After sorting through the wounded delvers and seeing to their injuries the best they could, Sergeant Fath directed the able-bodied prisoners in the construction of a barrier over the tunnel that led further into the depths. One of the veterans had a rune inscribed bag from which he pulled all the boards, hammers, nails, pickaxes, and saws that they needed for the construction. Victor worked hard, all the while wondering when he’d be singled out and called over to speak to Captain Lam about his prodigious Energy gains at the end of the fight. Nothing happened, though, save for a few of the delvers looking at him with more respect and clapping him on the shoulder, saying things like, “You really took it to those bastards! Nice fighting!” Edeya, who’d suffered a badly twisted knee, didn’t seem to blame him for getting knocked down and overrun, but he wondered if she even realized he’d been the one to throw that beetle rider onto her.

After they’d built a sturdy barricade over the tunnel, complete with mounted ballistae and ramparts for the defenders, Sergeant Fath handed a sack to Victor and another one to Gris and told them to get started collecting beetle corpses. “Um, how do I use this thing?” Victor asked Gris after the sergeant had walked away.

“You never used a dimensional container? The ones they let us use are enchanted so that multiple people can access them. Just concentrate on it, and send some of your Energy out to it. You’ll understand what to do after that.”

“Uh, right,” Victor said, looking at the big floppy sack he’d been handed. How was he supposed to ‘send Energy into it?’ He concentrated on his Core, and just as he did with his cultivation drill, he pushed some Energy out along his pathways, feeling the hot simmering rage tickle the back of his mind. He continued to push, as thin a stream of the Energy as he could, until it moved along into his hand, then he pushed harder, trying to shove it into the bag. Suddenly he became aware of the bag and the enormous space within it. He could see that it was empty without even opening it. Holding the bag in his left hand, he reached out to touch one of the beetle corpses and willed it into the bag. Like magic, the crumpled, gooey carapace poofed out of existence, and Victor became aware of it sitting in the bag’s dimensional space. “That’s pretty fucking cool.”

“Glad you like it,” said a strong, clear voice that sent shivers down his spine. Victor jerked his head around and saw that Captain Lam was standing just behind and to the right of him, watching him with her glittering emerald eyes. She’d put away her massive hammer but still wore her armor, and that, combined with her height, made Victor feel insignificant in her presence.

“Um, yeah. I’ve never used one before,” Victor muttered, holding up the sack.

“Sergeant Fath tells me you might be responsible for the delvers living long enough for me to make it back in time. You think that’s true?”

“Oh, uh, no, I don’t think so. Most of the veterans had some pretty awesome abilities. I just went a little crazy at one point and charged into the horde. I bet I would have done more good if I’d stayed in the line.” Victor watched her face while he spoke, wondering if she’d see through him. Her eyes narrowed a little, but her lips quirked in a smile.

“Being modest? Or are you hoping I won’t take note of your ability? I think it’s the latter; you don’t seem the modest sort.” She stood with her arms folded, and she tapped one long finger against her opposite elbow, studying him. Victor swallowed and stood up straighter. She wasn’t all that much taller than he, six or eight inches, but she just had a certain presence that made him feel small. He supposed it had a lot to do with her level and how much Energy she had.

“Well, to be honest,” he said, deciding that it might be wise to mix some truth with his dissembling, “I have an ability that causes me to kind of go berserk, but I don’t remember a lot after I do that.”

“Oh?” She looked at him and nodded. “When I read your contract, it made note of you having a dysfunctional Core. Surely your berserking ability requires a significant amount of Energy?”

“Well, yeah, but I had a lot of Energy saved up from yesterday’s fights. It doesn’t go to my Core, just kinda sits in my pathways and stuff.”

“Mmhmm. And you just received another large influx, correct?”

“Yeah.” He couldn’t see a way to hide that fact; she’d seen it with her own eyes.

“Your affinity must be high. Well, that’s beside the point. You have enough Energy to activate your berserking skill again, right?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Good. I can make use of you. Carry on; clean up this mess. I’ll let you know when you’re needed.” She turned and walked over to where Sergeant Fath was berating another delver who’d done something wrong, and Victor, though he struggled not to, watched her walk away with a very stupid expression on his face. He finally pulled his eyes back into his head and got to work cleaning up the beetle corpses. It took him the better part of an hour, even with another delver helping, so big were the piles of corpses and beetle parts in the wide cavern. When he and Gris finished, Sergeant Fath hollered at them to “eat something,” so they went over to where the wounded delvers were propped up near the amber-ore vein, and Victor sat down next to Edeya.

