We left the safety of the bunker and stepped back into a world that was screaming.

  Or at least, it sounded like it was screaming.

  We had walked north for an hour, leaving the flat, white expanse of the salt behind. The terrain had shifted, jutting upward into a labyrinth of jagged red rock and crystalline spires. The wind here was different. It didn't just blow; it was funneled through thousands of narrow cracks and fissures in the stone.

  The result was a constant, low-frequency moan. A dissonant chorus of wails, whispers, and whistles that grated against the nerves.

  “I hate it,” Faelar grumbled, his voice muffled. He was currently wrapping strips of torn cloth around the joints of his plate armor. “It sounds like a thousand ghosts complaining about the rent.”

  “Acoustic resonance,” Elmsworth whispered, checking his audiological readings. “The geometry of this canyon amplifies sound waves. A shout in here would echo for miles.”

  I held up a hand. The Ward Stone in my palm was vibrating—not the angry buzz of a warning, but a slow, rhythmic pulse.

  I looked at the slate.

  [OBJECTIVE: CROSS THE CANYON.] [INTEL: SILENCE IS GOLDEN. THEY HUNT BY SONAR. DO NOT WAKE THE NEIGHBORS.]

  “Sonar,” I whispered to the group. “That means blind. That means sensitive ears.”

  I looked at Faelar. The dwarf was a walking percussion section. Even with the cloth wrappings, every step was a clank.

  “Faelar,” I said. “You’re in the middle. Walk on your toes. If you feel a sneeze coming on, swallow it.”

  “I’m a ninja,” Faelar insisted, testing his weight. His knee joint let out a soft squeak. He winced. “A rusty ninja.”

  Liam stepped forward, holding a piece of leather cord he had salvaged from the bunker supplies. He looked down at Nugget.

  “And you,” the elf said to the chicken. “You are a biological alarm clock. We need to take precautions.”

  He knelt down, attempting to tie the cord gently around Nugget’s beak as a makeshift muzzle.

  Nugget did not take kindly to this.

  The chicken drew himself up to his full height (which was about knee-high, but felt taller). He puffed out his chest feathers until he looked like a golden ball of indignation. He fixed Liam with a stare that was so withering, so filled with divine judgment, that the elf actually flinched back.

  Cluck. (Translation: "Do not touch the Royal Beak, peasant.")

  Nugget turned his back on Liam and began to walk toward the canyon entrance. He didn't hop. He didn't scratch. He placed each talon down with delicate, deliberate precision, making absolutely zero sound. He looked back at us, his black eyes conveying a clear message: Keep up.

  “Right,” Liam said, standing up and pocketing the cord. “The bird has better stealth stats than the dwarf. Let’s move.”

  We entered the canyon mouth.

  The temperature dropped instantly. The high walls of red stone blocked out the sun, casting everything in deep, cool shadows. The wind howled above us, but down here on the floor, the air was still.

  Too still.

  I took point, my spear gripped tight. The ground was treacherous—a mixture of soft sand and what Elmsworth called "shatter-gravel." It was millions of tiny, razor-sharp shards of broken crystal. One heavy step would sound like crushing a mouthful of hard candy.

  We moved single-file. Step. Pause. Step. Pause.

  I looked up.

  My blood ran cold.

  The ceiling of the canyon wasn't rock. It was meat.

  Hanging from the jagged overhangs, clustered together like massive, grotesque grapes, were hundreds of creatures.

  They looked like bats, but wrong. They were the size of men. Their skin was translucent and pale, stretched tight over visible bones and pulsing organs. They had no eyes—just smooth, pale domes where a face should be. But their ears were enormous, flaring out like radar dishes.

  And their mouths… their mouths were filled with rows of needle-thin, glass-like teeth that interlocked perfectly.

  Crystalline Shriekers.

  They were asleep, their leathery wings wrapped tight around their bodies. But even in sleep, they twitched. Every time a gust of wind whistled too loudly through the rocks, a hundred pairs of ears would swivel toward the sound.

  I signaled back to the team. Finger to lips. Look up.

  Faelar looked up. His face went pale beneath his beard. He stopped breathing.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  We moved forward. The only sound was the thumping of my own heart in my ears.

  Crunch.

  The sound was tiny. A single piece of gravel shifting under Elmsworth’s boot.

  Above us, a Shrieker shifted. Its head snapped down. Its ears flared, rotating like turrets. It let out a sound—not a scream, but a high-pitched click.

  Sonar, I thought. It’s mapping the room.

  We froze. I held my breath until my lungs burned.

  The Shrieker clicked again. The sound wave hit us, invisible but palpable. But because we were statues, we didn't look like prey. We just looked like funny-shaped rocks.

  The creature chittered softly, wrapped its wings tighter, and went back to sleep.

  I let out a breath through my nose. We kept moving.

  We were halfway through the narrowest part of the pass when disaster struck.

  Elmsworth stopped.

  The gnome’s eyes were watering. His nose wrinkled. His chest hitched.

  Dust. The canyon was full of fine, crystal dust.

  He’s going to sneeze, I realized with horror.

  Elmsworth’s mouth opened. He inhaled deeply, his little body preparing to unleash a noise that would echo like a gunshot in this acoustic chamber.

  Willow moved faster than I thought possible. She reached out and clamped her hand firmly over the gnome’s nose and mouth.

  Hmph-glrk!

  The sound was stifled, trapped behind Willow’s palm. Elmsworth’s face turned a violent shade of purple. His eyes bulged. He convulsed once, twice, suppressing the explosion.

  Above us, a pebble, dislodged by the vibration of a snoring monster, fell.

  It hit Faelar’s helmet.

  Tink.

  The sound was sharp and clear.

  Every ear on the ceiling swiveled. A low, collective rustle swept through the colony.

