After only fifteen or twenty minutes of waiting, one of Victor’s coyotes alerted on something, and to Victor, it felt like the triumphant pride of success—it had found the object of their hunt. So, he charged through the jungle, Sora hot on his heels, and on the way, he stumbled into a clearing filled with weird, half-flower, half-leopard creatures.

They launched themselves at him with wild abandon, biting, clawing, and grasping with thorn-tipped vines. The dungeon animals were tenacious and numerous but fell quickly to Lifedrinker’s smoldering cleaves and Sora’s fiery arrows. Once they’d received some Energy for their quick victory, the two allies resumed their charge through the jungle.

Victor savored the heat and moisture. He loved how his feet seemed to know exactly where to step, how he slipped through vines, snagging thorns, and clinging undergrowth almost effortlessly. This was the environment of his ancestors. The sweltering sun, the damp air, and the rich green foliage all combined into something oddly familiar and comforting. When he passed between the boles of two large, moss-covered trees and saw a vine-shrouded stone opening in a cliff face, he almost felt disappointed; if his coyote was right, the end of the jungle level was just ahead.

***Tyra Vexmore has been rescued from certain death and removed from the dungeon. Seven entrants remain. Prepare for an Energy infusion.***

“Another!” Sora panted, leaning to rest her hands on her knees. She was drenched in sweat, and her silver-gray hair looked wild from the rough, fast passage through the jungle.

“You know that one?”

“Only by reputation. Very stealthy—a Shadow Caster.”

“Huh,” Victor nodded. “Yet someone spotted her.”

***Warin-dak has been rescued from certain death and removed from the dungeon. Six entrants remain. Prepare for an Energy infusion.***

“What the fu . . .” Victor trailed off, staring at the announcement. It sounded like a Shadeni name. “Or Ridonne,” he breathed softly, his mind racing with the implications. He shouldn’t be surprised, he supposed—the Ridonne had had access to Sojourn for nearly four centuries. Wouldn’t it make sense for some of them to be there? Even so, it was a wake-up call. Sojourn might be a big city, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t run into some enemies. The idea brought to mind Valla and the others, especially Edeya and Darren, who were so fragile in their current state.

It was Sora’s turn to ask, “You know him?”

“The name rings a bell. Have you seen him?”

“I’ve watched him perform in other spectacles—arena fights and sanctioned duels. He’s popular in the city. I’m surprised he was knocked out. I’m quite sure he was tier-nine before entering.”

“Can you describe him?”

“Huge. Well, to me. He’s about your size, with crimson flesh, spikes on his shoulders, elbows, and around his crown . . .”

“Golden eyes?”

“Um, some gold, perhaps, but mostly crimson. He’s brutish but wields terrible Energy beams. It’s some kind of specialized fire affinity, but not fire . . .” She trailed off, staring at the sky, searching her memory. “Something to do with an infernal plane.” She shrugged and looked back at Victor. “I’m sorry, I can’t remember.”

“It’s all right. More than I knew a minute ago.” Victor pointed to the stone tunnel opening. “My coyote is just in there. I think it’s the stairs.”

Sora jogged toward it. “Then let us climb before the Energy hits.” Victor nodded, following her. The tunnel was too low for him to enter without stooping, but after only a few yards, it opened up into a spiral shaft lined with steps, not much different from the last staircase they’d found. Victor’s coyote was sitting on his haunches by the steps and started whining with excitement when Victor and Sora stepped out of the tunnel. Victor patted his head, scratching around his ears.

“Good job, hermano.” He was about to send him home to the Spirit Plane, but that’s when orbs of golden Energy slammed into Sora and him, blinding him and sending his mind reeling through a kaleidoscopic series of images and colors, none of which made much sense to him. Part of him, still cognizant, hoped for another glimpse of the strange hirsute giants climbing the mountain, but it didn’t come. When the rush of Energy was over, he didn’t have any System messages, but he felt fully refreshed and restored. Sora was sitting on the steps, petting his coyote, which made Victor wonder why she’d recovered before he did. Hadn’t they both gotten the same share of Energy from the System’s award?

“That one really took you,” she remarked, looking up from his traitorous coyote. “I think your friend likes me.”

