Tarto Solari dashed across the surface of the mudflats, under the overcast sky.

The gator-rex roared and chased, slashing at the ground as it ran, mud splashing everywhere.

Mud squelching under Tartu’s feet, the enchantments on his boots and belt the only thing keeping him upright. Mud was omnipresent. In his eyes and in his mouth. His gear could only do so much to keep him free of the distractions of nature, to allow him to focus on the fight. Two of his people were already down.

Tartu had managed to draw the beast away from Lenny and Shawn, and that would have to be enough.

The battle was not going well.

The gator-rex was small, but it was still all scales and claws and roaring maw. It hissed and pursued, and it showed no signs of stopping, ever. This was its territory, and Tartu and his people were food to the beast.

Tartu juked to the left and the monster did not slip at all as it reoriented, its claws holding well onto the mud, but now Tartu was on more solid ground. His boots suddenly grabbed onto the solid ground, and Tartu raced away. The monster chased, and soon it was on solid ground, too.

Five seconds; that’s how much time Tartu needed.

He got what he needed.

Soon, it was a straight path between the beast and himself, and on mostly solid land.

With a focus born of years of study and practice, Tartu collapsed reality in a very small way, crafting a corridor around the monster. The corridor was larger at the monster’s end and smaller at Tartu’s end; a choke point. It was a simple Domain; the simplest, really. It was a denial of this specific monster, in this specific place and time. Nothing else.

Tartu had gotten fancy before and two of his teammates had paid the price. This was all Tartu could do without more preparation, but he wouldn’t have more preparation against most monsters. This is what he could do, so this is what he did.

Tartu was a Domainer. He was better than a Warder; better than those people who had to coordinate their magic in the exact ways that the demons had decreed, thousands of years ago. Warders made spherical spaces of protection or denial, and sure, Tartu could do that, but that was simple shit. Tartu could stretch his Skill’s shape and purpose beyond the original magics. He was an Arch Skilled warrior, and eventually, when he finished his 5 years of thesis study under his father at this settlement, he’d be acknowledged as a real mage—

But for now, he had to kill this stupid fucking gator-rex.

Tartu was beyond furious. This raid against this single monster should have been easy! Sure, there was a reason it was worth 10,000 points, but the party had been trounced within 20 seconds, and Tartu had been on the back foot for the last 4 minutes. That shouldn’t have happened. There was just one of these things! Just one man-sized gator-rex!

How the FUCK did that NOBODY, Mark Careed, manage to kill a hundred of these things at once?!

Mark had cheated.

Someone in the settlement had helped him to do that. Maybe even Aurora herself. She was telling everyone that Mark had killed the monsters with just himself and his party, but that was a lie. It had to be. Aurora wasn’t compromised, but she was certainly misguided. Tartu didn’t know what was happening there.

Father wasn’t sure what Aurora’s game was, either, but he wasn’t willing to get overly involved with Mark. That dragon, Addavein, was plotting something, and a lot of people, like Tartu’s father, wanted to be nearby, but not in the cone of destruction, so that they could retaliate when the time came.

Mark was obviously a hidden dragon, and Tartu was going to prove it to the world.

Him and his talzarki of a dragon brother, Addavein, were dangers. It was all a scam, somehow, and Tartu was going to expose them all.

But right now he had a monster to kill.

The gator rex raced, headfirst into Tartu’s cinched corridor of elemental force, its claws scrabbling on air soon enough, as the walls closed in and the ceiling cinched down around him, denying the monster’s presence in all ways. The gator rex yelped with a surprised roar, crashing down onto the solid-to-it surface. It roared again.

Tartu focused.

The back end of the corridor was now 10 meters away, because Tartu had not stopped running at all. He had to get back to the other side of the corridor to close it off, and then the beast would be trapped.

Tartu needed to move fast, so he put up another Domain of speed, for him only, like a curved tunnel beside the gator-rex’s corridor. He reached out and touched the tunnel—

Light, sound, existence, all flowed around him, all of it pulling on Tartu’s very existence, draining him of astral body strength just as much as casting the Domain had in the first place—

And then he was through, like a speeding bullet, appearing on the other side of the gator-rex. Tartu breathed heavily.

