Guilds always saved the portal boss kill until the last minute.

Sometimes, they'd even let it break if they had a team ready.

They preferred to get control of their portals, then strip-mine every resource they could find from them. Portal metal. Ironwood. Herbs and flowers for their alchemists. They'd send in teams of D and E-Rank archers after the monsters were dead to hunt any wildlife practically to extinction—and in the confined, walled-off portal worlds, a team of six could do that in a matter of hours.

But guilds also had A and B-Rankers on hand in case a 'controlled' portal broke. An independent team like Jeff's didn't; they'd grab what they could from portal monsters as they killed them, and if they found a high-Mana treasure or rare metal deposit, they'd report it to the Governing Council so a guild could take over mining operations in return for a five percent finder's fee. But otherwise, it was a rush to get the portal cleared before it broke.

Every portal had an hour after it was cleared, though, where the entrance was sealed to the outside, and the delvers who'd cleared it could search for spoils before it closed and kicked them out. Or, if they were badly hurt, they could leave early through the portal.

I didn't want that.

Javier and Ellen patched me up, packing the wounds with gauze and a chemical that burned and foamed before wrapping my arms and chest in bandages to hold it all in place. Her hands were freezing against the burning skin around my wounds, and I had to struggle not to flinch every time she touched me. My hoodie was a loss. Between the gashes in its chest and the shredded arm, it wasn't even worth putting back on when they were done.

Meanwhile, Rob and the others went over the Serpentkin Broodwatcher with a fine-toothed comb.

I didn't expect much to come from it. It was E-Rank, after all, and not truly sentient. That meant no weapons or armor. But its hide could be useful if the tanks could get it out of here, and it might have some parts alchemists wanted. The boss core was the only reward worth grabbing, and Ellen already had that.

No. The boss was interesting, but the real prize would be hidden somewhere else. If this was a Broodwatcher, that implied a brood—and a brood implied a lair or nest. That meant loot.

It took ten minutes for my Stamina to recover enough to comfortably walk into the woods. Ellen went with me; even with the boss dead, there could still be threats out there, so we'd agreed that no one would go alone.

"You really think there's a treasure trove somewhere out here in the woods?" she asked. "Sounds like wishful thinking."

"It might be," I said, shrugging.

"And it stinks back here."

"Yep. That's how we'll find what we're looking for. Follow our noses toward the worst of the stench."

She shrugged. Her dyed white-blonde hair was pulled back in a pair of pigtails that she'd tucked into her robe, but even with it hidden, I could tell she didn't usually wear it that way. Her battle gear and who she was when she wasn't a delver didn't match. "Sure, Kade. We'll see."

"Tell you what? If I find it before we time out, you owe me a—"

"Nope. I don't owe anyone anything." Ellen bristled, and I stared at her.

Then I raised my hands. "Okay. No bets, then. I'll still find it."

I sniffed, wrinkled my nose, and started walking through the forest. Ellen followed me. Her aura was still surprisingly strong, despite the boss fight. I only had a single merged skill; my fight with the boss shouldn't have weakened it enough for the team to be this topped off. And yet…it had been easy for them to kill it. We hadn't even needed the second lightning Binding. I pulled up my status.

User: Kade Noelstra E-Rank Stamina: 17/150, Mana: 36/200 (Stamina +20)

Skills: 1. Stormsteel Core (E-01 to E-04, Unique, Merged) 2. Dodge (E-07 to E-08) 3. Light Blade Mastery (E-06 to E-07) 4. Parry (E-01 to E-03) 5. Footwork (E-01 to E-02) 6. Vital Lunge (E-01, Active) Open Skill Slots: 1

I'd made good growth. Every skill had increased except for Vital Lunge, and I'd just learned that. Footwork leveling at all was great, while Dodge's growth was starting to become a concern. I was relying on it too much in fights, but until Parry was both stronger and paired with Riposte, I couldn't depend on my sword to defend myself.

Stormsteel Core's growth, however, was great. I wanted to push it as quickly as I could, for a couple of reasons.

