Three of Lam’s Furies had died fighting the stickmen. Nobody seemed particularly broken up about it, and Victor couldn’t help imagining himself in their shoes; one minute, they were marching along, joking and laughing with other prisoners, and then they were buried under some rubble, forgotten at the bottom of a deep pit in the ground. “If this is the fucking bottom,” he said, spitting into the dirt.

“What?” Gris asked.

“Just thinking about how shitty this is. Those dudes we just buried—nobody’s gonna remember them. Their families probably already considered them lost, right? I mean, I can’t imagine people are happy to hear about their loved ones coming to the Greatbone Mine. Here one minute, alive and fighting, gone the next, forgotten so they can be replaced by the next poor suckers the foreman sends down.” They were sitting on some rubble, eating hard rolls and dried meat that one of the veterans had handed out.

“Welcome to life, kid. Work as hard as you want, be as important as you want, but when you die, the world moves on.” Gris handed a skin of watery wine to Victor, and he took a long drink. It wasn’t strong enough to give him even a slight buzz, but at least it was something different.

“Yeah, it’s just bullshit, that’s all. I’m sick of being led around like a dog, told to fight one thing after another.” He spoke softly so as not to draw attention to himself, but he felt like he had to say something to someone. Gris chewed his hard, crunchy bread, staring at Victor for a moment before he replied.

“Victor, you know I’m not really your friend, right? I’ll have your back in a fight, as long as we’re fighting what Lam tells us to, but don’t get any ideas that I’m going to help you escape or some crazy thing. I’ve been down here three years and have five more months to go. I’m going to make it, and I won’t do anything that’ll stick my neck out. You understand me?”

“Yeah, I feel you.” Victor sat back against the stone and stared up at the ceiling, a hundred feet above. He studied the little sparkles in the rock that had to be reflections of the glowing Energy lamp. What made the reflections? Gemstones? Eyes? Flakes of ore? He had no idea, so he stopped worrying about it. “Hey, how long we gonna get to rest?”

“Probably until Captain Lam comes back. She’s scouting ahead into the ruins around here. Could be ten minutes, could be a couple hours.” Gris stretched out and hung an arm over his eyes. Victor sat up and cleared his mind, focusing inward on his Core. If he was going to get out of this place, he’d need to be stronger, and he couldn’t get much stronger until he fixed his Core. Could he fix it? He decided he had to; he was tired of being told what to do, and there was no way he’d be spending five years in this place. What would happen if he ran through his cultivation drill with his Core the way it was?

“One way to find out,” he muttered very softly and began the process. He called up one of his rage constructs and focused on it, feeling the heat start to spread at the very center of his being. It was working! He was so pleased that he almost interrupted the process. With the build-up of rage-attuned Energy, his little Core fragment started to pulse and flare very rapidly, and Victor had to begin the process of pushing Energy out and through his pathways right away. However, this proved beneficial because as he cycled the Energy around in his pathways, it started to absorb some of the little red pools of Energy that floated around his burgeoning Core. He pushed the Energy in an ever-widening circuit of his pathways, spread out from his Core all the way to his extremities and then back again. When the wave of hot, red Energy surged back into his little Core, it felt like a fire had ignited in the center of his body, and he watched with his inner eye as his little Core swelled, started to crack, and then slowly stabilized. The cracks healed over, and it pulsed more slowly and steadily. Looking at it, Victor thought it was easily twice as big as it had been when he’d started. He paused, took a long breath, and then looked at the Energy numbers on his status sheet:

Energy Affinity:

3.1, Rage 9.1

Energy:

118/49

“Oh, fuck yes,” he muttered. His Energy cap had more than doubled. Could it really be this easy? Just some cultivating, and his Core would be fixed? The asshole who’d fragmented his Core had acted like what he was doing was permanent. Thinking back to when he’d been strapped to the table while the weird-ass tentacled guy had reached into his stomach, he shuddered, but a vivid memory came to him—hadn’t the tentacled guy said something like he hadn’t broken a spirit Core before?

