***Kezdorn, lLevel 12 Melas***

“This way!” Ari said, motioning Kezdorn to follow her up the side of the mountain.

“Easy…for…you to…say.” Kezdorn panted as he tried to keep up with the little fairy flitting her way up the crusted mountainside. Already, the coating of faradan was beginning to crack as nature pushed its way up through the brittle stone, lending a hint of green to the pale blue covering.

“Geez.” The tiny little creature flickered in front of his face, hands on her hips and scowling. “If you’re having a hard time climbing a little rock, what makes you think you’ll be able to take the dungeon core?”

“Oh, I’ve got a plan,” Kezdorn said, patting the wand of lightning on his belt.

He’d worked too long for a little hike to stop him now.

Despite the naysaying of his family and friends, Kezdorn had spent fully half of his levels raising his Myst ability, and now, as he was approaching level twenty, he was able to do things only nobles could do.

Thanks to Ari, he had a Myst Core, and the promise of riches and glory. All he needed now was a fortune of his own, and there would be no difference between him and them. Except this damn Myst doesn’t help a man climb a mountain.

Kezdorn had always had a fascination with watching his father make glass and work steel, and when he’d meditated on it, the furnace in his heart had kindled, shedding light inside him as if it had always been there, just unlit.

Pausing for breath, Kezdorn leaned down and picked up a handful of the crumbling faradan, clenching it in his fist, and drawing heat from the furnace in his chest.

The rock melted in his tight grip, and when he opened his hand, the rock had become a tiny glass rabzi made of blueish faradan glass. The delicate piece of blue glass wobbled above his hand where the strange stone pushed itself into the air.

It gave the little figurine a strange lifelike quality.

Kezdorn chuckled and pocketed the figurine. Normally, a piece of art like that would go for at least five silver, and he’d made it in a couple seconds. The Kezdorn of two months ago would be more than happy with that kind of profit, but he needed more. A lot more.

Kezdorn was going to be a noble, and there were some things you couldn’t buy with money. Not that amount of money, anyway.

“You catch your breath yet, slowpoke?” Ari asked, tugging on the melas youth’s ear. “This dungeon core isn’t going to stick around forever. People are going to be all over these mountains in a matter of days. It’s probably now or never. You wanna be rich and famous, don’t you?”

“Of course,” Kezdorn said, straightening and mastering his breathing.

“Good. This way,” the fairy said, motioning him to follow before flitting off until she was barely visible. Kezdorn groaned and followed.

He crested a hill, then was led through a convoluted switchback along the subtropical mountain until he was standing in a narrow, hidden crevice that no one would ever notice beyond ten paces away, cleverly covered by the trunk of a large tree.

Somehow, the tree seemed to have weathered the Roil, its gnarled branches more or less intact after the reality-warping storm had passed by.

“It certainly is well-hidden,” Kazdan said, leaning his head into the crevice and inspecting the cave beyond. It receded into the darkness, preventing him from seeing beyond a foot or two into the emptiness.

Kezdorn pursed his lips and whistled, cocking his ear to listen. That’s a big cave, he thought to himself.

“And you’re sure no one else knows about this?” he asked, bringing his head back up to study the fairy.

“No one alive, anyway,” Ari said. “Cross my heart.” She made an odd little motion across her flat chest and gave him a genuine smile.

“How dangerous is the thing in here?” Kezdorn asked.

“Oh, very dangerous. But if you win, you’ll have more Impact than you know what to do with. You’ll get your class at the very least.”

“And it’s weak to lightning?”

“One good blast should kill the guardian,” she said, holding up three fingers. “Fairy-swearsies.”

Kezdorn frowned, thinking. Fairies were considered a menace everywhere he went, but Ari had been nothing but helpful…after he’d caught her stealing his mom’s pie and demanded recompense.

A dungeon core was priceless…and a key feature of being a noble. With one, you could make a Myst engine. Add that to the right lens…and you were set for life.

And all he had to do was kill the core’s guardian.

“Do you think you can fit?” Ari asked as he peered into the cave again.

“One second,” Kezdorn said, picking up a pinch of faradan and heating it between his fingertips until it was white-hot, casting a bright glow across his face.

Kezdorn flicked the brilliant mote of molten stone into the dark, inspecting the walls as he did, looking for anything out of place. There were a few piles of bones on the floor, and the wall had a strange texture to it, but other than that, he didn’t see anything. In the back of the cave, he spotted a deeper darkness leading to the treasure room.

