“You’re sure it won’t notice us if I attack?”

  “It worked on the normal ones, didn’t it?” Kim said.

  “Yeah but this one is stronger, a lot by the looks of it.”

  “You don’t know that. And we’re up high, what can it possibly do?”

  “I don’t know, throw shit?”

  “You dodged point blank giant javelins but you’re worried about clumps of dirt?”

  “I’m riding cold right now, it’s different.”

  “How many things are you addicted to anyway?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Ashamed, eh? As much as I enjoy the view, we should get this over with.”

  “Fine… fuck it moved, the lock on is messy from this far.”

  “I just realized how well the ability suits you.”

  “It’s low-magic, which makes it a spell, not an ability, dumbass. Having trouble keeping up?”

  “Who cares? You mix terminology all the time.”

  “Well, I’m a hypocrite. You want to be like me?”

  “Fair point.”

  We floated a couple of hundred meters or so above the snakedrop-rock variant. Kim had his usual full-suite of subterfuge shit cloaking us. It worked wonders, allowing us to simply walk up to the earthy Errants and riddle them with holes. Our back-baskets, along with my carry-bag, rested some ways off. Overall, the stealth stuff really helped out, mitigating the need to constantly drop and then pick up our spoils. Even though everything went smoothly so far, this one seemed somewhat concerning, mostly because of the intimidation factor.

  It really leaned into the pile of intertwined rocks angle, consisting of an amalgam of the regular Errant, with a recursive twist. The core was a ton of them bundled up and its legs were ten-or-so gigantic braiding vines with the occasional boulder here and there. What made it odd were the flopping appendages, also collections similar to the main body but not as big, which then split off into smaller versions of the same. Those were a little different, dotted around with black-green rocks from which normal-sized snakedrop vines hung lazily. I wondered if it would split over and over in the usual way.

  “We should probably get Kwame for this,” Kim said, reading my mind.

  “Honestly? I’m not even sure I can hurt it without dumping everything I have in my sheath.” My quiver was at basecamp.

  “It is quite big, isn’t it?”

  “You wouldn’t happen to have a wide area attack or something? Usually I let Barry deal with the tiny ones.”

  “The slice, but it requires setup.”

  “Don’t think it’s going anywhere.”

  “Hmm. I have an idea. Let’s go as high as we can. You’ll need to keep me up during the preparations.”

  “Oh, I see. This ought to be good.”

  We made it pretty far up, yet some kind of resistance stopped us from rising indefinitely. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a massive view of the surroundings. Everything turned into an imperceptible haze at some point, although Kim claimed he could see the lake from up above. Originally we’d assumed it was just natural fine mist from living in a bowl as the effect was less pronounced when looking past Freeport from HQ, but there was obviously more to it than that. We slowly drifted down in a spiral, eventually leveling out the curve to land a fair distance away from the variant.

  “Hey Kim, we’re friendly right?”

  “I wouldn’t dream of hurting you.”

  “Just checking, these things are expensive. Well, here goes.”

  The lessened distance greatly increased the amount of viable shooting options and I selected a particularly beautiful series of arcs after the variant finished moving. It had a weird pattern of stopping for a while, then roaming for a bit only to cease again. This was going to cost me nearly two thousand energy, but I wanted to try it out.

  The first three swords flew out at a steep parabola, the next set followed a slightly flatter trajectory and the pattern continued four more times until the last trio soared along a nearly straight flight path. A glorious moment arrived, where all eighteen landed at exactly the same time, spearing the wandering rock in the center and the first layer of extremities. Plantlike tentacles rose like hairs standing on end, yet Kim’s layered obfuscations successfully kept us invisible.

  “How long is this going to take?” he said.

  “How am I supposed to know? It’s more art than science and it’s the first time I’m fighting… whatever this is.”

  Two smokes were how long it took until Kim mentioned the cracks were conjoining. Shortly after, the variant fell apart in a spectacular display, like a brick building coming undone at the seams, leaving behind an unholy amount of slightly unusual snakedrop-rocks. I didn’t get to examine them properly because Kim couldn’t resist outdoing my showmanship, counting down. “3… 2… 1…” A massive artillery barrage of crisscrossing thin barriers rained down, throwing up a shower of dirt and cleanly sliced pieces, along with a cloud of dust and plant particles. I whistled.

  Not much remained after - mostly one’s with the occasionally heavily damaged fifteen. Barry was going to be delighted since they all dropped bluely marbled growth stones. We certainly weren’t though, the collected pile towered over us. At least Elias made an exception to our training regimen and saved us a score of back and forth trips. It was the highlight of our week, after which our procession moved on, traveling uneventfully towards our next destination, the phaseworm plains.

