"So are we attack the night wolves?" Nathan asked, hand on the hilt of his sword.

"Yes," Keith answered as he stepped off the boat. "We're going to attack the night wolves."

"Good."

Keith snorted at little at Nathan's response. He knew the warrior wanted to fight them because of what happened on the first island. With his stats increased after that incident, Nathan was unlikely to suffer again the way he had then, and that was before including his new weapon. Both players were confident that it could cut into the night wolves easily.

"Can you ask your wind elemental to hunt talisman fragments while we're in there?" Keith asked.

A moment later, the ruffling of Nathan's shirt and tie disappeared.

"He's doing it," Nathan told Keith.

"I figured," Keith responded, his eyes beginning to glow. "The buildings are this way."

The teens and their familiars, minus a wind elemental, began making their way in the direction of the buildings, keeping an eye out for any potential danger. They were already able to confirm a definite difference in the radius their light could affect, as its range was around twenty-four feet, after the previous island's Altar of Light was turned on. Because of that, their range of observation was larger, even if only marginally when compared to the vastness of the space they were in.

An hour into their walk, they were alerted to the presence of a night wolf, which charged into their ring of observation as Keith jumped to the side. Nathan whistled at the wolf, which charged him, and the warrior stepped to the side, drawing his sword and cutting at the beast's hide, confirming that his new weapon was far more effective against it, even if only marginally as it skimmed off some of the beast's Health.

As the wolf lunged back to the shadows on the other side, Keith assaulted it with blades of light and Nathan jumped forward, stabbing at the wolf's hindquarters and taking off another amount of Health.

They waited, tracking the wolf, and repeated their attacks when it came at them again. The third time it entered the clearing, it leaped into the air, aiming at Keith.

With a burst of speed, Nathan reached where Keith was and shoved the mage out of the way while slashing his sword up, connecting with the night wolf's maw. The wolf snarled at Nathan, before scrambling back, too late to avoid the slashes of light Keith sent its way.

"I'm the one with Endurance here," Nathan told the wolf. "So I am the one you're going to attack. Got that, doggy?"

The wolf snarled, before taking several steps back. Instead of allowing it to retreat or lunge, whatever it was going to do, Nathan lunged forward. The wolf jumped to the side of him opposite of Keith. Due to the need to move forward with that jump, the wolf moved into the path of another slash of light, tumbling from the extra force contained with it.

As the wolf returned to its feet, Nathan jumped forward and brought his sword down with all of his Strength, the attack removing a massive amount of Health from the wolf's bar as it forced the wolf back to the ground.

The wolf snarled, only to find Nathan kicking it in the ribs, lifting it into the air with more force than his kick alone should have. He hadn't trained with pushing out force magic with just his fists. As the beast twisted to avoid being struck again, Nathan stepped forward and pivoted, cutting into the wolf's side again before jumping to the side as a pair of light slashes passed by, striking into the wolf.

"No more Health!" Nathan called as the wolf attempted to flee back into the shadows. "Oh, no you don't!"

He lunged forward, pushing out of his feet with force magic to accelerate his movement, and stabbed his blade into the night wolf, sinking deep into it. The creature howled in pain for a few moments, then went limp.

Nathan nodded, then pulled his sword out and began cleaning the blade as he looked at Keith.

"Was that force magic mixed with light?" The warrior asked. "They were actually striking it."

"Yes," Keith nodded. "Light itself wouldn't have done much alone to the wolf, but I suspected that if it struck the wolf instead of just, well, broken against it like light normally would, then maybe it would do some extra damage."

"Good," Nathan said. "It worked. That one wasn't an alpha, though, so we can't know for sure."

"Yeah," Keith nodded. "Think others will come because of this?"

"If they do, it won't matter," Nathan said. "They might be about to lose the shadows to hide in."

"Breezy on his way back?" Keith asked.

"On his way to the altar," Nathan responded. "He said that he found a complete talisman and is going to check if it's this island's or not."

