Bartholomew, from his perch, flicked an ear in mild annoyance, as if the approaching legion of stone was a particularly noisy flock of pigeons.

  “One assumes a direct confrontation is inelegant, yet unavoidable.”

  “No kidding, Whiskers,” I muttered, jamming my slightly-too-large helmet onto my head. The cold leather lining did little to stop the sweat trickling down my temple. I fumbled in my pack, my fingers closing around the cool, smooth surface of the lodestone. Shoving it deep inside, I tied the pouch shut. If I was going to get pulverized into a modern-art paste, the one thing we actually needed wasn’t going to roll away into a sewer grate. Priorities.

  With a familiar hiss, I drew Nightshade. The dark steel seemed to drink the meager light, its edges humming with a low energy that was both comforting and terrifying. It felt less like a sword and more like a barely restrained predator on a leash.

  “So, what’s the plan?” Nolan’s voice was a high-pitched wheeze. He’d drawn a short, stout dagger that looked like a letter opener in his chubby fist. “Do we… run? Back to the ship? I’m sure Captain Croft would… I mean, he might… he’d probably charge us extra, but—”

  “And be picked off before we reach the skiff?” Kaelen cut him off, his voice calm and steady as the stone beneath our feet. He hadn’t taken his eyes off the approaching wave of constructs. “We did not come this far to be deterred by gargoyles.”

  “These are a few steps up from gargoyles, man!” Nolan protested. “These are full-blown, rock-em-sock-em rock-bots!”

  “He has a point,” I said, shifting my weight from foot to foot, trying to work the nervous energy out of my legs. “Frontal assault seems… ill-advised. Like trying to punch a mountain. A whole range of mountains, actually.”

  The grating sound was louder now, a hellish symphony of grinding stone that vibrated through the soles of my boots. They were closer, maybe fifty yards away. Their featureless heads were all fixed on us, an unnerving display of unified, mindless intent. They weren’t rushing; their pace was a slow, inexorable shuffle, as if they knew time and numbers were on their side.

  “Their uniformity is their weakness,” Bartholomew declared suddenly. He was grooming a stray piece of fur on his shoulder, the picture of detached analysis. “Such constructs are seldom masters of independent thought. They are puppets. Find the puppeteer.”

  “Great,” I grunted, adjusting my grip on Nightshade. “All we have to do is find the invisible dude with the puppet strings while his army of life-sized action figures tries to stomp us flat. Easy peasy.”

  The time for planning, however, had expired. With a collective lurch that was shockingly swift, the front line of golems broke from their shuffle into a ground-shaking run.

  “To me!” Kaelen roared, and it wasn’t a suggestion. It was a command that resonated with centuries of battle-hardened authority. Nolan squeaked and scrambled behind him. I moved to Kaelen’s flank, my heart doing a staccato drum solo against my ribs.

  The first golem reached him. It was a behemoth, its stone fists the size of cinder blocks. It swung a ponderous arm, a blow that would have turned a man to jelly. Kaelen didn’t meet it head-on. He flowed around it, a dervish of leather and steel. His blessed sword, Dawnlight, sang through the air, striking the golem’s leg. There was a percussive crack, like a boulder striking pavement, and the creature’s leg fractured. It stumbled, off-balance, and Kaelen’s follow-up strike sheared its head from its shoulders. The head hit the ground with a heavy thud, and the body stood for a moment before collapsing into a pile of rubble.

  One down. Sixty-something to go. My math skills were getting fuzzy.

  Another golem targeted me. Tunnel vision kicked in, the world narrowing to the blank slate of its torso and its piston-like arms. I remembered my training with Kaelen—not strength against strength. Use their momentum. I dodged its clumsy swing, the wind of its passage tugging at my tunic, and thrust Nightshade into the joint between arm and shoulder.

  The effect was not what I expected. Instead of chipping or cracking, my blade sank into the stone as if it were clay. A web of black, corrosive-looking veins spread out from the wound, and with a low groan, the golem’s entire structure seemed to lose integrity. It’s arm crumbled, not into rocks, but into a pile of coarse, black sand.

  “Whoa,” I breathed. “Note to self: magical void sword is super effective against rock-types.”

  My brief moment of RPG-fueled triumph was cut short as two more took its place. I was forced back, parrying and dodging, my fighting style less a graceful dance and more a frantic scramble to not get squashed. I was scoring hits, my sword dissolving bits of the creatures into piles of sand, but for every one I took down, another stepped up. They were tireless. I wasn’t. My arms were already starting to burn.

