It took Jeff a minute to explain all the agreements that he'd made to get a full team together. He and the rest of his usuals had agreed to forfeit their chance at the core, but it'd be up for grabs between Erik and me. It felt like I'd done more to earn it so far, but Erik was a high E-Rank mage, and I had no doubt that he'd prove his value soon.

Not that any of that mattered. It'd be determined randomly—and Jeff had conveniently forgotten to mention that I'd get two chances to Erik's one. I was reasonably confident, even with everything that had gone wrong. I'd be getting something out of this trap dungeon either way, and most likely, it'd be the core.

Meanwhile, Erik kept shooting dirty looks my way, as if me wanting the core was a violation of some agreement.

I shook my head and tried to push it out of my mind. Instead, I focused on my Mana Sense.

Mana Sense

Mana is everywhere. It leaks through portals into the world, solidifies in monsters as cores, and even finds its way inside of both delvers and unawakened humans. Being able to sense, track, and understand it is a core skill for mages, supports, and healers of all varieties.

Upgrade Effects: 1. Each rank increases the range and sensitivity of Mana Sense.

Of all the skills I planned to merge with Stormbreak, Mana Sense was the only one I'd have picked up by itself, even if it was near-useless right now. A magical duelist or spellblade would need to know mana levels, understand how mana worked, and be able to manipulate it, and I couldn't do any of that without this skill.

At E-Rank, all it did was give me a rough idea of the mana levels of nearby allies and enemies in the form of their auras. It wouldn't be helpful until later, when I was casting real spells instead of Scripts, and I needed to manage my mana consumption on the fly.

I didn't even need Mana Sense to know that Sophia was in trouble. Her mana levels were dwindling; I could see it in the flickering, wavering aura around her, and in the gritted teeth when she cast her healing spells on Jeff. And I could see it in the beads of sweat working down her cheeks. She licked her lips, grimacing at the salty taste as she pushed even more healing out.

She might be a healer, but she was still E-Rank like me, and if Jeff didn't slow down, she'd run out of mana before we even reached the boss room.

My own mana levels were in the gutter, too.

Stamina: 63/120, Mana: 21/200

But Jeff kept pushing. Either he knew something we didn't—which was possible, since he was reaching the middle of D-Rank and he'd been in trap portals like this a few times—or he just didn't realize how much he was taxing Sophia.

Another swarm of goblins rushed us. Jeff's taunt activated, and a second later, he seemed to be buried beneath screaming green figures and drowning in bright green blood again. His sword flashed, and two goblins fell back, screaming and missing limbs. Unlike the hobgoblin I'd fought, these wounds didn't heal.

Goblins didn't have the Health to heal from D-Rank attacks.

They didn't have the Health to heal effectively from E-Rank attacks, either. My sword was out, and this time, when a single goblin overflowed from Jeff's taunt skill and headed for the back line, I was ready.

I'd been leveling Light Blade Mastery slowly. It was a core part of the second or third skill I planned to merge, but until I had the first one finished, I couldn't risk learning any other parts. That didn't mean I couldn't handle myself against one monster, though. It just meant that my style was basic, with no tricks or special moves. And it meant that more than three was too many. Or even just three.

Light Blade Mastery

The way of the light blade follows many paths. Thin daggers to the back. Cutting, eviscerating wounds from fighting knives. The poise and control of a duelist's blade. Light Blade Mastery influences skill with blades ranging from daggers and throwing knives to rapiers and sabers.

Upgrade Effects: 1. Each rank increases light blades' durability and decreases the Stamina used when wielding them.

But compared to a goblin with a rotten, nail-covered board, a basic, simple fighting style was like an Olympian fencing with a four-year-old. Parrying the club took nothing—a single point of Stamina drained from the blow. My lunge caught the goblin in the chest. It coughed, slid off my blade, and screamed.

I cut in. It blocked with its club, and we exchanged a half-dozen blows before I feinted. It took the bait, and I opened a second wound, this one across the neck. It went down, choking on blood and trying to scream more.

My sword flashed forward. It opened up the monster's back from neck to loincloth. Blood poured from the thin, deep wound. With no armor, it could only scream as it toppled to the floor. I finished it with a quick stab through the back of the neck as it tried to roll, jaws snapping in a futile attempt to hurt me.

Stamina: 57/120

I turned, blade out and ready for the next goblin.

The cavern had been a featureless gray-brown a few seconds ago, with stalagmites and stalactites nearly meeting near its edges. Now, it was practically awash with bright green blood. A few flecks of red had mixed in with the tide; Jeff had taken a few minor cuts. Sophia moved to heal him.

I hadn't been hurt. I could handle one. Probably even two. Three had just been too many.

That was a relief. It wasn't the same as beating a hobgoblin, but at least I could protect myself.

I looked down the cavern. As far as I could tell, we weren't anywhere near the boss's room. "We need to slow down a minute, Jeff. Sophia's running on fumes. Let me set up an alarm Binding, and we can talk strategy," I said.

Jeff nodded. "You're right. I hate to say it, but you're right. Three minutes here. Get watered up, then get ready to move again."

