Blucliffe had never been pretty.

  When Greg first laid eyes on it, the town had been a chugging little engine of “barely getting by”: squat stone buildings, laundry lines, a few crooked chimneys. Smoke from cookfires, the sound of somebody yelling at a mule, the tang of water and woodsmoke.

  Now, the river glowed.

  A thin skin of silver lay across the surface like oil, shot through with black veins. Where it lapped the banks, the grass had gone gray and crisp. The town itself sat under a slow-moving curtain of shadow, shapes of buildings warping and bending like someone was erasing them, then half-heartedly drawing them back in the wrong places.

  Something screamed down there. Hard to say if it was human.

  “We need the mother of all good plans,” Violet said eventually.

  Her voice sounded scraped out. Tired, furious, frayed. She pushed her goggles up and scrubbed at her face with the back of her wrist, leaving a streak of dirt.

  “The Vault is bleeding into the town,” Elowen said quietly. “It will spread. Into the river, the fields… into people.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “If it hasn’t already.”

  Greg swallowed. “It has,” he said. “I’ve seen what it can do to people. The Ratlings… I… we have to stop this. We can’t let it spread.”

  Nars let out a slow breath through his teeth. “Alright,” he said. “Priorities. One, stay alive. Two, don’t die. Three, save the town from damnation. Four, yell at Greg later.”

  “I feel like we’re going out of order then,” Greg muttered.

  “Trust me,” Violet said. “We have not begun to plumb those depths.”

  Doran hefted his axe and started down the slope without waiting for consensus. “Argue on the way,” he said. “If there’s anyone left in there, they need us.”

  That was enough.

  They followed.

  The path from the hill into Blucliffe had been a wagon track the last time Greg walked it: twin ruts, hard-packed dirt, grass between. Now the grass was patchy and gray, curled at the edges. The ruts shone faintly, thin films of silver-black clinging to the little puddles left by the last rain.

  Status Gained: [Miasma I]

  Effect: Minor continuous damage,

  Increased chance of elite enemy encounters

  Elowen noticed the same moment the system chimed unhelpfully in Greg’s ear. She lifted her hand and spoke under her breath. Light slid out from her fingers in a thin sheet, settling over them like a second skin.

  Elowen used Lesser Sun Veil

  Party Effect:

  Corruption Damage Over Time –75%,

  Hope +5%

  The world didn’t look any different through it. Greg still saw the same wrong shimmer on the stones, the same slow pulsing in the shadows, but the air felt less like walking through someone else’s breath.

  The first farmhouse they passed had been fine, once. He remembered it clearly: low stone walls, a pen with a handful of goats, a kid (actual human kid, not a baby goat) waving at him as they’d walked by on the way to the Vault the first time.

  Now the door hung from one hinge. The stone was streaked with shadow, long smears as if something with too many fingers had dragged itself along the wall. One of the goats lay in the yard, legs stretched out, body covered in a skin of thin, glassy black. Its eyes moved under the stuff, slow and panicked, but whatever that was, it wasn’t really a goat anymore.

  Violet slowed, staring. “I… don’t know what that is,” she said softly. Coming from Violet, that meant something.

  “Keep moving,” Doran said. “We can’t help them from here.”

  Greg tore his gaze away and walked faster.

  The closer they got, the worse it got.

  Fields that had been green and messy a few days ago now lay under patchy blankets of shadow, like frost made of smoke. Stalks of grain twisted toward the wrong horizon. A scarecrow in one field hung limp, its straw guts trailing, but its sack head had turned on the pole to watch them go by.

  Nars caught Greg looking and shook his head. “Don’t,” he said. “If it moves, we kill it. If it doesn’t, we don’t look too hard. That’s the rule until we know more.”

  “That’s a terrible rule,” Greg said.

  “Got a better one?” Nars asked.

  He didn’t.

  The system flickered occasionally at the edge of his vision, little updates he tried not to read.

  He kept his eyes on the road and his mouth shut.

  No one was talking much anyway.

  Violet was muttering to herself in rapid alchemical short-hand, occasionally snapping her fingers as if mentally rearranging components. Nars’ jaw was tight, his fiery humor dialed down to a pilot light. Doran had gone quiet, saving his words for when they were absolutely necessary, as was his way.

  Elowen walked without leaning on anyone. That bothered Greg more than if she’d stumbled. Her limp was worse, breath a little short, but when he edged closer, she simply shifted half a step away.

  The wind changed as they crested a small rise.