"Okay," Keith said. "Let's keep walking."

"Let's," Nathan said. "I gained a Level."

Keith gave Nathan a curious look. He knew the warrior wasn't keen on revealing his Level to anyone, nor when he acquired any, so he found it interesting Nathan had shared that he had gone up a Level.

Maybe he'll start seeing people as friends soon, Keith thought to himself. And actually trust some of us.

Only a few more minutes passed before the pair learned the answer to Breezy's curiosity, the island filling with light from the Altar of Light and the Illuminaters that marked out paths. Nathan and Keith had yet to come across any due to the way they were walking, apart from the ones on the beach, and when the island lit up, they discovered its Illuminaters were different.

At least, some of them. The ones lining the paths, which were fifteen feet in width, were the same as on the previous two islands. However, in the large plots of land between those paths, stood Illuminaters twenty feet in height and five in width, filling the plots with light. The plot the pair were walking on at the moment was more than a quarter of a mile on each side, with a larger Illuminater every two hundred feet.

"What do you think this island was?" Keith asked.

"Sparring arena," Nathan answered. "Paths were used for viewing the battles, big spaces for fights. They probably had to stay within the squares made by the Illuminaters."

"That would be a lot of fights going on at once," Keith said. "And it was unlikely they'd have such narrow viewing spaces. What about the buildings? My scry of the island only showed one cluster."

"Healing houses," Nathan nodded.

"I think," Keith said. "These were farms, and those buildings might have been storehouses for crops and tools. The paths were for them to walk along or move wagons or whatever along, while the bigger plots were were the crops were grown. They used the larger Illuminaters for the fields to save space and make it easier to use tools. In addition, the regular ones probably weren't big enough to grant light over some of the crops."

"Why not use the bigger ones everywhere?" Nathan asked.

"They were probably more expensive to make," Keith answered. "A lot more, considering they're taller and their range is immense. Did you read the message?"

"Yeah," Nathan turned his gaze back to the completion notice.

You have completed the Isles of Darkness Dungeon 4. This is a multi-Dungeon Dungeon. You have completed 4 (four) Isles of Darkness Dungeons and 6 (six) Isles of Darkness Side Dungeons. Your total reward upon exit will be 450% (four hundred fifty percent). This will increase by 50% (fifty percent) for every additional Dungeon you complete in here. You will have 15 (fifteen) minutes to decide if you wish to leave or complete another Island's Main Dungeon from when all players have dismissed this message. If you are completing another Dungeon on this island when the time limit is up, the decision will be delayed until completion of that Dungeon.

"Did you dismiss it yet?" Keith asked.

"No," Nathan answered.

"I figured," Keith said. "Notice that it didn't specify that we needed to be conscious?"

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Yeah," Nathan said. "Probably because we both were. I'm not dismissing it yet."

"We need to decide," Keith nodded. "If we're going to another island before we trigger the timer. Should we do the wolves first?"

"Yeah," Nathan nodded. "That one wolf, by itself, wasn't enough to give us a good estimate."

"Alright," Keith said. "You know how to 'set aside' a message for later reading, right?"

Nathan gave Keith a look that asked if the mage thought he was stupid.

"Right," Keith muttered. "You experiment with everything. Come on."

They made their way across the island, finding the collection of buildings near the northwestern edge.

"This supports my theory," Keith said. "It's both close to the central islands, which is where everyone probably lived, and to the island we still don't know the purpose of, in addition to further away from raiders and such. That's where you'd want your storage to be."

"Right," Nathan pulled out a card. "Think the Overseers would be pissed if we blew up their buildings?"

"I'm not sure, to be honest," Keith said. "Their main mission is probably to fix certain issues, like the monsters and the talismans. Stuff like the buildings might not be as important. Also, we don't know if our bomb card could actually damage the buildings."

Nathan shrugged.

"If they don't want us to use it," he said. "They better send us a message telling us not to."

"You know that's not how it works," Keith rolled his eyes and began walking once more, Nathan following. "They told us so themselves."

