Vondaire sat at a seaside cafe in Minolitana Prima. While he fully respected Chorsay’s orders, something about sitting on the sandbar had gotten boring. It was probably the lack of fun.

Egnatia sat across from him, sipping a glass of red wine. She was quite striking, even with the horrid purple scar covering nearly half her face.

The Demon Killer.

In plain, casual clothes, the head of Magna Regum was less intimidating. She wore a dress and didn’t even bother to carry a weapon, though Vondaire had no doubt that she could kill nearly everyone in the city if necessary. A Four Shard Hero was strong whether or not they used a weapon.

“A former member of the Izylia Unity Force?” Egnatia set her glass of wine down and leaned forward on the table. Her icy blue eyes stared into Vondaire’s.

He wasn’t used to people staring into his black eyes. Their unnatural appearance was normally enough for people to avoid eye contact. It was part of the spectral umbra route he had taken, which he didn’t regret. That didn’t mean he wasn’t aware of the odd appearance of his eyes.

“By necessity.” Vondaire carefully refilled her glass before topping off his own. “Financial distress, you see.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Egnatia took another drink and carefully dabbed the red drops from her lips with a napkin. “Magna Regum has never been at risk.”

“It is quite the legacy to inherit.”

“I built upon it. It wasn’t all made for me.”

Vondaire nodded and took another drink. An excuse to avoid the obvious lie. Who could fail after having such a massive company handed to them? Egnatia had earned nothing in her life. She was worse than his previous supervisors in the Unity Force. The arrogance one had to have to assume they understood the world without having to earn a damn thing was unbearable.

Even with nepotism, earning four shards was no easy feat. The equipment and training was all there, readily available, and Vondaire had no doubt she had a squad of guards for all the common floors, but that still left isolated floors and the bosses to defeat on her own. There was talent.

But talent alone didn’t earn respect, especially from Vondaire.

Only those who climbed from nothing truly earned what they achieved.

And despite how much he loathed the beautiful woman across the table, he wouldn’t say a single negative word. Not until he could match her in combat. If Engatia Lucan decided to kill him in Minolitana Prima, she wouldn’t have a single consequence.

“What kind of financial distress caused you to join the military?”

“Well, it’s more complicated than you might expect.” Vondaire finished his glass. It was surprisingly cheap wine for the richest person in the city. He refilled his glass, watched Egnatia drain her own, then refilled her glass as well. It took moments for a waiter to arrive with a fresh bottle.

Vondaire hadn’t intended on getting drunk, but Egnatia seemed set on the idea. Surely, Chorsay would understand accepting an invite to dinner with Egnatia. Who could refuse? Really, who could? She was terrifying, beautiful, and fascinating. A combination that Vondaire wouldn’t have assumed could capture his attention, but now . . . well, that was something to unpack when he was back at his little table waiting for Owin and Myrsvai.

“I was born on the northern coast of Izylia, far from Oriathria. Far from any portals. They caught crabs, of all things, and tried to make a living off of it. Imagine feeding six children off crab fishing.” He took another drink, realizing Egnatia could not imagine doing such a thing.

She simply nodded and fixed a strand of her short hair, smoothing out the top.

“I was the youngest. Forced to attend school while my siblings went about training to be heroes.” Vondaire folded his gloved hands on his lap. “By the time I was assigned umbra at fifteen, four of my siblings had died in the Great Forest.”

“Oh. That’s horrible.”

A single child wouldn’t understand. Vondaire nodded.

“My parents had spent their savings on equipment to try to help my siblings. They knew their lives would change if one of their children became a successful hero. Meanwhile, I had graduated early without saying a word. I went to the woods every day, training on my own. All day. Every day.” Vondaire was uncomfortable, so he simply stared back at Egnatia. She had yet to break eye contact and her icy blue eyes were intense.

“Their fishing endeavors were bringing less money each year, and the cost of things never stopped rising. They could barely afford our house, and all the equipment and goods needed for my siblings to try the dungeons were so expensive, they went into debt with some locals. Out on the northern coast of Izylia, there are hardly any Unity Force soldiers. The ones who are there are often the strongest people in the area. They worked with some criminals, extorted people. My parents started giving all their money to these people until I volunteered to take on the entirety of the debt.”

Egnatia hadn’t taken a single sip of her new glass. “And your parents?”

“Still alive. I said I would pay for their house and food, and nothing else. If they misused the money, it would stop arriving. As far as I’m aware, they are keeping themselves safe.”

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“Your siblings?”

“Dead. All of them.” Vondaire sat back and took a long drink. How could she not afford a good bottle?

“I’m sorry.”

Vondaire raised his glass. “To loved ones.”

Egnatia scoffed as she raised her glass. “If only I had any.”

Their glasses clinked gently as Egnatia still stared into Vondaire’s eyes.

“Why invite me here?” Vondaire finally asked.

“You interest me.”

That wasn’t as full of an answer as he had wanted. “What about me?”

