Mel tumbled through falling rock and debris as everyone screamed around her.

In the darkness, her heat vision was priceless. She could see every shift in the surrounding rock. The pit was deep. Deeper than her newfound sight could see.

All around them, gouts of superheated air blasted from tiny holes and side passages. Somebody cried out as they were scalded. Mel tried to grab onto the rocky wall. When a burst of steam burned her, shaving off an agonizing quarter of her health, she decided against that course of action.

Instead, she concentrated on [Hidden Mist], making it as dense and thick as possible to protect them from the narrowing pit’s scalding exhaust vents.

A rush of hot red color rose up from the darkness below. “Brace yourself!” Mel called. “Water below!”

If only it was a placid pool of water. Something non-threatening to blunt the fall.

The geyser of scalding water cooled as it hit Mel’s [Hidden Mist]. Her mana drained at a startling rate as she battled with the natural elements.

They sunk into the water, burned but alive, and rode the geyser down to its source. Water steamed and dripped everywhere as Mel crawled out of the unfathomably deep but narrow pool of hot water.

She pulled Shane out, who had immediately started to sink with his heavy chainmail. Sabrina grabbed a screaming Maddie.

“I can’t swim!” Maddie shrieked.

Bernard got out on his own, dragging Nathan by the collar of his armor.

They all collapsed into the side tunnel, glowing red like lobsters in Mel’s heat vision.

Maddie spluttered and struggled to her feet. Despite the wild-eyed look of terror on her face, she kept it together enough to use [Sacred Path] to mend their various wounds.

Mel had no idea how the others were doing, but she had dropped to under half health from the heat of the water, the fall, and the steam vents.

Wisps of steam rolled off every surface in the side tunnel around them. The glowing light of [Sacred Path] encircled them.

“Nathan!” Sabrina cried, dropping to her knees. “Is he okay?” she asked Bernard.

“I think he hit his head on the way down.”

Sabrina took her hands away from the sides of his face. “What do I do? I don’t think you’re supposed to move his neck, right? Is that right, Mel?”

Mel dropped to one knee beside his body as the geyser shot up again, drowning out all other noise and filling the tunnel with unbearable heat and a sulfurous stink that turned her stomach.

She pulled back one eyelid and inspected the pupil, amazed that she could tell such fine-grained detail with her heat vision.

“He’s just out cold,” Mel said, confident in her diagnosis but unsure how she knew. “We should move farther in.”

Nobody argued against her. She was their leader, whether she liked it or not. Shane carried Nathan on his back as they ventured deeper into the tunnel system until they could barely hear the geyser erupting.

It still smelled like the bowels of hell, but at least the heat and humidity were slightly less. Mel’s heat vision was working overtime trying to resolve the washed-out mess of reds, whites, and oranges. The only major contrast was their bodies.

Everybody took a moment to take stock. It was only when they were all completely silent that Mel heard it.

Mel wasn’t sure if it was the water in her ears or something else, but as she looked around at the others’ faces, she realized they heard it too.

“Please tell me that’s just the noise caves make,” Sabrina said, swallowing hard.

“Sounds like chanting,” Shane said, tilting his head. “Like when you’re outside a church.”

Mel’s danger sense spiked again. Despite the heat, a shard of ice dripped down her spine.

New Quest: The Descent

You’ve found an unexplored area of tunnels deep underground. There is no way back out the way you came. Find another path of escape.

Objective: Discover the source of the chanting (0/1).

Reward: [Aspect Gem (Rare)]

Divergent Objective: Or find another way out before the source of the chanting finds you (0/1).

Reward: Freedom

“Oh, I don’t like that,” Maddie said, clutching her staff like it was a lifeline. “Did anybody else just get a quest?”

“The Descent? Yeah. Hated that movie,” Sabrina said, hugging herself tight. “But there’s a silver-lining. We finally get an aspect each.”

“That doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence,” Bernard said.

“What does it mean by divergent objective?” Sabrina asked.

All eyes turned to Mel while she was distracted by the choice. Either gain more power or seek out freedom.

If you run away enough times, eventually you’ll find something that’ll be too strong and too fast to escape from, she thought.

“My guess is that it means only one can be completed,” Mel said. “Either we find out what that noise is, or we leave, but we can’t do both.”

Shane furrowed his brow. His coloration, like everybody else, was slowly returning to normal. “Why not?”

“You probably don’t want to know,” Mel said.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

“We’re here,” Bernard put in. “I, for one, would like to know what you think. You’ve rarely been wrong before.”

Mel leaned her head against the slick rock and shut her eyes. “Keep in mind this is just a guess…but it’s likely that the reason it’s divergent is that if we find the source, then we will be forced to deal with it. If we escape, then whatever is making that noise continues doing what it’s doing.”

“That doesn’t make much sense,” Sabrina said. “Why wouldn’t we just turn around and leave?”

Mel shook her head. “If we find out what’s making that noise, I don’t think it’ll just let us walk out again.”

Sabrina frowned. “Then we leave. We find an exit and just get out before that happens.”

“Might not work either,” Mel said. “If it’s magic we’re talking about, the normal exits might already be sealed and we’d have to find a way to break out. If we’re really unlucky , then we’re already trapped. Think of it like falling through a hole in the roof of a prison. You weren’t meant to get in the way you did, and your way back out is impossible to reach. Sometimes the only way out is through.”

