tomorrow if you want to try your hand at [Reflective Flying Shield].” She handed off a spell to Kiri, continuing, “Erick managed to make one that reflects everything—”

“Even [Strike]s!” Jane piped up.

“—even [Strike]s. [Animadversion], Erick called it. That spell is amazing, and he can hand it off to others, too.” Teressa said, “This one is not that, but it’s useful. I’ve found a directed reflection is better than an aura, full body reflection—” She paused, then asked everyone else, “Erick made [Animadversion] directly after Kiri left?”

“He did,” Poi said.

Kiri blinked a bit, both at Teressa, and at the spell she had been handed. Kiri dismissed the blue box and said, “I have a [Personal Ward] reflection, like Erick had at the beginning. I run it on Sunny when Sunny is out there, but a directed shield might be better, if only in a set-and-forget sort of manner.”

Teressa said, “My [Reflective Flying Shield] lasts basically forever when it’s attached to the shield, so that’s a plus.”

“… Yeah.” Kiri looked to the paperwork for the amalgams. “I think that’s everything— No wait. Uh. Yes. The most important part. The black goo uses [Soul Burn], which is a spell that—”

“We ran into that,” Jane said, smirking.

Poi frowned at Jane, saying, “This is a variant [Soul Burn].”

Jane scoffed—

“HA!” Kiri proclaimed proudly. Then she happily glared, and said, “I encountered something you didn’t so fuck you and listen.” She smiled as she said, “Don’t go below 500 Health out there, or else the goo will be able to begin to curse you…” She lost her smile, as though realizing what she was saying was in fact truly terrible. “If you drop to 0 Health while you’re cursed, you’ll be vulnerable to amalgamization with anyone else who is also cursed, which usually happens to be the amalgam you’re currently fighting. This is perhaps the most dangerous problem, so don’t ever get any goo on you, because several things will happen. Health will start to drain and you’ll begin to forget what your Health should look like. It’s a variant of the uncleanliness curse from curse slimes, and it’s present in every single drop of the black ocean. The dead soul flood might be related to the death of the Witch, but we’re not sure. There are a few theo— We’ll go over theories, tomorrow.”

Teressa had gone solid, all mirth flowing away as her focus crystallized into mentally preparing for the coming night.

Jane recalled that curse slimes had been the first domino to kick off a chain of events that ended up killing Teressa’s entire team, and her whole family up in the Forest of Glaquin. Of course, it was more accurate to say that the Witch killed all of those people, but if Teressa and her team hadn’t fallen into complacency due to the uncleanliness curse of the curse slimes, then the Witch never would have happened.

Or at least it would have gone down differently.

And that was the end of the mirth for everyone, apparently.

Jane went hard, too. She fucking hated mental threats, especially ones that lulled you into complacency.

Kiri waited. She probably expected Teressa, or someone, to say something, but that didn’t happen. So Kiri continued, “The teams will be checking up on you throughout the night, Jane— you and everyone else. They’ll ask for Health totals and such, and if you look like you’ve gone too low they’ll call you in, because you won’t come in on your own and you might think that your Health looks fine, even though you’re sitting at zero.” Kiri said, “As for how the drain actually works, it seems to be a minimum 10 Health per second drain, if you’ve got any ooze on you at all. This is important. Any ooze at all means you’re taking a drain. The good news is that if you’re fully covered, even if your size is increased due to skills, or whatever, the max rate of drain seems to be around 100-125 Health per second.

“Active skills which decrease damage taken also decrease the drain. [Defend] is good for a full minute of half-damage from the ooze. It costs a tenth of your capped Max Health, but it’s worth it if you’re unable to flee the ooze.

“Otherwise, there are [Cleanse] stations set up each night with people providing cleaning services. Sewermaster Al is out there every night providing a massive [Cleanse] retreat for everyone. Others, too.

“You are not allowed inside Spur if you’ve been out fighting for any length of time; not until the sunrise. This ooze can spread in the darkness, so it's very dangerous for anyone fighting it to go indoors.” Kiri said, “Sunlight evaporates it a lot better than [Cleanse], so we rely on that now for everyone who actually fights on the front lines or uses the cleaning stations. Quarantine breaks killed too many people too many nights in a row for us to take anymore chances with allowing people inside the city to rest between floods of monsters— Some asshole is always breaking quarantine, but you don’t have to be that asshole.” She paused. She said, “Other good news: [Cleanse] does rid you of the curse if you run it long enough, but we’re still not taking chances with more outbreaks. Other good news: Despite all the danger and unknowns, this is a winnable fight. Very rarely do any of the amalgams fly. More good news: [Cleanse Aura] will usually keep the threat of the ooze away, as it will actively prevent ooze from clinging to you, and it will usually weaken the monsters you’re fighting.”

“Question,” Jane asked, “Do you know what a [Sunlight Rift] is?”

Kiri perked up. “Yes. Archmage Obsidian deploys them everywhere across the forward wall. They help to destroy much of the ooze and reveal the amalgams underneath.”

“Related question: Are they made with real sunlight, like how dad taught you to make?”

Kiri lightly stared. “Do youknow how to make a rift? Because I tried, and Archmage Obsidian will not help me. I’m not a ‘real archmage’, he says; I’m ‘playing at one’.”

Jane glanced to Teressa.

Teressa nodded. “Yeah. We know how to make rifts. I’m here anyway, so I’ll talk to you about all that stuff while Jane helps to kill the big ones.”

Jane was a bit surprised at her willingness to remain behind, but sure.

Kiri grinned. “I would like that very much.”

“I’m on coordination detail,” Poi announced, to no surprise at all.

Jane said, “And I’m getting level 90 tonight!”

Kiri laughed lightly, happily, saying, “Good luck dealing with the idiots.”

There was a bit more talk and a bit more elaboration of previous threats, but soon enough, people from the Army started blipping into the third floor room and setting up for the coming night. Poi took charge of that operation center while Kiri went to the next room over, to sit in a specially-made [Scry]ing chair that leaned back and supported her body.

Jane looked to the young girl, who was barely younger than herself.

