Lisa wanted to smile. She honestly hadn’t expected the exam to go this well, but the Kobold camp had proven itself to be a challenge. Only, it was one she couldn’t enjoy.
Did all scouts have the compulsive need to run off on their own? Her new allies had done it and they annoyed her, but so had Ryan and she worried about him. And she couldn’t even do anything about it because of these stupid Kobolds who kept on trying to steal what was—
“Mine,” she snarled and caved one’s skull in.
This hoard was hers. She had earned it by blood right. That, even Micah would agree with her. All of these thieving little cretins could go crawl back into the holes they had come from.
But even as a third of the camp fled, and more of her allies arrived to kill them one by one, there was a group that kept—on—trying.
She used her Shepherd’s Staff over having to manage two dozen bonds to her summons, and one of them left the bubble of wind she could sense around herself to chase after something.
At the far end of the hoard, a pair of Kobolds had actually managed to run off with a guitar case held between them, a few jumping crystals and a dark crossbow stacked on top.
Their allies, headless chickens and cowering thieves alike, rushed to cover their retreat and killed her summon with spears.
She about had it with them. She raised a hand to the unclaimed storm of fire and heat essence around them and exerted her influence with a single drop of mana to shape it all into a lance.
An arrow sprouted in the far Kobold’s head. It toppled and the case went crashing to the ground. Nick? Another one replaced its fallen comrade in an instant, but Lea swung her axe through its chest and dashed through the smoke into the fray.
Lisa had seen her arrive, but she had been headed for Micah up in the wall. Why did she of all people have to come help her?
Wait, ‘help’? She caught herself on the thought. No, her presence here was nothing more than a nuisance. Lisa had this perfectly in hand.
She took aim and threw the lance at the crowded tunnel, sheering two Kobolds in one go before the lance scattered across the ground in a wave of fire, just a few steps away from Lea.
She girl jerked back and shot her a glare, mouthing something that might have been a, What the hell?
Lisa ignored her, just like she and everyone else had ignored her when she’d used to stumble up to their friend circles at parties or school. She could tolerate her presence at any other time because that had been years ago and looking back, she could admit she’d been a little weird, but she wasn’t in the mood for it now.
But just like the Kobolds, the girl seemed insistent on being seen. She began to fight her way toward her through the remnants of the camp. All rivers had flowed home to defend it.
Lisa turned her thoughts toward that, feeling the wind to check on her summons and make sure she wouldn’t be surprised as she fought—and there, she frowned.
She hadn’t had to deflect any fire spells for a while now.
When she looked, she could see why. A chain of red bursts ran along the ‘windows’ of the wall toward her as Micah picked off the fire mages one by one. He was thriving, even with his hands tied. It helped ease the guilt she felt there about how she had handled his situation.
But of course, he would persevere. She worried more about Ryan. With the others alleviating pressure, maybe she could check up on him?
One of her summons died just a few steps away from her.
The wind and smoke broke around something large right next to it and Lisa turned, fully expecting to deflect the full weight of the missing Guardian, come back to repay the favor of dropping a fireball on its spine.
But it was Lea who stood at the edge of the wreckage, surrounded by smoke.
“What— What the hell, Bluth?”
She looked up, eyes wide, and fended off another centipede.
A piece of the wood crunched beneath her boot as she took a step toward her. “That was one of mine.”
“It attacked me!”
“No, it did not.”
She said it, but the girl looked so sincere. Lisa was using her [Summoner’s Bond] on many of her creations right now, draining her mana and her rings at a dangerous rate. It was worth the information that flowed to her but came with the added cost of information flowing back.
Maybe it had attacked her.
“Yes it did,” Bluth insisted either way, “and they all look the same anyway, you really shouldn’t be offended if someone hits one by accident.”
Lisa stared for a long moment at the sheer idiocy of that statement, considerations forgotten, then shouted, “They look nothing alike!”
She hadn’t spent months fiddling with her designs for— for someone like her to come along and dismiss them. She didn’t know anything about summoning. She relied on a crystal her father had bought her from the Gardens; something climbers spent years trying to earn alone.
Bluth rolled her eyes and huffed before she called back, “Accidents happen!”
“You were an accident!”
“Yeah?” She caught her breath and almost seemed to relax at the insult. “Well, at least my parents kept me around!”
Did she mean …? Lisa shook her head. “I left.”
“Sure, you did. I bet they loved having you around.”
Lisa tempered her frustration with the knowledge that Bluth literally had no idea what she was talking about.
Mom hunted Garen down after I snuck away in his luggage. Her family had wanted her to stay where it was safe … seemingly forever. She’d only managed to convince them to let her leave by pointing at her cousin as a replacement to dote on. How she’d hated the little tyke, and how she missed her now.
Was she supposed to feel bad for leaving her to fend off their entire family on her own?
Eh.
