Fty still couldn’t quite wrap his head around it. Of all the things to hold back until now, a legendary sword in the hands of a bandit leader… that was what Yuki thought wasn’t worth leading with? He fought the facepalm impulse, muttering something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like a prayer to any entity willing to grant patience.

  When he looked up, Yuki was blinking at him with wide, guileless eyes. “What? I told the entire story because it’s important! And interesting! That sword’s really strong!”

  Perplexed didn’t even begin to cover it. Fty exhaled, shoulders settling under the familiar twin weights of responsibility and absurdity. “Then let us go,” he said flatly. “Before your definition of interesting kills us.”

  They set out beneath a canopy stitched from pine and old oak, the air damp and pleasantly cool, resin and leaf-mold mingling into that loamy, dark?green smell that said forest. Boots sank softly into needle?thick paths. Birds kept their cautious distance.

  Somewhere ahead, water worried over stone with a low, constant murmur.

  NightSwallow fell into step beside him only long enough to speak, voice level and unhurried. “My class, Explorer, was made for this. I’ll move ahead and leave signs you can follow without drawing pointless fights.” Her eyes flicked over the group, counting, cataloguing. “Marks will be discreet, one every hundred paces. If you see two marks close together, stop. It means trouble.”

  “What marks?” Fty asked.

  “On bark, angled up and away. You’ll only see them from the direction you should be walking.” A ghost of a smile. “And I perfume the lowest shrub on the right with a resin. Smells like citrus if you’re paying attention. Low level monsters don’t care for it.”

  “Efficient,” Fty said. Praise, for him, came spare… but meant.

  Lunaris cupped her hands around her mouth. “Good luck! And warn us, you scary rogue!” she called, bright as a bell.

  A twig whistled down from the leaves and pinged off Lunaris’s shoulder; she laughed and flicked it aside with the flat of her rapier, a neat little backhand that turned the motion into a flourish. By the time they glanced up, NightSwallow had already vanished into green shadow, the undergrowth closing after her with only a faint tremor of leaves… less a person leaving than the idea of one.

  They followed at a measured pace.

  Fty slotted himself second, the steadier heartbeat of the march, eyes scanning for NightSwallow’s marks. It didn’t take long to spot the first: a shallow diagonal on oak bark that refused to reflect light unless viewed from their exact angle.

  Clever.

  He brushed the nearest fern; it smelled of the promised whisper of citrus.

  Behind him, the group’s nature asserted itself. Lisa’s fire, even when idle, felt like a creature kept on a short leash: flickering in and out of her cupped palms as she walked, shedding a muted glow that painted her knuckles gold. Every so often it tried to hiss up into flame, and she smoothed it down with a thumb like calming a cat’s hackles.

  “Hey, Nighty!” she shouted?whispered to the trees once, as if the rogue were listening… which she probably was. “If a bandit leader steals our sword, I set him on fire, yes?”

  “After we confirm identity,” Fty said without turning. “And after I cast wards.”

  “Mm. Responsible,” Lisa said, and the fire in her palms hissed softly, as if offended by the word.

  Katherine tromped in an easy, heavy rhythm that made the trail feel smaller under her. She swung the flat of her greatsword one?handed, brushing low branches out of the way with dull thumps. “If bandit’s got it, he’s already dead,” she said conversationally to no one in particular. “Lotta think they can. Lotta can’t.”

  Yuki bounced at Katherine’s flank like a shard of sunlight.

  Each step sent a flicker of white?gold along the edges of her sword, tiny arcs snapping between the quillons and the air, the faintest scent of ozone trailing her. Occasionally she split into a second Yuki for half a heartbeat—a shimmer to the left, a shimmer to the right—like her outline couldn’t decide where it preferred to exist. “I read that the cave system runs under the hill ridge and opens into old bandit tunnels,” she said, words spilling fast. “If the leader’s using them, there might be illusions near the entrance. False walls. Mirror tricks.”

  “I’ll handle those,” Fty said. “Veil up.” He tapped two fingers to his throat and traced a small circle; a hush rolled off his hand and settled around them, muffling their footfalls and the clink of gear. Not perfect silence, but a respectful one, the forest’s sounds allowed to be themselves while the party’s noise sank as if into moss.

  Lunaris walked a half?pace behind him, blades sheathed but never fully still. She kept moving, hips, shoulders, wrists, tiny arcs like invisible music guided her, the rapier hand sketching the ghost of a line through air while her longsword shoulder rolled in counterpoint.

  Shadow fighting.

  Practice.

  “Reason?” Fty asked without looking back.

  “My new class.” Lunaris’s smile lived in her voice. “It listens to tempo. Time whispers to me. I keep feeling where the next step belongs, like dancing with fate. If I stop, it sulks.”

  “Sulks,” he repeated.

  “Like it wants me to dance. And if I do, everything meets me where it should.” She twitched her wrist; the rapier slipped an inch free and sang a bright, silver shink before settling home again. “Still learning the time song.”

