The six-legged lizards were not especially dangerous individually. They were no bigger than medium-sized dogs and posed little threat. What made them troublesome was that they were extraordinary in both their hardiness and their number. A group of lizards was normally called a lounge, but the mass of creatures the team was viewing from a distance would be better described as a swarm or even a carpet.

“Desert horde lizards,” Henrietta said. “They’re not a real danger to an adventurer, but they’re a lot harder to kill than they look. Most of the time they'll just lay about in the desert sun, not bothering anyone. If they're on the move, though, they're looking to feast. They can come down on a town like a swarm of giant locusts. Regular people have no chance of putting them down.”

She turned to the team, looking down at the monsters from a high ridge. “Any volunteers?”

“Let Belinda and I go,” Jason said.

Henrietta raised her eyebrows. She had paired Jason and Belinda together the most because the combination had shown the least results. While their effectiveness had improved, that improvement had come from combining individual effort instead of operating as a unit.

“You have something to show me?” Henrietta asked.

“We've been working on some things,” Belinda said. “This should be a good enemy to show off the results.”

Henrietta acceded and Jason and Belinda made their way down the sharp ridge. The lizards were following the base of the ridge around, so by going down one side, they had time to make preparations before the lizards arrived. They called out their familiars, except for Colin, and Jason pulled out a large flat board, setting it on the ground. Belinda took out a stick of chalk and started drawing out a ritual circle.

Clive was the team's master of ritual magic, with a breadth of knowledge that regularly staggered Jason, who was learning from Clive. Belinda was likewise learning from Clive, but for her, it was more like filling in gaps. When it came to a certain branch of magic, the deception and intrusion branch, even Clive had something to learn from her. The circle she was drawing out wouldn't visibly disguise them, but it would contain any aura they inadvertently revealed while using essence abilities.

Desert horde lizards were short-sighted, relying more on aura senses than normal sensation to sense prey or other predators. So long as the lizards had something else to hold their attention, Jason and Belinda should be able to cast spells from a distance without being detected.

They sent their familiars forward to meet the monsters as they came around the ridge. Remaining behind were Colin, still in Jason’s blood, and one of Shade’s three bodies, currently serving as Jason’s shadow.

The lizards became a boiling cauldron of chaos as they surged on the familiars, the aggressive monsters piling over each other to reach them. Their savage bites had little effect, with Gordon, Shade and Belinda’s living illusion all being incorporeal. Belinda’s flying lantern floated out of reach, blasting down bolts of force. The inherent magic in the monsters allowed them to minimally affect the familiars, but not to the point they posed a genuine threat, even in massive numbers.

The familiars, in turn, didn’t make much of a dent on the lizards. Only Gordon, with his resonating-force beam, inflicted any effective damage. The goal was not to inflict damage, however, but to hold the attention of the monsters. Only once Jason and Belinda were certain the lizards were focused entirely on the familiars did they start casting spells. Jason started, chanting a spell that, from the victim’s perspective, gave no indication of where the caster was. At the distance they were at, there was no chance of the lizards hearing his quiet recitation.

“Carry the mark of your transgressions.”

Ability: [Castigate] (Sin)

Spell (curse, holy).Cost: Moderate mana.Cooldown: None.Current rank: Iron 8 (19%).Effect (iron): Burns a painful brand into the target, inflicting slight transcendent damage and the [Sin] and [Mark of Sin] conditions. The brand cannot be healed so long as the target retains any instances of [Sin].[Sin] (affliction, curse, stacking): All necrotic damage taken is increased. Additional instances have a cumulative effect.[Mark of Sin] (affliction, holy): Prevents aura retraction. Cannot be cleansed while target retains any instances of [Sin] or [Legacy of Sin].

A small amount of transcendent damage burned a brand into one of the lizards and it gained two afflictions. The important one was sin, which increased any necrotic damage. There was no indication as the source of the spell and Jason’s rigid aura control kept it from leaking as he used the ability. Even if it had, Belinda’s ritual circle would have contained it. The unintelligent lizard became frenzied as it renewed its attention on the obvious enemies, the familiars.