Whatever Bluth was trying to do here, it wouldn’t work. “My teammates would never hurt one of my summons,” she said, not that there were any around who could. She stood alone.
“Newsflash! I’m your teammate!”
“Ha! Don’t flatter yourself. You’re a freeloader. Nice job being level two. Your family must be proud.” She almost found comfort in insulting her. It was easy.
“Everyone keeps saying that but that’s the average, you idiots!”
“Well great job being so mediocre, then!”
A different shout echoed their own.
In the corner of her eye, Kyle, the other scout, and Jason scrambled into the camp, stopping to shout and hurry each other along once they were in the clear. Jason wore Ryan’s loud coat for some reason.
Hadn’t he made a promise to his parents not to lend that away? Maybe he’d chosen to rebel, like Micah and her. She didn’t know if that would make her like him more or less. It was a shame, having to rebel against the people you loved after all.
A blue glimmer lit up the tunnel.
“I’m not mediocre,” Lea shouted, sounding angrier than before. “I helped this exam. I’m trying. I—”
A river of roaring blue flames interrupted her, and the three boys rushed to hide at the sides of the entrance. It caught one or two errant monsters and heated the massive chamber on its own.
Ah. The slime.
It glistened as it squeezed its way out of the tunnel and seemed to pop into the larger space as if it’d had trouble moving before. A few monsters and crystals still dissolved inside it.
It rose up and twisted to loom over the scout, then spat those and a barrage of loose debris out at him. They shattered into chips or puffs of smoke around him as he ran for the nearest cover, one of the pillars.
Kyle tore through its side, cutting the attack short. The wound folded in on itself and hissed with fractal tears like a damaged jello mold.
That had worked last time, she’d been told, but Micah had convinced them to feed it instead. From their description, it had sounded larger. This one could fit between the pillars with ease.
Still big.
She licked her lips. It actually looked kind of tasty.
“We have to help them,” Bluth said and Lisa glanced at her to find genuine concern in her eyes.
“We?” She shook her head and stepped over the low wall of collapsed scaffolding. “I can kill it on my own, with ease. You watch over the hoard, okay?”
“What?”
She sent pings at her summons, telling them to keep up the good work while she was gone, and raised her voice, “Nick?” When he looked, she jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
The scout gave her a curt nod. His witch friend nearby fell on his with his heavy pack and began to rattle his ear off, informing him about the situation?
She almost felt jealous.
Bluth told her to wait. She didn’t. She jogged for the center of the chamber and when Kyle saw her, he slashed the beast once more and headed her way, drawing the angered slime after him.
He must have thought she had some way of hurting it despite its ability to eat fire, her main focus, which was true, but she wasn’t headed for the slime at all.
She picked up into a light run as both of them were quicker than she had thought, but she didn’t stop.
He passed her with a look of surprise and nearly stumbled when he broke his stride, then scrambled to turn back around.
Lisa let herself fall and skid across the ground to get there on time. She slapped her hand on the stone in the dead center of the summoning circle and looked up.
Micah had lent her its crystal to study after the last exam and she knew, summoning it from afar created a link similar to her bond between them. Having been alive this long, that link had to be under a ton of strain.
She had seen what happened when that strain snapped back at Sam.
The slime loomed over her and she met it with a grin. All she had to do was reach out with her mana like a gauntlet and—
Huh?
There was nothing there. She puffed the mana out and swished it around like a cloud to feel the crystal itself, the slime was right there, but there was no link extended between them.
The slime drew itself up.
“Argh.” Her chest flushed as her heartbeat seemed to quicken. This was going to be so embarrassing.
It breathed fire down at her, point-blank, and she raised a hand against it. She didn’t have much mana, but she wove what she could into a ward and exerted the full force of her spirit behind it to bend the flames around her.
This would have been a really great time to have a Skill which would do this for her but of course, she couldn’t choose the lazy way out.
Someone shouted her name. She threw the entirety of herself at this challenge, but she wouldn’t just be happy with warding the fire off. She had come here to do a job and she would finish it.
Lisa drew on the spiral of flesh in her chest and unspooled her influence step-by-step like phantom limbs slapping down onto the world. One struck the slime and it swayed as if it had been a physical thing.
She got one foot under her and exhaled a searing hot breath. The flames baked her skin. She leaned forward and pushed up. Then she got her other foot under her and pushed back.
The flames shot toward the ceiling and all around her like a waterfall cascading onto a boulder, and the slime drew back in fear. It must have understood that she’d bested its fire at its best, and now it was just deflating as it tried to keep up the pressure. But she had seen it at its worst and she knew it couldn’t afford to deflate forever.
I win, little one.
Just as she was about to retaliate, something wrapped itself around her waist and hauled her off her feet. “Whu—”
“Watch out!” Bluth cried.
