Jeff landed in the D-Rank portal world expecting an immediate attack.

Under almost every other circumstance, he'd have been right to expect it. But this one…this one felt wrong. He looked over his shoulder as the rest of the team—Kade, the mage Ellen, and Yasmin the support—dropped in behind him. A four-man felt risky, but the GC rep outside assured him that it was a low-powered D-Rank portal, and that reinforcements were on the way, but that speed was important.

The man was right. This one had been active for hours—long enough for a break. It needed to be neutralized.

"Where are the enemies?" Kade asked. His rapier appeared in his hand, but without any electricity on it.

"I have no idea," Jeff said. He looked around at the solid brick walls, floors, and ceiling. The portal glowed green behind him, so it wasn't a trap portal. But still…something felt wrong.

Yasmin lifted her foot to start walking, but Kade reached out and blocked her path with his hand. "Don't move."

She froze, foot inches from the ground. "What's wrong?"

"Don't move," I said. Yasmin wobbled, and I put a hand on her shoulder to steady her as she regained her balance.

I didn't see it at first, but the moment Yasmin tried to step forward, my danger sense had gone off. She froze mid-step. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Traps," I said. It explained everything—the lack of monsters trying to kill us, the silent entrance even quieter than an E-Rank portal's safe zone, and most importantly, why it was a low D-Rank portal. "The room's filled with them. I don't know what'll happen if we trigger them, but if you put your foot down, it won't be good."

"So what do we do?" Jeff asked.

I stared at the spot Yasmin was about to put her foot, then at the bricks she'd been standing on. "First, you move back to the exact spot you were in. Do you remember where that was?"

"No," she said, paling a little.

"Okay. Stay where you are. I'll think of something." I didn't have forever to think, though. At some point, she'd have to put her foot down. We needed a solution before then. "What are the most common traps in a place like this? Anyone?"

"For Abattoir, Wall spears, collapsing floor, falling ceiling, and blades. For Oubliette, collapsing floor, falling ceiling, chain flail," Ellen rattled off. She hadn't moved an inch since we'd arrived. "In that order. Then we've got a half-dozen magical effects, but at D-Rank, they probably won't be too common. Still very lethal, though. Abattoir usually has more traps than Oubliette, and it's more common as well."

"Okay. We're going to assume either wall spears or a collapsing floor," I said. Ellen had done her research, and I was happy to trust her on it. "We're also going to have to trigger this trap if we want to move forward, so let's get ready."

"That's a gamble." Jeff looked deeply unhappy, and much less inclined to simply trust the shadow mage. "You're sure, Kade?"

"It is, and I am." I applied my movement speed and deflection Scripts. "Yasmin, what Scripts do you have prepared?"

"Ten melee enhancements, five speed, five defense, four Mana regeneration, six Stamina regeneration, one deflection, and one evasion. I can make more, but it'll take time."

"No, we won't need more. Not yet, anyway. Put speed on everyone," I said. "Then put evasion on me and evasion on you. Here's the plan…"

She nodded and slowly, carefully, started applying Scripts to everyone's arms, then activating them. It took almost two minutes to get everything done, and by the end of it, she was wobbling. The whole time, my Mistwalk Form's danger sense kept blaring, telling me that the brick under her foot was a threat—but not how to beat it, or where the danger was really coming from.

"Okay, on three," Jeff said. He drew his sword and shield, and I lit up the Stormsteel rapier with electricity. "One. Two. Three!"

A lot of things happened in about two seconds.

Yasmin put her foot down. My danger sense flared all around us in every direction.

"Floor floor floor!" I shouted.

Yasmin, Jeff, and Ellen broke into a mad sprint for the brick-lined archway at the far end of the entrance room.

The floor started collapsing, starting in the room's center and working its way out.

And three spears rocketed toward Yasmin from behind us.

