First thing in the morning on Monday, Alex got a text from Liliana that she was going to be assigned to a new Survey into the portal.
She blinked as she read it. The team’s name was different. “Hey, did we get assigned a new team name?”
Audrey blinked and looked over at her. “What?”
“The Survey today. I got an assignment with a different team name.” Alex frowned. “Wait. Did you not get it?”
“Nope.” Audrey frowned and then bumped the cot above her. “Hey, Jo, did you get a notification about a Survey?”
Joanna didn’t answer for a moment. Then she rolled over to glare down at her. “No. I didn’t.”
A burst of confusion and panic went through her. What was going on?
“I’ve assigned you to a new team, Alexandretta.” Liliana wasn’t even bothering to pretend to focus on her, instead reading over some piece of paper on her desk. The team leader’s office was a model of cleanliness and order, with every surface spotless and every paper filed away neatly. “Given the needs of the situation, it required a few administrative changes. You don’t need to worry about moving where you sleep or anything—the assignments aren’t quite settled yet—but you can rest assured that these adjustments have been made with the interest of both you and the company in mind.”
Alex struggled not to start shouting. “Team sergeant—”
“Team captain, actually.” Liliana gave her a brilliant smile. “Your team’s performance, even under difficult circumstances, made for quite a recommendation on my behalf! It was quite an achievement.”
It was hard to keep from mentioning how little Liliana had to do with that performance. Instead, Alex forced a smile and tried to keep her voice even. “If our team did so well, wouldn’t it make sense to keep us together?”
“In some circumstances, perhaps.” Liliana’s voice grew just a hair from being condescending. “Unfortunately, we need to consider the success of the company as a whole, not just the ability of any one team. For that reason, I decided to integrate elements of your team with resources from other, less successful members of the Group. My hope is that as a result, all of our teams can grow and succeed.”
The team captain beamed at her with the kind of bright, insincere happiness that a supervisor can always achieve when screwing over a subordinate. Alex stared back at her. She was beginning to recognize exactly what type of team she had been assigned to join. Odds are, they were probably the ones who had just barely survived the attack, or were too shell-shocked to do much of anything on the other side of the portal. She’d probably be hard pressed to keep any of them alive, let alone get anything done herself.
Liliana’s smile grew larger. “Did you have any other questions for me, Alexandretta?”
Alex stared at her a moment later, letting some of her false humor fall away. The edges of Liliana’s smile went a little weak, and then Alex smiled back. “No, team captain. I look forward to working with my new team.”
“Good. You’re dismissed.”
Alex stood up and walked out of the room. The Survey was scheduled in an hour; that would give her less than thirty minutes to prepare before she had to head out. Nothing she could think of was going to help, but at least she could get a good meal in—and hope against hope that it wouldn’t be her last one.
“Welcome to Team Delta Nine Four.” The young man’s voice was so full of sarcasm that Alex found herself automatically disliking him. “My name is Brian Hogan. I’m a Squire, and the official team lead.”
He turned and gestured to the other three members of her new team. “This is Alessa Fairgold and Tim Michaels. They are both Porters. Sam Rysmore over there is our resident Adept.”
Brian turned back to her, seeming both tired and expectant. Alex tilted her head to one side. “My name is Alex. I am a Page.”
“Good to meet you, Alex. Now, I hope you are ready for a fun day today, because we’re going into the death portal again.” Brian snorted to himself. “I think Tim and I are the only ones who’ve worked together before, so we’re hoping the rest of you don’t screw us up. Any questions?”
Alex looked at him for a moment, wondering if there was any point in asking about formations or plans, or anything like that. A good part of her was sure that anything she asked was going to be answered with sarcasm, so it didn’t seem to have any point. “No. Let’s get this done.”
Brian nodded. His lips twisted as if he was a little disappointed. “Yeah, okay.” He stomped up onto the bus, followed by the others. Alex hesitated just long enough to see Liliana beaming at her from a nearby window. Then she followed them onto the bus. Sometimes the only way out was through.
The portal seemed unchanged since the last time she’d gone through it. That fact did not encourage her at all.
