> This is a very strange decision by the showrunners. For Challenges, it is customary to either group contestants by area, to slow information spread, or to distribute them totally randomly, to discourage co-operation. What goal could it serve, to keep families together, but to make the arena assignment otherwise random?

>

> – Radio transmission from Voices for Non-Citizens

We didn’t have any stone-shapers with us, so we couldn’t easily re-open a path. One woman with a sledgehammer did her best to break back through, but when she knocked a stone clear, she saw another layer of wall behind it, rather than daylight or mist.

If people had been unhappy about my decision to move into the building before, the new developments had led to a near-rebellion, especially since many people blamed me for the appearance of the wall.

“It’s not alive!” I snapped. “I promise. You act like you’ve never heard of sliding doors before. Humans could move walls too. It’s not that hard.”

My irritation and derisive sarcasm somehow failed to defuse the situation.

“I’m staying,” said the woman with the sledgehammer. “I’ll bust a way out. Who will guard my back?”

“I’m going,” I snapped back, just as quickly. The people around me flinched.

I had reasons to worry, but my attitude wasn’t helping. I took a deep breath. “It was one little monster with a mild poison. There’s no reason to panic. We’re still fine. We can still do this.”

“Yeah! Keep your ears stiff. The walldrugger was sneaky. It won’t surprise us again,” encouraged Pierced Eyebrows.

“Pointy says my little kitties will go first. They’re very brave. Like me!” Cassie said. My daughter’s eyes were shut tight and Pointy was deformed, squished tight against her chest.

Oh no, I thought. We’re going to go through another scared-of-the-dark phase, aren’t we? Oh well. Problem for tomorrow. And not much of a problem: there really were monsters in the night. Keeping a light source in our bedroom was a wise move, even with Pointy watching over us.

When I moved away, most of the group followed me, although two people remained behind with the sledgehammer woman, and everyone was nervous. Even Pierced Eyebrows and her fellow glory-seekers seemed spooked. We were all on edge. Ready to fight.

Except for the teenage boy and his clawed savior, of course.

Those two were calm and happy. Only the faintest trace of concern ever brushed their features, and it always cleared up quickly.

They could still walk and fight, and they would use abilities agreeably enough if someone suggested it, but they seemed… docile. Placid. Unconcerned. And probably a little slow and uncoordinated.

Micah can definitely burn those things away, I thought. Even if they get the jump on him. But if they hurt him at all…

My oldest’s cleverness and cautious nature were two of his best defenses. A monster that could evaporate those advantages with a scratch? I hated that.

Cassie’s Summoned Seekers proved their worth immediately, luring out two more walldruggers and triggering a pressure plate that released some kind of gas. What kind, I didn’t know; we had an air-controller with us who shunted it away from us.

Cassie's seekers were also very effective at drawing out the other monster that had led people to believe the building was alive, a monster who looked exactly like the walls or floor of the building until it sprang to life… whereupon it still looked and felt almost entirely like a collection of rocks. Actually, I was pretty sure it was just rocks, and the monster itself was the collection of black fibers that wrapped around them, swinging chains of stones like hammers.

Killing them was difficult. Micah or another fire mage might have been able to do it more easily, but cutting the stones apart just turned a large monster into two smaller ones. Worse, the monster had a stoneshaping ability, as we found out when it pulled the blonde-haired medical professional into grappling range and flowed over her, encasing her head and torso in seconds.

We managed to break her free before she ran out of air, but the experience had clearly been traumatic. No one blamed her for retreating deep into the middle of the group, not moving out of arm’s reach of Cassie’s cloudcar.

Without discussion, the entire group called the new monsters “rock elementals,” “rock spirits,” or “rock demons.” Our legends might differ from culture to culture, but the idea of a living rock was a common one.

Sometimes the rock elementals were nestled into hollows or alcoves, but they also used their bodies to seamlessly seal off doors or parts of hallways. Killing them was a huge hassle, even for our group, but it often let us move more directly toward Micah. Grateful as I was that Cassie’s Seek could tell us which direction our other family members were in, it would have been more useful outside, where we could have walked in a straight line wherever she pointed. In here, the walls and corridors often forced us to go in the wrong direction entirely, at least for short distances.

The rock elementals stayed stationary when anyone was watching, at least until we got within striking distance. I was certain they weren’t the passive threat they appeared, however: Life Sense let me feel them get into position as we approached, and sometimes an elemental in a corridor we’d bypassed would shift toward us.

If anyone stayed still for too long, the rock elementals would find them. I was sure of it.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

The building was a stressful place to be. I could feel the monsters, but the monsters were only the start of the trouble. The hallways were heavily trapped: spikes shot out from the floor, walls slammed out to try to separate our group or limit our options. Cassie’s Summoned Seekers were invaluable, revealing spike and gas traps galore, but they were too light to trigger the pit traps. The first one opened up beneath Pierced Eyebrows - who’d been brave enough to take the lead after Cassie’s scouts - and only a swift Force Shield had slowed her fall long enough to let her catch the edge of the pit with her hands.

