While Jasper and I headed north, I evaluated the terrain. The butte’s rock cap eroded to thin topsoil, only fertile enough to produce browning pines and emaciated deciduous trees. Even on this unfamiliar ground, exposed roots posed no problem to my mount. The path was as flat as the training pens where I’d first learned how to ride.

  We passed a considerable number of ruins. Cloud cover prevented the pink sun from making hard shadows, and a cool breeze drifted from the west. It made for a pleasant morning trot.

  The route felt less like leaving a town and more like moving into a district that had been abandoned for centuries. Outlines of ancient foundations showed Oxum to be a shadow of its former self, a settlement in the process of being reclaimed by nature.

  In a short while, we stood over a precipice overlooking a five-story drop to a plateau elevated above the aerocline.

  Scattered ruins pockmarked the lower tier. One predominant structure remained intact. Even from above, it dominated the space like a foreboding monument, defiant to atrophy itself.

  It had to be the dungeon.

  The architecture sprawled like a tumor, a fusion of styles and engineering from bygone eras. The newest masonry incorporated brutal fortifications, encasing more elegant designs in stony armor. Heavily barred or bricked-up windows perforated its shell.

  The complex overlooked the aerocline, which rose almost to its foundation, ever-threatening to choke the grounds with choke-inducing vapor. During the aerocline’s high season, fog likely swamped the lower tier.

  More delicate features like pillars, balustrades, and balconies humanized the architecture. Courtyards and cloisters aired out the layout, giving credence that civilized people once walked here.

  A central dome axled the outer structures emanating from it, looking like the monastery’s oldest building. The rotunda’s roof, a blackened maw of timber and masonry, gaped at the gray sky like a corpse—unburied, unmourned, and forgotten. It seemed impossible to imagine that this decrepit vestige once stood alone.

  Pulling out my Eagle Eyes, I searched for entrances and spotted none. The walls ringing the fortress stood intact, and the doors to the front entrance appeared barred and closed. A courtyard on the far side bordered the outer wall, whose twin towers hinted at a gatehouse.

  If I could infiltrate without using Hot Air, I could use the blessing to bypass the outer walls. I needed to conserve every daily cooldown. With my Eagle Eyes, I scanned the area for Toadkiller or Duchess. I couldn’t see their nameplates from this distance, but if either had glowing weapons or colorful clothes, they’d stand out from the gloomy scenery. Even though I felt I’d reached Oxum before them, one could never be sure about such things.

  I didn’t see any players, but a few zombies ambled about. Most wore heavy clothes in various states of unravel, similar to the garb worn by villagers. Others wore rags.

  More troubling than knowing the villagers had abandoned their people to this pit were the visible efforts that they’d made to care for them. Yellowed bandages covered the zombie’s extremities. The gauze wrapping their arms and legs dragged along the ground or hung like gossamer drapes.

  While charting the best approach to the secondary gatehouse, I spotted only a dozen zombies. But pine trees grew thick enough to form a canopy, and their foliage obscured parts of the ground.

  A platform beside me overlooked the lower tier. Upon it stood a crane using a wheel and pulley system that lowered a large basket to the grounds below. The heavy wooden timber of the platform looked sturdy and functional, but without another person to operate the device, jumping down and landing on a Slipstream seemed the only way down. As far as returning, whoever designed this place took care to smooth out the cliffs, preventing anyone below from climbing out. Luckily, the sheer dropdown meant I could escape using Hot Air—giving me another reason to reserve it.

  To be safe, I lowered the basket anyway, giving myself the option to climb out. Redundancy is, by definition, inefficient, but having a backup plan reduces the risk of uncertainty. The crane’s counterweight kept pulling the basket back up, but I locked it into position using a heavy branch.

  Bushes, ruins, and trees obscured the number of zombies that awaited below. Oxum had lost tens of thousands of citizens over the centuries, but I couldn’t believe that many monsters dwelled below. The bughouse was big, but not that big. Zombies ought to be weak—assuming I could handle them in small groups.

  The ones below looked thinner than the fungal varieties that Fabulosa and I had fought in the overgrown temple. No druid attended to these. If they were once citizens, their levels ought to be in the low single digits. I should be able to one-shot them with Gladius.

  No zombies lingered around the platform, so I let Jasper free. The upper level looked safe enough for him to graze, and I could resummon him if he wandered off.

  After buffing with Heavenly Favor, I dove off, landing neatly with a perfunctory Slipstream.

  No cries of aggro clamored in the distance at my intrusion. I expected only light resistance but waited for Slipstream to reset before scouting the area.

  Garden variety zombies were weak, and killing them wasn’t always worth the time or effort. Only their flocking behavior made them dangerous, and mobility was key. As long as I had Hot Air and could avoid being Grappled, I had a way out.

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  Darkstep advised me to use Mineral Communion to bypass Toadkiller’s traps. With a 28 rank in nature magic, I had over two hours of the spell to burn. As much as I’d like to peek into this building’s past, I wasn’t about to waste a minute on its exterior. Knowing me, I’d gawk at all its former glory, only to be beset by a zombie horde. I moved from one clump of trees to another, keeping close to the pines, which significantly blocked visibility.

  A zombie beneath a tree stood dormant until it spotted me. Darkstep’s letter claimed that Toadkiller and the players he’d grouped with had cleared the dungeon, so this one counted as a straggler. Bandages swathed the creature’s head, blinding it. A dried, dark stain spread across its nose region. Its covered features reminded me of Duchess, but its sudden aggro and quick speed gave little time to ponder its origin.

