The Rangers of Fortram had spent a whole day-cycle down in the Dungeon, yet they could not find the boss-monster. Devi’s earlier enthusiasm had long turned into disappointment; they had traveled down the magical elevator and scoured the entire center-place of Stonehearth, yet even with Kim’s eyes and Jack’s tricks they hadn’t found any opponent.

What they had found was another tunnel quite different from the ones they had encountered before; it was a clean-cut tube with a very wide diameter. A large pipe. It lead steadily upwards, its perfect-round walls covered with molten stone.

When they followed this strange pipe, they soon found themselves crossing an enormous portal that blocked off the entire pathway. The pipe continued on the other side the same as before, and they had to walk quite a lot before they saw the first change in their surroundings; another portal.

“Again?” Heda groaned, adjusting her grip around Tamara’s shoulders.

Tamara had been worryingly silent ever since she had woken up. Jack had given her spare clothes as well as some food and water that she listlessly accepted, but otherwise she was unresponsive. Shell-shocked. Devi believed that she had seen a glint of recognition in her eyes when she looked at her, but that was about all the reaction she had gotten. The Human woman had yet to say a word to any of them.

Devi had never seen such behavior from any Sylven, let alone Human. She understood the theory behind going through such a shockingly-awful experience that it affected the mind-health, but she couldn’t relate to it in any way. She let Heda handle Tamara; taking care of the weak hadn’t been part of Devi’s life in any way, and so she felt terribly out of her depth here. Heda seemed to have a better idea what to do, though for all her efforts Tamara remained vacant-eyed.

“The scans are the same as before,” Jack said, stepping up to the portal. Devi followed him as he stepped through, arriving to a tunnel much the same as before—with the exception of the swellers. The walls of the tunnel were full of swellers, and Devi’s collar flashed with a message as soon as she saw them.

You have left the Dungeon: Swellers of the Deep

“What the hell,” Heda cursed as she arrived through the portal. She quickly summoned a sword into her hand, but the swellers remained motionless. They were all in some kind of dazed-trance, not even noticing their arrival. Hundreds of creatures formed a blanket over the tunnel, leaving no uncovered spot of stone anywhere.

“Reminds me of a video-game,” Kim said, keeping his voice hushed. “A bugged one, where the enemies fail to notice the Player.”

Devi remembered hearing about video-games from Randel, but she didn’t have the faintest idea what Kim was talking about. She drew Silverfang but did not activate it, watching Jack stalk forward. He kicked the nearest sweller hard, sending it into other swellers and causing a chain-reaction of falling creatures—yet the nest did not stir. The fallen swellers quietly righted themselves, climbing onto their feet and then standing still.

“It’s probably because we’re outside the Dungeon,” Jack said. “These swellers shouldn’t be here.”

“Kill them,” Tamara spoke.

“Tamara!” Heda said, sounding just as surprised as Devi felt. “I’m glad that you—”

“Kill them all,” Tamara said, hugging herself as her body started trembling. “Kill them!”

Her shout echoed in the tunnel several times before all was silent again.

“We will,” Heda said. “I promise you we will. But getting you to safety comes first. Alright?”

“About that safety,” Kim said, clearing his throat. He had his collar’s projection turned on, displaying his map. “Something is wrong—either with my collar, or with this place. My map says that we are inside the city.”

“What?” Jack asked, shooting a sharp-look at Kim.

“We are under the lower ring of Fortram.”

Devi looked at the tube-like tunnel as it arched steadily upward, then back at the portal they had come through. Could it be a way to bypass the revolving earth beneath Fortram? If this tunnel was truly moving with the city, then whoever dug this tunnel was already—

“We have to hurry,” Jack said. “Kim, clear the way for us.”

As Kim began to fling swellers away with his Telekinesis, Devi berated herself silently; she had forgotten to leave a decoy back at home. She had thought it wouldn’t be necessary, but she had been proven foolish-wrong; with the help of her decoy she would have been able to open a portal now and arrive back to Fortram instant-manner.

