Chess took a final look at the beautiful landscape with the roar of the falls, a droning note below it all, making it feel all the more intimate yet powerful.

I'll miss this view she thought before taking a deep breath.

Giving Mikel and his friends a final smile she strode into the stone ring and was enveloped in green.

Chess stepped into silence and green-tinged darkness.

She glanced down and watched the last of the green mana particles from the teleport fade, plunging her into a complete void with only the spots from the flash of magic in her eyes to guide her way.

Huh, Lynn was wrong, no nausea from the teleport. Maybe my new perk? she thought as she strained to see or hear any sign of the others while holding her crossbow tight to her shoulder.

Fuck! Where are they? She spun around but there was no illumination for her low-light vision to work with.

“Hey,” she said in a quiet voice but received no reply. She even went so far as to wave an arm about feeling for them.

Then it hit her. Lynn's lecture on rift parity. How long did I stand wool-gathering after Lynn stepped through? The full 10 minutes? No, it couldn't have been more than one, she berated herself while doing another spin in place straining her eyes.

Why wouldn’t they wait? A kernel of anger sparked in her gut and she did her best to throttle it and her racing heart.

Taking a few deep breaths, she slid one foot forward, probing for a quiet place to put it in the loose gravel on the floor.

Two steps later she ran into the wall.

Putting the wall to her left she tried again. I need a bloody light source of my own. This is stupid, she thought.

She moved forward in this way for a few paces before her foot met only empty air and she threw herself back quickly before she toppled forward.

What the hell?

Slowly she slung her bow and got down on her hands and knees. She then felt around with her fingers until she found the edge before tracing it from the wall to her left all the way to the wall on the other side.

Huh, maybe they fell?

Chess tentatively reached forward and down trying to determine if it was a flight of stairs. A few inches in her hand met a strange resistance for a moment before it sank through some sort of chilly membrane.

She quickly retracted her limb and examined it. Nothing was missing or changed. Just cold.

Here goes nothing, she thought, after a few long seconds of hesitation.

She plunged her face through the chilly surface near the left wall and was assaulted by bright light, screaming voices, and a pair of windows in a second before she withdrew in shock, and the silent darkness returned, leaving the windows to fill her vision.

Congratulations!

For being a member of the first team (undersized) to survive this rank 3 rift in 346 Astrian years. One (rare) Class Perk granted.

Improved Lung Capacity: Your lungs can now hold up to 50% more volume and can better receive oxygen in low-oxygen areas.

Not important, she dismissed the windows with a quick thought before sticking her face through the membrane again.

She got an earful of yelling voices, a face full of blinding light, and a belly full of now-familiar cloying terror and anxiety.

The intense brightness quickly faded revealing a pair of bright torches lodged into piles of stones on either side of the tunnel bathing the scene in flickering yellow light. It took Chess a moment before her eyes adjusted and she could pick out the voices and the figures they belonged to.

Spread out below her was a scene out of a personal nightmare for Chess and it took all her self-control to take the time to get a handle on it before throwing herself into the fray or shooting her crossbow.

It was a near thing.

A man lay propped against one wall gurgling out his last breaths through a ragged hole in his neck. Another lay still, face down in the small stream at the tunnel's end. Rivulets of blood flowed off his body following the current in undulating lines. Chess watched the bloody water, mesmerized for a moment, before giving her head a shake and turning her attention to the woman speaking.

“...from there we don't know if there are others following. And get a collar on the young one. That armor worries me,” the tall well-built woman was demanding of an even larger man who stood directly below Chess. He held one of Chess’s crossbows aimed at her daughter who had curled into the fetal position at the man’s feet.

"She's no threat after that blow you gave her," the man argued but dragged Ashley back a few feet into the tunnel anyway; away from Chess’s perch.

Lynn was held stock still by some unseen force the tips of her toes scrabbling for purchase on the stone floor. Her fingers dug in around the suppression collar she wore in a clear attempt to stop it from choking her to death.

The woman worked systematically to strip Lynn of her gear with one hand, piling it nearby, while her other hand kept turning in tight circles at her side.

Ashley stayed in a tight ball only giving off faint moans.

Chess focused on the rest of the tunnel for a few moments trying to determine what had happened. Dent had been dismembered and now lay crumpled near the man bleeding into the stream. He was missing both his legs and an arm.

The Heliwr were nowhere to be seen. Although if she had to guess the deep scratches weeping blood from the woman's brow may have been their work. The trio of lines ran the full width of her face just below the lip of her pot helm.

"Where's the elf," the man demanded of Lynn turning to regard her.