As I tore the page from my notebook and placed it in the tunnel in front of us, I couldn't help but think of Jessie. Unless the way things were going changed, it didn't look like I'd be getting home before she went to sleep. Or, unless we did something to slow down Sophia's Mana use, at all.

"This is taking too long," I said. All around me, the rest of Jeff's team poured water into their mouths or onto their hair, except Sophia, who just sat there and breathed, head down. Everyone had freshly healed injuries. My arm, shoulder, and stomach, a puncture wound through Angie's thigh, and a broken leg that'd sent Sophia sprinting across the battlefield to get Carlos moving again were the worst of it, but all five of us had taken hits.

The mage, though, was intact. He hadn't even been targeted, which wasn't shocking. He hadn't done anything yet, after all.

"It's easy to avoid a fight when you're not looking for one," Carlos muttered under his breath, glaring at him.

The mage glared back, and Mana Sense picked up a subtle but noticeable uptick in his aura. But before he could make a move, I kept talking. "Carlos, every mage is limited in ways you aren't, but stronger in others. You don't want to pick a fight, and I'm sure Jeff's got a plan for…what's your name?"

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"Enough. You're right, Kade. This is taking too long, it's expending everyone's resources, and Erik's going to need to get involved before people get hurt." Jeff stood, stowing his water bottle in a loop on his belt. He pointed at the mage. "I invited him to the portal because we needed a nuclear option, and he fills that role. Can you introduce yourself so everyone knows what you do?"

"Okay. Erik Rosa. I'm an entropy mage. I have one merged skill that lets me add Mana and Stamina to accelerate my spells' effects. Jeff invited me here to see about working with your team longer-term. When I kill the boss, I get a chance at the boss core," the man said. He sounded young, and his voice came out in a monotone from under his hood. "I need it for my second merged skill."

"Erik's good for an all-in surge in one fight—maybe two," Jeff continued. "Limited AoE, but more than we have now. He'll melt a single target—even a boss—if he's at full power, though, so I've been trying to save his Mana and Stamina for the last fight."

"We need to change tactics, though," I said. "Sophia needs to regen some Mana, and Carlos and Angie are both burning through their Stamina. I've got enough for one Script, then I'm dry.

"I understand. Erik, you're fighting. Kade, give Erik a Mana regeneration Script."

"Already did. I can put a Stamina regen on him, too," I said. "That should get him back in the fight faster if he uses his skill."

"Do it. Let's take five here, then—"

Jeff didn't get to finish his sentence, because the alarm Binding went off, the bell echoing loudly in the cavern. A pack of four hobgoblins rushed down the tunnel—and they were mounted. Each of them rode a bright red, mangey-looking wolf-thing with goblin-looking, pointed ears. Half of the monsters' fur was missing, and their skin seemed to crawl with insects.

Goblin Dog: E-Rank Monster

Hobgoblin Rider: D-Rank Monster

By the time Jeff stood up and grabbed his shield, though, the tunnel had grown pitch black all around us. I glanced at Erik. Then I stared.

He'd started to cast.

Erik seemed to grow thin under his hood and robe. His body dwindled, but his aura flared until it lit up a circle in the shadow that pressed in around us. "Everything becomes dust," he whispered as he drew a symbol in the air. Arms of shadow reached out from his finger, touching the four riders.

Then the spell stopped. Just like that. The light balanced, and the four hobgoblins spurred their mounts toward us. Erik didn't move a muscle.

He just waited. And watched. And, a dozen feet from Jeff's shield, the first goblin dog's leg broke. Its rider tumbled off as the dog skidded, howling in agony. Jeff's sword flashed, and the unprepared, off-balance hobgoblin's arm came off completely.

The same thing happened to every other goblin dog. Only one managed to reach Jeff, and when it crumpled against his shield, the breaking bones sounded like shaking maracas. Angie and Carlos each killed a single hobgoblin, and the last one died to Jeff after a few seconds of trying to trade blows against his shield and sword combo.

I stood there, my sword half-drawn. The fight had been over before it even started; Erik had removed the hobgoblins' biggest advantage—speed—and from there, it had been easy. Why hadn't we been using his magic this whole time?

I got my answer a second later.

Erik nodded weakly at the four dying goblin dogs. They'd stopped howling as their bodies slowly came apart; only one had finished dying, but none of the others were ever going to be a threat again. "That's what I do. This is why you don't want me to do it too often."

Then he collapsed.

I secured a Stamina regeneration Script to Erik's robe, and a minute later, he was up and moving again, though he couldn't stop shaking for a while. "Sorry. Targeting more than one enemy at a time costs exponentially more Stamina. I have to maintain the spell for longer before it sets in, too."

"Okay," Jeff said. He wiped green blood off his sword. "New battle plan. Erik, you identify and kill whatever the biggest threat in the group is. Archers, you're sniping anything you can one-shot, or anything that resists my taunt. We'll mop up everything else as we go. Kade, stay safe."

He didn't have a job for me.

Without enough Mana to cast a buff, I couldn't act as a support. Without the skills I needed to be an effective swordsman, I couldn't act as a fighter or striker. I still had active Scripts on everyone else, so I wasn't completely useless, but I was just about as close to it as possible. Jeff was already halfway down the tunnel, with the archers following closely behind and Erik up and moving.