Kyle stepped around and swung his axe to part the flames for another second, then held the flat of it against the stream, and Jason stepped around him to jam his sword into the maw of the giant Guardian that barreled toward them, snapping at their legs.
Oh.
It must have been close-by, stalking them within the walls for the perfect moment to strike, which it had found in her distraction.
The beast was stronger than Jason, and almost half-again the size of what a regular true Salamander should have been like down here, but his jab served as enough to push it off-course and make it flinch for that split second they needed to get away, Bluth dragging her.
Jason raised his shield and coat against the last sputters of the flames and retreated with Kyle behind him. The guy slipped out to drive a slash low into the Guardian’s maw when it snapped at his feet. The red axe did much more damage than Jason’s sword had.
The beast was already wounded, its scales cracked and smoking red dye instead of just fires. It was pitifully little, considering she’d smacked a fireball onto it when they’d gotten here.
Lisa would have joined the fight to finish it off but noticed a dull thumping sensation against her head where Bluth was … smacking her hair?
Oh, the smell. She was on fire.
This was just humiliating. She had wanted to pop the entire slime like a bubble, all at once. It would have been so cool and an awesome way to show off; maybe even to get the other girl to shut up.
Instead, this. Bluth was making distressed noises like it physically pained her to see someone’s hair burning.
Lisa pushed her off with an embarrassed groan and stumbled toward the fight, lifting a hand to draw on the flames and essences around her. She wrapped them around herself and punched them at the Guardian as a makeshift [Firebolt].
It harmlessly washed over its face, but the beast glared at her for a second her allies used to scramble away from the slime. They ducked between the pillars and the Guardians followed.
So did she.
“Where are you doing?” Bluth bothered her.
“To help.”
“No way, you’re—”
“Good with fire,” she interrupted her. “Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”
Rather than do something productive, Bluth kept on nagging her, “Yeah, I saw. What were you even trying to do?”
Kyle still used Jason as a shield, ducking out to bring down strikes down on either monster. Jason couldn’t do much more than poke them and wrench his blade back before it caught fire, but he seemed happy enough to act the guardian guessing by his heaving smile.
That should have been her.
“I wanted to banish it, but the Summoner must have created it as a copy. There was nothing to break, and I didn’t target the slime itself. Couldn’t. You interrupted me.”
And saved me from the Guardian’s sneak attack, she thought but wasn’t going to say that out loud.
“Ah. Sure.”
Lisa turned on her. “What are you doing here again? You were supposed to look after the loot.”
She pointed back. “Jean and Nick have that covered. I’m worried about you. You just got hit by its fire breath.”
Lisa walked up to her, a part of her mind lamenting that Bluth was taller than her like this. She couldn’t loom over her. “And so will you, if you don’t back off.”
“Do you even have any mana left?” she asked, ignoring the threat.
Lisa groaned. Forget the fire, she wanted to pull her own hair out in frustration. She could take both of those Guardians on her own with ease, why couldn’t she get that in her thick skull of hers?
What was even up with her?
What was even up with herself, letting all these small frustrations build like this? She was supposed to be enjoying herself … with her friends …
She turned back around. The sooner she ended this, the sooner she could regroup with her real teammates.
First things first, she made herself straighten up and took a deep breath. A torrent of wind essence washed through her lungs and body while at the same time, she made sure everything was in working order, that she wasn’t burning anywhere else or wounded without having noticed. She had to make sure to notice something like that first, before anyone else did.
Besides being dangerously low on mana, she was fine. She directed a small part of her mind to stealing the bits of mana that escaped Lea next to her and her Skills took over when she didn’t focus on it anymore.
Skills were useful for the lazy.
Second step, she turned her attention back to her summons, shifting to their magical frequency to count how many were alive. Four had died, but the two scouts seemed to have things under control.
Good enough, for now.
She would have to be quick about it, then. Once the Guardians fell, they could take full control over the camp and put this entire ordeal behind them.
She opened her eyes and strode, calling out with a smile, “Hey, ‘want me to take one of these off your hands?”
Kyle glanced back and nearly lost a foot. Jason tried to stab the Guardian’s eye out, but his sword went low and glanced off its scales.
“Oh,” he panted, “I don’t know. This seems fine to me, huh Gale?”
He made a strangled noise as he backed off over piles of crafting materials, but didn’t lose his smile.
“That’s the spirit.”
They had put the crafting station between themselves and the slime, and that served to slow it down as it apparently didn’t want to touch any of the wrong crystals.
Ha! It could only eat one type of essence. Inferior design.
But that same delay had frustrated it, and it drew itself up. Lisa cursed and sped up, calling out to the others to get behind her so she could block its next breath attack.
“No,” Jason said and reversed course, “not breath, its pulse!” He threw himself at the nearest pillar before the ring of blue flames built up and swept out.
