PRIMARY QUEST UPDATED: DESTROY THE CLOCKWORK POWER SOURCE

  FIGHT COMMENCING IN THIRTY SECONDS

  Sheyric’s regen aura enveloped them.

  HEALTH AT 292

  HEALTH AT 334

  The giant centipede swayed in place, a drop of green liquid falling from its fangs. Smoke rose from where it hit the grass.

  AEGIS OF AGILITY ON COOLDOWN

  ONE MINUTE AND FIVE SECONDS REMAINING ON COOLDOWN

  The boss countdown hit zero. Ayn was out of the aura and circling around the centipede before it picked a target. Without the Aegis, she was a pretty worthless tank, but as an agility build, she could still be an annoyance.

  As expected, the centipede ignored her and took aim at the mages. Bad decision. Ayn leaped, hooking her boots into the grooves of the insect’s armor plates and using it as a step stone to catapult over its body, and over top of the orb.

  The centipede collapsed on itself. Its head snapped back, its coils roiling up and in, covering the power source in an impenetrable mound of armor. Ayn landed lightly on the mob’s coils, then sprung away as the mob struck at her. The sudden movement shook more green liquid from its fangs. The acid hissed, leaving pits where it hit the plates as it ate away at the armor.

  Ayn hit the ground and grinned. The automaton had another weakness, after all.

  The centipede uncoiled in a flash, using its body as a weapon to squash them all at once. Ayn leaped over. Kayara, Baatar, and the mages blinked into existence on top of the outermost coil as it hit the arena barrier and pulled back. All four went down in a heap. Kayara’s agility clearly didn’t work with so many hanging off of her.

  Somehow, the centipede recoiled over the orb before Ayn landed. More acid ate more holes in its armor. Ayn drove her sabers into the biggest ones. The centipede screeched, a sound like nails down a chalkboard, and bucked. Ayn wasn’t sure a centipede could buck, yet that’s all that came to mind as the segment her sabers were stuck in curved up into the air, then slammed back down. Pain shot through Ayn’s shoulders. She didn’t budge. All the points she put into strength had to be good for something.

  When the centipede bucked again, Ayn went with the motion, using its own momentum to hook the curved edges of her blades deeper under the metal plates. The third slam proved too much. The plate came off completely, the crackling of electricity coming from its body as Ayn sailed through the air and hit the ground flat on her back, the lost plate teetering on her blades and threatening to smack her in the face.

  HEALTH AT 296

  Ayn braced her legs against the plate and shoved, pulling her weapons free and tossing the offending piece of metal to the side.

  The centipede writhed. Blue goo poured from its wound. The inside of the creature seemed to be made of little more than wires, goo, and a flexible tube which ran down its center. As Ayn watched, the tube split open, pouring out dozens of little centipedes. Little might have been the wrong word. Each was still the size of Ayn’s leg. Babies? Did automatons have babies? Ayn didn’t have time to dwell on the question. As soon as the smaller mobs dropped to the ground, they spread out like Rebirth-seeking missiles on a mission.

  Five headed for Ayn. They were almost perfect replicas of the giant centipede in all but size. They had the same sharpened fangs, the same copper plates, and the same multitude of legs. Still, they differed in two crucial ways—their glowing blue eyes covered most of their head, and their segmented plates didn’t overlap. Ayn could see the internal wires bend as they moved.

  The point of her weapon sank into the large eye of the nearest little centipede. To her surprise, it went still. Slicing the next one in half only made it drag its front toward her like some sort of insectoid zombie. A strike through the eye stopped it completely. What was good for one…

  Ayn danced out of the way of the little centipedes, their increasing numbers ratcheting up her dodge chance. Her party members were having a harder time. Kayara and Baatar were tearing through the new mobs, but no matter how squishy their targets were, they were still outnumbered by a dozen to one.

  Bren had gone ashen and quiet as Kayara and Baatar circled him and Sheyric. Ayn joined the circle in time for a handful of little centipedes to bounce off her shield.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  AEGIS OF AGILITY ACTIVATED

  Ayn shut off notifications. She didn’t plan on sticking around that long, anyway.

  “The centipede has a brain,” she said.

  Kayara spared her a confused look before continuing to hack apart bugs.

  “Clockworks don’t have brains,” Bren said.

  “Well, these do, or close enough to it. Stab one in the head, and the whole thing shuts down.”

  “So…” Kayara lunged out of the bubble, cut three bugs in half, then dodged back in, “what?”

  “The little ones are replicas of the big one, right?” Ayn glanced at the mob in question, who was still busy writhing and spewing babies from the hole in its body. “Which means piercing its brain should shut it down, too. I just need a bit of backup.”

  “Ayn,” Kayara growled.

  “Just in case. Bren, Sheyric, you up for it?”

  Bren frowned. “I’m out of mana.”

  “Okay. Sheyric?”

  The healer nodded.

  Ayn grinned, lay her life in Sheyric’s hands, and charged at the giant, flailing, centipede.

