“What did I tell you?” I say dully, watching every moment of Vesyla's perfect walk with her perfect face and her perfect hair and her perfect perfection. When she disappears, I turn on Zara with a scowl. “I thought I spoke clearly when I said ‘don’t fuck this up for me.’”

  “Your decision making is compromised around that one,” she answers evenly, not backing down.

  “What if we could have convinced her to join us?” I say, gritting my teeth. “She’s level fricken 26.”

  “And what if she led us out into the maze and murdered us with her superior strength? Let your physical weakness fade and think, human.”

  I lift a finger, ready to continue, but I catch Threenut’s disappointed look out of the corner of my eye. Sighing, I let my hand drop and do my best to push aside the storm of impossible emotion roiling in my chest.

  “Alright,” I say, closing my eyes. “Are we going out today?”

  “I think so,” Zara says immediately, clearly happy to be moving on. “There is little Haven can offer us except distraction and danger.”

  “I don’t know, boss,” Burl says, ripping more meat off the bone. “This is pretty nice.”

  “Zara’s right,” I say, thinking of the Qellis and their games, the duels in the streets and the ambushes at the gates. “Though we were never truly safe out in the maze, at least the dangers were obvious. The ‘safety’ of Haven is tempting, but it is a siren’s song we have to resist. If we stay here and refuse to fight, we may as well kill ourselves now. We’ve learned that we’re nowhere near strong enough. If those assholes are really pushing 40, we can’t afford to fall any further behind.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Burl asks, cracking the bone between his jaws and crunching its remnants between his powerful jaws. After he finishes swallowing, he wipes his greasy mouth on the back of his hand. “We head back out and go Challenge hunting?”

  “Pretty much. Better to be out there getting stronger than risking ourselves for nothing here.”

  We move towards the door, Three settling in at his usual place at my side. Something, whether Perception or a natural sixth sense, makes me glance back as we head through the door. George Wellington stands in the opening leading to the human apartments, his face unreadable. Feeling like a kid caught stealing, I hurriedly duck out into the street.

  ***

  The lilac maze is strangely comforting after the absurd juxtaposition of alien architecture that made up Haven. We’d escaped notice on our exit with the help of another duel, this time between a Qellis with some kind of ice magic and an Urnza blob the color of undiluted cat vomit. Part of me wanted to watch to the end, but it was smarter to leave while everyone’s attention was elsewhere. At the gate, there had been no sign of the trio of Gorinar murderers or the Otachai that chased them off. Probably for the best.

  Now, we follow the path, taking every left fork as we did before, striving to put as much distance between ourselves and Haven as possible. Still, there’s an itch between my shoulderblades that makes me feel like we’re being watched. I can’t detect any sign of something following, but I don’t exactly know what I’m looking for, and Zara’s people are practically invisible in the forest even without a stealth Skill.

  Trying to put visions of level 35 assassin spiders stalking me from my mind, I nonetheless look at the forest on either side and the path behind us more than the way ahead. It’s a relief when we finally come upon the tell-tale sign of a Challenge, the trees opening up into a clearing.

  “Alright, we ready?” I ask, forcing a smile for their benefit.

  “Let’s get paid,” Burl says, already walking forward.

  Challenge! This is a moderate Combat Challenge! Defeat increasing waves of enemies in order to achieve victory!

  Challenge upgraded! As you have entered this Challenge with a party, this Challenge has been upgraded from moderate to severe! The number of enemies has increased and the time between waves has decreased.

  The familiar white wall flickers into being, blocking out any vision of the surrounding forest. Light flashes from behind the wall in all directions, no doubt the arena teleporting the first wave in. Without speaking, Zara and I move towards the center of the clearing, Threenut and Burl each taking half of the arena and facing out towards our enemies.

  Nothing stirs, though the number of flashes starts to grow alarming the longer they continue. Just how many fucking things is the Seventh allowed before he’s breaking the rules again?

  “Steady, Competitor. You’ve survived every Challenge so far because he knows he can’t go too far. Whatever it is, you will conquer it.”

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  Damn, Kora, that was, well, nice. Why are you being nice?

  “I’m just glad you listened to your companions, however strange they are. Your attraction to the Drelni is not natural.”

  Fighting the urge to roll my metaphorical eyes, I frown. Do you think she’s using a Skill?

  “I... wish she was, but I think it is merely your own weakness.”

  You try having repressed urges for a decade and see how that works out for you.