“How’s the knee?” He munched on the hunk of “rations” that one of the veterans had passed out. It was a chewy square of animal fat, dried meat, and dried berries and nuts. If you didn’t think about it too much and just ate it without wondering where the meat came from, it didn’t taste all that bad, and it was certainly filling.

“It’s sore, but Captain Lam told Fath to break out the good salve for it, and I can feel it getting better already. I think I’ll be able to walk pretty soon.”

“Well, that’s good!”

“It is! Victor, I thought I was going to die in that fight. I thought we all were. When I fell, and those beetles started crawling on my legs, I was sure it was over.”

“Yeah, um, I’m sorry about that.”

“What? Why? You’re the one that cleared them off!”

“Shit, you’re kidding, right? I hit the asshole rider-guy onto you. I’m the one that knocked you down.” He took another bite of his ration and stared at her, daring her to react.

“You’re too honest,” she said, “I mean, you didn’t have to tell me that. It doesn’t matter anyway; it’s not like you meant to knock me down, and you made up for it.” She shrugged, pushing herself up a bit higher against the stone wall, and then reached out and snatched the rest of Victor’s ration bar. “I’ll take this as payment.”

“Hey, what the hell?” Victor laughed and mock-snatched at the ration, and Edeya giggled, cramming it into her mouth. Her cheeks bulged out, her eyes wide, and Victor laughed even harder. “Ahh, I needed that. It’s good to laugh, you know?” Victor sighed deeply, stretching out his legs and knocking the heels of his boots against the hard ground, trying to get some of the crusty bits of carapace to fall off. He thought it was strange how he could laugh and joke around while stuck in his current mess. He was in a strange world, deep under the earth with a collar on his neck, being forced to fight monsters. “But I can laugh and joke around.”

“What?”

“Talking to myself. I’m weird, remember?” He bumped her bony shoulder with his elbow and smiled down at her.

“Well, what about?”

“Just thinking about how strange it is that people can find things to laugh about in the worst fucking situations. How long are you stuck in this place?”

“I owe two years. I took on some of my parents’ debt so they could avoid prison. My little sisters needed them home.”

“Jesus.” Once again, Victor was reminded that he wasn’t the only one with a raw deal in this place. “If I ever get out of here, I’m going to work to gain enough clout to put this fucking indentured servant bullshit out of business.”

“Hah, gonna take on the whole Ridonne Empire, hmm?”

“Alright, I know I don’t know shit, but I’m going to do something. Seriously. This system is garbage. I mean, it’s basically like allowing slavery without calling it slavery.”

“True. On the Beneset Steppes, some tribes openly enslave people they capture, but at least they’re honest about it. It’s awful, but you know what I mean.”

“I guess. After living like this, though, I couldn’t be okay with it for anyone.”

“Victor!” He turned to see Sergeant Fath staring at him and motioning for him to come over.

“Catch you later,” he said to Edeya, then got up and walked over to the big sergeant. “Yeah?”

“Go stand over by the barricade and wait; Captain Lam has a job for you.” He turned from Victor, looked up and down the line, and then shouted, “Heng! Come here!” He saw Victor still standing there and made a shooing motion toward the big wooden barrier. Victor shrugged and walked over to it, sighing with some relief when he saw the big Vodkin veteran coming over; at least he wasn’t being singled out. A moment later, they were joined by another veteran that Victor didn’t know the name of; a short but very stout, angry-faced Cadwalli with red and yellow irises in his weird goat-like face. Heng nodded to him when he walked up, but neither of them spoke.

“Uh, I’m Victor,” he said, looking at the two men.

“Heng. That’s Fenlale; he doesn’t talk.”

“Any idea what this is?”

“Nope.” Heng leaned his broad, leather-clad body against the barricade and spat off to the side. Victor noticed that both of the veterans had some decently thick-looking boots and vests, and their batons were larger and had those little System letters all over them.

“You guys buy your gear at that big stone thing with the shop in it?”

“Yeah, the Contribution Store. You pick up quests?” Heng asked.

“Uh-huh. Got one to turn in.”

