Victor used the stairs, still visible in the twilight of the dungeon’s night cycle, as a guide, hurrying toward the center of the first level as quickly as he could. The ruined walls seemed to extend all the way to that distant point, and it felt almost like traversing a maze, though an easy one—he never felt lost, and when he came to a dead-end, he simply hopped the wall in the direction he wanted to travel. When he drew close enough to the central stairway to see the individual steps in the distance without any haze obscuring his view, he paused and summoned his coyotes.
“Okay, hermanos, spread out, have a look around, and let me know if you see any other pendejos lurking around.” As his coyotes, yipping and calling to each other, slipped away through the gaps in the stone wall, Victor continued making his way toward the dungeon's center.
He was always sort of aware of his coyotes. He couldn’t see what they saw but could tell if they found something or sensed danger. He was still a little surprised that he hadn’t encountered any denizens of the dungeon, concluding that the people who’d designed the place, or at least chosen options from the System, had intended for the first level to serve as a staging ground. He had to assume there would be more to encounter if he could climb higher.
When he’d covered another few hundred yards toward the center, and the rooms surrounded by high, crumbling walls grew ever smaller and closer together, one of his coyotes alerted on a presence. Victor mentally urged his other scouts to return and started stalking toward the excited pack member. He knew roughly what direction to go and could sense how far away he was, but he still had to find his way through the broken walls. He could climb overtop, of course, shortening his path by making it more direct, but that close to the center of the level, he was afraid others would see him as his bulky body rose above the ruins.
So, he prowled through the ruins, growing ever closer to his coyote as it, in turn, stalked the presence—Victor had the impression of more than one target. After a few minutes, his other coyotes came to him. They were empowered by inspiration-attuned Energy, and he constantly had to remind them to quit yipping. After a few minutes, he sent them home to the Spirit Plane; at least he felt he could be confident that the one who’d found some prey was being quiet as it hunted. “Next time,” he whispered to Lifedrinker, “remind me to use fear Energy; those boys are always better at sneaking.”
When he entered the ruined chamber where his coyote waited, he quietly thanked his little brother and sent him back home. Then, Victor crept up to the gap in the wall and strained his ears, hoping for a clue as to what the scouting canine had found. It wasn’t long before a feminine voice came to him, “I think we’re close. Just another few rooms, and we’ll be at the stair.”
“And likely our doom as one of the needy brutes is sure to be waiting to strike us down.” This voice was masculine, though very young, if Victor was guessing.
“Which young monster worries you? Arcus is out. Zandastre’va is out. I suppose we still have Arona to worry about.”
“Whoever beat Arcus is sure to be a dangerous one to encounter . . .”
“Who’s to say that wasn’t Arona?”
The man, or boy, ignored the question. “I saw Valeska Thornrend in the chamber. She’s known to have a cold heart . . .”
“Are we just going to list all the names?” The woman sounded exasperated, and Victor had a feeling she had more to say, but suddenly her tone changed, and she called out, “Who lurks yonder? We don’t seek a fight!”
Victor froze, wondering if he was the target of her words, figuring he probably was because what did he know about sneaking? The people in the dungeon were all high-tier, at least as far as he was concerned, and he honestly had no idea what sorts of skills and abilities such people might employ. There were probably some Classes that gave people heightened awareness.
He contemplated retreating, leaping over a few walls and putting some distance between the two others. They sounded like underdogs, though, and from what he’d overheard, they didn’t seem to be spoiling for a fight, even if he didn’t believe her direct declaration to that effect. He decided to try his luck; if they were afraid of Arcus, and Victor had beaten Arcus, it stood to reason that he shouldn’t cower from this encounter. He cleared his throat and said, “I’ll be willing to talk if you don’t try anything.”
