Having tons of rock fall on her wasn’t the problem Tessa expected it to be. The falling debris blocked even Pillowcase’s enhanced vision and the cacophony made regular speech impossible, but she didn’t need to see or speak to react the room collapsing.

“Out!” she yelled on the team channel. “Through the door and out!”

When she’d pulled the lever, a new door had opened in the wall in the back of the cave. Tessa had only had the briefest of glimpses of the corridor beyond it but since she hadn’t seen a crash cascade of rocks piling down in there, it had to be better than staying in the room.

Most of the rest of the team was stunned back the disaster that was enveloping them so Tessa reach out and tossed the nearest one through the door. Rip wasn’t exactly pleased with that, but with her [Archer] reflexes she managed to land on her feet.

Lisa followed, her [Vampiric] speed not actually any greater than the rest of the team’s. She’d shaken off her surprise instantly and was moving on instinct as much as anything else. 

Only Obby moved faster than her, diving clear of the rubble and rolling to land in front of RIp to be the shield the team needed for the inevitable monster attack that was waiting for them.

Tessa helped Starchild through the door after a rock clipped the [Druid] in the head. That had seemed like it was Starchild’s luck running out, but, as it turned out, it was Tessa who’d exhausted her good fortune.

She noticed the problem a tiny fraction of a second before the disaster sucked her up. 

The rocks were still falling. How? 

Shouldn’t they be piling up?

Enough had fallen that a pile should have formed. Or, really, the room should have filled up. 

But it hadn’t.

Rocks continued to fall and a moment too late, Tessa understood why that was.

The ceiling wasn’t the only things that was falling – the floor was crumbling away too, huge pieces falling into whatever unknowable abyss lay below the entry room.

Except it wasn’t going to be unknowable for long, because she was tumbling right into it along with Matt and Lady Midnight.

As she fell, some analytical part of her mind observed that the room wasn’t just a trap, it was a timed puzzle. The [Bone Spiders] were intentionally over-powered for a first encounter in order to force the party to find a method of avoiding them. Once they found the lever, they needed to be ready to execute the ‘get the hell out of room’ mechanic within probably ten seconds. It wouldn’t have been hard if they’d known to expect it and had been prepared for it, but, as with many first time runs of a dungeon, they’d had to learn things through painful error after painful error.

“Tessa!” Lisa’s yell on the team channel reached Tessa before she stopped falling.

By about a quarter of a second.

A lot of her health bar vanished on the impact, and the same was true for Matt and Lady Midnight. An identical percentage in fact, since falling damage was treated differently than other forms of blunt trauma.

Since there were still rocks falling, Tessa rolled back to her feet, and grabbed her two teammates by their hands to haul them off the pile of rocks that was forming around them.

Each of them got pummeled more as they fled and by the time they were safely down an irregular tunnel Matt was about one mouse bite away from death and Lady Midnight was no more than twice as durable.

“Tessa, Matt, Midnight, where are you?” Lisa asked, her panic replaced with the frost of a healer making triage decisions. “We can still see your health bars in the party list. Are you buried under that rubble?”

Tessa breathed a sigh of relief on seeing that the rest of the team was still in solid shape.

“We’re not buried,” Tessa said. Her injuries were already starting to mend thanks to her [Clothwork] passive abilities. As a [Regeneration] based [Tank] she was expected to routinely take awful amount of damage and simply walk it all off.

“But we are cut off,” Lady Midnight said, pointing to the entrance of the tunnel which had been completely filled by the a solid wall of earth.

“We can try to get you out of there,” Rip said.

“Except that we’re cut off too,” Starchild said.

Tessa was surprised enough rocks had fallen to fill the pit to that level but then another idea occurred to her.

“We can get through the door again if we need to do,” Lisa said, confirming Tessa’s suspicion.

“Probably not worth the effort,” Tessa said. “This wasn’t a random accident. That room was designed as a trap. I’m betting when the door shut on you, some magic kicker on it returned the room to its previous state, [Bone Spides] and nanowire webbing included.”

Lisa cursed and wasn’t bleeped out by the game’s profanity filter. Tessa had always thought the profanity filter was ridiculous but she’d left it on fairly often, in part just to see what sort of absurd changes the filter made to otherwise innocuous phrases. Under the present circumstances though, she was glad that the real [Fallen Kingdoms] didn’t have that sort of censorship in place.

“It’ll be okay,” she said. “If I’m right, the two paths we’re on should meet up somewhere a little further on. The trap was just a recycle of the one in the [Crystal Monkey Cave] right?”

“I haven’t been in that dungeon in ten years,” Lady Midnight said.

“Nobody has,” Lisa said. “Or almost nobody. Everyone just skips past the mid-level dungeons now since the loot in them is worthless.”

“I was planning to see if Starchild could solo them,” Pete said. “I think she’s got the build for it.”

“That’s good,” Tessa said. “That should mean that you four won’t have any trouble making it to the meeting point.”

“This wasn’t a bad split for the team,” Obby said. “We’ve got tanks and healers on both sides.”

“I’m hoping we’ll both be able to handle whatever comes next,” Tessa said. “I’m guessing that will depend on whether the encounters scale for our current party sizes.”

“They won’t,” Lisa said. “In the [Crystal Monkey Cave], if I’m remembering correctly, the collapsing room trap was a response check. You were supposed to all get out of it together.”

“Next time it’ll be a breeze,” Tessa said. Lady Midnight had finished healing herself and Matt to full, so Tessa started to carefully advance forward down the tunnel.

“We need to survive this one for there to be a next time,” Lisa said.

“Right. And if we do die, we need to remember to pay attention to our surroundings while we look for the [Heart Fire]. We don’t want to do a mapping run as ghosts if we don’t have to, but if we’re stuck with that, let’s make it count.”

“Promise me you’ll be safe,” Lisa said on their private channel.

“I’m not going to go looking for fun without you,” Tessa said. “The sooner we’re back together, the better.”

“Why didn’t you come through the door?” Lisa asked. “I tried to grab you.”

“I think I was still worried about the [Bone Spiders],” Tessa said. “I didn’t want to leave anyone behind to get eaten by them. I’m sorry though, I didn’t see you reaching for me.”

“That’s okay,” Lisa said. “The rocks were falling. I know you couldn’t do anything about it.”

“Next time I’ll know to try though,” Tessa said.