The group broke into a hurried-march along the tunnel – with Heda carrying Tamara because she couldn’t keep up – and soon enough they heard voices. Shouts. Grinding metal. Rumbling earth. Above them all was a hissing noise that sounded louder and louder. No more frozen-still swellers perched on the walls of the tunnel, but the slope became so steep that Kim had to give them Winged Feet to climb further. The last stretch of the tunnel went outright skyward! Devi took the physical exertion of stairs-climbing better than the others, and so she was the first one to emerge from the hole—and the first to set her eyes on the destruction.

Smoke rose toward the night sky. Buildings had collapsed and were lit on fire. Injured and dead Humans lay wherever Devi looked. Deafening noise. And in the midst of this? There stood an enormous maggot, firing a beam of purple light at the second wall. The monster loomed so close to Devi that she could feel the heat of its energy-beam.

“Move!” Jack shouted over the noise, and Devi ran with her team before the Winged Feet wore off. Just as they landed next to the remains of a house, the maggot paused firing its purple light. Had it noticed that its attack wasn’t enough to break through the wall? It let out a low groan and it flopped onto its belly to slither closer to the damaged structure, bulldozing everything that got in its way.

“Oh no, you don’t,” Heda said, pushing Tamara to Jack’s arms before breaking into a sprint after the monster. Kim was about to follow, but Jack grabbed his shoulder to stop him.

“Let her go,” Jack spoke over the rumble. “I need you to collapse the hole we came from, or else we’ll find swellers swarming all over us.”

For a moment Kim looked like he was going to argue, but then he nodded and headed back to the tunnel. Jack adjusted his grip around Tamara, then turned his pale-gray eyes to Devi.

“I’m going to call for reinforcements and take Tamara to safety,” he said. “You should follow Heda, if you feel like you can make a difference.”

“I can,” Devi said, lifting her chin.

“Good,” he said, pulling a bright-red flower from his pocket. “Don’t die.”

Suddenly both Jack and Tamara were gone, with a single petal of red flower drifting through the air in their place. Devi turned to go too, running after Heda while planning her next move. The maggot was longer than the sweller behemoths were tall. Such a large monstrosity wouldn’t get hurt easily, not even if Devi used Silverfang. She would need to use Recursive Ray, and she would need to make it as strong as possible. The backlash would hurt her muscles and most likely would make her too exhausted to do anything else afterward—but that was fine. Acceptable, if it stopped the monster. Devi steeled herself for the pain in advance, running along the wide valley of destruction that the maggot had left behind.

It was about to reach the wall, though Devi was unsure what it would do after that. Climb over or burrow through? She recognized her surroundings as the main road that she and Randel had often taken when they went training, which meant that the monster was now getting close to destroying their home. But even as worry sank its fangs into her heart, Devi forced herself to focus. It mattered not where the maggot was going, for she was going to stop the rampaging monster either way.

The enlarged maggot wavered for a moment just before it reached the wall. Abruptly, it twisted its head back and opened its maw at Devi—no, not exactly at her. Up ahead, right at the tail of the maggot, Heda was shouting obscenities at the enormous creature. She seemed to be tiny and harmless in comparison, but Devi suspected that it was Heda’s Center of Attention that got the maggot to turn around. Purple light coalesced within the gullet of the monster, and within the next heartbeat Devi realized two things; the maggot was going to attack Heda with an energy-beam, and Devi was right behind her in the path of fire.

Devi’s feet skidded on the broken ground as she changed direction, late as she was. Opening her Instant Portals crossed her mind, but she knew that a portal wouldn’t provide enough cover; the energy-beam would be too wide. Creator save her, then. She kept running even as the maggot fired, the purple light slamming onto Heda and then twisting out of its trajectory to shoot up to the large green moon. Redirect. Heda’s Ability had bought enough time for Devi to reach the nearest still-standing building, getting out of the energy-beam’s path. She had done it none too soon; Redirect gave out a heartbeat later, and the maggot’s attack slammed into Heda full-force.

