Ta Ta darted across the ste-tiled rooftop a the alleyway, nding quietly upon the roof of the bakery on the opposite side. Nobody ever looked up – even without her potent stealth skills, she would remain invisible. A chill wind blew out of the dark brooding clouds that had gathered in the short span of time she had speing to Kieran Mori, biting through her leather armor with an insistehat promised a storm.

  Despite her scious efforts to the trary, her mi returning to what she had seen down there in the cavern, fretting incessantly about the implications.

  Seizing the opportunity to push Donavan to his death had undoubtedly been her break – the catalyst that had unlocked her unon css and had suddenly made her indispensable to Kieran Mori.

  But her secret was not safe.

  Malika knew. Of this, she was absolutely certain.

  She had caught Mato and meeting early in the m and tailed them down into the sewers. The Half-elf’s annoying light magic had very nearly given her away, but the two of them were not nearly as cautious as they should have been. Once she had figured out the range of his skill, she had simply followed along in the darkness. She had even overheard them discussing their skills. Amateurs.

  Ohey had reached the cavern, though, Ta had learhat not only had Malika survived, but so had the Fae creature they had tried to rescue.

  Seriously, what the fuck had they been thinking charging those wolves?

  By some miserable stroke of luck, both Malika and the Fae had already reached level four, putting them out of reach even for her powerful css. Somehow, the three of them had successfully killed all the wolves, saved the Fae, and even leveled up far quicker than she had.

  With her pns in tatters, Ta dropped down in front of the battered doorway. A scratched and faded sign hung there blowing in the breeze, portraying a golden listing sideways upon a grinning skull.

  This must be the pce. The Crooked .

  Kieran had promised more work for her within the week, but she needed levels, and she hem fast. With all four of them together, Ta had no ce of sileng them by herself.

  She opehe door and stepped into a dimly lit bar. The stench of stale ale washed over her, and the wooden floorboards creaked underfoot as she released her stealth skills. A couple of tables seemed to be occupied with people nursing drinks, but aside from a few furtive gnces, nobody paid her any mind.

  She ighe rabble and strode up to the bar where a burly man with a thick bck beard stood wiping tankards with a stained rag. A jagged scar ran up from his eyebrow across his bald head, never properly healed and clearly the result of a brawl.

  “What I do for you?” the bartender asked, scowling at her.

  “Mr. Mori suggested I might find work here,” she said, repeating what he had told her.

  The bartender simply grunted and o a nondescript door toward the back of the room.

  “Thanks,” she said. The door revealed a set of rickety narrow stairs leading downward to another door, but this one was guarded.

  “Business?” the guard asked.

  “Looking for work,” she said, trying not to let her nerves show.

  The guard’s eyes flicked briefly to the Town Watsignia she had put on for exactly this purpose, and he simply nodded and stepped aside. “Jobs board on the back wall,” he said. “Don’t disturb the other patrons or I’ll be forced to disturb your entrails. Nothing personal.”

  She o him aered.

  The secret basement bar was smaller than the one upstairs but there were far more patrons, and they all looked up as she entered. Her eyes widened a little in surprise as she caught sight of Adrik and Edrik through the haze of exotic smoke of dubious legality. Quickly, she schooled her expression and aowledged their gaze with a respectful nod. Nobody liked the enforcers, not even withiown Watch, but she wasn’t stupid enough to provoke their infamously vicious short tempers. Not yet at least, not until she was much stronger.

  Gazes lingered on her as she crossed the floor, heading directly for the noticeboard at the back of the dingy room, but as soon as her iions were clear, most of the patrouro their own versations.

  She wrinkled her the odor of the cheap Bristletusk oil some of the rogues had used to keep their leather armor supple. Morons. What use is stealth if everyone smell you a mile off by the rancid pig fat. For what? To save a few s?

  She ignored everyone, her eyes sing the board for any job postings that might suit her skills. She didn’t need assassination work, exactly. Information jobs suited her skills well, even though the experience wouldn’t be as good. But it was better than nothing.

