The Magmatic Octopod's jaw opened wide as its tentacle yanked Ellen off her feet. I knew exactly what was coming. It lifted her high into the air, and this time, Ellen did scream. Her aura was weak, but not flickering like she was out of Mana—she just couldn't cast with one arm trapped.

Not that she did nothing. Her free arm pulled a dagger from her belt, and she jammed it into the tentacle. For a second, the monster loosened its grip, and her arm started to slide free. Round burn marked—the same as on my stomach—covered her from wrist to elbow.

Then it caught her again and kept dragging her toward the monster's beak.

I dashed through the pounding tentacles, dropping a paper behind me as I did. Jeff was out of position—if anyone was going to save Ellen, it'd have to be me. I put all my remaining Stamina into a Vital Lunge. This one caught the boss right below its stony beak. It screeched, drowning out Ellen's panicked screams.

But it didn't stop pulling her in.

I pulled the Stamina potion out of my hoodie pocket. It had, somehow, survived the boss's squeezing, and I popped the stopper, letting the warm, berry-flavored liquid pour down my throat. My Stamina started going up fast.

As it did, I focused on the monster's beak, then on the base of the tentacle that had Ellen. How dare it try to kill a teammate? My focus narrowed in until the only things that mattered were the tentacle, the beak, and the Stormsteel rapier.

Stamina: 23/150, Mana: 45/200

That was enough. I ducked in under the severed arm's stump. It thrashed abortively. Then I cut, stabbed, and cut again. My arm screamed with the pain of exhaustion as I launched into a flurry of attacks—even with my Stamina ticking up, I was still well into fatigue.

But I couldn't stop. And I didn't stop. My teammate's life was on the line. At E-Rank, no one would survive a bite like that without a healer. Even with one, she'd be looking at lost limbs—and those didn't regenerate easily.

Every cut moved the boss's tentacle a little. Every stab kept it from reaching the maw just a tiny bit longer. So I kept thrusting and slicing, hacking away at the stony flesh. And bit by bit, the tentacle started reacting to my attacks more and more. Just like I wanted.

As my Stamina ticked up to thirty, I launched another Vital Lunge into the tentacle. This time, when I made contact, the arm jerked away from my blade—and landed right on top of paper I'd dropped.

The lightning trap Binding went off.

It wasn't enough to stun the Octopod. And I hadn't expected it to. But it did knock the tentacle to the ground, and the tentacle did drop Ellen.

She was stunned. Maybe paralyzed. Helpless—and the boss had other tentacles.

I unsummoned the Stormsteel rapier and scooped her up, then ran for the edge of the rocky cavern, where it was dark. The boss slammed the ground behind me, but the moment we got out of range and Jeff used his taunt skill again, it refocused on him. I dropped Ellen unceremoniously on the rough basalt, ignoring her squawk of pain when she hit. "Cast something!" I yelled.

"I'm too low on Mana! All I've got is one Orb of Darkness!" she murmured. Her eyes seemed distant and confused.

Shock. Was this her first time getting hurt? No, that couldn't be it.

Did she just…not know what to do when she did get hurt? That had to be it. I filed that away for later; I'd been hurt enough that I knew what to do, but if she didn't, we'd have to work on that. "Ellen, focus. The Mana potion. You still have it, right?"

"Yes?" she half-asked. Then she nodded, reached into her pouch, and appeared with it—and a handful of sticky notes. "Yes!"

"Drink it and wait for an opportunity!" The Stormsteel rapier popped back into my hand, and a moment later, it was coated in lightning.

Ellen didn't have to wait long, though.

With two tentacles down, four bashing away at Jeff, and two trying to kill me as I parried and blocked my heart out, it was only a matter of time before she got a window. A huge orb of darkness formed above her, then condensed into one the size of a golf ball. It arced through the air, weaving between the Octopod's arms and slamming into the monster's eye. Blood poured from the red-orange eyeball. Then it went dark as the orb expanded inside it, showering us with warm blood and goop.

The boss roared. For the first time, all seven tentacles pulled back. And Jeff and I capitalized, hacking at the boss's body. Stony armor shattered. The stink of electrical burns and gore filled the cave. And the Octopod withdrew slowly toward the far end of the cavern—away from us.

And that's when Ellen's next spell went off.

The strands of darkness that had shredded one of the boss's arms returned—and this time, they wrapped around the boss's head. It howled in agony as they cut deeper and deeper into it. Tentacles thrashed against its own body, trying to throw the constricting rings off, to pull its head free. But it couldn't, and its Health was gone. Every wound we made took away that much more of the boss's limited time.

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It couldn't take it, and a moment later, it stopped thrashing.

"Is it…is it dead?" Ellen asked.

I shrugged. Then I stabbed it. It twitched a little; the electricity covering my blade could explain that, though. "Jeff, can you do the honors?"

"Gladly." He stabbed it below the beak, and this time, the boss didn't move.

Portal Collapse in: 59:57

Ellen seemed shell-shocked as Jeff quickly looted the E-Rank core and started searching the cavern for hidden treasure. She stared at the burns on her arm in disbelief. "That…that hurt," she mumbled.

"Yeah, I get it." I pointed at my stomach, where similar burns covered my skin and the tentacle had turned my hoodie into shredded, burned cotton. Then I grinned. "I'm out of Mana? Really?"

For a second, Ellen stared at me, eyes vacant. Then they narrowed into a glare that just as quickly morphed into a sheepish smile and reddening cheeks on her too-pale face. "You try thinking while you're…I mean, it was my first…I mean, shut up, Kade!"