And Kiri looked like she was shaking. She was probably deeply worried.

Jane went to Kiri and touched her shoulder.

Kiri flinched. “Yeah?”

Jane said, “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you more, back when someone fucked with your memories in that museum.”

Kiri huffed a tiny laugh. Sunnys curled in the air around the room, and turned to light as they flew away. Kiri took a moment, then she said, “Thank you. I’m— I’m really glad you’re all back. Knock those amalgams dead, Jane, and—” Kiri suddenly stared at Jane. “When Poi —or anyone else! When Poi tells you to come in because you’re compromised, you listen. Understand me?”

“I understand.” Jane changed the subject, “What level are you now?”

“93.” Kiri’s eyes flickered green as she looked elsewhere. “You’ve got some catching up to do.”

“Ha! I guess I do—”

“Jane!” Poi called from the other room, “You’re moving out in five. Get ready! Whatever form you want. Transform near people, but not directly near them!”

“Sir, yes, sir!” Jane said.

Jane’s stomach was ready to lift out of her chest and exit through her mouth, but that feeling was quickly replaced with a sparking tension in her shoulders and a need to stand on her toes, to flex, to get ready for what was to come. Her breath came out faster as her heart beat hard.

She left Kiri to her station as she went back into the command center, across the hallway. The room was now full of soldiers and their Screens. They were there to keep Kiri on task, and they would do a good job of it, too. Sergeant Nanark, the large orcol who had been Jane’s commander for a while when she was inside Ar’Kendrithyst, was there and talking to Poi and Teressa. At Jane’s entrance the sergeant included her in the quick discussion, completing the transfer of Kiri’s support system over to Poi.

Poi would also be handling Teressa, who was on prognostication duty for all of Spur until situations demanded otherwise, though Teressa would remain stationed here for convenience. Jane was to move out to the frontlines immediately, alongside Nanark. The two of them would be meeting Killzone on the front lines, along with a few other Soloists and Team Leaders. While Nanark would oversee a few teams so he wouldn’t be working with Jane directly, Jane shouldn’t need it, anyway; Jane’s support system would be handled through Poi and Kiri, as their ‘team’, between Kiri and Jane, were expected to handle the massed threats and the larger threats. Almost all normal adventures and soldiers were on medium threats, the amalgams between three meters tall and ten.

Jane should only expect assistance with the larger threats if it seemed necessary.

Nanark explained that the bulk of the Army was organized along generalized defensive lines, manning several walls that might not stop the ooze, but they would funnel the ooze and the amalgams in certain ways, giving defenders precise areas to blow up, instead of everyone needing to defend everything, everywhere. No one thought that they would need Jane to handle the actual defensive line, but it was important that she knew where she could retreat, if needed, and where she would need to help out, if needed.

“Above all else,” Nanark drilled into them, “If you engage an amalgam or the ooze directly, or if you’re near the black shit at all, then you’re to remain outside of the city until dawn. Got it?”

“Sir yes, sir!” Jane said.

“Good.” Nanark said, “Then it’s time.”

The sun dipped low in the west.

Jane breathed easy.

She smiled.

Jane and Nanark took the shortcut to the frontline.

- - - -

Shadows lengthened all across Spur, and in the Crystal Forest. Mixed-height walls of stone, which were more like large, triangular hills, than actual walls, wound back and forth like open-air labyrinths between the living city and the Dead City. Among those labyrinths were three highly visible main walls.

These larger, circular walls with no openings at all, were the actual lines of defense between life and death, surrounding all of Spur like three concentric rings. The battle would start off coming from the Dead City, but by an hour past sundown, the black ooze would have settled out across all of the nearby Crystal Forest, completely surrounding Spur. It would soon rise up to a level that eclipsed that outer wall. Long before that, though, every defender would already be hunting and killing amalgams as they rushed over the outer wall, aiming for living targets.

The first ring wall was expected to fall, but in falling, it would condense the attack to manageable sizes and areas.

The second ring wall was expected to hold. It might break around midnight, though, as it had for the last five days in a row. The attacks were getting worse.

The last ring wall had to hold. All of the cleaning stations and otherwise were between that inner wall, and Spur’s city wall. That wall had fallen once, back in the night of 20 major amalgams, but Spur managed to beat back the horde and retake the wall before casualties started piling up. That night led to a worse day because some people had fucked off into the city, scared shitless, and they had brought dead soul ooze in with them. That ooze multiplied in the shadows.

“The stuff doesn’t break down in the deeper shadows of a house, or inside the Dead City itself,” sergeant Nanark explained to Jane, and to others nearby. “So don’t go fucking off into Spur if you get a little scared…”

Nanark was explaining everything to everyone, all over again, but Jane didn’t need to listen, for she had already heard all of this before.

The major forces, which included Jane and others of her power, had lined up on the second major wall, situated amid the second major labyrinth wall. They were a kilometer south from the support stations and the first wall nearer to Spur. On this land, this major wall was a solid ten meters wide and thirty meters tall. The labyrinth walls down below were half that. All of the walls were sloped toward the ground, rather than flat. Spur could have raised walls three times that height, but that wouldn't have done any good. Flat walls got pushed over too easily.

The sun began to set.

Nanark, and everyone else, gazed south as twilight took hold of the world. People whispered about this and that, with green soldiers discussing the known threats of the dead soul ooze, reminding themselves and each other about what they faced, and adjunct adventurers —mostly groups, though there were a few soloists like Jane— talking about how they were gonna get level 90 tonight.

Everyone was talking a lot.

And then the sun was gone, and everyone fell silent.

The walls of Ar’Kendrithyst loomed upon the southern horizon. They were so large and so even that they formed a false horizon, and above that new edge of the world, light glowed; red, purple, orange, and white. Seeing that half-hidden radiance was like catching a glimpse of hidden holiday lights, half-obscured by a blackout curtain.

Except these curtains covered a quarter of the horizon, and were a kilometer tall, or some shit.

Numbers didn’t really register to Jane at that particular moment.

