Wyatt considered the team status he’d just pulled up.

Prime Redeemer? And who chose the name Team Murder?

And Emma’s name is listed as Emma… Why did the redemption task label her as Hunter?

Okay, one thing at a time.

He focused on Prime Redeemer label after his name.

Nothing.

He studied the team status again, wondering if anyone else could see it.

He focused on Bailey, since he knew her best, and pulled her away from the others.

“Think team status,” he told her quietly.

She gave him a look that even after all this time he still couldn’t interpret, then nodded slightly. “Now wha— What the fuck. Team Murder? Jesus Christ.” She took a breath. “Well my skill name makes more sense. This whole thing is so fucked up.”

Why is everyone swearing so much lately? It’s been hours since we got here, everyone’s adapted by now, so it can’t be stress.

“Stop spacing out,” she snapped at him, grabbing his arm. She yanked it toward her and roughly placed his hand on her sternum. He felt her heartbeat. Rapid. Solid. “Here.” She lifted his palm and hit it against her chest again. “I’m here. We’re here. Get out of your head.”

“If we don’t spend time in our heads thinking, we’ll never figure any of this out.”

She pushed his hand away and sighed in disgust. “Why do I even try…” She walked off and sat by the sacellum, which was behind where the group was facing.

Wyatt noticed Emma by the shrine. She knelt and said something to Bailey, then rejoined the group.

What was Emma doing at the shrine? Did she use her orbs?

He went to use Analyzer on her, then stopped, bringing up the team status again and finding her name.

Emma Clark, Level 1

Well, she may be weird and mysterious, but at least she’s not stupid. Though I hope she didn’t drain it again.

As Wyatt headed back to the monster to finish cutting its orb free, he realized he still wasn’t hungry or thirsty. It had been hours now since he’d had anything to drink.

Patrick had inched his way toward the monster. Wyatt wondered if those spikes on his armor would cut open the thing quicker.

But it seemed no one trusted him to do so without taking whatever orb it had for itself.

And with him being level 2…

He smiled when he saw Wyatt. “Thought you gave up on that thing to sneak off for a little stress-relief with your girl.”

Wyatt knelt by the corpse and formed his hand into a blade. “She’s not my girl. And it would create, not relieve stress.”

Sawing away at the corpse, he looked to Regan, sitting to his right with the rest of the group. They were still talking about the Navigator message. It sounded like Brandon was trying to share other messages.

That was a good idea.

“Regan.”

She jumped then laughed. “Sorry. I’m… well, there’s monsters. Bit on edge.”

“It’s fine.” He made himself smile. “How much Energy does sharing the message take? Is it extra?”

She shook her head slowly. “I don’t… think so? It doesn’t feel like it. I feel like the skill barely takes any Energy at all.”

“Did you kill anything besides the monsters you mentioned?”

“You mean the ones under Other? I don’t know what those are.”

Wyatt was pretty sure he did. He’d killed seven mummies in his time under the temple.

“What about ahuitzotl. How many of those did you kill?”

She began to respond, then frowned. “Oh, that’s weird. I don’t remember any others besides that first monster that you anally murdered.”

“How many did you kill?” he asked Emma. Who had already been staring at him.

“Four.”

So Regan might not have noticed or had the skill yet, but it definitely seemed to be counting all of the ones anyone on their team killed. And it put it under Other if it was a type Regan hadn’t seen.

It was interesting that it counted ones killed before she’d even had the skill, though.

“It only counted two of the ratapua?”

“Yeah. Not sure what that looked like when we were killing them, if it tracked it partially or something. I got the skill after we’d already killed them all.”

“It’s okay. It’s a really useful skill,” he assured her.

She smiled.

He was telling the truth. It was a useful skill. And it was the first time he’d been able to see someone else’s message.

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“To show me this, you simply wanted to, and it appeared?”

Regan nodded. “Yeah.”

“Have you guys managed to share anything else?”

“No,” Brandon grumbled morosely. “We’ve tried everything. It must be unique to her skill.”

Wyatt would have to test that out with Analyzer.

But not right now.

“And this is all it’s done so far?” he asked Regan.

“If it has any other effects, I haven’t found them.”

Her skill hadn’t reached D-Grade, so there was no information message for it to see what other potential it might have.

Which made Wyatt wonder what it took to increase a skill.

His had reached D-Grade without him killing any monsters. Well, he’d killed the ahuitzotl, but he hadn’t been able to use his skill on it since he hadn’t had any Energy at the time, so the only monsters he’d used it on had been the cipactli, and none of them died before he did.

But maybe that didn’t matter. Maybe he got credit since they did eventually die. Or just using the skill made it level up.

That would make sense, but then why hadn’t anyone else had their skill go up? Several of them had fought, and Lena had definitely used her skill while fighting.

Something to figure out later. First they had to finish going through the groups’ skills.

Tyler’s skill was Warrior, which enhanced his stats when he activated it. It was somewhere between a normal skill and a channeled one like Emma’s Willbreaker.

“Passive,” Brandon put in, and Wyatt agreed. It took Energy to activate, then lasted for some indefinite amount of time. He’d had it up since he’d gotten it, which was at least an hour.

“Which stats does it increase?” Wyatt asked.

“All of them except for Energy. It drops that to zero. But I only have one point in Energy, so I don’t know if the skill will always drop it to zero, or always only drops it by one. It increases the other stats by a few points each.”

“How many exactly?”

He shrugged. “Don’t remember my starting stats.”

“What are they now?”

“Nervous System is eleven, immune and hard tissue are nine, and soft tissue is eleven.”