He looked into his Core again and saw the little pulsing, red sun still surrounded by tiny pools of Energy. The red, rage-attuned pools were significantly reduced, but the other white-yellow Energy pools seemed as numerous as ever. What was the deal with those? When his Core was fragmented, why had part of it lost its rage affinity? Not for the first time, he wished that he had some sort of expert to consult. He wondered how much Lam could teach him; she was the most powerful being he’d ever met and had to know things that could help him. He shoved the thought aside, though; there was no way he was going to let anyone know his Core was recovering, even a little. Not to mention, he had no real reason to trust her; just because she was awe-inspiring didn’t mean she would want to help him. The last thing he wanted was for her or someone else to decide he needed a stronger collar.

“You cultivating, Victor? I’m surprised it does you any good with such a weak Energy level. I suppose everyone can improve a little, eh?” Gris asked as if on cue.

“Hah, yeah, everyone always makes fun of me, but I figure it’s relaxing if nothing else.” Victor grinned, then stood up to stretch. It wasn’t much longer until Captain Lam came out of the deep crevice, glittering sparkles streaking after her as she flew over to the group and landed.

“Good news, delvers! I found another vein and even more ruins. We’ll set up a forward camp tomorrow so the diggers can come down and get started. Sergeant! Bring them back to the barracks!”

“Right, Captain!” Sergeant Fath shouted. “You heard the captain! Line up, cockroaches!” Victor snorted with laughter at being called a cockroach; part of him was pleased that the dirty little bastards were on this world too. They lined up and began the long march back to the barracks. Victor was glad for the distraction of the march cadence that Sergeant Fath began; this one had some colorful lyrics about people's mothers, and, with the positive results with his Core, he was in just enough of a good mood to laugh at the absurdity. At the start of the march, he applied his seven free points to his strength, dexterity, and agility attributes, figuring that he needed the extra physical ability while his Core was on the mend.

Their return to the barracks was uneventful; nothing attacked them, and their only stop was to ride the levitating platform back up to the main tunnel. When they got back, some of the delvers wanted to go to the Settlement Stone to turn in their quests, but Victor saw that he only had thirty-nine kills when he checked the status of his quest. He opted to sit on his bunk and do another round of cultivating. He’d gathered from Gris’s reaction that people couldn’t tell how much Energy he was moving around when he cultivated, so he figured it was safe to do. He was a little worried that someone as powerful as Lam would know what was going on with him, but she didn’t hang around in the main barracks, so he sat down on his bunk, folded his legs like Yrella had taught him, and began the process.

He’d managed to complete two full rotations of his cultivation drill when he became aware of a lot of activity and opened his eyes. People were gathering at the table for their evening meal, so he stretched and looked at his Energy stats:

Energy Affinity:

3.1, Rage 9.1

Energy:

125/125

He’d processed all the extra Energy he’d gained from his kills, and his Core now pulsed with deep, red Energy, sending warmth and a sense of potential through his body. He looked inward and saw that he’d gathered more than half of the little fragmented pools of rage-attuned Energy, though the unattuned Energy pools were still there. He was missing something when it came to those; he was sure of it. He had a small hope that they’d start to become absorbed once all of the rage-attuned Energy was gone, but he felt like there was more to it.

The unit’s dinner consisted of mystery meat drenched in fatty gravy, more hard biscuits, this time with butter, and a generous slice of some sort of melon. It reminded Victor of cantaloupe, but it was red with round, green seeds. Gris told him to eat the seeds when he saw Victor collecting them on his plate, so Victor gave it a try; they were tough, chewy, and spicy. Combined with the fruit’s natural sweetness, they were a surprising treat. After they ate, Captain Lam ordered everyone to sleep. She said they’d be starting extra early, and she didn’t want any noise coming from the barracks. The surviving members of the unit were exhausted, and respect for the captain and her sergeants ran deep, so everyone quickly complied, clearing off the table and quickly moving to their bunks to get what little sleep they could. Everyone except Victor, that is, he waited for those near him to fall asleep, then he silently sat up and began cultivating. He didn’t care how tired he would be; he was going to cultivate all night if possible.