“Well?” Ari asked. “I fulfilled my side of the Deal.”

“I suppose you did,” Kezdorn said with a sigh, patting his lightning wand to make sure it was still there. “If there’s treasure.” Fairies were notorious for being sneaky. If she hadn’t led him to treasure, she wouldn’t get paid. That was the Deal. Kezdorn had taken precautions to word the agreement carefully.

“There’s plenty in there, I promise,” Ari said.

Kezdorn pulled a torch out of his backpack, lit it and tossed it in, before he knelt down and began to squeeze his way through the crevice, entering the dungeon.

Kezdorn felt like he was being shoved through a stone giant’s sphincter, with how tight the fit was. Thankfully he wasn’t the largest of melas, and he was able to squirm his way into the cave, flopping down onto his back.

And now I’m in the same room as a monster. Gotta be quiet and quick. Heart hammering in his chest, Kezdorn picked up the torch in his left hand, holding it above his head while he reached for the wand on his belt. Kezdorn patted the empty slot three times before he realized it wasn’t there.

The strange texture on the wall shifted subtly…pulsing, gaining definition.

“Umm…Ari?” Kezdorn whispered.

“Yes?” the fairy asked from outside the cave, a strange feeling of malicious humor edging into her voice.

“Do you know where my wand is?” Kezdorn asked, keeping his eyes on the wall, which began detaching itself from the true stone beneath it. The creature was massive, and it was freeing tentacles from the ceiling above him that Kezdorn had mistaken for tree roots.

“I sure do,” she said with a little giggle.

She’s betrayed me! Time seemed to slow down for Kezdorn as he tossed the torch at the wakening horror before turning back toward the entrance and scrambling to pull himself back into the narrow hole. Kezdorn dragged himself halfway up to the hole, looking through the opening at the fairy, who sat on a thick tree root beside his weapon.

Kezdorn snarled and dragged himself into the opening, but the rocks caught his clothes and flesh. Like the inward-facing teeth of a carnivorous beast, it refused to let him go once he was inside.

“Agh!” Kezdorn felt something wrap around his leg and tug, hard. Barbs dug into his flesh and cut until their purchase exceeded his.

“Damn you!” Kezdorn growled before letting go, flaring the furnace in his chest. The last he saw of the fairy, she was lazily waving goodbye. He had to deal with this creature before he could leave.

Kezdorn ignored hitting the stone floor again as he was dragged out of the exit, focusing all his Myst on his hands. He slapped his palm up against the barbed appendage wrapped around his leg, burning through the creature’s flesh with a feral scream.

There was a harsh shriek, and something hit him hard, knocking all the wind and sense out of him. Kezdorn hit the wall with the force of an avalanche, hitting his head against the stone wall. He couldn’t see, he couldn’t breathe, his limbs shivered without any input from him, like a clubbed fish.

“Uuh.” Kezdorn tried to scream but it came out as a pathetic moan. He could still feel though, and that meant he could act.

Act. ACT!

His trembling limbs paid him no heed as the rough stone floor was dragged across his cheek. Then he felt his feet enter a wet hole…then he felt the chewing.

“Uuh.”

***

“Alright kids, huddle up,” Jeb said, motioning for his crew to gather together. They were standing on the barren desert outside Solmnath, at the foot of the mountain range that spread to the north and south as far as the eye could see.

The huddle looked something like a cross between little league soccer and LARPing. A group of roughly a dozen orphans wearing armor and wielding instruments of death stood around in a circle, paying solemn attention to their out-of-shape coach—in this case, Jeb—while he gave them the same guidelines he’d given them half a dozen times before.

“Alright, rule number one: Stay together. Don’t wander off for any reason. That’s a good way to get eaten or kidnapped. Colt is in charge, and if he tells you to do something, you do it. Remember, your life is more important than gains, so if another crew tries to muscle in on your claim, run first, fight second, got it?”

The children nodded.

“If you have to fight, stay behind Nancy, Todd, Chris and Amanda. They can soak up more damage than anyone else here, and any wounds they take will heal perfectly as long as they’re still breathing at the end of the day. They’re kinda like starfish in that regard. Remember to always put them in harm’s way first.”

The four heavily armored orphans nodded as Jeb called their names.

“What the hell are you teaching those children!?” a woman who’d overheard Jeb’s speech asked from about twenty feet away. It looked like a husband-wife duo, lightly armored and carrying supplies for long-range travel; likely one of the teams that wanted to scout the far side of the mountain for lighter competition.