Victor, on a sudden whim, cast Inspiration of the Quinametzin. As he swelled with positivity, the world looked brighter, and his problems seemed more distant. He stood tall, holding Lifedrinker on his shoulder with one hand, and stepped into the crumbled archway to look into the room where he’d heard the other two. They stood close together, one, a wispy, elfin woman with wavy gray hair, angular silver eyes, and a fierce expression, the other a short, boyish fellow with a bit too much pudge and soft, dewy eyes. The woman held a bow, an arrow nocked but not drawn back, and the boy held a thick, red wand made of smooth glass. Victor could see and feel the Energy built up in the wand, and he knew the kid was on the verge of unleashing a spell.
“Stop there!” the woman said in a sharp voice.
Victor smiled and leaned a shoulder against the wall, some ancient mortar crumbling with the pressure. “I’m not the kind of guy who attacks people for no reason.”
“Ah, but we all have reason in this place, no?” the kid said, his voice surprisingly firm.
Victor shrugged. “Well, it takes more than a bit of Energy to provoke me into a fight. Let’s put it that way.”
“I don’t know you, stranger,” the woman said, stepping to the side and separating herself from her companion. “Are you new to Sojourn?”
“I guess so. I’m Victor.”
The youth lifted his wand and, with a flourish, bowed elaborately. “I am Cam Lightly, and this fine lady is Sora Deval.”
“You’re a large fellow, and I can feel the aura you’re creating; it’s. . . lovely,” Sora said, gently lifting the arrow from her bow.
“Ah, you feel the inspiration? That means I don’t consider you an enemy.” Victor grinned further and then straightened up. “Can I come a little closer?”
“Something tells me you’d do so even if we said no.” Cam sounded a little petulant, but Victor could feel the Energy pull back from his wand as he began to relax. He stepped toward them, kicking some loose gravel to the side as he approached. Drawing near, he gestured to his pants, mostly tatters from mid-thigh down.
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“Sorry for my appearance. I got a little scorched earlier.” When he was just a few feet from the others and loomed over their much smaller frames, he gestured toward the stairway in the distance. “I heard you two talking as I approached. You think some of the others will be waiting to ambush people at the stairs?”
“I think so,” Cam nodded, peering up at Victor and stepping back.
“Who burned you?” Sora asked, ignoring Cam’s response.
“Oh, one of the other entrants. You guys didn’t see the meteor shower over that way?” Victor jerked his thumb in the general direction of his earlier battle.
“Arcus!” Cam said, eyes widening. “You battled Arcus?”
Victor just grinned and shrugged. “Anyway, I figure if we all approach the stairs together, there’s a better chance we might survive an ambush. How many do you think would do that? Lay a trap, I mean. Do you think the others get along well enough to help each other in that way?”
“Are you offering us your protection, good sir?” Sora lifted a sharp gray eyebrow, something like amusement in her tone.
“Um, not exactly, but I’d fight with you if we all got jumped. Look, I’m not trying to force the matter, and I’ve wasted enough time in this place, so I can go ahead alone if . . .”
“No, no!” Cam waved his wand frantically. “We’d love to accompany you with a gentleman’s agreement.”
“Gentlefolk,” Sora corrected.
“Sure, right, whatever. What say you, Victor? We’ll aid each other until such time that it’s a hindrance on one or all of us, and then we’ll part ways amicably.”
“Sounds just right.” Victor swapped Lifedrinker to his left hand, causing Cam and Sora to flinch, then reached out with his right hand, ready to shake on the deal. Cam looked at it for a heartbeat, apparently weighing the risk, then shot out his soft, pale hand, grabbing a portion of Victor’s palm. He smiled and backed away, and Victor held his hand out to Sora. She wore an odd expression, sort of puzzled and amused, then grabbed Victor’s much larger hand in thin fingers that felt like iron bars.
She might be small, Victor realized, but she was damn sturdy. For the second time, he reminded himself that he couldn’t judge people by appearances in this place—Cam might look like a pudgy kid, but, according to Ranish Dar, everyone in there was level seventy or higher. Victor could only guess what that soft, almost cherubic face might be hiding.
“We’re close,” Sora said, gesturing with her bow toward a gap in the wall. “A few more wall segments, and we’ll be there.”