I moved. With both the wind Script and Yasmin's enhanced buff, I was probably as fast as a baseline C-Rank striker. My sword flicked out, slicing across two of the spears and knocking them off-target as the deflection buffs paid off. The last one got through, but I summoned a handful of Ariette's Zephyr darts and lobbed all five toward it in a desperate volley. The spear tip sliced into her side right below her ribs instead of catching her in the spine.

Then I launched myself through the air after them as bricks crashed into the pit below me.

I hit the hallway floor hard, rolled, and knocked Jeff's feet out from under him. His weight landed on top of me; I unsummoned my sword just in time to avoid cutting him, but not in time to avoid having the air driven from my lungs. He flailed around for a second before I rolled out from under him, and we watched the entry room finish falling apart; there was nothing but a forty-foot hole where we'd landed, the portal hovering above it.

"That's one way to stop a portal break," Ellen said sarcastically as she offered me a hand.

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Stamina: 188/250, Mana: 139/250

I'd already burned a huge amount of Mana, and we hadn't even found an enemy to fight yet.

Jeff picked himself up off the floor. "What are the odds the rest of this place is trapped, too?" he asked as he checked his gear.

"Pretty high, but probably not that intensely," Ellen replied. "I've done some studying on different portal types, and they're usually built around a theme. This one reminds me of the Abattoir or Oubliette portal worlds, but it's a lot brighter than the latter, and not gory enough for the former."

"Kade, can you take point? I'll follow you, then Ellen, then Yasmin. Put your feet exactly where Kade does, and nowhere else. Kade, nice and slow," Jeff said.

I started moving, not at full speed, or even at my unbuffed full speed, but slowly and deliberately. Every step, I waited for my danger sense to flare, then found a place I could be where I'd be safe. And, gradually, I got comfortable enough to look around.

Now that we had a moment to think, I was starting to get a good picture of exactly what we'd walked into. It wasn't a trap portal—not in the same sense that the one I'd gotten the weird core from was. But it was a portal of traps, and it wasn't the Abattoir or Oubliette, just like Ellen had said. I fully expected that we'd find enemies in here, and that it wouldn't be as heavily trapped as either of those portal world archetypes.

And I wasn't disappointed.

Dark Citadel Guardian: D-Rank

They weren't hobgoblins or elves.

If anything, they were animated suits of dark armor, seven feet tall and wielding halberds and spears. Their plate barely stood out against the night sky; they looked more like silhouettes against the torches that lined the wall than monsters. Every one of them looked like a match for Jeff, and there were four of them. But while they looked strong and tough, they had one massive weakness.

They were slow. Really slow. Slow enough that I'd have been able to run circles around them without a full complement of Scripts.

The other good news was that they'd spread out, and that was more of a mixed blessing. On the one hand, their advance had more or less cleared the gigantic wall made from blood-red bricks of any danger from traps. But on the other hand, there were four of them, and Jeff had only been able to get two focused on him.

I'd pissed off a third, and the fourth one was slowly but surely pushing toward Ellen and Yasmin. If I could have, I'd have been helping them, but—

Steel rang on stone, leaving a two-inch-deep gash in the brickwork as I narrowly dodged a halberd strike. I couldn't exactly parry them; the armor I was fighting had gripped its weapon by the very end and was swinging it around like a madman. I couldn't even get close enough to counter-attack. At least, not without an opening.

So, instead, I dodged and moved, taking advantage of my temporarily massive speed.

I was alive. This was perfect. Speed against strength. In a way, it reminded me of fighting my stepfather. He'd always been slower than he had to be, but when it came to his actual blows, he hadn't held back anywhere near as much. I'd have bruises through the training jacket and cuts across any skin that did get exposed.

He'd taught chess the same way. Brutal, efficient destruction of my side of the board. No quick gambits or four-move checkmates—I'd caught on to those too quickly. Simply superior decision-making and experience, and an overwhelming lack of mercy. But I'd learned chess well enough to beat anyone else, and I'd learned how to fence the same way: by taking advantage of my strengths.

The halberd slammed into the brick, almost shearing off a crenellation, and I saw my window. My rapier snaked out. It slashed across the armor's helmet. Not a lethal blow—but it wasn't meant to be.