  “Do not exhaust yourself before the fight.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” she said, and somehow he believed her. There was joy in her balance, not recklessness. The blades wanted to move; she simply let them.

  The forest thickened for a while, then gentled. Pines gave ground to broader?leafed oak and birch; the needles underfoot broke into leaves and pale papery curls. The air warmed by degrees as the canopy thinned, sunlight fattening into bright coins that speckled the trail.

  Cicadas started up their electric chorus, an iron?filings buzz that vibrated in Fty’s molars. Far ahead, a hawk called once, very high and very sure of itself.

  Fty called a brief halt at the third mark. “Water,” he said, and passed a small protective cup to each. “Sip. Not drain.”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “Doctor orders,” Katherine rumbled, but she obeyed, sweat beading on her brow, then vanishing as she breathed out like a bellows and set her jaw back into forward. The ground seemed to accept her weight grudgingly, then remember it had always carried her.

  Lisa cupped her spark with one hand and drank with the other, the flame snarling at the proximity of water until she flicked it a chiding glance.

  It quieted, embarrassed.

  Yuki spun a palm?sized shield into the air, thin, glassy, refracting light into a spectrum that danced across her cheekbones, and bounced a droplet off it. “I can make a mirror at the cave mouth,” she said, thinking aloud. “Bandits like to think they can handle reflections. They can’t.”

  “Don’t tangle with your own illusions,” Fty said, deadpan.

  She grinned. “I won’t. Probably.”

  NightSwallow’s fourth mark brought them to the forest’s edge, where the trees stepped back like a crowd giving way to the main act.

  The world opened. Ahead rose a set of broken hills, stacked in gray?green layers like the backs of sleeping beasts. Slate and scrubby grass fought for space along the shoulders; thorn and yellow broom stitched the seams. Heat shimmered faintly off the rock already, though the sun sat only a little past noon. A red line cut through the nearest slope, a scar of clay in a world of stone, where runoff had chewed a shallow gully. The wind changed, losing the wet breath of the forest for something drier, mineral and sun?baked.

  Fty lifted a hand and traced two runes in the air, sending them to settle over Katherine and Lisa… the faintest sheen, then gone. “Fleet and Guard,” he said. “You two draw attention by existing. I prefer it to arrive slower and hit softly.”

  Katherine flexed her hands and barked a laugh. “That is not how it works,” Fty said, then, because he knew her, added, “Do not test it right now.”

  Lisa rolled her spark along her knuckles; it purred, wanting to roar. “You put a leash on me?”

  “I put a leash on incoming sharpness.” He spared her a look. “Your fire does not obey leashes.”

  She smiled, small and dangerous. “Good, fearless leader.”

  The fifth mark perched on a boulder like a warning, two shallow lines close together.

  Stop.

  Fty’s palm went up instantly; the party compressed their motion into stillness with varying success, Katherine’s halt a soft stomp, Yuki fading into a light?bent afterimage, Lisa’s flame pausing mid?roll like a breath held. Lunaris’s sword hummed once and quieted.

  NightSwallow dropped soundlessly from a juniper above them, landing in a three?point crouch that disturbed neither dust nor shadow. “Enemies. Identified as [Basilisk Brood]. Levels between twenty?six and twenty?nine. Hard fight.”

  Fty lifted a hand. “Rules. No eye contact. Aim for the bodies, not the faces. If you must look, look at the forelegs.” He traced two quick runes and sent them sliding across the air. “My class gave me plenty of supporting buffs. Veil and Nerve.” A cool hush settled over their eyes and along their spines.

  “Got it,” Yuki said, drawing her blade. Light bent around her in a thin shimmer, a second Yuki lagging a fraction behind the first like an echo.

  Katherine rolled her shoulders and planted her feet. “Break lizards. Easy!”

  “Not easy,” Fty said, and flicked a third sigil toward her. “Guard.”

  The hills ahead shifted without moving.

  Rock wasn’t fixed here; it lurked. Then he saw them… half?grown basilisks easing down from ledges and out from behind shabby outcrops, bodies long and ridged, their stone?mottled hides near perfect with the terrain. Their eyes weren’t full coins of doom yet, but even half open they pulsed with a pale, malignant interest. Tongues tasted the air, black and forked.

  “Positions.” Fty drew his staff and marked a point in the dust. “Kit front. Lunaris on the left flank. Yuki's right; stay mobile, break lines. Lisa rear pressure… keep fire on their edges, not the ground. NightSwallow, eyes and tendons. I’ll anchor.”

  If no one dies in the first thirty seconds, I’ll call that a victory.

  The first basilisk tested them with a whip of its tail. Katherine stepped into it like a wall learning to walk, absorbed the hit with a grunt, then slammed her greatsword down. The blade bit into plated back with a crunch that traveled through Fty’s shoes, and the basilisk screamed, a grinding, mineral shriek, before rolling its torso to fling her away.