"...bad…" Lynn answered in a gurgling gasp.

"What was that?" he asked and the woman's hand stopped stripping Lynn's leg armor off and went to a pouch on her belt.

Lynn's eyes widened and pulled herself higher with her fingertips barely managing a half-breath before repeating. "...ran into bad air." The words wheezed out between gasps before her burst of strength flagged and she sagged again. Only to hop on her toes and continue her scramble to not choke.

"Did…"

"She didn't lie," the woman said, cutting him off.

"Damn, Lord Graventy wanted her," the man said with a sigh before turning to the woman. “Let her down, will you? Before she chokes to death? He wanted them all alive.”

“She’s fine. She can still touch the ground." the woman dismissed him with a wave as she dug through one of the Heliwr fur bags Lynn had on her belt. "Ooh, what do we have here?"

The man sighed in obvious annoyance before turning to look back at Ashley. "Gwen won't like this," the man added in a whisper Chess barely caught.

"Jamal and Hector are dead," the woman snapped.

"If we weren't trying to capture them…" the man's sigh deepened. “Or in this blasted forest, to begin with,” he muttered softly under his breath but Chess’s keen ears still picked it up.

Dent's aura seemed to refine Chess's anger as she watched. The ember of anger in her belly was now a building inferno making her vision narrow.

They're both too close to Lynn and Ashley for me to do anything, she tried to reason with herself as she watched the pair strip her companions of their gear.

Chess's grip tightened on the lip of the hole and to her surprise, she managed to break a chunk off. Then with a spike of fear, she jerked her head back when it looked like the man was turning his head to look up.

Damnit! Chess cursed herself trying to get a hold on her racing heart. That was close.

She made herself count for sixty agonizing seconds before she risked sticking her head through the membrane again.

When Chess’s eyes adjusted again the man had turned his attention to Ashley.

"Hey, hey, can you kill your skeleton's aura?" The man prodded at Ashley with the toe of his boot prompting her to unfurl slightly and make her moan more loudly.

"Stop its aura or your friend loses her tail!" A new angry female voice snarled from further down the dark tunnel then continued in a commanding but more muffled voice. "Get in here you giraffe turds, it's only a single despair aura!"

“Why don’t we just destroy it?” the woman who’d finished looting Lynn asked.

“Never kill a Tamer’s bonded if you don’t have to,” the man with the crossbow answered.

“Why? It’s legless.”

“She’ll be worth more with it. Undead can be repaired,” the man shrugged.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

“Oh.”

"What about the cats?" a new man asked in a nervous voice from behind the others.

"Leave them, they'll be back for their master eventually. We can cage them then. If Flemming would get a collar on her they'll not be a worry. Now stop your whining and get in here and help." The woman in charge, Chess suspected she was Gwen, said.

“Aura?” the first man, Flemming, prodded Ashley again. “The collars are in Jamal’s pack,” he added to his boss.

"I don't know how!" Ashley's voice whined in response as Flemming, evidently, the deep-voiced large man, dug around in the pouches on his belt.

"Luminous, protect us from fools! You simply have to tell it to stop," another male voice added.

"Okay," Ashley squeaked. "Dent stop."

There was the sound of a flesh striking flesh then, as Gwen blurred forward to smack Ashley across the face. "No fool child! Tell it to deactivate its aura," Gwen commanded.

Ashley recoiled.

Chess saw white.

She surprised herself a few seconds later when she found she hadn't moved.

"Deactivate?" Ashley whimpered, clutching her face and her stomach at the same time now.

"Yes," the voice said as though speaking to someone slow in the head, and Chess's stomach tightened as she realized Ashley was buying time.

“Dent, deactivate your aura,” Ashley muttered, finally cutting it off.

“Thank you. The elf?” Gwen asked, turning to the others. She frowned at the struggling Lynn before settling on the other woman.

“Dead. Skunky here said she ran into bad air,” the woman answered, slapping Lynn’s behind, making her slump into the collar and start struggling harder to pull herself up onto her toes again.

“Fine,” Gwen let out an audible breath. “Let her down, let's get them secured and see if we can’t catch Grave and the boys before they head back without us.”

Fuck me, Chess thought aching to act but knowing it was futile.

Five on one is stupid odds, she tried to justify her inaction, but it still left her feeling hollow and craven as she watched them gather up Ashley and Lynn and finish stripping their gear from them before moving up the tunnel.

Ashley’s armor turned to glowing amber slag as it came off.

That they’d yet to collar Ashley was cold comfort as they disappeared into the gloom at the end of the tunnel. The man kept the crossbow consistently aimed at her daughter and she didn't dare try a shot as long as he did.