I needed this core so I wouldn't be completely useless without mana. So I could be who I wanted to be. So—

"Stick with me, Kade," Sophia said. "I'm in over my head here, and you've saved me at least once already. And you're on top of things, strategically. Watch my back, and I'll watch the rest of the team as best I can. Just stay out of trouble. Deal?"

She stuck her hand out, and I shook it. "Deal." Her tune had changed. Things were getting dire.

Or…

I knew exactly what she was doing. Right now, I was the weakest member of our team, and if things went bad, I wouldn't be able to do anything to turn the tide. Not to protect her, or to help end the fight. But it was a chance to save some face and take a role that, in theory, could be useful. She was bailing me out, and we both knew it.

But even though I'd known Jeff since middle school, and we were good friends, Sophia had made an impression on me. It wasn't just that she was a healer. It was that she really looked out for people—not just physically, but every which way. An empath, or something. I didn't know the right term, but it seemed like she was always feeling other people's feelings and reacting to them. Always smoothing things over.

I had a storm inside of me; too much frustration, too much helplessness, and the only way to get rid of it was to fight. Most people didn't even notice; I'd gotten good at hiding it. Jeff knew about it, but he'd been my friend forever. But Sophia had picked up on it right away, and now she was going out of her way to make sure I had a role. That meant a lot. A whole lot.

"Thanks," I said, following her after the rest of the group.

And as we headed down the hall, I tried to ignore how weak her aura looked. It'd be enough to get us through the caves and clear the portal's boss. It had to be.

It was.

With Erik's power, fights went from grinding, brutal affairs to simple mop-ups. It was like Jeff and the archers had been trying to fight by themselves, and now they suddenly had a near-full team. Even when the archers' buffs fell off, they were still able to handle the swarms of goblins just fine, and it only took two more real fights before we stopped outside of a wall made from gigantic bones and logs.

The gate loomed high over us; it was easily twenty feet tall, and it was cracked open slightly. When Jeff reached out to touch it, it swung just slightly. Behind it was nothing but darkness—it'd remain that way until we stepped through.

"Boss room," Jeff panted. Simple mop-ups they might've been, but that didn't mean he'd been taking it easy. Sweat dripped from his face, matching the blood that dripped from his armor. Tanks had it rough, up on the front line, and Jeff's chosen style of fighting was even worse than most: aside from blocking with his shield, he made no effort to avoid damage at all. "How are we looking? Can we do it?"

Erik's aura was at about half strength, while Sophia's had regained a bit of its golden luster. I figured she was close to a third of the strength she'd entered the dungeon with. And as for me…I checked my levels.

Stamina: 83/120, Mana: 79/200

"Four Scripts," I reported. " Most of the ones I passed out are about to expire. Where do you want them?"

"Accuracy on archers, Mana on Erik, and—"

Erik interrupted. "Put it on Sophia instead. I'm going to use everything I've got in my opener, and I won't be able to regen fast enough for another reasonable hit. I should melt the boss pretty hard, but it won't be enough to kill it. It'll be all you after that."

"Fine. Mana on Sophia, and Slow Binding on me," Jeff finished. "Stick with Sophia and Erik, keep them alive against any adds, and stay out of the archers' way so they can finish what Erik starts."

I nodded, applied my Scripts and Bindings—waiting a second for the last point of mana before I stuck the last one to Jeff's shield—and drew my sword. "Ready."

"Everyone else? All good? Great. Be ready for anything, and stay safe. Let's finish this!" Jeff lifted his massive shield, and we rushed into the bosses' room.

Bosses. Plural.

There were two.

Misbegotten Ogre: D-Rank

Hobgoblin Summoner: ?-Rank

The Misbegotten Ogre stood a solid fifteen feet tall, its hide the same color as concrete and probably as tough. One of its arms was twisted and bent, trapped behind its back; that probably explained why it was D-Ranked and not higher. The other gripped a tree. Not a trunk, but an entire tree, branches, pine needles, and all. Its eyes locked on Jeff as he stepped into the boss room, and it roared loud enough that I got a debuff.

Shocked: All movement speed reduced by twenty percent

But the Misbegotten Ogre wasn't the worst part of it. That was the Hobgoblin Summoner.

A ?-Ranked boss at my level could mean anything from C all the way to S, but given that its partner was D-Ranked, I guessed it was a low C. It wasn't physically any bigger than the other hobgoblins we'd fought, but unlike the patchwork armor and axes the others had used, this one held a staff. As we followed Jeff in, it started casting, and a goblin made of shadow appeared in an evil-looking green circle in front of the boss, only its teeth and claws made from flesh and bone.

This was the trap the portal world had been built around.

D-Ranked portals rarely had dual bosses to begin with; it took too much energy to create two boss cores. For it to sustain not only the waves of enemies we'd fought through to reach the boss, but two threatening bosses, meant that it couldn't be a D. We were looking at a C-Ranked boss fight, with limited resources, and no way to get more—or to get out.

The bone door slammed shut behind Sophia. We were stuck.

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