A spiky ball of black whizzed overhead, moving quickly toward the first wall. It was Archmage Obsidian’s [Familiar]. Soon, the conjured thing went out of sight. Moments later, a minor sun appeared in the sky, directly over the first wall. Brilliant white and gold! Radiant and warm! Light shone down one orb, then two, then five, all in a string, bathing the first kilometer of the wall in false sunlight. More suns continued to appear atop that major, first wall, like a string of radiant pearls set in the sky, as Obsidian’s [Familiar]s flew east and west, planting the seeds of day atop the land. In less than a minute the entire first wall, all 100 encircling kilometers of it, was lit with false sunlight.

The real sunlight had vanished.

Jane almost missed seeing the black ooze crest the actual wall of Ar’Kendrithyst, but she didn’t miss the collective gasps of every nearby rookie as they witnessed a minor, nightly apocalypse begin to spread. Jane almost gasped herself.

The light behind Ar’Kendrithyst’s wall was suddenly lesser, with only a single, small stretch of white glows lingering beyond the edge. Everywhere else was crawling darkness. Black ooze rose up and poured down the massive walls of the Dead City like overflowing ink. Black death raced to the ground like clumpy, black blood. Dark waterfalls poured over every single available meter of wall, all across the entire Dead City.

Those clumps were the larger monsters. If Jane could see them from this distance of a few kilometers, and with the wall as tall as it was, that meant that those clumps were massive.

Jane remembered to breathe. She shivered in the sudden cold of the night. She had not yet transformed into a spider, so she should probably do that.

Soon.

Nanark spoke to his contingent, which included Jane, “Alright! If you follow the plans, and listen to the tacticians you’ve been assigned, we’ll make it out of this night alive and with a lot more levels! HOO RAH!”

For a startling moment, Jane found it ridiculous that ‘levels’ were the main attractor to the people here; this was a world-ending event that Spur was stemming. If this spread to elsewhere...

But then she realized that she had originally been happy for the promise of easy levels, too. Jane doubted she was the only one reorganizing her priorities in the face of the enemy.

And then Jane got her head in the game and joined her voice to the others’, “HOO RAAH!”

- - - -

Hurry up and wait.

Hurry up and wait.

Feel the world turn wet as the sky clouds over and light flashes behind the deepening heavens. Rain falls down, briefly, and that is not all. Watch as green lightning arcs across the sky in an ever-expanding web. That lightning then crashes into the black ooze on the other side of the forward wall, lighting up the world with green brilliance. Listen to monsters die by the hundreds. Smell the petrichor wind as lightning leaves behind streamers upon streamers of molecular wire, absolutely shredding everything that is remotely solid. But the ooze gets through, the amalgams can slip by or survive being cut in half, and Kiri can’t keep her offensive all night long; all she can do is stem the tide.

Taste the rain as a light mist collects upon your extended fangs.

And taste the fear of those who watch what you watch. Men and women stand upon the wall at your side, preparing against the oncoming horde, but they can’t bear to stand within 50 meters of your powerful form—

‘Jane,’ Poi’s voice came through, bringing Jane back to herself. ‘Forward right, 80 degrees off south. We expect a breach in less than two minutes and you’re up. Take it slow, but take it down. Killzone, Mog, and Merit are occupied. You will not be getting major reinforcements for at least 10 minutes. Orders are to hold out if you can’t kill it. Killing is preferred. Your reflective magics should fully protect you from ooze and most spells, but I’m going to bother you for Health totals every 20 seconds anyway, to be sure. Be prepared for that.’

Jane listened to Poi’s voice. The hair upon her eight legs shivered, flexing off water droplets. Jane gently angled her body toward the right, moving for the first time since she transformed and settled in to wait. A spike of fear radiated from her fellow defenders as she did so, but they said nothing.

Jane wasn’t quite sure which parts of her Familiar Form was letting her taste fear. Perhaps the lesser rivergrieve? But whatever. That was a query for another time.

At least waiting as a spider was better than waiting as a person. Spiders were made to sit still for long times. It actually felt quite relaxing. Better than the pacing and fidgeting Jane usually did when she was forced to wait for calls to action.

Jane was once again a tarantula of massive proportions, and also bright, bright iridescent blue that seemed to catch hold of every single light source and make a small part of it her own; this was both on purpose, so other people could see her, and a side effect of Perfected Body and Radiant Presence. She didn’t have Mutable Form, which would allow her to actually mute the color a bit, but this was fine. Jane felt good like this. She was big, and she was strong, and she was ready. If she wanted, she could have stretched from one side of the 10-meter-wide wall to the other, and a little bit beyond. As she was, she was simply comfortably placed, taking up half of the wall. She had been oddly content to watch for a while. With her large eyes taken from her Primal Frost Owl form, she was able to see every single battle happening all across the land before her.

But it was time to work.

Jane did a partial [Polymorph] and changed her main, forward eyes back to those of the shadow spider. The world moved further away, becoming slightly less precise, but gaining a whole new dimension. Magic flowed in the dark ooze, covering the land ahead, like an iridescent sheen inside the black.

She could almost make out faces inside the ooze.

She could definitely see all the teams and individuals down on the grounds between wall 2 and 1, fighting with countless spellwork against the amalgams that had made it over the first wall, and past the still-bright sun orbs. Those damned sun orbs didn’t seem to be doing much except decrease the ocean of ooze washing toward Spur by a factor of a half…

Which was objectively worthwhile.

Without those orbs, the black ocean would have surely rushed right over the outermost wall, just like it rushed over Ar’Kendrithyst’s wall.

Jane flicked her fangs, and flexed her legs. She had knocked together everything she could into this body, and it would have to be enough. From what she saw down there, it probably was. From what she saw trudging through the ooze outside of that first wall, walking toward Spur like towering masses of arms and legs and death… It might be enough.

Poi’s voice returned, ‘ETA in 5, 4, 3…’

Jane couldn’t lightstep like her father, for she had no Domain, but she could lightstep a bit, and so she did. With five tiny hops upon ethereal light, hopping across the myriad of floodlight orbs scattered across the land, Jane moved into proper position near the forward wall.

