The ridge exploded in light.

  It tore through the steam curtain as if it didn’t exist, a sudden detonation of violet static that rolled outward like a tidal wave. Dust, ash, and stone rained down across the line, followed by silence sharp enough to cut.

  Then the storm hit.

  The air dropped. Not temperature, but pressure. Like the entire simulation held its breath. Every hair on Xander’s body stood on end beneath his coat, electricity stirring against his skin as if it were trying to crawl out.

  Lightning arced sideways off the ridge in twitching spheres of blue-violet plasma. Ball lightning. Five of them. No, six. Each the size of a basketball, flickering and rolling with directionless hunger.

  One of them snapped low across the rail line and shattered a pair of wooden cross ties in a blast of sparks and smoking splinters.

  The Simulation forced itself into Xander's vision.

  [Area Debuff] Warning! The entire area has become electrified. Metal armor will conduct electricity to the wearer, causing damage over time. Damage is based on the amount of conductive armor worn.

  [Area Debuff] Warning! The entire area has become electrified. The amount of electricity in the area sets your nerves on fire. Dexterity reduced by 25%

  "Well, that’s just perfect," Xander muttered, teeth on edge as static danced across his shoulders. Every metal clasp and buckle started to buzz as if it were alive. "Guess we’re all microwaving now."

  "Zoey!" he shouted, voice already shredded from shouting too much. "You seeing this?!"

  An abrupt laugh crackled back from the roof, breathless and bitter.

  "Yeah, I’m seeing it! Static’s cooking everyone in metal, and we all just ate a twenty-five percent dex debuff. I trained for twelve years to shoot with Olympic precision, and now I’m firing like I’ve got arthritis and a hangover."

  "You’ll live. Just don’t miss."

  She didn’t answer, but the sound of a bowstring drawing tight over the scream of electrified air said enough.

  To the west, beyond the ridgeline haze, someone started screaming. It broke, cracking in the middle like it wanted to stop but couldn’t. Darvos’s crew. Still uphill, still unseen, now blind behind the stormfront.

  Below Zoey, the train’s engineer ducked back into the cab, one hand still on the hatch as steam hissed past his coat.

  A flash of movement caught Xander’s eye.

  The shaman stood center-stage on the broken rise above, robes whipping in an unnatural wind, both arms extended. Its hands trembled like antennae, wringing invisible thread from the air. Light crawled over its skin in jagged seams of energy. Whatever this was, it wasn’t a one-and-done spell.

  Ball lightning pulsed faster.

  To the left, Jo’s shout cracked through the din. "Cover! Move now, or die twitching!"

  She ducked behind a crate that had fallen just as one orb drifted over the flatbed. A flash of white. The box beside her exploded in a hiss of sparks and splinters.

  Kane threw his shield wide, intercepting a ripple of light that curved toward Ford. Static bloomed across the steel in a pattern like spiderweb frost, singing as it bled across the surface. Ford dropped low and slammed his staff into the ballast beside the rail. A shimmer rose around them, a divine barrier flickering like a candle caught in hurricane winds.

  It held. Barely.

  Another ball whipped low, skimming the slope and licking the top of the passenger cars. Zoey dove flat just before it passed, a curse lost in the thunder as it scorched a black line across the roof where she’d been standing.

  Steam hissed again from the front of the train. Either a built-in safety measure or some kind of spell from the engineer meant to obscure the ground area again through pressure release. Whatever it was, it wasn’t working.

  Xander’s breath came quickly, lungs tight from ozone and tension.

  The Warcaller didn’t seem to care.

  It snarled once, then yanked its harpoon chain from the gravel with a crack of steel. The shaft of the weapon dragged behind like a tail, catching arcs of static that danced across the chain like lightning on a wire.

  The ogre’s massive arm wound once, twice, then threw. Not at them, but at a stationary ball of plasma.

  The chain snapped outward as the harpoon landed dead-center in one of the ball lightning orbs.

  For a moment, nothing happened.

  Then the chain lit up like a forge rod, burning white-hot as current surged down its length and through the large section of chain still clutched in the Warcaller’s fist. The ogre didn’t scream. Didn’t even flinch. It grinned, teeth blackened, as the metal fused to its arm in rivulets of glowing slag.

  "That's not good," Ford called as he moved for cover.

  A shudder rolled through the earth.

  Xander didn’t wait to see what came next.