Right after Jason used his spell, Belinda used the same incantation and cast the same spell on a second lizard. Her aura control wasn’t as practised as Jason’s, which was why the ritual was primarily for her.

Ability: [Mirror Magic] (Magic)

Special Ability.Cost: Varies.Cooldown: Varies.Current rank: Iron 2 (91%).Effect (iron): For a short time after a nearby ally uses a spell, you may use the same spell one time. The strength of the spell you cast is based on your attributes and the rank of this ability and your attributes, not those of the original caster. This may make your version of the spell higher or lower rank than the original, including losing or gaining additional effects from higher ranks. This ability has the same cost and cooldown as the original spell.

In the past, Belinda had mostly used the ability to copy Clive’s potent attack spell. As she and Jason had spent evenings looking for more ways to synergise their powers, they had a revelation. Jason’s abilities might be less impactful, but they also had no cooldown. In circumstances where he needed to use them over and over, Belinda could double the rate of application.

Jason followed up his castigate spell with inexorable doom, to get the sin affliction multiplying. Like his first spell, it gave no indication of its source, manifesting directly on the target. This was rare in abilities with more immediate effects and most often found in single-target afflictions powers. Such abilities could ignore many physical obstructions, so long as the target was visible. It took magical protection, such as the common mana shield ability, to prevent the easy use of such a power.

Jason’s familiars were his key tools in dealing with that particular problem. Colin could slither right through the shield, which didn’t register movement as an attack unless it was much faster than Colin could manage. Only if spraying out of Jason would it count, so Jason would usually have to bait such enemy into Colin’s range.

Shade couldn’t usually get through such powers, with magic shields blocking even movement from incorporeal creatures. With the mana shield ability specifically, though, which directly manifested mana as a shield, he could drain mana directly from it. Mana shield was an extremely common power, available through many essences. Clive and Neil both possessed it as did Sigrid and Claire, the healer from Rick Geller’s team. It made Shade very useful for breaking through that specific power.

For Gordon, breaking magic shields was a much more straightforward problem. His disruptive-force beam wasn’t wildly powerful, but its sustained effect would break down magical shields very quickly. However the shield went down, it would give Jason a chance to get a spell in before the shield snapped back into place.

None of that was necessary against the lizards, however. Jason would cast his castigate on one lizard and follow up with inexorable doom, Belinda following up on a second. He used castigate, she used castigate. He used inexorable doom, she did the same. She could only duplicate a spell once for each time it was cast by the original user. The cost and duration of the ability were equal to the cost of the copied power.

Neither of Jason’s spells had a cooldown, so they were able to paint the lizards with brands and afflictions. Both spells had a moderate mana cost, so it wasn’t until they were done that their mana pools started to get low. Jason’s wasn’t as bad as Belinda; his recovery attribute was more than half a rank higher hers and his mana had been naturally replenishing faster. She drank a mana potion to compensate.

“Is that all of them?” Belinda asked.

“It should be most of them at least,” Jason said. “You put on the big show and I’ll mop up after. Call them back, Shade.”

Jason’s shadow was one of Shade’s three bodies, while the others were helping hold the lizard’s attention. One of the tricks Belinda and Jason had developed was to use Shade to direct their familiars allowing them to work at a distance effectively. Belinda’s familiars didn’t hesitate to come back, then when Shade relayed the call to return.

Most of the lizards had suffered brands put in place with unstoppable transcendent damage, far from crippling but painful. It had sent them into a frenzy in their pursuit of the familiars, which they immediately chased as the familiars started to fall back toward Belinda and Jason.

The lizards were collected nicely in their pursuit, so when a crystal rod appeared in their midst, they were all within range of its effect.

