As the timer appeared, I tried to channel some shields to get us ready, but my flows didn’t seem to be responding. Was that just normal until the timer countdown finished? I wasn’t sure. I went to open my mouth and ask, and realized I couldn’t move either. So instead, I pulled up my soul chat to test that.

  I closed the chat window as the countdown dropped to single digits, now even more confused about Beta, but at least they seemed to be fully right to fight for me. I couldn’t ask for more at the moment. I hoped Gamma understood enough as well, but there wasn’t time to truly determine that either.

  One last thought hit me as the timer neared zero. What would the floor do to the cores if I died here? Were my possessions returned to the group? Were they considered my possessions? I knew they weren’t seen as squad members independently, but I didn’t know what that meant otherwise. Damn, I wished I had looked into that before now.

  “Zero,” the voice said. Magic flared to life all across the battlefield. In front of us, a wall of earth and stone rose out of the ground nearly instantaneously as several parts of it broke off, stepping out of it as some sort of golem creature. Each of them looked ready to fight. At the same moment, several instruments appeared hovering around Connie. Corey placed the shields around all of us as ordered. They hit Alpha last just as the mallet joined us for the upcoming fight.

  “We need that wall gone now!” Elicec yelled as several of the Earthen creatures charged. Connie’s instruments roared to life as a rock opera began to play, the force of the melody erupting out of Connie’s makeshift band crashing into the creatures. The majority of them crumpled back into dirt as the soundwave blasted them apart, continuing past them into the wall itself.

  The force was enough to rip massive chunks out of the wall, but not enough to completely tear through it. As I considered how I could potentially assault it, the ground below the wall shifted, and the footings seemed to sink into the ground, causing a wobble, then a complete collapse, sending dirt and dust everywhere. “What happened?” I yelled, feeling a wind kick up all around us. It was pushing the dust storm away and was likely either Elicec’s or Maud’s doing.

  “Clay orb!” Glorp yelled as his form vanished into the dust. I quickly sent a message to Alpha.

  The wall may have been gone, but this lack of visibility was a problem, and probably a secondary effect they had been counting on. Behind me, Connie’s tune changed as a charge of electricity ran through the air. My hair immediately stood up on end. A form had appeared in the dusk, a hulking humananoid elephant’s silhouette was being pelted by tiny charged particles as its trunk flailed, trying to fight them off.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Damn they’re behind us already!” Rabyn yelled, and I felt the mana flow from his shield reverse just as he cried. As I spun to see what was happening, I felt the same thing happen to several more shields. How had they gotten behind us so easily? Rabyn was already at work, dueling another of the humanoids. There were nine here as far as I could tell, and all the same species as the other. That meant we had five unaccounted for. Rabyn’s butcher knife made a rending sound as it split a sword in half.

  Elody leaped into the fray, covered in a silvery armor, wielding her sword and loudly reading. Three of her books were floating around her head, rotating quickly around her. I caught a glimpse of her top two eyes focused on the books before she vanished into our much taller opponents. As their blows resounded off my shields, I spun back to the creature in the dust and let off a series of fireballs fueled by the returning mana. The elephant-like person vanished back into the dust.

  I doubted they were gone from the fight, but I didn’t want to chase after them yet either. Glorp’s shield hadn’t been hit yet, so whatever he was up, he was safe for now, which meant he had the other side of the duststorm under control. On the other hand, as I spun back to the bigger fight, I caught Elody’s form hit the ground in the midst of her attackers. She had taken two of them with her, but we couldn’t afford to lose her from the fight already. I topped off the healing mana with soul mana and watched her leap back to her feet, her sword slashing straight through one of them.

  That was the good news; the bad news was that both Maud’s and the brother’s shields had just collapsed entirely. To make it even worse, I couldn’t spot them in the fight; had they already left the battle? I needed more eyes now. I quickly pulled up a chat window with that intent in mind.

  As the chat window closed, Beta and Gamma appeared around me and quickly spread out. Immediately, Corey began relaying information in the chat window about locations. I kept it pushed to the side of my brain. It was a good idea and I was glad they had thought of it. With that knowledge in place, I went to work trying to clear us some breathing room. Corey released several pinpoint-targeted gravity reversals, flinging half of the opponents skyward.

  The shield around Rabyn exploded. The sheer strength of whatever had done it sent a powerful backlash of mana across my sockets. Corey did their best to contain it, and while we had managed to push enough of it back out into fireballs and shields, one of them had noticed my focus had slipped. The stabbing pain was horrible, even worse was the shaft of the spear still sticking out from my stomach.

  It had gone straight through my shield. How the hell had they done that? I coughed up blood just as a voice sounded in my head. “You have been mortally wounded. Do you wish to exit the floor? Note, you only get this opportunity once.”

  ***

  The judge’s appearance may have surprised Mel for a second, but it also caused some of the things that had been rattling around in his mind to finally settle into place. Too much weird shit had been happening for all of this to be a giant coincidence. He floated in close and whispered to the judge. “So, just how much of this is yer doing?”

  “Let’s wait until everyone is insane,” the judge whispered back.

  Mel wasn’t big on the waiting, not with the man right there, but he had known him a very long time. He knew that Zcalria wasn’t a bad man, at least he thought he knew that. It was hard to really predict what anyone would do in the long term in the Spiral. But as far as judges go, he believed him to be decent. So once the squad vanished into the Arena and Mel managed to calm down his own fears for them, he whispered again. “Ya sent the tree, didn’t ya?”

  “Yes, I hoped that would be enough of a sign to make you realize what was going on here,” he answered.

  “It wasn’t, between that and Floor Master’s note, I only really put it all together right now, still don’t see why though. What do ya have ta gain by making sure the System gave Sanquar’s banishment universe back out as a prize?” Mel asked, looking intently at the man. He still wasn’t entirely sure on the last point, but it made the most sense. Someone with some pretty high access to the Spire had to have done it. Pryte could believe it had been bureaucratic screwups all he wanted, but Mel knew better. Someone was playing games again. And games were how good, innocent people died.

  “Things are happening Melhelm. There are some very dangerous alliances being played with at the highest levels of the factions. Things I am surprised would ever even be considered are now just coming to pass in whole. So I decided to introduce an older element of chaos back into the Spiral. I have no idea if it will be enough to change the course we are on, but he was literally the only possibility I could think of,” Zcalria replied.

  “Great, so that means ya had nothing ta do with the Jesters, don’t it?” Mel asked, already knowing the answer. Mel found the idea of whatever the big factions were doing being enough to scare Zclaria more terrifying than he would ever admit.

  “No, and they are only the beginning. But as you can’t do anything to help there besides make sure this faction grows, I’m not going to risk that information spreading. The Arena soul oaths have already started to fail, so I can’t even use something like that to protect what I’d tell you,” Zcalria said.

  “Damn,” Mel replied, that answered the question of why they hadn’t had a soul oath, but opened up so many more questions. He looked back at Pryte and spotted the man wink at him. Had he heard everything? Mel was surprised to realize he hoped so.

  The infection grows, slowly at first, but still it grows. That rot from the blackness so few dare venture, but sometimes those who do come back are changed. And in the, it grows. Eventually, that growth consumes them whole. Oh, they still exist, and only those closest to them will ever truly notice the difference. An odd smile or an ill-timed smile are some of the first clues. Whatever you do, though, never confront them.

  117 Scary Stories for Sleepovers by S. M. Grime

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