Cass followed the Priest of Fortitude deeper into the temple. Inside was made of the same glass bricks, most the opaque blue that had dominated the outside, though certain hallways leading off the main one took other colors. The colors of the other gods, perhaps.

  The man before her was dressed in a dull green, the hem trimmed in a tawny bronze. Were those the colors of Fortitude?

  Then, was the blue the color of divinity in general? Or just of Alacrity since this was primarily her temple, with everyone else seeming to be secondary?

  They continued deeper, the air becoming more stale with every floor they descended. How much of the spire had been hollowed out for the temple? How much space did they need?

  Before long, they turned down a corridor made of dull green glass. If Cass was right, this was Fortitude’s wing.

  Another priest in green and grey robes walked in the opposite direction on some other business. Something buzzed in her ear. An unease settled over her. One of her skills pulled at her sleeve for attention.

  Trap Detection?

  Cass frowned. Why? This was an actual temple. A place people worshiped. Real people didn’t put traps in places they spent time in. Could you imagine accidentally setting off a trap at your place of work? No, that was silly. This wasn’t a video game.

  But it was flashing at her all the same.

  “Um, how much further do we have to go?” Cass asked. This was rather deep in the temple. Was it normal to bring the uninitiated this far? Over a question like hers?

  The priest flashed a smile over his shoulder, one Trap Detection did not like in the slightest. “We are almost there.”

  His voice was reassuring. Soft and warm and unnatural.

  Status Effect (Practiced Assurance) Ignored.

  Cass’s teeth ground together. A social skill? Now? Here? There were lots of times when such a skill might be innocuous. When something legitimately distressing happened, for example, and as an authority figure, one wanted to keep the populous from stampeding. When a child was crying.

  To assure her they were nearly to the map he’d promised her? That was less reasonable in Cass’s mind. Almost like…

  She didn’t like it.

  She pressed out with her senses, pushing Atmospheric Sense down the corridors. The hallway opened into a wider hall. It was some sort of open space where multiple halls met. Maybe a gathering place. Maybe a central hub.

  All she knew for sure was there was a lot of breathing happening in that room. A lot of bodies in hard or close-fitting clothing. Not priest robes. Not enough flapping fabric.

  Mana Sense peered ahead. The walls glowed with mana. Something had them enchanted. Perhaps it was as simple as a precaution against what she was doing now. Perhaps it was what made the glass such a viable building material. Perhaps it was something else entirely.

  Either way, it meant she only had the vaguest sense that there was more mana in the direction they were walking—lined up with that hall Atmospheric Sense had found?—than in any other direction.

  Trap Detection didn’t like it. Cass was inclined to agree.

  But what kind of trap was this? Why was there a trap waiting for her? She shook her head. She could figure out the why later. What she needed to determine was how to get out of it.

  She slowed her steps. Not much. She just shortened her stride and slowed her pace a little. Simultaneously, her Alacrity kicked her thoughts into high gear.

  Not-priests were waiting for her in the room ahead. The priest in front of her was leading her to the trap, and he was in on it. Was the map he promised a lie, then? Simply the first ruse he’d come up with to lead her down and out of the eyes of the public?

  Unfortunate. She was going to have to assume the map didn’t exist. She’d ask someone else about the gods’ strongholds later.

  What to do then? Run or Fight?

  Run meant she would not find out why they were ambushing her.

  Fight was willingly walking into danger.

  She glanced at her guide again.

  Priest of Fortitude (lvl 27)

  He was at the Gate, not past it, so probably not a combatant, right? But that didn’t change the fact he had 4 levels on her. Not a huge amount given her unusual race and his likely human-ness, but enough she needed to be careful.

  What about the people ahead? If they were waiting to ambush her, they were combatants? Their levels would be higher. At least the ballpark of Marco? Higher?

  That wasn’t a fight she could take. Not alone. Not without Salos.

  She slowed her step again, her thoughts returning to more ordinary speeds as she engaged Stealth.

  “Miss, I must ask—” he said as he turned to check on her, perhaps noticing her presence dropping and interpreting it as her wandering into a room she didn’t have business in.

  Cass didn’t give him time to finish his sentence. Her staff swept into him. She had every intention of knocking him off his feet and running.

  Instead, his hand flashed out and caught the staff. He didn’t so much as flinch. “—you to behave in the illustrious halls of Fortitude.”

