The smell of mud and flowers assaulted Isaac’s nose. He couldn’t move. The stinging numbness in his neck almost certainly came from the hooded guy with the blowdart. He loaded a feathery dart in it with the kind of practiced nonchalance of a professional pok-ball pitcher. His features seemed to meld with everything around him, and at least part of that was some sort of [Camouflage].

Oh. So this is what it’s like to be singled out.

A gloved hand tugged him by his shoulder and turned him over.

“He’s breathing,” said the armored human figure, the same way someone noted that their sandwich had cheese on it. His eyes were hidden behind his sallet helmet. His cloak shimmered against the backdrop of blue sky, and there was a sort of heraldry that had been hastily painted on their chest, a red hand with six fingers.

Isaac had no idea what it meant. But he knew that they were a kill team, and that they were here to make sure he and Andri failed.

Run, Andri, run!

His words came out as a small gasp. He felt his knee twitch, his hands twist a little. Someone had used a skill, or poison. Andri wasn’t here, wasn’t out yet, and the only thing Isaac could think of was funneling mana into his only skill.

It took so long.

There was a surprised yowl, a hiss and a swear. [Cavitate] took after what felt like five seconds, knocking two of them over, but not the sallet-helmet man.

Ah shit.

“Pollymixtrasz, stick him a second time.”

Mister blowdartmaterialized right out of a tree trunk. He was a small man holding a blow dart and a bundle of feathered pieces of ammo in his hands. He was the picture of snide arrogance as he licked a dart, dipped it in one of the many flasks hanging inside his cloak, and leaned down.

There was a second prick, this time in his thigh.

“You three, go after the mink,” was the last coherent thing Isaac heard.

Then the world turned a blurry mix of shapes and colors.

Then there was a thump, and Andri was lying next to him, looking much, much worse for wear. Maybe the colors of the flowers were mixing with his head, or maybe his face was a bruise.

“He got Jinki.” There was a slow growl and moan. The speaker, a man carrying a spear-cum-banner, kicked him in the ribs and he shut up.

“They’ll be compensated for their loss,” said Sallet-helmet. “We got contact with the B team?”

“Negative.”

“We’ll link up eventually. Morwath, anything good on them?”

Isaac’s eyes rolled to the side. Someone was holding his backpack upside down. They shouldn’t be doing that, everything would fall out of it. “Nah, these chumps only got some mana stones.”

“Drag them to the rift warden so it can scan their tokens and give out the points, then we leave.”

“Fuckin’ losers,” said Morwath, hucking a wad of phlegm their way.

The blowdart user looked them over silently. He plucked Andri’s scouter, held it in his hands like it was something dirty, and stomped it into the ground to the sound of crunching plastics and glass.

They gave Andri another good kick, and Isaac too, right in his half healed rib. And then they left, leaving Isaac and Andri on that flowery meadow.

Time passed. The sun drew a lazy half-crescent along the sky. It gave a lot of time to think, and to let anger either pass, or to stew in it. Isaac for one was boiling.

“Hey Andri.”

There was no text, just a sound, something like a tired groan.

“We got fucked.”

“Ma,” said Andri.

“Your trap didn’t work. How?”

“Mya. Morp. Me-weow. Hhsss.”

“Would’ve had to have been a boon, or a skill.” It must have felt that much more bitter to Andri, who didn’t have a single skill.

“Mip.”

“Yeah, I hate everything too, now,” he said, and after a while, added: “People like that shouldn’t be allowed to become adventurers.”

It wasn’t even hard to understand what Andri was hissing and grumping about.

They’re not trying to. They just want everyone else to fail. Everyone.

He thought back to the people at the potluck, and Mona, who hadn’t stabbed him, only cut him. He felt the streak on his arm.

This feels different. Malicious, but professional.

“They probably took our water, and food,” Isaac groaned. “I had some sandwiches I liberated from the buffet aboard the blimp. Sorry.”

Their accents weren’t from Wett. Is this what Hrisp was trying to prevent? Were they here for me?

No, it felt way too casual. I think we were just targets of opportunity. Victims of a casual mugging at the adventurer exam.

“They probably didn’t take my armor because it would be too much of a bother to carry it around.”

“Meorp.”

“Hang on, let me just… wiggle over to my backpack.” Whatever was in those darts, it sure took a long time to get out of his system. Now, if he could just get his brick’s translation software online then…

“They took my brick.” His numb hand searched through every pocket of his backpack. “They took Claire’s fucking magical tablet.”

All he got was a yowl in response.

It took until the sun was well past the zenith, and the afternoon made way for evening, when they could finally walk. Whatever was in those blow darts was hard enough to leave them sluggish for a while after, and apparently it caused joint pain as well.

It was thorough and it was sadistic, or perhaps they just didn’t care enough about aftereffects.