Kyle hid behind the next pillar after his, and Lea behind the one after that. The flames hit the Guardian and flung rocks and burning crafting materials past them. Kobolds cried out in their hiding holes. Micah would be upset, she knew. Another reason to end this as soon as possible.
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She ducked back around and said, “You guys take on the Guardian, I’ll take on the slime?”
Kyle shook his head and fell in with her step. “My axe can hurt the slime—”
“So can I.”
“—How about you and Bluth take on the Guardian?”
“Someone decide!” Jason called as he fended both of them off for the moment. The slime picked its way through the debris toward him.
“Oh, no, I’m hoisting Bluth off on you—”
“Hey!” she said behind her.
“—I can fight the slime on my own and besides, I don’t want to ruin my staff on that thing’s scales.”
“So if we two can hurt it,” Kyle said and slowed down to step toward her, “why don’t we fight it together and the leave the other one to the others?”
He stopped walking and she needed to head past him, so she stopped, too. But the slime was bearing down on Jason, forcing the Salamander to run around its large mass if it wanted to join the attack, and it saw Kyle’s back and turned back around, choosing an easier target.
Kyle swayed closer, like he was about to fall on her, but stopped himself. “How about it?”
Lisa frowned. At the last moment, she gripped his arm and wrenched him out of the way—lightly—before slamming the heel of her boot down on the side of the Guardian’s face. Unlike Jason, she did have enough strength to win out, and the beast went tumbling over the debris toward Lea.
“You okay?” she asked Kyle. He hadn’t moved and looked vaguely surprised. “‘You need some stamina potion?”
He seemed to catch himself, because he wrenched himself free and straightened up with a huff and the hint of a smile. “Show-off.” He stormed off, chasing after the beast, without any problems standing.
What had that been about?
Either way, Lea had cut the Guardian and Jason had circled around to bring the slime back toward them. The three of them would have that well in hand.
She headed toward him and tapped him out, and he went to join Kyle, who dodged back from the Salamander’s snaps, step by step, drawing it back toward the center of the chamber.
Switching places.
Lea didn’t join them.
“Ugh.”
“Really, Chandler? Really?”
“Ugh. Go help them!”
The slime bore down on them, crowding them against the walls of the crafting station and its one exit. But that was a good thing. She wanted to draw it where an errant fire pulse couldn’t hurt her allies, but it was still so slow as it picked its way through the debris and she worried it might get frustrated again.
She kicked crystals and other junk out of the way, idly.
“You’re going to need help.”
“No, I’m not.”
“How are you even going to hurt it—”
Lisa spun on her, ignoring the slime for the moment, and joined it in bearing down on the other girl, “What are you even doing here?”
“Helping my teammate?”
“No, not that. The constant nagging, and comments, the incessant talking, it’s—”
She stopped. “What you do, remember? I’m just trying to do what you guys told me to. ‘This is how you communicate’?”
Ohh, so that’s why she was being so annoying. She was trying to copy the others to communicate … communicate what?
The forced look on her face, the way she stuck around, and how she insisted on helping. An apology.
“Oh.”
Lea tore her eyes away from the slime looming behind them, presumably, to glance at her and for a moment, the facade slipped and she looked nervous, like she had realized Lisa had caught on and worried what she would say.
Lisa guessed Lea wasn’t terribly used to apologizing, or maybe she was still awkward after her last group of friends had rejected her.
“It’s still a step up from lying to your friends, I guess,” she mumbled and turned to glance at the wall, but she wasn’t really speaking to her. She saw a familiar face looking down on her, a hint of blue in his eyes, and wondered if he could hear her. “But it still feels like a cop-out.”
Why not just say what you wanted to say? Because … you worried about how they might react, what they might think of you.
“Do you want me to put it into words, or what?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m not going to force you to do that, but I really don’t need your help.”
“Well, I don’t trust myself to run around that thing, so I guess you’re stuck with me for now. How about it? I watch your back and you do … whatever you were going to do?” She hefted her axe.
They were just about to step into the tunnel and Lisa stopped. “No. Look, I really appreciate the gesture,” she said with perfect honesty, “I do. But, I’m going to throw you now.”
“What—?”
Lisa grabbed the front of her armor, lifted her up, and flooded her body with a surge of magic to throw the girl up at the other exit, the one in the wall above them. Micah’s eyes went wide where he crouched there, waiting for the right moment to do something stupid to help, and he scrambled away to give her space, realized his mistake, and scrambled forward again to help drag her in when she hit the edge of the stone.
By the sound of things, it knocked the wind out of her lungs. Her legs kicked as she struggled to hang on.
The slime twisted to follow her flying through the air despite Lisa lurching from the throw right in front of it.
And she said, “Oh no, you don’t,” and slapped her influence down on it like a giant hand onto a pet to drag at its being. It was forced to look at her, and it must have seen a tiny human stuck in front of an exit with nowhere else to go despite it all, because it happily went after her instead.