  There were lots of jobs. Everything from capture or kidnapping quests for unusual races to restricted herbs and potions with surprisingly high list prices. If she was in the market to make mohere was a lot to be made. Her gaze flickered sideways to find a tall lizard sitting at a table staring at her curiously. Gray scales covered his face, and she easily noticed the ostentatious quality of the out-of-towner’s robes. On a hunch, she identified him.

  Mert – Kel’darran – level ??

  I guess the Kel’darran mert caravan arrived, she thought. It expihe wealth of colle jobs and the substantial payouts attached to each. But she wasn’t here for that. She reached for a small notiear the bottom of the board. Apparently, someone wanted a Gnome mert killed. A romantic spat gone wrong. She skimmed over the details, not g much for why, nor the reward, just verifying that she knew where to find the mark, and would be able to earn experience for it, and then she pocketed the notice.

  “I swear she ran, Edrik.”

  “No, she didn’t, she’s just hiding somewhere as usual.”

  Adrik and Edrik seemed to be worked up about something, but she paid them no mind. There seemed to be little else on the board that she could take, so she turo leave.

  “Mori is going to be pissed – he’s expeg a hief. She had to have been close to her css unlock.”

  “She’s a Street Rat, where could she even go?”

  “What if she…”

  But Ta didn’t hear the rest.

  Street Rat?

  Malika was a Street Rat.

  Ta froze, but her mind raced. Adrik and Edrik were not just the enforcers responsible for colleg the Town Watch’s proteoney. Mr. Mori also relied on them frooming new pickpockets and thieves. Turnover arently high, and so they were stantly looking for new people.

  It made so much sense.

  There was no way Malika could have afforded the shrine. She must have stolen the moo get in. Now that she was a Monk, Adrik and Edrik had no further use for her. All Ta would have to do oint them in the right dire and the twins would take care of her problem for her.

  She opened her mouth. But then she shut it again before she could speak.

  This is worth more than that. I’m not thinking clearly. She was so focused on her own problems that she had very nearly givehing away. While she had little doubt that Adrik and Edrik would take care of her secret for her, they would certainly take credit for the job, and she would get nothing for her information.

  She gnced across the way, meeting the reptilian eyes of the Kel’darran mert for a moment. They buy anything, she thought. The rarer the better. And she hadn’t seen just Malika down there in the dark cavern…

  She quickly left the Crooked , her heart beginning to race with anticipation as she took to the rooftops again. With her information, she could offer Kieran Mori the opportunity to house, take Adrik and Edrik doeg, capitalizing on their mistake to elevate her own status iown Watch, and simultaneously hand her boss a magical Fae while the Kel’darran mert caravan was in town.

  Oh, this is going to be so good! They’ll never see it ing. Sweet fug justice served with ara helping of profit!

  Aliandra Ali awoke to the profound silence of the Grove and the persistent darkhat shrouded the looming shri its ter. She sat up on her soft bed of moss and looked around. She was quite used to the rger races and their need for more rest, so it didn’t surprise her much to find that they still slept.

  Only Malika , takiurn to keep watch. She sat with her back to the shrine in the cross-legged pose she preferred for her Meditation. Ali chose not to disturb her, getting to her feet quietly.

  Ali’s two summoned rats still prowled the perimeter of her mossy carpet, apparently having no need for sleep. It seemed that her summons did not expire, nor had she o feed them or let them rest, eveween bat – presumably they were sustaiirely upon the mana she kept reserved for each of them.

  I should grow my domain, she decided. Growing some more moss was a remarkably cheap way to increase her mana pool. With a rger mana pool, she would be able to cast more magid she would regee more mana per minute. All of which would be essential to growing her css and increasing her effectiveness in bat.

  She walked quietly toward the edge of her moss before summoning her Grimoire, so that the light of her magic wouldn’t wake her friends. Beginning where she had left off st time, she began to summon patches of moss along the edge of her area, pausing to destruct the odd boulder here, a pile of slowly rotting wood there, even some scattered bones.

  After almost an hour, Ali grew her moss through a rge open spad as she began to approach the massive fallerunk that y half-decayed at the edge, she stumbled as she caught an ued glint out of the er of her eye.

  That color!