First, the ability said that it wasn't just a weapon. As I ranked it up, I'd be able to maintain more than one core, and I'd be able to use them as both weapon and armor. The gashes on my chest would heal; in a day or two, I'd be as good as new. But if the Broodwatcher had been stronger, it could have snapped ribs and shredded my lungs with a blow like that. I couldn't afford to take that risk; I needed armor.

And second, it was my main weapon. My other skills all complemented it right now, but at the end of the day, the lightning blade was how I dealt damage. As a striker—and as someone building into a magical duelist—I needed to end fights fast. Two levels out of an E-Rank dungeon was good. But not good enough.

I needed to learn Riposte as quickly as I could, and then I needed to level it, Vital Lunge, and Parry. If they were all over five, I'd be able to make my second merged skill, and then I'd have room for real defenses. Not just Dodge and Parry, but a whole set of skills that, when merged, would have S-Rank potential.

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Until then, I was a melee glass cannon.

Ellen was quiet as we walked through the reeking woods, too. I wasn't sure if she was thinking about her build, too, or just trying not to breathe through her nose.

The stench grew heavier as we walked, and the minutes ticked by. Ellen coughed a couple of times.

She was smaller than me—and I wasn't a big guy by any means—so as we moved through the log-strewn forest toward what I thought was the edge of the portal world, I had to help her over logs and up boulders. The whole forest seemed to slope downward toward the meadow, so we were constantly climbing up through the underbrush. My arms were covered with scratches from branches and sharp rocks, and so were Ellen's.

"So," she asked, breathing hard but not too heavily as we crested another massive rock, "what's your problem?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Don't give me that. You've got D-Rank experience and knowledge. You ran off into the forest to 'bait the boss,' and then came back wounded. And we flattened the boss right after, with no problems. And yet you're a, what? Four-skill E-Rank? So what's your deal?"

I shrugged. "I got a slow start, and I'm going with all five merges. And I like fighting."

"You're crazy," she said. "Five merges as a solo is just about impossible. You'll never get that many cores—not before your skills hit C."

She was probably right. If I wanted to get a full build with five merged skills before the C-Rank bottleneck, I'd need to adjust my strategy, and I'd need help to make that happen. But I didn't tell her that. Instead, I shrugged again—I didn't have the energy to defend my build choices.

Instead, I kept walking as the timer ticked down. "What's your build, then?"

"Simpler than that." Ellen shrugged. "Three merged skills, four regulars. I'll cap out at high B or low A, but that's more than enough for me. I don't need to get involved in whatever the GC wants to do about Carlsbad, and I definitely don't need the guilds headhunting me. I've had enough of—"

"Stop." I held up a hand. The smell had changed. It was more sulfurous and less sour milk. "We're close."

It took only a minute to find the cave entrance. Unlike the tunnels we'd fought the wolves in, this one was narrow and dirt-packed—and just big enough for the Broodwatcher to squeeze through it. Claw marks covered the sides where the boss had widened it just enough to fit its body, and the sulfur stink leaked from the entrance so strongly it was almost visible.

I summoned my sword and stepped through the gap, letting the lightning light my way until Ellen's shadow reduction spell activated. The tunnel twisted down and to the right a dozen feet, past the half-devoured carcasses of a handful of wolves, and then opened up into a wider hollow. And inside the hollow were—

"Eggs?" Ellen asked.

More than ten, less than twenty. Each longer than my foot and twice as wide as my hand. Every one of them was colored differently than the others. And aside from two, they were all shattered, their whites and yolks and half-developed snake-things smeared across the cavern's dirt floor.

That explained the stench.

But there were two that hadn't been destroyed—one the color of gunmetal, and the other as bright as the sun and almost as yellow. And in the back of the chamber, behind them, were five items; a sword, a staff, a helmet, an axe, and a pair of boots.

