Ayn flipped through the tabs of her character screen. She needed little thought on how to spend her stat points, and her new ability made sense considering all the traps they’d fallen into. The System was doing its best to enhance her playstyle, it seemed. Too bad she was making it so hard.

  Of her original two skills, only Acrobatics had gained levels. That made sense, too. She hadn’t pickpocketed or tried to steal anything in a long time. Once the gang was gone, she hadn’t dared.

  The thought of Neu, Rav, and Tayla dragged her back to her present situation. Miit had woken up for a short while when she’d got home but had passed back out after another round of treatment and medication. Now she sat on the edge of her bed next to him with the night closing in and the image of the laughing husks from the fourth floor burning her brain. She could see every detail of each one’s twisted expression, all aimed at her as if jeering. Look at your digital afterlife, they seemed to say. Look what fun you’ve had. She shook the nonsense out. There was no such thing as paradise. If everything went perfectly, she’d become bored. Of course, the developers of The System would keep conflict, even ramp it up over time. It kept things interesting. She’d just had a run of bad luck. It would all equalize eventually, right?

  Ayn lay down next to Miit, careful not to jostle him. Her head hurt. Everything felt too heavy, and the energy drinks had long worn off. If she could simply clear her mind for a minute, she’d fall asleep, and none of this would matter for a while.

  *****

  The jeering corpses stalked her in her dreams. Ayn jerked awake right before the crowd of undead dragged her down into darkness.

  Miit mewed in weak surprise.

  “Sorry.” Ayn’s hand settled on his head. “Just a bad dream. Go back to sleep.”

  She pet between his ears until his eyes drooped shut and his breathing slowed, trying to memorize the feel of his skin and the sound of his voice. She didn’t realize how much petting him had calmed her, too, until a knock at the front door made her jump.

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  A few minutes later, her mother called for her. Her party was waiting. Ayn sighed. Sunlight poured in around the shutters of her window. It was past morning, yet she felt only slightly more rested than the previous day. But no matter how much she wanted to stay by Miit’s side, her party needed her.

  Ayn walked into the kitchen with the best smile she could muster. Her party sat around the freshly scrubbed table, cups of milk in front of each, while Kayara’s wolverine curled up underneath. Her mother was nowhere in sight, likely outside feeding the chickens or tending the garden.

  Kayara smacked Bren on the shoulder. “I told you we should have waited longer.”

  Ayn’s smile faltered. Did she look that bad?

  “We waited all morning,” Bren said, with no sign of remorse. “The longer we wait, the farther Arlen gets.”

  “It’s fine,” Ayn said. It sounded as convincing as her smile apparently had been. “So, did we get some quests?”

  She avoided Kayara’s gaze as she slipped into the chair beside her.

  Kayara and Bren both nodded.

  “A few potential ones, anyway,” Kayara said. “It’ll take a few days to know for sure, though.”

  “My family will give us one,” Bren said. “But it will still take some time to set it up and notify me.”

  Less quests then, and more favors. The idea made Ayn’s stomach churn. The townsfolk had enough to hold over her head already. Adding debts and her party members to the mix sounded like a disaster waiting to happen, yet what choice did they have? They needed the supplies if they wanted to keep Crawling. Within a week, Tav would even have new equipment for them made from the metal and calcite she’d dropped off.

  Bren leaned forward. “Let us complete floor five while we wait.”

  “Huh?” Ayn asked.

  “Are you an idiot?” Kayara said with far more conviction. “Did you forget why we need these quests? We are broke.”

  “Now, yes, but we were able to buy a few potions with what I found on floor four, and the quest reward.”

  “A few potions. The System went easy on us as far as monsters went on the last floor, yet we still barely scraped by. You really want to test it again?”

  “Is Arlen Crawling today?” Ayn asked.