A bit more ribbing, and she was just about back to her normal self—and just in time, too. Jeff walked up a moment later. He, too, looked sheepish for some reason. "I found the boss's treasure. Do you want to split it up here and wait for the timer, or get out of here?"

"I think we leave," I said. "My apartment's close, and I'd rather not run into the Roadrunners in here. Let's head for the exit."

"Agreed," Ellen said. "I'm ready to be done. That's enough excitement for one day."

I nodded in agreement. The Octopod had been way harder than the Broodwatcher—and though some of that was our technically too-small team size, that didn't explain it all. We all had injuries we'd have to heal off: Ellen the burned arm and bruised ribs, me my stomach and a few cuts from the basalt swordsmen, and Jeff dozens of tiny cuts that had already mostly healed and a few bruises that looked a little more persistent.

It was time to call it a day.

But the portal had other ideas.

We'd missed something. Something big.

I had no idea how—we'd done the best we could in our rush to the boss—but we'd missed it.

A massive pit sat in the path in front of us, and the sounds of fighting—wordless shouts, steel ringing, and a deep, gravelly rumble—echoed up the cavern as we walked. I groaned. "What are the odds that whatever it is, it's in our way?"

"Pretty high, and it definitely involves the Roadrunners," Jeff said. "Do we wait it out?"

"No. How's your mana?" I asked Ellen. I already knew the answer; her aura wasn't shaky, but it wasn't healthy, either. But that didn't matter. If we had to fight our way through a few E-Rank monsters to get out ahead of the Roadrunners, so be it.

"Forty-two out of two hundred," she said. "I've got a spell and a half, and the potion's still working."

"Okay. We keep going."

Jeff jogged down the tunnel. Then he swore and broke into a sprint. I turned on the speed and followed him; a moment later, I saw what he'd seen. "Shit."

It was a rock golem, but not one of the blade-wielding columns. This one had three jagged legs the size of cars, and it stomped slowly down the cavern.

Basalt Trilith: E-Rank

And in front of it, trying to limp away and carrying one of their teammates, were the Roadrunners.

Everything had gone to hell for Carter.

His career was in shambles. Worse, Lizzie was down. Maybe dead. The two tanks had her slung between them, but even then, they were barely outpacing the Basalt Trilith. If it weren't for his Frostburn Volley, they'd already have been overrun. The fire arrows did nothing, but the ice ones had slowed the monster down.

He'd pushed too hard. The Trilith had been buried; they always were in Lithic portals like this, and they usually waited until five or six people had gone by before digging themselves free. He'd heard about them before; Every initiate into the Roadrunners went through a pretty serious crash course on the most common low-ranked monsters. He should have been on the lookout for them, since three delvers wouldn't trigger one, but his party's passing made seven. He hadn't been paying attention. He'd been too focused on getting to the boss.

It had erupted from the ground and smashed Lizzie in the first second of fighting.

And it was his fault. The Roadrunners would never trust him with a team again after this—and that was only if they could all get out.

He fired another volley just as the Trilith lurched forward. It didn't walk so much as roll the rubble below its legs forward, but the icy arrows seemed to gum up the works.

The blue portal was still around at least one more corner. He and his team were—

A thunderous crash echoed down the hall. Then another. And then Carter was sprayed with shrapnel as the Trilith's far leg came apart at the 'knee.'

Black and white patterns appeared across the injured monster's back and remaining two legs as it crumpled onto the cavern floor. Then chunks started disappearing from the shadowy squares. A lightning-covered rapier stabbed into the Trilith over and over.

Carter drew an arrow. He nocked it. But a hulking, armored figure stood next to him, shield out and in his way. "I wouldn't do that."

His sword hovered near Carter's stomach. The archer went white.

The tip of the arrow wavered, then Carter slowly released his draw. He stared at the mage—who wasn't a sonic mage at all—and striker as they struggled against the monster that had been one step too far for his exhausted team. The two were clearly running on fumes; they looked as beat as he felt. But they kept fighting anyway. "Who are they?" he asked.

"E-Rankers, like you," the big tank said as he readied his shield. The Trilith spun and slammed into him; he stepped back, then back again. "Pile in and help out! We're saving your lives. The least you can do is pitch in to repay the favor."

This time, when Carter drew his arrow, no one stopped him. His last Frostburn Volley. The blazing, icy arrows scattered across the monster's flank. Some dug into places where the mage had ripped into the Trilith's armor—and this time, they actually hurt it.

His team's tanks had put Lizzie down somewhere, and they both rushed into the fight. Carter hoped she'd be okay. He'd check on her later, but right now, the best thing he could do for his team was beat the Trilith. Between them, Carter, and the D-Ranked tank's party, the Trilith slowly but surely started slowing down. It bled quickly-cooling magma from dozens of wounds as a leg collapsed, then another.

As the Basalt Trilith died and the electric sword flickered out of existence in the striker's hand, Carter couldn't help but question everything Deborah had told him to do. That kid….that striker with the lightning sword…couldn't be E-Rank. He'd fought too hard to be E-Rank—like a maniac. Hell, he'd been out of gas, just like Carter's team, but he'd still piled in to kill the Trilith. The tank had to be lying to him about Kade's rank.

But…

What if he wasn't?

What if he'd jumped into a conflict with someone else on the fast track, in the hope of a few extra skill levels? Was it worth it? Carter didn't know.

Carter set aside how much his career was wrecked. He had to talk to Deborah about this—and he had to do it as soon as he could. He'd drive Lizzie to the nearest hospital so they could try to save her. He'd even stick around until he knew what her odds were. She was his teammate, after all, and he needed to know she was okay.

But then, he had to find Deborah.

She'd know what to do.

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