Varic's scream still echoed off the cavern walls, mingling with the crunch of broken crystals under hundreds of boots; the raid marched with the nervous energy of those who had just survived the first scare, courtesy of the bats disintegrated by Valeria.
Renn advanced close to Lily with his heart still hammering against his ribs, for they had just crushed an aerial ambush as if they were simple mosquitoes.
"Did you see the face of that Vane House Lord?" Lily whispered without breaking stride, leaning toward him. Her shield still held crystal dust from the bats. "When Lysandra pulled that gravity trick... I think he forgot how to breathe."
"I think we all forgot," Renn admitted, adjusting his mask to hide a nervous smile. "Are your troops okay?"
"A couple of scratches, nothing a minor potion won't cure," she replied, looking back to where Helga and Greta were reforming the line with brutal efficiency. "We're ready, but this is just starting."
She was right. As they ventured deeper into the Rift, reality ceased to be simply broken and became actively hostile. The ground changed: solid rock gave way to a glassy, translucent substance, as if they were walking on a frozen lake covering an abyss of lightning storms. Beneath their feet, meters deep, pulses of blue light ran through mineral veins like a sick circulatory system.
The whispers that gave the place its name returned, but now they were louder and more insidious, leaking through the adrenaline of combat.
...behind you......you don't deserve the power......your ruin is premium...
Renn stopped for a microsecond, shaking his head.
"Did anyone else hear that last part?"
"The what?" asked Lily, tensing up and raising her shield again.
"Nothing. I think the Dungeon is trying to psychoanalyze me," Renn murmured. His modulated voice sounded firm, though inside he was cataloging the thirty different ways gravity seemed to want to push him to the left.
"Hold the line!" barked Varic from the vanguard.
The Supervisor wasn't happy. Despite the initial victory he walked with tense shoulders, his black armor absorbing the little light in the surroundings, until he stopped abruptly in front of Lily's group, forcing the entire column to brake. Varic ignored the troops and locked his hard eyes directly on Renn, then moved to the two women behind him.
"You," he growled, pointing at Lysandra with an armored gauntlet stained with ichor.
Lysandra, wrapped in Renn's leather jacket that was three sizes too big, looked at him with the indifference of someone watching a noisy insect.
"Me?"
"That gravity trick," Varic said, narrowing his eyes dangerously. "That wasn't standard magic. I didn't see a verbal spell. What class are you? Gravity Mage? Void Witch?"
"I am a consultant," Lysandra replied softly.
"A consultant who crushes monsters like grapes." Varic snorted and, without warning, raised his left hand. A ring on his index finger shone with an intense scarlet light.
[ABILITY ACTIVATED: COMMANDER'S EYE - LEVEL 7]
Renn felt a tingle on his skin, as if someone had passed an electric current down his spine; he knew it was a high-level scanning ability designed to pierce disguises and assess threats.
"Hey!" Lily protested, stepping forward. "Supervisor, that is a violation of...!"
The scan hit Lysandra. And bounced off.
The scarlet light fractured upon touching Lysandra's veil and dissipated into harmless sparks. Varic stepped back half a pace, surprised, staring at his ring as if it had broken.
"What the hell...? My scan returned 'Syntax Error'."
"My partner values her privacy," Valeria intervened with a fluid step to place herself between Varic and Lysandra, resting her hand casually on the hilt of her crystal dagger. "And it is rude to spy, Supervisor."
Varic looked at Valeria and, for a second, Renn saw the calculation in the veteran's eyes. Varic was a Level 42 Lord who had survived Dungeons worse than this; he knew how to recognize a predator when he faced one, and Valeria was the biggest predator in the room.
"You have high-rank blocking gear," Varic said finally, lowering his hand although the tension in his shoulders didn't lessen. "Fine. I don't care who you are or what you're hiding. If you have the power to squash bugs, use it against the enemy, not against my Raid."
He turned to Renn and, for the first time, really looked at him as the owner of the leash of two monsters.
"Keep them under control. If their unstable magic collapses the roof on us, I will kill you myself before the rocks crush us. Understood?"
"Sure," Renn replied with his metallic voice.
Varic nodded sharply and turned toward the rest of the immense cavern.
"VANGUARD! DOUBLE TIME! I want to reach the Guardian Room before this place decides to shift gravity and makes us fall toward the ceiling!"
As Varic walked away barking orders at Darian's men, Renn released the breath he was holding.