“You two circle around and help the others!” Lisa scolded them before she stepped into the dark.
“But—” Micah started and then the slime cut him off, his voice distorting through its body and the stone.
Its blue glow lit up the darkness around her and heated the air. She was aware of the few Kobolds cowering in the distance. She knew they might try to stab her in the back but waited patiently for the slime to squeeze far enough in so it couldn’t easily turn back.
Until she was sure the others couldn’t see her anymore. Then she punched a fist into it.
The giant mass quivered and seemed confused for a moment, but instinctively tried to draw her in. Its heat threatened to boil her flesh but she wasn’t particularly interested in that.
Lisa was nearly out of mana so she couldn’t afford to create a ward, she didn’t have the time to weave one out of the essences around her, nor did she have the patience. She almost wanted to defeat the slime with ease, still, even if nobody was watching whom she could prove that to.
Or rather, she wanted to prove it to herself.
So she drew on life instead. It came from the eternal cycle and spiral in her chest, where her body strived to stay alive, breaking itself down and rebuilding, better and stronger. It was through that work that she distilled life essence, either directly through digestion, or by generating it similar to heat: through the writhing of all the discrete parts working together as one.
But she needed it. Her body depended on it, similar to how a body might require certain hormones to stay healthy and develop right.
So she only took a little. Her parents told her even that much would be unhealthy, but Lisa was beginning to suspect her parents were liars. She could feel it inside her almost like another heartbeat, pulsing and eager to grow. Why stockpile so much of it?
She’d heard a mother say something similar to her child a few weeks ago, and that had stuck with her.
If you eat your candy before dinner, all your teeth will fall out.
Of course, Lisa understood she only wanted what was best for her child, which was why she listened when her mom’s rich voice echoed in her ear as a gentle reminder, Gloves first.
She wasn’t stupid. She coated her hands and used that as a framework to layer more protections on. The life essence gloves made it easier.
The Kobolds chose that moment to strike. One of them ran up and tried to push her, but using life essence, she could almost feel its tiny heartbeat like a tingle in the back of her neck and spun, one hand still inside the confused slime.
She backhanded the tan Kobold and fused its mouth shut. There were four more at its back, two with spears, a red one with a spell in hand, and they scrambled back when they saw it turn toward them, clawing at its mouth in vain.
The slime was still trying to envelop her. She turned back, tore a chunk out of it, and put into her mouth to chew. It threatened to boil her from the inside, so she subdued what she could, and wove essences into the patterns of her mouth to protect them, but it was too little too late to save her taste buds.
It didn’t matter. She could taste with other things. And when she swallowed, she didn’t have to worry about her stomach, either. The slime’s could digest fire, but hers was much more eager.
She smiled and her chest filled with a warm glow. For the Kobolds’ benefit, she added, “I was right! You are tasty.”
The entire slime wouldn’t be nearly enough to make up for the life essence she had expended, but she didn’t care. Even if it was physically unhealthy, she had lied too often, to others and herself over the last three years down here. She needed to remind herself of who she was and what she could do.
More than that, she wanted to feel like herself again. And this wasn’t that, but it was a part of her that was pretty close.
So she smiled.
More than confused, the slime seemed fearful when it saw that smile and glanced behind it. But before it could run, she punched two more fists into its body and began to drag. It tried to squirm back, but its own body worked against it as inch by inch, it pulled at her as well.
It wouldn’t get away. The Kobolds, wise in their fear, had already fled. Now, her teammates only had to kill the weaker Guardian.
----------------------------------------
Jason slowed down a step and let the flames wash over his back to see Kyle behind the pillar before he joined him. He trusted in Ryan’s jacket and Micah’s potion to protect him, but he still had to crane his head around to check his clothes.
“You’re fine,” Kyle said.
Oh. Good? “Thanks,” he said and pressed against the stone, his sword ready in a clammy grip.
It would have been exciting to be a little on fire, knowing he was safe beneath three layers of protection, but … a river of flames roared past their heads. He supposed that was excitement enough.
When they cut off, he listened to the heavy steps and made a silent count to three before he swung around and drove his sword into the exposed underbelly of the beast. It had reared itself up to climb on the pillar and would have attacked from above, almost a little predictable. Salamanders loved heights and warmth places. He just had to look at Ryan to know that.
But even with the surprise advantage and its enchantment, his sword barely pushed through its hide. He couldn’t commit because he had to yank it back out again; had to stay light on his feet to avoid its teeth.
Thankfully, he had someone else to deliver the hurt. Kyle stepped around the other side of the pillar and reached up to bring his axe down on its leg, cutting into the flesh where limb attached to body.
The Guardian, already turned to Jason, was too slow to react, in too much sudden pain to finish what it started. It gasped with a guttural wheeze and threw its head up to turn the other way.