“Fuck off, lady,” Jeb called over the children’s heads.

Nancy flipped her steel visor up on her helmet, revealing her tiny eight-year-old face. “Yeah, fuck off, lady!” Her tiny metal gauntlet finger extended.

The woman’s jaw dropped for an instant before her expression morphed into a furious scowl. Her husband patted her on the shoulder and the two of them took up a position farther away from Jeb’s group, quickly disappearing into the hundreds of adventuring parties that dotted the arid plain outside the city.

“Good job,” Jeb said, patting the top of Nancy’s helmet. “You and Colt both got your flare guns?” Jeb asked. In response, Nancy and Colt showed him the plastic pistols, loaded with their flare cartridges. Colt’s was on his belt, next to his bag of tungsten pellets, while Nancy’s was slung under her arm, resting against the left side of her child-sized steel suit of armor.

“Alright. Zlesk and I will be taking turns watching the mountain from the orphanage, so we’ll come running if you need help. Now, what are the acceptable reasons to fire off a flare?” Jeb locked Colt’s gaze.

“If we’re in serious trouble. Or if we find something really cool.”

“Exactly. If you find something really cool, chances are you’re then going to be in serious trouble. These other people,” Jeb motioned to the other adventuring parties, “are not your friends. There are going to be some who won’t hesitate to steal from you by force.”

“Got it,” Colt said, nodding.

“Good.”

Before Jeb was able to go into further detail, the governor of Solmnath climbed up onto the stage and put a steady stream of Myst into the  loudspeaker at the podium.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the richly dressed keegan said, addressing the hundreds of adventuring parties assembled in front of him.

“Last month our city survived a direct assault from the Roil itself. Many people lost their livelihoods, and some even lost their lives. But as a city, we stayed strong. We repelled the blighted storm, and in its wake, we will thrive more than ever before.”

The governor held up a fist-sized chunk of pale blue stone. “This faradan stone that coats the outside of our fair city is a blessing in disguise. It is produced by the magical essence of Pharos herself, a physical barrier that protects her from the ravaging force of the Roil.”

“Like nacre,” Jeb muttered. If what the governor was saying was correct, the planet itself created a coating of reality-warping stone to insulate itself against the spacetime storm. Interesting.

“With it, we can make ships that cross the land, and roads that can be sailed effortlessly in a matter of days, walls for new settlements, and a myriad of other things vital to expansion.”

The governor paused for dramatic effect. “But…faradan isn’t the only thing that the Roil leaves in its wake.”

The governor held out a glass tube with a black sphere in the center about the size of a quarter. “This is a dungeon core. The Roil sprinkles them in its wake like a rabzi sheds fur. Pharos does what she can to stop cores from spreading their corrupting influence across her, swallowing the cores into the earth and forming a dungeon around them, keeping them contained for as long as possible. But, sooner or later, like a wound left untended for too long, every dungeon turns septic.

“Your job today is to scour the mountainside in search of these cores, and if you find one, pluck it from the soil and place it in one of these containers,” he said, waving the glass tube high above his head so everyone could see. “Each one you turn in will be rewarded with five bulbs.”

“My assistants are going to begin passing them out. Make sure you get at least a few.” Jeb saw a few men with large carts full of vials passing them out about five per group. Jeb and his orphans were near the middle of the throng of adventurers, so they were going to be a while.

“Now, there’s one reason not to pluck a dungeon core out of its home.” The governor set the core down and held up a polished piece of glass that radiated a faint light to Jeb’s vision. “This is a Prism. Rarely, a dungeon core will be the sort that breeds prisms. If you see a dungeon core with what looks like a bit of raw glass about the size of a pinky beside it, mark it with one of these flags.”

The governor pulled out a ten-foot-long pole with a bright yellow flag above it.

“You can write your team’s name on the flag with an oil-pen. Plant it near suspected Prism-breeding dungeons and our inspectors will come by and check it out. If it is a Prism dungeon, your team will be marked down for a one-hundred-bulb payment redeemable at City Hall. If you marked a normal dungeon core, your team will still receive a five-bulb reward, redeemable at City Hall.

“If we see anyone besides an inspector or the original team disturbing a flag, there will be immediate sanctions.

“If you missed any of that, my assistants will be passing out a pamphlet along with the supplies, so be sure to read up.”

A secretary leaned forward and whispered into the governor’s ear.

“Oh, and if you find any Lenses, the prices will be handled by local business owners.”