Nathan shrugged.

When the pair reached the cluster of ten buildings, Nathan charged up the Lesser Boom card, then threw it while calling out its name. The card spun through the air and entered into the empty doorway of one of them, then exploded.

As flames and the shockwave traveled out, Keith created a barrier in front of them to avoid the debris that was also thrown about as a notification appeared in their visions.

Dungeon Entered: Lair of the Night Wolves Challenge Type: Slaughter Difficulty: Advanced Kill all of the night wolves, including the alpha. You make take as long as needed.

"I didn't get any Points for that," Nathan told Keith. "I guess bombs don't count, either?"

"Or you didn't kill everything," Keith said. "Though nothing's moving from there. Look out from there."

Keith pointed and shot off a slash of light as Nathan drew his sword once more, a dozen night wolves charging at them. Due to the Illuminaters, they had no shadows to dive into, which hindered their abilities greatly.

Nathan and Keith sent commands to their nearby familiars, which then traveled to the other buildings to deal with any other night wolves, to avoid the teens from needing to fight more than they already were.

As Keith shot off slashes of light, Nathan jumped, leaped, twisted, and lunged among the wolves, slashing as he went. Rather than focusing on a single wolf, the pair continuously changed targets with the idea of keeping the wolves from being able to adjust to them.

The players knew that in theory, it would take them longer to kill the wolves that way, along with more energy. However, they knew that in practice, it probably worked quicker, as focusing on one wolf would mean having to avoid the others.

When they managed to reduce the wolves' numbers down to half, Nathan hollered to Keith.

"Do you have enough for your jumpy lightning?"

"Yeah!" Keith called back.

"Cast it!" Nathan called as he blocked a wolf's bite with his sword, then kicked it in the chin.

He twisted to the side, pushing the wolf into the one lunging at him as he did, then he punched the incoming one twice in the snout. As soon as he sensed Keith's spell charged, he jumped up and back, landing behind the mage.

"Tag, you're it," Nathan tapped Keith on the back.

Keith unleashed his lightning, killing one wolf while dazing the other five and removing most of the remaining Health on them.

"I'll back you up if needed," Nathan told Keith. "Get Experience if you can, I'll handle the rest."

Keith nodded, then focused on his light-imbued force slashes and barriers of wind to cut and stop the wolves. Twice, he manifested his whips of wind to grab and throw wolves into each other while ripping into their Health or flesh at the same time.

Nathan watched as Keith finished off the rest of the wolves, then nodded as the completion notice appeared.

"Why'd you decide to let me do that?" Keith asked. "We were doing good together, and that probably took me longer alone than it would have if you continued."

"I hit Level 200," Nathan answered. "And I knew you could handle them on your own."

"Ah," Keith said. "You're sharing your Level?"

"I trust you not to tell anyone," Nathan said, a hint of warning in his voice. "You and I need to have the same number of free Challenges to perform if we're to keep going in and doing extended Survivals for research. You'll need to hit Level 200 in the next extended one if you aren't before we leave here so that we can stay even."

"Ah," Keith said. "Going to share if you have new Skills available? And what they are?"

"No."

Keith snorted, then looked at their familiars, who were watching them.

"You two are definitely in sync," Ichtvar said.

"Who killed the alpha?" Keith asked.

"Sparky did," Ichtvar responded, then looked at Nathan. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to decide if I want to get this Skill or not," Nathan answered, returning his gaze to the menu in front of him.

Skills Shop: 591 Warp Step 100

"What is it?" Keith asked, and Nathan stared at him. "Right."

Nathan decided to buy it just to see what it was. There was nothing else available for him to buy, anyway, and he knew he was probably getting a lot of Skill Points after leaving, anyway. As soon as he'd purchased it, he opened up its information window.

Warp Step Level 1 Warp to a chosen spot within your vision with the next step taken. Range: 5 feet per Level of this Skill Cost: 500 Mana Level 20 Max

Warp Step, Nathan thought, then took a step. Nothing happened, so he focused on a spot a few feet away in his vision and took another step. Warp Step.