Her new teammates stood in front of the same swirling vortex, their stances ranging from a discouraged slump to a tight, enraged crouch. Brian held a sword and shield; Tim had another shield, and a short spear as well. Alessa carried a large quarterstaff, while Sam was holding a decoratively carved spear that suggested it had been upgraded. None of them looked excited to be there.
Alex, on the other hand, was very ready for a rematch. If the Killer had come back to the portal, she wanted to be the last thing it saw, if for no other reason than she wanted to hit something for her current situation.
After an interminable pause, Brian sighed and stepped forward. Alex followed him, and light consumed her vision…
[E Rank Surveyor Alex]
[Ascension Level: 1]
[Role: Page (Role Skills: Running(7), Dodging(5)]
[Role Level: 1]
[Experience: 280/300]
[Attributes: Strength -> 1, Speed -> 2, Life -> 0, Devotion -> 0, Control -> 0]
[Current Skills: Combined Arms–Axe/Shield(11), Inspect(2)]
[Permanent Skills: None]
[Current Titles: War Maiden (Increases Skill grade of Combined Arms and Weapon Mastery by one.)]
Alex studied her progress and then sighed. Inspect and Running were both proving much harder to level up than she’d hoped, but at least she would reach level two as a Page. Technically, she could do it just by stepping back through the portal the moment she arrived. Not that she was planning on doing that at all.
[Quest Issued! Destroy four Grue Soldiers.]
[Hidden Quest Issued!]
[Hidden Quest Issued!]
No surprises waiting there either. So be it. She closed her eyes as the light washed over her again…
Alex stepped out into the other world, her body already tensing for combat.
There was nothing waiting for them on the other side, however. Just the same abandoned ruins and broken pavement as before. Here and there were some marks of battle; she saw the window her team had left through was still broken, but none of the blood they’d left behind was still there. She stepped forward, ready to assume her position in front.
“Alex, Alessa, you take the flanks. Tim and I have front, Sam, watch our backs.” Brian’s voice shook a little, but not much. Alex paused and then fell back into the position on the left side of the team. They moved forward out of the alley.
She cleared her throat as they did so. “If we head towards the shopping mall, we might be able to—”
“We’re sticking to the patrol route the Group gave us. If you want to go exploring, do it on your own time.” Brian’s voice was harsh, even ragged. He gestured for them to turn left, away from where the shopping mall was located. She swallowed her suggestion, feeling a burst of resentment. What was his problem? It wasn’t like she was the reason they were all out here.
They made their way down the street, turning twice more as Brian led them along the patrol route. It said something that Alex was a little thrown off by how calm the patrol was. The last couple of times the Grue would have jumped them at least once by that second turn, yet this time there weren’t any sign of Grue waiting for them.
At least, there weren’t until they made a third turn, and there were six Grue standing in the street, their spears laid back on their shoulders.
Alex charged at them immediately, her legs eating up the ground between her and the two Grue on the left. She heard some of the rest of the team yell, but she shunted their words aside as she focused on her enemies.
They seemed surprised that she was charging them; she felt a vicious grin spread across her face. Three of the Grue swerved to face her, but she wasn’t worried. Her Combined Arms Skill had grown enormously in the past fight, and she was reasonably sure that she could hold off three if she needed to.
The closest Grue lunged at her, spear outstretched. She bent low with her shield and caught the spearpoint square in the middle of her shield. Alex felt a burst of triumph as the spear snapped outright and then caught a second spearpoint on the outer edge of the shield. It nearly pivoted in her grip, but she managed to knock the second spear to the side, ducked under the third one coming at her from the right, and brought her axe up and into the first Grue’s gut.
It jerked up and back, and she hit it again before she shoved it off. She pivoted to swat aside the second spear again, ducked in and to her right to avoid the third coming at her from behind, and chopped the second Grue’s arm. The hit took off its hand, and it had enough time to rear back and howl in pain before she swatted it across the throat.
That quickly, two Grue were down and she turned to face the third. It snarled at her, shifting its spear in its hands. She adjusted her grip on her axe, giving it a smile that was more a baring of her teeth than anything involving happiness or humor.