  The little ones were too slow, and the big one too distracted to stop her as she swerved into the path of its head, and as it swung her way with mandibles open wide, she launched between them. Her sabers sank into the soft opening of its mouth. They got halfway before those same mandibles snapped shut around her body. Whatever was left of the Aegis disintegrated on contact. The sword-sharp mandibles sunk into her sides.

  HEALTH AT 109

  Copper filled Ayn’s mouth. Pain screeched through every nerve. Warmth counteracted the growing chill.

  HEALTH AT 180

  HEALTH AT 246

  Ayn used the strength the warmth provided to jam her sabers farther into the centipede’s mouth. Its mandibles bit deeper in return.

  HEALTH AT 94

  HEALTH AT 177

  She twisted the blades, seeking, hoping, to hit a vital spot. An explosion of blue light lit up the back of the centipede, engulfing them both in a tingling field of electricity.

  PRIMARY QUEST COMPLETED: DESTROY THE CLOCKWORK POWER SOURCE

  DUNGEON FLOOR ELEVEN CLEARED

  PARTY WILL BE TELEPORTED FROM THE DUNGEON IN TWO MINUTES

  HEALTH AT 7

  The pressure released. Pain took its place, reverberating across her entire being. The world tilted, air rushed by, yet she hit the ground far more softly than she expected, a faint scent of sour candy piercing the smell of burnt wires.

  Kayara looked down at her, eyes wide in fear, blood running down the side of her face, yet mouth set in an angry line. Kayara’s arms were wrapped tightly around her torso. She’d caught her. Ayn tried to grin, tried to say thank you, but she couldn’t form the words.

  *****

  “I didn’t sign up to die, and I’m getting sick of watching all of you try to!”

  Kayara’s words bounced off the castle-like entrance to the Dungeon, slamming into Ayn and doubling the anger flooding from Kayara. Baatar stood a healthy distance away, head down in dejection.

  “I don’t—” Bren said.

  Kayara whirled from Ayn to him, hands clenched into fists. “Shut the hell up! You were bleeding out on the ground right next to him,” she jabbed a finger at Sheyric, “and if I’d taken a little more damage while destroying the power source, I wouldn’t have been able to catch her! Do you think she’d have survived hitting the damn ground while nearly cut in half?”

  “No, I just…” Bren’s eyes flicked toward Sheyric, who had curled in on himself, head down and shoulders rounded until he resembled one of the Dungeon’s outer gargoyles.

  Kayara had gone off on Sheyric the moment they had teleported out of the Dungeon. Sheyric seemed more concerned about whether they had any unwanted visitors, which only fanned Kayara’s anger. Ayn had stepped in when Kayara had shoved the healer, an act which had turned Kayara’s fury on her. Bren was simply trying to deflect the Stalker’s anger like she had. Ayn appreciated the thought, but she’d rather take the punishment than let one of her party get attacked, especially from another party member.

  Kayara followed Bren’s gaze and closed back in on the healer. “I’m going to ask you one more time, Sheyric. What the hell made you jump into the portal?”

  “Kayara—” Ayn said.

  “Don’t.” The rage twisting Kayara’s features cracked, and something far more vulnerable showed through. “I’ve tried, Ayn. Tried so damn hard to keep everyone safe while we walked, half-assed, into danger.”

  Kayara’s words drove the air from Ayn’s chest. She’d never heard them before, but what lay between the lines was all too familiar.

  “What about me?” Ayn asked as her voice cracked. “Haven’t I done all I could to keep you safe?”

  “After we’re in the fire? Sure. But if you’re not starting fires, you sure as hell are stoking them.”

  Ayn would have preferred a dagger to the heart. It would have hurt less. Been over quicker.

  Kayara’s eyes went wide. The anger drained from her face, leaving her pale. “Ayn, I—”

  “Twin,” Sheyric said.

  Kayara sighed as she turned to the healer. “What?”

  “I saw Silas. My twin. That’s why…why I ran into the portal.”

  Ayn didn’t have the energy to be impressed with the number of words Sheyric was stringing together. Kayara didn’t look like she had any more.

  “What are you talking about?” Kayara asked. “Why would your twin make you do something so stupid?”

  Sheyric wrung his hands. “He…hurt me. Forced me to be in his party. Told me…I was a worthless healer. Tried to Rebirth, but he stopped me. Told me he would track me down again, anyway.”

  “Tried to Rebirth?”

  Ayn moved to Sheyric’s side and placed a hand on his shoulder. She knew all too well the pain Sheyric felt, and it mingled with the pain already gnawing at her into something that brought tears to her eyes. “So, you ran away.”

  Sheyric nodded. “He said he’d find me. I didn’t want to believe. Maybe if I got far enough away, I could re-roll, but…I couldn’t.”

  “And you shouldn’t have to,” Kayara said. With that, she marched off, anger and frustration in every step, Baatar shuffling along behind her.

  Ayn knew better than to stop her. She didn’t have the right. Everything Kayara had said had been true after all. Still, seeing Kayara fade from view made Ayn ill.