Rick feeling the tingling urge in his brain that indicated what the host body was trying to tell him to do. Somewhere down below was the source of the leyline energy that flowed through these conduits. They needed to get down there and sabotage it. He could almost picture the place and the sequence of necessary tasks, but he pushed the images away. They would see it soon enough.

  The team started down the spiraling stairs. Halfway down, they could see the bottom several stories below.

  Their feet echoed on the stone steps as they descended the dark shaft, lit only by the flickering blue light of the leyline. The blue light flowed and twisted through the rock, an upside-down waterfall rising from the depths and disappearing high above in swirling eddies. It was mesmerizing, and more than once, Rick had to tear his eyes away from it to focus on his surroundings.

  He noticed a pile of sticks and other debris collected on one side of the tunnel like a huge bird's nest. He felt a twinge of annoyance from his host. Maintenance was not doing their job properly. Even as the thought crossed his mind, the nest exploded in a cloud of blue glowing mutated bird creatures. Each had two sets of wings the way Martian birds did, and a long tail. The wings were feathered like someone had taken a bat's wings, shaved off all the fur, and stuck feathers along the edges. The tails were long and sinuous like a rat or opossum. But most striking about their appearance was the crackling aura of blue lightning that surrounded their tails and shimmered off their wings in little sparks.

  The host body Rick inhabited immediately supplied their name, which his brain translated it to Martian Magpie. Which was also what was listed on their nameplate. [Ley-Corrupted Martian Magpie, level six] There were four of them, and they swooped around the shaft in tight spirals, leaving twisting trails of blue light. Then, one by one, they turned and dove at the group.

  Sam raised her hand, and a bolt of ice shot out of her grasping fingers. It blasted into the first of the Martian Magpies, slowing its dive and removing half its health. It swerved in the air, dropping down. It dodged past Daniel before he could fire an arrow.

  Nia had her new silver staff out. She raised it and launched a bolt of lightning at the bird. The bolt thundered loud in the stone shaft, but it missed the bird and splashed harmlessly against the wall.

  The damaged Magpie dodged past Nia, squawked in annoyance, and then met Gambit's razor sword straight in the face. The bird exploded in a puff of glowing feathers as the blade passed straight through it from nose to twisting tail. There was a crack as it died. Gambit gave a little yelp. "Watch out, their tails zap!"

  The stone stair had no railing, so there was no protection for the party as the next three other Corrupted birds swooped in to attack. One was already damaged, with an arrow dangling from its body. It lagged behind the others as it wove an erratic path through the air.

  The first two hit the group almost simultaneously. One went for Sam, who was slinging ice shards. Her accuracy was good but the shards didn’t do much damage. Rick didn’t have a chance to see what happened because the other Magpie was coming right for him. He hit it with a point-blank Force Wave that knocked the creature back, but as it was pushed away, its tail whipped forward.

  The crackling blue running along the length of the rat-like tail arced through the air and caught Rick in the arm. His muscles spasmed and jerked as electricity shot through him. He stumbled forward and barely caught himself before reaching the edge of the sheer drop into the darkness below.

  A crackling bolt of lightning shot out from Nia's staff but missed. The bird corkscrewed away from the group and then swung back for another attack. Rick kept a sharp eye on it but turned part of his attention to the health bars of the rest of the party.

  Sam had taken a very small amount of damage. He threw Healing Cloud at her using just the bar and his interface. His left arm snapped out and threw the heal without consciously looking in her direction. Immediately there was an effect on her health bar and Daniel's, who was near her in that direction.

  A moment later, the straggling bird who had been injured before swooped in, just as the one that Rick had pushed away returned. Both were damaged, but their bodies still crackled with dangerous energy. Rick backed up until his back was against the stone wall, then threw Force Wave at the nearest one.

  The rippling magic only grazed the bird and didn't slow it much as it dived toward Nia. This time, the energy from her staff skewered it through the middle, killing it instantly. The other attacking bird had been brought down by ice bolts and arrows from Sam and Daniel, who were further down the stairs at the head of the group.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Now only one remained. This bird circled restlessly around the shaft as if unsure whether it should attack them or not. Almost as one, arrows and bolts of ice and electricity converged on it, and the creature exploded in a shower of sparks. Its corpse left a glowing trail down into the darkness until it vanished from sight.

  When they finally reached the bottom of the stone stairs, the room opened out into a broad but dimly lit space. They were on a platform hanging from metal beams below the bottom of the city. The area was open except for several strange apparatuses.