Tartu stood behind the beast, at the wide end of the tunnel, and the beast was still trying to get forward, to where Tartu had been standing. It didn’t notice that Tartu was behind him. Part of Tartu wanted to taunt the thing, because it was a monster and it could understand basic concepts, and being a hero was about being strong for a camera, but there were no cameras here. Just monsters that needed killing.

Like slamming a door shut, Tartu cast another Domain across the corridor, closing off the tunnel, trapping the monster, but not too much. This end was blocked; the other end was just large enough for the monster to reach an arm through, and that was all. A fully enclosed space always broke faster than a space that had an opening in one area. That’s just how the demons had made it. The stronger a Ward was, the bigger of a gap it needed in its defenses, or else it would be tested all the time just by a monster moving inside of it, causing it to break that much faster.

But the battle was over, for the moment.

Tartu took a deep breath, relaxing his astral body, relieving the tension that so many simultaneous casts caused. For not-the-first-time, Tartu lamented that the Church of Freyala had been overtaken by demons. They needed a paladin of Freyala on their team, but that wasn’t happening.

Mark had gotten to all of them, and—

The gator whipped around and roared; it had noticed Tartu behind it. It clawed at its invisible cage, but it could not get out. Not now that Tartu had slammed the door shut.

With a satisfied smile, though he was covered in muck and his boots were halfway to failing, making him sink into the muck below, Tartu said, “Fuck you.” Tartu glanced behind him, at the place where the battle had begun. Tartu called out, “Sound off!”

A bundle of reeds and grasses stirred and Kardi, the Lucky gunslinger, pulled off her cape, the transformative surface turning back into plain brown strips of leather. She was covered in mud from where she had hidden herself, right next to their most injured party member.

Shawn was still on the ground, under a Domain that hid him from the monster Tartu had just trapped. That was all it did, though.

Kardi said, “Shawn is not doing well.”

Shawn was laying on his back, his arm cradled on his chest. It was broken. Shawn was still in shock. His face was pale, his eyes wide as he looked at his arm, bent at a wrong angle. He was an acolyte of Drakarok, with Retribution as his secondary Skill, and while he could heal himself from most injuries, he was not capable of healing himself at this moment. There was an upper limit to how much Retribution could self-heal, especially when the initial blow did as much damage as the gator-rex had done.

Everyone had expected Shawn to hold the line, but he had been completely overwhelmed…

Where was Lenny?

“Lenny!” Tartu called out, stuffing down his sudden worries. “Sound off!”

Lenny reached up out of some mud far to the left. He looked at home in the mud, which was pretty normal for a guy with a Knowing of the land and a few years of Land Magic under his belt. Tartu instantly felt better knowing Lenny was okay. Worry rapidly morphed into anger, because now that Lenny was alive, Tartu felt good enough to open his mouth to yell at how Lenny had been out of position…

But Lenny was limping. It was everything the guy could do to stand.

Shit.

Tartu looked at Kardi, and saw that she was mostly whole—

Roars echoed behind Tartu.

Tartu glanced backward and fear clawed at his chest. The monster had found the hole in the Domain; even though the monster would have needed to squeeze itself tightly down to reach the hole, even though it had needed to go away from Tartu to get to the hole in the first place, the monster had done both of those things. Both of those things indicated a level of thinking that was greater than simple rage. Shit. It was a smart monster. So far, the monster’s forearm was out of the hole and slapping around, its long claws skittering off of the solid-to-it air.

It wasn’t going to break free that way, but it was going to break free, and soon.

This was actually the second time that Tartu had trapped the beast—

“Tartu!” Kardi yelled.

Tartu turned back toward his team.

Kardi was already pulling out some vials from her bag as she called out, “We’re running, right?”

She reached through the defensive shell that Tartu had cast over Shawn, breaking the shell in the process, as she shoved the red liquid down the man’s barely-comprehending throat. Shawn balked for a moment, his stupor impeding his ability to drink, but he got with the program fast enough.

Tartu looked behind at the monster again.

It was mostly impossible to tell when a Domain would break. Tartu’s Domains worked well against the things that he set them against, but Domains were airy things, highly prone to corruption, and thus, when they failed, they failed completely. The monster was currently contained, but it had been contained before, and back then Shawn had been prepared to strike the beast and kill it.

But Shawn’s blade had bounced off of the monster’s scales.

Everything had gone to shit from there.

Tartu made the executive decision, “We’re leaving.”

Shawn, even in his delirium, had managed to stand. He looked angry. “We can kill it! I can kill it this time!”

