Getting back ended up being significantly harder than I thought it would. Despite doing my best to look back and memorize our origin cell on our way out, we had a hell of a time locating it again. All the cells kinda blurred into a mosaic from here, and when we thought we found it, we’d find a half-dozen others that looked the same.

  All we had was the general region of the honeycomb we’d started out in, and the fact that the biome was a forest one—which, incidentally, happened to be the most common type of biome.

  Not much information to go on at all. What I wouldn’t give for a phone camera…

  Upon realizing how long this would take, we relocated to a neighboring cell—one that wasn’t seismically active—before wasting two hours calculating and plotting. In the end, it would be a crapshoot no matter what we did, so we took our best shot and went for it.

  It was only once we were most of the way through the zero-G expanse that we identified what could’ve been our original cell. Each castle had exactly one entrance and one exit, leading to different sections of the cog rail system. Ours happened to be one of them, and so, it looked a little different from the rest. Not different enough to be noticeable from all the way across the weird honeycomb structure, but I thought I caught sight of it on our way in.

  Problem was, we were about thirty cells away. At that distance, even if we went the right way, we’d have a hell of a time striking the correct bearing.

  So we ended burning another few hours digging our way in the general direction of our original cell, only to turn up empty. That whole time, I lamented our inability to communicate. Even with rudimentary comms, I could’ve asked Aerion to shoot up a signal of some kind—maybe burn the forest—so we’d have a beacon to latch onto.

  The only good thing to come out of this crazy maneuver was another two points of Grace, bringing me up to 69 out of my current max of 74.

  After spending hours trying to backtrack, I swore I’d make solving our comms problem my top priority once we were out. A chatbox felt like such a trivial thing to add to my system’s UI, but either Cosmo hadn’t thought to include it, or he couldn’t. I dug around my HUD for damn near a half hour before giving up.

  Something to ask him at our next meeting. Which I hoped would be soon, considering how completing Trials or Dungeons seemed to trigger them. Even still, I wasn’t hopeful he’d give me anything. He never gave me powers unless I earned them, like with my rank up. If there was a solution to be had here, it would probably rely on me and whether I could hack my Blessing in the right way.

  In the end, I came up with a trunk-and-branch system, where our main route took us in a straight line, with branches going sideways in both directions when we thought we were close.

  It was a good thing I did. After what felt like an eternity—far longer than we’d spent actually mining the stuff, we found our original cell while on a branch route. More accurately, it was Aerion’s voice that tipped me off.

  I found her in the middle of a heated debate with Richard and Philip, and for some reason, Aerion’s cheeks and ears had gone red.

  “Guess what, everyone? We’re baaaaack!” I said, my voice trailing off when for some reason, everyone turned to glare in my direction. “So, uh, what did we miss?”

  The hostile gazes dissipated in an instant, making me even more curious. But the mystery wasn’t about to be solved that easily.

  “Greg, Rogar!” Richard said, walking up to us. “All went well, I take it?”

  I shrugged. “About as well as we could’ve hoped. We found the metals. As for how much we’ll end up getting, well… I guess we’re about to find out.”

  I gave an inquisitive glance at Richard, but he took one look at Aerion and shook his head.

  Some other time, his expression seemed to say.

  That was fine, because we had our fair share of work cut out for us. “How about we relocate to the nearest Sanctuary chamber? I’m exhausted.”

  Well, some of us were exhausted, anyway. Rogar looked like he was about to collapse, and despite not having gone through our ordeal, Philip and Richard weren’t looking so great, either. The more Vigor Aerion and I gained, the more out of touch we became with what was normal for people. Sleep was becoming less and less necessary, and we could even go longer without eating or drinking, too.

  For the sake of our party, we returned to the cog rail back to our original castle, where we found the nearest sanctuary and crashed.

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

  At least, that was what most of the others did. Aerion walked aimlessly through the forest, sneaking occasional glances my way when she thought I wasn’t looking. Yeah… something had definitely changed. But even expanded to fit the four of us, the sanctuary wasn’t big enough for the sort of private conversation I suspected this would need.

  So instead, I brought out Rogar’s forge and went to work prepping it. I’d seen it in action enough times by now to understand the basics. After assembling the chimney bricks, sealing the gaps with wet mud, I loaded the coal, coke, and metal ore in alternating layers, all the way up the chimney.

