Think we’ll even find the devil there? I asked, a blanket of cold mountain air making a soft cushion across my body as I glided through the air beside Cuby.

Dunno, she said. There’s no outpost on the map, but there’s a bridge a ways ahead.

We’d fought three more groups of enemies, all of them the same sort of encounter as the first two. I was a smidge away from level 10 in both my classes—a huge milestone. Cuby was well into level 12, but the fact that now that she was above level 10, her levels were coming almost as slowly as mine while giving so much less was not lost on her.

I’d spent two more healing potions, bringing me down to 5, and one of my charges of Gift of Mercy when things had gone wrong and Cuby had eaten too many attacks from a morthoth—but by and large the combats had gone smoothly.

Or rather, as smoothly as could be expected. I could sort of see why this setup was a good challenge for a group of players—have the harder enemies join on a delay so that a group with high damage could keep the encounter manageable, have only one demon commander so that they could kill him first and keep the AI stupid, have the enemies be threatening but have glaring weaknesses….

Somehow I doubted that five or more players could get as much mileage out of leaping into trees as we did, because not all of them would be able to leap into trees, or use the grapple gun—which required Strength and Agility. Just like not all of them would be able to board the spirefiends like we could, or completely negate their drop attack with glide like we could. We had no tank or healer, true—but a PvP-focused kit was a hell of a thing against monsters that had seemingly been built to be both vulnerable to repositions as well as stupid.

Now we glided away from Mount Mirrak, hours of travel having brought us around it far enough that we could see where an opening led away toward the series of roads, passes, plateaus and valleys that surrounded Vereth’s Rest.

Soon we saw another ramthorn—but it was level 7, and lacking the pronounced musculature that suggested it was monstrously powerful. I tapped it with a missile, killing it, and we continued on our path.

We found the bridge almost 30 minutes later, Cuby waiting while I scaled a nearby prominence to scan the land as it opened up before us. Spanning a fifty-meter drop to a river below, the bridge was made of ancient stone and wide enough for two wagons.

Even at my distance, I could see a familiar figure waiting in its center, too far away to be tagged.

“No nearby corners for you to hide around,” I said, observing the open road that led up to the bridge. “But I think I’ve got a work around.”

We walked out way to the end of the bridge, where—in full view of the devil, a woman named Thalariel, I began to set two Supercharged Implosive Missile Rune Traps into the ground.

“You sure this will work?” Cuby asked me.

“It’s just a deterrent,” I said, setting the first rune.

“A deterrent?” the devil asked, appearing twenty meters away from us down the bridge. “Do I take it to mean you don’t trust me—Alatar?”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, cocking my head at her like she had said something insane. “I trust you completely, Thalariel.”

Thalariel’s mouth curled. “Then you’ll believe me when I say that I don’t believe you.”

I finished setting the second rune. “I’m offended,” I said.

“Expecting to get me with those, are you?” she asked, looking at the glowing runes at our feet. “I’m afraid that tricking a devil requires a little more subtlety—your false identity spell is a start, but still—” She flashed me a smile. “Not quite enough.”

Having set my runes, I strode forward to stand face-to-face with her while Cuby hung back. “That,” I said, flashing her a knowing smile, “was a very strange way to pronounce ‘large hammer’.”

“Oh?” she asked.

“Flipendo!” I shouted, throwing my hand forward.

… And sure enough, the devil teleported directly behind me, where I cracked my Moment of Mastery, loosed my Supercharged Implosive Missile, and started casting Telekinetic Hammer before she’d drawn her sword—she was still casting the ill-advised stun when my own casting finished and threw her bodily backward along the bridge into two more missiles and instant death.

Congratulations, you are now a level 10 Mage / Psychic!

You have a new Iconic Passive Slot. Open your Abilities pane to choose a new Iconic Passive.

You have a new Iconic Passive Slot. Open your Abilities pane to choose a new Iconic Passive.

Your Hit Points have increased by 70 and your Energy has increased by 130.

Human Adaptability increases each of your Strength, Agility, Focus, and Spirit by 2. You gain 2 stat points to distribute.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

For killing a servant of evil, you receive 30 Virtue Points.

“Yeah,” I said, rolling my shoulders. “She must have meant ‘large hammer’ when she was talking that subtlety shit.”

“You know, it’s nice to see that we’ve made progress,” Cuby said, joining me. “That went pretty fast.”

“Let’s get back to Mount Mirrak,” I said. “I’ll level on the way.”

“And no sign of Haroshi,” Cuby added.

“Which is perfect,” I said. “Either he’s not coming and we’ve got the dungeon to ourselves until another group of potential allies shows up, or he is coming—but his whole group is resting now, like we thought they would, and we’ve got hours to grind before he arrives. And that place is the best experience we’ve found by far.”