“You’re a higher level than I am, and I have three more shards than you. What did you do to level so quickly?”

Vondaire smirked. “That, I’m afraid, is my personal secret.”

Egnatia raised her purple-scarred eyebrow. “Is it? I’ll have to find a way to get it out of you.”

Vondaire wasn’t certain if she was flirting or threatening, and either way, he wasn’t against it. He took another long drink of wine. He had a lot to unpack when he got back to the sandbar.

***

The pass was difficult to navigate purely because of the lack of light. There weren’t glowing crystals like there had been on previous floors. The only source of any light was the faint purple glow that covered the whole floor.

There was another fork not far from the village, which had led to a dead end at the boundary wall. It was easy to get back and take the correct route, but it made Owin a little concerned about what lay further ahead on the floor. If it became a full maze, he would have to rely on his map a lot.

They ran into two more groups of pycnida spiders, which weren’t challenging mobs to fight. Owin jumped and dashed between them, killing each before it could land a real hit. Shade just screamed and ran each time, even if the spiders weren’t close.

According to the skeleton, he wasn’t scared, but he wanted them to think he was.

Owin couldn’t be sure if Shade was telling the truth or not.

It took a few hours of traveling before they ran into another fork. Owin had picked wrong going right the previous time, so he went left first, and soon found the pass filled with bones.

Most looked like they were meant to be cetanthro bones, but there were also human or human-like skulls scattered throughout.

Shade started picking up pieces, which he tried to attach to himself. Nothing worked.

“This is mildly ominous,” Shade said.

Owin stalked forward with the lich bone out, ready for whatever mob was lying in the next opening. He fully expected a swarm of spiders or angry cetanthro, or something similar.

As he jumped around the last turn, crunching bones beneath his boots, he found two coelacanth cetanthro standing over two big white chunks that looked kind of like bones.

They looked at Owin with wide eyes, but all coelacanths had bulging eyes, so he wasn’t sure if they looked more surprised than normal.

“Are you here to help?” one asked.

“Help what?”

Shade picked up an entire rib cage and held it beside his torso. “Does this remind you of anything?”

“What?”

One of the fish tapped the top of the white object. “These eggs just appeared.”

“Oh.” Shade dropped the ribs and hurried over. “Those are big eggs.”

Each one was about the same height as Owin.

Ocean Mob

Pycnida Queen Eggs

Level 1

“They just appeared? What about all the bones?” Shade asked.

“Those too.”

Shade’s eye sockets narrowed. “Sure.”

“What do we do?” a cetanthro asked.

“Can’t we just smash the eggs?” Owin made a fist and lifted his hand.

“If you want a hundred spiders to hatch, yes,” Shade said. He gently pushed Owin’s hand back down. “I don’t recommend smashing them that way.”

“What can we do?”

“Fire is good. I think we still have some grenades.” Shade grabbed Owin’s bag and started to dig through it.

“Do we?”

He pulled out one of Ernie’s percussion grenades.

“I forgot I had that,” Owin said. “That doesn’t have any fire.”

Shade pulled out some tinder ore from Miya.

“Oh. That has fire.”

“What if I put the tinder ore inside the grenade?” Shade pinched the cork.

“We should hide first.” Owin guided both cetanthro to the side. The area was much smaller than the other village, and Owin felt like he was going to take way more damage than he wanted if the explosion was anything like he expected.

“We can hide in the houses,” a cetanthro said, gesturing to the two homes built into the stone wall. They were made of brick and only had a few feet of each house sticking out from the stone.

“Good idea.” Owin followed the fish inside the house, where they all crouched behind the inside walls. It was sparsely decorated, but what was there reminded Owin of the girhuma houses on the second floor in the kelp forest.

Shade opened the grenade, dropped the tinder ore inside, put the cork on, and shook the bottle. It immediately exploded in a fiery blast that caused Shade to disappear in a cloud of gray dust.

“He’s dead!”

“For now.” Owin sighed. It would be a few minutes before Shade could appear again. At least his plan had worked and the eggs were completely destroyed. “What’s the pycnida queen?”

“It’s a legend,” a cetanthro said. “A monster that stalks this pass. A creature of untold horror.”

“Got it. The wandering boss.” Owin stood up and shook out his arms. He hopped around, sheathed the lich bone knife, and looked about the room. “Why is there a door in the back?”

The cetanthro walked over and opened it, revealing a narrow tunnel in the back. It was pitch black with no view of the ocean surface. “I think it’s haunted.”

“It is,” the other fish said.

“Is it the secret?” Owin whispered. He walked toward it and stuck his hand into the darkness. It wasn’t a void nexus. He wasn’t transported anywhere. It was just that dark inside.

He had a while until Shade would be back. What was the harm? He stepped through the doorway and kept his hands pressed against the wall to help guide him.

“You’re going to be haunted,” a cetanthro called after him.

“That’s okay.” Owin had fought specters and undead before. Haunting was the least of his worries. Shade already haunted him.