I dreamed of the mysterious voice in my head. Or, at least, that’s what it felt like. A dream.

“It is almost time, Master. I cannot wait to see you again.”

In my dream-like state, I felt weightless and as if I floated in a vast space of darkness. I whipped my head back and forth and around myself, trying to find the source of the mysterious voice–the voice I’d been hearing for the last three days.

“Who are you?” I tried to say the words aloud, but they came out almost like a projected thought.

“You will see soon enough, Master. Very, very soon. When the time comes, enter the cave.”

“Rayden? Rayden!”

I awoke to Drayek roughly shaking my shoulders. A rush of air entered my lungs, which threw me into a bout of coughing. Once the fit was over, I threw my head back onto the ground and drank in a few more gasp-fulls of much-needed air.

I craned my head up to watch my chest rise and fall freely. Someone had taken off my armor–thank the goddess. I was too tired to be embarrassed that I couldn’t handle a Tier 1 armor set for longer than two or three hours.

“His arms are still in bad shape, Drayek,” Korin said. “I’m taking away his pain right now, but I won’t be able to heal the broken bones until I’ve rested.”

“Broken bones?” I cried, throwing my head up once again to take in the damage, but I regretted it immediately as the blood rushed to my head and a flash of pain made my face feel like it was going to explode.

“Keep still, boy!” Korin tsked. Her slender hands were outstretched over the center of my body, and I could feel a ray of warmth coming from them and into me.

“Will this help at all?” Drayek rummaged through his sack and procured one of the green vials of healing potions he had purchased recently.

Korin glanced at the vial for only a second before shaking her head. “It might remove some of the bruising, but its assistance would be minuscule. We’re better off keeping any distraction away from me so I can keep my spell going into him.”

Drayek nodded, like he knew that would be her answer. He tucked the vial away, all the while keeping his worried eyes on my arms.

“It’s actually amazing.” Krato, the big muscly man, knelt beside me and flashed me a crooked smile. “You’re UnMarked, but you were able to handle a Tier 1 armor for much longer than I thought you could. We all had a running as to when you’d collapse. I had you down for ten minutes, but by the goddess did you prove all of us wrong!”

Overlapping murmurs of agreement resounded.

“Drayek said you came out of the ceremony with a lot of Soul Strength, but you must have much more than we thought. And you nearly tore that Nagari in half, which should have been impossible for an UnMarked, armor or no!” Krato leaned over me and peered into my eyes. “How much Soul Strength do you have, Rayden?”

“Leave him alone!” Drayek interjected. He pushed Krato and took his place at my side. “Why didn’t you take the armor off when it got to be too much, Rayden?”

My mouth went dry. “I just–I thought I could keep pushing. I didn’t know my bones would get crushed!”

“During the fight–were you able to absorb any essence?” he said hurriedly, ignoring my outburst.

I squeezed my eyes shut. “Uh, I don’t know. Kind of… But not in the way you’re asking.” I swallowed, embarrassed. “I’m not sure. I blacked out after I killed it.”

I had gathered essence, but none had gone into my body…. At least, I didn’t think so. Things were still hazy, but I could remember being able to direct essence into my armor to make myself stronger. Is that how I had crushed my arms? With essence-enhanced armor, had I forced more strength through my arms than my body could handle?

“What do you mean you kind of absorbed essence?” Drayek said.

Before I could answer, Korin interrupted, “Drayek, we must return to the city. I–I can’t keep going like this forever.” Her breath had grown heavy, and I could see a slight tremor in her hands. “We need another healer.”

I dared a peek at my arms and felt my stomach churn at the sight. My arms were bent in ways they wouldn’t naturally, and it looked as if someone had painted them in various hues of black, blue, and purple. I swallowed down the rising bile in my throat. I didn’t want to know what sort of pain would meet me if Korin had to stop before another healer could take over.

Drayek directed Krato to pick me up. The large man scooped me up effortlessly and cradled me gingerly, careful not to jostle my arms around. Korin stayed close, and I only felt short bursts of pain during the situating. But Korin looked worse for wear. Her dark face was growing an ashen-gray, and beads of sweat trickled through her hairline and down her forehead.

I closed my eyes and tried not to think about the two-mile trek we had to complete before reaching Edrona and finding another healer to assist her. It was evident that Korin didn’t have much stamina left.

The group moved back toward the root. Drayek headed the group, sack full of my armor strung over his shoulder and my spear tucked safely underneath his sword arm.

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I glanced at the ground as we moved, counting 50 dead Nagari. The Hunters had obviously killed the final few while I was taking a power nap.

My eyes searched for the Nagari that I had killed. I caught sight of it as Krato stepped over its bloodied body. I had nearly severed it in two, and not cleanly, the body pieced together only by strips of flesh and stringy tendons. Seeing the dead Nagari made any embarrassment I had for passing out go away.

I killed that thing! I killed a Nagari! And I was UnMarked. No one could take that victory away from me–not even Lady Euridice herself.

Then I remembered that the Nagari had cast a spell on its weapon before I’d killed it. In fact, many of the Nagari had fought like they had a Mark.

“Drayek, are the Nagari Marked?”

The Hunters sighed like I had brought up a topic no one wished to discuss.

“We can talk about that another time, Rayden. You’re injured.”