“My mentor, Duvius Black, will tan my hide for suggesting this,” Cam said, wincing at some imagined punishment, “but I think I should go into the clearing first. If a trap there lies, surely they’ll spring it on me, thus revealing their fangs for you two to pluck.”
“And you?” Victor asked, frowning.
“I shall utilize my ability to slip free from harm.”
“He has a chance affinity,” Sora said as though it explained everything.
“Chance?” Victor tried to connect the dots. Was he talking about luck? Randomness? Both?
“Let’s just say I have a few abilities that, while on lengthy timers, make harming me a rather confounding enterprise.” He smiled and bowed again, his red glass wand flickering with faint sparkles. “Well? Is my plan suitable?”
Sora nodded firmly. “I have no arguments.”
“Sure.” Victor shrugged. If this guy wanted to spring the trap for them, he wouldn’t argue. As they walked, Victor felt several soft pulses of Energy emanating from Sora, and when he looked at her, trying to spot a clue as to what she was doing, she caught his eyes and hurriedly explained.
“I’m not doing anything untoward! I’m scrying the area nearby; it’s how I noticed you lurking earlier. For the record, it will also obscure our presence from others.”
“Lurking?” Victor chuckled. “I guess I was. Anyway, your ability isn’t perfect. I listened to you for a while before you noticed me.”
“Likely your passive resistance . . .” she muttered but cut her words short, holding a finger to her lips. She looked from Cam’s wide eyes to Victor’s puzzled, questioning glance and mouthed, “Two,” pointing past the next gap in the stone wall.
Victor nodded, pulling Lifedrinker off his shoulder and holding her ready. Cam, rather blithely, waved to the two of them and began to stroll for the opening, looking very much the part of a careless youth out for a stroll. Victor saw his red wand sparkle faintly and felt a surge of strange, almost pleasant Energy, and then the young-looking man practically skipped through the crumbled archway. When Sora darted forward, aiming for the side of the arch, Victor followed suit, taking up the other side, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever happened. Peering from the shadows, hoping Sora’s magic did the job of keeping them hidden, he watched as Cam entered an enormous, rubble-strewn clearing.
Piles of stone blocks, clearly once part of the ruins, were scattered all over the clearing, but beyond them, beyond a hundred yards of crab-grass-covered rocky soil, the pristine white marble spiral staircase rose into the sky. Cal veritably skipped into the clearing, whistling a tune that wouldn’t have sounded out of place at a Renaissance fair. He’d made it a quarter of the way into the clearing, edging to the left to skirt a high pile of rubble, when, with a peel of thunder that rattled the wall where Victor leaned, a bolt of magenta lightning ripped the sky and exploded into the little fellow.
Victor blinked several times, trying to get the brilliant imprint out of his vision. When he finally focused on the spot where Cam had been, he saw only scorched grass and blackened stone. He looked left to right, and then he saw him, standing a dozen yards away from where the lightning had struck, tilting his head in confusion. In a singsong voice, the little guy called out, “Why would someone blast the soil in such a way? What’d that poor patch of grass do to hurt anyone?”
Stones clattered in the distance, and Victor squinted to see a metallic glint as a humanoid figure moved around the side of a nearby pile of rubble, trying, he supposed, to get Cam back in their sights. Victor felt a surge of Energy and looked to see Sora drawing her bow, taking aim with a shimmering, mirror-polished arrow.
Victor wanted to jump into action, but he held steady, waiting. Sora had said two people were lurking in the clearing, and he wanted to get his eyes on the second one before he made a move. Sora’s bowstring thrummed, and he watched as the glittering arrow streaked toward the pile of rubble, not directly at the person Victor had glimpsed. Just before it looked like it would smash into a large, toppled block, it burst like a shattering mirror, and when the flashes of light settled, there were half a dozen copies of Sora standing on the pile of rubble. More impressive than the copies was that they all performed different actions.
