Crossing the border into the dungeon kind of felt like breaking the surface of the water when diving into a calm lake. Except, it wasn’t wet on the other side. No, it was sunny.

  Det blinked at the bright light stinging his eyes, the sun stronger than it was on Ironsalt by a noticeable amount. Around him, the others likewise reacted, hands going above their eyes to shield them, or turning to the side to shield themselves. It was a moment of wildly lax attention that almost cost them, with only the deep growl of an alpha, ink-wolf and the snap of its vicious jaws clamping down on a dashing ant saving them from immediate injury.

  Black, ceramic-like material crumpled between the sharp teeth, the wolf’s growl continuing while it shook its head side-to-side. Mechanical legs flailed as pieces of the body stretched, tore, and broke, until the thing finally went still.

  Every eye of the group now stood wide open—despite the bright sun driving light like needles into them—at how close they’d come to messing up. That was their second newbie mistake—standing around and staring—until Tena shouted.

  “It’s not alone!” the tank roared, her crystal armor emerging from her body even as she charged at the group of three ants racing across the patchy-grass ground. Since her spear stood only half-formed, she opted to stomp down with her armor-clad boot at the first ant’s head.

  The Wordless creature proved faster than she expected, darting to the side to nimbly avoid the foot that would’ve crushed its head. And, unfortunately for Tena, the stomping gesture had firmly planted her in one spot, an easy target for the second ant in line. Like lightning, the thing’s mandibles opened then closed.

  On her ankle.

  A crack—of crystal or bone?—and a grunt of pain from Tena, and the woman staggered. Her spear, meant for the third ant of the attacking trio suddenly became a crutch, braced to stop her from falling to the ground where her original target waited, mandibles ready to close around her throat if it came within range.

  That ant, at least, was occupied for the moment. The third ant, the one she’d planned to skewer with her spear, was the bigger threat for the moment. Zigging around the tank, then zagging past the ink-wolf busy crushing the ant scout, this fourth ant went straight for the softer backline of the group.

  Eriba and Weiss stood stunned and frozen by the unexpected violence, their weapons forgotten, and their bodies like deer caught in headlights. To one side, Sage fumbled for one of the daggers at his back, even though he proved to be a much better fighter with the sword in practice. Calisco had—somehow—managed to trip over her own quarterstaff in the chaos, and now lay on her stomach, down on the ground.

  A position that left her in the perfect place for a certain charging ant to mandible her face.

  “No…” she said, the end to her second life clear before eyes. “I…”

  “Got ya,” Det said at the same time his katana stabbed straight down through the head of the charging ant. Even without the ink-flames—no time to ignite them—the angle of the strike punched the razor-sharp tip of the blade right through the black material, and into the ground beneath. A slight vibration ran up the blade and into Det’s arm from the ant’s forward momentum further tearing the wound through its head and body, though it hardly mattered. It’d been dead from the moment Det’s sword had found its head.

  “Det…?” Calisco said, her voice clearly showing she neither expected to be saved nor expected it to be by him.

  “Get up,” Det said. “Tena needs our help, and there’s a second group already on the way! Sage, can you take control of one of those ants attacking her? Weiss, you need to heal her. Eriba, here.” A pull and a flick sent the dead Wordless ant’s body in Eriba’s—Tinker’s—direction.

  “Calisco,” Det said. “Forget the stick and explode the hell out of that new pack of four. Right there!” He pointed with his free hand, and got a better grip on his sword with the other. At his barked-out orders, the others finally came to life.

  Eriba immediately dropped to her knees to begin fiddling with the Wordless gift at her feet. Sage stopped trying to draw one of his white daggers, and instead reached out with a hand in the direction of the Wordless Tena had originally tried to squash beneath her boot. Near him, Calisco pushed herself to her knees—the staff left forgotten on the ground—and head turning until she spotted the four new additions sprinting in the group’s direction.

  On her face, a vindictive curl of her lips meant those four ants were going to help her work off some of the embarrassment of her initial reaction to the fight.

  For the moment, Det would leave the woman to that, his attention fully on Tena even as she dropped to a knee and reached for the ant clamped on to her foot. While she could’ve created another weapon in her empty hand, she instead grabbed the ant by the back of the neck and tried to pull it off. Even with her ReSouled strength—probably the highest of the group—it wasn’t enough, with cracks spreading across the crystal boot as the mandibles continued trying to get the softer flesh beneath.

