When Jace and Lessa reached the supply shop, they ducked inside immediately and shut the door behind them as fast as they could.

  It was a small shop off the main thoroughfare, with metal slats hanging over its windows and a flickering sign above its door. Tiny holoprojectors clung to the wall, wedging into the cracks in the stone, and they displayed faintly glowing blue graffiti near the base of the shop’s walls.

  The inside of the shop was tight, with shelves running up and down a low-ceilinged hall. Dim lights hung from the ceiling, and it eerily reminded him of the convenience stores you’d find attached to remote gas stations in the prairies. But, instead of potato chips and chocolate bars on the shelves, there were rows upon rows of paper-wrapped packets.

  At the far end of the store, a clerk sat at the desk. He was a dwarf in a stained tunic, and a plasma rifle rested against the wall behind him. “Be quick,” he said. “We’re almost closed. If you aren’t outta here in five minutes, I’ll kick you out, and you’ll leave empty-handed.”

  “Nice folk,” Lessa muttered.

  “Your candleshire wasn’t super welcoming, either,” Jace whispered back to her. “It was just you.”

  “I’m an exception indeed.” She cast him a grin, then marched off down an aisle.

  Jace turned back toward the door and glanced over his shoulder at the streets outside. Being a side street, only a few civilians walked past at such a late hour, but the group of scavengers who’d been watching them from the main street restaurant now prowled along down the side street.

  “I get the feeling this’ll be shorter than five minutes,” Jace grumbled, then jogged to catch up to Lessa.

  They picked out the cheapest paper packets. Within them were hearty, dry groats that wouldn’t go bad for decades, or dehydrated nutrient squares. Add a little boiling water, and they’d puff up about the size of a loaf of bread.

  Once they both had an armful of the supplies, they dragged them to the clerk’s desk, and Jace pulled out his copper coins and placed them on the table. They’d earned some money from doing odd jobs across the past four months, and they’d used it to buy supplies for the Luna Wrath, but with this, Jace would be out.

  Didn’t really matter. Inside the dungeon, they’d hopefully pick up enough loot to pay for future expenses.

  He dropped the coins down on the counter, then filled his backpack with the ration packets and condensed supplies.

  “Happy delving,” the clerk muttered. “I assume you’re heading to the depths, hm?”

  “Yes, sir!” Lessa exclaimed. She leaned on the counter as Jace organized his bag to fit the contents. “We’re heading out tomorrow.”

  “You two don’t look like those scavengers,” the clerk said. “I won’t complain, but watch yourselves. Those scavengers are nowhere near as passive as the miner-likes. They’ve got a stick up their asses, each and every one of them.”

  “We’ll be careful, sir,” Jace said. “And, if we’re lucky, we might clear it out before them.” He put on a confident grin, though it didn’t really feel right, so he tucked it away again.

  “You two are after the Halcyon Spear?” the clerk asked.

  Lessa asked, “What’s that?”

  “As soon as the miners found the dungeon, that’s all anyone’s been talking about here. They think this is an old Luminian facility, and they forged a great spear here. Don’t know much about it, but it’s strong. Scavengers want its central function card, probably gonna sell it to the highest bidder. Starrealm or Alliance.”

  Jace tilted his head. “It’s that powerful?”

  “If they want it, it’s a mythic-grade card. If I had to guess, it’d be for a weapon of some sort. Depends what aspect the card is. Don’t ask me, I don’t know.” He shook his head, then grumbled, “Kids don’t even know what the dungeon’s for. Like hels they’re gonna clear it out before the scavengers.”

  Jace dipped his head in thanks, ignoring the dwarf’s last comment, then zipped up his backpack and hoisted it up onto his shoulders. By now, lugging it around had probably assisted his practical strength to catch up with his attributes rating.

  As he was turning back toward the door, it swung open, and a pair of [Level 10] scavengers walked in.

  “You two,” one scavenger demanded. “What are you doing buying delving supplies? We haven’t seen you around here before, and if you’re from a different stilt-city, thinking you can get access to our dungeon entrance, you’re sorely mistaken.”

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  The dwarven clerk reached for his plasma rifle and flicked the lever back-and-forth, priming it. “Whatever your issue with these two is, take it outside.”

  With a glare, the scavengers both turned to the clerk. “Don’t tell us what to do, old man. You should address the Brakamen with respect.”

  “If you just let us go, we’ll be on our—”

  “Don’t talk to us, girl. We’ll deal with you later.”

  Jace glanced over at Lessa. She hung her head and grimaced. These scavengers were being meaner, more pushy than most people Jace had encountered here. Guess with a world to yourselves, completely under your control, and some powerful leaders backing you, you could do whatever you wanted.

  But Jace and Lessa still had to get out of here.