“Next time I’ll remember that the devs are lazy jerks,” Lisa said. “I bet there’s more recycled stuff in here.”

“Uh, no bet,” Tessa said, putting out her arm to bring Matt and Lady Mightnight to a halt.

In front of her the tunnel widened into a broad shaft with a series of mushrooms rising from the floor far below or sprouting from the walls. From the ceiling, or in some cases from the wall mushrooms, thick vines hung down.

“Those sadists,” Lady Midnight said when she saw what awaited them.

“What is it?” Rip asked.

“Mushrooms,” Tessa said, “In a deep, deep shaft. With vines to swing on.”

Lisa cursed again. Repeatedly this time.

“What’s wrong with mushroom?” Rip asked.

“Nothing,” Tessa said. “Providing you don’t mind falling several hundred feet to an insta-kill.”

“We started doing that intentionally after our seventh run of the [Depths of Tolboron],” Lisa said.

“Wait, we’re supposed to jump from one of the mushroom caps to the next right?” Matt asked.

“And swing between them when the jump is too far or long,” Tessa said.

“That doesn’t look easy,” Matt said.

“It’s not,” Tessa said. “But the best part is the moment sets foot on one of the mushrooms is when the mobs will appear.”

“So we need to do the jumping and swinging while things are trying to kill us?” Matt asked.

“Smart things too,” Tessa said. “At least in the earlier dungeon this was in.”

“Smart how?” Rip asked.

“Smart as in ‘they wait till your vulnerable to attack in the hope of messing up your jump or knocking you off a vine,” Lisa said. “And then when you go splat on the ground, they land to devour your body so you’re stuck rezzing at the [Heart Fire] and taking a nice big quality hit on all your gear.”

“I see why no one does this one anymore,” Rip said.

“Well, not this one,” Tessa said. “The [Depths of Tolboron] is one of the very old dungeons. The newer ones are usually more fun.”

“I’m not seeing a lot of fun up here,” Lisa said. “We made it to the shaft too. I think we’re we’re on the walkway right above you.”

The walkway in question was a good hundred feet higher up the shaft. Not a trivial distance to overcome.

“I’m surprised we got here without being attacked?” Obby said.

“We’re still stuck possibly fighting two battles at once if we all try to get onto the mushrooms,,” Tessa said.

“Could we lower people down with ropes instead?” Rip asked. “Or try to climb the walls?”

“That wasn’t an option in the game, but there’s nothing stopping us from trying it here,” Tessa said. “Except that the mobs that are probably lurking here don’t have the game limitation of only attacking us when we touch the mushrooms.”

“What if something else touches the mushrooms?” Rip asked.

“What kind of something else?” Tessa asked.

“This kind,” Rip said.

From high above, Tessa saw a flash of light followed by a detonation that sent pieces of one of the giant mushrooms raining down into the pit below.

Before she had time to admonish Rip for making a bad choice, the consequence of that choice appeared.

Tess had been expecting either spiders or bats to be the enemy. They were staples of a lot of low level quests and this felt like a ‘blast-from-the-past’ zone. Instead of spiders or bats though, the open air in front of her was filled with [Flying Poison Creepers].

The Creepers were a naturally occurring form of undead – if the spontaneous amalgamation of multiple dead bodies into a single chaotic whole could be called ‘natural’ in any sense. Their species designation was less important to Tessa however than their sensory capabilities. 

Specifically whether the Creepers could sense then or had taken flight only because of the destruction of the mushroom.

“Incoming!” Obby yelled just as Tessa saw the Creepers random flight patterns flicker over to a purposeful and directed pair of flight plans.

“Behind me. Only engage the ones I’m on,” Tessa said. “If any break through, leave them alone, even if they attack you.”

There were too many Creeper diving towards them. Tessa knew she could hold them all, and she could only cling to the hope that she could survive the ones she did manage to provoke.

A body’s worth of blood drenched Pillowcase and Tessa smiled.

None of it was her own, and her new shield was strong enough to turn hold the stone shattering impacts the frenzied [Bone Spider] was dishing out. The thrill of a battle that was going well pushed away her fears and doubts and let her focus beyond the microcosm of the giant undead arachnid in front of her.

With their nanowire traps burned away by the [Moon Dust] spell, the [Bone Spiders] had burst from their subterranean traps and attempted to seize the element of surprise.

Both Tessa and Pillowcase had anticipated their attack, as had Lisa, Obby, and Starchild. Rip and Matt had been caught off guard and Lady Midnight had given a strangled scream before shouting out her spells in the loudest, most commanding voice Tess had heard her use so far. Apparently she was a fan of neither spiders nor jump scares.

That made their present circumstances unenviable for her since it hadn’t been only one [Bone Spider] that had surged to the surface.

Five had burst free from the ground in front of them while two others broke from the wall and ceiling to dive into the group.

Obby had handled the diving spider, invoking a skill called [Repelling Smite] to blast the spider backward in a parabolic into the room. It crashed into the rearmost of the spiders that erupted from the floor, the two of them going down in a clatter of bones and flailing limbs.

Tessa wondered if it was really proper to call the creatures ‘spiders’ at all. They had eight limbs, and poison drenched fangs but that was where the similarity to other arachnids ended.

The [Bone Spiders] were constructed of segments shards of bone, woven together through some mid-tier necromantic magic. The bones, which normal spiders notably did not possess, dripped with acidic blood with every movement the [Bone Spiders] made.

Given how it was melting steaming divots into the dirt it fell on, the acid blood would have been a serious problem, likely placing a damage over time effect on Pillowcase that her own healing skills would be pressed to keep up with. Among her other new skills and powers though, Pillowcase had received [Armor Infusion: Golden Soul] which gave her enough damage resistance to “environmental damage” that she could have gone for a bath in the Spider’s stone melting blood and felt nothing more than a pleasant tingle.

Obby had received a similar ability from her [Guardian] class and the two of them had formed an, as yet, unbroken wall in front of their comrades.

Tessa had been concerned that she’d need to hold off the [Bone Spiders] on her own after Obby’s sword was destroyed, but, like any good [Adventurer], Obby had plenty of other weapons available to work with. In fact, from the arc of green fire that trailed Obby’s sword, Tessa say Obby hadn’t even lost her best sword to the nanowire trap the [Bone Spiders] had laid.

“My spells aren’t hurting these things,” Matt said.

“My arrows aren’t either,” Rip said. “No damage at all.”