  The smell of the town hit them: smoke, river, and a sour, metallic tang that reminded Greg unpleasantly of the air in the Heart Chamber right before everything went wrong.

  Below, Blucliffe’s outer wall finally came into full view. Once, it had been… respectable. Shoulder-high stone topped with a wooden palisade, gatehouse in the middle, enough to keep out bandits and wandering beasts.

  Now that wall looked like something had taken a bite out of it.

  A whole section had slumped inward, stone blocks fused into a single warped mass of black glass. Wooden stakes jutted out at strange angles, half-melted. The gate itself, sturdy with iron-banded timbers, was simply gone; replaced by a curtain of translucent shadow stitched with silver threads. Shapes moved behind it.

  “Well,” Nars said quietly. “At least we don’t have to worry about the guard not letting us in.”

  “That’s the good news,” Violet added. “Bad news, the guard is probably corrupted by shadows and waiting somewhere nearby to kill us.”

  Greg’s palms were slick on the sword hilt. His Rage was quiet, for once. He would have welcomed a little of that hot certainty right now, but all he had was the cold, heavy feeling in his gut.

  “Look,” Doran said.

  He pointed off to the left.

  At first Greg thought he was pointing at nothing. Then his eyes adjusted.

  There, at the base of the wall, a small knot of people were clustered around a breach: not the main gate, but a gouge where stone had fractured without fusing, leaving jagged edges and a narrow gap.

  Tavers was there. Greg recognized him even at a distance: all knobby bones and tattered rags, one hand wrapped around a makeshift club that might have once been a chair leg. Beside him, Marla, hair hacked short and tied back, holding on for dear life to the shaft of a spear that had seen better days. Barnaby and Bartholomew stood a little in front, makeshift shields up, faces streaked with soot. It took seeing them side by side for Greg to realize that the grocer and the barkeep were brothers.

  Shelly stood just behind them, soot-streaked and broad-shouldered, one massive hand gripping a dented hammer, the other steadying a small, shivering kid at his side. The mayor stood near them, hat gone, coat hanging off one shoulder, trying very hard not to look terrified and failing.

  A handful of other villagers clustered behind, all armed with whatever they’d been able to grab. The gap they guarded was the only piece of wall not completely eaten by corruption.

  “Living ones,” Doran said. Something like relief moved under the gravel of his voice.

  The villagers hadn’t seen the party yet. They were busy watching the road from the other side.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  Because something else was coming.

  Ratlings.

  A pack of them skittered along the ditch outside the wall. Half a dozen, maybe more, pale bodies jerking in their unnerving, stutter-and-stop way. Their eyes gleamed, catching the weird light. One of them was bigger than the rest, its spine hunched under a growth of black and silver crystal that pulsed faintly.

  The villagers held their ground.

  “Greg,” Doran said.

  “Yeah,” Greg said.

  “I don’t care what else you do,” the dwarf said. “But you’re not going in there alone. We clear the flank together. Agreed?”

  Greg nodded once. He didn’t trust his voice, so he didn’t speak.

  Elowen spoke for the first time since the circle. “If we charge straight down the road, they will see us,” she said. “The Ratlings. They’ll devour them just to draw us out.”

  “And if we sneak?” Nars asked.

  “And if we sneak,” she said, “we are still five people with weapons running at their backs. We just get a few seconds more before they turn.”

  “Then we make good use of the seconds,” Violet said. “I’ll go left, Nars right, Doran and Greg into the middle. Elowen—”

  “I will keep the villagers from catching stray bolts of magic or teeth,” Elowen said. “That, at least, I can still do.”

  The “still” landed like a stone between them. Greg felt it in his stomach.

  “On my mark,” Doran said.

  They spread out.

  Greg slid down the slope at an angle, keeping low, using broken scrub as cover. The ground was uneven under the corruption; patches of it had hardened into glassy plates that made his boots slip. He aimed for the ditch, where shadow hadn’t pooled as thickly yet.

  The closer he got, the more details snapped into focus.

  One of the Ratlings was tugging at something half-buried in the dirt: a boot, still attached to a leg. Greg tried not to look at the rest. Another had a farmer’s hat jammed crookedly over its uneven horns. It chittered as it yanked the hat off and flung it aside, bored with its new toy already.

  The big one—the one with the crystals—lifted its head suddenly, sniffing.

  Ratling Skulker (Elite) – Level 3

  Notes: Cannibalistic,

  Ravenous,

  Knows What You Did Last Summer

  Doran’s voice came low and sharp from the other side of the ditch. “Now.”

  They moved.