  He triggered Radiant Aegis with a thought.

  A shimmer of gold-white light flared across his body, flitting from fingertip to boot in a snap of divine static. The Aegis settled over his coat, barely visible beneath the stormlight, but he felt it. It was like standing behind a wall of glass. It wouldn't hold forever.

  "Jo!" he called. "Brace! When Kane and I pull agro, you run for the overpass. Shaman dies now."

  Jo’s voice snapped back instantly. "Say when."

  "Zoey, keep pressure on it."

  "Already lining the shot!"

  Xander nodded once to Kane.

  The fighter didn’t need more.

  He surged forward with a guttural shout, shoulder low, shield high. The Warcaller stepped toward him in a haze of scorched skin and lightning, but Kane’s momentum broke through. The shield slammed into the ogre’s gut with a clang that cracked across the slope, forcing the beast two steps back.

  That was the opening.

  Xander stepped in on the opposite flank with his spear forward. The divine spark still dancing along the haft flared again as he struck. It was a clean thrust, not meant to kill but to shift the brute's stance. He drove the point into the ogre’s thigh and twisted, forcing a reaction.

  The Warcaller roared, staggered, and pivoted to meet him.

  Jo moved.

  She launched from her position on the edge of the engine at full speed. Her steps thundered up the concrete embankment toward the shaman.

  Behind her, Zoey’s bow thrummed once, twice, again. Each shot fast and frost-tipped. The arrows streaked through the haze like tracer rounds, crashing into the shaman’s frame mid-channel. One took it in the ribs. The next hit its thigh. Ice spread in spiderwebs beneath the robes.

  The caster didn’t even scream. Instead, it continued to channel.

  Xander glimpsed Jo charging the ridge, blade raised. In the next blink, she was behind the shaman, arms finishing a full swing.

  The caster froze.

  Confusion flickered across its face, brief and human, just before it looked down and saw its own insides on the ground.

  It collapsed in a heap, lightning from Jo's blade dancing on the seams in its skin.

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  Then the pressure snapped.

  The storm above fractured as the final arcs of ball lightning blinked out one by one, their glow vanishing into the haze like dying stars. The static bleeding through the air peeled away with them, and for the first time since the ridge lit up, Xander felt the weight lift from his chest as the burning tension disappeared.

  [Area Debuff] The area is no longer electrified.

  The air lost its charge. The hum in his armor faded. Even the buzz against his molars finally stopped.

  He didn’t realize how tightly he’d been clenching his jaw until Zoey’s voice cut in from above, sharp with humor and exhaustion.

  "Thank god. I was starting to lose circulation in my spine."

  On the overpass, Jo turned without a word. Blood streaked the length of one sleeve. Her coat fluttered with each step, like the adrenaline hadn’t quite worn off yet.

  Then the Warcaller moved.

  It didn’t rise, not fully. Just planted both fists against the rail bed and slammed them down with enough force to ripple the ballast and pop one spike loose. The snarl it let out wasn’t loud. It was guttural, as if it had been holding it in too long.

  Kane was already there.

  The fighter stepped in without waiting for a call, shield raised as the ogre lunged. Their weapons met in a thunderclap of steel and metal-wrapped fist. Kane deflected the first swing with a tight angle, the rim of his shield glancing off the Warcaller’s forearm, then answered with a slash across the ribs that bit deep into burned flesh. The ogre staggered back, dragged its fused arm into a wide backswing, and came in again with reckless fury.

  They circled each other in the narrow space between the tracks, each blow carving lines into the earth or sparking off armor. Kane held the center line, blade low, shoulders braced behind every block.

  Xander’s gaze snapped right.

  The second ogre was still alive, and climbing.

  It had hooked one thick, sausage-like finger through the side railing of the passenger car and was hauling itself upward with sheer mass, fingers dragging long gouges in the steel. Its nails were cracked, dirty, and chipped like broken stone. One eye was swollen half-shut and blackened with bruising. The other stayed fixed on the roof.

  Locked on Zoey.

  "Zoey!" Xander barked.

  She turned toward the sound, but the lurch of the train car beneath her knocked her stance off. The ogre’s reach stretched high, one gnarled hand snapping toward her ankle.

  Then, the engineer appeared at the hatch above the boiler.

