image [https://i.imgur.com/90N6CqT.jpg]

Thirty hairy, loping, snarling, thickly muscled goblinoids sprang toward me. Fighting so many bugbears wasn’t an option, so my first impulse involved activating Slipstream’s interface to slow down time. I panned the targeting reticule, looking for hiding places and finding none.

This central intersection served as a town square, an assembly place. Giant poles tented a patched netting of animal hides. The canopy blocked the sky enough to conceal inhabitants from the omnipresent Grenspur roc. The space wasn’t big, perhaps the square footage of a small gas station, and they’d fashioned several poles along the periphery to support the canopy. No clay jars, bone knives, or kilns occupied the hard clay ground. Nothing lying about explained why bugbears gathered at all.

Connecting passages on the far side of the commons opened to routes unprotected by the canopy. Wooden spikes flanked them, bearing more defenses that kept the roc at bay.

The bugbears’ levels ranged in the mid-thirties. They moved slowly, so retreating wasn’t my only option. When they encircled me, I Slipstreamed past them and around the corner of a connecting corridor. The shaggy hair covering their eyes might work to my advantage and obscure the blur of my passing. I didn’t look back to measure their reaction.

The passage headed northeast, close enough to my desired heading. The passage split, and I took the left fork, running down a short branch until I spotted another canopy.

A cairn made from rocks no smaller than beach balls dominated the space. Half a dozen bugbears sat in the room—a couple wore cured dinosaur hides and braided their hair with small bones. Hollows filled the wall, each whitewashed with a light paste. Every hollow contained a monster skull sitting atop a bed of herbs and dried berries. The room had no other passages.

“Sorry, don’t mind me.” Before the creatures could gain their footing, I returned to the fork. By now, the community from the open room had caught up and followed on my heels down an unexplored corridor. I had four minutes left on my Slipstream cooldown when the passage intersected another trench. I took a left, hoping anything north would lead me out of this place. The site of the crude worshipping space gave me the idea to check the interface map, but the name of the area remained Southern Meadow—I would receive no double-damage bonus for fighting in a settlement. Even if the bugbears were a little more civilized, I couldn’t stand up to so many.

I flew into the trenches. Splotches of dried clay covered the walls. Whether they passed as decoration or accidents, I couldn’t guess. I turned into a dead end about the size of a sleeping area. Dinosaur skulls topped dirt mounds painted white as if they were museum plinths supporting works of art. The skulls bore no item descriptions. They could have been religious pieces or hunting trophies. It didn’t matter. I only cared about the heavy footsteps of creatures trundling hot on my trail.

I tossed up my Dark Room rope and clambered inside, pulling the lifeline behind me as the first bugbears piled into the room. From above, I watched them stop short of the mounds. They took great care to avoid disturbing skulls. After they exchanged guttural grunts, I pulled out Gladius Cognitus, hoping to discern their speech, but when the blade’s tip made no blue line, I realized it wouldn’t work in the Dark Room. The transdimensional prohibition of magic prevented the weapon from activating. It wasn’t a big deal—I could guess what served as the topic of conversation.

A few peered over the edge and searched the sky for the Grenspur roc. They pointed to it and made noises to one another. One climbed up a dirt wall and peered over the edge.

The roc’s behavior must have puzzled them. Because I hadn’t left the trenches, it hadn’t descended. They couldn’t figure out where I’d gone. Wet black noses sniffed the air. At first, I worried they might detect the Dark Room’s presence, but none reacted in my direction.

Loud barks and growls came from the corridor, the sounds of an argument brewing. They took turns sniffing for me. I couldn’t see anyone in charge, and none of them had a significantly higher level or carried articles of status. Four returned to the dead end, sloped against its sides, and sat down. It seems I had scouts to outwait.

With most of my daily cooldowns spent, it seemed resting was my only option.

Inside the pocket dimension, I couldn’t see myself on the map, but I could see the positions of other contestants. Without an inkling how far I’d fled into their settlement, I needed all my combat mechanics to proceed forward.

After an unsatisfying eight hours of sleep, I awoke before dawn to find two opponents parked on the contest map where mine ought to be. Their positions overlapped, and their names floated on a nearby label. Bircht and Duchess had caught up. When I popped out of the Dark Room, the label would list three names. They could be north, south, east, or west of me, and I wouldn’t know until I ran into them.

My night in the Dark Room shook more than bugbears off my tail. Visiting it removed me from the contest map, making me invisible to opponents.

The last words in the group chat were that of Fabulosa, warning me to avoid the meadow. Of course, Bircht and Duchess traveled together and weren’t foolish enough to use it to communicate their confusion over my disappearance. At this early hour, none of the other players had mentioned it either.

Fabulosa’s position drew closer, perhaps a few days away. Hunkering here for too long might send them after her. She seemed confident enough to fight them by herself, but I didn’t share her bravado. Bircht and Duchess wanted to fight us one at a time, and it was a mistake to accommodate them.

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By using these early morning hours, a head start might be enough to reach my partner before the pair could catch me. Below, only one bugbear remained, and it looked sound asleep.

I crept from the Dark Room and flipped the rope to release it from its magical tether. Enough light from the eastern sky filtered into the trenches. I could move without stumbling in the clay or bumping into the wooden spikes buttressing the earthen walls.

I poked my head out and looked up. The Grenspur roc still soared overhead. It reigned over its area like the ward worm, a world boss in its own right. No wonder humans rarely ventured into the continent.

I hurried out of the room before my scent woke up the guard.