The governor rambled on for a while, giving the assistants with carts full of supplies plenty of time to pass out the glass tubes with the black stone caps, the flags, pamphlets and oil-pens. After about an hour of grandstanding, the governor’s assistants flagged him down from the side of the teeming mass of adventurers.

“Alright then,” the governor said, scanning the crowd. “I’m proud to announce Solmnath’s third Roil Cleanup.”

He grabbed a wand from the podium and aimed it in the air above his head.

Crack!

An explosion above the governor rippled through the crowd, and with that, they were off. People started sprinting like mad, as if the mountain was going somewhere. Jeb’s sponsored team of orphans looked like a group of hobbits in the center of a huge wave of adventurers heading for the mountainside.

“You think I should’ve told them not to run?” Jeb wondered aloud as they sprinted their little hearts out to try and maintain their position amongst the throng.

There was more than enough mountain for everyone, and endurance was better than speed in any case. The nearby pickings had most likely already been stripped clean by poachers who didn’t give two shits about an official start date.

“They’ll learn,” Zlesk said with a shrug.

The two of them waited until the kids were lost in the crowd, then they set about stalking after their wards in secret.

What kind of asshole lets a group of kids out into monster-infested wilderness alone? Jeb thought as he clomped along beside Zlesk, the former sheriff of Kalfath turned Admiral Orphanage administrator.

The skull-faced keegan glanced at Jeb’s wooden foot clicking against the hard-packed desert.

“Is that going to be a problem?” He motioned at the wooden prosthetic.

In response, Jeb picked himself up off the ground with his Myst and floated along beside Zlesk, maintaining hard eye contact. Smartass sprawled across the top of Jeb’s head, too big to nest in his hair now.

The keegan rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything.

Unfortunately, his healing contact in the upper nobility had failed to regrow the foot he’d lost in the Tutorial, but Jeb had definitely enjoyed the attempt. And he could still fly if he had to.

Silver linings, you know?

Jeb let himself back down and the two of them continued following the children, climbing the mountain beside and slightly above them, always keeping Akbar Team One in eyeshot. This outing was something of a proof of concept. Jeb and Jeb’s gold lenses wouldn’t be around forever, so if the orphanage could reliably field strong alumni, it could count on their support to maintain itself. Like Harvard. But for people with dead parents.

When the children had been part of an XP farm run by less-than-reputable nobles, they’d been forced to put most of their points into Body, so they weren’t going to get tired any time soon, but that had left them a bit stunted in other respects.

They tracked the kids up the side of the mountain for hours before they finally came to a halt. Jeb and Zlesk stopped on a hill overlooking the kids, collapsing against boulders as the children danced around and celebrated finding their first core.

Today’s mission was so they could get some experience working together without adult supervision, gain some levels, a sense of self-sufficiency, raise their Nerve, all that good stuff.

After a couple minutes of hopping madly, Colt quieted the kids down and they kept going.

Unfortunately, one of the kids had taken the stop as an opportunity to go pee behind a rock without telling anyone, and he wound up falling far behind.

Jeb and Zlesk weren’t the only people stalking the group of children, either. Just behind the orphans were a group of three poorly-equipped, albeit sneaky men, visible from Jeb’s vantage point.

And they were going to come across the straggler in five, four…

Jeb groaned, dragging his hand down his face as they grabbed the boy and held him at knife-point.

“Let’s help them!” Zlesk said, pushing himself up and drawing his blade.

“Hold up. There’s more kids than there are bad guys, and they’re better armed,” Jeb said. “These dudes aren’t gonna push their luck too far. This’ll be a learning experience.”

Jeb held his finger over his lips and picked up the two of them with his Telekinetic Myst and flew them downslope a ways before cutting northwest, angling to get themselves right behind the bad guys.

A few moments later, they came within earshot of the confrontation.

“Give us the fucking core, or this fucking kid starts breathing through a new hole!” a voice carried from just over the next rise.

Zlesk and Jeb sat down, listening intently.

“Yeah, and throw us your weapons, too,” another voice chimed in. Jeb’s eyebrows rose upon hearing that. In movies, the good guy gave up his weapons for a hostage all the time, but in real life, that was the absolute stupidest thing you could ever do.

Once a hostage is dead, a hostage-taker has no leverage, so as long as the standoff continues, the hostage-taker is primarily responsible for keeping the hostage alive, counter-intuitive as that might seem. Once the good guy is disarmed, the hostage-taker loses the reason to keep the hostage alive.