Victor woke to someone kicking his bed. He jerked up and looked around; apparently, his exhaustion had overcome his desire to cultivate at some point. He looked at his Energy numbers:

Energy Affinity:

3.1, Rage 9.1

Energy:

274/274

He almost cussed at Gris in surprise, but he bit his tongue and stood up to fold his blankets. Then he hustled over to the line of delvers. He turned his attention to his Core and saw that it was swirling around, pulsing and glowing almost like it used to before he’d been damaged. He remembered having about five hundred Energy before they fucked his Core over, though, so something still wasn’t right. He studied the space around his Core and found that there were still tons of fragmented little pools of yellow-white Energy. Whatever that tentacle dude had done to him, his rage-attuned Core was not absorbing those fragments, and his cultivation drill wasn’t converting them. It was a problem, but one he could take his time to figure out; right now, he was just pleased that he wasn’t helpless when it came to Energy use anymore. Still, he’d have to be careful; he didn’t want any of the Greatbone employees to know what he was capable of, and Victor knew that the other prisoners were just as likely to rat him out as help him.

The march down to where they’d fought the horde of stickmen went smoothly. They ran into a couple of packs of the mulsii, but they were small groups and fled from the delvers. This time Victor was marching behind Gris, but a thin Ghelli woman, only about five feet tall, was in line behind him, and she kept trying to chat with him during the march. With the sergeant chanting a cadence, and everyone shouting it out in refrain, Victor had a hard time hearing her, but she was persistent. “I said, how’d you manage to not get any bites or anything during that last fight?” They’d just gotten to the site of their previous battle, and the sergeant had ordered them to drink and rest while they waited for Captain Lam to show up.

“What? Oh, I just watched my spot on the line and didn’t let any through. Why? Did you get bitten?” He looked at her thin, pale limbs and fragile little wings and tried to wrap his head around the idea that she was the same type of person as Captain Lam.

“Yes! One of them got around and bit me right on my butt cheek. No, I’m not showing you! It hurts when I walk, though. I wish they weren’t so stingy with the healing salves.”

“Ouch, that sucks.” Victor took a deep swig from the wineskin someone passed him and gave it to the girl. “What’s your name anyway?”

“Edeya. You’re Victor, right? I heard the old white-bearded man talking to you.” Victor smiled at the description of Gris.

“Yeah, that’s right. Anyway, nice to meet you, and remember, when you’re fighting shoulder to shoulder, you gotta trust the people next to you to have your back, so you can focus on the shit in front of you. Don’t let anything through, and leave it to them to do the same. I’m not trying to be a know-it-all; Gris told me this stuff.”

“Oh, thanks, but I already got an earful about that. You’re right, though; that was my problem.” She smiled, and Victor thought she was cute in a way, her features were very fine and pointed, but she had big green eyes and a friendly smile. She kept her hair cut really short, almost as short as his. He couldn't help thinking she seemed extremely fragile, and he had the dark thought lurking in his mind that he shouldn’t bother getting to know her because she’d probably be dead soon. He tried to think of something to talk about with her almost to spite that mean, bitter voice he seemed to be hearing in his head more and more.

“Hey, I’m kinda new to this world and don’t know much about Energy and Cores and stuff. Is it rude for me to ask what kind of Core you have?”

“Oh, I don’t think it’s rude, not when you put it that way. I have a pith class Core—It’s a nature-affinity Core very attuned to trees and plants.”

“That’s pretty cool. Can you make plants grow or something?”

“Hmm, yes!” Her grin broadened, showing off straight, white teeth, and Victor couldn’t help smiling back. “If I can get some levels, someday I’ll be able to craft living wood and even travel the Tree Road.”

“The Tree Road?”

“Yes! Some Ghelli with a Core like mine and with a suitable class can get a skill that lets them touch one tree in a forest and travel through it, traveling along the intertwining roots, to come out through any other tree in the forest!”

“That’s actually pretty badass. Nice!”

“Well, now it’s your turn. What’s your Core like? I noticed from your collar that it’s not, um, never mind.” Victor shrugged, reaching up to run his fingers around the circular iron band on his neck. Edeya had a collar that looked more like steel, and like the one Gris wore, it had dozens of intricate figures carved into it.