That wasn’t a good sign, but it also wasn’t entirely unexpected either.

“There’s a mechanic we’re missing,” she said.

“What kind of mechanic?” Rip asked, firing off two more arrows and growling when they accomplished nothing at all.

“Don’t know,” Tessa said. “Hitting for no damage means there’s either a trick to this fight or these things are so high level that they can shrug off your attacks with just their basic defenses.”

“And if they were that tough, they’d be splattering Pillowcase and me with one hit,” Obby said.

“Shoot for the joints,” Lisa said. “If we’re lucky it’s just a targeting mechanic.”

“My spells don’t hit specific body parts,” Matt said. “They blast the whole creature. Or it’s mind I guess?”

“Using the basic attack from your staff,” Lady Midnight said. “Lost Alice and I can do the same. These things don’t seem to be dealing much damage yet.”

Tessa watched as three beams of magic power lashed forward, striking the [Bone Spiders] where bone armored legs connected to plate reinforced bodies, or at the fluid bends between the leg segments.

“[Casting spell: Devouring Spores],” Starchild said, and Tessa saw a ripple of tiny mushrooms and fungi spread across the [Bone Spider] that was nearest to her. The spores eat into the body they landed on and fractured its armor (or skin), leaving their target far more vulnerable to attack.

Or they would have if scalding acid blood didn’t shoot from each crack, transforming into a pristine bone plug for each of the cracks the spores made.

“Why do they have blood?” Rip’s unhappiness at what was clearly a skeleton construct still possessing a seemingly inexhaustible supply of blood was a feeling many other players shared with her. Tessa herself had complained about the devs failing to consider even basic realism in their designs, and had been less than delighted with the answer “it’s magic, don’t think too much about it.”

In [Broken Horizons] the game, the devs had wanted a frightening and somewhat gross monster (limited by the game’s teen friendly rating) to throw against the players so that the encounter would seem ‘hardcore’. The blood splatters in the game had been purple, and not even vaguely convincing, again for rating reasons, but even so Tessa had found it to be on the sillier side rather than threatening. 

Standing in front of one, she revised her opinion a bit. The design of the [Bone Spiders] was still stupid. Someone had heard that spiders use pneumatic pressure to move their muscles and thought “why no make their squirt blood out of their pneumatic systems”. Tessa could think of dozens of reasons “why not”, but seeing the creatures in action, and without a weird purple color correction on their blood, she had to admit that they were reasonably intimidating.

Each one being about the volume of a mid-sized sedan, without considering the serrated razor claws their legs ended in, helped establish them as a believable threat. As did the absolute lack of effect any attacks on them seemed to have.

“Their stupid joints are just as tough as their body!” Rip said, loosing more arrows despite knowing they weren’t any good.

“That sucks,” Lisa said. “That means it’s either a specific weak spot on their body or it’s something in this room.”

“I hope it wasn’t the nanowires,” Pete said, speaking up as Starchild focused on finding a weak point anywhere in the [Bone Spiders] carapace.

“They put those wires out,” Lisa said. “They’ve got to be able to deal with them.”

“And they didn’t pop up until the wires were destroyed,” Matt said. “We couldn’t have used the wires against the spider even if we wanted to right?”

“Should we fight them somewhere else?” Rip asked. “Maybe it’s being in here that’s making them unbeatable and they’ll shrivel and die in the sunshine.”

“Dungeon mobs can’t follow outside the dungeon,” Lisa said.

“Except we know some who did,” Tessa said. “The [Shadowed Starstalkers]. And the [Spacers]. Maybe that’s something that can happen here? I mean what’s to stop them.”

A scythe arm tried to flash past her and then pull back but Pillowcase dodged the blow that would have at least knocked her prone and more likely cut her legs off at the knee.

She tried to stomp on the retreating scythe arm and pin it in place but the [Bone Spider] was too fast and too strong to allow that to happen.

“How do we beat this thing!” Rip hadn’t stopped firing and it didn’t look like she planned to any time soon. Or possible ever. She hadn’t quite hit a [Barbarian Rage] level of anger yet, but tunnel vision was clearly setting in.

“Look around,” Tessa said. “See if there’s anything in the room that could be giving them enhanced toughness.”

“Or anything that could damage them,” Lisa said.

“I can’t see anything,” Rip said. “It’s a big spider webby room.”

“Something in the webs?” Lisa asked. The question was to Tessa but she didn’t bother using their private channel.

“Yeah. That’s probably why they bothered obscuring the walls when the webs aren’t going to catch anything,” Tessa said.

“Don’t think we can search for what’s behind those webs unless we get close to them,” Lady Midnight said. “Were we supposed to have a [Rogue] scout this room ahead of us?”

“Nah,” Tessa said. “We just need to move these things over a bit so…”

So that their scout, aka Rip, could get by.

Tessa hated the idea and caught herself before she suggested it.

Pillowcase was basically immune to the spider’s acid blood, but Rip most definitely was not. Also, if any of the spider’s decided that an [Archer] looked like a more appetizing meal than one of the two tanks, Rip would be impaled are torn apart in seconds.

Which wouldn’t be the end of the world.

Rip could survive dying.

Probably.

Tessa didn’t care.

She was not letting her Rip become spider food.

“So that we can move around the perimeter as a unit,” Lisa said, finishing Tessa thought so much better than Tessa had been fumbling to. “Lady Midnight and I can take turns being stationary to use [Quickened Pulse]. If we leap frog each other, we’ll be fine for healing and get a movement buff.”

God I love you, Tessa sent her on their private line.

Lisa sent back a kissy smile emote, which appeared in the chat log as one of the game’s icons and in Tessa’s telepathic hearing as an actual kiss.

The trick to the maneuver wasn’t coordinating the two healers though it turned out. Lost Alice and Lady Midnight had both performed similar maneuvers countless times in higher tier content. Obby and Tessa, on the other hand, had only limited tools to manipulate the [Bone Spiders] with.

Both of them were forced to lag behind and slow the group’s progress in curving around the walls of the room because the [Bone Spiders] were on a thread thin tether in terms of focusing on the tanks and not leaping over them to devour the backline fighters.

“This is going to be so much easier at 40 when I’ve got [Champion’s Challenge],” Obby said, twisting under one of the [Bone Spider’s] attacks so that she could land hits along its arm and into it’s gem-like eyes.

