The gates of Sentinel Station slammed shut behind us with a loud thud. I closed my eyes, thanking the bells for our luck. Any longer, and who knows what would have happened to us outside.

  The watch commander sent out a group of guards as soon as we had been spotted, with three men taking Knut from me, lifting the warrior onto their shoulders and helping him stand.

  "I can walk," Knut protested, but the words came out as a pained rasp. We all knew he was too proud to admit it, so they let him have his moment.

  "Sure you can," one of the guards replied, “But Ridley’ll have our hides if she finds we let you walk with a foot looking like that.”

  “Hmm. Good idea. Carry me to doctor,” he said, and everyone smiled at that.

  With Knut taken care of, I shifted my focus to Eryn, wrapping my arm around her waist in support. Her lips were pressed into a thin line as she clutched her mangled hand against her chest. I hated the sight of her like that, but didn’t dare voice any concern as I knew she’d just berate me. None of this was my fault directly, so it wasn’t even possibly for me to try and take responsibility.

  “Is this what it feels like? Helplessness?” she whispered, her voice barely above a whisper.

  "Almost there," I replied, guiding her through the crowd gathering around us. “Just a bit more.”

  “I always imagined it would bequieter.”

  “She’ll be fine,” Roq said, and his own voice was just as subdued.

  “She has to, Roq. They all have to.”

  The watch commander pointed to a younger guard and snapped an order.

  “You! Run and fetch Commander Edwin!"

  We headed straight for doctor Ridley’s medical tent, the one I'd woken up in after the Twisted Titan dungeon run. There were several of the big green tents under the care of multiple classed doctors, but somehow we always ended up in the same tent.

  The sharp tang of antiseptic hit me as we entered. Cots lined both sides of the tent, but none were occupied thanks to the break in daily attacks.

  “Too sterile. I prefer the smithy. Creation of something into something new.”

  “I don’t want Eryn or Knut to become something new. I want them to be themselves.”

  “I just wish there was something I could do.”

  “Me too.”

  Doctor Ridley stood near the back of the tent, inspecting a lumberjack’s bandaged arm. She glanced our way when she noticed us walk in, her professional demeanor instantly shifting and she frowned.

  "Everyone who isn't wounded or part of my medical team, out!” she commanded, clapping her hands. Her voice cut through their murmurs, and she clapped her hands again. “Out! Now!"

  The watch commander, who had followed us inside, immediately began ushering our long tail of curious onlookers back outside.

  "You heard the doctor. Back to work! All of you!"

  It took a good minute, but once the tent cleared, Ridley hurried over to us. "Sit," she ordered, pointing to empty cots. "All of you.”

  “Tell me your injuries,” she said, starting with Knut.

  “Only scratch, snow rose. Nothing to worry—"

  "If you don't stop this macho crap and give me accurate information about your injuries," Ridley interrupted the big northerner, her voice deceptively sweet, "I will cancel our next date and amputate your left leg. Understood?"

  Knut's mouth snapped shut, then opened again.

  "Arm useless. Leg broken below knee. Many wounds. Pain, no danger.”

  "Better," Ridley nodded, then turned to one of her assistants. "Stabilize him, but no healing magic. I'll handle him personally."

  “Make suffer longer?" Knut joked weakly. “I thought you care about me, doctor.”

  Ridley's stern expression softened momentarily.

  “I’m going to set your leg properly, with my own hands, before healing you, or you’ll risk ending up with a limp." She placed a gentle hand on his cheek. "Can't have my favorite man hobbling around, can I?"

  A pang shot through my chest at her words, thinking of Pa’s limp.

  Ridley gave Knut's cheek a playful slap that was just a bit too hard, drawing a wince from him, before her professional mask slid back into place as she turned to Eryn.

  “I see now why she’s a healer and not a warrior. That was a terrible blow.”

  “Not the time for jokes.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Let me see that hand," doctor Ridley said, her tone gentler as she took Eryn's injured hand.