“Oh, he likes the attention.” Victor almost joked about the coyote being a fragment of his spirit and how they both loved that sort of thing. He cut himself off, though, deciding Sora and everyone listening to their conversation had learned enough about him. “Shall we go up?”

“Yes! Let’s see if the awards are better this time!” She hopped to her feet and, with a final glance over her shoulder, ran up the stairs. After her fourth step, she shimmered briefly and faded from Victor’s view.

“Okay, brother. Head on home. I’ll call you again soon.” Victor dismissed his companion and then followed Sora.

For the third time, after just a few steps, he walked into a small stone room with a chest at the center and a closed door opposite the stairs. The chest was similar to the last one, but the material was different; it looked almost like sandstone with inlaid copper glyphs. “Maybe a little bigger,” he muttered as he knelt before it, lifting the rough, delicate-seeming lid on its polished copper hinges. It swung wide, and, just as before, golden mist spewed forth. After waving it away, he saw two items: a thick leather belt and a piece of fruit that looked like an apple-sized blueberry.

Victor picked up the fruit. It had a bright green stem with a label attached to it by a short length of silken string. The flesh under the taut blue skin felt soft, spongy, and strangely warm in his palm as he turned it to regard the words on the thin slip of pale yellow paper. Before reading it, he inhaled the scent of the fruit, savoring the odors that reminded him of orange blossoms and honey as they tickled his nose. With a salivating mouth, he read, “Urd Berry of the Windswept Moon. Eat when nearing a difficult breakthrough.” Before he lost control and took a bite, he quickly slipped it into his storage pouch.

Victor lifted out the belt, already guessing it was part of the same set as his gauntlet and boots. When he trickled some Energy into it, his guess was confirmed:

***Belt of Sojourn – this is a set item. Collect five pieces of the set and bring them to the Sojourn City Stone to imbue them with curated set bonuses.***

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“Too easy,” he muttered, slipping his third set piece into his pouch. He stood and pulled Lifedrinker out of her harness, striding toward the door. He tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge, and Victor turned, annoyed, wondering if he’d missed something in the award room. He didn’t see anything; even the stairway was gone, just a stone wall where it once had been. The chest had crumbled to sand, and the individual grains burst into golden steam as he watched. The room was utterly empty.

Victor slowly walked around the wall, dragging his fingertips over the stone, but he found nothing out of the ordinary when he’d made a complete circuit. The delay was annoying; Victor was tired of the dungeon and wanted to end it. Besides Sora and himself, there were only four others still in action; he figured if he and the slight, elven woman hurried, they’d either get to the end or run into whoever was ahead of them, hopefully on the next level.

He stared at the door, contemplating hacking at it with Lifedrinker, but wondering if that would be stupid; it was part of the dungeon, controlled by the System. Would it really expect people to have to break through a door to leave an award room? He stood there for several long seconds, staring at it, working himself up to the action, but he heard a click just as he started to lift his axe.

“Finally,” he grumbled, pulling it open. He wanted to get out there, gather up Sora and haul ass for the next stairs. He figured he’d summon his coyotes again to find them. Of course, plans were one thing, but reality was another.

When he stepped out of the award room into an enormous, natural-looking cavern with gigantic, redwood-sized stalagmites and stalactites stretching from the floor and ceiling and a far wall so distant as to be shrouded in misty shadows, he found himself side by side with Sora, facing four other people. Victor sighed, looking at the threatening crew. He’d wanted to chase down whoever was ahead, but he didn’t think it would be four of them working together and a step ahead, waiting for him instead.

They didn’t look like slouches; each was primed with Energy, glaring at him in varying degrees of hostility, weapons ready. Still, they hadn’t immediately attacked, and, in fact, Victor had heard a choked-off utterance from the tall, armored woman at their center as though she’d been mid-conversation with Sora. Mid-conversation or mid-threat? As he examined them each, he smiled grimly and twisted his fists on Lifedrinker’s haft, getting ready to prime some spells in his pathways.

The man in the center was the biggest, but he didn’t feel the most dangerous. That honor went to the dark-robed woman on Victor’s left. He could feel the bite of her aura, thick with killing intent, cold with the chill of the grave, and slippery as it sought to glide around his own heavy aura. She held a staff that looked like a polished two-meter bone, and her black eyes glared at him from beneath a silken cowl.