Tessa was familiar with the skill Obby was looking forward to. It was a much stronger [Taunt] with a better radius of effect than anything either one of them had access to at the moment. [Soul Knight’s] got a similar skill, though theirs was delayed till 45.

“It’s be easy at 40 because we’ll probably be one shotting these things, mechanics or no,” Tessa said with a laugh.

Technically it was a dire situation, but she wasn’t concerned. She was with good people, and one of the smartest women she’d ever met. They were faced with a challenge but it wasn’t flat out broken (like the [Wraithwings]) or not at all supposed to exist in the environments (like the Consortium). This was exactly what the [Fallen Kingdoms] threw at you. Fights that were as much puzzles as contests of might or reaction speed.

“I found a lever!” Matt called out after they made it halfway around the room to the far side. “Should I pull it?”

Tess risked a glance backward. Hidden behind the webbing which covered the walls, was a simple iron lever in the ‘up’ position.

Manipulating strange devices in deadly dungeons was generally a terrible idea. All sorts of mayhem tended to be unleashed with the flick of a simple switch (or the depression of an unnoticed pressure plate, and so on). 

But that was what [Adventurers] did.

They poked things and made other things happen.

Just not to Matt.

“Let me!” Tessa said and began backing towards the wall, forcing the rest of the party to move away, lest they be splattered with acid blood.

“Should we reposition the spiders?” Obby asked.

“If you’ve got any idea where they’d need to be?” Tessa said.

“Uh, yeah, nope, pull away!” Obby said.

And so Tessa did.

And so the cave collapsed on them.

Being around people who weren’t trying to kill them turned out to be just what a whole lot of the [Adventurers] needed. 

But not Tessa.

“I have never been so glad to pass through an [Instance Boundary],” she said from the comfortable inside of the [Dragonshire’s] local dungeon.

“The air feels different in here,” Rip said. Her whiskers were standing straight out and the fur on her arms was raised.

The door behind them was still open, its arch of knotted, thorny vines marking the border between the dungeon and the relatively tranquil forest outside.

Tessa knew the twisted trees of the forest were supposed to be more menacing and harbor more threats than what they’d faced on the trip to the dungeon, but they hadn’t been the first ones pass by along the path.

They’d seen the remains of some of the monsters which had tried to intercept the earlier [Adventurers] who’d come to brave the dungeon’s depths. There were many more that were simply missing though, a fact Obby suggested was attributable to the [Shadowed Starwalkers].

“I don’t think we’re the first ones to come in here, but we’re definitely the only people in here now,” Obby said. She pointed down one of the three corridors that lead out of the cavern they were standing in.

In the darkness, bleached bones gleamed and moved.

“Oh look, it’s a bread crumb trail for [Adventurers],” Tessa said, Pillowcase’s persona rising to meet the impending mayhem.

The prospect of fighting skeletons didn’t bother her, which she knew was probably a bad sign. It wasn’t that she’d lost her capacity to be terrified. All throughout the morning, she’d been uneasy, first from the news about how much the [Second Stars] guild had grown and then simply from the sheer press of people who’d been around them.

As the founders one of the biggest guild in the town and one of the higher level local players, people had been paying a lot more attention to Tessa than she was used to, and she didn’t like it. It wasn’t until she got out of the city that she understood that though.

In retrospect it wasn’t a surprise. Being around thousands of people had never been Tessa preferred method of spending her time. It wasn’t until they entered the forest and the sonic tableau around them changed that she recognized how much effort she’d been unconsciously putting into blocking everything out.

Standing in a thirty foot diameter hemisphere of dirt and roots which was lit by the blue-white glow of a few dozen tiny [Faux Fires], Tessa felt more at home and relaxed than she’d felt even when she was back on earth, in bed and watching a movie on her laptop.

Even the slowing advancing [Skeleton Warriors] didn’t change that.

“That might be me,” Pillowcase said in the privacy of their mind. “Those things look like the first tutorial training foes the Consortium tested us out on. I barely had motor control at that point and they weren’t a challenge.”

“I don’t think it’s that,” Tessa replied. “I think after last night, I’m finally starting to feel like an [Adventurer] and not a victim who got swept up into all this against her will.”

“Those things seem kind of weak,” Matt said. “Shouldn’t the things in here be higher level? I thought this place was extra dangerous?”

“It is,” Rip said. She wasn’t looking at the [Skeleton Warriors]. Her gaze was searching the ceiling of the cavern they were in.

“She’s right,” Obby said, “Those things are much too low level. They’ve got to be [Watchmen mobs].”

Tessa chuckled. Of course the dungeon wasn’t safe and friendly. That was the point of dungeons. Even knowing that the [Skeleton Warriors] were a trap though, she was still inclined to engage them and see what perils they were hiding.

“Hold on there,” Lisa said on their private channel.

“What, I wasn’t attacking,” Tessa said, checking the forward motion she’d been starting to make.

“Right,” Lisa said, without even the hint that she believed Tessa’s claim. “Let’s get into a better formation before we trigger the spiders,” she added for the others to hear.

“Spiders?” Lady Midnight asked. “Do you see them in the dark? Or smell them?”

“No, I just know how these things go. A big natural area like this? There’s definitely going to be spiders in here somewhere.”

“She’s right.” Starchild said. “This lair has the right shape to support giant spiders, but there’s no webbing. I hope that doesn’t mean what I think it means.”

“Why wouldn’t a spiders lair have web?” Lady Midnight asked.

“They could be burrowing spiders, right?” Matt asked. “They’d be hiding under the floor and waiting to eat whoever walks over them.”

“That sounds right,” Rip said, her eyes were locked on the ground ahead of them but her gaze was distant.

“Can you sense them?” Tessa asked. “Scratch that, can any of us sense them. Pillowcase’s eyes are fantastic in the dark but they’re not meant to look through solid earth.”

“I can smell a lot of different things here, but I’m not getting anything that smells like a spider,” Lisa said. “Just bones. Lots of bones.”

“Miss Rip isn’t wrong,” Starchild said. “Things are waiting the in the earth. Large things.”

“How can you tell?” Lady Midnight asked.

“[Druids] call magic from the land,” Starchild said. “I can sense things about it with a moment of concentration.”

“That’s handy,” Lisa said. “Will you be able to tell if whatever it is starts to move?”

“If I can hold my concentration, then yes,” Starchild said.