Ability: [Force Tether] (Trap)

Conjuration.Cost: Low mana-per-second.Cooldown: None.Current rank: Iron 1 (34%).Effect (iron): Conjures a crystal rod, from which a tether of shimmering force connects to all nearby enemies within a moderate range. Tethered enemies are dragged toward the rod, which is protected by a force field that inflicts moderate resonating force-damage to anyone in contact with it. If the force-field is ruptured, it explodes in a wave of resonating-force damage. If the rod is destroyed or removed from its location then it explodes in a wave of disruptive-force damage. Dimensional displacement, such as teleportation, severs the tether. Untethered enemies who enter within range of the rod become tethered. Only one rod may exist at a time.

The force tether was a powerful control effect against groups of weaker enemies. Stronger enemies, or someone like Humphrey, could resist the pull of the rod with physical might. The lizards, however, were nowhere near as strong as they were tough. The tether quickly dragged them into a pile, burying the rod and its small force field underneath them. Belinda then used another conjuration power.

Ability: [Pit of the Reaper] (Trap)

Conjuration (dimension).Cost: High mana.Cooldown: 2 minutes.Current rank: Iron 1 (14%).Effect (iron): Conjures a dimensional space pit on any horizontal surface. The surface does not need to be solid or supportive. Anyone inside the pit suffers ongoing necrotic damage. If this spell is cast again while a pit already exists, the existing pit vanishes, depositing anyone inside upon the surface on which the pit was conjured.

A hole in the ground appeared under the pile of lizards and they fell in. A few lizards around the periphery remained outside of the pit from the sheer size of the monster pile managed to scramble out of the pit’s area in time, but the crystal rod that was the source of the force tether in the air also fell down, dragging them over the edge and into the pit with the others. Being moved from its original location triggered the rod and its force field to explode, the twin waves of force smashing lizards into the frictionless walls of the pit.

Soon, the shrieking cries of the lizards came rising up from the pit. The pit’s necrotic damage was not a large amount but most of the lizards were stacked high with the sin affliction that multiplied it. The screams started to diminish as the lizards died, until the duration of the pit ended after just over a minute.

The only lizards that survived were the ones who hadn’t been branded because Jason and Belinda missed them in the original sprawling group. Those surviving lizards started moving in the direction of Belinda, Jason and the returned familiars.

“Gordon, intercept any that move on Belinda. Shade, one on me, one on Lindy and one with Gordon.”

Jason broke into a sprint in the direction of the lizards. The familiars were quickly following. Jason leapt into the air, combining the power of his cloak and his magical boots to go sailing over the monsters.

Item: [Sand-Cutter Boots] (iron rank, rare)

Boots incorporating the chitin of a sand-cutter, inheriting some of its power (apparel, boots).

Effect: Improved ability to walk on sand.Effect: Increased jump height and distance.Effect: Enhanced kick attack. Highly effective against enemies with strong earth affinity.

He cut his hand as he passed over, raining Colin down over the monsters before he landed lightly on the other side. The now frenetic lizards wheeled around to go after him, even as Team Colin dug into them. Jason didn’t bother trying to finish them himself, instead dancing around, playing distraction the way the familiars had before. Gordon and Belinda’s lantern from the other side started beaming them, splitting their attention.

Any time a lizard got too close, Jason swung a kick in front of it. A chain-whip of razor shards came out his boot with every kick, causing the lizards to flinch at the surprisingly deep lacerations it gouged out of them. Like many desert monsters, they had a strong earth affinity, making them vulnerable to the attacks of Jason’s boots.

Lack of intelligence was the biggest weakness that low-rank monsters possessed, Jason and his familiars playing them back and forth as Colin did his work. Jason could easily teleport between Shades, one remaining on the far side of the monsters, one with Belinda and one in between, with Gordon. Soon enough, the surviving stragglers were finished, Jason using his execute on some of them to help level the power.

After the fight was done, the pair made their way back up the ridge. Belinda was exhausted, dripping with sweat despite the refreshing power of her magical bracelet. Jason had replenished himself on the bodies of the fallen monsters with his blood harvest spell, so was back to full strength.

“That was excellent,” Henrietta told them. “Belinda, you're only just beginning to realise the potential in your powers. You'll be able to handle monsters of your own rank well enough, but once you have full command of your abilities, working alone would be an egregious waste. You need to be the mortar in a brick wall. You can make an adequate wall with just bricks, but the mortar makes it so much better than it ever could be without it.”