"He's intense," he commented.
"Well, that is his duty," Valeria corrected. "He detected the power anomaly immediately. He is the first human here showing decent survival instincts."
"Aside from me, I hope," said Lily, approaching Renn.
"You have suicidal instincts, but you have good taste in allies," said a husky voice from below.
Renn looked down to find a dwarf with a gray braided beard so long it was tucked into his belt, looking at him with critical eyes. He carried a tower shield that looked like a vault door and chewed on a piece of dried root.
"Specialist," the dwarf grunted. "I'm Bram. Siege and demolition engineer for the Boss's squad."
"A pleasure, Bram."
"That remains to be seen." Bram spat out a piece of root. "Helga says you're the swamp guy, the one with no troops, but you bring those two..." Bram nodded toward Lysandra and Valeria. "...and my 'things that explode' detector went crazy when they passed by. So I have a question: if things get ugly, are they going to explode the goblins or us?"
"The goblins," Renn assured him. "Preferably."
"Good. Because I hate being exploded, it ruins my digestion." Bram hit his breastplate with his fist. "Korg! Where are my rations?"
"Stop thinking about food, you old sack of rocks!" shouted another dwarf from the back row. Korg was younger, with a shaved head, blue tattoos on his skull, and carrying a backpack that clinked with pots and pans. "We are in a distortion zone! If you eat now, you'll vomit in zero gravity!"
"I prefer to vomit full than die hungry!"
"Ignore them," Lily said with an apologetic smile, though there was affection in her eyes. "They're loud, but they're the best. Bram can find a structural weakness in a mountain with a hammer, and Korg... well, Korg cooks better than he fights, and he fights very well."
"And I'm Lyra," said a musical and enthusiastic voice.
A young elf, barely out of adolescence by the looks of it, peeked out from behind Sera's shoulder. She had large, bright eyes and held a bow that seemed too big for her.
"Sera says you're a mysterious strategist. Is it true your mask has thermal night vision? Is it true those two are spirits summoned from a dimension of pure energy? Is it true that...?"
"Lyra, breathe," ordered Sera, putting a hand on the young girl's shoulder. "You are overwhelming the specialist. And yes, hold formation."
"Sorry, Lieutenant." Lyra straightened up, but winked at Renn. "But seriously, if you have thermal vision, let me know. I hate shooting blind."
Renn looked at the group. Twenty troops. They weren't generic NPCs or numbers on a screen; they were people. Bram the grump, Korg the cook, Lyra the enthusiastic rookie. And all of them were looking at Renn as a key piece of their survival.
"I'll do what I can," Renn said, feeling the weight of responsibility settle on his shoulders. "We're going to keep everyone alive today."
"That's the plan," Lily said, bumping her armored shoulder against Renn's arm. "Let's go. Darian is getting too far ahead. That idiot is going to trigger a trap, I can feel it."
They didn't have to wait long for Lily's prediction to come true, but it wasn't a trap. It was an ambush.
The group advanced through a wide tunnel that opened into a colossal cavern where the ceiling was lost in luminescent mist, while the floor was littered with crystal formations resembling dead trees.
"Halt," said Valeria suddenly.
Varic, fifty meters ahead, raised his fist.
"HALT!" roared the Supervisor. "Something is wrong!"
Silence fell over the group; even the Dungeon's whispers seemed to hold their breath.
"What's happening?" asked one of the Lords on the left flank, looking nervous.
"Too quiet," said Renn, his modulated voice amplifying his own sudden realization. "No bats. No vermin. Nothing."
"It's a kill zone," said Lysandra. "They are waiting."
"Who?"
"Them."
From the darkness of the crystal formations, a sound began. Thump. Thump. Thump. Drums made of bone and stretched skin.
"RIGHT FLANK!" shouted Sera, drawing her bow.
From the shadows, the green tide emerged. There were hundreds of Deep Tribe Goblins equipped with armor made of giant insect chitin and stolen metal plates, their weapons gleaming with vile poisons. And they didn't come alone.
"WOLF RIDERS!" roared Bram, banging his shield. "Shield wall! NOW!"
Dozens of giant wolves with red eyes and drooling jaws charged from the shadows, mounted by goblins with long spears. Behind them, on the elevated crystal ridges, rows of goblin archers rose up, and in the center, on a bone platform, three Goblin Shamans raised staffs that crackled with green electric energy.
"It's a damn legion!" shouted Darian Volt. "Retreat!"
