I jogged alongside the bronze car, sandals and wheels chugging through scrubby grass and sand. Listening beyond the engines, twisting my ears and neck about, I hunted for red flags. So far, I’d found none.

  Ahead, too far to see through the thickening clumps of dandelion trees, I did start to hear signs of a struggle. But at this distance, it was so unclear. It could be anything, from a wild predator and prey to feuding humans.

  Map, can you show me living things?

  Alright, generalize for me!

  …Wow. Clouds of life so dense they were black covered the Map square. Was this a literal practical joke? Ah well, it was worth a shot.

  I hadn’t picked up anything useful, but for sure I was going to keep keeping an eye out.

  As I jogged, Bayce rolled down her window, leaned over the edge, and sighed at me. “You look so sad jogging out here without us.”

  “Meow,” I said, meaning I dunno, I guess I’m pretty content, all things considered.

  “Found nothing yet?”

  I shook my head.

  Chora stuck her head out the other side window and thumbs-upped me. “You’re doing good work.”

  “Yeah, soldier!” Bayce cheered with a mock salute.

  “Uh,” Reed said, her voice raised and soaring, “Taipha, maybe get back in. There’s a—”

  The car and I lurched at the same time.

  Massive dandelions parted and the sun broke through, announcing that the beach was well and truly here. And I got immediate vertigo. The whole earth seemed to be sinking below me.

  This was the edge of an enormous sand whirlpool. That’s what it looked like, how suddenly the surface curved, all sand in view seemingly plunging downward. Everything hoping that these hapless humans would go down just as quickly with it.

  Just about everyone yelped. I flung myself not into the car, but into the side of it, on accident. Clambering on, finding some sort of panicked grip, I ended up on the back, my feet on a thin and precarious ledge I hadn’t even seen before. Luckily, there were handholds on the sides of the trunk.

  I clung there with eyes squeezed shut for a moment, swearing in my head that we were in freefall…but then I realized the lack of a strong breeze.

  We weren’t falling, but we weren’t not moving. We were balancing on the edge!

  I looked down with less fear than disbelief. The only way this car could be wobbling like that was if the middle of it was on the edge of the rim, meaning none of the wheels should be on the ground…and lo and behold, that was what had happened. It was no trick. It was no Spell.

  The engine coughed. It was still humming, but not powering us forward. With the hugest sinkhole of all time ahead, was that even a good idea?

  “What if Taipha,” Heidschi said thoughtfully, “moves to the front?”

  “Maow!” I rejected that almost on instinct.

  “Give me a moment…” Even through the exhaust, I could hear Reed take a deep breath in and out. “Okay. Chora, can you give us a gentle blast of wind?”

  “Taipha can do it better.”

  “Oh, perfect!”

  That was my cue. Huh, I’d never used Air Cutter as a nekomata, had I? It shouldn’t be much different. And fortunately, I knew enough about the Skill to modulate it. Release an Air Cutter at full speed and it’s a bullet—do it slowly and it rolls and peters out.

  When it came to using Skills, a hind foot was just as good as a front foot…so the same for human anatomy, right? I lifted an ankle and kicked with the tips of my toes.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  An Air Cutter went soaring. Also, there went my sandal.

  A big lurch rattled us all as the car made that fateful dip. Still stable, thank goodness. The earth was arcing downward into a gargantuan bowl, and now I could see the panoramic expanse.

  Sand, circular trees, and speckled grass continued, but the land below was dominated by the awesome dandelions. They grew bigger and higher than on the plane, making a forest whose trees were so grand they’d be competing with Earth’s oldest redwoods. On the rim of the sand bowl were modest hills, but as we traveled deeper, we’d be hitting entire dunes. How Reed expected to drive over those, I had no clue, and I was terrified to learn.

  Actually, this wasn’t a complete, even bowl. The far edge was lower, and on that edge, I made out the twinkling of a salty lake. That searingly white edge—this whole entire sand valley—was so much larger than I had anticipated! Larger than imagination!

  This trip was turning out astounding. It was going to take us through turmoil and bloodshed and I wasn’t even upset about that. If anything, a dramatic climax felt fitting for a vista like this.

  Were we even still in a “forest” at this point? At the very least, this was multiple forests, a bog or two, and two to three separate mountain chains. Eh, there were still trees in all the biomes. And especially down there past all the hills and dunes. My Quest called it all the Vencian Wood, and if it said it was so, then it was so.