The man beside her was close to Victor’s size. Seeing that, Victor’s mind went off on a tangent about how he was starting to realize that the bipedal people of at least this part of the universe came in roughly three categories when it came to size—human-sized, “giant-sized,” which was around ten feet, and titan-sized, which was more like fifteen to twenty. Of course, Victor was technically a titan, but he hadn’t grown into his full size, not unless he berserked. The weird side thought only took an instant as he regarded the giant in his fur-covered leather clothes. He wielded a club that reminded Victor of the giant axe he’d used to smash Darren’s tanks. It wasn’t a fine weapon—more like a petrified tree branch, both enormous and heavy-looking.

To the giant’s right was another woman. She was lithe but tall, something between Valla’s height and Victor’s—maybe eight feet. She wore fine, silvery mail, a winged, visored helmet, and held two hatchet-like axes. Finally, to her right was another magician-type. This man was cloaked in soft green robes, wielded a staff that looked like a living sapling, and wore a crown of fall leaves. He smiled rather pleasantly when Victor’s eyes passed over him.

“They can’t attack us,” Sora said.

“Tut, little elf,” the tall, hatchet-wielding woman said, pouting her full, red-stained lips beneath her silvery visor.

“Not until we step off this stone platform.” Sora tapped her foot, and Victor looked down, nodding. It made sense that the dungeon wouldn’t allow someone to camp the entrances to each level, at least not without giving the people coming up a chance to react.

“So? What is it? You pendejos want to fuck around?” Victor stepped toward the platform's edge—one more step, and he’d be off it.

“Gods, you are a cocky one, aren’t you?” again, the armored woman spoke. Victor ignored her—he could tell she wasn’t the strongest. His instinct was to focus on the giant man, but he knew better. He felt strong, but Victor knew he’d crumble if the two of them went toe to toe. He turned his gaze to the pale Death Caster and smiled.

“Well, bruja? What’s it gonna be?”

She looked at him, smiled her black-painted lips, revealing teeth that would make a vampire proud, and turned to Sora. “Well, elf? Did you make a decision?” Those words opened Victor’s rage-attuned Core, sending hot, red Energy into his pathways. So, that was what they’d been talking about when he’d abruptly appeared—they’d offered Sora a spot on their team.

Victor turned to his right, looking down into almost too-large, angular silver-blue eyes. “Well?” he repeated.

She frowned, scowled at the dark-cloaked woman, then shrugged. “It’s a competition, Victor. You’re strong, but Arona is in the ninth tier, Brontes has never lost a martial battle, and Valeska is sought as a master axe instructor by people from a dozen worlds.” She jerked her chin at the man in green with the living staff. “Never mind that they have Elandor here to work his nature magic.” She tentatively reached out her slender fingers to grasp his wrist. “Will you hold it against me?”

For some reason, Victor felt like what he said mattered to her. He had a feeling she might tie her fate to his if he asked her to. The thought brought a smile to his lips and lowered the heat of the rage in his pathways down to a simmer. He didn’t need this woman’s mercy. He didn’t need her to sacrifice for him. He took a long, slow breath, then nodded as though to confirm his words were true, saying, “To be honest, Sora, I’ll fight better knowing I’ve nobody to protect. I won’t promise you’ll survive if you join the four of them, but I won’t hold it against you if we all make it out of here. At least you had the guts to betray me to my face.”

“Dead gods, this one has a pair of balls,” the big man said, his voice like a mudslide, loud and rumbling but indistinct and poorly enunciated.

Victor stretched his neck, released a few staccato pops, and then looked over the four again. “How long is your deal with Sora going to last? If you beat me, she gets to work with you all the way to the end? You all like each other that much?”

“Do not concern yourself with our arrangements, big man,” the Death Caster, Arona, said. Her voice was cold and sharp, like her fangs and death-attuned Energy. “Come, little Fae, join us.” Victor watched as Sora, her gaze averted, refusing to meet his eyes again, walked off the platform to stand beside the green-clad man. As she stopped beside him, he reached out his left hand to gently squeeze her shoulder, offering her a commiserating smile.