  Cass tried to pull away. Her staff didn’t move. What was this Strength? She knew her Strength wasn’t great, but even Alyx's muscles flexed more when they fought. It was like this man’s muscles were made of stone.

  “May I ask what this is about?” he asked, his voice lacking the warmth it had contained in the temple above.

  “Let go.” Cass tugged futilely at her staff.

  To her surprise, he did. She pulled it back into a ready position.

  “Now, again, what was that for?” he asked.

  Cass kept her eyes on him but sought out with Atmospheric Sense. The bodies in the room ahead were moving. Moving toward them. No time to play dumb, then. She’d get what information she could, then Wind Step her way to safety. “Why are you leading me into an ambush?”

  His eyebrow quirked up. “What are you talking about?”

  The bodies in the hall moved faster. How many were there? Four? Six? Eight?

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “Don’t lie to me,” Cass said. “What do you people want from me?”

  He chuckled. “Little demon, what do you think the righteous of Fortitude want with you?”

  Cass’s blood ran cold. They knew?

  They knew!

  She took off, Sprinting back the way they had come, pulling the Wind around her to increase her speed.

  “She’s running!” the priest yelled, his voice echoing through the halls from every direction.

  Cass didn’t slow to figure out how he’d done that, instead pushing herself all the harder. Her feet slid across the slick, glass brick floors, but she ran through the stumbling. There wasn’t time to fall. She used the surrounding air to hold her up when she inevitably slipped.

  Turn here, Trap Detection whispered, flashing warnings up and down the corridor ahead. Cass bolted to the right, down a side corridor, just as a paladin-priest-pair stepped out of a room a little ways down the path Trap Detection had warned her off of.

  Hide, whispered Stealth. Cass toggled it on and pressed herself against the wall as a big man in plate armor stepped into the crossroad ahead of her.

  Order of the Copper Crescent Paladin

  Lvl 31

  [A member of the martial arm of their goddess. As devoted to her as any priest, they enforce her will through force of arms, ready and willing to throw their life at her alter should it serve her cause.]

  Cass’s breath caught in her throat. Stealth swirled around her, suppressing her presence, Willing him to look away. To not notice her.

  He looked up the hall away from her, but undoubtedly searching for her.

  There was nothing to hide behind. Every bit of Earthly common sense told her she would be seen.

  Stealth told her to keep walking toward him. To keep moving. Slowly.

  Around her, the wind turned, slow and deliberate, as if pulling her very essence away from her body and diluting her presence through the hallway.

  Would it be enough?

  Stealth hadn’t been enough against the spider in the Deep. But her Dexterity then hadn’t even been half what it was now. And this was a human, not a spider with extra senses.

  Unless he also had some sort of detection skills. Or he specialized in Perception.

  Or if the level difference was enough to tip the scales back in his favor.

  His head turned, checking her direction.

  His eyes passed over her. They burned with intensity.

  Her heart pounded in her ears, yet her feet kept pulling her toward him.

  She was an uninteresting tree in an open field. A ghost in the water.

  She wasn’t here.

  His eyes slid past her, her presence successfully suppressed by Stealth. He continued down his hallway, rushing on in search of her.

  Cass inhaled sharply, her legs shaking.

  Run, run, run! squealed Stormstride Sprint.

  But quietly, added Stealth.

  Cass bolted in the opposite direction.

  The hallways twisted and turned around her, all in the same green glass bricks.

  Ahead, the hall widened into an open space before a pair of massive doors. Five hallways met here, two on either side of her plus the one she was currently running down. A banner hung from the ceiling displaying a crescent moon in shimmering bronze on a field of green fabric.

  And in the center, in front of the doors, stood a pair of armored men as if they were waiting for her.

  Order of the Copper Crescent Paladin (lvl 30)

  Order of the Copper Crescent Paladin (lvl 31)

  They were hulking figures, armed with shields as wide as doors and short swords. All gleamed in a bronze glow. Both were more than 5 levels over Cass’s own.

  Behind her, she could feel the rush of heavy bodies through the air as more such men chased after her. How many were there? Atmospheric Sense pointed out more in the hallways to her right and another in the nearer of the two to her left.

  Anyone else would have been trapped here. There was no natural way to run past them.

  But Cass was slyphid.