  We didn't move. We didn't breathe.

  Nugget, standing near my feet, looked up at the monsters with mild curiosity. He seemed unimpressed.

  The rustling stopped. The colony settled.

  “Close,” Liam mouthed silently.

  We were almost to the exit. I could see the light changing ahead—the red rock giving way to something softer, greener. Just fifty more yards.

  Then, Nugget saw it.

  A Glow-Beetle. A thumb-sized insect with a carapace that pulsed with luminescent blue light. It was crawling along the canyon wall, right at eye level.

  Nugget’s head cocked to the side. The divine hunter awoke.

  The beetle scurried forward. Nugget stalked it, his head bobbing silently.

  The problem was where the beetle was going.

  It crawled onto a low-hanging stalactite. Wrapped around that stalactite was the long, whip-like tail of a sleeping Shrieker.

  The beetle stopped right on the tip of the tail.

  Nugget crouched. He wiggled his feathery butt. He prepared to strike.

  My eyes widened. I couldn't yell. I couldn't run over there without crunching the gravel.

  Don't do it, I begged silently. Please, oh mighty poultry, show mercy.

  Nugget lunged.

  Peck.

  He snatched the beetle with surgical precision.

  Gulp.

  He swallowed it.

  But the force of the peck jarred the Shrieker’s tail.

  The monster above woke up instantly.

  Its head snapped down. Its milky, eyeless face locked onto the chicken. Its massive ears flared.

  It opened its mouth. Its chest expanded, drawing in a massive breath. It was preparing to scream. If it screamed, the whole colony would wake up. We would be swarmed in seconds.

  I was twenty feet away. Too far to stab. Too far to tackle.

  Time seemed to slow down. I saw the monster’s throat muscles tighten.

  Think, Kaelen. The Manual says engage. But the manual assumes you have a gun.

  I didn't have a gun. I had a spear. And I had a trick I had been practicing.

  I gripped the shaft of my spear.

  I didn't aim at the monster. I aimed at the empty air three feet behind it.

  I threw.

  The spear left my hand with a soft whoosh. It flew past the Shrieker’s head, missing it completely. The monster didn't react to the motion; it couldn't see it. It was focused on the chicken.

  The spear passed the monster.

  Now.

  I snapped my wrist back, triggering the enchantment. Recall.

  The rune on the spear flared blue. The weapon stopped in mid-air, its momentum reversing instantly. It flew backward, straight toward my open hand.

  But the Shrieker was in the way.

  THWIP-CRUNCH.

  The spearhead struck the monster from behind, entering the base of its skull and severing the spine and vocal cords in one clean impact.

  The scream died in its throat. It let out a wet, breathless gurgle.

  The spear passed through the soft tissue and smacked back into my palm.

  The monster went limp. Its claws released the rock.

  It fell.

  Oh no.

  If the body hit the gravel, the impact would be loud enough to wake the dead.

  “Liam!” I hissed, too loud.

  The body tumbled through the air, heavy and dead weight.

  Liam didn't cast a spell. He didn't have time. He just moved.

  The elf dove. He slid across the sharp gravel, ignoring the cuts to his shins. He threw his hands up.

  Whump.

  He caught the corpse.

  It was heavy—easily two hundred pounds of dead monster. Liam grunted, his arms shaking under the weight, but he didn't drop it. He cushioned the fall with his own body.

  Silence returned to the canyon.

  Liam lay on his back, a dead, ugly bat-monster draped over him like a blanket. He looked at me, his eyes wide.

  He slowly, carefully, gave me a thumbs up.

  I let out a breath I had been holding for five minutes.

  We didn't wait to celebrate.

  We helped Liam gently lower the body to the ground. Then, we abandoned stealth for speed. We speed-walked the remaining fifty yards, our lungs burning, our eyes fixed on the exit.

  The red walls widened. The oppressive ceiling opened up. The gravel gave way to soft, damp earth.

  We burst out of the canyon mouth and stumbled into the light.

  It wasn't the blinding white of the Salt Flats. It was the dappled, golden light of a forest afternoon.

  Green. Everywhere.

  Giant ferns, moss-covered trees, and a river that flowed with clear, singing water. The air smelled of loam and life, not salt and death.

  We were in the Verdant Coast.

  Faelar collapsed face-first into a patch of clover.

  “Grass,” he mumbled into the dirt. “Sweet, soft, silent grass. I’m going to marry it. I’m going to build a house right here and never wear boots again.”

  Elmsworth sat down on a log, cleaning his glasses. “The acoustic variance is normalized. Birds are singing at appropriate decibels. I can sneeze freely.”

  He sneezed. It was loud. It was glorious.

  Liam was picking monster slime off his tunic. “That was... undignified,” he muttered. “But effective. Good throw, Commander.”

  “Good catch,” I replied, leaning on my spear.

  I looked down at Nugget.

  The chicken was preening his feathers, looking incredibly satisfied with his beetle snack. He looked up at me, blinked, and let out a soft cluck.

  You’re welcome, he seemed to say.

  My pocket buzzed.

  I pulled out the Ward Stone. The text was green and friendly.

  [WELCOME TO THE VERDANT COAST.] [OBJECTIVE COMPLETE: THE QUIET GAME.] [GAME MASTER MESSAGE: TAKE A BATH. SERIOUSLY. YOU GUYS SMELL LIKE OLD SOUP.]

  I laughed. It was a dry, rasping sound, but it was real.

  “You heard the man,” I said, pointing to the river. “Baths. Then we sleep for a week.”

  “A week?” Faelar asked, rolling over. “Make it a month.”

  We had survived the Salt. We had survived the Silence.

  Now, we just had to survive whatever the Game Master had waiting for us in the woods.