That time, he found himself standing at the spot he had looked at.

"I have a decent amount of Speed," Keith said. "So I should have been able to follow that movement of yours, yet there wasn't even a blur."

Nathan looked at Keith and took a few steps closer, until Keith was within the range. Then, he focused on a spot behind Keith.

Warp Step, he thought before taking another step, ending up right in front of Keith.

After a few more tests, Nathan determined that the spot didn't just need to be in his line of sight, but he also needed a clear path to it. However, an instant movement was better than even the fraction of a second he would take for the same, especially over a longer distance.

Nathan decided that the Skill was probably not meant to be useful on its own, but that other Skills would unlock later on as a result of it, similar to Player-Striker and Player-Killer. He also theorized that he acquired Piercing Strikes because of Damage Dealer, though wasn't completely sure on that.

"You're warping, aren't you?" Keith asked as Nathan increased Warp Step to its maximum Level.

"It's pretty obvious," Nathan shrugged. "It doesn't seem that good. The Skill probably has additional Skills that I can unlock to work with it later if I use it enough and depending on what happens."

"Maybe," Keith said. "But with how fast we can already move, that 'instant' is pretty good anyway. A monster at 2,000 Speed would be hard-pressed to hit someone using that if they, too, had 2,000 Speed. Keep in mind that we can slip in and out of our full Speed, but it feels normal to us. I was at my full Speed, yet you were still moving instantly."

"Right," Nathan said. "Well, I hope it comes with more Skills later."

Keith snorted, and the wind elemental flew out of one of the buildings, dumping a bunch of talisman fragments at Nathan's feet.

"Let's repair this," Nathan said. "Then head to the Altar of Light before we decide. If we leave, we'll leave the four talismans there, if we stay, we'll collect the naviglobe and rest."

"Yeah," Keith said. "Recover your Mana and do it, you have more left than me."

Nathan nodded, then snacked as he waited for his Mana to return to full before collecting the seventeen fragments of the talisman and puzzling them together. He began pushing his Mana into it at a steady rate, decreasing the rate once he came close to running out so that he could recover more. Keith sat in front of him and placed his hands on the talisman a few minutes later and began pushing his own Mana into it, and Nathan stopped, letting the enchanter take over so he could recover.

Another trade-off occurred before the talisman mended fully, then Nathan moved it into his backpack with the rest. As soon as he pulled his backpack back on, they began running towards the middle of the island, crossing the miles in moments.

When they reached it, Nathan unhid the completion notice for the Isles of Darkness Dungeon, then looked at Keith.

"We need to get that scry orb done," Nathan said. "But I want to be with Samantha."

"What does that have to do with the Dungeon we're in?" Keith asked. "Leaving now would give us probably one to three weeks less before we leave the game again."

"I don't want to do two extended Survivals," Nathan muttered. "Maybe if we get the orb done, I can use that to look at her and be okay? This is so confusing."

Keith decided to let Nathan work out his separation issues on his own and sat down to snack a little.

"Staying in here longer," Nathan finally said. "Would mean being able to spend more time learning about this place. I vote for that."

"So do I," Keith said. "For the same reason."

Nathan nodded, then dismissed the notification, seeing another appear in his vision almost immediately, in addition to the one informing them that they had fifteen minutes to decide, same as the first time.

You have completed 10 (ten) Dungeons within a single Dungeon entry. Special rewards await you upon exiting.

"Special rewards?" Nathan and Keith asked in unison.

"That's new," Nathan said.

"Yeah," Keith nodded. "An additional reward in addition to the increased rewards? I doubt it's something like Points, Skill Points, or Stat Points. Since the requirement to earn it is pretty steep, it might be halfway decent."

"Yeah," Nathan said. "Are we resting before we head to the next island, or taking off as soon as the naviglobe appears?"

"Let's rest a few hours," Keith said. "Then head out."