Two more bugbears slept in the intersection. As I took the eastern passage, one stirred, and before it opened its eyes, I Slipstreamed away, hoping the swish of air wouldn’t wake them.

Luck wasn’t on my side. Thirty yards behind me, I heard harsh voices, enough to make me hurry. The trench curved north into another canopied space about twice the width of a driveway. Four poles sprouting from the ground supported the quilt of animal skins. Thick straps of leather held them together, darkening the area more than open-air trenches connecting to it.

Ten bugbears piled into the corridor’s center. To take the northern corridor, I needed to walk through them. The pair I’d passed in the intersection made guttural calls, awakening others in the cuddle pile. Sharp intakes of breath and yelps of alarm prompted me to act. I pulled out Gladius.

My sword translated their growls. “That is the one I smell!”

“Kill him!”

The bugbears rose, flicked their long claws, and trundled toward me.

Dig couldn’t loosen the poles supporting the canopy as quickly as I needed, so I Earthquaked the center.

Top-heavy bugbears crouched and fell over as the ground shook. The poles supporting the canopy tipped over, pulling it down. After slicing through the canopy, I ran toward the far end of the chamber.

The monsters beneath my feet tore at the leather hides, making for a rocky crossing, but I made it before they extricated themselves from my improvised net. I climbed over the canopy’s end, landed at the lip of the far corridor, and ducked into the northern trench.

My biggest problem was my odor. No matter how much I zigzagged through this maze, my stalkers would take the shortest route to my location. They were slower, but the frequent dead ends made for treacherous traveling. It felt like one of those old Pac-Man arcade games, except I couldn’t see the entire board, and I had no extra lives.

Memories of walking Calico gave me an idea. I didn’t possess magical means of hiding my scent, but I carried lots of food and spices. Whenever I came to a corridor, I dropped a chunk of fresh ward worm meat and flung pungent spices. My survival ranks were high enough that I knew how keen noses worked. The spices wouldn’t mask my scent, but they were exotic enough to entice the bugbears to stop to investigate. I rotated and mixed aromas and seasonings as I moved, and the clamor behind me grew quieter with every turn.

I ran into dead ends and roused more pursuers. Mineral Communion highlighted recent footsteps, helping me detect the difference between the dead-end sleeping areas and the primary thoroughfares.

While climbing out of the Dark Room, I glimpsed the surrounding meadow, but the few twists and turns had already disoriented me. I could follow north from the interface map, but I wasn’t entirely sure that was the closest exit to the forest.

After summoning Beaker, I issued a telepathic command. “Beaker, fly to the forest!”

Beaker paid me little heed but took to the air anyway and flew northeast. Northeast worked for me. If Bircht and Duchess had stopped at the meadow’s edge, they’d be on the opposite side.

With the roc still hovering, Beaker wouldn’t take the scenic route, and I marked his flight vector and did my best to orient myself toward it.

But the trenches weren’t cooperating, forcing me to travel east. When I needed to reorient, I could summon my pet again, but for now, I focused on finding a trench heading north.

After finding many dead ends, I learned to use Mineral Communion’s telltale footprints and the Slipstream interface to peer around corners. It prevented my scent from rousing sleeping bugbears. At last, I found a northerly corridor and took it. The route continued longer than I expected, with no intersections, forks, or branches leading to cul-de-sac sleeping chambers.

The air chilled as I walked. Even at these altitudes, I expected the running and rising sun to warm me. Without the ring that regulated my temperature, I would have shivered.

A dinosaur skull with mooselike antlers caught my eye. It hung from a crossbeam, the first I’d seen since I entered this maze. Beyond it, along the top of the trench, skulls, femurs, ribcages, and other bones occupied small alcoves scooped from the dirt. Most were dinosaurs, but the procession consisted of oversized deer, feline, canine, and bovine monsters. Nothing radiated magic, so I continued.

The dirt became fine, parched, almost a sandy quality, and bones protruded from the lower walls. The trench maintained a northerly heading.

At last, I came to a circular opening about the size of a carousel. No leather canopy covered the space. Instead, the wooden spikes split into wishbone shapes. One fork buried into the dirt while the other arched toward the center, forming a ribbed conical shape. Leather straps held the converging deadwood into a pinnacle.

I smelled the place before I entered it. The potpourri of stinking spices made me wonder how the bugbears could stand it, but then again, I hadn’t heard them since I entered the chilly corridor. Perhaps this stench kept them at bay.

A giant hanging mobile fashioned from long bones and skulls dangled from the vaulted branches. Its parts didn’t click together like wind chimes but spun around on arms, like a traditional orrery.

The dry clay floor bore grooves and designs filled with mercury. The telltale blue glow made Detect Magic unnecessary. Runes covered much of the floorspace, and in three of them stood apparitions of dead bugbears in various states of decay. They appeared bound by phantasmal purple ribbons. Each ghost glowed in different colors—pallid yellow, mint green, and a dull crimson.

I wasn’t the only corporeal being in the room and quickly drew my sword.

Name

Bugbear Crone

Level

35

Difficulty

Challenging (yellow)

Health

2100/2100

A bugbear with balding, gray hair hunched near the room’s center. She greeted me with a high-pitched snarl and extended her long, twisted claws. With 500 health less than other bugbears, it was no great leap to guess she cast spells.

With Gladius in my grip, I understood the trigger word. “Shackles!”

A faint purple tether formed in the air, stretching from a triangular rune to my chest, and pulled me toward it.