She turned to Jason.

“You are something on an opposite,” she told him. “You’re strong on your own and you’re harder to mesh with others without taking away some of your greatest strengths. Because of that, you need to develop different skill sets for when you're operating in a team to working alone. To truly be part of the team you have to use them as more than just a distraction while you have your own fight. I have no doubt you could have conducted some version of what you did here by yourself, but by integrating your abilities you developed a reliable, effective and efficient strategy.”

“Thanks,” Jason said. “I was kind of waiting for the turn-around there where you start telling me what I did wrong.”

“You weren’t perfect, by any means,” Henrietta said, “but you're coming along. Your rapid improvement tells me that Humphrey knew what he was doing when he put this team together. There's a lot of potential here.”

The team's route had taken them north from Greenstone, up the coast, inland over the sands of what Jason knew as the Nambi desert and into the Kalahari. There was more plant life, patchy and dry though it was, with mountains dotting the horizon. Jason had been looking to his map as they travelled, which unveiled space as he passed through it. He had been watching as their path formed a loop of revealed space, his eyes always turning back to the point the loop would close.

Because of his map ability, Jason had been playing team navigator. One of the map’s functions, he discovered, was to mark waypoints, even to areas that were still veiled. He could use the waypoint to mark out a route and use the mini-map feature the map gained when it evolved to keep them on track. As navigator, Jason occupied the other front seat of the skimmer, next to Clive who was driving. When the loop had almost closed entirely, he leaned over at Clive and talked over the sound of air rushing through the magic ring at the back of the skimmer.

“Can we take a little detour?” Jason asked. “Should only be about an hour out of our way for the skimmer.”

“What is it you want to see?” Henrietta asked from behind him.

“Some blood cultists tried to sacrifice me and my friends in this big ritual chamber, inside a mountain. I wouldn't mind taking another look, now that I'm not terrified out of my wits and I've spent more than a few hours in this world.”

“I definitely want to see that,” Humphrey said. “I’ve heard the story and I’d love to see where it happened.

Henrietta looked at the others and got a general consensus of nods.

“Alright, then,” she said. “Let’s go take a look.”

The entrance was a cave was easy to miss from any kind of distance, but they spotted the remnants of a magic Society expedition. Trash, debris and a couple of abandoned tents that seemed to have suffered a monster attack made for an obvious marker.

“That’s the problem with these expeditions in the desert,” Clive said, examining the tents after the skimmer pulled up. “There’s not a lot out here, so they tend to attract monsters.”

“When did the Magic Society come here?” Jason asked.

“Right after Rufus gave his report to the Adventure Society,” Clive said. “After hearing what happened, the Adventure Society referred it to us so we could assess the site for potential future threats.”

“Did you find any?” Neil asked. “Might be worth knowing before we go in there.”

“No,” Clive said. “Ultimately, it was just an ordinary, if impressive ritual room. If anything, the main value is historical. Like the Sky River Aqueduct or the Order of the Reaper complex we found under the swamp, the ritual room here predates the settlement of Greenstone. It seems like the Vane family simply found it and made use of it.”

They went in through the cave, down the long tunnel into the mountain. Glow stones were pulled out to light the way.

“The cult had these strange red lanterns that washed everything the colour of blood,” Jason said. I don’t know if they had some kind of purpose, or were just aesthetic.”

They emerged into the main chamber. The stairs, like carved pegs jutting out of the wall, wound their way up and around the cylindrical chamber. There were larger platforms at cardinal points as the stairway went up. On the floor level, what used to be the pool of blood-like liquid still occupied most of the space. It was now drained, reminding Jason of an empty swimming pool in some abandoned house.

“The pit was full of this nasty liquid,” Jason told the others walking over to look inside. It was about as deep as Jason was tall, a featureless pit of dark stone. “There was a light shining out of it that washed everything red, like those lanterns I mentioned.”

“It smells like blood in here,” Sophie said.