She thought it actually started to take a step back.
Then Sam came at it from the side, his spear stretched out in a desperate thrust. The Grue barely had the chance to do much more than blink before the spear caught it in the side. It staggered as Sam yanked his spear back. Alex went low and hooked its ankle with her axe head. When it dropped, Sam fell on it, stabbing repeatedly.
The others had hit the rest of the Grue, too. Tim and Brian had already taken down one a piece; Alessa was still struggling a little with the last one, but it seemed like she’d be able to finish it off easily enough. Alex looked over the rest of the Grue and nodded. A good first fight.
[Combined Arms–Axe/Shield has advanced to 12!]
[Main Quest Progress: 2 of 4 targets destroyed]
Evidently, not everyone agreed. As soon as Alessa smashed her opponent to the ground and the bodies began to burn, Brian stalked over to her. “What were you thinking?”
Alex looked at him. “What?”
“You could have gotten us all killed! Why did you charge ahead like that?”
She blinked. “I’m a Page. I can move a lot faster than you guys, and that means I can break their formation before they get the chance to put up a spear wall.” Alex left it unsaid that she was probably one of the strongest fighters on their team. No matter what advantages the Squire and Porters might have with their abilities, she doubted any of them had the kind of boosts that War Maiden and Combined Arms were giving her.
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“I don’t care how fast you were. You left our flank unguarded! If there had been more Grue on our left, we could have gotten hit from the side. You’d have been doing fine, maybe, but the rest of us were going to be slaughtered!” There was a fine sheen of sweat on Brian’s face, and her eyes were wild. “Next time, you stay in formation, and you do as you’re told. Or else.”
Alex stared at him, her grip tightening on her axe. “Or else what?”
Brian glared back at her, still furious. “Or else you’ll need to figure out how to fight without a team backing you up, you little—”
Sam broke in between them, the Adept moving carefully. “Hey, we should be harvesting these crystals, right? Let’s not stick around.”
There was another tense moment, and then Brian spun away. Alex watched him a moment longer, and then she gave Sam a grateful nod. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” He grinned a little, his dark eyes still cautious. “Really, though, don’t. We all just want to get home here. None of us wants things to go like…what happened last time.”
Alex looked around at them for a moment. All of them seemed hyper-alert, as if they were bracing for the nearest buildings to turn out to be infested with Grue who were ready for their blood. She nodded slowly. “You will. You’re all going to make it back. I promise.”
The Adept gave her a skeptical look. “What, are you planning on carrying us all out, then?”
“If I have to.” Alex stepped over to where one of the Grue had finished burning. “One way or the other, we’re all getting home. No matter what.”
Her determination was tested a few minutes later, as they ran into another group of Grue. This time there were seven of them, and they charged at the team with hoots and howls.
Alex began her countercharge, only for Brian to yell at her to stay in formation. She settled back, grinding her teeth as the Grue formed a wall of spearpoints, all ready to skewer the Surveyors in front of them. At least two of them headed for her; hopefully that would give her enough of a chance to take the heat off the others.
She waited until the Grue were almost on them, and then she leapt forward. The Grue both yelped in surprise as she dodged below their spearpoints, deflecting them up and away with her shield. Then she spun, bringing her axe around in a flat arc that landed it in the rightmost Grue’s gut.
As the Grue folded up around her axe, the other one tried to jump back to prepare for another lunge. Alex tore her axe free and jumped after it, smashing it to the ground with her shield. A second axe swing to the head finished it off, and then she turned to see what was happening with the rest of the battle, ignoring the yellow text that displayed in her peripheral vision.
[Main Quest Completed!]
[Dodging advances to 6!]
[Combined Arms–Axe/Shield advances to 13!]
Tim and Brian were both struggling to hold back the Grue that were trying to stab them to death. Tim had actually managed to spear one of them, and it went down as she watched. The other one was dancing back and forth, stabbing at him and dodging his return attacks. On the far side, Alessa had locked her staff against the last Grue’s spear. They were snarling and struggling against each other there.