The kill team had been as thorough with their gear as with their bodies. Whatever was of worth they had stolen, whatever wasn’t they kicked off the side of the meadow. Even after climbing down —which they had to do freehand since the assholes capped the rope — Isaac was still missing his fire-making tools, his fishing kit, his bat and his brick. He found his fishing tools in a ditch, and his bat right next to it.

The bat was snapped in two.

It looked like someone had tried to snap it over their leg, then realized that it had a metal core. So instead, they’d taken the metal and made it expand outwards until it burst the wood from the inside.

That hurt. Not as much as the brick, but it hurt.

He tried to breathe in deeply, to cool down. Then, when that didn’t work, he found a tree to punch.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Fucking assholes.” He’d taken good care of the bat. If they did anything to his brick then… “I’ll make you suck my left choconut you unwanted-fetus. Go eat a car battery, go shag an electric socket you goddamn pool-pissing troglodytes. Fuck!”

Grabbed the tree and sent a streak of electricity through it with his new gauntlets, exploding the bark off of it.

Andri looked at him, mildly unimpressed.

“They have someone with [Control Metal].” Andri just gave him a weird look. His breathing was a bit raspy. “I think you might have a broken rib there.”

“Meorp.”

“Right. You can’t understand what I’m saying.” He sighed into his hands. “Let’s find the rest of our stuff.”

They did find a couple sandwiches, emptied out of their wrappers. Andri and Isaac looked at the ones covered in leaf-ants with forlorn faces. The tiny ant-shaped elemental creitters were a regular pest on Wett, as long as a thumbnail, and made entirely from mushroom hyphae and green-brown plant matter.

After a moment’s hesitation, Andri picked it up, brushed the worst dirt off, and took a careful bite.

“Meorp.”

Isaac bet he could translate that. “Tastes like dirt.”

Isaac stared at him. Then he found another ant-sandwich, and tried it as well. It wasn’t that bad, besides the little buggers crawling up his arm. A bit acidic.

“Reminds me of the time before Claire, seven years ago. The kids of Canker Island were a bunch of bullies led by the largest bully, or whoever beat him the weak before. I always thought that people don’t really get what it means to ‘eat dirt’, but these chucklefucks proved me wrong.”

Andri grumbled between mouthfuls of ants and lettuce.

Isaac smiled. “Jokes on them, we’re poor. We eat dirt for breakfast.”

Andri coughed. Isaac spat out a pebble.

“So, you want to go after them.” It was more statement than question.

“Mya-mi-muawf.”

Right. Communication is difficult.

“You.” He pointed at Andri.

“Me.” He pointed to himself.

“Walk.” He made a walking motion with his fingers. Then he took a twig and made the most exaggerated stabbing motion he could make.

Slowly, Andri understood what he was getting at.

“Good. We’re on the same page.” He licked the last crumbs off of his hands and stood up. “They’re six. Five now. What did you do to the guy they lost without getting disqualified? Actually, on second thought, I don’t want to find out.”

Isaac put his hand on Andri’s shoulder. “I think I wasn’t taking the assassin stuff seriously. I… think I understand now. But could you try… not maiming or nearly killing people going forward?”

Andri frowned.

“I don’t—” There was a muted ding. Isaac rushed through the underbrush. There on the ground, he found his brick.

Thank Maerdon.

They’d probably left it because they were afraid of getting tracked. Someone had tried to burn it, then scratch the screen, which was hilarious, since all they’d manage was to dull whatever tool they were using. Isaac was certain that the brick was magitech, made with tier five plus materials. A little fire couldn’t hurt it, and the fact that it was light enough not to rip a hole in Isaac’s pants spoke to the expert craftsmanship.

There were a dozen worried messages piled up on top of eachother, as well as a few missed calls. Isaac took the video-call. Immediately, he recognized Sophia, standing with her back to some rockface.

“Isaac… see… here… you?”

The connection wasn’t the best. But they had a connection.

“Sophia! You look a lot better than we do.”

“Face… hurt… how did you… fistfight… with a car?”

“We just got ganked and lost all our shit.”

Sophia’s face only turned angry in stutter-step beats. “...anked? Those… monkeys… unfriendly.. eat their… toes…”

He grinned, Andri leaning over his shoulder. There was worse things than a friendly face plumbing the debts of creative insults over your own bad luck. And it was bad luck, unless the kill team had been tailing them for a while they wouldn’t have known where they were.

Not if they have a tracking skill. [Mark] would allow them to slap an invisible mark on someone and then track their position for a day. With [Whisperwind], they could have heard us from a kilometer away, under good conditions. They didn’t have a canid, or a flying familiar.

