Heath dropped to one knee, groaning through clenched teeth while Ulrich stood off to the side, watching without lifting a finger.

  "Not gonna do anything? Just stand there and watch me kill your associate?" I asked, curiosity piqued, watching in the corner of my eye as Heath stumbled away.

  Ulrich gulped. "I can't... Not while the statue dust lingers."

  "Oh, I see." I wafted my left hand through the air, dispersing the glitter.

  "Fatal Death!" Ulrich shouted as he dashed forward with his sword raised overhead, the edge of his blade glowing blue.

  Nice last words.

  I dodged a series of meandering swings, leaning and rocking on the balls of my feet. After several misses, he switched up his timing and added feints. On his eleventh swing, I dropped low and rolled, swooping my hand scythe out from underneath my cloak in one slick motion. The curved edge of my blade hooked the base of his gauntlets and as I completed my roll, the weapon sliced through armor, flesh, and bone.

  His sword rattled against the ground with both of his plate gauntlets still gripping the weapon tight. I skipped away, avoiding the blood spewing from his stubs. Ulrich spun out of control, spraying the front of Lexington, drenching his helmet in blood before he crashed onto a mossy stone.

  I chased down Heath, who had only made it two dozen yards deeper into the grove. His complexion was pale and clammy. He shook, bent over his wound, tying it off with a strip of medical twine. His eyes went wide with terror as he saw me leap through the brush.

  I swung the scythe once, going for a clean decapitation. Instead, I misjudged the blade's trajectory and ended up carving a channel through his neck. Blood gurgled from the wound, catching his scream before it could escape.

  "Well, I already feel a lot better about this dungeon, now." I walked past him and wiped the blood from my blade off on the moss, then slid the scythe into its sheath underneath my cloak.

  I returned to the starting point, displeased to find Lexington still frozen from the paralytic, and Nate hopelessly tending to Ulrich's mortal injury.

  Drool ran out of Lexington's mouth, but his eyes were open.

  "Hey, you good?" I asked, waving my hand in front of his face.

  His pupils shifted and I nodded.

  "Good. Now, before you go jumping to conclusions. Try to understand that this was necessary. You saw how eager they were for bloodshed. There was no other option," I said, solemnly bowing my head, as if I hadn't just had a blast taking my shiny new weapon out for a test drive. "I already learned the hard way. Take the shot when you get the chance. Besides, they're not even technically with Pearl Banner. Ask the flag carrier when you regain the use of your tongue."

  I looked down at Nate, whose hands were covered in Ulrich's blood, and stained bandages.

  "He's dead," the kid said—a sheen of sweat dripped from his brow, lips quivering.

  "Yeah, that's a common side effect associated with getting both of your hands lopped off."

  +300 XP

  +100 Karma

  While Nate grappled with our raid party's instant implosion. Viessa took a seat on a rock behind Lexington, turned her back on everyone and dug into one of the rations from our raid supplies.

  I've desensitized her...

  "Alert me if Lexington recovers." I breezed past him and took a seat on a mossy patch of dirt, and put my back against a large boulder. "I'm going to take a nap."

  The kid dropped the bloodied bandages from his hands. "S-s-sir, we're in a dungeon. I-I-I think it's unwise for you..."

  I dismissed him with the wave of my hand and an exaggerated yawn. With Ulrich and Heath out of the way, I saw no reason not to seize the unavoidable downtime and scout ahead.

  Void Seer.

  The silent incantation detached my sight from my body. It hovered upward, over my own head. I stared down at my body, eyes half-shut , head leaning back at an awkward angle against my traveler’s pack.

  "How can he sleep?!" Nate muttered, distraught in pure disbelief.

  I took to the canopy and maneuvered through interlaced shadows, deeper into the grove. A half mile north, the treeline thinned, revealing an ancient ceremonial limestone floor at the base of a hill beyond the forest. The floor sprawled out across the north, although vines and overgrown weeds dominated large swathes of stone.

  Four limestone structures stood on tiered platforms, their entrances sealed tight. A ramp stretched through the center, rising toward a pillar that was identical to the one we'd taken here from the dungeon's lower level.

  A towering monument depicted an ancient warrior. It stood beside the pillar. It held a rigid stance, shield and spear clenched in fists that almost seemed human. Below, the legs were carved in disturbingly lifelike detail, partially obscured by an armored skirt. A feathered helm rested above a devious skull, leering down upon the ramp with a twisted grin and bared fangs.

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  I sent my vision creeping forward, down the hill and across the eerie, abandoned stonework. Dead silence raised another red flag as I continued on, floating up the ramp. Meeting the statue head-on, I gazed into the skull warrior's hollow sockets.

  What are you?

  I finished scanning the ruins and did a quick pass across the rest of the floor, finding little past the ruins and nothing along the perimeter. Karma's gaze failed to ping any hostiles, although I was keeping my filter on a level four minimum.

  Dissatisfied with my findings thus far, I doubled back to the ruins toward the ceiling. As I rose into the fog, a broad shaft appeared in the ceiling above. It was perfectly aligned with the pillar beneath.

  I latched onto the darkness, and soared up through the shaft, quickly reaching the other side. This floor closely resembled the last, only it was fleshed out on an exponentially larger scale-an ancient city.

  Unlike the vacant floor beneath, it swarmed with hostiles. Karma's Gaze unleashed a relentless series of pings as a skeleton army marched through the plazas. Their levels ranged between four and six, but their sheer volume was overwhelming.