Wyatt thought back, trying to recall Tyler’s starting stats. He remembered that he’d had a 10 in nervous system, and his soft tissue had been close to Wyatt’s own, maybe even the same. So maybe one point each, except for Energy, which it decreased by one?

“How much Energy does the skill use? All of it?”

“I think so.”

“And can you turn it on and off, or do you have to wait for it to recharge?”

“I haven’t tried that.”

“I wanted to see if it would stay up indefinitely,” Brandon interjected.

Wyatt nodded. “Yeah. But an hour is at least a good baseline.” He focused on Tyler. “Can you change the allocation of the stats it gives you? Try turning the skill off, then on, while trying to change where the stats go.”

“I hadn’t thought to try that.” Blue light flashed briefly over his body. “Yeah. Huh, that’s cool. But I can’t increase Energy. Only the other four.” He flashed again. “There isn’t a cooloff either.”

“Cooldown,” Brandon grumbled. “How do you forget that? It’s the same as working out.”

“Right, cooldown. There isn’t one of those.” Tyler shrugged at Brandon. “There’s a lot of terms to learn, give me a break.”

“How many points does it give you?” Wyatt asked.

“Four. I can put them all in one stat, or split them. If I just activate it without trying, it boosts each by one. Always decreases Energy though.”

“You said your Energy was only at one?” Wyatt asked. “How many points did the Augment Orb give you? What level was it?”

“I think it was a level 3 orb. And it gave me five points, but I haven’t used all of them yet.”

“Don’t throw away the Empty Orb you get when you do.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

“Did everyone get five points for Augment Orbs?”

They had.

Same number of points I got even though mine came from a level one orb.

So does it always give five points? What’s the point of a higher level Augment Orb then? Maybe you can’t use lower level Augment Orbs?

Wyatt moved on, pointing at Jasmine.

“You pretty much know everything mine does. I can use Energy and eat monsters and then throw up items that only I can use.”

“Have you tried eating anything else?”

“Besides monsters?” She shook her head slowly. “I… it’s like, not hunger really, but, uh… desire? Lust? I don’t feel it for anything but monsters.”

“Ooh, kinky,” Olivia said.

Jasmine flipped her off with a smile.

Wyatt paused his sawing and picked up a handful of dirt, holding it out to Jasmine.

She stared at it. “You’re joking.”

“We need to know what it can do.”

“I’m still letting my Energy recharge so I can eat the rest of these corpses.”

Carlos grimaced. “Please don’t.”

“Do you have enough to eat one of them?” Wyatt asked.

She nodded hesitantly.

Changing his knife-hand back to normal, he took her hand and dumped the soil into it. “Then eat.”

“Fine.” Jasmine grimaced as she forced the dirt down. “I really don’t feel like this is working,” she mumbled through a mouthful of soil.

“Swallow anyway.”

“Yes sir.” With effort, she got all the dirt down, then stuck out her tongue, showing him.

“I believe you.”

She sighed. He thought she looked disappointed.

Well, dirt probably doesn’t taste very good.

“Anything?” he asked.

She sighed again. “No. That’s gonna hurt so much coming out.”

“It’s basically just fiber. It’ll be fine.”

“So you say,” she muttered. “You don’t have to shit it out.”

Wyatt realized in addition to not being hungry or thirsty, he hadn’t had to go to the bathroom since getting here, and wondered if that had been changed as well.

He moved on to the final member with Energy.

Patrick. His Bloodbath skill let him grow stronger the more blood he drew in battle. It seemed to create blood from nothing, somewhat like Wyatt’s Disgorge permutation: each hit, even punches, drawing gouts of blood which absorbed into his skin and temporarily boosted his stats.

That would make him good in a fight against multiple enemies, or a drawn out fight, but weak at the start.

If I ever have to kill him, do it quickly.

Wyatt pushed the intrusive thought away. He wasn’t going to kill Patrick.

Not without a good reason.

No one else had earned a second skill yet, which made Wyatt unique in that way. While what he’d said about knowing each other’s skills being a boon in battle was true, Analyzer wouldn’t help anyone else in a fight, and would probably just make them distract him with questions, so he kept it to himself. For now.

He’d only known most of these people for a week, and even the ones from his class for only a few months. He kind of knew Brandon through others longer, the Dungeon Delver Club threw a LAN party after finals, and he'd seen him there both times he’d gone. And then there was Bailey, who he knew too well. And Jasmine, who maybe due to how she acted like she’d known him forever, Wyatt felt like he knew better than the others he’d met on the tour.

She’d also slept in his bed the night before.

He wasn’t sure how that happened.

Then again, so had Tyler, and Brandon had been on the floor next to the bed, Jack in the bathtub with Grace, and Olivia in front of the toilet. So he could draw no conclusions about her motivations.

Wyatt realized the others were staring at him.

“You really enjoy sticking your hands inside things, don’t you?” Olivia quipped.

He had his hand buried inside the tlilcoatl. He hadn’t realized he’d finally broken through. When did that happen?

“I—” Jasmine began, but Bailey cut her off.

“Yes, we know, you’d like him to stick his hand inside you. Everyone knows.”

“He doesn’t,” she muttered under her breath.

Are they flirting with me?

This seemed like an inappropriate time.

It was confusing. Bailey had broken up with him, complaining about his personality and yelling at him that he’d end up dying alone. But then she kept coming back around, talking to him, hanging out with him, asking him to grab lunch with her. Putting his hand on her chest.

People were so confusing.

Wyatt rummaged around inside until feeling the orb, attached to the spine like all the others. Like all the others, it came free easily. His arm was drenched in blood and viscera, though.

At least it didn’t smell.

A chunk of snake-guts flew from Wyatt’s arm as he attempted to shake the orb clean.

He looked at Jasmine. “Do you have any more wet wipes?”