Two drew their bows, aiming arrows at the shadow-obscured figure edging toward Cam. One of the mirror copies began picking up hunks of rubble, throwing them this way and that. Another began to howl strange words, summoning a storm of sparkling magic. Before he could continue staring, waiting to see what they’d do next, a new actor stepped onto the proverbial stage—fifty yards away, past where Cam currently stood, still shouting taunts in his sing-song voice, a hulking green man with a leathery shell not unlike a turtle’s, exploded out from behind a great toppled monolith. He bore a heavy-looking hammer in each hand and moved like he’d used a charge ability. The soil churned under his feet, a cloud of debris in his wake, and Victor predicted he’d crash into Cam in less than a second.
“That’s my cue,” he grunted, launching himself out of the archway, bumping Sora as he passed, knocking her sprawling. Victor didn’t notice his inadvertent rudeness; he was in the zone, focused on the big warrior, already visualizing how he’d deliver Lifedrinker’s first blow. He didn’t have eyes for it, but if he’d been watching, he’d have seen the shadowy attacker near the central pile of rubble blasting Sora’s doubles into oblivion, one after the other, with metallic missiles that crackled through the air like lightning-charged rail-gun rounds. As Victor ran, he cast Iron Berserk, and as his legs extended and his strength and speed increased, he turned the long-distance sprint into a short one.
Even so, the shelled-backed brute reached Cam first, his charge demolishing the ground between them. Victor watched, cringing, but, just as before with the lightning strike, Cam was suddenly elsewhere, standing halfway between the dazed turtle-man and the battle the other unknown assailant was waging against Sora’s doubles. Meanwhile, Victor closed the gap, and just as he was only four titan-sized strides away, he cast Energy Charge, fueling the ability with fear-attuned Energy. In a streak of smoky shadow, he blasted over the ground and collided with his opponent. The big, shelled warrior wasn’t a slouch—he saw Victor coming and somehow turned just in time, exposing his hard, leathery armor to his charge.
Victor didn’t care. He lowered his shoulder and swung Lifedrinker with abandon. He had no doubt she was up to the challenge; she bore a shard of his spirit—he regularly kept her imbued with inspiration-attuned Energy. He exploded into the turtle-man, and Lifedrinker, screaming her excitement and fury, buried herself halfway to the haft in the thick material. The concussive release of Energy as he collided with his target echoed through the ruins like thunder. Victor felt a tremendous torrent of fear-attuned Energy drain from his Core as his ability shielded him from harm.
Meanwhile, his target exploded away from him, blasted by the force of his impact. Victor made the split-second decision to release Lifedrinker as the guy was pulled away—she’d screamed her hunger at him, and he knew she’d struck a vein—he thought he’d let her do some draining while the turtle-man bounced and flopped over the stony ground.
He glanced at the other ambusher and saw him sprinting for the stairs, a rain of glittering arrows falling in his wake, exploding against the ground like mortars. A flicker in the corner of his vision alerted him to Cam casting a spell with his glass wand, and then, like an optical illusion, the youthful wizard flickered through the air until he’d closed the distance with the runner. He shouted something in his falsetto singsong, and then . . . the ambusher tripped, sliding through a patch of dirt and lying still just long enough for three of Sora’s arrows to strike direct hits.
Victor turned back to his foe and saw the big, leathery, hairless green man struggling to his feet. Lifedrinker stood proudly from his shell as the hammer-wielding warrior started walking toward him, limping slightly. Victor was easily five feet taller than the bulky man and wasn’t too worried about fighting him with his bare hands for a while. “That’s right, chica!” he growled, “Drink up that ugly sucker’s Energy.” He jogged toward him, slapping his chest. “Come on!”
The man really did look like a turtle up close. He had no hair on his face, a smooth, flat nose, and a mouth that looked almost like a beak. Still, he scowled and grunted, “Big, huh? I’ve killed bigger!” Then, to Victor’s shock and delight, he surged with a very familiar feeling Energy. His eyes began to blaze with red fury, and his muscles seemed to double in mass, bulging like they’d burst out of his skin. He lifted both his hammers and screamed, “Let’s fight!”