Lillian crouched among the trees with the others, aspirants who were sidering taking on the role of scout. They crowded over the map they had made so far. Stealth wasly her thing, but she’d gotteo sneaking around a little bit as she worked with the other scouts. While she probably wouldn’t end up taking the scouting role iure, it was good to have a strong uanding of what went into it, at least in her opinion. She ran her fingers over the digital map and tapped a spot where the path irees opened up, “Another camp over there I’m guessing,” She said thoughtfully as the nced up at her. She rubbed her and gnced up for a moment, feeling the air again. The mana was steady as always if a bit odd. She couldn’t put her finger on it though.

  “The instructors have been culling the dungeht?” One of the others asked.

  She gnced down at the young man across from her. He had a backpa his shoulder aallic gauhat shifted a little like liquid when he adjusted his crouch, “Yeah,” She said with a nod, “We should be good for a while.”

  The other scouts around her nodded and they got to their feet, slipping through the trees towards the spot she’d indicated. A good amount of the foliage in the dungeon was far too dense for passage but there were portions that were loose enough that they could creep through if they were careful. She had a suspi that these spots were actually areas that monsters would be lying in wait so she’d marked them as sud the others didn’t argue her points. She stepped over a dry patch of leaves and pointed down at it, the others following her example as they made their way through.

  A dense cloud of mana popped into her senses, just at the edge, and she slowed down a little. She narrowed her eyes and grabbed the hilt of the sword on her back, adjusting her posture to move sideways as they tried to reduce the amount of sound they were making. Faint light shohrough small openings in the opy over them, flickers that washed over their skin. She licked her lips and drew in a bit more. We haven’t seen any monsters since we started, the culling was just retly. She thought, Maybe this one hid? She narrowed her eyes and turo gesture towards the others to move deeper towards the derees and hang back a little.

  She hopped into the limbs and kicked off with a silent movement, nding on one limb after another before alighting on a tree just at the edge. She crouched and pressed herself against the trunk, peering through the leaves at the path outside. The grass, dirt, and soil stretched out about a doze before stopping at the trees at the other side of the route through the dungeons forest. Where is it? She thought, trating on the feeling she got from whatever it was. Then it stepped into view and she raised her hand to her mouth to hold back a sharp intake of breath.

  The creature looked vaguely humanoid, it even had a face, but that’s where the simirities ended. It was tall, nearly seve, and had arms that stretched down to the knees on its stretched, eerily thin legs. Its skin was somewhere between flesh and bark, stretched tightly against muscle and bos long neck was wide and misshapen, stretg out all the way to its shoulders as it tapered out. It had long hair made of leafy vihat hung down to its lower back..It’s face, though, was the eeriest part. It had dark slits where its eyes should be, green embers burning is nose seemed overly stiff and rigid and its mouth was shut in a perma frown. It turs head slightly and she caught sight of long tapered ears.

  Is… is that an elf? She thought, There’s no way.

  It turs head again and looked into the trees she was hiding in. She held her breath and forced her legs into stillness. The creature flexed its fingers before turning away, marg slowly back the way it had e in slow, steady steps.

  She let out a slow breath and hopped backwards, nding oree limb after another as she reversed course to where the others were waiting. She hopped down, “There’s a monster patrolling the path towards the open area,” She said quickly.

  One of the girls brightened and pulled out her tablet, “Details, please!” She said quickly, “Whatever we learn, the better.”

  “It’ll sound insane, but I’ll try,” Lily said with a nod and did her best to describe the thing she saw. The more she expihe more horrified the others started to look. A few of them exged gnces with one another before swallowing hard. When she was done she let out a breath and searched their faces. Worry, fear, ay. Her lip twitched, This is bad. She thought, That thing was terrifying, how are we supposed to scout when everyone’s so scared.

  She scratched the back of her head, Teacher would give them an earful for chiing out. She paused, What would Firestorm do? She could use her aura to ease their disfort. No, not now. They need somethio lean on. She exhaled, We’re heroes, right?

  “What we’re doing is dangerous,” She started, getting their attention. “We all khat going in,” She put her hands ba her hips and tilted her up a bit, crag a wide smile, “What? You guys scared of a couple monsters when there are supervilins out in the world?” She chuckled and rubbed her nose, “Sure, it’s easy for me to say, I’m strong,” She flexed her arm, “But so are you guys. We’re freakin’ powerhouses and what we’re doing is going to help keep our teams safe, yeah? Somethin’ to be proud of,” She looked each of them in the eyes, “Some monster isn’t gon in our way!”

  The others started to rex, a few of them smiling. One of the guys spped the other on the chest and said something in a low voice, the both of them ughed and the atmosphere eased even more. “We should take it slow,” One of the guys said, “Observe and record. If there’s only one and it looks like an easy target, take it out so we get a full map undisturbed.”

  The others nodded, “Right,” The girl with the tablet said, “Nothing we ’t handle! Let’s go!”

  A chorus of agreement followed and the procession through the trees resumed. Lily watched them go for a moment, smiling to herself. She reached up and put her hand on the hilt of her sword, And I’ve got your backs. Don’t you worry while I’m here.

  They crossed the short distan just a few minutes before arriving at the break irees where the path started. Lily checked again and this time didn’t see the creature. She o the others and they quickly checked to see if there were any traversable spots ireeline leading towards the open area but found nothing but a wall of wood. They settled on taking the path proper, following it betweerees all the way to the point where the path opened up into an enormous open space. They all stopped and stared, awestruck.

  “Woah,” Someone breathed.

  “Yeah,” Lily mumbled.

  They’d expected a campsite or some kind of small vilge, ihey stared upon an old ruin. A single massive ziggurat made up the ter of the space with dozens of small stone buildings surrounding it at various distahey were all made of a dark gray stone and covered in thick moss that hung at pces. The architecture was stra jutted out at odd angles in pces, making it look like the ers of the buildings were spiked. No, like they’re in the process of growing. Lily thought. Weird.

  She sed the area in front of her once, frowning a little, “I don’t se,” She mumbled, “Where did it go?” She turned her attention in a full circle, her awareness drifting backwards in a wave going in both dires. Her eyes shot open and she whirled around.

  Everything seemed to slow down for her, her heart beating a mile a minute, she kicked off the ground and unched herself at the girl with the tablet who was taking the rear. The girl barely had time to look up as Lily flew past her, bringing her sword down in a fierce arc, gold fmes following it in a trail. Just a few feet behihe misshapeure let out a pained gurgle, arg its back to look up at the sky before colpsing to the ground. She stood up straight a out a sharp breath. She turo look at the shocked faces of the others, especially the ghostly pale face of the tablet girl, What was her name? Nina, right, Nina.

  She slung her sword onto her shoulder and grinned, “Where were we?”