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Shawn was a basic brawny, but on the high end of Strength modifier. Times 3.5. He, like most brawnies, could have fallen into one of two categories. He would have either loved his Skill, and been happy, or he would have been eternally miserable. Shawn, like most brawnies, did not fit into a neat category at all. Shawn loved his Skill, and he was competent, but at the slightest injury to his pride he revealed himself as eternally worried about being good enough.

“I’m sure you could kill it if you had another chance,” Tartu said, “But we’re done here. We used too many resources and I won’t risk us breaking out the big vials.”

Shawn was about to complain—

Kardi told him, “You can barely walk, Shawn, and look at Lenny.”

They looked at Lenny.

Lenny was teetering. He blinked and then forced himself to stand strong. “I’m good!”

“You’re not good,” Tartu said, “And we’ve got a 20 minute run to get back.”

Might be an hour walk, if Shawn and Lenny couldn’t rally.

Shawn was obviously high on painkillers right now, because he was still holding his broken arm and yet he was able to roar, “That monster is 10,000 points! I need that fucking sword, Tartu!”

Kardi popped the cork on a yellow potion and had Lenny open his mouth. He was still disoriented, so both of them were having some trouble. Kardi had no trouble speaking as she worked, though, saying, “The gator-man species of monster is obviously tougher than Mark made it look,” She finished feeding Lenny the general energy potion and the man perked up a little. She turned toward Shawn, and continued, “Obviously its 10,000 point prize is not miscalculated.”

While Tartu and Shawn both glared at that, neither of them would call out Kardi’s words as bullshit. There was a reason that this monster was left alive and alone, here on the edge of the mud flats northwest of the settlement, and that reason was to show, to everyone, exactly what Mark and his team (but mostly Mark) had accomplished when they killed the big one and the horde of smaller ones, days ago.

Tartu recalled, just days ago, when he was standing next to his father, at one of the assault platforms of the Grey Whale, watching Mark and his team descend to the battlefield. Tartu had mostly been angry that Mark had gotten the chance to show off like that, but Mark’s power was, unfortunately, real. Tartu still remembered that black lightning, scattering amongst the land, killing everything and leaving the big gator-rex for the woman to smash to bits—

The small, lonely gator-rex in the cage behind Tartu, was still roaring, but now its roar changed tone. From anger, to worry, to fear and a call for help. It was standing in the middle of its cage and just roaring, and… shit.

The cage was breaking.

Tartu had crafted the Domain as against-the-monster, but when the monster used secondary effects, like sonic waves that were completely divorced from its astral body, and as a call for help instead of a call of hate against Tartu and his people, then the magic inside the Domain would fray. It was already starting to crack.

As soon as the cage broke the monster would be free and angry once again.

Tartu declared, “We’re cutting our losses here!” His core was already strained to cast so many strong Domains in such a short period of time, but he eked out one more specialty cast, throwing a pair of healing Domains on top of Shawn and Lenny. Tartu was not a good healer. Domains protected; they did not reverse damage already done. But he had a few tricks that worked well enough for emergency needs. The air flexed around his two injured teammates and both of them started to look better, almost instantly, but Tartu’s Domain’s broke almost as fast. “That’s all I can do,” Tartu said, “We run. Now.”

They ran.

Lenny was fast with his energy potion working overtime, but Shawn and Kardi were right behind him.

Tartu took up the rear.

The monster roared louder and louder, even with Tartu and his team escaping—

The cage broke all at once. Roars of fear turned into roars of hate, and the monster gave chase, once again.

Tartu slammed up a solid wall behind them and the monster slammed into it, bouncing away. It was, of course, a monster, and monsters were always hyper aggressive, and it tried to pursue yet again when it got back onto its claws, but Tartu and his team were fully out of the mudflats before it figured out where the wall ended. All of that aggression was usually based around an area, though, so when the team had left the mudflats behind they left the monster behind, too.

Soon, the team was just walking, not a monster in sight.

This area used to be heavily forested until a day ago, but now the land was cratered and smoldering, fires still going in deep ash pits where Shapers and otherwise had stacked up the trash and burned it as best they could. The air smelled of smoke, and that smoke got everywhere. Just like the mud.