  “We’re a long haul freight crew, contracted to help bring your loot out to the outposts,” Jace said. “They let us through the torpedo net.”

  “What outpost?”

  “Uhh…”

  “Yeah. Grab them.”

  Jace and Lessa shared a look, then both in unison, said, “Run.”

  They sprinted down the central aisle of the store. Jace rammed his shoulder into one scavenger’s chest, and Lessa ducked under the other’s outstretched arms. They pushed open the door and sprinted outside.

  Only to find an arc of bayonets and plasma rifle muzzles pointing at their faces. Ten more scavengers stood outside, holding their rifles ready.

  “Now, now,” came a man’s voice from behind them. It was older, gravelly, like someone had been smoking all his life. The front two scavengers parted, allowing a thin, bald man with pointed ears and veins popping out his neck to push forward.

  [Level 30 Wielder - Soul-Circle Opening – First Stage]

  Technically, Jace was only slightly weaker than this man. But Jace didn’t have a patrol of scavengers with him, and he didn’t have many technique cards.

  “You’re the one Neikir was looking for,” the scavenger Wielder said. “Good news for you, boy, is that I’ll make it quick. I have no qualms about killing those weaker than me. Not much face to lose at this age, is there?” He didn’t carry a rifle, but he activated a fortification technique card, and metal filings rose up from the dirty street, whirling around his fists. “And I’m sure we’ll have plenty of fun with your burny friend here.”

  “Jace…” Lessa warned.

  No time to make a plan. “Duck,” he whispered, then activated his hyperdash.

  He flashed just to the other side of the scavengers, then punched the Wielder in the back of the head.

  As the man staggered, Jace drew his Whistling Blade and slashed. He cut through one scavenger in a broad sweep, but the Wielder deflected the blow with his filing-covered forearms. Molten metal flecks scattered in the air, but the man’s arms were unharmed.

  The rest of the scavengers fired their rifles, still aiming where Jace was. Their shots seared over Lessa’s head and smashed into the wall behind her. She darted forward and snatched up the fallen scavenger’s rifle, then blasted another of the non-Wielder scavengers in the chest. The man skidded back along the walkway, armour loose, dead.

  Jace ripped off the scavenger’s shoulder pauldron and held it in his hand. With all his technique cards socketed at the same time in his four slots, he executed his standard combination. Expulsion—flinging the pauldron through hyperspace at the Wielder—then the Cleanse. A ring of blue light appeared behind him temporarily, signalling the slight boost the cleanse gave him, and his cards reset.

  He chased the pauldron through hyperspace, but he targeted the space behind the Wielder.

  As the Wielder staggered back, a shard of the pauldron lodged in his shoulder, having pierced straight through his armour, Jace appeared behind him and slashed down his back with the Whistling Blade.

  He’d hoped it would pass right through the Wielder, but it only sliced a centimeter into his skin. It was tough like leather, and the flesh below was like rock. Harder, even. The Wielder must’ve focussed more on Vital than anything else. Probably why he’d been able to withstand the pauldron flying through hyperspace.

  He wheeled around, and, with his arm still fortified by writing veins of metal filings, struck Jace in the arm and flung him across the walkway. Jace crashed through a wooden crate, then smashed into the building on the other side, the impact taking his breath away. The Wielder activated a second card, and the building’s metal plating ripped free from the wall and wrapped around Jace’s arm.

  The man activated a third card only moments later, and the nails of the crate lifted up, then shot toward Jace. He flicked his head to the side, and a nail struck the wall where his head had been, piercing through the steel. Another blasted into his bicep, and a third into his hand, pinning him down.

  He gasped and clenched his teeth. This man was going for the kill, and though he was low in the Soul-Circle Opening stages, he was still stronger than Jace.

  Behind, on the other side of the walkway, the scavengers were closing in on Lessa. She’d shot two more of them, but one jumped her from behind. There were just too many..

  Jace needed to empty the accumulator nodes, and he needed to do it now.

  Crushing his fourth utility card in his grasp, he flooded the pillar that stored it with as much Aes as he could muster. Then, screaming, he ripped his hand free. The nail had almost gone all the way through anyway, and he barely had to do any work—except overcome the pain. Adrenaline poured through his muscles, now, though, and it was pure adrenaline. There was a difference between the adrenaline you got when writing a test, and when you were fighting for your life, and this was the latter.

  He ripped open his backpack with his free arm, plunged his arm in, then spread his fingers out and contacted all of the remaining accumulator nodes and once. The Extract Aes card’s runes and wires melted, and he felt it disintegrating, but it only needed to work once—and quickly.

  The Aes flowed out the nodes and into his body.

  Enough to form three pillars with. It swirled around his core.

  He began compressing it.