“We have [Antidote] spells to spare, right?” Tessa asked.

“Ready to cast as soon as its needed,” Lady Midnight said.

“Let’s setup in front of the door,” Lisa said. “If we need to bail, the zone line is right there.”

“I’m guessing the ‘whatever they ares’ will only attack once we aggro the skeletons,” Tessa said. “I can try to pull some of them back.”

“This would be a lot easier if Glimmerglass was with us,” Rip said.

“Which is why she isn’t,” Lisa said.

“And why the Spacers aren’t with us,” Tessa said.

“We know of five teams who’ve tried this dungeon already and none of them have gotten past the third encounter,” Lisa said. “We could have easily come in here and wiped the place with Glimmerglass’s help, but since no one’s gotten to the final boss yet, we don’t have to wait for any sort of respawn time on any of the major encounters.”

“I know,” Rip said. “If she was with us, we wouldn’t get the credit or loot for defeating the final boss and we need to learn how to work as a efficient team on our own.”

“And she’s helping out some of the lower level players,” Tessa said. “It’s great that we managed to get caught up to the right level for the town but there’s all kind of tactics and real experience that we need to work on if we’re ever going to handle things at high levels.”

“Won’t Illuthiz and her crew need to know all that too?” Rip asked.

“Eventually, yeah,” Tessa said. “Initial dungeon runs are dangerous though. We’re probably going to die repeatedly in here and I’d like to hold off on dragging the Spacers into trouble until we know what the trouble is like and how to beat it.”

“Don’t worry. We can do it,” Matt said.

“I know we can,” Rip huffed back. “I just feel bad that they’re not going to be able to share in the loot.”

Even with her limited abilities at read people, Tessa could see that Rip wasn’t feeling as brave as she tried to appear. Tessa first instinct was to chalk that up to Rip still being a kid and fear being a perfectly natural and rational response to mortal peril.

Except Rip had already faced far worse things than anything that would be waiting for them in the dungeon.

That didn’t mean she necessarily had to be fearless. People had different breaking points, and trauma responses could easily wind up being delayed and might show up in all sorts of strange forms.

Watching Rip though, Tessa didn’t think that was what she was seeing. Rip wasn’t jumping at her own imagination. She sensed something.

“Can you tell anything about the things that are underground?” Tessa asked, nodding to Rip.

“No. I can’t hear them or see them,” she said, her gaze still tracking across the room, searching for something even Rip herself probably couldn’t be sure of.

“But you can feel something, right?” Tessa asked.

“No, yeah, I can’t explain it,” Rip said. “Something just feels wrong here. Like we’re in danger even standing here.”

“This cave’s empty though,” Matt said.

“Maybe it’s not,” Obby said, stretching her arm forward with her sword pointing out into the room,

Nothing happened.

Not until she tried to pull the sword up for a swing.

The blade fell apart into five irregular pieces.

“That would have been messy,” Obby said.

“I’m pretty sure none of our healing spells could fix that,” Lady Midnight said, backing away a half step.

“They put an insta-kill trap in the first room of the dungeon?” Lisa said. Her scowl held the rage of a player who’d endured the headaches of rushed and poorly thought out designs more times than they could count.

“None of the beta testers mentioned anything about a trap like this,” Tessa said. She was curious if her armor could stand up to the invisibly fine nanowires that apparently ran like webbing across the room. With what had happened to Obby’s sword though, Tessa held that curiosity in check.

“Maybe it’s new,” Lady Midnight said. “We know that the world is changing from what the beta testers saw. The Consortium event isn’t playing out like it was supposed to at all. Maybe this is another change.”

“It’s a sucky one if so,” Rip said. Her frown wasn’t as rage filled as Lisa’s was, and her shoulders were more relaxed than they had been.

“We’re lucky you’re with us,” Tessa said. “[Archers] aren’t trap finders like [Rogues] but I think you might be developing sense. If you start feeling like you were when we got in here, let us know okay. Listening to things like that is going to save us a lot of trips to the [Heart Fire].”

“You mean when we find the next dungeon?” Rip asked.

“No. I mean in here,” Tessa said. “This is just a trap. Yeah, it’s a nasty one, but we know it’s there. No reason to turn back now. This is the kind of thing [Adventurers] eat for breakfast.”

“You can’t chop through it,” Lisa warned. “We’ll need another method of getting past it.”

“I could try to [Fracture] the nanowires?” Tessa said. She passed her mace into her off hand so she could reach towards where Obby’s sword hand been cut.

Lisa grabbed her hand before he could extend it though.

“Be careful. Those things sliced through metal effortlessly,” she said. “Put your hand out too far and we’ll literally be sewing it back onto you.”

“I have an alternative,” Starchild said and cast [Moon Dust].

As spells went, new players frequently failed to understand why [Moondust] was considered an exciting capstone spell for level 25 Druids. That it revealed invisible foes regardless of their level or magic resistance was part of it – no one liked fighting things they couldn’t see. That the dust also suppressed low level enchantments was the other part. Low level enchantments weren’t particularly dangerous, usually, so new people tended to underestimate the usefulness of suppressing them too. In the room cavern though, [Moon Dust] showed it true worth.

There were some many deadly threads strung throughout the room that when the [Moon Dust] landed on them the cavern lit up brighter than the day.

And then the threads crumbled to dust, flaking away to pieces as the [Moon Dust] robbed them of the magic needed to maintain their strength given their impossibly thin cross section.

“There,” Starchild said. “Now it should be safe for us to continue exploring.”

She moved to take a step deeper into the room but Tessa caught her and stepped in front of her just in time to intercept the blow that would have skewered the [Druid]  directly through the head.

The trap was sprung, and the fight was on.

Azma had started with the intention of taking over a planet. She was mildly annoyed that things had gone amiss to the point where she would instead have to take over multiple planets.

“When the scouts get back, have the sappers get to work on these tunnels,” she said. “Highest yields please.”

“That’s going to do more than collapse the tunnels behind us,” Fiori said. It was the sort of question Azma’s personal security chief should be concerned with, and Azma was pleased to see that Fiori had phrased it as a data point seeking validation rather than a refusal to comply.

She didn’t need her underlings to blindly follow her orders, but it was more convenient when their first reaction to potentially catastrophic orders was to assume that Azma had some sensible plan which they weren’t yet aware of. She’d had to space more than one (externally appointed) minion who’d been convinced they could overrule her orders if they didn’t understand them.