She reached the forward lines, looking like a blue firework made flesh, right as a massive monster rose from the ocean of black ooze beyond that first wall. It was a screaming thing, thirty meters tall and covered in countless arms, all of them long and stringy and dripping black ooze. The whole amalgam was slug-like, except for the arms. It had been fully submerged in the ocean of ooze and was still half under the black waves. It might have been 50 or 60 meters tall if it stood upright, but it could not stand tall.

Jane would need to take it apart piecemeal, for only by separating it into chunks could it actually be ‘killed’.

It wouldn’t actually die without extensive spell damage, though. The dead souls that made it up would just return to senescence; return to the black ocean. But the black ocean could dry up if exposed to enough light, or to enough [Cleanse]…

Jane had a plan. It was time to implement that plan. Testing came first, though.

The amalgam noticed Jane standing in front of it like the world’s shiniest blue beetle. It reached for her with a hundred oozy arms, but she dodged, stepping across the light to stand behind the beast, hovering midair. Half of the amalgam’s attack continued on to the wall, crashing into the stone, breaking it a bit and sloshing ooze over the edge, sending a minor flood across to the other side—

‘Don’t let it attack the wall,’ Poi sent.

Jane didn’t want to actually touch the monster, but fortunately, she didn’t have to. She had gotten a sword recently, and now it was time to test that sword out. The black length of adamantium soaked in power and pulled away from Jane’s second left foot, to hover like a glowing toothpick—

… A bit of [Greater Lightwalk] fixed the size issue.

The sword remained small, but the blade of light coming out of the sword extended to ten meters, becoming a solid edge of cutting force. [Greater Lightwalk] demanded a bit more mana to keep this shape running, going from five mana per second to seven, but it was well worth the mana.

Half of the amalgam twisted, its entire body moving toward the living soul hovering behind it. Arms reached, and Jane responded.

‘Snicker snack went the vorpal sword,’ Jane sent, as a good twenty hands and half-arms clipped off and fell away, like broken ooze.

‘Don’t get cocky.’ Poi sent, ‘Health?’

‘5750. Small cost due to [Strike].’ Jane dodged further left, repositioning upon the light cast by the sun orb in the sky.

Poi went silent.

Jane engaged the amalgam and she found that everything in the reports had been true. Amalgams (or at least this one) weren’t very smart creatures. Jane was able to dodge left, cut, dodge left, cut, and repeat. Limbs rained from the air. She had only been fighting for about 35 second so far, and in that time, she had spent nearly 350 mana, with 250 of that cost going toward normal upkeep. She was Meditating, though, so she had also regenerated almost 80 mana. She didn’t do much math beyond that, for fighting and mathing was rather difficult, and something shifted in the amalgam as Jane cut away limbs. The first shift came from the eruption of even longer arms out from the slug’s body. The second shift came more gradually, though. The amalgam was fucking fast, and it seemed to be getting faster.

The wind whistled as forty arms came for her, and half of them were swiped away in a flash of normal sword slashing; no [Strike]s were needed for this part of the conflict.

The monster twisted in on itself as Jane stepped to the left, again. She had traveled completely around slug amalgam twice now, and it was bent in half, like its spine couldn’t twist any further. But it had no spine according to her false rivergrieve’s Blood Sense; or at least not one that mattered. It certainly had a lot of blood, though.

So Jane tried Blood Weaver, trying to rip the red liquid right out of the slug amalgam to both use for her own spellwork, and to harm the amalgam. This failed for some reason. Perhaps the ‘blood’ inside the creature wasn’t real blood? Or perhaps the thing was just too naturally resistant to Blood Magic. Jane should have been able to get some sort of grip on the monster, but she couldn’t, for whatever reason.

Jane splashed it with a [Fireball], instead.

Dark blue flames struck near the twisted base of the amalgam and spread everywhere. The flames wouldn’t last long, but it would help to weaken—

Five arms rapidly grew from the side of the slug and reached for Jane, clipping her right forward legs as she desperately moved left, faster than she thought she needed to move. Suddenly, more arms reached for her again, extending a hundred meters and more trying to get to her. Jane retreated further still, pulling back into the air high, high above the ooze, away from the wall. The second set of arms had managed to clip her, though.

The bastard was moving faster. Much, much faster.

Jane started burning [Hunter’s Instincts]; she was at a 3 Health per second drain, in addition to the 7 Mana per second from [Greater Lightwalk]. Her sword glinted with deeper light, flickering blue down the edge, turning harder, if that was even possible.

The slug amalgam, all fifty meters of the beast, moved through the ooze like an ocean liner crashing through ice floes. Black, strangely solid waves crested left and right as arms came for Jane. She saw, for the first time, eyes and maws among the slug amalgam’s body, glaring, chomping. It wanted to eat her, to make her a part of it, and she could not let that happen.

Light slashed as Jane counter attacked, stepping through the light, aiming for the slug’s head, her sword and power cleaving apart hands and arms as she passed by—

‘Health,’ Poi demanded, before he took that information for himself, telling Jane her own numbers, ‘5400.’

Jane focused on the fight.

The slug’s upper three meters slipped away from the rest of the body as the body turned and attacked without rest. But that upper part still moved; still clambered like a many-armed beast that was wholly separate from the main body. Jane sent a [Fireball] at the separated piece as she moved again.

The next three meters of the top of the slug fell away from the rest.

Jane got a good look at the interior of the monster, then. It was full of mouths and teeth and fur and bone and blood, all mashed together like a tumor.

But then ooze rolled up across the creature’s wound, sealing the hole—

‘Step away now, Jane,’ Poi sent.

Jane complied, stepping high into the sky, far out of the reach of the slug amalgam because that was what you did when your CO told you to retreat.

‘Check yourself for ooze.’

Jane did a quick check. ‘I have none.’

‘And your Health doesn’t look to be going down...’ Poi relaxed a fraction. ‘I’m being told that traveling through an amalgam like that usually drenches people in ooze, killing them rather rapidly. Tell me the numbers on your Health for the next ten seconds, and I will corroborate your numbers at the same time.’