  Greg vaulted the last little ridge and hit the packed earth of the road in a sprint. Doran came from the opposite side, axe already swinging. Nars’ arrow hissed overhead, embedding itself in a Ratling’s eye. Violet’s first spell hit the ground just in front of the pack with a concussive pop, showering them with dirt and light.

  The villagers shouted in surprise.

  The Ratlings shrieked.

  COMBAT START!

  Surprise Round (You): Achieved

  Everybody gets lucky sometimes.

  Greg’s sword took the head off the Ratling with the hat before its brain caught up to the new situation. He pivoted, brought the blade around low to cut another one in half at the waist, and tried very hard to keep the motion precise, controlled.

  No Rage. Just muscle and practice.

  IF (target.innocent == false) THEN smite(); ELSE apologizeAndBackAway();

  Freaking out like a dickhead wasn’t his only skill, after all. Maybe the key was to use his new powers to protect the innocent instead of destroying evil. Maybe intention really did matter that much.

  Greg used Basic Attack… (hit)

  Ratling A takes 24 slashing damage.

  Ratling A is no longer having a great day.

  I had to destroy that guy, though. But, yeah. I think I get it.

  Doran met the Elite head-on.

  The bigger Ratling lunged, claws flashing. Doran caught the first swipe on his shield, took the second across his shoulder. Blood welled, but he stayed inside its reach, axe chopping at the crystalline growths, breaking pieces off in sharp bursts.

  Doran used Stonebreaker Combo… (hit x 2)

  Crystalline Integrity: –25%

  Ratling Mood Shift:

  Really, Really Pissed Off →

  This Time It’s For Real

  Arrows stitched into the pack from the side. Nars’ shots were hard and fast, no fancy trick shots, just volume. Two more Ratlings went down, twitching.

  Violet hurled a vial that burst in mid-air and turned into a web of glowing strands. Wherever a strand touched a Ratling, it stuck, hissing, pinning limbs to the ground.

  Violet used Binding Filament

  Targets: [Ratling x2]

  [Elite Ratling x1]

  Status Applied: Restrained, Melting, Gross

  A few seconds later, it was over.

  The last small Ratling tried to flee. Greg caught it with the flat of his blade, sending it skidding into the ditch. One quick stomp ended the question of whether it would get up again.

  The big one went down under Doran’s axe and Violet’s spell: frozen in place long enough for the dwarf to bury the blade in its chest. The crystal growths shattered completely, sending a spray of black fragments skittering across the ground.

  Greg stood there, chest heaving, sword dripping. He looked toward the villagers.

  Tavers stared back at him, eyes wide, club still raised halfway. Shadows made his face hard to read, but Greg saw the moment recognition hit.

  “Gods,” Tavers said. “It’s you lot again.”

  “Surprise,” Nars called lightly, lowering his bow. “Change of plans, we’re here to cancel the apocalypse.”

  Shelly’s gaze flicked from the corpses to the five of them. His hands tightened around what he was holding. Greg saw now that it was, in fact, a kid, maybe eight or nine, face pressed to his hip, eyes squeezed shut.

  The mayor cleared his throat. “Should we… be thanking you,” he asked, “or blaming you?”

  “Yes,” Violet said.

  Greg flinched.

  Elowen came down the slope more slowly, fanning her fingers over the broken flagstones like she was taking the town’s pulse. Judging by the extra stoic look on her face, Greg surmised the prognosis wasn’t good. Light clung to her fingers reluctantly now, as if it were as tired as she was. She stepped past Ratling corpses without looking at them.

  “Is anyone bitten?” she asked.

  “Scratched,” Barnaby said, lifting his arm to show a shallow gouge. The edges of the cut glowed faintly, wrong.

  Elowen laid her hand over it. Light pulsed once. The glow went out. The cut remained.

  “That will scar,” she said. “But it won’t spread.”

  Barnaby nodded once, eyes grateful, mouth grim.

  The mayor looked past her, toward the town. “You came from the Vault,” he said. “What happened down there?”

  Violet opened her mouth.

  Greg beat her to it. “I broke it,” he said.

  Everyone looked at him.

  He forced himself to stand straighter. The sword felt heavy in his hand, but not as heavy as their stares. “Petar’l nearly got the Heart to do what he wanted,” Greg said. “We stopped him, but the Heart… failed. I failed. The Vault is collapsing. The corruption is coming from there.”

  Marla swallowed. “So, this is…?”

  “Fallout,” Violet said. “Magical, structural, emotional, take your pick. Short version: it’s only getting worse if we don’t stop it.”