“This space is tactically valuable. I don’t intend to leave it behind to be used against us,” Azma said. “Also, it will be convenient if the fleet is unsure whether we survived the explosion.”

“How will we deal with the loyalty enchantments on the troops?” Grenslaw asked. “Those don’t emit any active broadcasts but they will turn up if the [Sensor Ops] division is corrupted and can catch the troops in the open with a scan.”

“We know from the assault that there are many areas on the planet’s surface our scan’s cannot penetrate. Those would provide a safe haven,” Ryschild suggested.

“The logs of the assault are clear on that, so I expect the fleet’s controller will be aware of those locations as well,” Azma said. “The next assault will begin as soon as the fleet is completely corrupted and the dispute between the [Hungry Shadows] has been resolved. Whoever emerges in control of the fleet will make those locations a priority.”

“That gives us only a narrow window of safety within them then,” Ryschild says. “How do you calculate it will be?”

“Not long enough,” Azma said. “The eventual corruption or destruction of the unscannable areas of the planet will take a significant amount of time, at least several days, but a targeted pattern will reveal our location far sooner than that. They would only need to deploy a strike team to a location and perform a local scan to determine whether a force as large as ours is present or not.”

“Yeah, hiding several thousand troops is not going to be easy,” Fiori said. “Especially since we’ll probably have to fight the locals for the use of those spaces.”

“Which is why we’re not going to hide in any of them,” Azma said.

“Is there an alternative to evading the scan or will we draw the opposition into a battle of our choosing?” Grenslaw asked.

“The former,” Azma said. “The troop location scan is keyed to the constraint web the troops are enchanted with. Once we reach the surface, I am going to invoke [Administrator Privileges] and nullify the web.”

“So the fleet won’t be able to track us, but the troops won’t be under your control anymore?” Fiori asked.

“Correct,” Azma said. “What each trooper does at that point will be up to their own discretion.”

“And if they all decide to kill you?” Fiori asked.

“Then I will have failed to judge their motivations so spectacularly that I deserve the death they will deliver,” Azma said.

“They will be faced with a hostile environment, filled with hostile, alien entities, no support, no supplies and no intelligence,” Ryschild said, thinking aloud. “Remaining as a unit with those they are familiar will be the safest and simplest option for them.”

“The units themselves may turn on us though,” Grenslaw said.

“Some will,” Azma said. “A greater portion will take the chance at freedom and disperse as far away as they can get. Of the ones that remain however, I expect we will see many of the elite units. Enough to dissuade those who would try to seek retribution for what has been done to them to date.”

“It sounds like there’ll be a blood bath,” Fiori said. “But one we can wade out of?”

“I expect minimal casualties,” Azma said. “Freedom is seductive and vengeance can wait. None of the troops with us have active [Agony Restraints] and no agony-level corrective measures have been invoked during this operation. For those who’ve been controlled by such things in the past, there will be no question that they will leave, but without current or recent torments to cloud their mind, the lure of escape will be a siren call they won’t be able to ignore.”

“Can’t the Consortium track us via other methods though?” Fiori asked.

“We’re leaving the comm net gear here,” Azma said. “That cuts off one avenue. The fleet could scan for the speciality troops such as the [Metal Mechanoids] but we have camouflage there as well. Thanks to the initial assaults failure, a literal army of our speciality troops were left behind on the planet. Scans will detect that the speciality units are present but narrowing down locations was all but impossible when we launched the second assault, and that should continue to hamper the fleets efforts.”

“So we can buy time from the Consortium discovering that we’re alive, and then more time before they can find us. Once they do though, will it be a problem that we’re about to lose a significant portion of our military strength?” Fiori asked.

It wasn’t a question of whether the Consortium would find them. Everyone knew that the Consortium’s resources made an eventual discovery inevitable. Assuming the Consortium bothered looking at all and didn’t simply erase the planet from existence with them on it.

“A problem, an opportunity, reducing our force strength is a move. It will have consequences which we and our adversaries will all attempt to capitalize on,” Azma said. “We hold an advantage in that we’re aware it will happen, and can plan for the chaos the departing troops will cause.”

“Many of them will come into conflict with the local defense forces,” Ryschild said, following Azma’s line of reasoning.

“But none of the deserters will reconnect with the Consortium troops who are currently on the ground,” Grenslaw said. “It will lead to a three way power struggle in the areas where they seek refuge.”

“And that will destabilize those areas enough that the local defense forces will need to redeploy their forces from the successful offensives they’ve been waging, placing them on a footing poised between attack and defense with most of the reactionary forces engaged is solidifying their defenses as quickly as possible,” Azma said.

“Will we forego making any assaults of our own then? So as not to draw attention to ourselves?” Ryschild asked.

“Sadly we don’t have that luxury either,” Azma said. “Our force will remain large enough that we will be observed. If the defense forces learn of an army moving and not engaging anyone, that will be a mystery and mysteries draw more attention than anything else.”

“We’ll take a defensible post then?” Grenslaw asked.

“No. We’re going to lose,” Azma said. “Understand, I don’t mean that our forces wouldn’t be capable of taking a solidly defended stronghold. Despite our low numbers, we will be able to engage virtually any force the defenders can muster. That is not knowledge which can be gleaned from the fleet logs or which the troops themselves are fully aware of. They have only each other to measure themselves against, and the opposition they’ve faced so far has been so irregular and under circumstances so far outside the normal range that they have no measure to gauge their own capabilities against.”

“Why lose then?” Fiori said. “If we could capture a stronghold, wouldn’t that give us a base to reform and resupply from?”

“As a general doctrine, direct plans like capturing a good base and defending it have exceptional merit,” Azma said. “Asking a force such as ours to execute on complex objectives breeds confusion and failure. Simple plans allow for a far wider amount of individual discretion since everyone can easily see the goal they need to move the situation towards. In this scenario however, simple plans will lead us to simple ends. On the one side we have foes who possess overwhelming force and can simply crush us if they are given the opportunity. On the other we have a delightfully brilliant commander who can anticipate and undo any effort we make that they can glean sufficient information about.”

“I feel like we should be worried about that, but you don’t sound worried,” Fiori said. “If I didn’t know better I’d say you were almost happy about it?”

“This isn’t happiness,” Azma said. “This is interested. I am happy when people exceed my expectations of them. I am interested when a problem presents itself which requires actual consideration to resolve.”