  At first, she assumed it might be a remnant of her mother’s magic that hadn’t yet faded, but as she approached, she realized the soft golden glow seeping from beh the trunk must be something else entirely. For ohing, it seemed to be emanating from several separate sources, stealing through the gaps between the damp ground and the rotting wood.

  What is that? Her curiosity immediately piqued, Ali crouched down to try to get a closer look, wrinkling her the smell of dank, rotting wood a post. The steady glow did not seem dangerous, but she called one of her rats over to her just in case. Gng back toward the shrine, she decided that her friends were close enough to jump in and help if anything ued emerged.

  Reag out, Ali pced her hand upoting trunk looming above her, grimag at the wet sliminess under her fingers. She focused, eling Destru through her touch. For about twelve seds, her golden mana rippled and spread through the still-substantial thiess of the trunk, seeping into the wood and releasing energy into her mana pool while spilling the vast bulk of the excess into the air around her. With a muted, soft implosion, the trunk suddenly vanished, dissipating into a cloud of light particles that drifted away as they faded, leaving behind a clear expanse of ground, and the ao Ali’s curiosity.

  led in a hollow where the trunk had been, was a small fairy ring of mushrooms. Each mushroom had an almost ft white cap, and as she ko exami, she could see the gill area on the underside of the cap glowed with a surprisingly intense golden light that illumihe ground around each mushroom.

  on Glo – Mushroom – level 1

  It’s so pretty. The light was a little darker with the tone running more to brohan her are magic, but together, the fairy ried a surprising amount of light, and as she reached toward them, the glow fell like warm sunshine upon her skin.

  These would look stunning around the shrine, she thought. Now that the shriself was depleted, it felt dark and gloomy in the Grove unless was using his light magic. She hadn’t been outside or seen the sor orbs in far too long. Eagerly, she paged through her Grimoire, quickly verifying that she had a couple of empty chapters.

  I hope this works!

  Ali carefully began to destruct the pretty mushrooms one by one, her magic even reag below to collect the rger underground portions of fungal growth. A pang of sadness pinched in her heart each time she destroyed a pretty mushroom, progressively snuffing out the golden glow.

  Ali watched in fasation, fully focused oask.

  There were nine mushrooms in total, and, by the time she was done, she could feel the pressure of the imprint pressing in on her mind. However, her Grimoire did not react. Disappointed, she gnced around, but further up, among a pile of broken pieces of wood, she spied aell-tale glow. Excellent! Quickly, she rushed over, tailed by the rat guarding her. Ali brushed off the wood pieces revealing several more mushrooms growing underh the pile. Repeatiask, she felt the imprint tio grow, developi and pressure within her mind, triggering her curiosity as usual for how it might actually be w. It was as the fifteenth mushroom evaporated that she felt the pressure peak, and her chime sounded.

  Imprint: on Glo pleted.

  Yes! She watched with mountiement as her Grimoire opened, rapidly riffling pages till it sat waiting for her at the empty chapter. Excited now, she itted the imprint to its pages gaining her sixth imprint – and the first one she had iionally chosen.

  Happily, she got up and dance-skipped across the moss to the shrine, earning a soft ugh from Malika who was still sitting in her spot, but now with her eyes open and smiling at her.

  “Got something new?”

  “Yes, a mushroom!”

  It sounded silly even to her ears, but the imprint of the glowing golden mushrooms had felt good in her mind. They were so pretty. Ali found a good spot on the moss he shrine and began to create her imprint. The chapter itself wasn’t particurly rge pared to, say, the rat or the wolf imprint, and the creation of the mushrooms was substantially quicker. It didn’t take long before Ali had her very own fairy ring, glowing on the moss beside the shrine.

  “That’s beautiful,” Malika said, admiring her work.

  “Isn’t it?” Ali said, feeling a surprising affinity toward the tiny, glowing mushrooms. Something about them resonated with her, but it wasn’t something she could expin, even to herself. Still excited, Ali spent the half hour filling the area around the shrih her new mushrooms until the glow softly filled the space, warming her heart and her skin with their light. Somehow, that feels … right. Yes. Dad would’ve loved this.