  Across the impromptu battlefield, Kaelen was a whirlwind of destruction, his silver sword a blur of light. But even he was being pressed, forced to give ground inch by painful inch. Nolan, to his credit, wasn’t just cowering. He was peeking around Kaelen’s legs, and whenever a golem was engaged, he’d lob a hefty piece of rubble at its head. It didn’t do much damage, but the clank was enough to make the constructs hesitate for a split second, an opening Kaelen exploited with lethal efficiency.

  “This is untenable!” Bartholomew’s voice cut through the din from atop his stone post. “Paige! Your weapon devours the magic that animates them! But their numbers are too great! The source! Look for the different one!”

  The different one. The boss mob. The admin account. I get it. I ducked under a swing that would have decapitated me and scanned the ranks of our attackers. They were all the same: bleached stone, blank faces, relentless. All uniform.

  No. Not quite.

  Further back, in the center of the grand avenue, stood one that wasn’t moving. It was larger than the others, its shoulders broader, and across its chest was a faint, almost imperceptible tracery of glowing blue runes. While the others were a flat, dead white, this one seemed to hum with a quiet, internal light. All the shuffling golems seemed to move in a loose orbit around it, connected by invisible tethers.

  “Found him!” I yelled over the grinding chaos. “Big guy in the back! Blue glowy stuff on his chest!”

  “The master-rune!” Kaelen grunted, shoving a golem back with his shield before running it through. “We must destroy it!”

  “Easier said than done! There’s a mosh pit of his rocky friends in the way!” I retorted, dissolving another attacker’s leg. My breath was coming in ragged gasps.

  “Then we shall make a path!”

  His cry was a catalyst. He abandoned his defensive posture and charged, a reckless, desperate gambit. He became the sole focus of a dozen golems, his sword a flickering shield of silver as he carved a bloody, or rather, a dusty path toward the master golem.

  “Nolan, stay behind me!” I shouted and plunged into the fray after him.

  I had a couple of skills that I hadn’t tried out yet, and now seemed the perfect time. I activated Rain of Terror, centering the effect over the clump of golems directly in front of Kaelen.

  [Rain of Terror] [Novice][At the cost of mana, you cause it to rain over a set area. Enemies touched by the rain become afraid, causing weak enemies to flee. Affected area scales with ability level.]

  Immediately, a heavy thunderhead burst into being over the crowd of constructs, dumping its magical rain like a waterfall. Several of the golems turned and ran, but most merely hesitated. Time for the other ability, one I had only used once. Fireball. I raised a hand as I ran into the fray, aiming it at the boss mob and activated the skill. A glob of fire the size of a large pumpkin streaked across the battlefield and slammed into the boss, exploding into a thousand sticky globs of fire. The fire itself didn’t seem to make much of a dent, but the concussive force of the blast did. A dozen mobs tumbled through the air to slam against buildings or land hard on the chipped paving stones. Some got back up, others didn’t. Either way, it had bought us time.

  It was madness. We were two tiny specks of flesh and blood against a tide of living rock. I fought with a desperation I didn’t know I possessed, Nightshade a black blur in my hand. I wasn’t trying to win; I was just trying to keep the things off Kaelen’s back. My world was reduced to instinct: dodge, thrust, turn, parry. Another golem dissolved. And another.

  Kaelen roared as he finally broke through the front line, standing before the rune-golem. It raised its arms, not to strike, but as if in acknowledgment. The blue runes on its chest flared, and the ground itself trembled.

  Suddenly, Nolan screamed. I risked a glance back. A golem I’d missed, one that had circled around, was bearing down on him. Nolan was frozen, his face a mask of pure terror.

  There was no time to think.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Nolan, duck!” I yelled, and with a surge of adrenaline, I grabbed a loose cobblestone the size of a loaf of bread from a shattered pile and hurled it with everything I had. My aim was garbage, but it didn’t matter. The rock sailed past the golem and smashed into the wall of a building behind it. The sound, a sharp crack echoing in the stone canyon, was enough. The golem, a creature of simple directives, turned its blank head toward the noise for a single, crucial second.

  It was the only opening Kaelen needed. As the master golem’s attention was diverted by the attack on its flank, Kaelen lunged forward, thrusting Dawnlight with both hands straight into the cluster of glowing runes.

  For a moment, there was absolute silence. The grinding stopped.

  Then, a low hum filled the air, rising in pitch to a piercing shriek. The runes on the master golem flared with blinding blue light. Cracks spiderwebbed across its body, not from the sword, but from the inside out. With a final, explosive crack, it detonated, sending a shockwave of blue energy pulsing down the avenue.

  All at once, every single golem stopped. Their limbs locked. The faint internal light they must have possessed died. They froze in place, an army of statues in mid-stride, mid-swing. Then, like dominoes, they began to crumble, collapsing into neat piles of bleached rubble and sand until the entire grand avenue was nothing but silence and debris.