  Next to her, the second ant’s legs bent and braced, preparing to launch the cat-sized ant at one of the higher, unarmored parts of Tena’s body. With the pain to her leg, she hadn’t finished armoring up. With Det two steps away—two steps too far away to stop the ant—the Wordless suddenly froze.

  It didn’t drop to the ground like it was dead, but the eyes changed from red to blue, and that was enough for Det. Enough time to get past it—Has to be under Sage’s control. I hope.—and to Tena’s side.

  “Move your hand,” Det said. Thankfully, the short, sharp command reached Tena’s brain, and she snapped her arm back. Just in time for Det to snap his sword down. Gripped in both hands now, his simple, downward slash arced through the neck—or whatever it was called—of the ant, separating its head from the rest of its body.

  Like a switch was flicked, the pressure of the mandibles lessened, with the face-clamps even popping open. Tena groaned again at the pain, rocking back on her knee while reaching down with her hand to rub at the injury.

  “Weiss, are you going to…?” Det started, head turning back to find the healer still standing frozen in place.

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  The man’s eyes didn’t move—didn’t blink—while his lips opened and closed like he was muttering something. Not that Det could hear anything with a chain of explosions going off like a line of dynamite trying to open a mountain up.

  Calisco had joined the fight.

  Eruptions of fire, earth, and ant-bits ripped across the field where the second pack had approached from. One, two, three, four, five of the booms made an absolute mess of that side of the fight. Except, as powerful as the blasts were, they hadn’t been aimed very well in the rush.

  Two of the four ants came barrelling out of the debris, mandibles clacking in anticipation of crushing ReSouled flesh. Bodies rent with scars and damage—one of them was even missing a pair of legs—it wasn’t enough to slow the ants down. They’d reach the group and…

  A third ant shot from the side like a javelin, mandibles clamping down on the face of the frontrunning ant like a vice. Beneath blue eyes, the new addition to the fight’s mandibles crushed the head of its target, the glass of the red eyes shattering beneath the pressure, before the whole head crumpled.

  That just left one ant running straight for a frozen Weiss. The man still didn’t move, even when the charging Wordless stutter-stepped to get all its legs in lockstep. Didn’t move when the ant leapt into the air, the cat-sized Wordless sailing straight for his throat, serrated mandibles open and ready spill his blood. Didn’t move as some kind of compressed-energy blast slammed into the side of the ant, slapping it out of mid-air like some kind of divine fly-swatter.

  Black carapace cracked at the impact, sending the ant careening to the side where it hit the ground and rolled, two legs on one side of its body missing. That was the least of its worries, really, with Eriba dashing after it, then stomping down with one foot. Unlike Tena, she didn’t miss, then leaned forward with some kind of device on the back of her right wrist.

  Braced up the back of her forearm, with a handle clenched in her hand, it didn’t take a genius to figure out what she’d built when the stubby barrel began to glow. A second later, it spat out a blast—like what had struck the Wordless before—to slam into the ant braced beneath her foot.

  One, two, three times she fired, with that final shot pulping the mechanical creature’s head.

  “We’re not done yet,” Det said. “Another pack coming. No, two of them. Must’ve been attracted to the commotion.”

  “Let’s make them regret that decision,” Calisco said, back on her feet, the quarterstaff nowhere to be seen. She probably “accidently” exploded it.

  “I’ll take the lead,” Tena said, forcing herself back to her feet. “Both leads,” she clarified at the same time her crystal double grew out of her. A shield and spear appeared in each of their hands, the two tanks having enough time to get ready.

  “You sure?” Det said. “Your ankle…”

  “Will hold,” Tena promised him. “Didn’t actually hurt much. Just… surprised me.” The words came out with a hint of shame. This was exactly what they’d gone through the week of hell—or the week of attempted murder, as Calisco called it—for. To be able to take that kind of punishment without it slowing them down. Except, as soon as it happened the first time, she’d slipped up. She knew it. She knew they knew it.

  Now she had something to prove.

  “Calisco, hit them before they get to close,” Det said. “Thin out their numbers.”

  “Already on it…” Calisco said, one hand stretched in the direction of each pack of four ants rushing their way. Pulses of magical energy warped the air around her. Whatever she was doing, it wasn’t going to be a small explosion.