  Finally low on mana, Ali chose not to find something to destruct for the moment. Instead, she walked over and sat beside Malika as she tinued her Meditation. Opening her Grimoire, Ali decided to spend the rest of the time till the others woke up studying her new imprint.

  I miss reading, she thought to herself. But rather than waking Mato or to borrow one of their books and exercise her reading skill, she chose io use her Runic Script.

  I have my own book!

  Even though this imprint was one of her simpler ones, just going by the t of pages it occupied, the myriad runes wove a spell tapestry of unbelievable plexity – well beyond Ali’s ability to grasp. But Ali didn’t mind, more than happy enough when her Sage of Learning unraveled the basic meaning of a new rune she hadn’t uood before and led her to the realization that – more or less – her imprint was a blueprint for creation. These were not radical breakthroughs, rather things that she could have deduced on her own, but Ali was tent merely to be making progress. It was important to her that she could see it iructure, rather than just guess.

  Runic Script has reached level 4.Sage of Learning has reached level 6.

  ***

  “So, what should we do today?” Ali asked as she bit into a slice of a crisp apple. Mato had produced an astonishing array of fruits and sandwiches for breakfast, and Ali wasn’t quite sure how he had mao fit all of it in his pack. To be fair, his paly looked small because his back was so broad. Beastkin probably don’t skip meals.

  “I thought we might try to explore the far side of the cavern today,” Malika suggested. Ali was certain Malika still didn’t quite see eye-to-eye with Mato, simply due to her hesitation when he offered her food. But Mato made no issue of it, making sure everything was fairly shared, and before long, Malika’s hunger must have won out over her misgivings because she fiwo sandwiches and an apple in the same amount of time it took for Ali to finish her couple of slices. To be fair to Malika, Ali was takiime sav the delicious sweetness.

  “If we are going that way, I’ve a favor to ask,” said, catg Ali’s attention. Whatever it was, he was looking at her.

  “What favor?”

  “When we fell into the cavern, Donavan was killed under some falling rock. I don’t think it’s right to leave him to rot. Mato tried to move it, but it was too heavy, and I was w… do you think yic might be able to dissolve some of the stone, and perhaps the body, so that we send him off to whatever afterlife he believes in?”

  ’s voice sounded heavy, and it was by far the most Ali had ever heard him speak at once.

  This seems important to him. Thinking it over, Ali said, “That’s a good idea. I try – I have dissolved a few rocks with my skill before so I think it should work. Was he a good friend?”

  “No, he oiled noble prat,” Mato interjected. “But I agree with , I don’t think he deserved the e.”

  “You know, I ’t shake the feeling that Ta pushed him,” Malika said quietly. “The way she was standing looking down, and then how cheerful she sounded when she ‘found’ his body…”

  With the suddehat both Mato and froze to stare at Malika, Ali could instantly tell her of them had suspected foul py, but from their expressions, Malika’s paranoia seemed to have hit some sort of mark. seemed to bite ba a curse, uncharacteristically for him, while Mato puffed out his cheeks with a heavy sigh.

  “I have a few questions of my own for her when we find her,” Mato said, finally breaking the silence, his demeanor and expression hard and closed. “She ditched us in the middle of that fight.”

  On that dark hey finished breakfast and headed out into the darkness of the cavern, with leading the way to the rock fall. Donavan and Ta. Ali had no frame to sider these people, but her friends clearly had some very strong feelings about them and what had happened before they had found their way dowo the Grove.

  Ali was so pletely ed up ihoughts that when she found herself smmed into the ground with a snarling wolf tearing at her arms, the shod disorientation was overwhelming. The pain of sharp teeth ripping through her flesh made her vision swim and lurch as she screamed and tried to scramble away from the feroonster, but it gripped her left arm between its fangs and shook her like a rat.

  Suddenly, an enormous bulk of fur and muscle smmed sideways into the wolf, knog it off her with a startled pained yelp. The bear stood protectively over her fallen body, r and sshing at the wolf with his paws.

  Mato? It had all happened in a blink, and her mind was still reeling in fusion. And then Malika was beside her, and a burning surge of healing magic tore through her body, knitting her flesh back together in an instant. Oh … what happened?