  The car hurtled onward! I laughed as the wind and gravity hit me, elated to be out here in this moment, delirious with wonder.

  But all good things come to an end, and soon I knew it was time to work.

  Once we crested that edge, new sounds started to hit me loud and clear. My laughter was cut short. Sounds of a magic struggle, not an ordinary wildlife battle but a band of professionals in the fray—from over there, about midway between us and the lake. In other words, in the exact center, in the nexus of dandelion forest.

  That lined up with what my Map was telling me about this square. It was where the most vines were. This had to be the creature we’d been searching for, the boss of the vines, in full bloom and full attack mode.

  I inched over to one side and tapped Bayce on the shoulder. She was almost too busy clutching and fiddling with her seatbelt to notice—but I didn’t blame her, because at this steep angle, a malfunction could send us all through the windshield. Well, not me. I’d skip that step and impale myself on rocks. Point being, though, that I switched from tapping to squeezing.

  “Huh?” she said with a jolt. “Y-you detected something?”

  She unfolded and held out a piece of spirit paper. Another key innovation, one that was coming into play now for the first time, was the fact that the paper was double-sided! I could poke an A on one side and she’d know exactly what I was doing. I passed along a message and made it quick.

  “MAGIC FIGHT”

  “There’s a magic fight!” Bayce barked, and I kept going with more specifics.

  “AHEAD. VINES. FLAMES. SHOUTS. HUGE”

  I backed away and gave my straining, stretching legs a break. Bayce untwisted frontways, gulped in a huge breath, and shouted, “Huge viney magical battle up ahead. But it’s probably the big one, so we don’t wanna avoid it!”

  Right afterward, Reed cried, “Got it! Buffs!”

  And Bayce and Heidschi, untying bundles and opening wooden boxes, revealed a multitude of tiny Spells, ready to cast once we got within range to provide us with the longest possible uptime. All while the car chugged down the slope, Reed accelerating and the exhaust blowing through my hair, smelling more like melted, overclocked steel.

  Our car was finally going at car speed.

  And we finally started feeling ready for battle. Sensing a bad premonition, I added a Guard to the buffs about to hit me. Magic enhancement seemed to enter my blood. Fortify my cells. The soul may have been the conduit of all Skills, but the effect, as always, was very physical. As I breathed in deeply and focused on Guard’s effect like never before, I knew: it entered my every living cell.

  Oh, and we all had our individual Spells on us too. I had a couple of each of Bayce’s wacky ones: Attract, Low-Gravity, and High-Gravity. And while Bayce and Heidschi were holding some of the Stat buffs, intending to stay back and fire them at us from afar (they claimed to have excellent aim), each of us also had our own. Chora, Reed and I split the Attack Ups, and everyone but me split Defense Ups and Minor Heals. Those were in dramatically short supply—apparently Bayce hadn’t had the time or resources to make many in time.

  Sadly, we still didn’t have the big rarities: Intelligence Ups or Wisdom Ups (…or Speed Ups, for that matter). But that was okay. In a pinch, I could now use the Debug Blade well enough. I mean, I had passable sword-smarts and average human dexterity! A test run this morning had proven as much.

  Beyond the Blade, my combat style was Attack-heavy anyway. Yes, I had legs of lightning, but that lightning was carrying a big old rock. A rock with pointy sticks attacked, sure, but essentially a rock.

  And on that note, the Spells I was carrying, aside from the prerequisite Fire Spells, were Earth and Lightning. While I was always jazzed to try out Spellcraft and the combination of these thrilled me for some unknown reason, I also felt that on my build, they were more like nice accessories. I was not a gun, but a clod.

  Now our car was definitely in the bowl. The terrain wasn’t necessarily more forgiving, but at least the looser sand of the dunes flies under wheels more easily than mixed sand, dirt, and boulders—splashes a lot more spectacularly, too. Plus, now we were at a sub-ninety-degree angle and no longer on the verge of throwing up. All while I felt Reed nudging our speed up, fighting to reach the battle before it got grim. Before time ran out.

  A whoop rose up from the car. Bayce’s voice, followed by Heidschi’s. I thought I saw a wand and a baton raised in the air, raising spirits. Though I kept myself anchored to my handholds, I started to raise my voice and join in.

  And then the whole front half of the car fell through the earth with a crunch, out of sight.