  Bren didn’t answer. His grimace told her everything she needed to know. Bren had said Arlen’s family was the most powerful and was actively supporting him in the trial. As much as she’d wanted to give Bren hope with what she’d said in the Crawler’s Guild, she knew full well that Arlen’s wall and her party’s wall were two very different things.

  “So what if he is?” Kayara asked. “His advantage will be a helluva lot bigger if we die.”

  “But we haven’t yet,” Ayn said.

  Kayara looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. She probably had. That itch for the numbness had grown throughout the night. A fire flamed into an inferno by dreams of smiling corpses. She wanted to say something selfless and leader-like, that her reckless need to throw herself in harm’s way was only because she wanted to help Bren, but she didn’t want to lie.

  *****

  “This. Is. Stupid,” Kayara said as they stood in front of the Dungeon’s purple fire portal. Her wolverine echoed her agitation, pacing behind her and growling softly.

  It was, and Ayn hadn’t bothered trying to convince the ranger otherwise. She’d decided to go. Bren practically leaped for joy, and Sheyric had flowed along. Kayara had told her the myriad of bad things that could go wrong, yet when Ayn had ignored them all, she’d grumbled and followed just like her animal companion. Part of Ayn felt bad about it. But that part was too tired to compete. Beyond the Dungeon’s portal lay escape, and Ayn wasted no more time in taking it as she stepped through.

  Darkness. Inky black, impenetrable. It hugged Ayn like a second skin for so long, she wondered if The System had lagged. Then came the feel of softness beneath her boots, the smell of soil and fungal musk, then last, the whispers. Low, indecipherable, slipping around her in the black like eels in deep water.

  SECONDARY QUESTS DELETED

  Aisha’s tinny voice distorted in Ayn’s mind, gaining an extra inhuman quality that sent chills down Ayn’s spine.

  PRIMARY QUEST RECIEVED: SURVIVE

  Greenish-yellow light appeared in the corners of the room she’d teleported into, chasing away the darkness and replacing it with a sickly glow. The black fled behind the twisted roots piercing the small room.

  Room.

  It wasn’t quite the right word. The entire place was roughly dug from dark brown soil, the curves and gouges giving the feel that it had been dug with enormous claws. Even the light came not from torches or magic, but from globs of slick-looking fungus splattered across the walls. Across from Ayn, someone had scratched the words in a ragged, hurried script—I’ve forgotten my name.

  The whispers grew frantic, and the walls shivered in agitation. Ayn’s blood ran as cold as when she’d appeared in the glacial environment of floor four. The soil and roots were new to her, but the whispers, Aisha’s warping, the messages on the walls—these she knew all too well. The weight she’d sought to leave behind came back tenfold.

  The Abyss.

  Ayn tried to draw her sabers. Her hands shook too much to unsheathe them. Abyssal mobs fed on fear and anger, used it to distort your surroundings and drive you closer to the edge. Ayn had firsthand knowledge of that, and the tragic consequences of letting them have their way. Still, no matter how hard she willed her pulse to slow, it only gained speed.

  The others weren’t around. She’d waited, hoping the extra load time she’d experienced had affected them too, and they’d appear shortly. But they hadn’t. She was alone with the whispers and the undulating walls.

  Ayn closed her eyes, dropping to her knees as her stomach churned. Where were they? If they’d all teleported in at different spots, who’s to say they hadn’t already been attacked? An image of Kayara, bloodied, paralyzed in Near Death sprung into Ayn’s mind. Her mouth turned sour. She was going to be sick.

  A heavy pulse cut through the whispers gnawing at her senses. It rumbled through the soil, breaking up the chaotic spiral. Another followed. Slow, hesitant, then building speed and power. Ayn latched onto it, a lifeline dragging her out of despair.

  A clear tenor drowned out the whispers. Bren. He’d replaced his usual clipped lines with a soaring ballad about love and sunlight chasing away the shadows. Ayn didn’t pay attention to the words. She shot out of the little room and into a cramped tunnel bathed in more sickly light.