She saw Sam shifting back and forth, and she pointed at him. “Hey, flank around the one attacking Alessa! I have the other side!”
Sam looked over at her and then nodded. He darted around to the side of Alessa, his staff ready to strike. Alex lunged forward, coming at the Grue that was harassing Tim. It tried to turn and fight her, only for Tim to lunge at it. One of the Grue attacking Brian turned to take a shot at the Porter, but he fell back and fended it off.
Which left Alex facing off against the other one. It growled and snarled at her, obviously ready to enjoy the same kind of back and forth that Tim had been using to keep it back. She wasn’t going to give it the option.
The first time it stabbed at her, she trapped the haft between her shield and her axe head and sent it spinning away. It staggered a little, and she followed up with two quick strikes to the torso. The Grue went down, hard, and she turned to face the rest of the team.
[Hidden Quest Discovered! Destroy four additional Grue Soldiers]
She found them finishing the others off. Sam had stabbed the one fighting Alessa in the gut; in turn, she’d smashed the one fighting Brian across the back, and he’d stabbed the one locked up with Tim. The Grue began to burn almost immediately, the purple flame leaping up and forcing the others to back away from the ones they’d killed. They turned to look at her, and Alex raised an eyebrow.
“Everyone all right?”
Brian’s face turned red with embarrassment, but he didn’t respond. Instead, he and the others bent to start collecting the crystals the Grue had left behind. Alex spent a self-satisfied moment watching them, and then moved to recover some of the things as well. She didn’t want to rub it in…too much, at least.
The next handful of fights went smoothly, with Alex cutting a swath through the enemies they encountered, and the others following her lead on how to punch through the rest. They didn’t have anything like the smooth teamwork that her other team had developed, but they were improving. She was already looking forward to shoving her success in Liliana’s face at the end of the mission.
As the Grue from the fourth fight of the day burned away, she straightened up and looked over at the others. “All right! About halfway done, right?” She’d already completed the Hidden Quest, but the others were probably still only just now finishing the main one.
Brian snorted, and Tim looked at her like she’d gone a little crazy. “Are you kidding? We’re almost done with the patrol route. There can’t be more than a few blocks left.”
She stared back at him. “But…you guys haven’t even started one of the Hidden Quests, right? If you don’t finish that one, aren’t we going to get a bit unbalanced?”
Sam exchanged a look with Alessa, but Brian was the first one to answer. “What are you talking about? What Hidden Quest?”
“The one where you can kill a few more Grue and get extra experience for it.” The Squire was giving her a blank look, and she felt a creeping sense of horror. “Wait, have you never done that before?”
“No. We’ve just run the patrol route like normal until the Main Quest is done, and then gone back without fighting anything else.” Tim looked a bit puzzled. “What was your team doing?”
“We’ve been completing whatever Hidden Quests we could. Usually we’d get at least one, except for the time at the shopping mall…” Alex felt another burst of horror run through her. “Wait, how close are you guys to level two?”
The rest of the team exchanged more looks. Sam answered first. “I’m a decent amount of the way in. Eighty points out of three hundred.”
Alessa nodded. “Same here.” Tim and Brian both nodded along, with Brian looking increasingly concerned.
Alex was trying really hard not to start cursing Liliana. “I’m at two eighty. I’ll hit level two and probably have eighty left over after this mission, since I’ve already hit one of the Hidden Quests.”
Brian snorted. “Well, good for you, Miss Overachiever. Most of the rest of us are just trying to survive out here.”
Tim nudged him a little. “Hey, she’s not bragging, dude. Not that she needs to, after today. She’s saved us a lot more trouble than we’ve had so far.”
Sam appeared to realize the problem first. “Wait, if you’re going to be a higher level than us…”
“The next mission is going to be harder. Probably a lot harder.” Alex tucked her axe into her belt and crouched down. She ran a hand over her eyes, trying to massage away a sudden headache.
“Great. Just great.” Brian threw up his hands and stalked away.
Alessa raised her hand. “Would they just assign you to a different team, then? They wouldn’t want to throw us into something we can’t handle.”
