System Report:

  A Way Out

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  Lionel wasn’t sure what he expected as he pulled himself over the ledge of the churning abyss, but it certainly wasn’t this mess. Loose rubble, burning debris, broken shingles, and the occasional stray sconce soared through the air, adding worrying texture to the already howling storm and whipping rain. At the heart of the strange, meteorological event was what could only be described as the latest flavour of twisted Dungeon bosses—a massive, multi-limbed abomination—engaged in the rather violent process of repurposing large portions of the walls and ceiling in his pursuit of a pink blur.

  And that was only the backdrop of the chaotic church.

  Closer were the half-formed fish folk, enthusiastically ripping into their former peers of misguided devotion. There was gnashing teeth, flailing, and the sort of gill-driven gargling that suggested evolution needed stricter guidelines. There were also the raging flames which rose all around, crackling through wooden beams and turning any sections of the air not claimed by the storm into a hazy blanket of smoke.

  In short, it was the sort of place where life expectancies rapidly plummeted.

  Lionel had barely dodged a chunk of high-velocity masonry—courtesy of Annabel doing whatever Annabell did—as the Delver woman he’d dragged back from the brink of death was forced to baptize her new weapon (a candleholder that’d taken to its true destiny as a battle-staff) in blood.

  She used it first to realign a glassy-eyed acolyte’s neck, then spun to relieve something eel-shaped of its excessive teeth, only to twist back to ensure her original foe didn’t have the knee-cartilage to remain standing. All in a single, fluid series of motion.

  She clearly didn’t need his assistance. So, as she turned to face her next snarling opponent, Lionel let his gaze fall on the other young woman that’d just been pulled from the floor-—another member of whatever doomed party had tried to clear this Dungeon before their arrival, by the looks of it.

  Lacking both the height and the general heft of her iron-wielding companion, her clothes told a more interesting story. Even tattered and torn, the flared neckline of her jacket alone screamed, “I never expect to find myself within swinging or biting range of anything remotely dangerous.”

  “Spellcaster?” Lionel inquired as he slipped up beside the bleeding youth, guiding her neatly out of the way of a snapping, many-toothed torpedo that had just clawed its way off the floor. A gentle nudge from Lionel’s boot—entirely, plausibly, accidental—and the skittering creature went plummeting into the abyss.

  If the local fauna chose to remove itself from existence, that wasn’t interference, strictly speaking… right?

  She gave a daze nod, eyes still glued to the spot where the snarling creature had just disappeared from, and Lionel continued, “Spell of choice? And—purely hypothetically—will it be enough to bring this entire place down?”

  “Spark Bolt, but I’m not sure if—”

  “Spark Bolt should be plenty enough,” Lionel said, feeling quietly relieved that he hadn’t just saved some strange flavour of healer by accident. Healers were lovely in principle, but notoriously less explosive in practice. “The boss has already smashed through most of the supporting pillars. All we need is a nudge.”

  She blinked at him, seeming at a loss for words, only to glance toward the far end of the church where the rampaging boss was still attempting to swat a pink blur out of existence. “Was that her plan?”

  Even Lionel had to stop and consider that one.

  He followed her gaze to where Annabell—screaming, sprinting, and wheezing lamentfully—was narrowly avoiding a dozen or so twisted legs that kept punching the air around her. A stumble here, and an entire statue gave up in an explosion of dust. A trip there, and a deep gouge was carved through the floor where her head had just been. Yet between strained breaths and near-death experiences, she somehow managed to scream something about a “useless plushie not doing his part.”

  Five legs speared toward her at once, missed by a margin thin enough to make reality nervous, and obliterated yet another stone pillar she’d attempted—optimistically—to hide behind.

  The entire church rumbled in protest as Annabell appeared on the far side, gasping something about a time-out. A plea for a cookie break, which the violently cursing High Priest was in no position to provide.

  In the brief instant it’d taken for Amadeus North to reduce yet another supporting structure to a memory, several of his many legs had become preoccupied with fending off a swarm of deep-sea marauders Annabell had accidentally led him through in her mad flight.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Accidentally or…?

  Then Annabell tripped over the corner of a bench in her rapid backpedalling, and without any enemy assistance whatsoever, executed a flawless faceplant onto the ground.

  “I doubt it,” Lionel said as more masonry came trickling down around them, returning his attention to the woman besides him. “A handful of Spark Bolts up there should do the trick. Think you can manage?”

  She followed his finger toward the ceiling, where flames had finished climbing the holy bannisters and were now industriously working their way through the beams supporting the main dome. “Just…” she swallowed, seeming to regret her next few words even before she said them, “just give me a few minutes to catch my breath.”