It got a reaction, though.

The monster choked up on the halberd's grip, bringing it in close like a hand-axe. It swung the weapon toward me in a narrow sweep; this time, I parried, and a tiny orb of blue-green water started swirling around the end of my rapier. Another attack came in.

This time, I dodged and shifted stances into my two-handed grip, then used Rain-Slicked Blade.

I'd done this against Ellen, but she hadn't been wearing any real armor, so I didn't know how well it'd work. My weapon's electrical blade vanished once again, replaced by a cutting edge of compressed, high-speed water. I lunged. All my weight went into the attack, both hands ramming the rapier into the center of my enemy's chest.

The suit of armor didn't even try to block. A moment later, my blade erupted out of its back, then switched back to lightning. I spun and pulled the sword free, then dropped back into a one-handed guard—this time with a Lightning Charge active. The armor stood there for a moment, then toppled, crashing against the crenellations with a sense of finality.

I hadn't drawn blood. The whole motion had been smooth. Flawless. And it had felt just as easy as stabbing Ellen in the sparring room had. Heavy plate armor had made no difference whatsoever. It had taken some set-up, but not enough to be a real problem—especially when I'd wanted to rotate between Thunderbolt Form and Mistwalk Form anyway. It was almost perfect—but it could be better. I just needed to merge a few more skills…

"Kade, give me an assist here!" Jeff yelled.

I shook my head, refocusing on the battle. Jeff had somehow gotten in between the third knight and our teammates, and he was more or less holding his own, but only because of Yasmin's speed Script. He needed damage on target, and I could provide that.

The Stormsteel rapier went up into my two-handed, high-offense form, and I dove into battle.

It was messy. Jeff and I both took our first hits of the portal, and Ellen's aura flickered a little as she passed fifty percent Mana before stabilizing. But in the end, all three remaining knights went down, collapsing into piles of blackened steel. I deactivated the Stormsteel rapier as the last one died with a massive cut straight through its gorget, courtesy of Rain-Slicked Blade.

Stamina: 137/250, Mana: 115/250

"This isn't going to be sustainable, Jeff," I said. "Our team's not built for knock-down, drag-out fights."

"I know." Jeff wiped sweat from his forehead. He wasn't the only one covered in it; now that we were outside, the black night was overwhelmingly hot. I stared out into the nothingness outside the city walls. Somewhere, out there, was an entire world as miserable as Phoenix in July. But we didn't need to worry about that. We couldn't worry about that. "Let's discuss our strengths. We're built for ambushes, unfair fights, and taking advantage of our high strike damage, not…whatever that was."

"Right," I said.

"So, we're going to change plans to fit our team. I wish we had a healer and an archer. We'd be unstoppable," Jeff said.

"What's with you and archers?" I asked.

Jeff shrugged. "They're easy to keep safe, and they do good sustained damage. They're perfect. I'm not starting any more fights in here. Ellen, if you see an enemy, say something, then open up on them. Try to knock one in every group out of the fight, and do it fast. Kade, make sure she's successful, then both of you pitch in where you can without burning too much Mana and Stamina. Yasmin, Mana buffs on those two, Stamina on everyone. Can you afford Mana on yourself, too?"

"On it," Yasmin said. "I can do all that. I've been running Mana on myself already."

"Okay. If Kade or I leave a downed monster and you can finish it off, do it. We need to be efficient with our damage-dealers' resources."

I waited for the Scripts, thinking through the strategy as she stuck the papers to our arms. She was passing out quite a collection; I couldn't help but wonder how deep her Mana pool was. I also couldn't help but notice that she didn't seem comfortable doing her own thing in the group. Was that just who she was, or had the close call with the trap earlier made her more cautious with us? I didn't know, but it was concerning. We should have already had those buffs.

Either way, we had a battle plan now, and until we got those reinforcements the GC rep had promised up—assuming they didn't fall and get injured the moment they went through the portal—that was our best bet for moving forward: Hit fast, hit hard, and mop up the stragglers.

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