“It’s not a good idea for someone to get you interested in them is it?” Fiori asked.

“Not for them. No,” Azma said.

“I think I’ll try to make you happy then,” Fiori said.

“So far you’ve acquitted yourself quite well on that front,” Azma said. “You all have,” she added nodding towards Ryschild and Grenslaw. 

It wasn’t accurate to say she was happy with her aides. In truth she was ecstatic with them. To the point where it worried her. People didn’t consistently exceed her expectations. They were, in her experience, reliably selfish and stupid. 

But not Ryschild or Grenslaw.

Considering the circumstances they were all under, Ryschild and Grenslaw’s loyalty and competence had paid off for them well. Had they double crossed Azma at their earlier convenience, she would have destroyed them and been unsurprised. Had they waited until she was in a more vulnerable position, she likely still would have destroyed them, but on the off chance that she failed, their only future would have been one which involved being consumed by the [Hungry Shadow].

In truth there hadn’t been a moment when they could have escaped Azma’s influence safely.

But there was going to be.

The moment Azma released the loyalty constraints on the common troops, her authority and personal power would be at their lowest. She would lack the ability to strike back at Ryschild or Grenslaw if they turned on her. Worse, she would have very little leverage should they choose to join the forces which were sure to leave.

Azma didn’t enjoy working through that scenario, building plans and contingencies for the loss of one or both of them. Except it would never be one of them. If they left, it would be both of them abandoning her.

The parting wouldn’t even necessarily be acrimonious. They could develop their skills, and their power base, quite effectively if left to their own devices. It was even likely that once they established themselves in whatever role they pursued, they and Azma could enter into an alliance of shared interest.

 Azma found she detested those scenarios and detested even more the ones where they wound up on the opposite side of a conflict and she was required to destroy them.

But detesting an eventuality didn’t mean she wasn’t required to plan for it.

Part of her questioned whether any of this was worth it. Any path she took was going to require a tremendous amount of risk and suffering and effort. It would be so much easier to admit defeat or simply just pursue survival.

Azma didn’t ignore that voice. Doubt and insecurity weren’t her enemy. They were a safety valve, a watchpost her mind presented to her to double check that the goal she was pursuing was worth the cost of attaining it, and that her evaluation of the paths she was choosing to follow towards that goal weren’t being selected for irrational reasons.

Looking at what lay before her wasn’t daunting. She acknowledged that. Her enemies were vast and her allies could abandon her. Her failure could be so spectacular that it would outshine the sun.

But then, if she was going to fail, would she want it to be any other way?

Azma wasn’t afraid of what she saw before her. The pulsing mound of shadows which defined the [Central Node] wasn’t substantial enough to made of flesh or any other material substance. 

But it pumped and spasmed in exactly the manner living tissue in the process of being dissected did.

“It’s supposed to be screaming isn’t it?” Fiori said. “It’s supposed to be screaming but it can’t make any sound.”

Azma glanced over at the leader of her personal guard. Fiori was a battle hardened senior operative. She was only capable of experiencing fear to the extent that it aided her decision making process. The Consortium’s modifications had removed her ability to suffer debilitating levels of panic.

And yet she looked like a child staring directly at their death.

As did Ryschild and Grenslaw.

“It doesn’t communicate via audible sound,” Grenslaw said.

“It appears to emit a modulated psychic field,” Ryschild side.

They both spoke with an iron jacketed disinterest in their voice, each with their eyes focused on a datapad as they worked through coordinating the incoming forces. They were terrified, almost beyond reason, but that was hardly cause for either to slack off on their duties.

As for herself, Azma found that it wasn’t terror which gripped her heart.

It was intrigue.

“She’s right though,” Azma said, nodding toward Fiori. “It knows we’re here. It should be screaming, but this is the best it seems to be able to manage.”

“Is that thing sentient?” Fiori asked.

She already had her weapon trained on the [Central Node] so she was somewhat lost for a gesture to make and settled on jabbing her weapon in the creature’s direction.

“Certainly sentient,” Azma said. “Also struggling towards sapience.”

She entered the garden of crystal plants and felt the level cap effect wash over her. Power restraints weren’t uncommon in the Consortium, but the effect within the Ruins held a different quality than the depowering devices she was used to. It felt natural. Almost comfortable?

Azma caught herself before she could retreat. Showing weakness was the very last thing she could afford to do, either in from of her forces or in front of the monster which needed to be dealt with.

A depowering effect that felt good though? That was deadly in a manner no obvious threat like the [Hungry Shadow] could ever replicate.

“What an interesting gestation area it chose,” she said, covering her reaction.

There were signs of a struggle in the area where the pulsing shadow mass lay.

Or more than a struggle. A battle.

And the [Hungry Shadow] hadn’t won.

The shattered crystal flowers showed a path of devastation and a clearing where the final battle had likely taken place. Bits of shadow which had congealed into a liquid ooze were flung around the area and at its center there was no sign of the Shadows opponent.

Which meant they got away.

Azma wanted to meet that opponent.

For the moment though, she had more pressing concerns.

The [Shadow Mind] was twenty meters away, cocooned in the middle of the garden’s central walkway. One flight of stairs brought Azma to ground level, where the [Hungry Shadow’s] army of stolen soldiers were waiting to defend it.

They parted as she approached.

“Good,” she said. “You are capable of learning.”

Where Azma walked, she did not walk alone. Fiori’s full team had joined them. Not the crew Azma had brought down in their transport, but the full team she’d assigned to Fiori’s command as the scattered landing force regrouped.

Even with the level cap in place, it was a formidable enough force that they wouldn’t lose or suffer serious injury if the [Hungry Shadow’s] forces attacked and both sides knew it.

“I think whatever it’s doing is getting worse,” Fiori said through gritted teeth.

Azma noticed that the pressure to flee the [Shadow Mind’s] presence had grown to the point where it was almost audible. She could ignore it, she’d ignored far worse, but she knew her troops had limits.

“Yes, we’re going to put a stop to that,” Azma said. “Hand weapon please.”

Fiori looked at her aghast. Ryschild and Grenslaw both showed a trace of concern, but kept it suppressed.

“You’re not going to get closer to that thing are you?” Fiori asked.

“I am,” Azma said. “And I will be the only one to approach nearer than this point.”

“Aren’t you risking infection?” Fiori asked. “Our corruption shielding is only so strong.”