  Then I lit a fire at the bottom and waited for the thing to get hot before working the bellows to boost the temps.

  It was a slow, tedious process, but it was something that would have to be done before exiting the Trial. If we wanted to take that ore back with us, anyway. I didn’t have a clue how we were going to forge these exotic metals with this makeshift portable forge—but that was where Rogar, master blacksmith, came in.

  I ignored Aerion’s glances for the most part, but when I did look back at her, she always quickly looked away. It wasn’t lost on me that I probably ought to have gone over and chatted with her, yet something stopped me. There was a wall between us. One that hadn’t been there just days before, and it was all thanks to Richard and Philip.

  I sighed, trying to clear those thoughts from my head. Feelings weren’t what I needed to be worrying about right now. The Trial Guardian on the next floor was. Chances were good we weren’t going to find another Obsidian Dragon up there—only question was how strong the thing would be, and what resources we’d have to destroy it.

  It was tough to plan for a threat you knew nothing about, but I could at least take a few guesses. Floor seven was mostly ocean, with that one island where the portal was. The thing was, there wasn’t that much room for a ground-based mega monster on the island. Forests covered most of it, and the parts that weren’t had deep trenches, or steep mountains.

  Which told me that the chances of encountering one were pretty low. Better odds that the thing was avian, like the dragon.

  Our first time around, avian threats posed an especially tough challenge. While still a problem, I now had my darts and pebbles, and Richard’s attacks also worked at a distance. None of us had especially long-range weapons, but unless the thing launched missiles at us, I figured we’d manage.

  Rather, it was the other, more likely situation that worried me the most.

  What if the Trial Guardian was aquatic?

  If I was honest, the chances were good. I thought back to that mammoth whale we encountered on our way up. The thing must’ve been a mile in length. If that decided to attack us?

  A chill trickled down my spine. What could we even do against such a threat? We’d be stuck in our subs. All our powers would be useless. Only Richard stood a chance, but he’d struggle to crush the heart of something so gigantic.

  I took a breath. It made no sense for something so powerful to be the boss of a lowly E rank dungeon. But then, it made no sense for the Obsidian Dragon to show up on floor 5, either…

  Fuck. I needed to do something. Sitting around stewing like this was just getting me worked up. I needed to kill something.

  Before I knew it, my legs were taking me to the Sanctuary’s entrance.

  “Where are you going?” Aerion asked. I’d forgotten she was still awake.

  “Want to test those Bolt cores. Need to know if they’re usable in their current form.”

  “And you were planning on going out there alone, were you?” she asked, eyebrow raised accusingly.

  “I—uh, of course not. Want to go together?”

  Aerion let out a sigh and shook her head. “I’ll write a note for the others so they don’t worry. Then we’ll go.”

  Well. This was awkward.

  I’d never had any trouble with the silence that passed between Aerion and myself in the past, but less than a minute after exiting the sanctuary chamber, I was wishing I’d gone alone.

  “So, uh… How’s it going?” I said, feeling instantly stupid the moment I did. Great going, Greg. What are you, fourteen?

  “I… never got a chance to thank you,” Aerion said, completely ignoring my question, which was probably for the best. Though, judging how she looked, I doubted it was an intentional decision on her part; she looked like her head was a million miles away. Had she even heard me?

  “Uh, thank me for what?” I asked, heart irrationally pounding away in my chest.

  “For Initializing Aurora, of course,” Aerion said, giving me a look of confusion. “What else?”

  “Oh, er, right…” I said, scratching the back of my helmet. “Well, I said I would, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, but… this new power. It’s incredible. I can only imagine how strong I will become once it levels a bit more. It’s already granted me another echo just leveling up twice.”

  “Agreed,” I said, feeling the tension flow out of my body. This was how it always was with Aerion. No matter what was going on between us, it always felt comfortable chatting with her. A friend I could always lean on. Had that changed? Or was it just me? “Guessing you’ll be getting even more soon. Pretty dope ability, I gotta admit.”

  The question was if it would be enough for what we were about to face. Would my new siege bolt cores be enough of a decisive advantage?

  We rounded a bend and encountered an entire horde of goblins.

  I brought out one of the cores and threw it high into the air.

  We were about to find out.