Devi gasped as the blinding light swallowed Heda’s pale silhouette, then scythed across the entire city to hit the base of the outer wall. When the maggot stopped firing, there was no sign of Heda anywhere. Devi grit her teeth, stepping out onto the destroyed road even as the maggot turned back to the second wall. It was now or never. Devi held out her arms, opening a portal on both her left and right side. She then pointed Silverfang at her own body through the portal, and fired a Recursive Ray—

—right into the air. Devi was suddenly looking at her portals from afar, with a familiar black-haired Human standing in-between them.

“Hey!” Devi yelled, half indignant and half relieved. Her shout got lost in the noise of the maggot’s energy-beam as the monster resumed attacking the wall. Randel didn’t even look back as he sprinted toward the maggot, reaching its tail and—punching it with his fist?

Then the maggot was gone.

Gone was the energy-beam too, and in the resulting silence a small red fur-ball fell from the sky. At the same time an enormous crash sounded behind Devi, shaking the earth. She whirled around, only now noticing the massive segmented limbs holding onto the outer wall. Sweller behemoths were sieging the city, and by the sound of their pained cries they met plenty of resistance. Good. Devi would see whether she can help with repelling those creatures—later. She opened her collar’s screen for a moment, switching to her Company window and checking the members of the Rangers of Fortram. Heda’s name was listed there, which meant that she had managed to survive the maggot’s attack. Now, the only thing left was…

“Sorry for stealing your prey,” Randel said as he arrived to Devi’s side. “But I think you’ll have better opportunities later.”

Devi turned to look at Randel, who was wearing his usual paint-streaked clothes; a simple long-sleeved shirt with knee-length shorts. Not something that men usually wore to battle, though with Randel’s limited wardrobe Devi hardly expected anything better. He looked as if he had just gone out to a leisure-stroll.

Devi also took note of the small goleton beast shadowing Randel. The fire-red furry animal was nowhere to be seen, but the goleton beast was about the same size, which was … curious.

“What is it?” Randel asked, tilting his head questioningly. Devi paused, narrowing her eyes at Randel. Did he intend to ignore what had happened between them the last time? How very typical of him, to avoid matters that would make him uncomfortable. Still, perhaps she could give him a delay-concession. The sweller behemoths were still here, and now was not the time to get into another argument.

“Why do you say I have opportunity later?” she asked.

“Well, this Dungeon is all about the number eight,” Randel said, holding up four fingers on both of his hands. “Did you think there would be only one worm?”

To punctuate his words, the entire city trembled as two pillars of purple light burst forth in the distance, soaring up to the night sky. Devi’s breath got caught in her throat. She was too far to see the maggots slithering out of the ground, but she didn’t have to try hard to imagine the destruction they had just caused. A heartbeat later a third beam of light joined the others somewhere on the opposite side of the city. Randel had been right; the worst of it was not yet over.

“How do you do that?” Devi asked, unable to suppress a shiver.

“Do what?”

“This—never mind,” Devi said, forcing herself to calm down. “Can you turn the other monsters into little beasts too?”

“Eh, probably not,” Randel said. “Nosy is quite ruffled from all the flying and teleporting around. He’d get mad at me if I used him like that. Isn’t that right, Nosy?”

He knelt down to stroke the steel-beast’s head—which was perhaps not as mechanical as Devi had thought. The gray eyes that Nosy regarded her with were keen-sharp.

“So, how do we stop them?”

“We don’t,” Randel said, standing back up. “No offense Devi, but we shouldn’t run around the city like overeager fools. I know that many people are dying right now, but there are Players in this city who can deal with the worms better than we do.”

“That is expected,” Devi said. “Jack said he will bring reinforcements. But I want to help too.”

“Don’t worry, you will,” Randel said, then shifted Soul Eater into his hand and hurled it past Devi. The black dagger sank into a skittering sweller with a squelching sound, pinning it to the ground.