  I stood there, chest heaving, leaning heavily on Nightshade. Kaelen was on one knee, breathing hard. Nolan had slid to the ground, looking like he was about to be sick. Again.

  Bartholomew hopped down from his post, landing silently. He strolled through the wreckage, tail held high.

  “Well,” he sniffed disdainfully, surveying the carnage. “That was a frightfully common affair. So much unnecessary noise.”

  I looked at the silent, dead city stretching out before us, the path now clear. The feeling of being watched wasn’t gone, just less.

  “Yeah,” I panted, a shaky, hysterical laugh bubbling up in my chest. “Welcome wagon dispatched. Now, where’s the concierge? I have a complaint about the check-in process.”

  Ding.

  A stack of notifications blinked in my vision. I sagged against a stone wall and opened them.

  [Quest Updated][The Realm of Shadow]

  [Objective Completed]

  [Secure passage to the Dragon’s Tooth Archipelago]

  [Rewards:]

  [Progress]

  [500XP][Quest Updated][The Captain’s Coffers] [Objective Completed]

  [Learn the nature of the artifact.]

  [Rewards:]

  [The Heart of Graund]

  [750XP]

  Neither of those was particularly surprising, but ‘progress’ as a reward? Even the notifications were getting snarky. I flicked to the next one.

  [LEVEL UP!][You have reached Level 13] [Augment +2, Item: Nightshade][All attributes increased!] [New Skill Available: Fast Pitch]

  [Fast Pitch][Throw a ball-like object with the speed of a proper projectile. The smaller the object, the faster its speed.]

  That could be useful. I guess it triggered from throwing the rock, but not having to carry a bow around to hit ranged targets just seemed like cheating. It also kept me from having to learn how to shoot a bow, but whatever. Niche, but potentially useful.

  [You have killed a Stone Guardian] [Summon, Lvl 16] [x9][Rewards]

  [Rune Ash] [x6]

  [Potion of Stonehide] [x3]

  [11,250 XP] + [Solo Combat Bonus] [3,375]

  Holy shit. Those things were level grinding gold. I hadn’t seen that much XP since…well ever.

  [LEVEL UP!][You have reached Level 14] [Augment +2, Item: Nightshade][You have reached Level 15] [Augment +2, Item: Nightshade][All attributes increased!] [x2] [New Skill Available: Stone Guard][New Skill Available: Blink]

  [Stone Guard][At the cost of Mana, your skin turns to impenetrable stone. Limits mobility.][Blink][Once per encounter, you may disappear and reappear anywhere you can see within 100m.]

  I blinked at the notifications. That was it. I was level 17 now.

  Ding.

  Another one?

  [Quest Updated][The Realm of Shadow][Find a way to enter the Realm of Shadow][Warning: You must be level 16 to begin this quest.] [Level requirement met.][Quest cannot be denied or abandoned]

  I blinked, making sure that I wasn’t hallucinating.

  “Holy shitballs,” I muttered, my vision still locked on the text visible only to me.

  “Did you level up, too?” Nolan asked. I blinked away the notifications and refocused on him. He was sitting atop one of the dead golem heads, tearing at a piece of jerky.

  “Uh…yeah,” I muttered. I still couldn’t believe it. “Three times.”

  “What?” Kaelen stopped what he was doing and turned.

  “I’m level seventeen now.”

  Kaelen’s jaw, usually set in a line of grim determination, went slack. He wiped a smear of golem dust from his cheek, his gauntleted hand freezing mid-motion.

  “Three levels? From one encounter? That… that is not possible.”

  Nolan hopped down from his perch, nearly tripping over a stray stone limb.

  “Dude, no way. I only got one. And I was doing most of the DPS on the big one! XP share must be busted.” He gestured wildly with his jerky, sending a spray of dried meat crumbs into the air. “Did you get the last hit on all of them? Is there, like, an MVP bonus?”

  “I have no idea what you just said,” Kaelen stated flatly, his eyes still fixed on me with a mixture of awe and suspicion. In his world, power wasn’t quantified in neat little numbers; it was earned through years of grueling training and bloodshed. I had just fast-tracked the process in about ten minutes.

  “Let me check the logs,” I said, feeling like an IT tech troubleshooting the universe. I closed my eyes, focusing inward, and called up the translucent blue screens that had become my new, bizarre reality. The dismissal notification was still there, but behind it, a scrolling list of achievements glowed. I breathed, reading the details. “It says I got a bonus for ‘Solo Combat’.”Nolan’s face scrunched up.

  “Solo? We were right here!”