The pit was easy enough to jump over after you knew about it, but it still added a delay as we made the leap one by one… or, in the case of our more nervous members and Cassie’s cloudcar, were lifted over by Gavin’s super tail.

Pierced Eyebrows peered down into the shadowy opening. “No spikes at the bottom that I can see. Seems to slope. Seems like a good bet for one of those secret prize areas they mentioned.”

Diplomacy, I told myself. Don’t call her a suicidal idiot. “We’ve still got over three hours in the Challenge. If we keep going, maybe we’ll find someone with stone or metal shaping who can sense traps before they spring. If the traps here are any hint to what we’d find in a secret area, that would make exploring it a lot more doable.”

“Good argument!” Her phrasing was odd, likely an overly-literal translation from whatever language she spoke, but I wouldn’t complain: without Pointy, we would have struggled to communicate at all. She gave me an approving nod and turned away from the pit.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Pierced Eyebrows was a little too aggressive for my taste, but at least she wasn’t panicking. Her attitude was really helping the group’s morale as we wandered these horror-inspired halls. We needed that, especially when a few of the people we found were already dead. Most of the rest were injured.

My earlier positive feelings about the system putting my family in the same Challenge were diminishing with every corpse we found. How could that thing put Micah in here?! At least he ought to be able to sense the walldruggers and the rock elementals, but any one of these traps could do him in!

Every time we found a body, I’d look back at the cloudcar, and Pointy would tell me which direction Seek said to go, tacitly confirming that Micah was still alive... Or so I hoped. Seek could be used to find anything, not just people, so it might still work if Micah… it might still work on someone who wasn’t alive anymore. Seek had been pointing to a near-identical location the whole time.

I didn’t need Cassie’s confirmation to know that much. Eidetic Memory and Analyze were equal to the task of building a mental map as we went, and I’d been getting a pretty good idea of where we were headed. The building wasn’t truly mazelike - there were numerous routes that would take you to the same place - but the shifting walls and winding corridors certainly made it feel that way. I’d been able to use the angle of Cassie’s pointing arms to triangulate Micah’s location. Geometry class had been a struggle for tenth-grade Meghan, and I’d planned to leave homework help to Vince whenever our kids had to deal with angles and trajectories… but here and now, I had complete confidence in the answer I’d come to.

We were getting close. Really close.

Micah, sweetheart! I’m almost there. Less than a hundred feet away. Hold on!

“Mom?”

I could barely hear the word, but it still struck terror into my heart. Micah never sounded like that. Terrified, weak, shaky… he sounded like he had as a toddler, when we’d taken him to the emergency room during a 106-degree fever.

Something was wrong.

I couldn’t wait for my group to safely traverse the distance.

“Gavin! On my back. Cassie, Pointy, stay with Lindani.”

“I can run faster, Mom.”

“I know you can, baby, but you have other jobs: catch us if we fall, heal me a little if I get hurt, and hold your breath. Try to save some energy to heal Micah.”

“O… okay…” said Gavin nervously as he wrapped his arms and legs around me.

I took off running, swinging my iron plates out in a sloping roof to block any walldruggers that would try to pop out at us from the patch of lichen ahead. Two ringing thumps suggested my caution had been warranted, and we passed the monsters before they could regroup and spring a second time.

The most direct route to where we were going was dead ahead, but I could sense a rock elemental crouched in the wall nearby, so I veered right.

The ground gave way beneath me and we started to fall before Gavin’s tail slapped down, launching us to the far side of the pit. I stumbled as I landed and would have fallen, except that my beautiful boy quickly adjusted his tail to provide support.

“New breath,” I said, and started forward again the moment I heard Gavin suck in more air.

It was a good precaution, because not ten steps further along, I stepped on a pressure plate that sent a cloud of gas shooting out from the cracks in the walls. We still had no idea what it did, but I hoped it wasn’t dangerous to have it on our skin. Gavin and I were both wearing goggles.

Almost there, I thought. I could feel Micah on Life Sense now, familiar and alive.

Then a row of spikes shot up, piercing straight through my left foot and deep into my right thigh. I didn’t scream, exactly, but the shock made me gasp a little, a whining intake of breath I cut off as soon as I could.

We’d been mostly through the gas cloud, but not all the way, and I was depressingly certain that I’d soon find out what, exactly, the gas did.

I was more worried, however, about the scent of charred meat that breath had revealed.

Gavin sent a pulse of healing through me the moment the spikes retracted, undoing the worst of the damage. I didn’t let it stop me, thundering around the corner and keeping my iron plates close to block potential walldroppers hiding in another patch of lichen.

This time, nothing sprang out at us.

There was Micah, curled up at the end of a trail of blood. Untidy bandages were pooled on the ground behind him, unused. Blackened spots dotted his left side in regular intervals.

He looked terrible, but he was still alive.

Gavin sprang from my back, leaping the last thirty feet to his brother, expression fierce.

I was only a little behind him, sinking down to cradle Micah’s head on my lap. “We’re here, baby. We’re here. Mommy’s got you.”