  Malika helped Ali to her feet, and she finally looked around, her heart still stampeding within her chest. Mato was mauling the wolf aided by Ali’s two rats. stood atop a pile of bone firing a stream of shining arrows at the wolf, and Malika immediately waded into the fight as soon as Ali was ba her feet.

  Against the backdrop of the dark cavern, Ali saw a cloud of dark motes bubbling out of thin air, making her skin crawl with apprehension.

  What…?

  The strange lights swirled around for a sed before quickly coalesg into a blob. At once, a dark gray form slunk out of the phenomenon.

  “Another wolf!” Ali yelled, “Add!” betedly remembering the proper terminology. Her brain finally caught up to the situation, and she remembered she was no longer helpless.

  “Attack!” she thought, redireg her two rats to the wolf that had inprehensibly materialized out of thin air, and then summoned a barrier to hide behind. She ched her shaking hands. e on, Ali. Focus!

  Beyond the new wolf, two new fountains of those strange dark bubbles suddenly materialized. Ali’s eyes widened. “More adds! Ining.”

  This time, though, it seemed had seeoo.

  “Ali, roots on the left one when it spawns. Malika, pick up the other one.” ’s voice from his higher vantage point was surprisingly calm, and in some strange way, reassuring.

  Ali left her rats fighting the wolf and readied her nature magic, trusting that Malika would get the one she had been assigned. As soon as the wolf materialized, Ali cast her spell and the roots burst from the ground, trapping the Alpha wolf that suddenly appeared. It was her first time using her Grasping Roots on the Alpha wolves, and she was extremely relieved to see that her skill was now strong enough to hold the level-five monster – at least for the time being.

  I should che this one more often, she thought as she sed her attentioo the wolf Mato was tanking. With a thought, she unched a volley of are bolts over his back to arc down into the mohat’s for chewing me up!

  “Malika, another spawn on the far side!” called out from the top of his pile of bones.

  Where are they ing from all of a sudden? Ali thought, her breath catg ihroat. If the monsters didn’t stop materializing, they would soon be overwhelmed. Too many, too fast… The thoughts rushed around within the fines of her mind, w her, but she held her focus against the deafening thumping of her heart, cheg on the Alpha aing her Grasping Roots while maintaining her Are Bolt stream until the first wolf dropped.

  Whie ? More roots? In the chaos of the mysteriously appearing monsters, Ali had not even had a ce to think, let aloo determihe correct priority.

  As if he had heard her, called out: “My target.” A bright stream of arrows traced across the battlefield, smming into one of the wolves Malika was fighting, making it abundantly clear whie he meant. Mato charged the wolf had picked, and Ali redirected her bolts as they slowly pieced together their teamwork. With Mato already showing signs e and everyoag the same wolf, it went down quickly, gaining them a few seds of breathing space.

  With a quick sp, Malika healed Mato, dimming the red mist of his rage, and then they all moved on to the sed wolf she was tanking.

  Ali refreshed her roots and the a snap recoiling through her mana as she lost the e to one of her rats. Over by the wolf, one of her rats y unmoving on the ground, still bleeding from where the wolf had savaged its throat.

  “O down,” Ali called out.

  “We’ll get that wolf ,” answered. “Leave the Alpha for st.”

  Ali gulped. She had been hoping they would kill the Alpha so that she wouldn’t have to worry about it breaking free, but over the few mihe fight stabilized dramatically with a few of the wolves killed. Fortunately, no new ones appeared.

  “What was that?” Malika sounded annoyed and shocked, and her eyes were wide as she searched the gloom frantically for more unseen monsters.

  “I don’t know,” Ali answered. “They just kept appearing out of these fountains of light.” Well, darkness. But a darkhat had looked like bubbles that somehow glowed. “Some kind of magical spell, I think.”

  The fact that her skin had been prig made it almost certain that magic had been involved – but what? And from where?

  “Well, that firms it,” said, hopping down to join them. He stopped while everyone just stared at him. “My Explorer skill has been incessantly tellihis is a dungeon. I just thought it was overreag. But this was clearly a dungeon resummoning its monsters.”

  “A respawn?” Mato asked as he shifted back to normal.