“Yep.” Victor didn’t respond; he wasn’t really interested in pulling more grunts out of the recalcitrant fellow, and besides, he could see Captain Lam coming down the ramp. He watched her, wondering why she didn’t fly everywhere, but admiring the grace with which she traversed the ground. It was like watching a dancer; everything she did was smooth and perfect. He wondered just how high her dexterity and agility were. She didn’t pause by the other delvers, just walked straight up to the trio of them standing by the barrier and nodded in greeting.

“Alright, I found some ruins I want to explore, and I need you guys to watch my back while I dig around. Let’s go; I want us back here in a couple of hours.” She climbed the short stack of steps leading to the little rampart and leaped over the side, and the two veterans hurried after. Victor followed in their footsteps, once again feeling like he was caught in the wake of the events happening around him. He knew, logically, that he didn’t have a choice but still felt like he should be resisting somehow. While he dropped off the side, hanging from the rail to break his fall, he determined that his resistance would have to be mental for now. He’d continue to grow stronger, lie about his abilities, and take every opportunity to plan his escape. Surely he wasn’t the only prisoner down in the mines that felt that way, and they obviously weren’t having much success, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t make something happen. “Fuck anyone that says otherwise.”

Captain Lam and the others were standing a few feet away; she was looking at a document, tracing something with her finger, and the other two stood with batons in their hands, looking around nervously. Victor lifted his baton and looked around, walking over to them. The tunnel on this side of the barrier was about two feet higher than his head and a good ten paces wide with a reasonably steep, descending slope. They were still in a part of the tunnel illuminated by the big orb that Captain Lam had hung from the ceiling in the cavern, but it was dark just a bit further on. Victor was about to ask about the light, but Lam put the paper away and produced a glowing yellow orb, passing it to the burly Cadwalli veteran. “Alright, follow me. Victor, you bring up the rear. If you get attacked, use your berserking ability; don’t hold back.”

“Alright,” he said, squeezing his baton more tightly, glad for the leather grip that soaked up his sweat. Lam didn’t set an easy pace, striding quickly with her long legs down the tunnel. She turned down a side tunnel that Victor didn’t even see until he’d walked right up to it. The opening was a narrow crevice behind a protruding elbow of solid stone, and when the light winked out as Fenlale turned into it, Victor had a momentary panic but realized what happened and hustled after them. What the hell would he do if he got separated down here without a light? They followed the narrow, natural-seeming series of cavelike tunnels for a while, turning and descending several times until Victor was sure he’d struggle to find his way back with or without a light. Remarkably, nothing attacked them by the time the captain stopped, and Victor caught up to the trio.

They were standing in a tunnel mouth, looking out on another vast cavern. Fenlale had covered his glowing orb with his leather shirt, and Victor could see that the cavern was dimly illuminated by hanging moss that glowed with an eerie green-white luminescence. “Glow-moss,” Heng matter-of-factly said when he saw Victor staring around. An underground stream rushed through the cavern, and stone structures lined both sides of the stream, including a partially intact stone bridge. While they watched, a rumbling sound signaled some movement on the far side of the stream, and Victor saw a tail-like appendage disappear beneath a pile of rubble that might once have been another building.

“There it is,” Captain Lam said, pointing to the rubble pile. “It’s a greater rot fiend, tier-three or so. I’ll deal with it; you three need to make sure nothing jumps me while I’m fighting. If it’s something you can’t handle, try to keep it busy awhile, and I’ll try to hurry with the rot fiend.” The tunnel opened onto the cavern a good twenty feet from the ground, so Captain Lam produced a rope and piton, which glowed red when she pressed it against the tunnel floor and sank four inches into the rock with a soft hiss. As quickly as it had begun to glow, it returned to normal, and she hooked the rope to it, throwing it down toward the floor. “After I fly down there, hurry down the rope and take up positions around that pile of rubble so you can watch my back.”

Captain Lam looked at each of them, making sure they acknowledged what she said, then produced her huge hammer from some hidden container, hefting it in both hands. Victor had never seen it up close before, and he admired its craftsmanship. It had a long, black wooden handle topped with a silvery metal hammerhead pointed on one side and flat on the other. He figured it would weigh a good twenty-five pounds if the hammerhead were steel. Either she was ridiculously strong, or it was lighter than it looked because he’d seen her swinging it around like it was a broomstick. “Good luck,” he said, feeling like an idiot. Captain Lam didn’t make fun, though, just nodded her head and fell backward off the ledge.