“Oh,” Devi said, jolting-alert. It seemed like Kim wasn’t entirely successful with collapsing the hole and stopping a swellers—or perhaps the swellers had found another way into the city. Devi’s mood darkened as she saw more and more of the swellers climbing onto the broken buildings. She couldn’t deny her disappointment about dealing with the small monsters instead of toppling the big ones.

“Let’s go back to our place,” Randel said. “It’ll be easier to repel the swellers there.”

“Our place, is it?” Devi remarked quietly, following Randel into the cover of the still-standing buildings. They jogged along the small streets with Nosy in their heels, which made Devi wonder what had happened with Randel in the past two days. Questions would have to wait till later, however.

The farther they got from where the maggot had been, the more people they encountered. They found pained-injured people wailing as well as people who were looting the abandoned stores, but Randel ignored all of them. The streets were so thrash-littered that if Devi didn’t knew better she would have thought that a tornado had swept through the city. To make things worse, many of the magic-lanterns were broken and the streets were too narrow for the moonlight to properly reach them. Devi kept Silverfang in her hand, watching warily the dark shapes of the distressed, worried, and sometimes violent-angry people on the street. Humans could be such undisciplined people. Ignorant too, perhaps; it seemed to Devi that many of them had no idea what to do in case of an emergency like this. It was a true wonder that as a collective they had survived for so long.

Devi and Randel were pressing their way through a particularly clogged street when the swellers finally caught up to them. The monsters jumped down from the rooftops, sending the crowd into panic. Devi raised Silverfang above her head and activated it, the blade’s white light scaring people away from her and giving her some space. She caught a glimpse of Nosy biting into the leg of someone who had kicked him, saw Randel fling Soul Eater and impale a sweller mid-air, then the monsters were on them.

Devi bisected the sweller that jumped for her head, but its severed left side hit her arm and she almost lost her grip on Silverfang. She created a decoy just to get some buffer between her and the stampeding Humans, then extended her sword to pierce a crawling sweller on a wall. Some of Humans were fighting back too, using brooms and mops and whatever else they had in hand to clobber the swellers that were already on the ground. But there were more swellers climbing over the builds up above, and they were—retreating?

Devi watched the swellers in confusion, unsure what she was seeing. The little monsters seemed to be disorientated; many had ceased their offensive and were staggering around blindly, while others had changed directions and were running away. There was also a constant, sharp buzz right at the edge of Devi’s hearing, as if the swellers were crying in pain.

“Hello again, Tora,” Randel greeted the small Thardos who slid down on a water-pipe. “I guess this means that screaming at them works?”

“Y-Yes!” Tora said, nimbly dodging a rushing Human to arrive at Randel’s side. “It’s tiring a little, so … we take turns to scream at them. I sent children to … every rooftop around your place.”

It took Devi a moment to piece together the words. She looked up, spotting two Thardos children at the edge of a rooftop, their mouths open in a silent scream. Well, not entirely silent. Devi rubbed her ears, getting increasingly disturbed by the high-frequency sounds. Her ears were just barely able to make out something. The round-eared Humans around her seemed to be none the wiser, watching the disoriented swellers with bafflement.

“Devi, let’s go,” Randel said. “I want to be out of here.”

Right. Going back to their home. Devi didn’t know whether she felt annoyed or not. Even the small swellers were handled by the Thardos, so was she even needed here?

She hadn’t made more than a couple of steps before the ground shook and another beam of purple light sprang toward the sky—and this time, it came from worryingly close behind them. Randel groaned loudly, then he was gone and Devi was looking at a very surprised Thardos child in his place. The kid’s eyes widened in alarm, but before Devi could have said anything she was standing on top of a building – on Randel’s building – her eyes set on the beam of light emerging from the ground. Randel appeared next to her in an eyeblink, touching Soul Eater on the ground. He rose to his feet quickly, then took a golden coin out of his pocket as he turned to Devi.