  “I’ve been an untethered spirit for more time than your species has existed. When you’ve lived a tenth as long, we can talk about repressed urges.”

  Wait, you still feel… that kind of way? Without a body? Oh. Oh, man. That is really messed up.

  “Focus.”

  I try, my eyes scanning the pristine white barrier.

  “But yes. It is, as you say, messed up.”

  There is a brief flash, different than before. Dimmer. A minute ripple passes across the wall, like a grain of sand falling onto a pristine pond. I squint at its epicenter, searching for its source. My mind conjures a dozen absurd alien species from as many ridiculous science fiction movies, hovering, depressingly, on the xenomorph from Alien. Their too-smooth skin, the fangs of their double mouth, the creepy spider/scorpion hybrid babies…

  I wasn’t the best sleeper before that horrifying experience, and I’d been a wreck for weeks after. That my mother let my impressionable, eight-year-old mind watch that movie is a crime she never had to atone for. One among many.

  But no. No way. One of those fuckers would be crazy to throw at us, magic bullshit notwithstanding, and the flashes of incoming enemies had been in their hundreds.

  Finally, there’s motion. Near the ground. Tiny. Fluffy. Familiar.

  Identification: A Goenta of Sartuna (diseased)

  Level: 1

  Strengths: Insanity

  Weaknesses: You, you psychopath

  The goenta of the 3rd are an apt analog to the Earth squirrel, but half as dangerous. Perhaps the most innocent, easily domesticated animal in all the Twelve Worlds, even natural predators eat them last to avoid the soul-crushing guilt of consuming such a pure creature. When infected with a particular disease akin to rabies, they take on hordelike behavior with a disturbing degree of coordination.

  More and more of the little squirrel things appear until there is a line three deep surrounding us on all sides. They are missing tufts of their green fur, revealing horrid, bright purple sores leaking a thick pus the color of acid. Part rabid squirrel, part leaking zombie, the horde blinks.

  Together. As one.

  Oh, fuck this.

  With a unified squeak of rage that sounds like a hundred rubber chickens squeezed at once, they charge.

  Threenut darts around, his blurring stick slamming into leaping rodents with wet pops that turn my stomach. Burl’s little mace elongates into a thick metal paddle, and he swings it in broad sweeps, crushing a dozen at a time. Their bones seem to have some kind of resistance, judging by the effort Three and Burl are putting into crushing them, and several rise again like tiny zombies with broken bones and shattered bodies.

  Our front line kills a hundred in the first few seconds, but they are barely denting the horde that covers the clearing like an undulating carpet. They can’t hold back the tide, and a bunch of the little bastards pour in on either side.

  Never have I regretted wearing a dress so much. I’m suddenly too aware of how much skin is exposed on my arms and legs. Before they can close, I prepare a field of Strengthen Gravity in either open direction, pouring in enough power that I’m sure their little bones can’t handle it. Despite their creepy disease, it hurts my soul a little to activate the Skill.

  The hazy purple light brightens, and a few points drain from my soul. Way fewer than I expect. I guess evolving Soul Expression to rare had more of an effect than I thought. The first goenta charge into the gravity field.

  And promptly liquify.

  I feel the horror in my fucking bones. The instant any part of the goenta breaches the field, the strengthened gravity pulls them to the ground so fast they disintegrate, momentum carrying the rest of their body forward until they splash as formless blobs of diseased slop. Like Stephen King’s version of lemmings, they pour forward, a flattened wave of ever-increasing thick blood and pulped bones lapping at the edges of either field. They smell like milk morphing into paste on a hot summer day.

  My stomach roils. I’d definitely be puking if I had anything to puke. As it is, I can barely stand to look at them, let alone hear the horrific startled squeak and wet slap of breaking bones and flesh that fills the clearing. I almost cancel the field, though I’m not stupid, guilty, or sick enough to let a horde of rabid squirrels jump on me.

  God, I didn’t use that much power.

  And then it hits me.

  The achievement. Childhood sociopath. The ‘reward’ it gave me.

  I thought it was a troll! I thought he was fucking with me! I never thought it would be useful to be better at killing weak shit.

  “Neither did I,” Kora says slowly. “I… I am not sure I can watch this.”

  What do you mean? You don’t even have guts to spill. You aren’t even here.

  “I can still sense what you can, and… Twelve help me…”

  Don’t worry about it. I think I can handle this one without any advice. Just, uh, close your eyes, or whatever.

  Congratulations! Wave 1 out of 3 complete! Prepare yourself for the next stage!