Victor sighed and slowly turned in a circle. He was backed up to the cavern's wall, and his four—five now—enemies were arrayed in a loose semi-circle facing him. They were each about ten yards from the edge of the platform, giving them room to maneuver or react if he did something.

They stared at him, each full of Energy, their pathways charged, their weapons throwing off auras from cold frost on Valeska’s hatchets to something like toxic gas seeping out of Brontes’s club. The Nature Caster, Elandor, still wore that enigmatic smile, but Victor could feel the potent, verdant Energy pouring out of him. These were five high-level, dangerous people, and their skill sets were very diverse. He figured he might stand a decent chance of eliminating one of them with a burst attack, but he could be wrong. Any one of them could have some sort of skill that would let them avoid his attack or escape with their life. If he berserked, they might have a way to snare him up, confuse him, or lead him on a chase, forcing him to waste his Energy.

What he needed was a way to separate them or get out from under their focus. They couldn’t attack him while he was on the stone, and he had a feeling that protection would disappear if he initiated hostilities. He gazed over their heads at the forest of giant stalagmites. If he could get out there among those stony protrusions, he might be able to use them for cover. He might be able to pare down his enemies one by one or two by two.

He had to consider that they were expecting that. He had to consider that they’d heard rumors of his rage or even talked to Sora about his abilities before he’d interrupted. Had the damn dungeon kept him locked away so they could talk behind his back? Even if not, any of them might have witnessed one of his earlier fights, especially on the first level.

No, rage might not be the answer yet, though his Volcanic Fury was always a nice Hail Mary. How would they fare if he brought the cavern down? He must have chuckled or grinned at the thought because Arona hissed, “Something funny? Are you going to stand there all day? Take your medicine! If you’re afraid, just use your Lifesaver now and save us the trouble!”

Victor chuckled and gently twisted his hands on Lifedrinker’s haft, forming the pattern to summon his coyotes. He had to assume that his protection would fade as soon as he cast it, so he knew he had to be ready. Still, he wanted to catch them off guard, so he began pacing back and forth, carefully avoiding the platform's edge.

“Sora, I feel sorry for you a little bit, and I feel like I’d be bummed if you died, so let me just say, if you start to hear something that scares the living shit out of you, that literally starts to make your bowels turn to water, do me a favor, and use your Lifesaver. I don’t want to kill you.” Victor had heard plenty of accounts of what people in his own army had thought of the sounds he’d made during some of the battles they’d waged.

“I . . .” she started to say, but Victor cut her off, not done planting his seeds of doubt.

“Actually, that goes for all of you. I don’t know any of you enough to hate you yet. I can’t promise the System will be able to pull you away fast enough if I get my hooks into you. Honestly, if you all back down now, I might just walk past and finish the dungeon, and you can escape this whole thing without any losses. I won’t even make you use your Lifesavers. What do you say?” As he posed the question, Victor had three spell patterns ready to go, the most he’d ever prepared all at once. He was surprised by how easy it had been.

“I think you’re a fool who knows far too little about the world,” the hatchet-wielding woman said.

Arona lifted a hand, “Don’t feed his ego with an answer, Valeska . . .” Her words were cut short as harsh growls erupted behind her. Victor’s rage-attuned coyotes sprang out of red pools of Energy, leaping at his urgent instructions to attack his foes, one for each. Meanwhile, he cast Energy Charge using glory-attuned Energy, streaking in a shower of golden sparks at the man in green. He wasn’t sure why he’d chosen him as his first target, but something about him being attuned to nature made Victor think of grasping vines, thorn patches, and other things that might slow him. So, even before his coyote could leap at the man, Victor crashed into him.

The impact was tremendous, and his glory-attuned Energy rapidly depleted as it protected him from the damage. Elandor, too, used some sort of defensive spell; a brilliant green shell erupted around him, and the force of Victor’s impact washed over it, throwing up dust, shattering a nearby stalagmite, and sending Sora reeling. Victor didn’t wait to see or experience any of that. As soon as he impacted the man’s shield, he bunched his legs and fired off Titanic Leap, angling into the forest of enormous stalagmites. While he soared through the air, he cast his third prepared spell: Aspect of Terror.