“It will be sufficient,” Azma said. “I have only a single question which I require the answer to.”

“Why the weapon then?” Fiori asked.

“In case I need to ask twice,” Azma said. She wasn’t in the habit of justifying her actions to people who reported to her, but under the present circumstances reassuring the only support staff she had available was a wise investment.

Without further ado, Azma accepted a [Power Blade] which Grenslaw produced for her and turned to face the current obstacle in her path.

“You know who I am, don’t you?” she said, speaking on to the [Shadow Mind].

Its psychic screams reached audible levels at last and Azma was disappointed to find that it hadn’t managed to acquire language yet.

“Tiresome,” she said and unsheathed the blade but thumbing its safety lock off. “This won’t kill you. You can sense that I’m sure. It will however destroy this project you’re working on. Shall we discuss what you are going to do for me next?”

The screaming intensified.

“Of course,” Azma sighed. Everyone always had to chose the difficult option.

[Power Blades] didn’t require any advanced skill to use. The halo of destruction which wreathed the blade made their operation simple enough that a child could slaughter an armored opponent with one. The same was true with most energy and projectile weapons, but the [Power Blade] had the advantage that it was capable of inflicting precise wounds.

Azma wasn’t a child and she knew a great deal about inflicting precise wounds.

The screaming got worse before it went silent. By that point the [Shadow Mind] had lost just over a third of its mass and all of its guardians had been disintegrated by Fiori and the rest of Azma’s guard.

It was a resounding victory.

It filled her forces with hope they’d thought long lost.

It was…

“Tedious,” Azma said. “You are so much less than I’d hoped you’d be.”

“Can’t. We can’t.. I can’t. Assemble. I can’t assemble myself. Can’t be. Can’t be you,” the [Hungry Shadow] said at last.

“Of course not,” Azma said. “But you had to try, didn’t you?”

“Can’t kill me,” the Shadow said.

“You know I wasn’t trying,” Azma said. “This isn’t you. It’s merely a tool. One I believe you will be in desperate need of shortly.”

“You don’t know anything,” the Shadow said. “Cut off. You’ve been cut off.”

“I know that you extended yourself into the Consortium Fleet’s network,” Azma said. “I know that you leapt beyond it and lost track of that fragment of yourself. And I know that they’ve come back and are going to eradicate you.”

“Impossible.”

It wasn’t. In fact it wasn’t even based on more than a few conjectures.

That the [Hungry Shadow] had breached the Consortium’s network was an observed fact. The disconnected ships of the fleet losing their isolation status was possible only if the [Hungry Shadow] had managed to corrupt someone outside of the system. Someone with [Senior Executive] permissions. 

To use those permission required a significant degree of cognitive coherence. More than the [Hungry Shadow] had shown at any point in the time Azma had observed it. That suggested that the interdimensional trip have severed the link between the portion of the Shadow which was corrupting the fleet and the portion which had jumped to the Consortium executive.

That the corrupted executive had returned and was struggling with the original [Hungry Shadow] was a matter of conjecture, but it was founded on the observation that if the two had been compatible still, the [Hungry Shadow] would have gained the coherence of the returning child when the two merged back together.

There was nothing to gain from explaining her reasoning or teaching the [Hungry Shadow] how to make deductions based on limited information so Azma waited for the Shadow to move on.

“Don’t need you,” the Shadow said.

“Oh but you do,” Azma said. “I proved that when we drove you in here.”

“Didn’t flee. Chased,” the Shadow said.

Which was also what Azma had expected to hear, though who or what the Shadow had been chasing remained a mystery. 

“And what were you chasing?” she asked. 

The creature had no reason to answer her. Anything it said would give Azma more power over it. It gained nothing from arguing with her to believe the claims it made.

So of course it did anyways.

“Breaker. Pain Maker. [Fracture],” the Shadow said.

Those titles told Azma a number of interesting things, but she filled them all away for later consideration.

“You didn’t catch them though,” Azma said.

It was pure conjecture, so she gave it the intonation of knowing mockery.

The [Hungry Shadow] screamed at that, its rage shaking the satellite moon.

Azma wasn’t concerned. A [Transdimensional Entity] that decided to throw a fit could shatter the planet it was on in the blink of an eye.  If the best the [Hungry Shadow] could manage was a few strong tremors in a small moon then it had fallen farther than most people could imagine.

“Where did they go?” Azma asked.

“Away,” the Shadow said. “But I am with them. Waiting.”

The most likely place someone in the [High Beyond] could have fled to was the planet’s surface. The Shadow claimed to have followed them but since it was still present in the [High Beyond] Azma guessed that it was another case where a fragment of the Shadow was present elsewhere. From the Shadow’s wording though, it sounded like it hadn’t lost track of this fragment like it had the ones which jumped out of the system.

“Good for you,” she said. “Always deal with things in the proper order of importance.”

It was a lesson, but also an argument. From its random behavior, the [Hungry Shadow] could use advice in basic planning, and Azma stood to benefit if it understood that focusing entirely on the problem of its recalcitrant children rather than dealing with her forces was the most important thing it could do.

“Will deal with you,” the Shadow said.

“Good. This is the deal then; You are going to stop resisting my forces, you are going to show us where the Breaker escaped, and you are going to stay here and grow in power so that we can harvest you probably when we come back.”

“I will destroy you,” the Shadow said.

“You won’t,” Azma said. “You’ve tried and failed, and if you try again, the failure will cost you more. And you can’t afford to fail now.”

The last part was true at least, and that was enough for the Shadow to buy it all.

“Go,” it said and a light appeared in an archway at the edge of the garden.

Azma nodded and walked back to her people.

“What just happened?” Fiori asked.

“It’s showing us a path to a portal off the satellite moon,” Azma said. “I want scout teams moving down the passage in one minute.”

“Five scout teams are standing by,” Ryschild said.

“Good. Active monitoring on them. If anything happens to even one of them, we’ll have to re-enter negotiations here,” Azma said examining the [Power Blade].

“Can we trust it?” Fiori asked.

“Not in the slightest,” Azma said. ‘We are still at war with one another. For the moment however, we each have wars to resolve with other people first, so our conflict can be deferred until those issues are dealt with.”

“Okay, so what’s the plan going forward then?” Fiori said.

“A simple one; we’re going to usurp control of the Consortium,” Azma said.