White flickers pop off like firecrackers outside the wall, far more numerous and obvious this time. The two boys come back to us splattered in ichor the color of amethyst acid.

  “Zara, what is your planet’s obsession with the color purple?” I ask idly, trying to get my mind off the stench and the sound and everything about this ridiculous situation. “The sun, trees, the diseases…”

  “Is that what you see?” she asks calmly. Unbothered. “To me it is a riot of color.”

  “Really?”

  I glance at her and her many-faceted eyes. It’s been difficult lately to think of them as truly alien, and the reminder of our differences almost comes as a shock. So her species sees in different wavelengths than humanity. I mean, of course they do. Even Earth has species that see wild shit. You don’t even have to go into nonsense like the mantis shrimp; even deer can see into the ultraviolet range.

  Why do I know that? Thanks, Professor Warren. I didn’t learn shit in your astronomy class, but I’ll never forget that you believed that deer are extraterrestrials.

  “Do you guys see purple, too?”

  “Nah,” Burl says, though he doesn’t look around. He’s got something of a thousand yard stare, covered as he is in blood and guts. Threenut is marginally cleaner, but he’s not wearing armor. “Buncha colors.”

  “Errat it mostly is, by my measure,” Threenut says, wiping his stick on a clean spot of grass near where Zara and I are standing.

  The translation didn’t let that one through, so it must be a word that has no easy translation. Probably a color I literally can’t see, which means I also can’t imagine it.

  “Huh.” The flashes begin to slow, and I take a deep breath through my mouth to steady myself. The first creature breaks through the wall, and, yup, it’s just more fucked up squirrels. “Alright, guys. I… I think I’ve got this one. Gather round.”

  “Aye,” Threenut says, his bright green eyes tracking the circle of pulped cuteness. “That ye do.”

  Before the horde can charge, I widen my focus, placing a field of purple around the entire clearing. My head aches trying to stretch my power farther than I ever have, but I most definitely don’t want to let the little bastards get close to me again. I don’t think my heart, or my stomach, could take it.

  “Brace yourselves,” I say. “You’re about to feel a bit heavier.”

  The second their squeaking roar begins, I activate the Skill.

  I didn’t use much power to strengthen the Skill, though the field and the souls contained within it drain me down to a hundred points. My knees flex under the pressure, though the others take it with nothing more than a light grunt from Burl and a creak from Zara’s carapace.

  The effect on the goenta is immediate and horrifying, a swimming pool's worth of purple pasta sauce thrown from a skyscraper onto concrete.

  Congratulations! Wave 2 of 3 complete! Prepare yourself for the next stage!

  I let the field drop, closing my eyes for a moment to find a corner of my mind to shove the sound into. Repress, repress, repress!

  “Twig…” Threenut mumbles in disbelieving disgust. “No…”

  “Would you rather be out there trying to stomp on them one at a time?” I ask, my voice a little brittle. “Be thankful.”

  “Oh, you best believe it, boss,” Burl says, waking up from his stupor and looking around at the goop-saturated field. “Still disgusting and disturbing, but we’re thankful alright. Supremely thankful.”

  If the white flickers before were firecrackers, the teleportation flashes for wave three are a small-town 4th of July finale, the kind where half the town’s taxation budget goes to being as goddam American as they can possibly be for ten glorious minutes of deafening explosions and flashing colors. If all of them are goenta, we might just be putting the whole species into an extinction event for this single Challenge.

  “Twig, how taxing be the strength of this power?” Threenut says while the light show continues out of sight. He shifts, showing the dimples his feet made in the earth under the effects of the strengthened gravity.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “Not very,” I say, shrugging. “This is a super light version.”

  “Really?” Burl says, he and Three exchanging eager looks. Eager? Even Zara shifts into a straighter posture. “Man, if we ever get some down time, this would be worth a contract by itself!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Training,” Zara says softly.

  “Aye. To know this call, all me thoughts were of growing straighter under its pull.” He looks up at me with a grin. “What better way to delve deep roots than to struggle before mighty wind?”

