As they got ready in the morning, the crew was whispering about the rumors.

“I heard the guild is hiring a squad of mercenaries to come up here.”

Jocha scoffed. “We don’t need more outside help to squash dune rats.”

“What if it’s another guild coming after us?” Basti asked.

“They’d get blacklisted.” Thios said. “Guilds can’t steal from each other, the whole system would collapse.”

Basti slapped his hand down on the bed frame. “The shadow guild!”

Everyone rolled their eyes.

“What’s the shadow guild?” Elrick asked.

“A load of shit, is what,” Jocha said.

“People say there’s a guild out there that keeps the guilds in balance,” Basti said. “Say the tailors are hoarding leather and finished product, then selling what they do put out at outrageous prices to capitalize off the artificial lack of supply—”

“Then the shadow guild swoops in and steals their stockpile,” Jocha says. “And they never get caught, and no one ever sees a single person from this entire shadow guild. And they just keep getting away with it.”

“Is that what we’re doing?” Elrick asked.

“Huh?” Basti cocked his head at him.

“Are we stockpiling the slippery bronze to artificially increase the price?”

Jocha shot him a warning glance, and put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing. “Best to let the big-shots worry about that.”

Everyone had gotten quiet.

“Let’s cut the chatter and get ready,” Jocha said. “We want to be on our A-game today! Just in case some of those rumors might be true. Not the damn shadow guild,” he said, glaring at Basti, “Just the ones Gotha talked about. The regular bandits. Dune Rats. Subhuman filth.”

Gotha talked to Geitana for a few moments, then said something to Theria, and then Gotha waved for his crew to go off into the mine.

Elrick had gotten used to these runs. Ever since the first almost-botched run, nothing had gone wrong, and it had all begun to feel routine. There was always some degree of adrenaline spike when a giant rock monster popped out of the wall. Elrick had gone entire days now forgetting about Earth, but seeing things like golems made of animated copper exploding out of walls and being blown apart by magic brought him back to just how non-routine this all was.

Today was different. Everyone was tense. Elrick kept checking behind him as they went down the mine, and he wasn’t the only one doing it.

“Eyes forward,” Gotha grunted, but even he occasionally looked back.

Yaraka was the only one who seemed calm, but Elrick knew how hard to read she was. Did she never feel much of anything, or did she just never show it when she did? He figured her extremely high skill in Meditation probably helped her keep calm even when she wasn’t using the Meditation skill to cast more spells. It would have a lot of side benefits to be that good at Meditation, he realized.

They reached the end of the shaft.

“Alright,” Gotha said. “Basti, Elrick.”

They took out their pickaxes and got to work.

It took much longer than normal. The first vibrations were usually felt within a few minutes, but after ten minutes there was still nothing. Each minute that went by felt twice as long as the one before it. Where was the damn thing?

Elrick looked over his shoulder every so often. The hammer team was usually relaxed until the first vibrations were called, but this time they gripped their hammers with whitened knuckles and unblinking eyes, studying the wall as Basti and Elrick mined. Yaraka stood with crossed arms, as if she were waiting for a bus, but didn’t care too much when it came.

“The dune rats couldn’t affect how long it takes the golem to come out, right?” He whispered to Basti between swings.

“You mean the shadow guild?” Basti said. “Who knows what they can—”

Elrick’s pickaxe sunk into the wall, and the handle vibrated.

“It’s coming.” Elrick said, loud enough for everyone to hear.

Gotha called the orders, and everyone fell back behind Yaraka.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

They all waited, more nervous than usual. The routine feeling was totally gone. The threats of shadow guilds and dune rats—and for Elrick—the fear of Elise and Durka doing something very stupid, had put everyone on a knife’s edge.

The golem crashed out and uncurled, standing tall. Yaraka pulled out her orb, pulled off a smaller piece, spun it up, and fired a shot.

She blew off an arm, and the golem reeled, stumbling backward.

Something moved between the hammer team and Yaraka, just in the corner of Elrick’s vision, but when he tried to look directly at it, it was gone.

He thought of saying something, but Yaraka was busy with the golem, and this wasn’t the time to—

A hand appeared out of thin air, clutching a dagger. The arm grew just behind Yaraka, until it was an entire arm.

“Yara—” Gotha shouted.

Yaraka was faster. She spun around, facing the threat. Her eyes widened only slightly, and she dove back as the dagger and floating arm slashed at her.

As Yaraka fell back, stumbling, her orb broke up into dozens of much smaller orbs. The tiny orbs spun quickly, then scattered. Then Elrick heard the screams.

Just behind the hammer team, clouds of blood and pulverized bone exploded out of thin air. The bandits were invisible, but the blood that came out of their bodies was not.

Spears thrust through the air, impaling two of the hammer crew before they could raise their weapons. Jocha and Gotha dove back, deflecting blows with the shafts of their hammers. An arrow appeared in Gotha’s leg, and he fell to his knee, but he didn’t drop his hammer.