Jason slashed it again before he moved back and barely did anything, but every little bit counted.
This was what Micah and Ryan had to feel like, he imagined, fighting together on the same page with little to no communication. Just without any of the downsides of that lack, like their bottled emotions.
Not that he was complaining.
He had been worried because he’d seen hints of ugliness here and there, when Kyle and Ryan had fought, from the itching darts, everyone turning on Lea, and then Micah and … himself, he guessed, because of the jacket. But things had gone much better than he had expected.
He knew he was lucky to have found this team. There were lots of people at their school who loved adventure as much as he did, but very few were comfortable with people like him.
Like how you would only use black ink and certain styles or iconography when you got a tattoo, or how teens who acted out with alchemicals, parties, or weird music avoided those who went entirely off the rails, like [Pyromancers] who set buildings or entire stretches of forested floors on fire to level.
They were rebels, sure, but they weren’t the bad kind of rebels. Many people thought followers of the Shepherd were the bad kind of [Adventurers] for whatever reason.
… assholes.
But his teammates were focused on success to the degree that they didn’t care about that sort of thing, but they were also so focused, it came at the exclusion of everything else, like fun.
This was fun.
They lured the Salamander back to the center of the chamber, where scorch marks from Lisa’s battle had cut out sections of the ritual circle.
It had just used its breath attack, so they should be fine. Even with its increased size, they just had to keep moving so it couldn’t catch up. That was how they’d fought it last time and apparently, this was the same type of Guardian …?
Weird to wrap his head around, that it may have migrated all the way over here on the invitation of the Summoner.
He could understand it completely from the Summoner’s point of view, though. When it pushed off the pillar to ground itself, its muscles rolled, and it charged them in a terrifying onslaught that made his body jolt with electricity.
He made himself big against his natural instincts to draw it right. He could count its scales up close, see the way they flowed beneath its shroud of powdered flames, the cracks and wisps of fire that escaped them, and the glowing cuts they had made.
A shame, but it was a strong opponent. It reminded him of the blue Salamander they had fought in that magma chamber. Monsters like them stood out from the crowd, were almost individual, and he would never forget them, even if there was always a bigger fish in, even if he got to fight the titanic Salamander someday, though that could only happen in his dreams.
It was about respect. And that respect came in another form as an equally red axe that tore through its scales as Kyle stepped out behind him.
Strength had to be met with strength.
The Guardian turned on him and Kyle scrambled away. Jason followed his lead as he stabbed at its leg to slow it down; its other leg slowed it down already.
He knew they couldn’t keep this gambit up forever. It may not have been as smart as the Summoner but it still had basic pattern recognition.
Already, the next time Kyle ducked back around, its head immediately swiveled to snap at him instead, ignoring Jason entirely. Flames curled around its teeth like anger made manifest.
Jason stabbed a wound in its neck and twisted, hoping to get its attention, but Kyle saw the shift in behavior and changed directions from one step to the next, quickly enough to make him think he might have a Skill for it.
Among low-leveled Skills, something like [Lesser Agility] or [Quick Feet]? He wished the guy would share but it was fun to guess.
Still, the Salamander didn’t let up. It kept chasing him and, after a second, gained on him. It was faster than the last one had been.
Kyle noticed and twisted around with a curse. Jason broke into a sprint to get there in time.
In the blink of an eye, two arrows thunked into its body from opposite sides and went up in flames.
The beast stumbled, and Kyle got the break he needed to slip around. He still pulled through on his strike, cutting across its neck with a vengeance that reflected on his face.
Jason glanced around, heaving for breath. Who? Nick and Silas. They crouched near pillars on opposite sides of the chamber and had been picking off the remaining residents one-by-one, but had apparently found the time to help.
He waved in thanks and rushed to regroup, putting himself and Ryan’s coat between Kyle and the beast. In the corner of his eye, he could see Micah and Lea scaling down from a hole in the wall as well.
There was nothing the Salamander could do here, even with its increased size. It had tried to surprise Lisa, but that hadn’t worked and now it was trapped, steadily worn down by superior numbers.
Soon, it would be four to six against one. It was easy. Almost too easy, but working together like this was its own sort of reward.
The moment he reached Kyle, the guy turned to the archers and shouted, “Hey, fuck you!”
Jason nearly stumbled.
Nick just flipped him off and put a third arrow in the beast’s shoulder. It stopped for a step and shot a glare at him.
So did Kyle, for some reason. Did he not like him? No, he realized. He knew the guy a little by now. He just didn’t want to share the stage.
Kyle rushed forward before Jason had the chance to distract the beast. It swiveled much sooner than it had before.
He had already begun to run the moment he’d caught on. His sword wouldn’t cut it, and Kyle was the lighter of the two; lighter on his feet, too. He shoulder-tackled him out of the way.