“We are right between the maggot and the wall,” he said. “Do you have any pockets?”

Devi shook her head mutely. Randel stepped closer to her then, grabbing the armor below her neck and tucking the coin underneath it. Devi shuddered a little as the cold metal came resting on her skin just above her collarbone. Randel’s forest-green eyes had gone sharp once again, and for a moment it was all Devi could see.

“It’s a lucky coin,” Randel said, then grabbed her hand to place a new Mark of Replacement on it. “I need you to fire the biggest Ray you can conjure.”

He sounded so calm and matter-of-fact that Devi almost forgot that their lives were at stake.

“You need not ask,” Devi said, walking to a clear spot on the rooftop away from the lanterns and the painting-canvas at the side. She hoped that the building beneath her would be able to withstand the ambient magic.

“The worm is slithering out now,” Randel reported from the edge of the roof. “We have a few seconds before it orients itself to fire.”

Hesitating no further, Devi opened a portal on either side of herself and pointed Silverfang at her own back. The weapon wasn’t strictly necessary, but it helped her channel the magic within her. She cast Recursive Ray and the power ran along her extended arm and through Silverfang, firing a short-narrow beam of light. Would she be able to match the maggots’ beams? Devi felt suddenly unsure about it, but she decided to give it her best-effort.

The first-tier of her Recursive Ray hit her back through the portal, and she barely noticed it. With each tier it would take longer to fire the Ray, its length, width, and intensity accumulating each time before she fired it again. She had to fire it again, lest the power tore her apart. When the second-tier Recursive Ray hit her back, she felt her muscles tense up as the current ran through them. She then fired once more, clutching Silverfang with both hands, gritting her teeth as she absorbed the third-tier. By this time the Ray was powerful enough to destroy her decoys should they try to channel it, but that would be nowhere near enough against the maggot. Devi fired again, feeling pinpricks of fire traveling around her muscles. There was a distinct glow around her body now, lighting her up in the night’s dark.

“There’s another one,” Randel spoke, and the building shook under Devi’s feet. She was unable to take a look, however; her muscles had locked up as the fifth-tier Ray hit her, making it impossible to turn her neck. The power flowing through her was distilled agony. Tears sprang into Devi’s eyes, though they evaporated just as quickly. It happened too quickly for her to comprehend. There was a heartbeat of pause before she fired the sixth-tier, and in that brief moment all she could think of was that she had never before dared to strengthen her Ray this much. Then it hit her back again, and her locked-up jaws muffled her scream. Pause. Then came the pain. Her vision swam, and she was genuinely surprised that she was still standing on her feet. She barely felt the blood from her nose running down to her lips. Pause. The explosion of agony that followed almost had her lose consciousness. Her muscles were burning up and she felt thousands of knives stabbing her from the inside. The only thing she could think of – the only thing that she had time to think of – was that if she fired one more Ray, she would surely die. Much like her decoys, she would burst apart. Pause. Then she fired again.

She couldn’t feel the pain anymore. She kept channeling her power, through her chest, into her arms, out to Silverfang and beyond, unable to stop. The pressure gradually abated and then she was able to see again, see the terrible brightness of her Recursive Ray crash through a beam of purple light heading straight toward her. Then the maggot’s head exploded into gory pieces and her Ray sailed on unhindered, piercing through the body of another maggot that happened to be just behind the first one.

Devi stumbled, realizing that she was standing on the edge of the roof where Randel had stood, her body toppling over—until strong hands grabbed her from behind, steadying her. As the last bits of power left Devi’s body, Randel reached around her and grabbed her elbow, yanking her rigid arms to the side. The tail-end of Recursive Ray cut through the air in a horizontal arc just above the buildings, cutting off the head of yet another enormous maggot as it rose up from the ground.