Elrick forced himself to move, even though he was armed with nothing but a pickaxe. He tried to get himself in between Yaraka and the dagger coming for her, but the dagger jammed into her thigh just as Elrick got in range.

As soon as he swung his pickaxe, the attacker turned his back to Elrick, disappearing entirely. Elrick swung at the place he’d been, but his pickaxe whiffed through thin air.

The hammer crew was over twenty paces away, and most had already been cut down by either spear or bow. Elrick crouched down and guarded Yaraka. She was likely their only hope to get out of this.

Basti was running toward Elrick and Yaraka, but the phantom arm popped out of the darkness and jammed a dagger into his back, as casually as if it were dropping a letter into a mailbox.

Five or six of the bandits were dead or dying on the ground from Yaraka’s shotgun blast of orbs, but from the number of invisible weapons he’d seen, he knew there were more still alive. Jocha and Gotha were the only two of his mining crew still alive other than Yaraka and himself.

“Yaraka,” he said, his face inches from hers. “Can you get another shot off?”

“The dagger was poisoned,” she hissed, sweat beading down her face. “I can’t move.”

“Drop the weapons,” someone shouted in the distance. “Drop them!”

Gotha rushed toward the line of invisible spearmen, limping on his impaled leg, the arrow still jutting out. Beneath their invisible cloaks, Elrick saw only the noses and bottom half of the spearmens’ faces, and then their arms and hands as the spears stabbed forward. Gotha took at least three spears through his armor. He must have figured it was better to be resurrected safely in Rakote than risk the uncertain fate of being taken prisoner.

Jocha threw down his hammer and put up his hands. “I’m not fighting this shit. I surrender!”

Yaraka’s eyes were glazing over, her lids drooping. Elrick shook her, hoping he could somehow wake her enough that she could blast an orb through everyone. Instead, her eyes closed completely, and she went limp.

Elrick stood up, raising the pickaxe toward the spearmen.

“Elrick.” It was a girl’s voice, but trying to sound deeper than it was.

Elise threw off her invisible cloak, and he saw her standing in studded leather armor and boots, clutching a bloodied dagger in her hand.

“You’re in on this?” Jocha shouted back at Elrick. “I know I’m insured, but I don’t like dying! Tell them to—”

A boot appeared out of nowhere, kicking Jocha down. “Shut up!”

“You killed everyone!” Elrick said, shaking the pickaxe at Elise.

He didn’t want to swing at her, but he was angry enough to at least consider it. When the attack had started, he’d dismissed the possibility that it was her. This was too brutal. Too merciless. Daggers in people’s backs, killing without hesitation? How could that be the girl he’d rescued from the Alchemists’ tower?

“They’re all insured,” Elise said. “And we spared that one.” She pointed back at Jocha. She pointed her dagger toward Yaraka, “And her too.”

“She’s dead,” Elrick said. “I saw her die.”

He put himself between Elise and Yaraka, as if he really needed to protect her corpse. She was probably already moving as a spirit toward the temple in Rakote. Or maybe she’d decide to stay here and learn more about who killed her.

“She’s just paralyzed,” Elise said. “We need her. Are you going to come with us willingly, Elrick, or—”

“I already told you!” Elrick shouted. “I told you I didn’t want any part of this.”

Jocha shot him a look from the ground. The spearmen were still pointing their speartips at him, though Jocha hadn’t dared to get back up to his knees.

The golem started to thrash, its leg was going molten and beginning to reattach itself. The entire fight between the guild and Elise’s band had probably only taken 30 seconds. They’d been shouting at each other for another 15 or 20 seconds.

“Let’s go,” Durka said, eyeing the golem and throwing back his robe.

The robes of the other spearmen and archers were beginning to show. They faded in and out of visibility, but that was enough to see their silhouettes and movements—whatever had made them invisible was wearing off.

“Elrick,” she said. “I know you didn’t think you wanted this, but the entire haul is ours now. I know you’ve done the math on what that is worth.”

“He’s getting a cut?” Durka asked, stomping toward Elise. “He didn’t help us at all!”

“He will,” she said. “Or do any of you know how to make armor out of these ingots? Weapons?”

They all looked at each other, shrugging.

“I can smith pretty well too,” Jocha lied. “Do I get a cut?”

Elrick felt his resistance fading. Everyone who had died was insured. They would all be resurrected, and they’d died quick deaths.

“What if Yaraka doesn’t want to go with us?” Elrick asked.

“We’ll pay her,” Elise said. “We just freed her from her guild, she should be grateful to us.”

The golem stood up and took a step.

“Come on!” Durka said, nervously eyeing the golem with his intense green eyes.

Two of the spearmen picked up Yaraka, and one hoisted her over his shoulder.

They ran from the golem, and Elise threw a potion behind her as they ran. It exploded, and the shaft collapsed behind them, burying the golem in the rock.

They stopped when they reached the room connecting all the shafts.

“What happened to the other crew?” Jocha asked.

“What do you think?” Elise said. “We killed them.”

“So what’s the plan?” Elrick asked, “Besides killing people?”