  Even Ali had heard of a respawn. It was ahat adventurers feared. Stories told of terrifying enters where dungeons respawned previously killed monsters on top of delving parties while they were struggling with something else. It was a reliable way to get killed. But the stories hadn’t even e close to instilling the pure terror she had experienced when she had suddenly found herself on the ground uhe ravening fangs of a Starving Wolf.

  “ime your skill tells us something, please let us know,” Malika said evenly. Mato ined his head. “How about I’ll lead, and y up the rear, ?”

  just nodded.

  Ali wasn’t quite sure how having the information in advance might have ged anything, but she still shivered at the thought that they were roaming around inside a dungeon.

  How long have I been trapped ihis dungeon? Unbidden, the horrific specter of the Blind Lich appeared in her mind. Did he do this? Was the dungeon a trap id by the Lich, just waiting for her to awaken?

  Don’t be silly Ali, you’re not the ter of the universe. Why would someone so powerful care about a tiny uncssed Fae? A, she couldn’t shake the apprehension, nor the cold cws of ice that seized her gut.

  ***

  With their new marg arra, the team finally arrived at the rockfall. Fortunately, no new monsters spawned on top of them.

  Up ahead, against the edge of the vast cavern that had once been a forest, loomed an enormous pile of stone sbs, shattered rock, and brick. The pile had obviously fallen from a gaping hole in the roof of the cavern. While most of the cavern was so high Ali couldn’t evehe roof, at this point, up o the edge, the top of the rock pile and the hole in the roof was only about a five-meter drop.

  A length of rope dangled from above, narrowly missing the muddy brown stream of water sluig through the hole and spshing down upon the rock below, giving off the foulest stench Ali’s ret memory could recall. And I fought a Sewer Rat up close. She gagged, blog her nose in a vain attempt to staunch the olfactory assault.

  “Sorry for the smell,” Malika said. “That’s Myrin’s Keep sewer up there.”

  “Delightful,” Ali coughed.

  “Donavan is over here,” said, leading the way. He stopped and looked at her. “If it’s too much, Aliandra, it’s ok.”

  “I’ll try,” Ali said, trying to put a brave fa it, but the gnawed feet stig out from under a several-ton sb of stone, and the spt-shaped bloodstain all around made her stomach curdle and lurch queasily.

  That was a living person.

  “Maybe start with some of the rocks on top, so they don’t fall?” said, pointing upward. He clearly meant to distract her.

  Ali nodded her agreement. It looked like half the pile was ready to e down at any moment. With helping her scale the rger boulders, she climbed up to the top and begaask of destrug the blocks of sto was retively fast, taking somewhere between ten and twelve seds each, but it was a huge pile.

  Soon enough, Ali felt the pressure build steadily in her mind until her Grimoire appeared.

  Imprint: Stone pleted.

  Ali itted the new imprint trimoire and tinued w but, to her surprise, even after inscribing the imprint, the Grimoire would occasionally flip pages and i a couple of runes here and there as she tinued destrug the stone.

  Are those properties it didn’t quite perfect the first time? Or is it refining the structure? Different types of stone?

  At least the runic activity distracted her from the grim task.

  Finally, the st sb dissolved into light and mana. Ali instantly threw up. A pletely squashed human was a gruesome sight. Bits that shouldn’t be out were spread around, clearly exploded out of the body in the instant of impact, and then impressed into the ground uons of stone. Not even his gear had survived: fragments of leather – shredded under extreme pressure – y mixed in with the paste.

  “I’m sorry,” spoke from beside her. “I shouldn’t have asked this of you.”

  “I’m ok,” Ali answered, even though she felt distinctly not ok. She reached out and touched an exposed piece of leg, squeezing her eyes shut, trying not to look. She very nearly threw up a sed time. But she mao activate her magid mercifully, after nearly fifteen endless seds, the corpse evaporated into light, leaving just some stains and the imprint of the body on the ground.

  “May he find his way to his aors,” Malika said quietly.

  The others simply bowed their heads for a few moments, Ali included.

  “Thank you,” said. Ali was ined to agree with his se. Macabre as the task had been, it felt like they had done something right.