As soon as they'd disappeared from the torchlight, Chess dragged both her crossbow straps over her head and placed them next to her. Then she dug out two of her bramble seed packs and broke them open scattering them on both the corpses below.

Surely someone will come for the loot, she reasoned studying the dead men and the piles from Ashley and Lynn. She noted one of Lynn's crossbows was still loaded.

It didn't take long.

Chess’s heartbeat quickened when she heard the footsteps and jingling armor of returning people.

They were both men, neither of which she'd gotten a clear look at before. She wasn't impressed by their filthy-looking forms. The woman and the other man clearly cared more for personal hygiene.

What am I thinking? Chess wondered, picked up one of her crossbows, and slowly sunk the end through the membrane. Not wanting the motion to draw attention.

Please don't look up, she sent a prayer up to Freya.

As quiet as possible, Chess told herself and swallowed around a suddenly dry mouth as she watched the men bend to lift the dead man from the water.

One presented a clear side view.

Chess closed her eyes for a blink, opened them, focused, and squeezed the trigger.

The shot was perfect. Entering the side of the man's torso as he lifted his arm. Sneaking into his armpit, snapping links from his chain shirt before sinking in, obliterating both lungs and heart with its passing.

It sounded like a hand slapping water.

The man simply tilted sideways into the stream without a sound escaping his mouth.

Chess embraced her rage and let the crossbow drop, its lightened weight letting it drift like a leaf towards the floor, as she raised the second and with a strange calm shot the second man in the side of his neck an inch below the rim of his helm when he turned to see what his partner was doing. The bolt went right through and stuck into the body of their dead companion.

He fell twitching on the body of his friend and blood sprayed the tunnel walls like a sprinkler for a handful of seconds before slowing.

Chess didn't know if her heart could beat any faster without exploding.

Less than five feet. Hard to miss, Chess shook her head at the shots while letting the second bow drop before she turned around and lowered herself to hang from the ledge before letting go. She bent her knees to absorb the fall the best she could and stayed crouched to hear if she'd been heard.

No, I need to make noise. If it's quiet they'll be suspicious, Chess shook her head and straightened.

She bent and picked up Lynn's loaded crossbow making sure to shuffle her feet and make some noise.

Now what Chesty? Indecision plagued her as she waffled unsure how to finish what she'd started.

She sighed. There's no going back now.

Shock and awe? I know these tunnels.

Yeah, shock and awe. It's my only chance. If they meet up with their friends… Chess didn't want to finish that thought.

Okay, the women first, they're both mages, Chess reasoned and jumped on the spot a few times.

"Freya please see us through this," she muttered a heartfelt prayer.

Then Chess dropped the crossbow and drew her hammer. I can't risk hitting the others.

Chess got down into a sprinter's starting position. Then with a vicious grin, she cranked the outputs on thump and amplify, then said, "Sprig, playback," before beginning the cast for her fascinate/charm spell. I need seconds.

She took off at a dead sprint, titan steel hammer raised overhead, as Sprig started playing, The Red from Chevelle, on her back.

Chess's lips peeled back from her teeth as she thundered down the short tunnel and burst into the main cavern. Her footsteps sounded like the advance of a raging giant.

She got her wish.

Everyone was in the process of turning towards her tunnel when she shot out screaming. "They say freak when you're singled out."

Chess heard the original clear in her head as she moved, screaming the lyrics.

The as-yet-unnamed woman stood steps from the entrance and Chess swung her hammer down with as much force as she could bring to bear on the woman.

The blow fell awkwardly with the head missing her target entirely with the haft hitting her shoulder instead. Still, the blow put the woman into an awkward sideways fall accompanied by the sound of green branches snapping.

Chess barely controlled the awkward rebound, bringing her hammer close to her chest as she ran into her falling foe with a shoulder, speeding her descent, and continued her mad rush straight for the bitch called Gwen.

A gut-wrenching scream sounded behind her a pair of steps later. The air vibrated with its intensity.

"The red..."

A crossbow bolt slammed into Chess's breastplate at an oblique angle digging a furrow across her chest before shattering into splinters against her inner arm, showering her with bits of wood.

"Well, it filters through…"

She didn't slow.

With her hammer leading Chess tackled Gwen, shoving the spike at the woman's head. The woman's sword caught between Chess's legs and the pair pitched backward with Chess's momentum.

The blow ricocheted off the woman's helm but Chess still bore her down and managed to slam the haft of her hammer into the woman's gut before she could respond.

Chess scrambled backward to regain her feet.

