“You forgot to mention the cake was made of turds,” Akilah grumbled as she set out to rappel down the craggy cliff face. It was just a twenty-foot drop. Hell, I’d free-climbed the support rafters at work when I was her size and shape. She had a rope, but for someone not used to climbing, I guess I could see how it might be scary.

  I braced against the edge, finding good footing. As the biggest and strongest, it made sense for me to belay the rest of them, steadying the rope as they climbed down.

  Akilah let out a strangled shriek. The rope jerked in my hands. My heart rose up to choke me for that split second.

  “I’m good,” her voice ricocheted up a second later.

  I exhaled hard and checked my HUD. While they waited for me to deal with my fae problems, Jake and Akilah had messed around with designing a team status display. Akilah looked unharmed, HP untouched.

  I needed to learn to take in all the information without actually reading it. Soon. In a fight, paying attention to the status while focusing on the danger in front of me meant the difference between survival and death—for me, or one of the others.

  Akilah tugged on the rope, and I pulled it up. Now, for the tricky part. Climbing metal supports differed from climbing an unexplored cliff wall. I swung my legs down and felt with my feet, lowering myself after I found a foothold.

  All I had to do was climb down thirteen or fourteen feet and drop from there. At six two, I could easily drop the rest of the distance and land on my feet. That was life experience, but this? Was an experiment.

  Keeping my body’s center of gravity close to the wall was harder than I expected with these longer arms and legs. There were plenty of holds when I groped around, but if I breathed too deep, I felt like I’d throw my balance, and that’d be it. It’d be raining half-orcs.

  The faint blue glow from Akilah’s stone screwed with my sight. I couldn’t see well, my eyes slipped back and forth between light and dark vision, so it was hard to guess where I was when I slipped. My fingernails scrabbled painfully on unforgiving stone, my knee slammed the wall instead of skimming it, and then I was falling.

  When I hit the uneven floor, the breath was knocked out of me. I lay there for a moment, wondering if I just got a little dumber from cracking my head on the ground. Also, trying to breathe. My lungs wouldn’t do shit for a second—which happens, as I’ve experienced before.

  A cluster of faces swam in my vision. My HUD reported I’d lost 10 HP to the fall. Not bad, all considered. The worst part was the aching burn of torn fingernails. When some air seeped into my lungs, I wheezed a chuckle at their concerned faces.

  “Never—seen anyone fall before?” I coughed, pushing up on my elbows.

  “You should have just tied the rope off,” Elora fussed, crouching beside me. Her hands wrapped around my bicep, pulling me up into a sitting position.

  I looked up at the cliff. “To what? I’m not wasting good rope.”

  “You’d rather fall? Big dumbass,” Akilah scoffed.

  I took it as a compliment. This kind of thing? Didn’t scare me. Swarms of rats and slimes? Totally did.

  Jake was shaking his head, not engaging. He clearly agreed with them. Kinda sucked to not have anyone in my corner for my very pragmatic choice. I got up off the ground and brushed my ass off, then straightened my jacket. If I was in sunlight, I’d be all healed up in a few minutes, but, lacking sun, my HP stagnated at 70.

  I slashed a hand in the direction we had to go. There was no marker for this quest since the sheriff’s department advertised it, and we didn’t pick it up. We only needed to bring proof, according to the billboard.

  It wouldn’t be the first time I put strange and nasty stuff in my inventory.

  The cavern was nippy. Every step we made echoed, and Jake’s hooves tapped loudest on the stone floor. In Akilah’s circle of light, I couldn’t see a thing past it. The ceiling rose beyond sight, the soft, cold breeze whispering against my skin.

  “What do you think made this?” The cavern didn’t look natural. It looked like it had been cut by diamond blades wielded by lunatics that couldn’t decide which way they wanted to drill, next.

  Akilah held her stone high, pinched between her fingers. No one had an answer.

  “The district tutorial doesn’t say much about this place.” Jake murmured, as if keeping his voice down could cancel his clip-clopping. “Mostly full of primitive NPCs, I think. If there’s intelligent life here, they aren’t listed.”

  I had to get him some booties or something. Jake had no stealth.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Elora cocked her head, and her bow appeared in her hand. I’d never seen it before now—nothing fancy, just a compound hunter’s bow like you’d use for deer hunting. My audio pinged, and I heard Elora in chat.

  Elora: “I want to scout ahead. Slow down.”

  “Copy.”