  ***

  Ali puzzled over her Grimoire for a while. Trying to read the imprint was not helping – she simply didn’t have enough knowledge or uanding of the plex script to decipher how it worked yet. All that she had developed was a headache.

  I’m just going to have to keep trying.

  She eled her mana into her Starving Wolf imprint. Ideally, she would have wao use a Starving Alpha because they were stronger, and usually level five, but she didn’t have an imprint for that yet. By her t, she o destruht or nine Alpha wolves before it should show up. Oher hand, her Starving Wolf imprint took signifitly more spa her Grimoire than all her other imprints, and for a while, she had hoped to find the Alpha encoded somewhere within its pages. But her examination of the imprint had shed precisely no light on the question.

  Ali tried to imagine creating the Alpha, fixing the image in her mind – in case that mattered – and finished eling her magic.

  Starving Wolf – level 2Your reserved mana has increased by +14.

  I guess not, she thought, looking at her new wolf, and notig that the reservation cost for her level-two summon had decreased from fifteen to fourteee her disappoi, the level-two wolf looked strong, and she decided she liked it more thas.

  As soon as she was done, Malika led them off toward the distant wall of the cavern – ahat seemed darker even than the already dark cavern. Ali remained alert, keeping herself close to her panions this time. Even though they had not been through this part of the cavern, the experience of having a wolf respawn on top of her was enough to make her wish she had eyes on the back of her head. It was so dark that they had decided to use ’s light magic, evee the risk of attrag whatever unknown monsters might dwell here.

  The g footsteps of her heavier panions grew louder in the dark silence of the cavern as the piles of discarded and deg bones grew rger and more promi, looming a stark bleached white against the surrounding bess.

  “Monster on your left. Level six.” ’s whisper brought them all to a sudden halt. Ali’s eyes searched the bone piles for a moment before she suddenly saw it.

  Warrior – Undead Skeleton – level 6

  A chill swept through Ali as the memories of her panicked and terrifying escape from the invasion of Dal’mohra crashed into her mind.

  How is it here? She snapped her head bad forth desperately hoping that she wouldn’t, but fearing that she would, find Nevyn Eld lurking in the shadows.

  The skeleton was just as awful as she remembered. Gray-aged bone, adorned with worn, decrepit scraps of armor. A rusty longsword dangled from bone fingers with the point dragging through the dirt. Malevolent red light flickered withiy eye sockets.

  “Undead,” Mato’s voice veyed a surprising amount of disgust and something else. Anger? Fear?

  A hand touched her shoulder, startling her, but it was just Malika.

  “Are you ok?” she whispered.

  Ali collected herself, taking some measure of calm from the presence of her friend, and then nodded. “I’ll be alright.”

  “It has a high level, but there’s just one,” Malika observed. “I’ll tank. , you have the highest perception, keep watch for adds. Ali and Mato, go all out as soon as I have it secured.”

  “Yes.”

  “Got it.”

  “Ok.”

  She wanted nothing more than to turn and flee, to feel her mother’s hand guiding her away from danger. She couldn’t shake the memory of Armand dying before her very eyes, run through by a skeleton just like this one. But instead, she stood and faced the undead monster. Perhaps it was all the prior practice against wolves and rats, but Ali found some measure of strength in relying on the skills and the bravery of her friends.

  Malika stalked across the borewn ground and promptly puhe skeleton in the face as it charged toward her, rusty sword raised to attack. She dodged the vicious ssh with uny grad speed and responded with a snap kick that flickered with her magipact.

  “Go!”

  “Go.” Ali ealika’s and to her wolf and rat, and they charged forward alongside Mato to ehe skeleton. Ali sed the surroundings out of sheer habit, before remembering it was not her job this time. Seeing that the fight was stable, and Malika was trolling the skeleton effectively, Ali fired a salvo of are bolts. Her magic was followed almost instantly by ’s brilliant arrows.

  The skeleton didn’t react ti the slightest, focused entirely to skewer Malika while the stream of bolts rained down with staccato thumps, each strike bsting dust and splinters of bone from the undead monster’s skeletal torso and shoulders. Malika dodged and blocked, her body flickering with the light of a tinuous stream of healing magic.