“Not like it used to,” Jason said. “The air was thick and heavy with it, then. I was pretty woozy because I'd already been knocked out a few times that day.”

“The Magic Society team examined and disposed of the liquid,” Clive said. “It turned out to be mostly water, mixed with various alchemical materials. There was also a lot of blood in it. The team estimated at least a dozen people died to produce it. The report described the substance as reminiscent of blood that refused to dry or clot and was extremely unnerving, even with the magic within it gone dormant.”

“The Adventure Society made their own investigation,” Jason said. “I was qualified to look at the report after I reached three stars. It turns out that the Vane family had been preying on the towns in the region for years and passing it off as monster attacks.”

“I can’t believe they were really eating people,” Neil said. “I knew Landemere Vane. Not well, but I saw him at social events.”

“I knew him as well,” Clive said. “We shared the same magical specialty. I thought he was a genius, seeming to pluck these incredible innovations out of the air. Now we know he was getting them from the Builder cult all along.”

Jason walked them through the events of that day, as best as he remembered them.

“This was the platform where they left me. They dropped Gary first because he was the heavy one. If you look over the edge you'll see the doorway on the other side of the room. I jumped off the edge of the platform and used my cloak to float down. All I had was that and my dark vision power. My intention had been to run like hell, and I almost did.”

“But you came back,” Humphrey said.

“To hear Gary tell it,” Jason said, “it was some brilliant scheme to lure off some of the cultists. The truth is, I really was running. But I was unconscious when I arrived and had no idea what was at the end of that tunnel. I knew I would need help if I didn't want to be recaptured ten minutes later. Also, I'd been whacked around the brain too many times. My judgement was compromised.”

They continued up the stairs.

“This is where Rufus had a sword fight, except his sword was this evil magic gardening trowel that I found at the Vane Estate. I wish I had a recording crystal of that. it was incredible.”

They went all the way to the top, the platform once holding the altar now empty. He walked up to the edge, looking down with a sigh.

“The first time I ever deliberately killed a person was in this room. Landemere Vane was the first, back at the estate, but that just kind of happened when we were struggling over a knife.”

“These people would have killed you, too,” Humphrey said. “That’s the whole reason they brought you here.”

“I know,” Jason said. “I don’t regret the way it turned out. But this is the first place I ever decided to kill a person and then did it.”

He turned back and gave Sophie a sad smile.

“You probably think I’m a spoiled fool,” he said to her. “The life you’ve had, and here I am complaining about the things you probably did far younger.”

“You’re definitely a fool,” Sophie said, giving him a wry smile. “And yes, I had to make that decision younger than you. That doesn’t make it easy, though, whenever it happens.”

“It was bandits, for me,” Humphrey said. “I’d only just gotten my essences and was still training. I was out with my cousin, Ernest, who was looking through monster notices for something I could handle. We were on a hunt and came across this trade caravan fleeing from bandits. Their leader was bronze-rank, so Ernest was tied up fighting him while I took the others. I knew my special attacks were powerful, and I’d seen what they could do in the mirage chamber, but it was different in real life. I mean, it wasn’t, but it was. It’s terrifying how easily people can die. That first bandit, when I hit her... it was like the top half of her just exploded, raining down into the mud in unrecognisable chunks. It didn’t even land on me; the power blasted it all away. I remember thinking it was odd that I stayed clean.”

“It was bandits for me too,” Clive said. “They raid the remote farms and ranches in the delta, sometimes. They didn’t know my family had an adventurer son, or that he was visiting.”

Clive’s face twisted into an uncharacteristic rage.

“They found out,” he said quietly.

They made their way back down to the bottom of the chamber and Jason pointed out scorch marks, hard to spot against the dark stone.

“This is where we fought the sanguine horror,” Jason said. “Farrah got her suppression collar off and blasted it to ash.”

“Quite a way to begin your journey as an adventurer,” Henrietta said.

“You know, I’m not sure I even knew what an adventurer was, the last time I was here,” Jason said. “Rufus, Farrah and Gary only had a chance to start answering my many, many questions on the way back to the Vane Estate. It’ll be interesting to see that place again.”