  “Back!” Fty clipped. A thread of green light leapt from his palm to her ribs and soaked in, bruises unwinding under his will. “Lisa—”

  She was already moving.

  Fire bloomed in her hands with a sound like breath catching before a scream. The Rebel Fire surged out, less a clean cone than a lashing storm; heat punched the air, tearing a hard line between the basilisks and the party. It wasn’t a wall so much as a temper… everything it touched wanted to burn.

  The reptiles hissed, scales snapping with thermal shock. Flames tried to climb the dry scrub and found Lisa’s will in the way; they curled back, sulking.

  “Good,” Fty said, and sent a slow sigil rolling across the slope. It popped like a bubble, and the lead basilisk’s forward lunge stuttered; claws suddenly heavy, limbs dragging as if someone had poured sand in its joints. “Yuki, now.”

  Yuki blurred.

  She split into two, then three, each image offset a handspan, each step throwing white?gold sparks. Mirrors flashed, tiny round shields popping into existence to glance claws away—a flex of wrist, a hum of mana, and then she slid under the slowed lizard’s guard to carve a shallow line along its belly.

  Lightning crawled the cut, crackling up its ribs, a sharp smell of ozone spiking the air.

  “Eyes, eyes,” NightSwallow murmured from nowhere and everywhere. She was suddenly there on a boulder’s lip, a whisper?thin blade kissing the soft corner of a basilisk eye in a motion so short it almost didn’t happen. The creature recoiled with a wet hiss, vision spilling in a cloudy tear.

  She was gone before the tail could reach where she’d been.

  Lunaris flowed.

  She moved as if the hill had found a rhythm; rapier and longsword answered, time music only she heard. She skimmed a lizard’s flank, longsword sweeping wide to parry a snap while the rapier stitched silver along a tendon.

  Shing, shing, shink.

  Each sound was precise, a note in a precise timing of cuts that guided the creature where she wanted. It lunged; she wasn’t there. It turned; she was already inside its arc, a smile at the corner of her mouth because the next step belonged to her.

  One basilisk lifted its head and let its gaze lap across Katherine’s chest like a slow tide.

  Kit’s left knee dipped.

  “Hold,” he said, and sent a Nerve stitch lancing into her thigh. She barked and crossed the distance in two thudding steps; her sword came down in a brutal arc that cracked the basilisk’s jaw like a ceramic plate. It thrashed, stunned.

  “Lisa, pressure left,” Fty said. “Yuki, blind right group.”

  “On it!” Yuki sang. She snapped two mirrors forward. Light fractured, split, ricocheted; for a heartbeat the basilisks chasing her saw three suns and no Yuki. She darted under a tail, palms up, two coin?shields flickered and took a raking sweep that would have opened her to the spine.

  They shattered on impact; she rolled, already making the next pair.

  Lisa shoved.

  Fire roared, not in a straight line but as a cyclone punched flat, whipping heat sideways and back on itself.

  The Rebel Fire howled. Dust turned glassy beads underfoot with little popping sounds. “Stay down,” she muttered, as if the basilisks could hear her contempt. The flames tried greedily for the brush again; she choked them with will, fingers flexing. The air throbbed with heat and fury, a pressure you felt in your sternum.

  “Watch the ridge,” NightSwallow said softly.

  Fty looked up just in time to catch a second wave slinking in from a higher line of stone. More basilisks, smaller and quicker. The half?grown ones, not stupid enough to charge fire, split, trying to angle around the perimeter like wolves.

  The ground here forced lines; they were taking them.

  “Shift,” Fty ordered. “Lunaris with Kat. Yuki, kite to the right. Lisa—leave gaps on purpose, draw them. NightSwallow—”

  “I’m already there,” came the whisper, and a basilisk that had thought itself clever came down off its rock missing a foreclaw.

  It didn’t scream.

  It simply folded, as if the subtraction had rewritten how falling worked.

  Fty planted his staff and pushed. His class lacked attacking options, but gave him tens of magic skills. A broad protection dome surged up; a translucent ripple that magnified the hill behind them into a wavering, watery thing. Claws that reached the bubble slowed like flies in syrup. He felt every hit as a pressure on his sternum; he let it anchor him.

  Hold. That’s your job. Hold.

  They were winning in the first minute.

  Then the laughter started.

  It was not human laughter. It came from a dozen throats at once, higher and sharper than hyenas, a broken?plates cackle that bounced off rock faces and returned from places the mouths weren’t.

  [Stonehide Gnashers]; lean, hyena?like bodies with bands of gravel?gray scales along their backs and shoulders.

  They spilled over a ridge to their right, feet finding purchase where feet had no business standing. Twenty, maybe more, eyes wild and bright. They didn’t rush blindly. They fanned, testing edges, laughing in that awful chorus to fray the nerves it couldn’t reach with teeth.

  “Second wave,” NightSwallow said. “[Stonehide Gnashers]. Levels twenty to twenty?three. Fast. They dodge well.”

  “Of course they do,” Fty muttered. “Prepare!”