“Are they gonna be okay?” Tori asked, looking over her shoulder for the eighth time.

The fog had faded rapidly as we pushed into the ‘Birds’ wing; I figured the waterfalls were making most of it, and they didn’t have the power to churn up a mist that could cover the whole place. More and more sunbeams broke through the sparse canopy, too, and the path, which had been narrow, widened as it passed dozens of enclosures—all of which had large, conspicuous openings. It seemed the dungeon’s ‘Birds’ wing would be more open-air.

I didn’t have a good answer. “I’m sure they will be. We took out most of the biggest threats, so right now, they’re just helping us with the hundred percent goal."

“Right,” Tori said. She went cross-eyed, and I pulled up my quest menu, too.

Tier One Dungeon: The Twilight Menagerie

Objective: Kill the Beast Glatisant (1/1)

Objective: Kill the Eyes of Perfection (0/1)

Objective: Reach the Dungeon Exit (0/1)

Objective: Survive (0/1)

Completion: 47%

As I watched, the Completion number crept up to 48%. “See, they’re fighting, and they’re winning. Whatever we left them isn’t that much of a problem.”

“I just…”

“I know,” I said. “She’s okay. Your mom sounds like a smart lady. She wouldn’t go into a dungeon without being ready, and she had a plan she shared with you already, right? She wouldn’t get in over her head like this. Just stick with the plan, think about that full clear, and we’ll be okay. We’re almost halfway there, right?”

She nodded, but she didn’t say anything right away. She did look over her shoulder again, though. When she refocused, her face looked a lot more determined. “One hundred percent. Should be easy if that’s the strongest monster.”

Overhead, a thick flock of V-shaped birds rocketed past us, glinting as they weaved in and out of sunbeams. An almost electric scent hung in the air, growing in sharpness until it burned my nose. The birds banked left, then right. They whipped past; I caught a brief view of a nameplate as the flock zoomed by.

Sun Eater Swarm: Level Twenty-Five Swarm

Swarms possess the following features: immunity to mind-affecting spells, limited immunity to single-target spells, limited immunity to melee attacks, vulnerability to area-of-effect attacks.

Well, if that was the case, they’d be easy to deal with—but not for me. All I had for that was bombs—and I couldn’t activate them. “Tori, they’re all yours,” I said.

The next time the Sun Eaters zipped by, Tori cast Crush, and the swarm imploded. A few birds on the edges managed to escape, but most of them were pulped into a ball that hit the ground with a smacking sound a moment later. She stared at it, a little horrified.

The surviving Sun Eaters looped around, tightening the flock’s formation. They dove for the nearest sunbeam, then looped around in it, their beaks glowing brighter and brighter. The light dimmed around them as they brightened into a swarm of miniature suns.

They were draining the light!

I charged them, but before I could get there, the surviving birds emitted several rays of energy that ripped across my body like lasers. The burning heat seared my skin like the worst sunburn I’d ever had.

Tori also ran toward them, ducking from behind me as I tried to dodge. She used Shockwave. A rippling pulse of force rushed away from her, scattering the last of the swarming birds and knocking me off balance.

Instead of several dozen greenish orbs, a single yellow-orange one sat on the ground where the swarm had broken up. Tori looked at me, then at Calvin, who shrugged. Then she absorbed it, frowning. “Those weren’t worth anything!”

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Though the ‘Birds’ wing of the dungeon wasn’t as dark or foggy as the ‘Beasts’ wing had been, it felt a lot more like a zoo. Log-lined pits and netting cages lined the path everywhere we went; every net had at least half a dozen dead birds stuck in it. The smell wasn’t overwhelming, but it was definitely unpleasant.

We fought a few swarms and a three-headed Goosdra that spat burning goo and got Tori to her next level when it died. The percentage we’d cleared was creeping up into the sixties when we reached the end of the path.

Ahead of us was the biggest pit cage we’d seen.

It loomed almost like a canyon, half-covered by a torn, singed net. The opening led straight down ten feet to a fog-covered barrier, then an unknown distance down from there. Every log had dozens of scorch marks burned onto its smooth surface.

I held up a hand. “That’s a boss room. Are we ready?”

Tori nodded. The first boss had been twenty-five percent, and she’d been eager to get to this one—both to get the full clear and to make sure Brian’s team was alright. She strode toward the gap, then stopped. “Are you coming?”

Calvin stared at the fog ceiling. Then he shook his head. “I’ll camp out right here. When you’re done, come on back.”