The guy stumbled back, arms flailing, and Jason twisted, running with giant steps like there was a cat between his feet to get away from its toothy maw, obeying his irrational need to see what he was afraid of.
“What the hell, dude?” Kyle cursed.
Jason couldn’t answer. He was a little busy when one wrong move could cost him a leg.
Thankfully, another arrow sprouted in its side, dangerously close to where Kyle had been about to attack.
“Hey, stop it with arrows already!” he shouted, even though Jason was grateful. “Its mine— ours! We can handle this on our own.”
Why, though?
From one minute to the next, fighting with Lisa and the others to now, he was pissed because he wouldn’t get to fight something on his own?
At least, he hacked into its side and forced the Salamander off him. Jason backed off to catch his breath, really wishing he had that stamina potion still. Hopefully, Ryan had put it to good use.
Lea headed past the ring of pillars. Micah limped behind her and when he got close enough, he snapped a metal shot at the Guardian. It struck off its temple and wasn’t even enough to draw a wisp of light, but it still turned in his direction.
“Fuck you, too, Stranya!” Kyle shouted at him.
He paused with a look that said, What did I do? Lea slowed ahead of him, looking unsure.
The Salamander still watched her and took a few steps back. Another arrow thunked in its hind leg and it swiveled the other way. When Kyle shouted, the scout smiled as if he’d done it to get a rise out of him.
Jason went back in to help, but the guy circled away and the beast only followed for a second before it turned to Jason instead.
“Hey!” Kyle shouted and cut it to get its attention. He had to back off when it snapped at him.
“What are you doing?” Micah asked.
“Should I—” Lea started.
“No. Back off. It’s mine.” He was sounding more and more like he was Micah’s age, or younger, instead of his own.
He tried to get its attention, but every time someone spoke, the Salamander turned. Too many enemies. It was getting confused and with how many wounds it had, it would be getting desperate soon, too.
Jason took one wrong step, either too slow or fearful, and it charged him with flames drooling from its teeth.
“Hey, no!” Kyle shouted again. “It’s me you want to fight. Here!” He ran up and Jason ran away, but the Salamander slowed instead of chasing him and when it looked up from a distance, he realized his mistake.
“Kyle, no!” he tried to warn him. “Its breath attack—”
The guy brought his axe down and snarled, “[Power Strike]!” The axehead cut deep into its scales and Salamander spun, a cloud of flames spilling from its face. He jerked back on reflex, but had to wrench his axe back out first, and the Salamander didn’t try to snap at him anyway.
It just looked and breathed. The river of flames erupted from its mouth and engulfed his torso, its head tilting to follow his first steps.
Jason almost threw himself over the beast in his haste to get there, to put his jacket between them, but Kyle twisted with a primal roar of pain and threw himself the other way, further from him.
No!
No, why was that his instinct, to throw himself away from his teammates? He wanted to help.
He pushed into the fire and intense heat, dropped his blade, and managed to grab his arm to forcefully wrench the guy closer into a hug, twisting away, but his left arm still trailed out of the range of his jacket and—
Ugliness. It became something physical before his eyes Jason saw the river of fire wash over him, blacken his clothes, and boil his skin.
“Kyle! Kyle, c’mon, hang in there buddy,” Jason said as he frantically tried to drag him away in front of him. “Work with me here.” The flames still washed over them, but he tried to ignore the stinging heat that made him think his back sweat was boiling. He had to get him to safety.
But just as suddenly as the flames had started, they stopped. In the corner of his eye, Lea decapitated the Guardian and it burst into a wave of powdered flames that washed over them.
Kyle jerked at the touch. His ruined arm flopped closer and Jason almost dropped him. He scrambled to regain his grip and kicked himself for the reflex, but [Sure Grip] let him know his body would give up soon anyway. He carefully laid him toward the ground despite the guy’s protests.
Kyle was trying to drag himself back up. He was pale and feverish, trembling beneath a thick layer of sweat, but he was still trying to stand.
Jason kept him steady without touching any of the burns, or looking too closely at them, but he didn’t know what to do, aside from giving him blind assurances he wasn’t even listening to.
“Shut up,” the guy groaned and tried to twist the other way, out of his grip and back on his feet.
“Hey, no, no, stay,” Jason said. “Just, hold on. I’ve got—” He scrambled for his potion but remembered, he couldn’t even use it, could he? Burn wounds. How did he treat those? Something cold? No, that would make things worse.
What did he do, what did he do, what did he do?
“Kyle!” Micah shouted and he looked up to stare at the kid with hope. He was their healer. He would know what to do!
“Micah, you have to do something. Kyle—”
He groaned again. It almost sounded annoyed, but he knew it had to be a moan of pain.
When Micah got close enough to see for himself, though, he froze. Jason could track his line of sight to the missing skin and burnt flesh, but before he could say anything, maybe shout at him to get a move on, it was like the light in his eyes went out. He swept toward Kyle’s side in three steps without the limp or any other expression on his face.