  “But with all this Class and Skill stuff, doesn’t training seem kind of silly?”

  “They are mere expressions of the strength beneath,” Zara answers.

  “She’s right. Classes and Skills are force multipliers, but, to continue the mathematics analogy, they are limited by the size of the number being multiplied. If you can grow your Will or Intellect, the efficacy of your Class will be greatly increased.”

  Huh.

  “You’re telling me you want to use my power to… strength train?”

  “And agility,” Burl says, his long tongue flopping out the side of his mouth. “And toughness, probably. Imagine if we could set up an obstacle course under this kinda field? Or spar together? We’d all get stronger, quick.”

  “Then let’s make the time,” I agree, shrugging. “Anything to help us survive.”

  “Perhaps one morn I’ll no longer have the right to name ye ‘twig.’”

  I cough out a laugh.

  “Fat chance of that one, Three, but I like your optimism. Look, it’s slowing down.”

  The others ready themselves, though what little tension’s in their posture fades as more goenta begin filtering through the wall. It is almost a relief; in spite of the charnel horror show surrounding us, I was half afraid that the Challenge would adapt to how easily I’m trouncing it. Dickhead must have decided that even I deserve a softball sometimes.

  I set up the field much as I did before, waiting for the horde to gather and the enraged squeak to build before repeating the mincing process. There are more of them, the sound is worse, but this time I manage to remove myself from the moment enough that my stomach says steady. The sheer amount of liquid soaking the ground allows some of the ichor to flow towards us, unnaturally flat beneath the increased gravity, but flowing inward nonetheless. The tide blessedly stops before it can reach us.

  I wait for a beat, but the Challenge doesn’t end with the squelch of liquifying flesh like it should. We sit there in awkward silence. I don’t see anything within the arena but rodent slush.

  “Hey, Dickhead, let us out!” I call to the sky. “We won!”

  He doesn’t answer. Finally, my heightened senses pick up something like faint chittering from beyond the wall, localized to the west.

  “I guess not,” I say, sighing. “That way, guys. Get ready.”

  A breeze kicks up, offering brief respite from the rotting sludge smell. It makes it worse, in the end. I was desensitized to it after a minute or so, but the freshness makes it hit harder when the stench returns. Coughing, eyes watering, watching the wall for signs of movement, I don’t let the field of strengthened gravity drop for even a second.

  The movement finally comes, but not where I expect it to.

  A tiny head pops up over the wall, its beady eyes glaring down at us from on high. What the shit? Is it flying? Giant sized? My brain unhelpfully offers a picture of a massive, bloated body topped with a tiny squirrel head.

  The rubber chicken battle cry fills the air from a thousand tiny throats, and the little bastard rises above the wall, revealing beneath it a writhing column composed of rotting bodies standing one on the other. Higher, higher, the goenta lift their brethren like the universe’s most fucked up circus act.

  I watch with a sense of confusion and grudging awe. What do they think they’re accomplishing?

  The column teeters backwards, shedding bodies that squeak their deaths out of sight, then higher still, stretching, stretching, less stable by the second, though now I’m pretty sure they’re higher than the field of gravity. That doesn’t matter; as soon as they come within range, they’re going to pulp like all the rest.

  With one final battle cry, the whole mass lurches forwards.

  Right over our heads.

  “Close your mouths!” I scream, bending down and covering my head with my hands.

  A thick, soupy stream slaps into my back strong enough to knock the wind out of my lungs. The diseased slop is covering me, all over me, on my back, on my neck, in my hair. I’m crying and I don’t care. I just don’t fucking care.

  Threenut retches into the earth, sap dripping from his mouth to join with the dead squirrel soup. Burl’s armor fully encompassed him, probably in time, though I’ve got no idea how he’s going to get it out of the seams. Zara is frozen in place, looking for all intents and purposes like a statue covered in radioactive pigeon shit.

  Congratulations! Wave 3 of 3 complete!

  “I hate this fucking place,” I say to the uncaring soil.