Tori looked like she was about to throw a fit. Then she turned and dropped into the pit. The fog shimmered but stayed in place; I couldn’t see inside of it, even with her inside.

Calvin waved me on. “She wouldn’t understand. Get in there. I’ll be fine out here.”

I hesitated. “I don’t like splitting—“

“I said go. Whatever’s in there, she won’t beat it by herself, and we’ve killed half this wing already,” Calvin said. When I still didn’t move, he waved his hand again. “Get going!”

This wasn’t a good idea. Splitting up was asking for trouble; Calvin might have risen to Level Seventeen, but he couldn’t solo the swarms. He was right, though. Right now, Tori was in the most danger. I took a deep breath, then stepped off the brick path.

The Eyes of Perfection: Level Thirty Dungeon Boss

Current Difficulty: Challenging

Some birds are stunning. Others are deadly. The Eyes of Perfection is both. Fear its gaze. Worship its beauty. Feed its hunger.

Arena Battle - The Barrier seals behind you, making it impossible to leave.

I hit the springy, tall grass that filled the arena, rolling and pulling the Trip-Hammer out even as its leaves left tiny cuts on my hands. Tori was already somewhere in here, but I couldn’t see or hear her over the rustling, green-brown grass. Water flowed from somewhere, and the room was shockingly bright—almost like it was noon, not twilight. I crept forward, looking for the Eyes of Perfection.

Something moved in front of me. “Tori,” I hissed, “you there?”

If it was Tori, it didn’t respond.

I took a deep breath and plunged through the grass. Tori would have said something, so this had to be—

I broke free of the grass. The second I did, I stopped dead. A wall of blue-green eyes sprang up in front of me, towering almost to the net overhead. Behind it, through the gaps in the eyes, lay a pond with a small cascade—not enough to make fog, but enough to explain the water sound.

The eyes, though…they were beautiful. The blue pupils stood out in the sea of green as they waved back and forth in front of me…back and forth. The long eyelashes seemed to bat at me like my last ex’s eyes did when she’d been in one of her moods. I’d always kinda liked those long eyelashes—and I loved the ones in front of me. They looked brown-orange and were easily six inches long.

I didn’t bother to look for Tori anymore. Wherever she was, she’d be fine.

Everything would be fine.

The world went white. A thousand needles stabbed into me, and I shouted in surprise as much as in pain. Where was Tori? Was she seeing this, too? I had to move, but I couldn’t. I had to protect myself, but the eyes were all-seeing.

As quickly as it had started, it stopped. The arena went dark.

It was a peacock. Not eyes, but a normal-sized peacock with a giant tail that dragged in the dirt behind it. The thing shimmered in the near-pitch-black, the only source of light. Then, as I watched, it slowly started raising its tail. The room grew brighter; it was the light, I realized. All the eyes were the light. As they opened, they pushed back more and more of the darkness. That was important.

I grabbed my hammer and rushed toward the boss before it could finish recharging. Wherever Tori was, hopefully she was doing something useful.

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Tori hit the smooth, cold ground hard; it knocked the wind out of her, and she took a second to get her bearings and catch her breath.

Wherever she was, it wasn’t an animal pen—she’d gotten a behind-the-scenes tour of a gorilla pen the zoo was working on in sixth grade, and this reminded her of that. She was in a square room with a door on either side. The walls were featureless, except where a tool hung, or a bag of feed sat against them. The door to her right was barred and locked, while the one to her right was solid steel.

“Alright, Tori,” she told herself, “you’ve seen fights like this. The Giant from the Mountains, or the Vault Guard. They split the party, and one group has to do…something…to help fight the boss indirectly. You’re not in the boss arena, so you’re the ‘do something’ team. It’s time to do something.”

She opened the door. It led to a narrow steel catwalk high above the fight; the grass-covered room below was so dark that the boss was little more than a blob in the middle of the room. She couldn’t hear anything below her, and wherever Hal was, she doubted he could hear her, either. All around her, up against the pit’s log-covered walls, were mirrors—a dozen or more of them, all on pulleys connected to a twisted, woven knot of ropes just below the now-solid net overhead.

Tori had seen this before, in the vampire towers raid. She knew exactly what she had to do.

The metal grate clanged under her feet as the boss’s tail grew bigger, and the mirrors around the room shifted slightly—each lined up with a small cluster of what looked like eyes.

Below her, Hal charged the boss as the arena brightened.