The woman, in control minutes before, flailed at the ground with her feet in an attempt to skirt back while digging for something at her belt as Chess raised her hammer.

"No one," Chess spat, song forgotten, and raised her hammer in two hands before bringing it down in a body-bending blow to the top of the woman's helmeted head. Flattening the top of the steel helm and making the woman's eyes bug out.

There was a purple glow around the woman's lower body for a split second but it did nothing to impede the blow or its result.

"Gets." Chess brought the hammer down again, turning the cratered cranium into small splinters of bone in its steel casing.

An ear-splitting scream erupted from her left. She ignored it and the sharp acrid smell of burnt hair and flesh that accompanied it.

"To hit." Again, she brought down the hammer, mushing the head further until it looked like white-speckled ground meat.

Ashley scrambled near Chess's feet, pawing at the woman's hand to pry the fingers loose.

"My daughter," Chess swung again.

Ashley backed away while being suffused with purple light.

The wail cut off abruptly with a wet gurgling sound.

The cavern filled with a flash of amber light with another fast on its heels.

"Like that," she spat on the mess with vehemence before looking up, finally noticing someone calling her name.

"Chess. Chess! Chess!!" Lynn was calling in a crackling voice.

"What!"

"This isn't over! Get the crossbow!" Lynn demanded; her raspy voice held the edge of command.

At her feet, Flemming was shaking his head and trying to rise while Lynn rained two-handed blows on his helmeted head with an iron pot of all things. Each blow launched bits of food in an arch from the implement to splatter over the kin-woman and her target.

"Fine," Chess spat and bent to do as told but Ashley had beat her to it and was already bending her back to draw it with her arms.

The man's arms gave out, and he crumpled sideways under Lynn's onslaught as Chess turned away.

Sprig, inexplicably, was playing the second recorded song. Wicked Game and Chess smiled, dropping her hammer to clatter on the stone floor.

Fuck it, she smiled then focused on the vines laying under their foes and started singing, practically snarling the words, as she trussed the remaining two up and bound them tightly with the vegetation. Making sure to gag and blindfold them both. The woman's howling dropped to a muffled growl when vines filled her mouth.

Let Lynn kill them if they don't die of their wounds, she decided and turned away letting the remainder of the song play out from her back.

When she was sure they weren't going anywhere, a cold shiver passed through her and her legs felt like jelly.

"Fuck!" Chess plopped down on her ass as the adrenaline left, stealing her rage and leaving her with trembling limbs.

When Chess got her bearings, Ashley stood at the base of the vine ladder staring up into the gathering darkness outside with a frown.

"They'll be back soon," Lynn reassured Ashley, laying a hand on her shoulder before she moved to join Chess. "You used the call, right?"

Ashley nodded.

"They won't have gone far. They were a better distraction than I hoped."

Ashley smiled.

Chess studied Ashley for a moment noting the swelling of her right cheek and the way she seemed to curl slightly to her left but left it for now since there was nothing they could do for her for the moment.

"Fuck," Chess repeated quietly when she got a good look at Lynn's neck and winced in shocked sympathy. The fur in and around her thin collar had been fried off, leaving the odd charred patches behind in a thumb-width strip of glistening, red, cracked, and oozing skin and half-healed burns.

"Eloquent as ever," Lynn's voice sounded like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together. "And that was the stupidest thing I've seen you do yet. Where is your shield?" Lynn scolded her, but Chess saw the slight smile on her lips when she sat down beside her.

Chess cringed and felt a genuine blush suffuse her face as the remaining rage pooled away and embarrassment replaced it. It had been incredibly reckless and stupid.

Instead of defending her choices or making excuses, she looked up at the rift in the ceiling above.

"Aren't you worried that someone might've heard that?" Chess asked.

"No," Lynn shook her head. "Even if they did, they can't come back in for almost a day. Dungeon, remember."

"Right," Chess said and flopped back onto the vines she'd grown what felt like an entire lifetime ago.

"It was a different way to use your charm... Their hesitation did them in," Lynn allowed taking a long pause to cough in between.

"You gonna be alright?" Chess asked her.

"Yeah, Ashley got to it quickly. I think I damaged something inside when I screamed though," Lynn admitted speaking carefully.

"Fuck, that was worse than we thought," Chess said studying Lynn's neck closer.

"Yeah, but Freya saw us through," Lynn muttered her reply. Chess watched her friend visibly restrain herself from touching her neck.

"Yeah...Wait, what?" Chess met her friend's eyes.

"I got a point in the weapon skill: pot," Lynn answered with a rueful smile.