“Nah, don’t worry. It’s true. I’m from a world without any Energy, and when I came here, some asshole destroyed the Core I had.” He’d already rehearsed what he’d say to people inquiring about his Core. “I mean, I have a tiny little Core fragment left, but when I cultivate, nothing much happens.”

“Oh, that’s terrible! What savages! What kind of Core did you have?”

“Um, spirit.”

“Oh, no! Spirit Cores are so rare among my people! One of our elders had a spirit Core with a courage affinity! She was sought after by generals in Ridonne to encourage their troops before big battles. She made a fortune that she brought back to invest in our town.”

“Courage? That sounds pretty cool.”

“You have a funny way of speaking, Victor. I kind of like it!” She looked down, a bright rosy tint flooding her cheeks, and Victor suddenly imagined a mulsii sinking its long teeth into her shoulder and dragging her away. He shook his head and squeezed his hand into a fist until his nails bit into his palm. Just because she was delicate and just because she was friendly didn’t mean that she had to die. “Are you alright?”

“Um, just a headache. Sorry.” Victor was rescued from any further conversation when Captain Lam came streaking out of the dark crevice in the middle of the cavern. She strode over to the group of delvers, looking perfectly clean and coiffed like she’d just come out of a salon.

“Well, I killed a tier four salamander. There’s some trash for you all to clear out, but you should manage. Set up a barricade and the forward camp when the foothold is secure. I’m going to report my findings and let the foreman know to schedule a mining crew.” Lam spoke to Sergeant Fath, but it was easy to hear her clear, ringing voice. She strode past the delver unit, nodding to anyone that made eye contact, and Victor nodded back to her, standing up straight subconsciously.

“She’s amazing, isn’t she?” Edeya asked in a hushed voice.

“Yeah, that’s for sure. Fucking A.” Victor looked down and smiled when Edeya giggled at his words. “Yeah, I talk funny. I get it.”

“Alright, let’s move out. Captain says we gotta climb a pretty steep slope for about two hundred feet, then we’re going to be in the shit. Heads on a swivel, batons ready!”

“Here we go!” Edeya said, gripping her little baton and rushing over to line up. Victor frowned and hurried after her.

“Great,” he muttered, “now I feel like I have to watch her back.”

“You good, Victor?” Gris asked, coming up behind him.

“Yeah, about to crawl into a deep pit full of man-sized bugs and shit. Feeling great!”

“Aw, come on! We don’t know if it’s bugs; it could be spiders or giant lizards; it could be ghouls or imps. Heck, it’s probably not bugs!” He laughed and slapped Victor’s shoulder. Victor shook his head and followed Edeya into the crevice. The delvers slid and scurried down a loose slope of scree, keeping to the near side of the shaft. Every now and then, an Energy globe was attached to a wall or a rocky outcropping, and Gris said the captain had put those there for them.

“Must nice to be able to fly,” Victor said almost wistfully.

“Oh, I hope I can advance my race that far someday!” Edeya said over her shoulder.

“Are there many Ghelli that advanced?”

“No, not many. Only two in my hometown, and we had…”

“Quiet!” one of the veterans ahead of Edeya hissed.

“Aye, let’s hush,” Gris said from behind Victor. Victor looked around at the shadowy rift, wondering what lurked up in the high, rocky gloom. The captain’s lights allowed them to see where they walked, but they didn’t shed much light on the far side of the crevice. After a few minutes more, the word was passed up the line to get ready. They came around a bend, and Victor saw another large Energy globe spilling its yellow-orange light into a wide, low-ceilinged cavern, one wall of which gleamed and glittered in reflected light. “Damn me!” Gris whispered, “That’s the biggest amber-ore vein I’ve seen.”

The crevice opened into the cavern, and on the far side, perhaps two hundred paces away, a broad, dark tunnel continued into the depths. A howling, hissing, clacking cacophony erupted from that tunnel, and a wave of creatures rushed toward them out of the shadows. “Beetle riders!” Sergeant Fath screamed, “No holding back! Use your Energy! Captain Lam ain’t here to save us! C’mon down the slope; let’s get our backs to that wall!” Sergeant Fath charged down the remaining slope, and the line of delvers surged after him. Victor followed, of course, trying not to pass up the shorter-legged people in front of him but also wanting to hurry so he didn’t get caught out in the middle of the cavern when the “beetle riders” fell upon them. When they got off the scree-covered slope, Victor let his legs really stretch out, and he grabbed Edeya’s wrist, pulling her along with him. He’d barely gotten into position and pulled her next to him when the creatures, howling and skittering, closed the distance and attacked.

