When Edge regained consciousness, he was lying along the muddy shore of a fast-flowing river.

  He was dazed and confused—thoughts muddled as his mind struggled to adjust to this stark change in circumstance. He watched a line of ants crawling across his hand, wincing at the pinch as they tried carving out chunks of his flesh, only to have Regeneration heal the wounds before the bugs could carry them away.

  Edge brushed them aside, then sat up and took a long look around. The first detail that jumped out at him was the sunny blue sky overhead. I must have been out all night. The fog was gone, and he could see one of the dungeon’s walls looming in the distance.

  The next thing he noticed was that he wasn’t in the jungle anymore. The vegetation was sparser, and this stretch of the river was wider than anywhere else he’d seen. He was surrounded by lesser waterways and shallow pools—interspersed with narrow fingers of dry land. The current must have carried me out of the jungle and into the swamp.

  When he turned and saw the corpse of an ape monster, which the ants were having a much easier time dismantling, it all came back in a flash. The attack of the elite monster. Being overwhelmed by its army of thralls. A desperate chase through the mist before falling over the side of a cliff and smacking his head on the way down.

  Judging by the state of his reservoir, the fall had broken several bones—maybe even cracked his spine. However, since Edge had been unconscious for hours, Regeneration had already finished patching him up.

  He began searching for the rest of his crew—afraid that he would find their bodies washed up along the riverbank. But ten tension-saturated minutes later, he realized that he was the only one here.

  With any luck, they were able to exit the dungeon and report what happened. The problem is, I’m not anywhere close to where we were attacked. If a rescue crew comes looking for me, they won’t have any idea where I am.

  For that matter, Edge had no idea where he was either.

  He had been so worried about the others that he hadn’t stopped to process the dynamics of his own dilemma. When he did, a spike of fear hit him like a punch to the gut. He was all alone, lost in a deadly dungeon filled with powerful monsters and other lethal threats. His back was to the water. If something caught wind of his presence and attacked, he would be trapped with no line of retreat.

  Right now, he seemed safe enough, but if Edge ran into a monster unaware, he’d be in for a fight that he wouldn’t be walking away from. On that note, he activated Conceal—glad that he finally had enough Generation that he didn’t have to worry about draining his reserves dry from keeping the skill running for long stretches at a time.

  He forced himself breathe slow and steady, pinching his nostrils shut to mute the cloying stench of countless monsters, which wasn’t doing his frayed nerves any favors. He reached into his pack and pulled out some provisions, eating while he figured out his next move. He didn’t have any of the signal flares that the crew leaders carried, which meant that he was going to have to find the exit on his own.

  Relax, Edge. Play it smart and go slow. Use the dungeon’s walls to keep yourself from getting turned around. If you run into anything you can’t handle, Shadow Step back along the path you took, then Conceal until it goes away. Given how aggressive the monsters are toward one another, I doubt that anything will stalk you for long once it loses your trail.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  His first order of business was to meet his immediate needs. He still had plenty of rations in his pack, but he had drained his canteen before the last fight. Fortunately, he had a convenient source of water at hand—he just needed to make sure that it was safe to drink. It was finally time to use the magitech water purifier he’d picked up a few weeks ago.

  The purifier was a small device that contained a filter and a contaminant detector. All he had to do was pour water into one end, read a series of crystals embedded in the side, then let it drain into his canteen. The one he had purchased wasn’t the fastest model, but it would get the job done.

  First, Edge dipped the tip into the river. Then he pulled the purifier out and pressed the button that activated the device. A few seconds later, half the crystals lit up. It was good news. The water needed to be filtered but not boiled, and it was free from contaminants like the corrupted magicytes filling the pools in the maze. He went ahead and stuck the spigot into his canteen, then poured more water into the top and waited for it to run through the filter.

  His canteen was full a few minutes later. He drank it all, then filled it again before putting the purifier away. Now that he had rehydrated and filled his belly, he needed to figure out exactly where he was. He couldn’t determine his heading from this location, but luckily, he had decided to splurge and buy the magitech wayfinder that Bee had recommended.

  The wayfinder was an interesting device. In addition to serving as a compass and GPS, it kept a record of the places he’d been, mapping the terrain for a few dozen feet in every direction. It only had enough aether to use the display for a few hours, but it would last for weeks if he only turned it on long enough to get his bearings. Too bad it doesn’t work in the fog. With any luck, the mist won’t come back while I’m here.

  He pressed a button on the top of the disc-shaped machine. A few seconds later, a three-dimensional image shimmered into existence, displaying a miniature representation of the path he had followed since entering the dungeon. There was a gap between the data from the jungle and when the fog had lifted, but it was enough to give him a rough idea of where he was.

  Edge let out a groan of despair when he realized what the wayfinder was telling him. He had floated downriver several miles while he was unconscious, which had probably saved his life, but the waterway had deposited him deep within the dungeon’s third zone.

  Worse, he had floated across several stretches of open water and couldn’t walk back the way he had come. He wasn’t sure why, but he had a vague impression that Conceal had been running while he was unconscious, which explained why nothing had eaten him and his reservoir was dangerously low. He couldn’t swim while the skill was active, although it seemed that floating was ok. Not that it helps me when the exit is upstream.

  His only choice was to work his way through the swamp, then cross into the jungle. The wayfinder would keep him from getting turned around and walking in the wrong direction, but it couldn’t help him chart a course to the exit until he made it back to the area that Team Arrow had explored after leaving the maze.

  It was a grim situation, but he didn’t have a choice. Edge was going to have to hike for miles, alone in a monster-infested wilderness. I will probably need to cross the river at some point, but I’ll worry about that later.

  Although he was lucky to be alive, he had an arduous trial ahead of him. Enough brooding. It’s time to get moving. I need to hurry if I want to escape the dungeon before dark. The last thing I need is to spend another night in here on top of everything else.

  Edge took a deep breath, opened his belt pouch, and began working some scent-erasing ointment into his skin. When he was done, he reluctantly deactivated Conceal and began creeping his way forward while praying that nothing noticed his presence.

  His journey through the Savage Garden had just become a solo run.