So, one person had a tracking skill, one a metal skill, and one a fire skill. Their cloaks could have been skill-made — he’d heard of a skill capable of imbuing skill-effects onto objects — or they could have been store bought, though it would have had to have been a store from offworld. A piece of gear that could imitate a skill was high tier stuff. They had to have had a sponsor, and now more than ever Isaac was certain that they were from offworld.

The picture of their enemy was forming inside his head. He could understand them, and what could be understood could be overcome.

“I’ll text you the details. How’s the hike looking? Can you come over?”

“N…n…ooo. No. Not looking… steep… very far. You?”

“We’re heading eastwards. Keep clear of anyone marked with a red hand. I’ll text the rest.”

+++

It wasn’t easy tracking the group of red-hands, which was surprising given there were five of them. They moved like a practiced pack, and Andri complained that they only left the barest of footsteps and bent twigs in their wake.

But leave them they did. And after waiting for long periods for him to return, Andri always found a way forward.

“Isaac.” Andri whispered. “They’re <>”

He’d entrusted his brick to him for the time, making it very clear how much it meant to him. It worked, though the translations were a bit funky at times.

“Alright.”

“There’s <>. A <>, four people, totaling nine.”

Isaac clicked his tongue. “There’s no way we’re sneaking in and getting our stuff, is there?”

“I could, maybe.” He seemed to weigh his chances. “<>”

Isaac looked at him and sighed. He wasn’t about to entrust their success or failure to a coin toss.

“We’ve been walking all day, let’s get some rest before midnight.”

“And then what?”

“And then we look for some help. There’s no way we’re getting past nine with just the two of us, and I’d bet money that there are more groups like us eager to get some payback.”

“You have <>. You can’t <> in the dark.”

Isaac showed his hand. “Light ring.”

“Correction: Everyone can <> you in the dark.”

“What are they gonna do, steal my fishing line?” But he was right. People wouldn't know that. On first glance, they’d look like two schmucks prancing carelessly about the jungle. “If that happens, I’ll see if I can’t talk them down.”

Andri grumbled, but didn’t complain. They were just tossing ideas around. They still had no clue how they could even start to try and assault a camp of nine professional mooks with enchanted gear.

“I will find some rifts,” Andri said, because that was where people were most likely to be, and disappeared into the dimming jungle.

“I’ll go find a sturdy stick while it’s still light out.”

+++

“Hello dear delver. This rift owned by <> is Tier 2, and rated as <>. Mana-readings indicate it is <<67%>> towards the next tier. Current delvers inside: <<3>>.”

“Well, this is a rift,” Isaac said, staring past the rift warden and straight at the deep red whorl inside a well.

They’d gone to a nearby abandoned shack that was marked on the map, a ways away from the mining town. A small obelisk stood by with a decayed plaque commemorating some accident or other. Isaac didn’t know how many other people bought the info pack from Baphomet, or how many were following the same steps as he was, but he reckoned that this place was safe enough.

Except for the rift that was casually hanging two meters inside the old well.

Andri stared at the green thing swirling about. “It smells <>.”

“Looks pretty large if you ask me.”

“It’s Tier 2.” There was an arched eyebrow, a nonverbal ‘can you handle Tier 2’?

Which was a rather rude question. He’d done well enough in the last one. He had armor and, well, no real weapon besides a stick he’d sharpened into a makeshift spear, but that was alright, he’d had worse.

Oh god, I really did have worse.

“And if it isn’t? Could be a very small Tier 3 rift.”

“Then we <>.”

They stared at it some while longer. Isaac poked it with his sturdy stick, as if they were poking a sleeping bear. The rift did not react.

“Well, what’s the holdup?”

“There’s someone inside.” He gestured to a rope dangling down the well’s walls. “Their knots are a bit shoddy though.”

“We could wait here,” Andri said. “<> when they come out.”

“We are not dropping as low as those turds.” Whoever was inside was sure taking their time. They had to be full-clearing the rift, which seemed like a rather idiotic idea. Sure, the full rifts dotting the valley meant there was much loot to be had, but these were ‘only’ Tier 1-3 rifts. Whoever was in there was either stupid, or desperate for more essence and manastones. “Maybe whoever’s inside of here needs help. Do you think it’d be rude to walk in and warn them that a kill team is nearby?”

“Of course it would — hey!”

He re-did the rope with a Bellringer knot, made sure it was fastened tight, then slipped on down the slippery walls. It was perhaps a bit stupid, a bit reckless. But they weren’t going to get anywhere by playing it safe.

“Have a delveriffic day-ay-ay!” the rift-warden stuttered.

Someone’s gotta change the battery on that thing.

His feet hit the wall, then slipped as he found himself in a reverse version of the well. There was a rope here too, and he used it to pull himself up and over the edge of the red rift.

He was in a village with a low, dark ceiling barely as high as the rooftops. And all around it smelled of death.