‘5297, 5299, 5300, 5302, 5303, 5305, 5306—‘

‘Enough. Seems like your Radiant Presence is adequate. Use some healing spells and get back in there. Use Blood Mana to split costs. Less experimenting; more killing. You have two more coming your way.’

‘Do these things have cores?’ Jane sent, ‘I don’t see any.’

‘Most do not.’

Jane had angled downward to watch the creature try to reach for her, but fail to come within 10 meters; it seemed to have a limit to arm length. She could have retreated further, but then the creature might have moved on to other targets. As it was, the slug was already relaxing back down into the black ocean, its eyes and mouths retreating back into its body. It was going to go after a different target, soon.

Well!

She couldn’t let that happen!

Time to try out the big guns.

Jane became more than light. She became shadows, and fire, alongside solid stone and freely moving wind and water. Her sword took on the same [Prismatic Body], flickering rainbows like all the rest of her.

She slammed right down through the center of the amalgam like the brilliant rainbow comet that she was, burning and slicing and burrowing through the creature, heedless of bone and sinew and blood, and of the screaming voices of the dead and dying all around. She carved like a butcher, spinning as she went down, her sword’s radiance poking out here and there among the amalgam’s skin before she exited the creature at black-ocean level, out the side, splattering gore everywhere.

She spun, severing every arm that reached for her and casting away all remnants of ooze that attempted to cling to her body. The fight wasn’t over yet, but it was about to be. The carved-up creature and all of its suddenly limp, wounded arms laid upon the black ooze like a garbage patch on an ocean. It could probably pull itself together if Jane left it alone for long enough, but that wasn’t going to happen. To end it, and to be sure that she was actually clean, she turned on her [Cleanse] aura, and stepped onto the air directly above the twitching body. Arms reached for her, but they were no match for her power. For not the first time, Jane witnessed an interaction between [Cleanse] and [Prismatic Body] that made everything seem a bit more magical today, than the world had been yesterday.

Erick had once spoken to her about how [Cleanse] was more than a simple cleaning spell. Back before the Sundering, every culture in the Old Cosmology had a [Cleanse] of their own to clean the environment, with the intent to harmonize the mana into a receptive state for easier magics. Here, on Veird, [Cleanse] cleaned everything, sure, but it also fulfilled that ancient role.

And boy did it ever.

The world in Jane’s immediate vicinity turned to vibrancy, as mana aligned under her [Cleanse], and her control. Rainbow light cascaded away from her eight-legged form, crashing into the reaching arms of the slug-amalgam and twenty meters of black ocean in every direction. Jane clipped off arms with her sword, while the ocean boiled. Severed arms did not fall to the waters; they vanished like so much mist, becoming thick air. The slug dried and crumbled to dust. The black ocean rapidly began to evaporate into a fountain of thick air that rocketed up and away; Jane had set off her own tsunami of thick air, just like her father.

But the rest of the black ocean remained, and liquids naturally tried to even themselves out...

So Jane became the center of a cleansing maelstrom that sucked in even more black ooze, destroying the remnants of the slug while the sudden vacuum drew in a dozen smaller amalgams that saw Jane, and diced into pieces with her ever-moving rainbow sword. The black ocean flowed toward Jane like flowing waste, only to vanish long before it could ever reach her. Smaller amalgams died by the dozens in half as many seconds.

And Jane was happy to let them come to her, pulled in by their own pestiferous nature. She was overjoyed to kill the slug amalgam, too, for it had to be level 89, or something close to that.

You have slain Dead Soul Amalgamation 394!

95% participation

+4.44 e19 experience

She was now level 83.

Plus 8 levels from one monster! If all the rest of the large amalgams were of the same level, then Jane was going to hit 90 rather soon. Maybe even tonight. Maybe she would out level her father! Wouldn’t that be a fun surprise to show him when he returned.

‘Jane. Focus.’ Poi sent, ‘Here comes large amalgam 2 and 3. Conserve mana. Turn off that killing technique until you’ve irreparably harmed the things and you won’t be wasting resources.’

Jane instantly did as Poi said, stepping up out of the black ocean. The returning surface crashed together, swallowing and hiding the smaller amalgams who had come along for the ride, that she hadn’t yet killed. Her [Cleanse] hadn’t actually harmed those ones at all. Ah.

Yes.

She needed to approach this less like a fight and more like a war of attrition.

Right—

Ah. Wow. She had spent about 540 mana to ensure the large amalgam was actually dead. That… That was way too much. She was down to 4900 mana; she had spent 3600 mana to kill that thing.

Okay then.

She had 20 points now. Might as well spend a few of them! She shoved 5 points into Willpower, and 5 into Focus. For the next amalgam, she would use Blood Mana and split her costs into Health as much as she could, like Poi suggested. In fact… After a moment, Jane reorganized her [Greater Lightwalk] into an uncomfortable but minor Health drain. She’d use a lot more Blood Mana going forward, so to that end, she cast a [Rejuvenation]. The spell started ticking for 147 Health gained every second.

And not a moment too soon.

The next major amalgam was almost here.

It was a creature of two massive legs and a body made of small arms and small hands, with an eye located in the center of those palms. A thousand eyes stared at Jane as she hovered in the light of Archmage Obsidian’s [Sunlight Orb].

And then suddenly the army amalgam was directly on top of her. No warning. No shifting of magic. It had [Blink]ed, and then every single eye-hand cast at once, sending a thousand [Force Bolt]s of screaming black magic directly at Jane.

Jane responded with a twisting spin of cutting light. The [Force Bolt]s tracked her, but they touched only reflective chitin and hairs and eyes, to scatter away in every direction like Jane was a disco spider and her dance partner was nothing more than a side piece, to showcase Jane’s own flashiness. With a twist and a rush, Jane’s adamantium-empowered blade cleaved through one leg as she dashed under the monster, switching to [Greater Shadowalk] when she was inside the amalgam’s shadow. She twisted backward as another barrage of a thousand Bolts crashed into her and reflected away, to spill across the black ocean like so much scattered darklight. With a blade of sudden shadows, Jane carved straight through the squishy amalgam’s chest, bursting out the other side, back into the light.