Just like hidden dragons—

“Fuck! I wanted a sword,” Shawn said, breaking the silence of their walk of shame. He winced as he held his broken arm, and then he set his face, a not-so-quiet rage just below the surface. “The one I wanted is supposed to be a growth item.”

Kardi said, “There’s a reason that gator-man was worth 10k, Shawn. We got our asses handed to us, just like every other grade C team allowed to fight it.”

Lenny snapped at Shawn, “Why the FUCK did your sword bounce? Shawn?!”

Shawn roared back, “Because you were out of position and you threw a mud ball at it! It aggroed on you, you fucking knacker.”

Tartu softly said, “Don’t call him that.”

But no one heard him.

“I blinded it!” Lenny yelled, “Your sword fucking BOUNCED, brawny. If you can’t—”

Kardi smiled brightly, putting a pleasantness on her face, in her stance and her body, as she stepped between the two men, saying, “Whoa there! I didn’t know there was ‘asshole’ mixed into the potions I gave you two.” And then she stressed, “There is a reason that thing is a 10k point raid. Accept that the posting was not in error and move on, please.”

Shawn scowled, most of the heat leaving his voice, as he said, “And there’s a reason the monster is capped for C-or-below teams. It’s gonna get snatched.”

Tartu could have spoken about how Lenny shouldn’t have distracted the monster when Shawn was lined up. He could have said something about how Shawn should’ve been able to work with a distracted monster, because Lenny’s mudball had worked well. It had clung on the monster’s face for a few seconds, blinding it, and that should have given Shawn a good opening.

But the distraction had backfired, and they were in pain right now, so Tartu spoke of something easier to stomach than criticism.

“Listen up,” Tartu said, drawing attention to him. “We’re in the Hero Program. There’s a villain in the city. We’re going to challenge him and we’re going to take his adamantium, and we’re going to get new weapons. A sword for you, Shawn. A pair of foci for me and Lenny. And something for you, too, Kardi. I don’t know what, but we can figure it out.” With a solid voice, Tartu glared ahead, at the rising city walls, and said, “We’re going to take that bastard for everything he’s worth. It’s not like a healer needs to be out there hunting at all. It’s just disrespectful.”

Shawn set his stride, and his face. “Good.”

“How, though?” Lenny asked, fully focused on the idea of robbing that bastard, Mark.

Or maybe Tartu was projecting.

He was probably projecting.

Kardi was right there with Tartu, though, all smiles and joy. “Finally! Yes! Let’s kick his ass and take his shit!”

Tartu grinned.

Lenny furrowed his brows a little, asking, “I know why Tartu hates him—”

“Thinks he’s a hidden dragon, yeah,” Shawn said, nodding.

Among other reasons, yes; Tartu nodded anyway.

Lenny continued, “But why the fuck do you hate him?”

Tartu knew, somewhat, why Kardi hated Mark. They all did, and yet...

Kardi was a recent addition to their trio of men, having only connected with Tartu, and thus his friends, a few weeks ago, back on the ship. But she was literally Lucky, and she was a great shot with those magi-guns in her hip holsters. Tartu was glad to have her. They had needed a good long range specialist, after all. The woman herself absolutely hated Mark, too, which made her a perfect fit for the group.

Kardi smiled at Lenny, saying, “I think he’s a hidden dragon, too, but that’s a new development.” She looked away, adding, “Before I met Tartu and you guys…” She let her voice taper off. She huffed. She said, “I tried to be friends, and Mark didn’t want to be friends. So! Mark gets to be an enemy. Simple as.”

Kardi’s words were the same words she had said before, when asked that same question last week. Her answer seemed just as hollow now, as it had back then. She wasn’t lying, exactly… or maybe she was lying, but mostly to herself. Tartu did not know.

Lenny frowned, wordlessly.

Shawn didn’t seem to care. He was more focused on his broken arm.

Kardi dispensed with her anger, smiling again, speaking in a bubbly sort of way, “And I want some adamantium cores for my guns, silly! Same as you and Lenny, but different. I need the automatic casters.”

“Ah! Well, sure,” Tartu said, “I should have considered that, of course.”

Kardi grinned.

Shawn huffed, about to say something, and then he winced. Pain stole his voice.

All of them were being stoic in the face of painful defeat, which was a rather new experience for all of them. The city was still half an hour walk forward.

Tartu asked Shawn, “Do we need to radio for a healer pickup?”

Shawn shook his head. “I can make it.”