  Popping it with a Scorch didn’t put me in a state of combat—the engagement started and ended with a puff of flame. I listened, but no fellow zombies arrived to investigate. The speed at which that zombie moved would complicate encounters against large numbers. If they moved faster than I could kill them, I would undoubtedly get bitten.

  Bircht once asserted that a zombie bite could turn a player undead, but it didn’t crack their core. I assumed this meant we kept our identities and stayed in the contest. However, losing half my levels seemed too high a price to test his claim.

  I crept from grove to grove toward the monastery’s far side. No trees grew near the walls, so I avoided open areas.

  From a lower perspective, the sanctuary walls imposed a more threatening presence. Seeing it from this angle helped me understand why an ignorant mob had tried to burn down the bughouse. It looked like a prison more than a holy place.

  This wasn’t a high fantasy dungeon—it was the site of a tragic misunderstanding.

  Another zombie approached me on my way to the gatehouse, and I dispatched it with a swing of my sword.

  The rocky soil near the walls prevented Dig from letting me tunnel underneath, and the wall’s placement wasn’t accidental. Although the hard ground prevented easy entrance, the witness to castle-building made me respect the architect's selection of this site.

  The gatehouse looked as secure as Hawkhurst’s. Two towers jutted from the monastery wall, sandwiching a portcullis between them. Though its weathered exterior looked old, the reinforced wooden door looked thick.

  Slipstream showed no open cracks or open arrow slits. Unless I wanted to use my robe to activate it twice, I couldn’t go over or through the wall, tower, or door.

  Luckily, doors weren’t a problem for a person with my powers. I’d studied barbican blueprints enough to know that a door this heavy worked with counterweights and that the lever activating them would be nearby. By following the chains holding up the door, I traced the counterweight to the left tower.

  Using the Magnetize interface, I studied the room’s contents by reaching through the tower, the thickness of which required a committed focus. The walls’ builders had filled gravel and earth between two curtains of stone. The pressure bowed its surface outward, webbing the blocks and mortar with cracks. I pushed past this and studied the space beyond.

  The iron chains operating the portcullis counterweights were highly magnetic, so my Magnetize interface picked them up through the walls. By adjusting my depth of field, I isolated the lever holding the counterweight in place.

  Judging by the portcullis, the wood operating the mechanism should also be warped and fragile.

  The mechanism lay outside my range of Mineral Mutation, and Move Object was too weak to budge anything of this size.

  Releasing the counterweight could raise the door, but destroying the mechanism might lower it forever. Blind-firing Earthquake into the tower wasn’t the best course of action. It seemed overkill, and this dilapidated place could easily make the spell backfire.

  Besides, it would make too much noise.

  I pulled out my trident and jabbed it at the door, making a thud so dull I could barely hear it. Though it caused no visible damage, a progress bar appeared, showing 334/350 structure points. A second hit brought it to 333.

  I sighed with resignation and repeatedly pummeled it. Targeting the portcullis left the gatehouse intact, and my efforts produced no collateral damage beyond making a fine cloud of dust that a breeze gently swept away.

  When the portcullis reached 0/350, the door shattered, broke from its chains, fell to the ground, and flopped outward.

  Like gas escaping a pressurized chamber, hundreds of zombies exploded out of the interior courtyard and through the front gate. Some pushed others, but most moved on their own accord. The air droned with groans, growls, and wheezes.

  A river of zombies poured from the gatehouse, swamping me on all sides, causing the dreaded Grappled icon to appear in my peripheral vision.

  After pouring 200 mana into Mana Shield, I opened my interface to pause the game. The surge of bodies pressing against the protective bubble caused many of their neighbors to miss. The ones who’d hit did so for only a few points of damage—but multiplied by dozens of times, chunks of mana seeped from my reserves. Pouring another 100 mana into the Mana Shield bought me enough time to perform the only maneuver that could wrest me from this predicament—Whirl.

  The combat log rained in messages of defeated zombies, but I didn’t waste time looking. Unless I wanted to use my robe to reset Whirl’s cooldown, or spend my last power point to purchase and use Rally, I needed to flee.

  Rally gave an area heal that would clear a swath of undead as weak as these zombies, but Whirl had only killed about 50. At least a thousand remained, and Rally’s range wasn’t significant enough to reach all of them.

  The zombies had Grappled me quickly, so I couldn’t take a chance of letting them reach me again. I directed Gladius to the thinnest ring of undead and triggered a Compression Sphere. Unlike my spell, Gladius triggered it immediately, bowling over a path wide enough for me to slip through and run.

  I fled toward the groves, hoping to lose them in the evergreens, but these zombies were too fast and single-minded in their pursuit. I could Slipstream up a tree, but none looked strong enough to withstand a wave of attacking undead. Judging by their agile movements, it wouldn’t surprise me if the zombies could climb, which ruled out scrambling up a ruin.

  This wasn’t a lazy train of monsters that I could indefinitely lead around.

  In my effort to escape, I’d fled from one place where I’d be safe—atop the monastery‘s walls. I might have used Hot Air to raise myself there, but even that plan raised doubts. Hot Air levitated me one yard per second, but my pursuers sprinted at such a rate they’d reach my legs within that time.

  I stowed Gladius Cognitus into my inventory to increase my speed.

  Darkstep had been wrong about something—Toadkiller had missed a spot in his dungeon clear.