“I hope that when he does arrive, we’ve trivialized him,” said Cuby. “I just… I’d really like that. He’s lost twice to us already. I think his third chance should be a formality.” She sighed. “And I hope it happens soon—you’re way, way stronger than I am.”

“If things keep going the way they are, his card is as good as yours,” I said, not even trying to disagree with her. “Anyway, time to see what I got.”

And I admit: I opened my ability selection with more excitement than usual.

Ability Selection

Choose a new Iconic Passive to learn. You may later replace this Iconic Passive with any other spell you are eligible to learn by consuming its Iconic Passive Card or using an Iconic Passive Book.

Iconic Passive – Magical Virtuoso

Gain 3 Spell / Spell Augment slots.

Iconic Passive – Unbroken Barrier

Your Mana Shield now regenerates all its points of absorption in 10 seconds, down from 30, and suffers no delay in regeneration after you take damage.

It also no longer expires when its absorption reaches 0. Instead, it ceases regenerating for 10 seconds, after which it replenishes itself by half and begins regenerating again.

“Huh,” I said, reading the second option. “It takes 30 seconds to recharge a whole Mana Shield.” I tried to wrap my head around how much damage this would actually prevent in combat—in a big combat like the ones we’d been doing, I might see one or more Mana Shields worth of extra damage absorbed. And my Supercharged Mana Shield was, at the moment, 428 absorb.

“43 Hit Points a second,” I said. “Interesting.”

Definitely very good, but I had no fewer than ten spell cards burning a hole in my pocket—and the beauty of the new slots was that they could hold Spell Augments. Spell Augments had, thus far, proven ridiculously good—all of them.

I’d have to think about it more.

I opened up the psychic’s choice:

Iconic Passive – Mind Link

Gain a mind link which can contain up to 5 sapient creatures. You can invite a creature to join your mind link if you are capable of thought speech with that creature.

Any creature in the mind link can share what it senses with any or all other creatures in the mind link. Creatures can communicate complex thoughts through the mind link in as much time as it takes to compose them.

A creature in the mind link who would receive a beneficial [Mental] effect from another creature in the mind link can choose to have that effect apply to any other creature in the mind link instead.

A creature in the mind link can interact with a detrimental [Mental] effect affecting any other creature in the mind link as if it were affecting themselves.

Iconic Passive – Telekinesis

Gain telekinesis, which lets you move things with your mind. The maximum force you can exert with telekinesis is based on your Focus in the same way that your physical force is based on your Strength.

You have fine control of objects within 10 meters, which means that you can manipulate them to the same degree of control as if you held them with your fingers.

You have moderate control of objects within 20 meters, which means that you can move them along precise trajectories, but not perform fine manipulations.

Other people, along with the objects they carry, can’t be moved against their will by this ability. You cannot move your own body with this ability.

“Huh,” I said, reading both. “Wow, okay. Psychic still never failing to impress, I suppose. I really wish I could try them both to see exactly how they work—telekinesis actually sounds like I could use it to completely circumvent the grenade cooldown by just belting them to my waist and tossing them with my mind.”

“Hey! That sounds like a good idea,” Cuby said.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “But I’m still taking Mind Link. I suppose if I ever feel like I’ve got the spell slots, I can find a way to switch my mage passive for the other psychic one, but Mind Link seems kind of….”

“Really?” Cuby asked. “I mean it sounds really good—you can crack your Moment of Mastery to give me a dodge or a crit! But I don’t have any mental effects to share.”

“I have Psychic Parasite,” I said.

“Oh,” said Cuby, nodding. “Now I get it.”

“Not like it’s that useful against multiple monsters when it takes four seconds to cast the good one,” I said. “But against, say, a boss? Psychic Parasite plus alternating Haste on you and Slow on the boss is a huge effective Defense Rating boost. Plus, the instant tactics seem like they could be a help.”

“And it’ll get better as we know how to look for more Mental effects,” Cuby said. “Yeah, you’re right.”

I took the Mind Link passive and added Cuby to the link.

“So can you see what I’m seeing?” Cuby asked, sharing her sight immediately.

I blinked, choosing to see through her eyes for a moment—an experience that felt altogether natural, not at all as disconcerting as it should have.

Then Cuby sent me a thought—that we should figure out any new tactics we needed to on account of my new stuff on our way back to the mountain. I understood her instantly even though no words had been spoken, and we started on our way back.

But we barely made it off the bridge before it happened: out of a sky of scattered clouds, a beam of light extended downward toward the ground in front of us, like a spotlight that was so bright it was visible during day.

Then a bolt of blue-white energy shot downward from the sky to strike the ground—and an object lay there a moment later, cooling as the luminous blue light that it emitted faded.

It was a sword, sticking out of the ground in a circle of burning grass. Above it the blue light gathered into a small flame, burning as if in slow motion, too liquid-like to be real fire.

Tied to the hilt of the sword, hanging there from a blue-white ribbon, were two cards.