Victor raised his baton and smashed the head of a yellow and red beetle the size of a mastiff as it tried to jump onto Gris’s back. Gris, panting and red-faced, lined up next to Victor and offered him a nod of thanks, then the battle took his attention away. The eighteen Delvers were lined up against a solid wall of rock, and a skittering, hissing, clicking horde of beetles spread out before them. Every fifth beetle or so was being ridden by a little man-like creature with skin so pale, it looked transparent. They bore spears and crude clubs and axes, and they hissed and howled with mouths gaping open to display snake-like fangs. Victor wasn’t an expert on combat logistics, but in his amateur opinion, they were fucked.

At first, it didn’t go as badly as he feared; some of the delvers had some pretty amazing Energy skills, and they turned the tide in their favor for a while. Sergeant Fath roared out some kind of battle chant that seemed to invigorate the delvers, making Victor’s arms surge with buzzing energy. He felt confident and sure and laughed while he smashed his baton out in heavy overhead strikes at anything within range. He was careful to keep his place in the line and felt so good with the sergeant’s chant bolstering him that he had time to spare between opponents to throw an occasional smash at the creatures in front of Edeya. She didn’t complain, though she’d held her own so far.

One of the veterans a few spots down the line would roar every couple of minutes and breathe out a long, liquid belch of flames that would drench the beetles in front of him for a good ten paces, lighting them on fire and sending them hissing and squealing in a panicked, frenzied rampage through the horde. Some of the beetles they touched would also start to burn, and they’d go mad with pain and panic, lashing out at each other. Another delver was able to discharge electric shocks with his baton blows, though it seemed to drain him considerably. For his part, Gris would occasionally speed up to superhuman levels, smashing everything in front of him, sending shards of carapace flying, and driving into the horde for several seconds before rushing back, panting, to take up his position again.

Victor just plodded along, swinging and swinging, blocking, and kicking with his old worn boots whenever a beetle got too close. After seeing the fireworks some of the delvers were able to dish out, he began to have some hope that they had a chance. Still, the horde of beetles and their riders seemed to keep coming, and after several minutes of fighting, when his arm was burning from swinging his baton, one of the riders managed to slip a thin, stone-tipped spear past his guard and punch a hole about two inches deep under his left collar bone. Victor roared in pain and snatched the spear, pulling the pale, creepy little man close and bringing his baton down on his flat, hairless head. The creature’s skull deformed under the blow, and it dropped at Victor’s feet among the broken and smashed beetle corpses.

The corpses were starting to be a problem as they piled up; the fresh waves of enemies were crawling over them and coming at Victor and the other delvers from a greater height. On top of that, the space for maneuvering was becoming more and more cramped. Victor was starting to feel more and more exhausted, and his frustration at the situation was mounting. His shoulder and triceps were screaming with fire after swinging that heavy baton for the thousandth time, and, still, the creatures came pouring out of the tunnel.

Hissing like a snake, a beetle rider jumped off its mount toward him, swinging its axe in a two-handed overhead strike. Victor stepped forward, inside its swing, and smashed it in the side with his baton, sending it flying to his left, where it crashed into Edeya. She stumbled back, and then several beetles broke through and started swarming over her. A surge of guilt and panic hit Victor as he realized he’d caused her to fall, and he simply snapped, activating his Berserk ability for the first time since his Core had been fractured. Red washed over his vision, and his muscles sang with Energy. He howled in exuberance, smashing his way through the beetles that were snapping at Edeya’s legs, and then, with a monumental effort of will, turned away from Edeya and the delvers. He waded into the horde of beetles and their riders, swinging his heavy metal baton like a thin reed.