  Cleo and Kwame dealt with one section while Carlos and Elias worked on the other half. That was the plan, although first Kim had to find the variant. He was capable of sensing it even when phased. According to him, it was the same one we’d seen during the eclipse battle but bigger, which prompted everyone to question my naming sense. Elias wanted us to deal with it as a group. He started divvying up roles but Jill and I interrupted him immediately.

  “She wants to solo it.”

  “I want to solo it,” Jill said in chorus, and then probably gave me a look - couldn’t tell because of the helmet but I saw her eyes move.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “Called it.”

  “How did you…?”

  I looked down at her armored feet where the constant shifting of weight had dug a good ways into the ground and pointed down. “I think this is the definition of rearing to go.”

  She glanced down and gave a nearly imperceptible ‘Huh’.

  Elias unleashed her, “Well, it is fine I suppose. Have fun.”

  Off she went, speeding off towards the location Kim had indicated and then coming to a sudden halt, waiting. The train-sized worm erupted from the ground, swallowing her whole. Bad call, buddy. We watched in silence as gashes and slices tore open from the inside, showing occasional glimpses of her dragonsteel halberhammeraxe. I wonder if Kristen killed it this way too?

  Jill apparently got fed up with being a snack, as she dashed out in an explosion of gore after making it halfway through, oddly enough the viscera didn’t waft away. Has to be, she was covered in crap too. The giant blue fuck tried to dive and disappear into the ground but face planted instead. Does it still count as soloing if Kim helps?

  Jill vaulted. She did it exactly right, pulling the axe blade along in her leap on both up and downward arcs, carving a massive open wound across the width of the beast and nearly cut it in half. Nice. She moved to the tail-end, jumped on top of it, slammed her weapon down and ran while dragging it along lengthwise, compensating for its thrashing all the while. Then she hopped the wide slash and kept going, carving a massive cross in the variant, ending at its head where she rammed her halberd in deep and then tore it out laterally, finally killing it.

  Even stoic Noah was impressed, “I hope to never make an enemy out of her, she’s a Valkyrie incarnate.”

  “Agreed,” Kwame said. Everyone else nodded along, including Elias.

  “Hey Eli, you like Shakespeare?”

  “Hell hath no fury?”

  “Yeah, best keep that in mind.”

  “I will.”

  Without much else to do, I had a crack at diligent mining for the four days we spent there. Once the crew finished up at the plains, it was time for the main event. We gathered a few hundred paces away and stared at the Forest of Death. Noah was scouting it out, assessing the threat level. In theory, we should be able to just stat-check the twice-fallen but the nature of bodysnatching complicated things.

  There appeared to be some kind of scaling factor involved. Presumably, most of the heavy infantry types had been people who died early and random animals – no clue why the System resurrected those since the interface definitely required intelligent sentience to navigate. Jack, Anne, Raj and Terrence were higher level and possibly variants. Moreover, they seemed to have gained one hell of a power boost to boot. Most of the folk who died during the eclipse didn’t exactly measure up to our current standards, but if the whole undead thing strengthened them enough, well, this might turn into a bit of a pickle.

  Ignoring the woods wasn’t an option either, our dead would be laid to rest no matter what. It was a matter of principle, a vindication of how far we had come. We had power now and that meant exercising it, by exorcising them.

  “He’s sure taking his sweet time.”

  “You think something went wrong?” Kwame asked.

  Carlos answered him, “I certainly hope not, if they caught him then we’re likely to fare worse.”

  “I doubt it. He gets carried away sometimes when fighting, like you Gabriel, but in a different way,” Cleo said.

  Kim perked up. “I sense him, he’s fine.”

  “Wait, you can tell how damaged someone is?”

  “No, but he’s running like the wind.”

  A minute later Noah made his report. “They’re mostly weak. I found multiple variants and killed them all,” he turned to me, “including Jared.” I nodded in gratitude. The two knew each other, crafters all. Jeb will be glad to hear this too.

  He continued, “They’re not organized, so easy pickings. There’s almost nothing to gain from fighting them however.”

  Elias admonished him, “The plan was to scout and avoid engagements.”

  “This was personal, we teamed up early on. It won’t happen again.”

  “Even if it is personal again?”

  “Don’t be such a hard-ass Eli, he didn’t risk anything,” I said.

  Elias harrumphed, “A lack of discipline may prove fatal in the wrong circumstances. Especially in our group, as we recognized during the review. Noah, you can reflect on that while clearing the zone. Be thorough.”

  “Understood.”