The city shook again, but this time because of the falling bodies of the dead maggots. Silverfang slipped from Devi’s fingers as the tension evaporated from her body, leaving her oddly light-headed. She felt as if she had gone through the most rigorous body-building exercise of her life, and she was only vaguely aware of Randel dragging her away and laying her down to the ground. She felt something soft beneath her head, and when she looked up she saw Randel’s face grinning above her. Individual strands of his hair stood in every direction, making him look—

“Stupid,” Devi heard herself speak, giggling. “Your hair looks stupid-funny.”

“Hah! You should see yourself, then,” Randel said. He used the sleeve of his shirt to wipe Devi’s face tenderly. “That was a stupidly powerful Ability for a stupidly tough woman.”

“Impressed you, yes?” Devi asked, her voice weak and cracking.

“Yes, you did,” Randel softly replied. He ran his fingers gently through her hair, taking the loose strands out of her face. “Thank you, Devi. For coming back.”

“I never went away,” Devi said.

Her eyelids grew heavier, and so she bit her lips to keep herself awake. They hadn’t killed every maggot so far, had they? Randel had spoken about the number eight, so they had killed only half of the monsters.

“If the other Players cannot deal with the remaining creatures,” Randel said as if he had read her thoughts, “then this city doesn’t deserve to stand at all.”

Devi grunted and tried to get up anyway, but her limbs didn’t want to behave properly. Worry gripped her for a moment that her injury might be permanent—but then she remembered what Jack had told her about healing in this world. Most likely she’d feel better once the battle was over. She hated to be so vulnerable and helpless, but she did her best to calm down. Nobody would hurt her here. Randel was here.

“Okay,” Devi finally said. With some difficulty she managed to turn her head in Randel’s lap, her eyes landing on the big canvas at the side. A painting about herself, she realized. Her image sat by a campfire holding Soul Eater—no, it was about more than that. She was holding a weapon for the very first time in her life. Most of the painting was unfinished, the background smudged and the details vague, and yet … her face on the painting was of pure-joy. Devi felt the warmth spreading in her chest just by looking at the picture. Had Randel been missing her? Was she an awful person if that made her smile? Her lips curled up in a smile anyway. She had been away only for two days! Although, to be truthful, she had left without any notice right after an argument…

“You aren’t going to apologize, are you?” Randel asked. “For looking into my head, I mean.”

“I did what I think is best for you,” Devi said, wincing as she twisted her neck to meet Randel’s eyes. “It is no use to apologize. I shall do it again, if I ever have a chance.”

Randel sighed, and he kept stroking Devi’s hair for a while. His fingers felt really nice on her scalp, but she did not let it distract her from watching Randel’s face closely. He looked sad-melancholic and perhaps also a bit resigned.

“I kinda hate you sometimes,” he said, “but then I hate myself even more.”

Devi blinked at the unexpected reply, unsure how to take it.

“Fine,” Randel said, looking away. “It’s fine. I suppose I’ll need your help with Soul Eater … just don’t come complaining when you see what’s in my head. I’m a big softie inside, you know.”

“Softie?”

“It means that I’m not as manly and charming on the inside as on the outside,” Randel said with some levity in his tone.

“I don’t think you are manly at all—”

“Excuse me?!”

“—but I agree with charming,” Devi said, making Randel look back at her in surprise.

“Thanks,” he said, clearing his throat awkwardly. “You’re alright too, I guess. Even though your face is a mess and you smell as if you bathed in sweller blood.”

“When I can move my arms again, I’m going to punch you for that.”

“I look forward to it,” Randel said. “You can punch me right in my manly chest, and I’ll thank you for it.”

“Anytime,” Devi said with a yawn. “And I thank you too. Thank you for your trust, soul-mate.”

“Hmm?” Randel said. “What’s that last word?”

“Ah, soul-mate?” Devi asked, her eyelids drooping lower and lower. “That’s you, Randel. You’re my soul-mate.”

Randel then said something else, but Devi couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore. When the inevitable sleep took her, she welcomed it with the satisfied-safety of someone who was not alone.