"NO ONE RETREATS!" Varic's voice was thunder. The Supervisor slammed his greatsword into the ground and a shockwave of red energy exploded from him, knocking down the first five wolves that tried to jump him. "If you run, they'll hunt you from behind! SHELL FORMATION! FIRE AT WILL!"
The battle erupted with the noise of a landslide.
"Shadow!" shouted Lily. "With me! Protect Sera's flank!"
Renn didn't think. He ran. He pulled out the "training" staff Valeria had given him and slid next to Lily just as the first wave of goblin infantry crashed against Helga and Greta's shield wall.
The impact was brutal; the sound of metal against bone and chitin filled the air.
"Hold!" roared Helga, pushing with her shield against three goblins at once.
"There are too many!" shouted Korg, throwing an axe that buried itself in a wolf rider's forehead. "They are flanking!"
Renn, from his position behind the shield line, saw something the others, busy not dying, didn't see. The goblin archers on the ridges weren't shooting at random: they were coordinating. Every time a Shaman raised his staff, the archers concentrated fire on a specific point in the Lords' formation to break it.
"They're directed!" shouted Renn. "Lily! The archers are following the Shamans' signals! If we don't take down the archers, they're going to massacre Darian's vanguard and then come for us!"
"They're too high!" replied Lily, blocking a spear thrust and decapitating the goblin with a fluid counterattack. "Sera doesn't have the angle!"
"Valeria!" shouted Renn.
He didn't have to give the order. Valeria was already moving, or rather, she had ceased to be where she was. A purple streak crossed the battlefield, ignoring the foot goblins; Valeria ran up a vertical crystal column, defying gravity, and landed in the middle of the enemy archer line.
It was a massacre. There were no screams, only the flash of purple crystal and falling bodies. In ten seconds, the rain of arrows on the right flank ceased, but hundreds remained on the ground.
A giant wolf, mounted by a goblin in rusty plate armor, broke Darian's defense line and charged directly toward Lily's group, flanking the shield wall. Its target: Lyra, the young elf who was shooting frantically and didn't see the lateral charge coming.
"LYRA!" shouted Sera.
Too far. But Renn was close. He was a Level 3 Lord with 14 power points. The wolf had at least 300.
Terrible math, Renn thought. And then he charged.
Renn launched himself across the glassy floor, taking advantage of the slippery surface everyone else was trying to avoid. He slid like a baseball player reaching base, jamming his unbreakable staff right between the front legs of the wolf in full sprint.
Basic physics. Speed plus obstacle equals disaster.
The wolf stumbled violently. Its front legs got tangled in the staff and inertia did the rest; the beast did a complete flip in the air, launching its goblin rider like a projectile against a stalagmite with a wet crunch. The wolf landed heavily at Lyra's feet, stunned.
"NOW!" shouted Renn, rolling to safety.
Lyra didn't hesitate. She lowered her bow, drew a dagger, and drove it into the wolf's eye before it could get up. The elf looked at Renn with wide eyes.
"That was amazing! How did you know that...?"
"Less chatter, more arrows!" Renn gasped, standing up on shaky legs.
He had just taken down an elite monster with a stick. He looked at his training weapon; sturdy, yes, but not lethal. Against the tide of enemies, he felt that blunt force wouldn't be enough.
I need steel, he thought urgently.
A few yards away, an Alliance soldier lay fallen, but his short sword was still within reach. Renn lunged for it.
SWISH.
A sharp whistle cut the air. A black arrow, fired by a goblin archer hidden in the shadows, flew straight for his heart.
Renn didn't have time to react.
But just before impact, a golden rune glowed brightly on his right shoulder, over the fabric of his armor. It was a sigil that hadn't been there before.
PING.
The arrow hit the barrier of light and bounced harmlessly off his shoulder pad, leaving only a shallow mark and a dull thud, like a hard punch, but without penetrating the flesh. The rune flickered once and vanished. A one-time use spell.
Renn hissed at the pain of the blow and instinctively looked back.
In the distance, near the rear guard, Lysandra lowered a finger with elegance. The goblin archer who had fired was suddenly crushed against the ground by an invisible force, turned into an unrecognizable smear in an instant.
You're welcome, her gesture seemed to say. His "princess" crossed her arms again with boredom.
Renn, his shoulder throbbing, dropped the staff and gripped the hilt of the fallen soldier's sword. The weight of real steel gave him renewed confidence. Beside him, Lyra's bow sang again.