  The doctor carefully unwrapped the blood-soaked cloth and winced.

  "Good job with the pressure bandage," she commented, revealing the inner layer soaked in healing salve. “Healing ointment’s already working. Fine if you don’t want to keep your fingers, but saving them is going to make my job a bit harder now."

  Eryn winced.

  “Sorry about that. We were in a bit of…a hurry.”

  Ridley examined the hand closer, dictating to another assistant.

  "Two fingers missing, with two more barely attached. Significant bone fragmentation. Needs cleaning. Thumb’s unharmed."

  "It's the gloves Pa made for me," Eryn said. “Protected my thumb. And hand. It would have been gone all the way if not for the glove.”

  Ridley raised an eyebrow as she examined the damaged digits.

  "I thought you were an orphan?"

  Eryn blinked, taken aback by the bluntness.

  "I... I mean Ash's father. The smith. He’s…Pa. To all of us."

  "Ahh," Ridley said before looking up. "Pa indeed. So, where are the severed digits?"

  Nabeeh pulled them from her spatial storage.

  "Here.”

  "Good," Ridley nodded, unwrapping them carefully. “Looks as if you got them all. That improves our chances."

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  I watched anxiously, my stomach knotting with worry. Eryn's hands were essential for her archery, for her healing work, too. Hell, for everything she did. The thought of her losing function in those fingers made me sick.

  “Could you heal her hand?”

  “I can’t,” Roq replied, his mental voice unusually subdued. “I’m sorry. My abilities only work with you.”

  “What if I gave you to her temporarily? Just long enough to heal her?”

  “You what? Give me up? To heal her fingers?”

  “Of course. I mean, I’d trust her to hand you back after being healed and you to return. You’d come back, wouldn’t you?”

  “It won't work,” Roq said after a moment of silence. “Not getting rid of me so easily. I can't be given up. Only death can break our bond.”

  “I figured.”

  Ridley began the healing process, first cleaning the wound thoroughly, drawing hisses from Eryn as she scraped the bones smooth.

  “Easier for the healing to set clean breaks, even if there’s less original material to work with," Ridley said, her movements precise and confident. "Now for the difficult part."

  With delicate motions, she manipulated one of Eryn's fingers back into its proper position, aligning the severed digit with its stump. She covered it with her other hand, closed her eyes, and Golden light bloomed from her hand, enveloping the wound.

  "I'm reconnecting nerves and muscles first," she muttered, concentration evident in her furrowed brow. "The bones will follow, but this will take time to fully settle." She glanced up at Eryn as she finished setting the first finger. "Look, Eryn, as a scavenger, your healing will be slower than an adventurer's. You'll be out of combat for a while. You do know that, right?"

  "Will I..." Eryn swallowed hard. "Will I regain full use of my hand?"

  "Yes," Ridley confirmed with a confident nod. “You received good first aid, and the wound is fresh. Even if the fingers had been brought in later, I might have saved them, though you might have experienced stiffness or reduced sensation."

  After the delicate work on Eryn's hand was complete, Ridley turned her attention to the still-bleeding gash on Eryn's arm. This wound closed almost instantly under the golden glow of her healing magic, but I could see the strain it put on the doctor. You always had to give something up when using any kind of ability or spell. Particularly when it came to healing.

  “I love me some minor damage,” Ridley said before moving on to Nabeeh.

  She examined the cauterized stomach wound. “Rough. Barbaric. Amateurish,” she noted, her fingers probing the charred flesh. “Not worth cauterising the wound when it was skin and fat only. It didn’t even enter your abdominal cavity."

  Golden light flowed from her hands, and the burn healed, leaving behind a red scar.

  "That will be permanent," Ridley said. “My healing can’t rearrange the skin and re-heal it.” "I know," Nabeeh said. “But we didn’t know if more monsters were nearby or were coming for us,, doctor, and I didn’t exactly feel like fighting with a wide open wound in my belly.”