  My gaze bled through the shadows, taking the high ground on a raised courtyard. Within the heart of the city, a tower overlooked the ruined cityscape. Well, when compared to Anderhorn Spire, it wasn't much of a tower. Just a lone chamber perched atop a spindly central column. The entire structure was upheld by a spiraling stone staircase that wound upward, suspending the top chamber over the dungeon's abyss like a demented birdhouse.

  If I was in the business of selling properties to evil omnipotent entities, that'd be prime real estate.

  ***

  Target: Jag'thar

  Level: 13

  Karma: -12,575

  Additional Data: Abyssal Lich Lord.

  Additional information is unavailable.

  The Lich Lord sat on a throne made from the skulls and bones of various creatures. He sat hunched over, bony fingers clasped together where he rested his chin, gray flaps of tattered flesh hanging from his face. Two azure blue orbs of light glowed from within his eye sockets.

  He stared across the room at four oval mirages hovering in the air. Each oval displayed a live feed of one of the four parties. The first oval depicted Naila and Wedgmund leading a handful of Pearl Banner's forces through a dark corridor, torches lit. The second oval showed Griffin and Nassir bounding through a swamp, dispatching waves of Lesser Abyssal Demons with a slingshot and throwing knives.

  The third oval showcased Westcott and his men approaching the ancient stone floor that seemed identical to our chamber's layout. They stepped up onto the ceremonial limestone tile, only managing a few steps before their chamber rumbled. Skeleton archers emerged from the edges of the dark forest, raining arrows down on them, while a giant stone statue came to life. As screams filled the air, four stone doors raised, releasing waves of shrieking skeletons.

  The last mirage featured a bird's eye view of my party, me sleeping with Heath's body laying a few yards away. Viessa and Nate sat on the edge, staring at Lexington, who was still standing stiff.

  I observed the observers from the damp and dark corner of their chamber, not loving what I saw. Infiltrating the tower with my omniscient gaze had been simple enough considering how dark and dreary the lighting on this floor was.

  Two Abyssal Enforcers, both level 11, knelt in a line before Jag'thar. The one at the center served as his footrest, its spine bowed beneath his weight. Each enforcer was a massive skeletal brute, bone plated in black iron, eye sockets aglow with a dull mildew green hue.

  Between the skeletal army roaming the ruins outside and what I assumed to be the dungeon boss and his underlings, even with a coordinated attack, the odds skewed far from our favor. Making matters worse, Karma's Gaze displayed the concerning status of a robed woman who suddenly appeared in the center of the room.

  Target: Marimitheus

  Level: 12

  Karma: -19,590

  Additional Data: Boundless Void Advisor.

  Long white hair hung over sunken cheeks. Despite her formidable level, her body portrayed the opposite. Translucent flesh sagged from her thin arms, and her grimy black fingernails curved inward, matching her solid black eyes.

  "The human you were worried about killed two of his allies in a dispute. Now he's asleep." Jag'thar pointed at the screen with his bony digit.

  "I examined him when I activated the dungeon lock," Marimitheus said, voice dry and croaking. "He is indeed human."

  "Then your concern was unfounded as I thought." Jag'thar yawned. "When have humans ever posed a threat to the Abyssal?"

  "During the Golden Era. Also, I sense Dazmire has been defeated."

  "You sense or he just hasn't sent a Void Mail?"

  Marimitheus lowered her head. "He hasn't sent a Void Mail."

  "I have no doubts he is busy preparing his own defenses, late as usual." Jag'thar leaned back in his throne a bit too hard, splintering a skull which had its revenge by fraying his robe. "Wretched furniture! I should've spent the leftover points on some upholstery instead of another squad of skeleton archers. Damned mood lighting also cost a fortune. Can’t believe they assigned us to a dungeon with such piercing bright ceiling lights."

  "Dazmire's silence. The visit from the pale one. Now this odd human."

  "I thought you cleared him?"

  "He's a human absent of a mana signature. Advanced Soul Scry yielded no results. The longer I pried, the more a malicious uneasiness grew within my soul."

  Is this decrepit zombie witch saying I spooked her?

  "Like the pale one's aura?"

  "No, the evil beneath the pale one's gaze was a familiar, comforting evil. The human, though..." she croaked, voice sounding like nails on a chalkboard. "His aura echoed with the hum of the Corrupted Choir."

  Ouch.

  My heart suddenly seized up like someone had sunken their teeth into it. Void Seer’s connection blurred, until the strange feeling passed.

  "Clearly, you misheard," Jag'thar leaned into the armrest, accidentally snapping off a femur. "There's only one condition in which the choir plays."

  "Yes, when—"

  "Halt your tongue! The unmentionable shall remain unspoken of."

  "You young Abyssal are silly. It is well known by those in the Void and beyond the Pale Horizon that speaking of, thinking of, or referencing the forbidden one even indirectly or through up to two degrees of separation, feeds into its power." The witch grinned, revealing a jagged row of chipped teeth.

  "Which of the Fallen birthed an ability capable of wrecking the entire universe's balance?"

  "The Fallen who created it perished ages ago. Remember what the pale one said?"

  "Cyprus! Wake up!"

  No, not yet.

  My vision flickered as someone shook me by my shoulders. I fought back, concentrating on channeling Void Seer when the disassociated feeling of being shaken miles away interrupted the ability.

  I opened my eyes to Lexington's irritated mug, inches from my face.