I glanced at Korin again, who looked tired, but she was still walking and healing me. At the moment, I felt nothing. No pain, no discomfort. She was doing her job well.

“I’d really like to know,” I insisted.

“Fine,” Drayek said, but he continued leading the Hunters toward the end of the gulch and didn’t turn to look at me. “We don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“We don’t know if they have a Mark or not. They have some sort of cultivation process that allows them to fight against Edronans, but we don’t know how or why. Most Nagari seem to fight at a Tier 1 level while a select few can do well against a Tier 2.”

“And there’s one that has gotten close to killing you, Drayek!” I could feel Krato’s chest rumble as he spoke up. “Don’t forget about that bastard.”

“I haven’t forgotten about that Nagari, Krato.” I couldn’t see Drayek’s face, but his low growl indicated he didn’t want to talk about some incredible Nagari that could take on, and nearly defeat, a Tier 3 Hunter.

I allowed the Hunters to march in silence and mulled over my own thoughts. There was a lot I didn’t know. About the Nagari, about Drayek’s past…. Why didn’t he trust me enough to have told me these things a long time ago? You’d think that these topics would have come out in training, even!

I made a decision then and there that, when we got home, I would at least make Drayek tell me about this legendary Nagari who could almost beat him in a fight.

As our group reached the foot of the root that led to our freedom from the dark and damp gulch, Drayek halted. He threw his head to the side and stared up at the opening of the ditch. His eyes narrowed, and he gestured for the rest of the party to remain quiet.

The Hunters perked up at the sound of pebbles rolling from the top of the gulch and down to our feet. They squatted low to the ground, brandishing their weapons and remaining on high alert.

Krato shifted most of my weight to his left arm and outstretched his right hand in preparation to activate his Spectral Shield Skill. The hairs on the back of my neck rose as more stones spilled over the lip of the ditch above our heads.

And then I heard hissing.

Choruses of snake-like hissing, just like the sounds that came from the group of Nagari we’d just killed, but much louder. And the sound grew even more deafening as footsteps approached.

With breath held and eyes wide with trepidation, I peered through the fog above our heads. We were surrounded.

I couldn’t begin to see all of them to count accurately, but at least 200 Nagari glared down at us with slithering tongues and hideous smiles. They pounded splintering spears and chipped swords on the ground at their feet in perfect unison, making the gulch walls shake precariously.

I cursed, Drayek cursed–we all cursed.

“This doesn’t look good, Drayek,” Krato said. “We’re extremely outnumbered, and they have the high ground.”

Korin’s hands trembled over me, and her eyes rolled to the back of her head. “What are we going to do?” she said through clenched teeth.

My heart raced, and I could feel it pulsating through my neck.

“The cave, Master. The cave is open.”

“What?” I mentally called to the voice. “What are you talking about?”

“Just look.”

As crazy as it sounded, I heeded the voice and threw my head about in search of this “cave.” But it felt fruitless–we would have seen the entrance to a cave when we entered the gulch for our first fight. The gulch wasn’t that big.

But then I saw something strange….

A small crack on the left wall appeared, then grew so large it split the entire wall in half. The Nagari on that wall flung themselves to the sides, avoiding a treacherous fall.

“There, Master. Cave.”

The crack revealed a hole that seemed to burrow beneath the surface and lead away from the Nagari.

“Drayek!” I hollered. “In there!”

Drayek threw his head around and followed my eyes to the cave.

“Retreat!” Drayek cried. “Retreat into the cave!”

There was no hesitation from the Hunters. Climbing up the root was not an option, for even more Nagari slithered their way to the top of the gulch and would overtake us easily. With no other escape options available, down the hole into the earth we would go.

Just as the Nagari began crawling their way down into the gulch, slimy arms and legs effortlessly speeding down the steep walls and root, we filed into the wide mouth of the cave. All that met us was pitch black, but we had no time to be wary of what might meet us inside.

“Go, go, go!” Drayek hollered.

We tumbled through the entryway and ran. Well, except for me, but my weight seemed to not make any difference to Krato’s speed. Korin remained right on his heels with her hands shoved in my direction, but I could feel her magic beginning to wane. My body shook from the brief moments of pain that tore through my body.

Drayek ran a hand over the tip of my spear and lit it on fire with his Weapons Fire Skill, providing our group some dim light.

The Nagari hisses echoed to our ears from behind, so we kept running. The walls within the cave began narrowing until we were all squeezing through a stone corridor. It was hard not to feel claustrophobic, and it didn’t help that Krato brought me tighter to his chest the more he had to squeeze his massive body through the narrow path.

A rumbling from behind shook the walls and floor. The violence of the shaking forced our party to stop. Each Hunter attempted to balance themselves as the shaking continued.

“We have to keep going!” Krato shouted.

The hissing was getting closer.

But then, the walls crashed down behind us with a loud boom, cutting off the Nagari’s path toward us. The Hunters leaped forward, avoiding any debris from the cave collapse. Piles of dust obscured my vision, and we all had to suffer through fits of coughing before anyone could speak.

“What now?” Marcus, who stood right next to Drayek, said.

“The only choice is to continue forward,” Drayek determined, pointing ahead at the corridor that continued even deeper into the ground.

But as the group moved to follow, Korin collapsed with a tired gasp. Just as soon as she fell, a torrent of excruciating pain ripped through every inch of my body, and I, once again, lost consciousness.