  Ridley nodded.

  “Which is why I won't scold you for injuring yourself." Her lips quivered into a small smile. "Besides, a scar like that will only enhance your beauty."

  Nabeeh rolled her eyes and chuckled, her anger dissipating almost immediately. She glanced at Knut.

  "Now I understand why you keep insisting on taking on dozens of monsters by yourself, hoping to get injured so you can spend time with the doctor."

  Ridley shot Knut a look, and he wisely remained silent.

  Finally, she turned to me, one eyebrow raised.

  "And you? What wounds are you hiding?"

  “I’ll be fine," I said, shifting my butt on the cot. I was as fresh as a daisy.

  Her skepticism at my truthfulness was evident.

  "Given the severity of your companions' injuries, I find that hard to believe." Her eyes narrowed. “It’s not like you let the others fight for you, is it? And I don’t think you are the type to run away.”

  I chuckled uncomfortably.

  "Just got lucky."

  "He couldn't walk initially," Nabeeh interjected, drawing Ridley's interest.

  "I was hit in the head," I clarified, swiping the helmet out of my inventory where I’d stored it as we closed on Sentinel Station, and showed the shallow gouge in the metal where Gnash had hit me. “It saved me from death, but I got stunned pretty badly. My legs only recovered on the way back."

  Ridley's gaze dropped to the hole in my chest armor.

  "And this?"

  "I was stabbed, but the armor held.”

  “Doesn’t look like it held,” she said.

  “Was a wide blade. It didn't penetrate my skin."

  Ridley narrowed her eyes, clearly suspicious of all my explanations. Before she could press further, Knut let out a loud groan, and she immediately turned her attention to him. He gave me a long look, letting me know he’d distracted her for me.

  Together with the two assistants, Ridley carefully removed Knut's armor, revealing his injuries.

  Ridley sighed. Knut’s mace arm hung at an unnatural angle, his ankle was grotesquely swollen, and he had enough cuts and gashes to provide training for a dozen junior healers.

  Before she began healing him, Eryn stood up from her cot.

  "May I watch?" she asked hesitantly. “I feel this could be valuable.”

  Ridley looked about to snap at her.

  “What are you--this isn’t the time to--”

  “Please, Katherine?”

  She softened and nodded, gesturing Eryn closer. "I'll explain as I go. It might be educational for you."

  As Ridley began narrating the healing process to Eryn, I moved to sit beside Nabeeh, listening to the doctor's detailed explanations as she worked on mending Knut's broken bones and torn muscles. The mix of medical terminology and how healing magic interacted with the different tissues made me understand why Eryn’s eyes sometimes went blank in the forge if Pa or I went too deep on the specifics.

  My mind drifted to our near-defeat as I sat there on the cot. We were only at level eleven, and we'd barely survived. When I imagined just how far away level sixty was, it all seemed impossibly long.

  * * *

  Rage flared.

  Flickering. Gnawing. Shame wrapped in fury.

  The Hive Mind trembled.

  Roots scraped deep grooves in the chamber floor. The bark-armor along its trunk-body cracked under the strain of restrained violence.

  Fragment had been within reach. Again.

  Again, denied.

  Again, escaped.

  Unacceptable.

  Direct control better? Perhaps. But risk. Strain. Delay. Must be another way. A better way.

  “Gnash!”

  The word detonated through the chamber, layered in a thousand voices. Minions scattered, new spiders, flyers, burrowlings, and the old, seeking refuge in cracks and crevices. Even some breeding sacs ruptured.

  Moments later, Gnash crawled into view on three legs.

  Pathetic.

  His once-stable gait had turned to a jerky stagger. Blood clotted in his matted fur, one hand ending in a mess. His tail dragged across the floor. Yet still the rat-creature smiled. He was , always smiling, and had way too many teeth. And they were too long.