  It was open on the sides all around, and in the distance, Sam could see mountains and deserts far away on one side. On the other three sides, the looming walls of a canyon boxed the city in as it floated between the sheer walls of rock. The glowing pillar of stone that had been in the shaft above extended down to the floor of the platform where it met conduits glowing with blue light. Four of them ran off in each direction to the edge of the platform and ended in large machines.

  The knowledge in the back of Rick's brain tickled his thoughts. Ley energy collectors, they drew on ley line energy from the land below, a mere trickle of what could be gathered on the surface. But they collected enough from all directions and siphoned it into the central ley conduits of the city, which carried it upward to the six levistones that lifted the entire structure. Even as Rick thought about these things, the plan flashed into his mind.

  "We're going to destroy the collectors," he said, "one at a time. If we leave just one intact and destroy the others completely, then the city will have no choice but to descend as the ley energy reserves fade away."

  "But there's enough energy reserves to last for weeks. They will have plenty of time to fix the collectors." Daniel's voice was hollow and stilted. A moment later, he shook his head, frowning. "Where did that come from?" he asked in a more normal but confused voice. "What did I say?"

  Rick smiled. "It doesn't matter, but we're going to destroy the reserves next."

  Daniel just looked at him. "Reserves of what?"

  "Don't worry about it," Gambit said, stepping up beside Daniel and setting a hand on his shoulder. "One thing at a time. And I believe the next thing is her."

  He pointed, and they all turned to look. Across the platform, a figure was floating towards them. She was large, with six arms and flowing robes. Her Rork physiology made gender a guess, except all of the party-inhabited bodies recognized her.

  Ley-Witch Braccia, mistress of the Ley Collection System, and one of the most powerful figures in Skyrend City.

  Rick turned to the others, "Alright, I talked to Slate about this one. He didn't have a lot of details, but the parties he talked to agreed you have to keep a tank on the boss."

  Sam shrugged. “That’s obvious.”

  Rick shook his head. "No, there's some kind of mechanic where the rest of the party splits away, but if you all leave the boss, the ability she does can one-shot people." He gestured to the corners of the room. "I think we're going to have to burn down these machines, and that makes me suspect the boss can't be moved when we're doing that."

  That would explain why parties thought they needed to focus damage on these collectors, and they made the mistake of leaving the boss to her own devices.

  Now Sam was nodding. "Alright, pretty standard stuff.”

  “When we do have to split apart, watch out and don't take unnecessary damage." He pointed out the distance between the center of the room and one of the leyline collectors at the edge of the platform. "It looks tight, and I might not be able to reach you with heals."

  "Fair enough," Gambit said. "Is there anything else?"

  Rick frowned. "No, there wasn't much. Slate has only been able to talk to a couple of former adventurers about this fight, and all of them got stomped so bad they didn't really understand what they had done wrong.”

  Sam rolled her head side to side, stretching. “We play it by ear then. Is everyone ready?"

  There were nods all around.

  "Okay then," said Sam. She turned and took two steps toward the boss before her shape blurred and shifted and changed into that of a bear. She dropped to all fours with a "Hurumph!" as they started forward.

  When they were halfway across the platform, the boss looked up. "Oh, Lazuli. It’s been just ages. Here I thought you’d forgotten about me" She straightened up and turned from the machinery she had been studying. Her stance shifted, and Rick could tell she was expecting trouble. Her lips curled in a sneer. "I see you've brought both your current pets." She made a tusking sound. "Too bad. I guess this isn't a social call," she said, her eyebrows waggling.

  Sam turned her bear head, but then brought it right back to looking at the boss. She growled low in her chest, a deep, terrifying rumble.

  Nia's head snapped around, and she fixed Rick with a glare. "What does she mean?" she hissed.

  "Take it easy," Rick said. "Don't you—"

  "Come on, Nia. Snap out of it," Gambit interjected. He was a few yards away, sword out and ready to charge. He looked like he was holding back a snicker. "Don't let this place mess with your head, Nia. As entertaining as it is, you need to stay focused."

  She glared back and forth between Rick and the boss, and then shook her head with a convulsive shake, like a dog trying to fling water from its ears. "Sorry," she said angrily. "This damn place." She lifted her blue staff and dropped into a ready stance. "Quit yapping, witch, and let's get to it," she called.

  "Strong words from someone who can't even keep her husband happy at home--"

  Boom! There was a flash of blue light across the room, and the boss staggered back, the robes over her chest smoldering, but undamaged.

  She laughed. "Temper, temper. Don't you think-" the boss started to say but Sam interrupted her with a roar and a charge.