Victor’s baton whistled and shrieked as it split the air, blasting through carapaces and sending the lithe beetle rider bodies flying. He laughed maniacally, his mouth open in a leering grin as fluids and shell fragments splattered him. He had a plentitude of targets to brutalize, and at some point, in the midst of his rage, the sergeant started up his chant again, adding more fuel to his frenzied rampage. He mowed his way deep into the horde, laying waste to a wide circle of insects and their pale riders.

Victor was only aware of the need to destroy his enemies and didn’t have any sense of how the tide of the battle was flowing, but his rampage had given the other delvers a much-needed respite and chance to regroup. While he pushed ever further into the horde, accumulating cuts and bruises that seemed to heal as fast as they appeared, the other delvers, lead by the sergeant’s bellowed commands, pulled in tighter. They moved down the wall away from the piled corpses, readying themselves for the inevitable wave that would come when Victor finally fell.

Dimly, Victor was aware that his Berserk was fading. Though he was still in battle and tried to push more and more rage-attuned Energy into his body to keep the ability stoked, his Core was flickering and sputtering, having fed him everything it had. With a final surge, he smashed his way through a thin line of beetles so that he could mount the slippery, rubble-strewn ramp that led up out of the cavern. He’d just gotten through and gained a bit of ground when his Berserk finally faded, and he almost collapsed as the exhaustion hit him. He fell to one knee, and a beetle clambered up, snapping at his face. He managed to thrust out with his left hand, punching it under its snapping mandibles and flipping it back down the slope. Something sharp on its carapace ripped a jagged gash over his knuckles, but he’d gained enough room to struggle to his feet.

“Where the fuck?” Coming out of his rage-induced Berserk was like waking up from a dream. He had a dim memory of the fighting, but now, as he stood on the slope and looked over the chittering, clacking horde, he was utterly disoriented. He saw the delvers a hundred paces away fighting against the wall, and he saw a swath of dead beetles and riders, but there still had to be hundreds of the things. He weakly lifted his baton because some of the creatures were starting to surge up the rocky slope to him. “This is it? I’m going to be beetle food?” He was exhausted; his arms were numb and heavy, and his vision was dim, like his eyes weren’t getting enough blood or something. “Come on!” He screamed, trying to pump himself up, hoping to spark some adrenaline. A beetle came within reach, and he smashed down on it with his baton, nearly stumbling on a loose rock.

He’d just lifted his baton for another blow, grunting with the effort, when a gust of wind rushed past him, trailing a line of glittering sparks. “What the fuck?” Then his brain caught up with his eyes, and he saw Captain Lam streak down to the cavern floor, directly in the middle of the horde of beetles. A burst of crackling silver-tipped flames rolled out from her impact point, completely incinerating a hundred or more beetles in a perfect circle around her. She shouted in a pure, ringing voice, swinging her two-handed hammer around in great arcs, sending broken beetles flying with each swing. She carved a swath through the remaining insects to the line of delvers, and Victor, though he had another beetle in front of him to deal with, laughed in excitement at seeing something so utterly badass. His baton suddenly felt lighter, and his muscles less exhausted, and he beat the beetle and two more after it into broken carcasses.

By then, the other delvers and the captain had moved on to mopping up stragglers, and Gris helped Victor with the last few beetles near the ramp. When Victor saw Gris and saw that no more beetles were coming, he fell to his knees in exhaustion and smiled up at the old veteran. “Hey, I thought Lam wasn’t coming to save us? Somebody needs to tell the sergeant to quit being so pessimistic.” Gris was helping him to his feet when the air around them suddenly filled with a mist of golden motes. “Oh shit,” Victor said when he saw how much Energy was coalescing from the hundreds and hundreds of corpses. A massive stream of Energy surged toward him, and though he felt transfixed by the rush of vigor and well-being, he managed to see that his stream was broader and brighter than anyone else's, including the captain’s.

***Congratulations! You’ve achieved level 14 Spirit Champion. You have gained 14 will, 14 vitality, and have 14 attribute points to allocate.***

“So much for not getting noticed,” he muttered, though Gris seemed preoccupied with his own Energy surge. He looked around the cavern and saw that nearly everyone was dealing with their own problems, and for a second, he thought he’d skate under the radar, but then he glanced at Captain Lam and felt the weight of her gaze as it bored into him.