The amalgam began to falter as its severed leg finally twisted out from under the horrible creature. The amalgam fell backward—

Pure telekinetic power wrapped around the leg, shoving it back into place as more telekinesis sealed the hole in its body. Waves of power washed across the creature, as spellwork eerily similar to the [Rejuvenation] currently surrounding Jane also washed across the creature, like black oil stains on reality. Every single wound Jane had inflicted was gone in the matter of a single flashing second.

With so many amalgamated souls, working toward the same process, the dead thing was easily able to repair itself as fast as Jane could damage it.

‘Hurry. Kill it.’ Poi sent. ‘No playing around.’

‘I got it.’

Specialized Decay Venom poured from her fangs, and collected in the air around her sword of light and shadow. The Radiant Nacreous Weaver’s Venom Weaver had turned that venom into an edge along her weapon.

Jane went across the amalgam’s side, letting [Force Bolt]s splash against her, ineffective, while she cut wounds into the creature that would not easily heal—

The amalgam cast a [Cleanse] on Jane, evaporating all of her exterior venom at once, and erasing the venom upon her sword.

‘It’s locked on you, but it doesn’t look able to harm you overmuch.’ Poi sent, ‘Kill the other one, instead.’

Jane rapidly reoriented to the next target; a four-legged amalgam with stringy hair for a body that rose thirty meters tall out of the black ocean. Black, inky hair dragged all the way to the ocean below. The hair moved on its own. As Jane left the light, and switched fully over to [Greater Shadowalk], other people appeared in the sky near the caster amalgam.

The caster amalgam had been chasing her, but it switched fully over to the new, plentiful targets—

‘Ignore them. Focus on the hairy one,’ Poi sent.

Jane did so. The hairy beast reached for her with its hair, revealing—

It was nothing but long black hair and four legs. Jane cleaved with her swor—

The black sword bounced off of the stretching hair. The hair continued to reach for her. Jane barely had time to rip through the shadows, flowing down and around to get away. The thing had still managed to grab one of her legs, but as a shadow, she still managed to escape…

That leg started to tingle—

Fwoomph!

Long, stringy hairs had managed to wrap around her legs, around a joint, and come with her through her movement only to self-immolate when she returned to normal reality. Jane turned to fire herself, activating [Fire Body] alongside [Greater Shadowalk], taking control of the insolent flames and the tangled hair. With a twist and a rip, the tangled hair dislodged, falling to the black ocean below, where it quickly snuffed out under the inky waves.

Okay.

This was dangerous.

Jane stared at the hairy monster with hair that would not cut, and which traveled with her when she moved, only to catch her on fire causing her to waste more Mana and Health. Then she glanced to the self-healing monster of a million spells, fighting with the other team in the background. The other team was not doing any better than Jane had done; if anything, they were doing much worse. Only one of their five fliers seemed to have a reflective spell.

Okay.

So.

Shit.

Jane rushed the hairy monster with a [Strike] prepared. Hair reached for her, almost preternaturally, and she met that attack with a [Decay Strike] of her own. The black, shadow sword briefly lit with blue, cloying light, before the edge struck the hair and bounced away. The amalgam’s hair wrapped around two of her forward legs.

Jane frantically got away, ripped the flaming hair off of her, then switched her spells. [Cleanse] and [Prismatic Body] instead. [Cleanse] made the monsters weaker, so it might help with the inky hair.

The world turned to prismatic wonder and Jane’s sword clipped through hair like it should have in the first place. Cut hair tried to ensnare Jane, but she ignored it, for fire was hers to command and the hair unfurled from her even as it tried to latch on. She continued onward, slicing a storm to the legs of the monster, and then through. Spiral cuts, dancing slashes; one leg was cut, then two, then all four. All of the dragging, telekinetic hair of the beast folded in from all sides, trying to grab Jane directly, but the inky, oozy hair practically evaporated this close to her.

She let the body fall onto her, aiming upward like a piercing spear. She exited the monster in a shower of evaporating gore. Soon, another notification alerted her to another 3 gained levels, and another 6 awarded points, but at less than half resources, this was not a good way to fight.

Jane hit herself with another [Rejuvenation], giving herself more Health to spend through Blood Mana to keep up her major spellwork, but this was not good. This was not sustainable.

‘Health check.’ Poi sent, ‘You’re good. Kill the other one. Those people will pull back the second you approach.’

Jane moved back into the light, back toward the caster amalgam, coming in like a prismatic, [Cleanse]ing comet in the night. The people fighting the caster amalgam dashed away. They looked wounded, for they had been pelted by [Force Bolt]s from every single outstretched hand this entire time. But now Jane had the monster’s full attention.

Spellwork bounced off of her as she dove directly into the creature’s soft body and eviscerated it from the inside out, breaking jumbled bones and evaporating nonsensical, dead organs with every second—

The thing repositioned with a [Teleport] or something, moving itself south a hundred meters while Jane remained behind. Jane almost faltered, falling to the ocean below, but she was better than that. The amalgam didn’t look too great, though; it was half collapsed in on itse—

Black light flashed over the amalgam and it was suddenly, fully healed.

Just like that.

Instantly.

And then every single hand and central eye, thousands of them, lit with fire.

[Fireball]s in record number flowed from the caster amalgam, aimed at Jane. Most struck and bounced from her blue radiance, to then fall to the black ocean and set it alight, turning the night to a fiery day. Some exploded directly, but those weren’t a big deal, either, as that fire also curled and flowed away from Jane.

Jane entered the amalgam’s chest again, cutting and tearing and breaking and [Cleanse]ing, all at once, all around her, the adamantium sword carving a large swath through everything it touched, but Jane also used the claws of her monstrous form to inflict as much damage as she could.

She even managed to finally get [Blood Control] from her Queen Blood Weaver to ‘catch’ onto the blood of the caster amalgam, shredding it from the inside, ripping resources directly from its—

Jane was suddenly midair.

And the caster amalgam was completely gone.