Her abrupt departure caught Victor by surprise, but she rotated smoothly, and her brilliant, enormous dragonfly wings started to rapidly beat, throwing motes of sparkling light behind her as she raced toward the buried creature. “C’mon,” Heng said, grabbing the rope and dropping over the edge. Fenlale followed close behind, and Victor brought up the rear. They descended quickly, then hurried over the broken stones on the cavern floor, moving between ancient buildings toward the sounds of crashing rocks and hissing shrieks that had erupted in the distance. “Matron! She could have waited for us to get closer!” The big otter-man leaped over a collapsed stone pillar, and Victor almost laughed at how funny it was to see such a wide man move so nimbly.

“I’ll go left!” Victor shouted at the backs of the other two delvers, then turned left around a large stone structure blocking their path; the other two went right. He figured that they shouldn't all be in one spot if the captain wanted them to watch her back. He rounded the building and had a short stretch of open ground ahead of him, down which he could see the stream flowing. He sprinted for it, wondering if he could make the jump or if he’d need to traverse the ancient bridge. While running, he sped past stone buildings, some intact, others nearly completely collapsed. He heard another tremendous crash and then a roar that vibrated his body; he clapped his free hand over his ear and tucked the other one against his shoulder, trying to spare them from the outburst. The sound cut off with an almost comical squeak, and Victor resumed his dash to the river.

When he passed by the last of the structures on his right and could see clearly over the bridge, he finally caught sight of Captain Lam and the creature she was battling. Lam moved in dashes and leaps that carried her a dozen feet in the air; Victor, again, wished he had wings like that. The creature was the size of a hippopotamus and built similarly, though it was shorter with six legs, a long flailing tail, and a nest of probing, spiked tentacles surrounding a slender, pointed beak. Victor watched Captain Lam leap over its back, avoiding its thrashing tail, land near its left rear haunch, and smash her hammer into its hip with a thunderous crack. Still trying to watch the fight, Victor began to trot along the river toward the partially crumbled stone arch. He was moving past a low-walled ruin when something burst up from the riverbank and slammed into him, knocking him through an ancient door, disintegrating it into a cloud of desiccated wood dust. Whatever hit him was growling and slobbering, its hot, wet mouth worrying at his shoulder as they tumbled together into the ruin.

When they smashed into the far stone wall, coming to a halt, Victor, still madly gripping his baton, began to thrash down at whatever was digging and clawing at him. It was dark in the small structure, but he caught glimpses of dark fur and gleaming yellow eyes. The creature finally secured a good hold on his shoulder and crunched down, and Victor screamed as long fangs punctured his shoulder, and the beast began to shake its head back and forth, like a terrier killing a rat. It hurt so badly that he lost track of his thoughts and simply activated Berserk. Suddenly red rage flooded his vision, and he no longer felt any discomfort from the horrible bite on his shoulder; he just felt the annoying pressure and wanted to be rid of it.

Victor stopped screaming and thrashing and got his feet beneath him, standing up and lifting the heavy beast with him. He charged forward, carrying it, still clinging to his shoulder, and bodily slammed it into the stone wall. He felt its heavy, scrabbling body compress under his weight against the wall, and its jaws sprang open, releasing his shoulder. Victor took a step back and began to methodically and mechanically smash his baton into an area where he could see the creature’s eyes reflecting light. His first blow cracked something, and the next ten or twelve began to spray wet, warm fluid on each backswing. When nothing came looking for round two, Victor started to pant and look around, wondering, in his rage, what else he could kill. He paced around in the dark interior of the building, growling and grunting, his fury unrequited.

When he got to the back corner of the structure and turned, still hunting a new victim, Victor saw the dimly lit doorway and charged toward it. He took two steps, and then his foot broke through the old flooring, and he fell about eight feet to smash onto a cold stone floor. He sat up, glaring around in the dark, and a glinting silver light caught his eye. He stared at it for a moment, and that’s when the red started to bleed from his vision, and his berserking rage began to cool. The air was cool and moist, and as his mind came back to him, Victor realized he was sitting in a shallow puddle; water dribbled in from between blocks in the walls. “From the river,” he said aloud, his voice hoarse.