  The rest of us returned to camp while Noah rampaged between the trees. I suggested a day trip to the tree house but failed to raise any enthusiasm for it. Once Noah finished tidying up, we followed the curving mountainside all the way to the river valley, still unharassed. The whole journey took about ten days, including the wait for our speedster. How the hell did I survive my fevered wandering?

  Elias actually pulled me aside at one point, explaining himself. While punishing Noah definitely factored in, he also recognized the traumatic element involved in killing former comrades – even if such things didn’t bother him personally. Rather than gamble on catharsis, he chose damage control instead, preferring to manage the mental strain over finding out how many more fractures our psyches could bear. I couldn’t fault him for it. He was team lead for a reason and, admittedly, performed his duties well.

  We set up base camp at the foot of the looming mountain crevasse, the same path which led me away from the bunnycrab sphere, with semi-permanent structures to house us this time. Kicking rocks down the v-shaped incline which led to the river below grew boring quickly. I still preferred it over Elias’ control freaking. Our fearless leader apparently shared Mel’s NSA fetish and love for micromanagement, having acquainted himself with the nitty-gritty of our progression.

  He picked a stat for each of us to train while the nerds trudged their way over here, hauling their contraption along. Mine was magical speed, which meant enchanting. According to him, my use of the unrestrained auto-fill process had far too much potential for backfiring. Fair enough. Making a greatsword appealed at first but there was little point in extending its duration since the whole idea was to activate it mid-flight. Experimentation with a smaller prototype also showed it would have to be dropped from above because the sudden change in size ruined the trajectory and my low-magic failed to compensate for it. Still, I made one just to have the option, even if it was a bit wasteful to have all that magisteel go up in smoke after an hour.

  At first I asked Noah if he wanted help with his darts, but he also linked enchanting to magical speed and shared my assignment, hence no joy. No amount of bitching at Elias convinced him to change his mind on my focus and not for a lack of trying. Whatever muse governed my inspiration took a vacation too, leaving me directionless. Instead, Jeb shared his, who clearly worked overtime.

  “I need ideas man. Elias is getting antsy about my stalling and I’m afraid he’s going to make me run ultra-marathons or something,” I said, while sending one smoke ring through the other.

  “Why didn’t ya come to me in the first place? Enchantin’s a good one. Lemme show ya, here, put this on.”

  He handed me an overly wide metal arm guard with a series of slightly curved rectangular indentations which left it dangerously thin on most of my forearm. “Now ya just add this.” He grabbed a fitting metal plate and placed it into one of the slots. “Make sure ya trigger ‘em both at the same time or it’ll yank ya arm,” he said while securing it in place with a straps. He looped them through slits in the guard and finally connected them with a fascinating but complicated buckle, secured by a metal pin so tiny it bordered on cute.

  “All set, have a go… Not like that, hold it like ya would a shield, away from ya, unless ya like takin’ em on the chin. Both at once, like I told ya, pin’s enchanted too. Ya can link ‘em with a process if ya want but it works fine without.”

  I did as he instructed and several things happened at once. The straps snapped as the pin ejected downwards, meanwhile the early-gen smartphone sized plate enlarged into a door-sized piece of impromptu cover. Unbeknownst to me, he kicked it from the other size and sent me sprawling, but not flying like it normally would have. If I’d have expected the impact, then my feet probably wouldn’t have even left the ground.

  “As ya see, it helps with absorbin’ a blow, but the real idea’s to shield against breaths, explosions and the like. Whad’da’ya think?”

  “You mad bastard, this is some genius shit.”

  “The bracer’s workin’ and we’s still in the early stages, but I wanna expand to greaves, backplates, pauldrons, spikes, maybe scale mail. That kinda stuff. Ya wanna help out?”

  Cleo’s spiked set came to mind immediately, “Oh yeah, I owe you anyway.” Finally, my muse returned, “Although you could also do something for me on the side, could bring this to quality 10 in the meanwhile?” My enchanted greatsword clattered onto the enlarged metal plate we currently used as a standing board to keep it out of the way.

  “You don’t owe me nuthin’ an’ I like it, let’s get this show on the road then.”

  He waved away my concerns about production accuracy by pointing out a crate full of various pre-made molds for comparing the fit. Once again, class ruminations led to some minor regret. I couldn’t afford to use the ingenious mechanism, already tight on System gear allotments. None of us would for the foreseeable future, bound by our lack of time in the new world so far and a need for maximum performance. But it got Elias off my back.

  Thus, we happily drank and crafted the days away, until the nerds finally arrived with their brand new dragon killing toy in tow.