  “Sage, Eriba, you’ve got whatever survives on the left side, with Tena’s clone,” Det said. “Tena, you and me, we’ve got the right side.”

  “Got it,” she said, while Eriba and Sage’s controlled Wordless lined themselves up with their targets.

  Just then, a pair of huge explosions went off, directly in front of the charging ants.

  Would you look at that? She listened to the suggestion to predict where the Wordless would go, instead of trying to chase them with her explosions.

  Unlike with the previous pack Calisco had blasted, this wasn’t a series of smaller explosions, but instead one big boom for each pack. A dome of fire and force fifteen feet tall tore up the plain, and sent rock and dirt flying in all directions. But, even though the blast had been bigger and flashier, it didn’t prove any more effective than her earlier display, with two ants speeding out toward the group.

  “Not this time,” Tena said as she charged—limped—to meet them. Out swept her tower shield to one side with blistering speed, side swiping one ant and sending it flying to the side, while her spear thrust for the second. A scar to the damaged carapace was all the damage she managed to do, but it got the ant’s attention.

  Nearby, a similar scene was playing out with her clone, buying the seconds needed for Sage’s mind-controlled Wordless to join in, mandibles snapping at anything they could find. From back behind Sage, Eriba took pot shots at the second ant, her wrist mounted gun opening up with a rate of fire of around one shot per second.

  All in all, the trio had the fight under control, though it wasn’t going as smoothly as last time. Without the element of surprise on their side, it was clear how their inexperience with their magic was hindering them. That and Eriba was just a pretty bad shot.

  As for how things were going on Det’s side, he and his alpha stalked toward the two Wordless they were responsible for dealing with. It was entirely possible Tena could handle things on her own if she were at a hundred percent, but she was half-a-step slower than usual with her injured ankle. While she might be ignoring the pain, there had to be something broken in there for it to be slowing her down. That was giving the ants just enough leeway from their better speeds to harass her.

  Not that Det or his ink-wolf were going to give them long to enjoy the advantage.

  “Go,” Det told the wolf, and that was all the command it needed.

  Like the apex predator it was, the alpha bolted in like a line of black lightning. One paw slammed down like a hammer on the back of the ant even as it dodged a spear thrust. As soon as the Wordless was pinned, the wolf’s jaws snapped closed on the back of its head. There was no slow crush or gradual death. One second the head was there, then the next, it was gone.

  Det, likewise, worked with surgical precision. His target was the same kind of ant he’d fought dozens of up in the tavern before he’d gone down into the emergence. It looked the same. Moved the same. Attacked and dodged the same.

  It was predictable.

  Now, was all the thought Det needed, his right leg lunging forward as he brought his sword down in a stretching arc. An arc that passed cleanly through the neck of the lunging ant. The momentum of the ant’s charge left its head continuing forward to bounce harmlessly off Tena’s armor, while its body slumped to the ground.

  “Calisco, keep an eye out for any additional packs of ants, okay?” Det said, turning and pointing with his wolf toward the last two ants still making a nuisance of themselves with Tena’s clone.

  “Sure,” she said. “You’ll know more are coming when you hear the explosions.”

  “Figured as much,” Det said, taking up a position about a dozen feet from the ongoing melee. He and the alpha could jump in to help, but Sage and Eriba needed the practice. That was abundantly clear.

  Then again, another thing that was clear was how much they were already improving. The fight had barely been going on for seconds, and Eriba’s shots were getting closer. Sage’s controlled Wordless moved with more agility and sharpness. They were getting better, and this kind of practice was exactly what they needed.

  “Don’t interfere unless you think you need to protect somebody,” Det told the alpha, and a small growl in return confirmed the request.

  So, with the ink-wolf watching out for the welfare of his teammates, Det turned his attention on the… problem. Weiss. The healer still hadn’t moved. He stood absolutely frozen, and Det wasn’t even sure the man was seeing or hearing what was going on in front of him. The glazed-over look in his eyes reminding Det far too much of how the other ReSouled had looked during the illusion day of torture.

  There was some kind of trauma there. And, with Weiss being the group’s healer, there was a very important question that needed to be answered.

  If he was going to freeze at the first sign of combat like this, what was the point of even having him in there with them?