  I slowed my pace. Jake and Akilah matched mine, and Elora slipped ahead, walking with a shoulder near the side wall. Jake equipped his pistol, holding it in the low ready position. Akilah’s staff appeared in her hands. I pulled my sword out of inventory unsheathed. The blade looked like corroded bronze, but the odd coloring wasn’t oxidation. It was poison, seeping from within the blade. VR magic, I guess. I was past questioning some of these things.

  It was just a few minutes later when our chat lit up, and Elora’s audio rang out.

  Elora: “Run! GogogogogoOhmyGodJesusRun!”

  I froze. Beside me, Jake and Akilah stopped, their questions flooding the audio chat, words scrolling past on my HUD. I tilted my head, listening. An undulating whisper was coming this way, punctuated by the soft pad of Elora’s racing feet.

  There was nowhere to run. Did she forget?

  I shot a look at them. Akilah pointed her staff at me, then at Jake. “You tank. You, fall back to that flank, and I’ll take this one.”

  Now was not the time to lament my training gap. I should’ve fucking gone to see Mr. Kim before this bullshit! So. Stupid.

  Elora appeared, rapidly coming into the light, tawny hair streaming behind her. She looked like an actress in a horror movie, glancing back, terrified—but her arms and legs pumped like she was in real danger.

  A second later, I figured out why.

  Cat-sized, house centipede-looking things skittered after her. They had large mandibles and long, cricket-like legs. Too many legs, like someone added extra just for the creep factor. The unruly swarm crawled over each other just to get at Elora.

  My stomach clenched, hands clamping around my sword so hard it hurt. I hated bugs. Bad times camping, waking up to the crawling feeling. Being bitten in my sleep.

  The swarm skittered onwards, spreading as they ran. Akilah raised her staff. On my HUD, her range was mapped out, flashing the conical area of effect it would hit, and my screen warned FIREFLICK: Withering. Black fire spit from her direction, raining down behind Elora.

  Blasts of plasma seared the air, sizzling a few bugs at a time. The smell hit me—almond, vanilla, and microwaved shit vapor curled from the corpses. I crouched, and Elora barreled past me.

  “Just another swarm. No big deal. We can han—oh.”

  Something lumbered in the dark. As the first wave of small insects hit, Big Momma lurched into the light. Mandibles big enough to snap me in half gaped, and a dozen more of the little ones poured forth. That threw nightmare fuel on the flames of terror.

  My HUD flashed rainbow, centering on Jake’s status display. LVL 6. I didn’t have time to care. The tide of skittering legs massed at my feet. I swept my blade low, carving poison-laced lines in insect carapaces, and my XP ticked up.

  One of the little pricks bit me. I kicked out to shake it off. The violent motion tore the body away, decapitating it. The mouthpiece stayed latched into my flesh through my boot. I slashed wildly, the cavern strobing with bursts of plasma and the cold glow of blackfire.

  The broodmother crawled inexorably closer, slower than its children, but far more lethal. Akilah’s AOE spread death across the sea of centipedes, with Jake and Elora’s incoming shots picking off the masses faster than the broodmother could spit them out—but not fast enough.

  I charged, stomping through insect bodies; another one latched onto my other foot as I roared savagely. INTIMIDATE.

  The mother of monsters didn’t flinch. Whiplike feelers slashed down, one striking me solidly for -3 HP. It stopped puking spawn to lurch at me for a bite. My blade clanged off the scissoring mandibles, leaving a scrape on the hard chitin and nothing more. I dodged on instinct, narrowly escaping the crushing attack.

  Somewhere in the back of my head, I knew I wasn’t using my HUD properly. I’d have to go back through the log, see if she had Fear Immunity or if my threat percentage needed boosting.

  The broodmother’s carapace lit up with attacks.

  “Don’t draw aggro!”

  Akilah: “Well, hit it, and I won’t have to.”

  Jake: “Tank, Dath!”

  Seriously? Did they think I wasn’t trying?

  I tucked into a dive-roll, sword flashing out at one of the multitude of legs that supported the giant centipede [Hit: -8HP].

  It scrambled back, and I struck straight upwards, lying on my back. [Hit: Armor Resist: -2HP]

  This was a bad position, defenseless. Her enormous mandibles overshadowed me, and I rolled to the side, back onto my feet. Her HP was down 90%. We almost had her.

  With a feral grin I turned…

  And her jaws clamped around me in a blinding flash of agony. I barely managed to swing my sword at the monster as my legs dangled numbly and my vision darkened. [Hit: Armor Resist: -1] In that moment, I knew I was going to die.

  Critical Hit: Death Shear.

  My HUD flashed red. I had a bare second to make a move —so I did, as it faded to black.

  -ARCHIVE-