  She ran at the men before her, Stormwind Sprint gusting around her. She Stepped onto it, dissolving into the wind, blowing through the pair ahead of her, unstoppable and free.

  “She disappeared!” one of them yelled as she left them behind.

  “Get the captain!” yelled another.

  Her heart pounded as she rematerialized down the empty hall and reactivated Stealth. Had they felt which way she’d gone?

  The skill emphatically encouraged her to find better cover.

  She grimaced and kept moving, holding close to the walls, ducking out of sight of Paladin after Paladin, slipping around corner after corner. She could feel them moving around her. They were getting closer. She was a fox trapped in an ever-tightening net.

  But this didn’t make sense. She was sure she had been moving in the direction she’d come from. She should have found an exit by now, even with her twisting path around the paladins. She hadn’t gone that deep into the green-walled halls before discovering the priest’s trap.

  So why was she again standing in front of a pair of massive doors and paladins where five halls met, with two on either side of her?

  Order of the Copper Crescent Paladin (lvl 30)

  Order of the Copper Crescent Paladin (lvl 31)

  Was this the same room or just a similar one? How many hubs with five connected halls in front of huge ornamental doors could there be down here?

  She could feel their footfalls rushing from every direction. Cass shook her head. She didn’t have time to figure it out. She Sprinted down the least occupied hallway, away from the majority of her pursuers, and again Wind Stepped over the shoulders of those ahead of her.

  She pressed out with Atmospheric Sense, searching for the way out. There had to be a flow of fresh air from the floors above. And yet, the air was lethargic. It rolled slowly, around and around the hallways, never turning, yet still returning to her, anyway.

  How was that possible?

  And she could feel the paladins drawing closer around her. All around her. Down every hall, there were more.

  She kept running until, again, she found herself in front of those doors. She stopped dead in her tracks. This couldn’t be right.

  This couldn’t be the same room again. She’d run straight or as straight as her pursuers would allow. She was certain she hadn’t been pushed in a circle.

  And yet, there were those doors, imposing and dark, staring down at her. And to either side were a pair of open hallways. And in the middle was the pair of paladins, levels 30 and 31.

  “The demon’s back!” lvl-30 yelled, his voice echoing around her.

  ‘Back,’ he had said. This really was the same room.

  Could they have turned her around without her noticing? She would have been more willing to believe that if she were standing in any of the other four hallways. For her to have been herded back into the central one seemed improbable to the extreme.

  “It’s pointless to run.” Lvl-31 sneered, raising his sword and taking a step toward her.

  Cass took half a step back and raised her staff. He couldn’t catch her, could he? She was fast, but they were higher levels.

  Salos would have a better estimate of their capabilities if he were here.

  She grit her teeth. He wasn’t here. She could survive on her own.

  She still had Wind Step. They couldn’t catch the wind, no matter how they tried.

  Stamina: 119/138

  Focus: 453/549

  She had plenty of resources left. Plenty for Wind Steps. She could keep running.

  But that assumed there was a way out if she did.

  Was there?

  These doors. These paladins. How did they keep appearing in front of her? How did she continue to find herself standing here, in the central hall of five?

  It could be they were skilled in funneling their prey where they wanted her. But, if it was as mundane an answer as that, why couldn’t Atmospheric Sense find a flow of fresh air? Why did the air circle through these corridors without ever turning?

  Unless space itself was looping?

  Could they do that? Was that easier to believe than the other options? Were there other options?

  There had to be another option.

  Because if space was truly looping, how could she possibly escape?

  No! It had to be something else.

  She swung her staff, throwing a Tempest Blade in the approaching paladin’s face. He raised his shield to block.

  But the blade was never intended to connect. She Stepped onto it, pulling it wide and around to the left, darting down another hallway.

  This way. Surely, this way would be a way out.

  The paladins were closer.

  How were they getting closer?

  She ran, refusing to turn for anything. Every paladin she encountered, every priest she passed, she Wind Stepped over instead of avoiding.

  They shouted warnings down the surrounding halls.

  All the while, Atmospheric Sense reached out in every direction, desperately looking for the exit. Desperately searching for any whisper of fresh air.

  And yet.

  There they were.

  Again.

  The doors. The paladins. The stupid banner hanging from the ceiling. The hallways to either side all leading back to this same spot.

  She was trapped, and no amount of running would change that.