Shane looked up and down the narrow, water-smoothed tunnel. “What could do that? If there’s a window or a door, we just break it, right?”

Taking a deep breath, Mel said, “Because if it was that easy, we wouldn’t all have gotten a quest for it. Besides, I have a bad feeling about this.”

“It’s just some sort of monster though, right?”

Mel glanced at him. “There are worse things than monsters.”

Sabrina went bug-eyed at that. “What’s worse than a monster?”

“People,” Mel said.

Maddie and Sabrina took a moment to let that sink in, then they nodded. “Bear in the woods?” the older woman asked.

Mel shook her head again. “Worse.” She took a deep breath and told them about the Bloodtide Covenant, skimming over the gory details of their murders but not over the horror of [Blood Bomb].

Maddie began crossing herself and muttering a prayer under her breath.

“Yeah,” Mel said, seeing their disturbed expressions.

“And you think that this is them?” Shane couldn’t help but ask. He looked like he really didn’t want to hear her answer.

“No,” Mel said. The relief on his face was instant. “I think it’s something worse.”

“Oh come on!” Shane hissed. “You didn’t have to pause like that!”

“Look,” Sabrina said, putting up a hand to quiet Shane. “Nathan’s coming around.”

The Brawler blinked and groaned, lifting a hand to touch the sticky blood on the healed wound on his head. “What happened?”

“You want it sugar-coated?” Bernard asked him. Mel could see the relief wash through each of them. Though nobody had said it, they must have all been worried that they might lose another one.

“How long have we known each other?” Nathan asked groggily.

“Too long.”

“Then you know what I want.”

Bernard rolled his eyes. “We’re taking a little detour down here so we can avoid fighting monsters up above. There’s some people singing a happy little hymn up ahead, probably some good catholic college girls who haven’t seen a handsome man in their entire life–”

“Okay, okay, enough sugar-coating,” Nathan said, struggling to sit up. “What’s really going on?”

Mel snorted. “Why are you looking at me?”

“Because I can trust you to tell me the truth, even if it sucks.”

Shane leaned in. “Especially if it sucks.”

Rolling her eyes, Mel recounted her theory in its entirety.

“Kinda wish you sugar-coated it a bit there,” Nathan said with a wince.

“Shouldn’t have asked me then.”

“Fair.”

“So…what are we going to do?” Maddie asked. Her knuckles were cool compared to the rest of her hands, suggesting she was gripping the staff so tight that they were practically bloodless.

Glancing at her health, Mel stood up. She was over three-quarters full, good enough to start moving. If her dreadful suspicion was correct, they would need to move fast to have any chance of getting out alive.

“I can’t tell you what to do. This is something beyond a single person’s decision, but you need to understand what’s going on.”

“Which is?” Sabrina asked.

“This is a competition. This Convocation? It’s bigger than what’s going on here,” Mel said with growing conviction. “If you want to call it quits, there’s no harm. Hole up somewhere and try to survive if that’s your goal. Odds are good that most people seeking power will go toward those magical plateaus for more power and better monster hunting. You don’t need to compete, but surviving often means getting strong enough to defend yourself and those you love. You can’t divorce one from the other. Not entirely.”

Maddie leaned on her staff as if it was the only thing keeping her up. “What’re you going to do?”

“I’m going to compete,” Mel said with iron certainty. “There’s nothing else for me. I have a laundry list of questions that need answering. That’s not going to be possible if I just sit around twiddling my thumbs until the trial is over.”

“Then I’ll go with you,” Maddie said, standing a bit straighter.

“You don’t have–” Mel began, but Maddie interrupted her.

“I know I don’t have to. I want to. With Travis…well, Isaac died when Travis was little. You saved us when nobody else would. Do you know how many people we ran by as those beastmen were chasing us?”

Nathan stared at his boots. “Nearly a dozen.”

Maddie motioned to him. “None of them helped us. But you did. You even tried to save my boy. I know I said some harsh things…but I am sorry for them. I don’t know who else I would follow. If you want to barricade a room and wait it out, I will wait with you. If…you want to charge into a church of cultists, then I’ll march right there beside you.”

“Wherever you go, I go,” Sabrina said. “I know you think people are worse than monsters, but you saved my life without a second thought, then immediately took off to save Maddie and Travis. If that’s not what a hero does, I don’t know what is.”

“Ditto,” Nathan added in.

Shane shoved him. “Too cool to admit your feelings, huh?”

Bernard looked up at Mel. “I think it’s plain to see that you’re not going to be getting rid of us anytime soon. So you might as well let us help you. We’re not as skilled or equipped to deal with this strangeness as you, but we’re not letting you go on your own.”

Mel wasn’t comfortable having so much faith placed in her. She had good survival skills, and even better combat instincts, but that didn’t mean she was somebody worth following.

And yet, what are the alternatives? The only other remotely organized group I’ve seen is the Bloodtide Covenant, and I wouldn’t want to run into them again for a million dollars. Whatever this is, at least it’s not them.

In the end, it didn’t matter how Mel felt about herself. As she saw it, there wasn’t even a choice to make. She was going to compete, and the only way to get stronger was to fight.

To survive, they all needed power from aspects.

Mel turned to the others and started walking toward the distant sound of chanting. “If that’s the way it is, let’s see what’s making all that racket.”