He was like a statue. Not that his movements were rigid, nor fluid, they were just as they needed to be. More like ... like a machine.
“Hold him still,” he said with a dead voice, but Jason couldn’t care because his hands weren’t even shaking as he slipped his pack around. “We need to disinfect the wound, clean the wound, and—”
“Stop,” Kyle groaned and tried to move. Jason held him down, but he tried not to press him against the stone before his shoulder was hurt, too.
“[Chill].”
Micah waved a hand over him and Jason worried for a second before he felt the air himself. It wasn’t cold so much as cool. Because the spell was less effective on a person, or because he had adjusted it?
Kyle jerked at the sensation again and glanced to the side, where Micah was taking things out of his pack one by one.
“Damnit!” he cursed, then raised his voice into a visceral shout, “Let me go!”
“No, Micah said—”
“I don’t care, I need to go. I need—” He choked and coughed, and it quickly turned into a coughing fit.
Micah glanced at him without concern, laying things out, and Jason tried to let that reassure him. Water, soap, a jar of salve, his tools, the healing potion.
The healing potion. The one they’d found in the treasure chest. It was for burn wounds so why not just use that right away?
Jason almost reached for it on instinct, and Kyle chose that exact moment to break out of his fit and reach over to his ruined arm. But rather than try to stand or escape, he gripped a patch of burnt cloth and skin and tore.
He convulsed with a shout of pain. Jason scrambled to slam his arm back down while trying not to gag. He was still holding the patch of flesh.
“What the hell?” His voice sounded too high. “Why would you do that? What are you doing?”
Kyle glared at him past his nose from he arched against the stone and hissed, “‘Need to give it room to heal.”
“What?”
“Jason,” Micah said, and his voice sounded a little more alive now.
He looked. The kid had leaned back, hands on his knees where he sat next to their wounded comrade, and had stopped fiddling around with the soap. He wasn't helping.
Why?
He followed his blue eyes to the fresh wound where Kyle had ripped off his own skin and saw flesh knitting flesh and skin forming.
A column of fire-blue smoke, as tall and wide as the tunnel it came from, blasted into the dim chamber beyond the pillars when the slime died, and dissipated over the hoard toward them.
Nick and Jean were forced to move and covered their mouths, coughing. A pair of Kobolds chose that moment to duck into the smoke to try and steal something.
“Micah!” a familiar voice shouted as Ryan ran up behind them. “Micah, what— What the fuck?”
“Dammit, not him, too,” Kyle groaned and tried to twist around. More and more skin returned on his arm just in time to avoid scraping the raw flesh against stone, but it had trouble forming in places where his armor had melted into his skin or where dirt clung.
“Shit!" Ryan cursed with a frog in his throat. "What happened?! Oh, you’re— Should you already be healing him?”
“No,” Micah mumbled and his posture sagged, back to his normal self again, “No, I didn’t do anything.”
Kyle’s arm flailed past as he struggled to stand and Jason reached out to catch in it in a vice, [Sure Grip] whispering to him where he was too tired to do it on his own. He had seen a glimpse of something, beneath the scorched tatters of his worn glove.
Lea—he hadn’t even noticed her beside him—reached out to peel the glove back and revealed pale skin entwined with hair-thin, pinkish-red vines, almost like his palm had been inlaid with something metallic that gleamed. And in the center, where one of the creases of his palm should have been, a line thickened into a pure red glow that almost seemed to pulse faintly. With every pulse, flesh healed.
A tattoo.
He was a Northerner.
Someone cursed. Further away, someone else cursed with a cough before calling out to them.
Kyle cursed again and glared at them all. “Glove! One of you—” Micah moved and he snapped, “Not you. It has to fit me.”
Before Jason could get his own off, Ryan threw a muddy glove at him. Kyle scrambled to put it on just in time before Silas reached them.
“Shit, are you alright?”
“Hurts like a motherfucker,” Kyle said in almost casual tone, while Jason felt like part of him had just died of fright, “but Stranya here is healing me.” Had he gone through something like this before?
He nodded, breathing heavily, and said, “Good, good. We need some back-up. They are using the fog to try and ambush—”
“Show me,” Ryan interrupted with a steadier voice, but just as he did, a stream of hot air pushed into the chamber and threw all the smoke up toward the ceiling.
Micah— Not Micah. He was right here, acting like he was busy with his supplies. He stole glances at Kyle’s hand every now and then.
Lisa, then.
Silas heaved out an exhausted sigh and said, “Oh, good,” before he ran off.
Ryan hung back for one step and turned to look at them, at Kyle, with a hard look on his face. “We need to talk," he said. "Later. You need to explain.”
Kyle glared back up at him and said, “Fuck you. I don’t owe you anything.”