Victor glanced around, confused at first about where he was, but then he saw the hanging, broken floorboards and dimly remembered falling. When he looked at the hole in the ceiling, he realized it was limned in a silvery light and remembered what he’d seen while under the influence of his rage. He jerked his head to the far corner, and there, stretched out as though it was reclining against the stone blocks, was a long, yellow-boned skeleton of a humanoid. Around its neck was a silvery pendant that shone with a white-silver light. Victor didn’t stop to think; he just stood up and rushed over to the skeleton, briefly noting the alien shape of the skull with a small crown of black horns protruding from its brow, and lifted the necklace over its head. The chain caught on one of the horns, but he wiggled it free.

He heard the clash of combat, though it seemed distant, and remembered that he was supposed to be watching Captain Lam’s back. “I am, though. Didn’t I just kill something?” Using the light from the amulet, he looked around the skeleton and saw that it had a ring on its long, bony middle finger. He pulled it off the bone, marveling that both it and the amulet were shiny and untarnished. Nothing else remained of the skeleton’s possessions, though some matter beneath it that he took for moss might have been badly decayed clothing. Not wanting to get caught with his loot, Victor stuffed the amulet and ring into his pants’ pocket and then moved over to the hole in the ceiling. He jumped up, grabbed hold of an intact beam, and pulled himself up.

Victor saw the crumpled, shadowy form of whatever he’d been fighting and moved over to it. He could still hear Lam fighting in the distance, so he risked a quick reveal of his amulet to shine its light on the creature; it looked like a huge, black-furred rat. Victor stuffed the amulet back in his pocket, grabbed one of the rat’s hind legs, and dragged it out of the smashed doorway into the cavern proper. He pulled it further away from the building, toward the bridge, and then threw it against a different building’s wall. He’d acted on impulse, but when he thought about it, he realized he didn’t want to leave evidence that he’d been in the building with the skeleton. There was no way he was going to tell anyone about the amulet or ring he’d found.

He was standing with his hands on his knees, gathering himself, when Heng came charging across the stone bridge. He saw Victor and ran over, “That’s a big one! Jumped you on your way over, huh?”

“Yeah, got me by surprise! Had me by the shoulder and was dragging me around like it wanted to bring me home for dinner.”

“You don’t look hurt,” Heng said, eyeing him up and down.

“Yeah, I had to use my berserking ability. It healed me up, but I lost track of myself and where I was until it wore off.”

“You missed a hell of a fight. Captain had to break almost every bone in that thing’s body before it stopped trying to fight.”

“Nothing else jumped you guys?”

“Nah, I think other rats and stuff nearby got scared from the racket. C’mon, Fenlale’s butchering that beast. The captain wants some of its organs for some reason.” Victor followed Heng over the bridge, avoiding the half where the stones had fallen into the river, and then down the far side of the bank to the scene of the captain’s battle. The huge creature looked smaller in death, deflated and limp with most of the fluid it had once held, running down the stones and into the river. Fenlale had carved a yard-long window into its abdomen and pulled out the entrails, which instantly brought Victor to his knees, retching, when he smelled them. “Haha, get it out, kid. We’ve got more carving to do.”

Heng said Captain Lam left as soon as she’d finished killing the beast without explaining where she was headed. She didn’t make an appearance until they’d finished butchering and taken turns washing the guts and blood off themselves in the cold river water. She moved quietly, and Victor didn’t notice her presence until her voice rang out from behind him, saying, “Fenlale. Where’s the bag you put the organs in?” The mute man jumped to his feet and pulled a small pouch from his vest. He ran over to the captain and handed it to her. “Good. Alright, let’s move out. I’m done here for now. Good news for you, delvers: I’m going to need to take a trip to town tomorrow, so I’ll give you a day off. You can use the time to turn in quests, rest up and train.”

“Yes!” Heng clapped Fenlale on the back, and Victor couldn’t help grinning. He had a lot to do, and a day off would serve nicely. He’d find a quiet place where he could try to inspect his secret loot, he’d turn in his quest, and he’d spend some time trying to figure out what was up with his Core. Had he had an entire day to himself since coming to this world? He decided he better not count his chickens before they hatched; just because Captain Lam was leaving didn’t mean the other veterans would leave him alone. He could hope, though.