  Without a word, he heaved a full shovel of glowing coal out of the firebox and dumped it directly onto the ogre’s head. Red-hot cinders cascaded down his face and shoulders, sparks catching along exposed skin.

  The brute shrieked, blinded, flailing sideways in pain.

  Zoey stepped forward to lean over the side of the roof. Her bow came up in a tight arc. The shot was close enough she didn’t need to aim.

  The arrow punched down into the crown of its skull, the tip vanishing into matted hair and cracked bone. The ogre’s body seized for half a second, arms twitching as its grip slipped. Then it toppled backward, dead weight and smoke trailing as it slid off the railing and crashed to the gravel below.

  Back on the line, the Warcaller had dropped to one knee and was a dozen steps back from Kane.

  Its mouth hung open in a mix of pain and rage, the chain fused to its arm trailing like a banner caught on a jagged wind. Blood leaked from half a dozen wounds across its torso. Whatever magic it had from its enrage ability was gone now, and in its place was only brute force and desperation.

  Then it charged.

  Xander saw it too late to call another plan. The Warcaller lowered its shoulder and came down the center of the tracks, every stride fueled by sheer rage. The sound alone was enough to punch through his spine, stone grinding on steel and chain throwing sparks with every step.

  Kane moved without a word. The tank stepped forward and dropped into a full guard stance, shield anchored into the ground. He didn’t flinch. Instead, he became a wall.

  The Warcaller slammed into him like a wrecking ball.

  Gravel exploded from beneath Kane’s boots as the shield caught the blow full-on. The frame of it flexing under the pressure, metal groaning in protest. But Kane didn’t fall.

  Xander was already closing the distance, boots grinding across scorched gravel as he came in low.

  He didn’t wait for a perfect shot.

  He just drove the spear forward, blade lit with smite, and punched it up through the ribs into the heart of the beast.

  The radiant flash burst on impact, a column of divine light tearing through the Warcaller’s chest. The monster staggered, lungs choking on the hit, but still it stood.

  Jo came off the slope like a thunderbolt, her silhouette framed for a second against the last flicker of fading stormlight.

  Mid-leap, her form shimmered and then seemed to split.

  She landed behind the ogre as her sword tore through from shoulder to hip, leaving behind a raw line of ruin that spilled fresh blood across the ballast.

  Still the Warcaller didn’t fall.

  "That thing doesn't know when to die," Ford called as he cast a heal on Kane.

  Zoey fired one last shot from the roof. It cut a clean line through the air and buried itself in the brute’s neck.

  That did it.

  The Warcaller stumbled forward, tried to take another step, then dropped to its knees. Its body folded over itself in one last defiant lurch before crashing to the tracks with a thundering finality.

  The chain clattered beside it, still glowing at the edges.

  Xander looked around to see what other ogre combatants remained standing, if any.

  The train line held. The crew was still firing into the haze beyond the ridges, but the return fire had thinned. Only a few scattered projectiles flew now, most of them wild. On the west ridge, someone gave a low whistle. A moment later, Darvos could be heard shouting from the ridge that it was clear.

  Ford concentrated for a moment before a wide pulse of healing light across the field. It washed over Xander in a warm wave, easing the burn in his shoulder and the ache in his side.

  Kane straightened next to the Warcaller’s body, eyes still locked on the corpse as if daring it to move.

  It didn’t.

  None of them did as they attempted to catch their breath and let the adrenaline of the fight drain away.

  The only sounds were the low hiss of steam from the engine, the distant clatter of loose gravel settling down the slope, and the soft hum of Ford’s last healing wave fading into silence.

  Smoke curled above the wreckage, trailing from burning crates and shattered barrels. The air smelled like scorched oil, blood, and ozone. Somewhere overhead, a turkey vulture circled once, then banked away from the ridge.

  Zoey broke the moment with a soft, tired grunt as she slung her bow over one shoulder and sat down on the edge of the passenger car roof.

  "All that buildup and the guy still couldn’t keep the lights on."

  Jo made her way down the slope, boots crunching on the stone. Her coat was half-torn along the hem, and the blade still in her hand dripped a line of blood as she walked. She didn’t look winded, just focused. That meant she was hurting more than she let on.

  Xander let his spear rest butt-down in the gravel and rotated his shoulder, checking the stiffness.

  "Good enough," Xander said more to himself. Then without turning he called, "We’ve got ties down on the track."