“If you hear weapons hitting the ground, we go in,” Jeb whispered.

“We’ll trade the core for Toby and nothing else,” Colt said.

“Good boy,” Jeb whispered.

“You want us to kill him!?” the first voice demanded.

“Then we’ll kill you. Do you want the core, or are you gonna make us kill you?” Colt asked.

“…Toss it over,” the first voice called.

Jeb heard a rattle of core against glass sail through the air and land in someone’s hands.

“Now throw down your weapons.” The robbers tried to press the advantage, causing Jeb’s heart to jump into his throat.

Don’t be stupid, Colt….

“Shoot them.” Colt’s voice was like iron.

“Later, suckers!”

There was a yipping laughter, almost like the cackling of hyenas, as the three robbers dropped their hostage and dashed off, the sound of arrows ringing off the stone around them. A second later, they crested the hill, their eyes widening when they saw Jeb and Zlesk below them.

“Afternoon,” Jeb said, nodding.

Their mouths opened to scream.

Jeb split his Myst and wrapped telekinetic bands around the faces of the two closer to him, while Zlesk stepped forward and punched the third one in the jaw so hard the man dropped like a bag of hammers.

Jeb shook the telekinetic bands left and right at car-crash speeds, knocking the men out and giving them some mild brain damage before he pried the dungeon core out of the hand of the middle robber. Zlesk used his Class Ability to magnetize the men’s lips to the stone of the mountainside.

“You’re taking that?” Zlesk whispered, glancing at the dungeon core in Jeb’s hand.

Jeb nodded. The lesson would stick better if the kids didn’t magically get their lost core back. It might be painful, but it would be better for them in the long run.

Plus, Jeb and Eddie wanted some Cores to experiment on.

Jeb and Zlesk fled the scene before Colt and the rest of the kids caught up to the robbers, finding the men disabled, their stolen core sniped by another group of mysterious poachers.

They went back to following the kids from a distance and Jeb noticed immediately that their grouping was a lot tighter and more disciplined than it had been earlier this morning. They were already benefiting from the run-in.

Excellent.

The rest of the night, there wasn’t much in the way of action. The kids found a couple more cores, then put up a flag with their team name and set up camp around it. A couple people came sniffing around Jeb and Zlesk, but nothing serious.

“Is it safe to camp around a dungeon core?” Jeb whispered as they lay on top of a hill, observing the kids sitting around a fire right beside their yellow flag marking a possible Prism Dungeon.

This time, Smartass fielded the question. The fairy was young by fairy standards, but ancient compared to a normal human. The little brat had gotten around, and she knew a surprising amount of information, which made her an invaluable familiar to an aspiring wizard.

“A dungeon core is a pinhole between realities, and some of it bleeds through into ours, warping anything close to it. So I would guess probably not safe, but it should be fine for one night.”

“A pinhole between realities? Like a white hole?” Jeb asked, glancing over at the fairy. She was a hand and a half tall now, and had taken to wearing socks over her torso.

“Nobody has a white hole, Jeb,” Smartass responded patronizingly, looking down her nose at him.

Jeb frowned as he scanned the fairy’s tiny face.

“Is that a black eye?” The tiny fairy was sporting a pretty good shiner around her right eye that Jeb hadn’t noticed before.

“You should see the other girl.” She flexed her bicep. “Some of the locals accused me of being a ‘pet’, so I showed them the error of their ways.”

“Locals?” Jeb asked. “There’s local fairies? I didn’t know that.”

“Because I’ve been doing my job fending off these low-class pollen-snorters that want a piece of your Impact. The locals around here are get-rich-quick types, basically the trailer trash of fairies.

“Not like me,” she said, putting her fingers to her chest and preening. “I have scruples.”

Zlesk scoffed, shaking his head.

“Trust me, Jeb, as long as you’ve got me, no deceitful man-stealing hussy will get close enough to—”

“Jebediah Trapper.” A rich feminine voice called out from right beside and above him, causing Jeb and Smartass to both jump in place. Smartass landed in a vaguely martial stance, her hands held in a chopping position, wings rigid.

Fairy-fu in action.

Jeb craned his neck to glance over and up at the melas woman standing beside them. It took him a moment to recognize Vresh Tekalis from this angle. He had a hard time seeing her face.

Jeb still lugged the Enforcer’s badge around in his oversized breast pocket. Maybe she wants it back?

“Yes?”

“I’ve got another task for you.”

“Can it wait until I’m done stalking children?” Jeb asked.