‘Where is it!’ Jane sent, worriedly.

‘Already searching,’ Poi sent, calmly.

Hurry up and wait.

Hurry up and wait—

‘It’s gone.’ Poi sent, ‘Retreat back to the middle wall. Recuperate.’

Jane did so without question, rapidly moving through the sky like a firework to land exactly where she had been before. Nearby people were not truly nearby, but they did freak out that they were under attack, but cooler heads and louder commanding officers took control. Soon, everyone saw that the ‘monster’ in their space was not a monster.

Once she was sure she was safe again, Jane turned off her magics. She fired off a single [Rejuvenation] to speed along the restoration of her Health, which was nearing 1/3 full, but other than that, she relaxed. Soon, some rookie approached her, talking about him being there to [Cleanse], and if she was okay with him doing his job. The kid, who had to be 16, was scared shitless, but he was also there, doing what he needed to do, so that counted for a lot.

Jane told him to go ahead.

The kid opened up his own [Cleanse Aura], and moved most of it over Jane, but he was missing her furthest foot. She told him to come closer, and that she wouldn’t bite, trying to tease the kid. The kid, like a perfect little soldier, did as Jane asked, coming to stand right beside her forward foot. He was barely the size of her fangs.

Brave kid.

Jane waited.

The kid finished and moved on. When he went back to his little group they all rapidly asked him what it was like, and the kid started talking up a brave story. Jane would have smiled if she had a mouth capable of such.

- - - -

That night, Jane would fight eleven more amalgams. She didn’t experiment with any of them, anymore. She went in full powered, and ripped them apart from the inside, if she could, but from the outside, if she had to. She never allowed herself to get low in resources, like she had with those first three.

The caster amalgam never showed again.

Daybreak dawned, evaporating the black ocean. The Crystal Forest returned to how it was before.

Only now, after a night of siege and bit of understanding, did Jane notice the actual land around Spur, beyond the walls. There was a severe lack of crystal mimics anywhere within a hundred kilometers of Ar’Kendrithyst. There was a severe lack of any desert life at all anywhere near the Dead City.

When Jane went through official decontamination and was fully cleared, she finally transformed back into a person and felt exhausted. She wasn’t about to risk an infection by turning human during the night, and there wasn’t much food for a spider to eat during the night, so she was damned hungry, too. After conjuring some clothes and saying hello to Savral and Al, who were both on cleaning detail back at the innermost wall, Jane went back home.

As Jane went through the delicious process of devouring the wonderful, expansive meal set out by Teressa, Jane said to Kiri, “I didn’t meet many adventuring idiots today.”

Kiri was all smiles, and had been ever since Jane returned from the night’s work. “They stayed away from you! It was lovely, actually. Practically the entire south-east side was run exactly as it should be! No one taking any stupid chances! Not with the Blue Comet around absolutely shredding the larger amalgams.”

“… Oh? I guess that’s good.” Jane shrugged as she stuck her fork in a sausage. “I hit 91.”

Teressa smirked, saying, “You’ll have to power level me sometime, Jane.”

Jane nodded. “Sure.” She added, “These shits are really, really dangerous, though.” She stared a bit, to make sure her point was understood. “Really dangerous.”

Poi said, “Only four deaths tonight, and each of them transient adventurers not from Spur. The four were all part of the same team, who snuck out to take a big amalgam on the north side while Killzone was already fighting four at once, so he couldn’t save them. Everyone was busy.”

Kiri stabbed her omelette, briefly looking less-happy as she said, “Every night. Every night it’s the same fucking story.” After a moment of silence, Kiri resumed eating.

Jane had seconds, then thirds.

Teressa joked, “Maybe I should cook for two orcols and two smalls, instead of one and three.”

“Smalls?” Kiri asked, slightly offended.

Teressa smirked. “It’s a diminutive term of endearment.”

Jane laughed, saying, “We have that saying on Earth, too!”

Teressa chuckled, saying, “Ya know? I’m still concerned where you’re going to put all the food I’ll feed you. I still don’t understand how eating in human form gives enough energy to move around as a giant spider.”

“Oh. It won’t.” Jane said, “I’ll need to go hunting as a spider sometime, soon.”

“… Now you’re making even less sense,” Teressa said, frowning. “How does that work?”

The four of them talked for a little while about stuff that didn’t matter and about the nuances of magic, which probably did matter, but they were all exhausted. Apparently, Teressa had averted utter disaster five times, saving a hundred lives, at least. The attacks were getting very bad, and tonight could have gone horribly. There had been a total of 32 greater amalgams, making this night almost twice as bad as the night that almost killed Spur. But they didn’t fall. Teressa had a lot to do with that. She was even the one who told Poi to tell Jane to move away from the caster amalgam and focus on the other one.

All in all, it had been a very good night by all metrics. The first wall hadn’t fallen, at all, and the damage done was easy to repair in the morning.

As the sun rose in the sky, Jane laid down to sleep and wondered if her father was doing okay. It had been at least two days since they last saw him; Jane’s idea of time was a bit messed up, but it wasn’t that messed up. Yggdrasil was still okay— Well. Yggdrasil was alive, and that was the important part. He probably couldn’t survive if Erick was dead.

So that made Jane feel better.

Her father was fine.

… And if not ‘fine’, then he was at least alive. For sure.

- - - -

Another night of black ooze passed much like the first, but with only 5 greater amalgams the whole night. Jane did have someone try to kill-steal the single amalgam that came for her side, though. That was unexpected, but also, at the same time, expected. Jane wasn’t quite fast enough to save that idiot from himself, though, as the tentacle amalgam grabbed him tight in its death throes and ripped him apart, right before the amalgam died, too.