  “And can you?” the mayor asked. His voice shook. “Can you stop it?”

  Greg almost said no. No, I can’t. You’re looking at what happens when I try.

  Then he remembered the system text on the hill. The Quest of Legend, still blinking away in his Journal. Defend Blucliffe from Annihilation. Time sensitive.

  Petar’l was expecting him to give up. The game was expecting him to fail. He’d lost the faith of his friends. He’d tried to play hero and made an ugly fucking mess of everything. Now would be the perfect time to say, ‘Well, I tried’ and throw in the towel. Can’t win ‘em all.

  Fuck a bunch of that, Greg thought.

  “We’re going to try,” he said. “But we need to get inside. Warn people. Organize something. Whatever this is,” he gestured at the veil hanging over Blucliffe, “it’s not done yet.”

  “It feels like the storm’s eye,” Elowen said. “Calm at the center, chaos around. But the center is… wrong.” She shivered once. “We need to see it.”

  The mayor’s mouth worked for a second. “The gates—” he began.

  “We noticed,” Nars said.

  Tavers jerked his chin toward the melted main gate. “That stuff… tried to pour through here first,” he said. “Then it… stopped. Like it was sniffing around for a better way in. We’ve been holding this breach in case things come from outside, but most of it’s been… from inside.”

  He hesitated on the last two words.

  Shelly shifted, pulling the kid closer. The child peeked over his shoulder, eyes too wide and too bright.

  Greg caught a glimpse of something behind them: down the street, under the curtain of shadow, a cart lay on its side. Something crawled over it, leaving a trail of liquid black. Something else watched from a doorway, eyes twin silver coins.

  “We take the side gap,” Violet said, eyeing the breach the villagers guarded. “We go in, we see how bad it is, we do what we can. If we’re lucky, we find a way to shut the tap off at the source.”

  “And if you’re not?” the mayor asked.

  Violet’s smile was brittle. “Then we die having tried,” she said. “Better than waiting for it to come up here and eat us on the hill.”

  Doran grunted agreement.

  The mayor nodded hesitantly and stepped aside. Barnaby and Bartholomew shifted, letting the party approach the gap.

  As Greg passed, Tavers caught his arm.

  “Hey,” the geezer said roughly.

  Greg looked up, expecting a punch. Or a lecture. Or both.

  Instead, Tavers just stared at him for a long moment. “Don’t screw this up,” he said. “All my stuff is in this town.” His grip tightened. “And people.”

  Greg nodded. “I know,” he said. “I’ll… try.”

  “Try better than last time,” Tavers added, letting go.

  Greg didn’t have anything for that.

  He turned toward the breach.

  Up close, the corruption looked worse. The dome of darkness engulfed the entire village. Threads of shadow crawled along the stone edges, pulsing in time with some distant beat. The air just inside the gap felt thicker, like stepping into a room full of steam, except the steam was cold.

  Elowen moved to the front.

  She paused with one foot in the shadow, eyes closed. Greg watched her shoulders rise and fall. When she opened her eyes again, they were very steady.

  She lifted her hand.

  “Sun, remember,” she whispered. “There is still a gate.”

  Light flared around her fingers. Not a blast, not a beam: just a simple, clean radiance. She pressed her palm to the edge of the breach and the shadow recoiled.

  A narrow path opened through the curtain, edges hissing where sun and corruption met. It wasn’t much: just enough for one person at a time. Beyond it, Blucliffe’s main street was a tunnel of warped light and dark.

  Transit Path Created!

  [BLUCLIFFE GATE] → [MAIN STREET]

  Width: Uncomfortably narrow

  Duration: Unknown (keeps it fun)

  Greg was surprised. She must have picked up the knack from the one he activated earlier. “I could have helped with that,” he said, failing to sound helpful. “It seems I can—"

  “You’ve done enough,” Elowen said, shortly. She didn’t look back at Greg. “Stay close,” she said. “And step where I step.”

  She walked through.

  Violet followed, still muttering curses about Greg; under her breath but still loud enough to make sure he could hear. Nars slipped in after, bow ready. Doran gave Greg one last look: hard, but not without a trace of… something else Greg couldn’t name and then stepped into the shimmering corridor.

  Greg hesitated at the threshold.

  The shadow’s inner surface rippled a little, as if tasting the light. He could see his reflection there: skin covered in scuffs and scratches, face drawn, eyes too old for thirty-one. A stranger and himself at the same time.

  You did this, he reminded himself. So, fix it.

  He ducked his head and stepped through the ruined gate into the dark, following his party into what was left of Blucliffe.