I grabbed them and, after confirming that Ellen didn't have an identification skill, shoved them into my backpack. We'd have to check them in with the Governing Council, since we'd cleared the portal under their jurisdiction, but after that, they'd be fair game for the team to divide amongst themselves, sell, or whatever else we wanted to do with them.

"What about the eggs?" Ellen asked.

"They're monster eggs. They'll probably hatch into something like the Broodwatcher," I replied. My sword continued to spark in my hand. "We should destroy them."

"Or…"

I got a bad feeling as Ellen trailed off, and instead of replying, I waited for her to continue.

"Look, Kade, they're alive, and they're going to be babies. I don't want to kill babies. They have so much potential."

"They're portal monsters," I said.

"I know that. But I've done my research. One of my regular skills is going to be Familiar Focus. I shouldn't even be telling you this—you don't need to know my build plans beyond the general outline—but to make full use of that skill, I need a familiar. I was going to go with a cat or a raven or some other standard animal, but…" she trailed off again, eyes sparking. "But it's almost certainly not impossible to bind with a portal monster instead. I've only heard of one or two delvers who might've done it—no one wants to make it public knowledge because of the consequences of bringing a monster into Phoenix—but if we merge correctly, it's possible."

I stared at the two eggs—one dark and one light—for a while as the timer ticked down. My knuckles were white from gripping the Stormsteel rapier's pistol grip.

And eventually, I made a decision.

Ten minutes later, I stood, shirtless, in the hot, dry Arizona wind. The Governing Council rep looked at the pile of armor and weapons I'd pulled out of my pack, or—in the case of the sword and axe—that I'd unstrapped from it. His fingers tapped on his tablet as he calculated the rough value of the dungeon. Then he nodded.

"We're looking at about eight thousand for the armor and weapons, five thousand for the boss's carcass, and a thousand for the E-Rank core. Assuming you want to keep the armor and weapons, the Council can pay forty-five hundred for the carcass and take the core. That'll clear our share and the Roadrunners', and leave you with the rest of the value." The tablet clicked as he showed the math to Javier.

I didn't care what the final result was. After the GC rep identified the weapons and armor, I wanted no part of any of them. The sword carried a light deflection enchantment that didn't stack with my Scripts, and the shield wouldn't fit in my build at all. I had room for a buckler, but not a kite shield. The helmet offered me little—a reduction in visibility in exchange for protection—and the fire-enhancing staff and two-handed axe had obvious owners.

That was fine. I needed the money more than the gear—at least for now.

It took a good twenty minutes to haggle over the pieces of gear, and the whole time, my backpack weighed heavily on my shoulders. But, eventually, I stepped away nearly two thousand dollars richer—not a bad haul for a single E-Rank dungeon. It was too bad Jeff's team hadn't gotten a payday for taking on the D-Rank, but no one had been in shape to loot it after the boss died, either. It was a miracle we'd gotten the cores.

Still, this would cover rent, Jessie's treatments, and food for a week or two—with a glorious hundred in the bank toward my longer-term plans. Or for an emergency.

"Kade!" Ellen yelled as I started walking back toward the bus. She ran after me, sneakers thumping on the sidewalk. "Kade, wait. Let me give you my number."

I blinked. Then I nodded slowly. "In case we want to team up later, right?"

"Right. Yeah. You were solid, and I'm not planning on staying E-Rank for long. If you need a mage, let me know."

I shrugged off my backpack, and she pulled her phone out. Then she handed it to me, and she typed in my name and number while she bent down to tie her shoe, then nodded. "Thanks."

"No problem." I shouldered my pack on and headed for the bus stop. It felt lighter than it had a moment before, and Ellen's hip-pouch seemed to bulge out more than it had, but I didn't say anything. As far as anyone knew, it had been two delvers exchanging contact info.

My phone buzzed. I checked it, and sure enough, it was Ellen.

Unknown Number: This is Ellen. Thanks for this, Kade.

Kade: If we get caught…

Unknown Number: We won't get caught.

I added Ellen as a contact, closed my phone, and hoped that she was right. Because if she wasn't, we'd be in big trouble.

Really big trouble.

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