The third night saw 15 greater amalgams and four kill-steal attempts. Jane thwarted every kill-steal attempt that came for her. The third night also saw the greatest defensive addition to the walls, thanks to Kiri. Thanks to various clues shared by Teressa, Jane, and Poi, Kiri had successfully created a [True Sunlight Rift]. Where Archmage Obsidian’s [Sunlight Orb] did well to evaporate the black ocean and keep the attacks manageable, Kiri’s brilliant white rifts of light obliterated the black ocean almost like Jane’s [Prismatic Body] and [Cleanse Aura] combination did, but on a much, much larger scale. The only problem was that Kiri’s rifts only lasted an hour each, but thanks to her efforts, it seemed that they might have crossed a hump. Thanks to her [True Sunlight Rift]s, Kiri was able to almost completely evaporate the ooze that came directly at them from the Dead City.

It was still an ocean of black ooze, though. So… Kiri’s efforts were great, but not enough to solve the problem.

Jane sent a letter to Nirzir detailing the current problems of Spur, and wishing Nirzir success in her runework. As soon as this black ooze and level 92 monster threat was gone, then Jane was probably going to get into runework, too.

The fourth night saw a large increase in the number of large amalgams, with 39 appearing that night, and the arrival of the first of a new, much more dangerous breed: the dispelling amalgams. There were three breaches of large size that night and Jane ended up falling out of the sky a few times and taking heavy wounds for the first time since the start of the siege. Around midnight, Teressa demanded a full retreat to the second wall, and that probably saved hundreds of lives as the sudden appearance of five dispellers ripped apart every defense upon that frontline.

But they still needed to kill the dispelling amalgams. Which is exactly what the archmages and Kiri did. Lightning and crashing stone and black fire, sent from far away, ripped apart what no one else could touch. After those dispelling amalgams were killed, Jane and Killzone retook the first wall, and Archmage Wave was able to repair it. The front line moved back up to the front.

The fifth night was simple, at only 9 greater amalgams in total, except for the return of the many-armed caster amalgam. That monster showed up on Mog’s side of the wall and Mog would waste too many resources trying to kill it, so Jane was ordered to go in and take care of it. All Jane succeeded in doing was driving it away again, for it fled the second it experienced Jane’s first dive-in attack.

Also on that night, Jane helped Teressa to kill a good-for-her amalgam. It was one of the few amalgams that were simple brute fights, without too many tricks, and Teressa hit it rather hard with a massive mace while she ran a [Cleanse Aura] the entire time. With some outside assistance setting the stage for her, it was enough for Teressa to kill the thing. She grabbed almost all of the Participation of the fight and many levels.

As Jane went to bed that morning, she wondered when the dispelling amalgams would show up again…

But mainly, she wondered where her father was.

Was he eating well?

Was he safe?

Poi reported that none of their necromancers had captured his soul, so he probably wasn’t dead. Yggdrasil continued to rebuff all communication, but he was still alive, too.

Erick was probably fine.

- - - -

It had been a full ten days since Erick vanished on that Teleport Pad. Today was the date when Darabella’s husband’s soul responded to the summons of a necromancer, but Erick’s soul did not come to them when called. Jane had gone to the Church that morning, to speak to Phagar, but the priests would only tell her that Erick did not accept The End, and Phagar did not see fit to respond to her pleas for answers. And so, day ten came and went.

Nirzir’s response came. She was thinking of planning a trip to Spur, to help with the level 92 monster threats. Many of her people might want to come too, for it wasn’t that often that you found such monsters on the surface of Veird.

Jane smiled.

Day eleven had more dispelling amalgams and also the return of the caster amalgam. The archmages were quick to respond to the dispelling ones, while Jane went after the caster amalgam. The caster got away again.

And Erick remained missing.

- - - -

- - - -

- - - -

There is a land far below.

- - - -

- - - -

- - - -

A place of gentle, rainbow glows.

- - - -

- - - -

Further down,

- - - -

And further still,

- - - -

Where thick air drowns,

- - - -

And monsters kill,

- - - -

A land of death that lurks and dwells

in darks and lights; they are unseen.

So bring your best, your swords, your spells,

and Travelers ware the deeper queens.

- - - -

- - - -

The cavernous tunnel was quiet and dark. The only sounds and movements and lights came from the ethereal rush of thick air that flowed through the center of the tunnel, like a suspended, gently-glowing river that rushed through the cavern, ever onward, and down. The thick air was pink and green and yellow and blue, but it was also none of those things at all, for it was a mirage of dense mana. More than any true illumination, the river of possibility only served to make the shadows in this place deeper than they had any right to be.

And yet, if one were to look…

Nothing obvious lived here in this dark, rushing place, for everything that was obviously alive was either a predator, or a trap.

The river rushed as it was wont.

The monsters hid until they found something else living down here, and then they hid no more. Gnawing, mashing, crunching sounds came and went, along with screams and barks and roars. But soon enough, the monsters went back into hiding, to await the next fool stupid enough to disturb the peace—

A change came upon the cavern like the rising of a sun.

A white eddy of brilliance swirled in the edge of that empty river of thick nothing, showing the darkness what true light could be. The monsters were mesmerized. It had been an age since this place saw light that bright, and no one knew what to do with it.

But then the white light calmed, folding back into the river, vanishing into the flow—

Suddenly, the light flashed bright, coming to the surface of the river like a man rising out of the drowning ocean. A white hand reached out. A white face tried to take a breath. The land stood illuminated.

Eyes and maws and claws. Everywhere. The monsters had come out of hiding.

And then they all saw each other.

Eighteen smaller battles instantly started between thirty five smaller monsters as predators finally recognized each other as food. The light was ignored, for everything else was actually made out of delicious meat. Besides, other, bigger monsters were always waiting in the wings to investigate any large disturbance, and they didn’t always go after the first thing to show itself.

The light died again, falling back into the river. And then it came back, like a drowning man struggling to escape the waters, but the river didn’t care. It dragged the light with it, drowning it once again, pulling it under and along, traveling on the journey toward—

The light ripped itself from the river.

A bloody man and his backpack crashed out of the thick air, into the cavernous tunnel, spilling light everywhere.

And now, we get a scale; an idea of size.

The man was small and wounded. His clothes were torn and his left foot was gone. He was but a speck below the massive river, inside the kilometers-large cavern. But he was not too small to go unnoticed, for he was very, very bright.

Erick saw the monsters, and the monsters saw him.