  “Works for me,” Lionel said, stealing another glance at the ongoing chaos. “I wasn’t planning on being inside this place when it collapses, anyway. And if I’m not mistaken—”

  A thunderous roar rippled through the air, followed by the metallic clank of heavy iron against stone. A second later, a rusted anchor crested the lip of the hole beneath the Core—a Core that’d never stopped ascending, now hovering high in the church’s centre like a sickly-green eye.

  “—we’re about to get company.”

  As a massive claw joined the anchor on the rim—twice the size of Lionel’s torso—he’d already turned toward the iron-wielding Delver, who was in the process of sending another twisted sea-creature skidding across the floor.

  “Hey, Delver-lady,” he called out over crackling flames and shrieking sea-spawn, “might want to round up your friends and make for the exit. We’re about to get company!”

  Finishing her swing—the iron in her hands having begun to take on several severe bends—she shot him a quick glance, then at the hole where a fresh swarm of monstrosities were hauling themselves into the church, and finally toward the shattered stained-glass window behind them.

  One last arc of her weapon, dispatching another unfortunate townsfolk mid-transformation, and she came running over, scooping up the wheezing, moaning corpse of a woman by the wall—a third Delver friend?

  “Wait for us outside,” Lionel called, steadily backtracking away from the fresh swarm of snarling newcomers. “We’ll be with you in a couple of minutes!”

  If any of them lingered long enough before escaping the crumbling church, they would have heard Lionel’s sharp whistle cut through the din shortly after:

  “Over here, Annabell!”

  Followed by a breathless—and thoroughly offended—shout from the far side of the building:

  “I’m not some damned dog!”

  ***

  Outside the rumbling church, the rain was doing its level best to drown the city. It came down in sheets, drumming and pounding across rooftops that had long ago given up any pretence of keeping it out.

  To Yenna, it was nevertheless a welcome change. Out here, there was no smoke to sting her eyes, no blistering heat, and no immediate danger of being eviscerated, crushed, impaled, digested, or otherwise inconvenienced by sharp things.

  Still, she had barely slipped down from the shattered window as her legs folded like cheap furniture. She hit the cobblestones with a thud that suggested the street had won that particular argument.

  Fortunately, Gami didn’t see her.

  The woman was ahead of her, slogging through the rain with Alana slung over one shoulder, aiming for shelter beneath the eaves of a nearby building. “Shelter,” in this case, meant merely less wet rather than dry. There hadn’t been a truly dry place in Ashenmoor since… well, possibly ever.

  “You alright?” asked Gami. Not to Alana, who quite obviously wasn’t. Even as she was slid down against a damp wall, the rogue kept shivering, clutching her head, and whispering something that sounded very much like an apology to reality itself.

  Yenna, having only just regained her footing, gave a valiant nod, the kind people give when they want to convey both yes and please stop asking before I fall over again.

  Gami peered down the dark street, where puddles reflected the burning mayhem still eerily present beyond stained-glass windows. Tremors of destruction, a chorus of hissing gargles, and crackling flames persisted even beneath the drumming rain.

  “Should we…” Gami began, hesitating as thunder rolled across the sky like an angry deity shifting in its sleep. “Should we run?”

  The words came reluctantly. Yenna could tell. Her friend still clutched the bloodied candle holder with the intent of someone ready to use it. But between the condition of the other two—and the fact that Gami herself was hunched over, exhausted, and barely using a left shoulder that drooped like a wilted flower—running away did appear to be the only sensible option.

  The only option they had left.

  Even so, even as the rain kept soaking the last strength she possessed, Yenna shook her head.

  “No,” she breathed, the word scraping out between ribs that might have been cracked. They might have been broken. At this point, they might have been missing, for all the good they were doing. “I just… need a second to gather myself. I still… There’s something I need to do. We wait for them here.”

  She didn’t say it aloud—couldn’t, really—that she needed to bring the entire church crashing down. She could still glimpse the smoldering beams through the shattered window—visible alongside flying fish-folk, burning projectiles, and general carnage. A reminder of both what she’d already done and what was still left to do.

  But Yenna had nothing left inside her.

  No mana. No strength. No convenient supernatural reserve waiting to be discovered. Still, she would have to find a way.

  For a moment, it looked as though Gami wanted to argue, but instead she settled for a short nod. There would be plenty of time later—for explanations, apologies, and possibly angry shouting—but later had a habit of not happening unless one survived the present.

  She glanced down the street, grip tightening around her make-shift weapon.

  “Will…” she hesitated for just a breath, “will you be fine on your own for a minute? I’d rather not stumble into a dead end when more of those fish-faced bastards come after us.”

  Yenna managed a thin, crooked smile—the sort of smile that didn’t really reach anywhere but was doing its best. “I’ll yell the moment I see as much as a fin.”

  It wasn’t a reassuring promise, but then again, few promises could have been considering their circumstance.

  This cursed nightmare wasn’t over yet.