"Got it!" she replied belatedly to his order, loosing another arrow.
"Nice move, Shadow!" Bram shouted, throwing a pack of explosives.
The battle intensified. Renn moved with the sword now, covering Lily's blind spots.
"They're breaking the center!" Lily yelled, fighting back-to-back with Thrain.
Renn looked around. They were being surrounded. He saw Lysandra watching the battle with mild disgust. A goblin tried to approach her and tripped inexplicably, falling onto his own spear.
"Lysandra!" Renn shouted, running toward Lily to cover her blind side with his blade. "A little help here!"
"Help?" Lysandra's voice floated over the noise of battle. "I thought you were having fun. It's a character-building exercise."
"My character is already built!" Renn yelled, blocking a goblin's strike and kicking it in the knee. "Now I need you to build an exit!"
"Watch out!" Lily shoved Renn, taking a hit on her shield.
A Shaman had fired a bolt of green energy.
"Valeria!" Renn shouted into his comms. "The Shamans!"
"I'm busy taking out the aerial trash," Valeria's voice replied. "But I see the problem. They're charging an area spell."
"Lysandra!" Renn pleaded.
Lysandra sighed. It was a long, theatrical sigh.
"Fine. I suppose I've seen enough. Besides, the dust is getting on your jacket."
Lysandra stepped forward, removed her black veil, and smiled. She raised her right hand toward the cavern ceiling, toward the massive crystal stalactites above the Shamans.
"Fall," she whispered.
Gravity reversed and multiplied. The stone spears detached and fell with crushing violence.
CRASH.
The rumble shook the ground and wiped the Shamans off the map. The magic they were gathering unraveled in the air, stunning the rest of the goblin army.
"NOW!" Varic roared. "THEY'RE BROKEN! COUNTERATTACK!"
The Alliance troops charged. Renn fell to his knees, using his sword for support and breathing hard, until he felt a hand on his shoulder.
Lily had goblin blood on her armor, but her eyes were shining.
"You okay?" she asked, panting.
"Alive," Renn said. "Which is more than I expected."
"That move with the wolf... you were crazy. It could have killed you in one bite."
"It was Lyra or me," Renn said, accepting her help to stand up.
"Very cute," Valeria's voice interrupted, landing softly beside them. "But there are still about fifty stragglers that need clearing out. Shall we continue?"
"We continue," Lily said, pulling away from Renn with a visible blush. "Squad! Cleanup formation!"
Renn looked back. Lysandra was standing where he had left her, calmly putting her veil back on. She flicked an invisible speck of dust from Renn's jacket and, catching him looking, her cat ears twitched under her hood with a quick jerk.
You're welcome, the gesture said.
Renn smiled under his mask and raised his sword.
"Let's finish this."
The cleanup took another twenty minutes. When the last goblin fell, Varic walked to the center of the room and stopped in front of Lysandra.
"You," Varic said, his voice gravelly.
Lysandra looked up, her amber eyes cold above the veil.
"Supervisor?"
Varic looked at the pile of rubble where the Shamans used to be. Slowly, he sheathed his greatsword.
"Nice shot," Varic grunted.
"Thank you," Lysandra said.
Varic turned to Renn.
"And you. You have some terrifying pets. And you've got guts. I saw what you did with that wolf. It was stupid, but effective. If you survive the Guardian Room... find me after."
"I think he likes us," Renn said as Varic walked away.
"He just offered you a job," Lily said, astonished. "Varic never recruits. He hates everyone."
Renn laughed, feeling the adrenaline fading to give way to exhaustion and the throbbing pain in his shoulder where the arrow had bounced off. He tightened his grip on the borrowed sword; he had survived the first round. But he knew the worst was yet to come.
"Ten-minute break?" Valeria suggested, cleaning her dagger.
"Ten minutes," Lily agreed. "And then... we go for the Guardian."
Renn nodded, sitting on a rock next to Lysandra.
"You okay?" he asked quietly.
"I'm bored," she replied, leaning lightly against his healthy shoulder. "Goblins are loud and gross. And they almost got your jacket dirty."
"I'll buy you another one if it gets ruined."
"You better. I've grown fond of it." Lysandra closed her eyes under her hood, purring softly. "Wake me up when we reach the boss. I hope it's something more challenging."
"It's an Unstable Dungeon," Renn said, looking into the darkness of the tunnel. "I think your wish is going to come true."