“They’ve done it before. No reason to think they wouldn’t do it again.” Alex must have sounded bitter, because Brian actually spun around to stare at her. She met his eyes, and he slowly nodded. It was a bitter moment of shared understanding. Liliana was screwing them, all right. Just not in the way that Alex had expected.
“So what do we do?” Tim chuckled a bit, sounding more than a little forced. “No offense, Alex, but I think you’re already carrying quite a bit here. If it gets worse…”
“We’ll need to complete some of these Hidden Quests, right?” They all looked at Sam, and he shrugged. “She’s two hundred points ahead, at least. If we don’t complete any, she’ll be two hundred forty ahead. If we complete the same Hidden Quest she’s done, then we’ll at least keep it stable, right?”
“She’ll still be ahead of us, though. She’ll still hit level two, and we’ll be stuck at one, no matter what we do.” Brian’s voice was tight with frustration, but for once, it didn’t feel like it was directed at her.
“It won’t matter as much, though, because the more experience we earn, the less of a difference it’ll be.” Sam shrugged. “Besides, the quicker we get to level two ourselves, the better off we’ll be.”
“One Hidden Quest is good, but two would be better, right?” Alessa looked at Alex. “Did you ever get both of them done?”
“Yeah. Once.” Alex shifted slightly. “The second Quest that time was a raid on a Grue Camp in the mall. You’d get bonus experience for getting both, but…”
She paused long enough for Brian to get impatient. “But what?”
“The last time, it wasn’t a Camp. It was a Quest to hunt down a Killer.” Alex looked away. “That one Grue with the bow.”
“Oh.” Tim’s response was enough to summarize the situation for everyone. If they hadn’t done one Hidden Quest yet, taking down the Killer would be…
Alex stood up. “Let’s focus on that first Hidden Quest. We’ll decide what we can do after that. All right by you guys?”
She looked around until they’d all given her a nod. Then she turned, and they started out again. An already long day was going to get that much longer.
The tough part about the Grue wasn’t killing them now. It was hitting them hard enough to let someone else finish the job.
Alex gritted her teeth as she dodged yet another spear thrust and then performed yet another trap with her shield and axe to rob the Grue of its weapon. The thing yipped in surprise, and she had to keep herself from hacking the life out of it with her axe. Instead, she cut its leg out from under it, and smashed it over the head with her shield for good measure.
The Grue went down, and she jumped away to clash with another one that was trying to crowd in around Tim. Sam went after the crippled one, his spear lashing out a bit more confidently now that it was down. Tim took advantage of the distraction she provided to plant his own spear squarely in a Grue’s chest, downing it as well. Alex blocked an incoming attack squarely on her shield and shoved the attacker back to the ground. Another quick chop lamed it, and then she was on to the next part of the battle.
It was their third fight after they’d finished the Main Quest, and the rest of the team had almost finished the first Hidden Quest. All they needed was another few kills…
Alex darted in behind a Grue attacking Brian and hamstrung it. He finished it off with a thrust and then gave her a half-resentful nod of thanks. She barely acknowledged it before she used a shield charge to knock the Grue in front of Alessa off balance, allowing the Porter to smash it utterly flat a moment later.
With that, the fight was done. Bodies burst into flame, and they stood back to study their handiwork as the bodies burned in the street. Alex was still breathing hard as she looked over her team. Still nobody wounded, though they all looked like they had been through the ringer. “Anybody hurt? How are we doing?”
Brian gave her an irritated look. “I’m done. With the Quest.” He looked around at the rest of them. “Maybe for the day. I can’t keep this up much longer.”
The others were nodding. Alessa spoke up next. “That last one was it for me. Does anybody still need to kill something?”
“Not here.” Sam waved at them, a half-proud smile on his face. “I could do with a rest, though.”
Alex felt a flicker of irritation at their readiness to give up—nobody had even been wounded!—but she pushed past it. None of them had health potions like Clara had started with, and if someone did take a wound, it was likely they were going to either die or be out of commission for a while. An exhausted person was at a lot greater risk of injury than someone who was well rested. “All right. Let’s get back to the portal, then. Anybody sees anything—especially if you get a Hidden Quest from it—call it out to me. Let’s go.”