  She’s getting hurt a lot! Unbidden, her mind jured the gruesome sight of the sword drenched in crimson bursting from Maeria’s chest. Dispensing with caution, Ali eled more mana into her Are Bolt spell, firing a tinuous stream of bolts that didn’t let up until the skeleton dropped to the floor with a crash of bone and a ctter of rusty steel.

  By now, Ali was so used to the chaos of the wolf packs they had been fighting that, for a moment, her mind simply registered surprise. It had taken a while to kill, but the fight felt almost trivial by parison. She had not needed her roots or barrier, nor had her tration and focus been taxed in the slightest.

  Of course, I wasn’t the one needing healing every few seds.

  “Malika! You ok?” she called.

  “Yup,” Malika replied, immediately sitting down cross-legged in the dirt where the skeleton had fallen. “It hit very hard.” She turo look at Mato. As he firansf back to his Beastkin form, she added, “Thanks for helpih the damage.”

  To Ali, she sounded a little grudging, like she didn’t want to be in the position of owing him anything. But you ’t let it go without aowledging that he helped, you? Ali was beginning to get a better sense of her new friends.

  For his part, Mato was direct, a simple, “No problem.”

  Ali kept her thoughts to herself. Obviously, it would be nicer for the two of them to get along in a friendly way, but she was hopeful they would reach that point on their owainly, she didn’t think her opinion would ge either of their minds. Let’s all hold hands and be friends and sing songs together? Right, Ali.

  She bent down and just stared at the skeleton for a while, now signifitly less terrifying lying face down in the dirt. She gnced up to find both and Malika giving her worried looks.

  “I lost a good friend to one of these,” she said. And then she reached down and destructed it to recover some of her mana.

  “Hey Ali,” Mato called out. He was over by a rge pile of bone examining somethihe ground. “Do you want these?”

  Curious, she walked over to see what he was meant.

  Bed Deathcap – Mushroom – level 2

  The mushrooms were growing on the deg bones in a fairly rge clump. The cap was rge – she wouldn’t have been able to span it with both of her hands side by side. The surface was cracked and even the flesh inside was so dark it appeared to be eating the small amount of light in the area. The gills uhe mushroom cap were a deep violet, and Ali couldn’t help but be creeped out by it.

  “You make mushrooms, right?” he asked her, breaking her focus.

  When did he notice? It surprised her that the happy-go-lucky Beastkin had been paying attention to the minor things she had learned so far. Bringitention back to the nasty bck mushroom, she wrinkled her nose.

  “Those are pretty nasty…”

  “Yup, probably highly poisonous,” he answered. “But that’s how nature is – some pretty things and some ugly things. Growth and decay. Poison and healing.” Ali immediately reized the quote from when he had read the Druidic magic book to her. Ruefully, she revised her simplistic opinion of Mato in her mind and then looked at the mushroom with new eyes. I could try it, she thought. I have open chapters. This feels… dangerous, but necessary. I mustn’t shirk even the dangerous parts of my skills. She couldn’t afford to pass on something that might be useful just because it was gross or nasty.

  She took her time, intending to destruct the entire clump of mushrooms, but something different happened. After she had fihe third mushroom, her chime sounded.

  Imprint: on Glodated to Imprint: MushroomVariant: Bed Deathcap added to Imprint: Mushroom

  To her surprise, her Grimoire flipped to the imprint of her on Glo, adding several new pages of runiscriptions. A variant? Against all expectations, the book had decided to bih mushrooms into the same imprint, even though her of them were eveely close to the same species – at least as best she could tell. Ali puzzled over it for a while, but she simply didn’t have enough examples to figure out the rules for how it behaved.

  Save that thought. It’ll bee clear ter, no doubt.

  She finished destrug the rest of the mushrooms until the Grimoire stopped updating itself. Then she used the imprint, trying to figure out how to select the new mushroom variant. Unfortunately, it was not obvious. After several tries, she was forced to clude that her Grimoire was randomly seleg between the on Glo and the Bed Deathcap whenever she created a mushroom.

  That’s a bit inve, she thought, bothered by the ck of trol. Oher hand, she now had two different mushrooms and it still cost only one chapter.

  timewalk