  “Great--mighty mass,” Gnash said, lowering his head in a bow and even scraping his snout on the floor. “Gnash returns victorious--failing. Not success. Not failure. Close-call! Yes-yes!”

  The Hive Mind’s core dimmed with restraint.

  “Explain.”

  Gnash twitched, his injured paw pressed to his chest.

  “Gnash wounded them! All of them! Hammer-human thief has a broken arm and useless legs. Shield shattered! Horrible fire-witch has stomach torn! Other -girl’s hand mangled! No shooting projectiles now, no-no. Big man with shield? Arm and leg broken!” Gnash chittered eagerly. “They crawl. Bleeding. Screaming. Retreating. Back to wood-wall nest. Weak. Crippled. Ripest fruit for harvest, yes-yes!”

  The Hive Mind stilled.

  Wounded. Acceptable. Potential. Opportunity.

  “Why no pursuit?” it asked.

  Gnash paused. Insultingly long. The overgrown rat’s whiskers twitched. “Bring news. Human walls too close. Spikes. Glowcaps. Danger. Risk of failure… too high?”

  Another pause.

  The Hive Mind did not speak. It sent its attention outward.

  In the distance, a signal brushed its perception, and a Riftwing veered off its path to scout the human base.

  The Hive Mind reached outward, sliding into the creature's limited mind.

  Flight.

  Cold air. Thirst. Rage. Hunger.

  Four humans. Staggering. One carried another. Slow. Bloodied.

  Yes.

  Almost at wooden walls.

  Metal reinforcements. Glowcaps chained. Strange. Guards with bows and crossbows. Alert. Watching. Dangerous.

  Ready to die.

  Closer inspection. The Riftwing swooping down for a lower pass.

  There.

  The hammer-human. The fragment-carrier.

  Walking.

  Moving his arm.

  Unbroken.

  Unwounded.

  Deceiver.

  The Hive Mind withdrew, leaving the Riftwing’s brain to collapse.

  The cost was meaningless.

  The hive mind’s gaze returned to its body. Back to Gnash.

  Still cowering. Still bleeding. Still lying.

  “Deception.”

  Gnash squeaked.

  “No-no-no! Gnash saw! Broke it, self! Smash-smash! Human must heal! Secret magic! Trickery!”

  Lies. Except… Gnash’s report. Recovery speed. Magic output. Inference chains.

  Probability.

  No known healing magic was that efficient. There was no healer-class present with suitable capability.

  Then…

  Fragment.

  Vannash healed.

  Impossible. And yet—possibility nested within impossibility. Fragment adapting. Fragment changing. Fragment strengthening the host. A weapon… always evolving.

  Gnash had failed.

  And yet—

  Gnash had spoken true things, once. Stronger minions. Selective design. Hybridization. Cannibalized evolution.

  The Hive Mind felt joy in its memories.

  “Your suggestion was valid.”

  Gnash perked up.

  “Yes-yes? Gnash helpful?”

  “You will be rewarded.”

  “No-no-no-no. Not reward. Not improvement. Just rest. Just sleep. Just leg from comparable minion, then try again. Gnash still good!”

  “You will be improved.”

  “Gnash declines. Gratefully declines. Not needed!”

  A shadow of thought summoned the workers.

  Hundreds of skittering forms poured in. Pale chitin and gleaming mandibles.

  Gnash swiped, sending dozens flying. It mattered not.

  “No! Gnash is tool, not clay! Gnash already useful!”

  “Failed tools are improved. Or useless.”

  The workers seized Gnash, and he screamed.

  But the voice didn’t reach the collective mind. The Hive Mind moved on.

  It spread outward, through root and rot and darkness.

  Find the fragment. Bring it home.

  Gnash would be reborn, whether he wished it or not.

  This was not defeat.

  This was just an adjustment.

  This was perfection and refinement.

  Nothing escaped the collective. Not even its broken pieces.