  The rail crew had descended from the rear flatbed. Two of them moved with haste toward the damage, one with a long crowbar, the other hauling a portable alchemical torch. Sparks flew a moment later as they started clearing the mangled wood, boots kicking aside splinters and scorched iron.

  Another worker unlatched the tool crate bolted to the rolling workshop car and pulled free a canvas bundle. Clamps. Spikes. A compact sledge.

  Repairs had started.

  They’d be stuck here for a while.

  Xander stepped around the Warcaller’s corpse, checking its twisted frame. The fused chain arm still glowed faintly. There was nothing elegant about the monster, only mass and rage. Still, it had come close to ending their mission before it had even really begun.

  He crouched and flipped what looked like a pouch from its belt, tossing it into Jo’s hands without looking up. "Let's loot up and then see if we can help with repairs. Ford, might want to do the rounds and see if there are any injured."

  Jo cracked it open, gave it a cursory look, then handed it to Zoey, who was eyeballing the underside of the overpass.

  "Hold on," Zoey said. "Got a glint under there."

  She climbed the embankment and knelt, brushed the rubble aside, then called out, "Hey, uh... you’re going to want to see this."

  Jo moved in to help, and the two of them hauled out a blackened chest, half-scorched by lightning, its iron fittings warped from the heat. Whatever enchantments it once held had mostly flickered out, but the locking mechanism popped with a quick twist.

  Jo and Zoey crouched over something at the base of the embankment, murmuring to each other. From where he stood, Xander caught a glint of metal, maybe rings or the edge of a blade, before Jo called over and waved him down. Loot chest. Scorched from the lightning but still intact.

  Jo didn’t hesitate. She snapped the blade up and passed it to Xander without comment.

  He slid it into the dimensional space of his survival belt and tapped it once to secure it. "We’ll sort loot later," he said.

  "Fair split?" Zoey asked, her voice light, but tired.

  "I'm going with the notion that everyone keeps what they killed," Xander replied. "Starlight crew keeps theirs. Darvos’s crew gets their own pull."

  No one pushed back. They didn’t have the energy to.

  From the west ridge, movement stirred along the brush line. A few scattered figures began descending along the trail in the underbrush that looped back toward the rail line. Darvos’s team. Bloodied, scraped, but intact.

  One crossbowman limped, his thigh bound in a rough strip of cloth that was already dark with blood. Ford stepped toward him without waiting for a word and raised his staff. Golden light shimmered once, then sank into the wound like sunlight disappearing below the surface of a pond.

  The gunner’s limp steadied.

  Darvos stepped up behind him, helmet in one hand, blade in the other. Dried blood streaked one temple.

  "Glad to see everyone mostly intact," he said. "We thought we were done for after the second caster lit the ridge."

  Xander looked down at the fused metal arm of the Warcaller. "Lightning ogres tend to void the warranty."

  A faint chuckle rolled through the party, tired but real.

  Darvos nodded once in approval, then looked back toward the ridge with a furrowed brow.

  "They shouldn’t have been here. We saw nothing like this during our trip south a couple of days ago, and Fort Octave’s patrols would’ve seen signs."

  Xander met his eyes. "That’s what I’m thinking too."

  They both looked north, toward the direction of the fort. Still hours out. And daylight was waning.

  It would take hours to finish the repairs. Two of the track workers were still hammering braces into the crushed crossties, while another crouched near the damaged coupling with a box of replacement parts and an open schematic. Sparks snapped against the growing dusk.

  Jo crossed to stand beside Xander, her coat fluttering again in the breeze. "Even if they finish before nightfall, we’re not running this thing in the dark."

  "Not without some serious scouting from here to the Fort," Ford added.

  Zoey sat on the edge of the embankment, chin resting on one knee. "We camping here, then?"

  "Looks that way," Xander said. "They need the light. No sense running blind through another ambush."

  Nobody argued.

  Even the engine had gone quiet now, its pressure venting in slow hisses. The warm vapor curled into the evening air, catching in the amber light spilling across the valley.

  Darvos and Xander shared a look. No words, but the message was clear. Something was off. Whether it tied back to the cult or was just more Simulation nonsense, Xander couldn't say. Either way, the lull after the undead event would not last.

  Hopefully, they weren’t too late to warn Fort Octave.

  Somewhere down the line, a hammer rang out against steel. The sound echoed through the cut as night settled in for good.

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