They reluctantly got to their feet and hefted their weapons. Moments later, they were back in front of the portal. Alex made sure each of the weary Surveyors went through before she followed them.
The light wiped away the other world, and she was once again staring at her Screen.
[Mission Report]
[Successful Return! +20 Experience]
[Main Quest Completed! +40 Experience]
[Secondary Culling Quest Completed! +40 Experience]
[Hidden Quest Not Discovered]
At another time, she would have been happy about surviving the mission and gaining strength, but now she was just dreading the amount of difficulty her next mission would bring. How was she going to keep all of them alive, and finish her own Quests? Would she have to decide between saving a team member and getting her job done?
The Screen moved on without waiting for her to respond to it.
[Combined Arms–Axe/Shield increased from 11 to 15!]
[Dodging increased from 5 to 7!]
[You have reached level 2 as a Page!]
[+2 Speed gained. +1 Free Attribute awarded.]
Alex immediately dumped the extra point into Strength again; now more than ever, she was going to need some power behind her swings. Hopefully, it would be enough to keep carving her way through whatever the other world threw at her.
[Skill Chain available. Do you wish to combine Running and Dodging?]
[Warning: Chained Skills lose all previous levels.]
She denied that option again, for much the same reasons. Better to keep training Running and Inspect when she could at the moment. She still had another three levels before Page was done, anyway. Plenty of time to decide what to do there.
[Additional equipment awarded! Select new equipment.]
Alex paused for a moment over the choice, knowing that the Group usually recommended that Pages take equipment for ranged combat or stealth. Neither option really appealed to her, however, and didn’t match her skills at all. Part of her was really tempted to select a health potion—the lack of healing available for her current team was unnerving to say the least—but that also didn’t fit how she worked. It was better to keep them from getting hurt in the first place, especially if they were going to be dragged into fighting worse battles because of her.
So instead, Alex selected a simple brigandine, something like a breastplate of hardened fabric and sewn-in metal plates. It appeared on her torso, a dull iron-grey garment, and she instantly felt a little more constrained. Still, the weight was preferable to getting speared or arrow-struck during an ambush. She was uncomfortably sure that the Killer was going to make another appearance sooner than she liked.
Her choices made, she was left with a moment of time where she could simply float in the void. Then the light came…
She was once again back in the real world, with her weary teammates at her side. They gave her sidelong glances of varying gratitude—Brian’s was something closer to a grudging nod, while Alessa seemed to have actual tears in her eyes—before moving to give their reports.
Liliana watched them with a mixture of surprise and satisfaction. When Alex finally stomped over to her to give her report, the team captain’s expression seemed halfway smug. “You seem a little tired, Alexandretta. Are you feeling well?”
“Well enough, team captain.” Alex bared her teeth at her. Some might have charitably called it a smile. “You’re looking very well rested. You must be sleeping well.”
The team captain blinked and then shrugged off the comment. “So, did you manage to reach level two for Page today? I hope you put your additional point into Life this time. To make up for last time.”
“Strength actually.” Alex’s smile turned far more genuine now. “And I got some armor for myself as well.”
Liliana actually frowned at her. “That is not company policy, Alexandretta. You know that the Group has a very carefully mapped progression for Surveyors. Not following it could lead to substandard teamwork and an inability to thrive in our environment.”
“Thank you for the warning, team captain. Is there anything else?”
She watched Liliana struggle slightly. The cheerful smile seemed to be far more difficult for her now. “No. Though I may decide to assign you additional exercises as a result of your refusal to follow established practices.”
Alex nodded, still grinning. Liliana’s mask slipped for just a moment, showing a depth of cold rage that nearly surprised Alex. Then the team captain was smiling again and gesturing for her to join the others on the bus.
She wasn’t sure what the team captain was planning for her, but it definitely wasn’t good. All the same, it was a problem for another time. For now, she needed a bath and some good food. Surviving a doomed Survey seemed to work up her appetite.