  “Precisely,” a droll voice interjected from a nearby pile of rubble. Bartholomew stretched languidly, extending one pristine gray paw, then the other. He hopped onto a shattered golem torso, his golden eyes regarding me with an unnerving lack of surprise. “One must assume then that that particular bonus is for the ones that Miss Hawking dispatched on her own.”

  “I still do not understand this ‘System’ Goddess,” Kaelen muttered.

  I snorted. “If The System is a goddess, she’s a real pain in my ass.” I focused again, ignoring their bickering, and tabbed over to the Skills menu.

  [Player Name: Paige Hawking] [Unique Class: Sarcastic Sorceress] [Level: 15] [+2 with Nightshade]

  [STR: 17]

  [DEX: 20]

  [CON: 19]

  [INT: 29] [With Wit’s Sharpness]

  [WIS: 26]

  [CHA: 24]

  My communications degree was finally paying off. In a world of swords and sorcery, my greatest asset was my ability to run my mouth. It was beautiful.

  “I got new skills,” I announced.

  “What sort of skills?” Kaelen asked, his tone wary. He was probably picturing me spontaneously chucking fireballs again.

  “One of them is called ‘Stone Guard’,” I said. “Kind of a magical armor. The other is ‘Blink’. I can teleport within a hundred meters. Oh, and I can throw things really fast.”Nolan’s greasy face broke into a grin.

  “Holy shit, that’s amazing. I wish I could teleport.”

  “Potentially useful.” Bartholomew sniffed, preening his whiskers. “She is a Warden’s companion. Her potential is… significant. You should feel honored she has not yet leveled up by critiquing your questionable hygiene.”

  Nolan’s grin vanished.

  “Go easy on him, Bart, he’s just as dazed and confused as I was early on.”Kaelen ignored the exchange, his focus entirely practical.

  “This new power is a boon, Paige. The Shadow Lord’s minions will not be as simple-minded as these constructs. We will need every advantage.” He rose to his feet, his armor groaning, and pointed with the tip of his longsword toward the center of the ruined city. A single, impossibly tall spire jutted toward the bruised-purple sky, its peak shattered as if bitten off by a titan. “I suspect that the portal lies there. Within the Spire of Oracles.”

  “The what-now?” I asked, shielding my eyes to get a better look. The tower seemed to warp the air around it, a faint, oily shimmer distorting its broken silhouette.

  “The Spire of Oracles,” Kaelen repeated. “The mages of this city used it to scry the heavens and study the flow of leylines. It is a place of immense magical confluence. If the Shadow Lord were to punch a hole between realms, he would choose the weakest point. The Spire is the city’s thinnest veil.”

  “Great,” I muttered. “So we’re heading for the big, spooky tower that’s basically a magical bullseye. Of course we are.”

  “It won’t be a simple walk,” Kaelen warned. “The city’s core is likely crawling with worse things than golems. Phantoms, Shadow-touched beasts… creatures drawn to the portal’s energy.”

  “Phantoms?” Nolan gulped, his bravado from the golem fight evaporating. “Like, ghosts? Do they have resistance to physical damage? We need magic weapons for that, right? I don’t have a magic weapon.”Bartholomew sighed, the sound a gust of pure, unadulterated weariness.

  “Cease your caterwauling. Your presence is an affront to the very concept of silence. Mistress Paige’s daggers were bathed in the waters of a moon-well before she absconded with them. They will suffice for striking incorporeal entities.”I looked down at the twin blades at my belt. They looked like plain, well-worn steel to me.

  “You know, you could have mentioned that before I was using them to slice sausage for dinner last night.”

  “The consecration is not so easily undone,” the cat said dismissively. “Now, if we are quite finished with this tedious celebration of newfound mediocrity, the Spire awaits. The longer we tarry, the more the Shadow Realm’s influence bleeds into this one.”

  He was right. As much as I wanted to spend the next hour geeking out over my new stats, every moment we wasted here felt like a victory for whatever tentacled horror ruled the Shadow Realm.

  “Alright,” I said, pushing myself off the rubble and doing a few experimental lunges. The new Flowing Strikes skill was no joke; my movements felt faster, more certain. “Spire of Oracles it is. Nolan, you take point with Kaelen. I’ll hang back. I want to see if I can make a ghost cry by telling it its shroud makes it look fat.”

  Kaelen gave me a look that was one part exasperation and two parts grudging respect. Nolan, meanwhile, puffed out his chest.

  “Alright, team. Let’s get this bread. For the loot!”

  I rolled my eyes, but a small, genuine smile touched my lips. Armed with a cat who was a magical encyclopedia, a knight straight out of a fairy tale, and a fellow nerd who spoke my language, I felt a surge of confidence. Level seventeen. New skills. A clear objective.