  Bren’s voice came at her from odd angles, partially absorbed by the soil, or bounced and blocked by roots. She couldn’t tell exactly how far away he was, but she could still tell the general direction.

  “Bren!”

  She ran with abandon, the whispers at her back and scrabbling coming from nearly every offshoot path she passed. She refused to look.

  When Bren popped out from around a corner, Ayn had no chance to slow. He grunted in surprise as she plowed into his chest, his hand drum flying out of his hands as they hit the wall and slid to the ground.

  Ayn scrambled off, only to crouch down and tuck in close to the stunned mage’s side.

  “Where’s the others?” she asked, her voice shaking as much as the walls.

  “You…you’re the first one I’ve found,” Bren said. He dusted himself off and went to retrieve his drum, hesitating when Ayn followed like a shadow. “But if I keep playing, they’ll be able to find us, just like you did, all right?”

  Ayn barely caught the attempt at reassurance in his tone. His words, and the infernal whispers, were being overpowered by a new sort of dread, somehow separate from what already rolled over her. It dragged her eyes to a spot in the distance where the tunnel branched off into another room. She couldn’t see anything, but she knew what was there. Danger.

  A shadow leaked into view. Twisting, iridescent, glowing even as it absorbed all light, gaining three dimensions even as it stayed formless.

  Bren yelped as Ayn grabbed his arm and ran.

  “Kayara!” Ayn yelled, dodging between tunnels and through rooms. That new sense of dread guided her, pushing her this way and that with the strength of magnetic repulsion. “Sheyric!”

  Bren stumbled and fell, bringing them to a halt in a room covered in fungus and bits of bloodied cloth, and worse yet, multiple entrances for something to pop through. “W…wait,” he said between gasps. “I…can…can’t keep up…with you.”

  Ayn yanked on his arm, pulling him up only to have him collapse again. “We have to keep moving!”

  “Just…a…minute.” Bren waved his drum around, then tapped out a sluggish beat.

  Ayn pulled again, and the drum dropped to the ground. “The longer we sit here, the closer they get. Drum and run, or don’t drum at all.”

  “You’re going to give the man a heart attack.” Kayara appeared in one of the tunnels, her wolverine bristling at her side.

  Ayn had her arms wrapped around the ranger before she finished her sentence.

  “Whoa, okay. Hi there.” Kayara patted her on the back. “I feel like this has been happening a lot lately.”

  Ayn would have been just fine clinging to the ranger until Kayara pried her off, but a fresh wave of repulsive dread washed over her. She pulled away, eyeing one dark path. “Something’s coming.”

  “Can we kill it?” Kayara asked.

  “Only with floor unique mechanics.”

  “So, we have to find something on the floor itself. Got it. Let’s go, Choir Boy.”

  Bren retrieved his drum and stood up with a grunt. “A little slower, please.”

  Kayara grabbed his arm and dragged him along while Ayn trotted ahead, caught between wanting to put as much distance between her and the Abyssal mobs as possible, and wanting to stay close to Kayara.

  The wolverine had moved up next to Ayn, its usual growling replaced by loud sniffing while it swung its head back and forth. As they passed a tunnel full of roots, fungus, and dirt like all the others, it stopped and barked.

  “I told it to look for you guys,” Kayara said. “Sheyric must be down there.”

  Bren gasped along behind her, doubling over as they came to a stop.

  Ayn wanted to go down the tunnel about as much as she wanted to jump into acid. “They’re down there, too.”

  “All the more reason to get a move on.”

  Kayara slipped by without arguing. The ranger got a few body lengths away before Ayn rushed back to her. Every hair on her body stood at attention. Her eyes darted over every shadow, every crack while her internal alarm blared, competing with the increasing loud whispers until it felt like her head would explode.

  “Sheyric!” Kayara said.

  She darted to the left, where mobs had Sheyric pinned at the end of a deep alcove.