The darkness was cloying. I wasn’t certain if it was an aspect of my new armor, or if it was really just that dark. Even the flashlights, big and heavy enough to double as a vicious club, barely gave us enough illumination to see more than twenty or thirty feet ahead. The ground was a treacherous mix of concrete debris, gravel, and rocks.

And beneath our crunching footsteps was a litany of other sounds. Squeaks, skitters, and the occasional flapping of wings. The hair on my neck stood on end. Unlike the sanitized and cheery aesthetic of the Pedestrian Network tunnels behind us, there was a feeling of wrongness here. Not unlike the first time I entered the adaptive dungeon.

Something touched my neck, and I jumped, swinging the flashlight around and bringing my saber to bear. Jinny squinted in the light, looking nearly as surprised as I felt. I quickly pointed the flashlight away from her at the ground, so I could still see her face. She held a finger to her lips. At first, I mistook her meaning as some strangely timed reminder to not mention my discovery in the car. Then she pointed to her flashlight, then behind me in the direction we were walking.

I turned.

A green something at ground level was illuminated within the halo of her flashlight. Nick had slowed down considerably, and was gradually pushing forward, his angular shield held up to his chin. The metal of his armor was still audible, but less-so than it should have been. Possibly a side benefit of one of his feats.

I kept pace beside him, hefting the saber experimentally. It was bigger than I was used to, but still small enough that it fell within the purview of It wouldn’t slow me down.

Eventually, I got close enough to see what Jinny’s flashlight had been highlighting. It was a goblin. It could have been asleep, save the savage slash that ran from shoulder to waist, almost splitting it in half. I looked back at Jinny, and nodded that her message was received.

Jesus Christ.

It was overwhelming how many bodies there were. Mostly Goblins at first. Hewn, stabbed, eviscerated. I spotted at least a dozen, with more cropping up at every step.

Something occurred to me. A slight incongruity that didn’t make sense.

I messaged Nick directly.

Both the Arctic Wolf’s remains and the Flowerfangs corpses had disappeared from the dungeon on subsequent visits. Now that I thought about it, though, the Arctic Wolf’s pups had stayed where they were, buried in the snow.

Maybe it was because the creatures I killed existed in a dungeon, though why was beyond me.

The stench hit me just after he mentioned it. I stuck my flashlight in my armpit and pulled the neck of my under-layer of shirt to my nose, trying not to gag. It smelled like a mix of slaughterhouse and the apartment dumpster right before pickup day.

Just before it threatened to be too much, we were past the small enclave of goblins. It was still hell on my nose, but the bitter, chemical heavy scent that came next was at least marginally less nauseating.

There were a series of holes bigger than my head punched in the wall on the left side. I didn’t have trypophobia, but the visual was making me feel uncomfortable regardless. A bit of light from my beam bounced off something dark and reflective. It turned out to be chitin. A long and segmented centipede with a gaping maw, bigger than five Great Danes stitched together, was huddled in a death curl, its many legs clutched in on itself.

I noticed that Sae took the long way around, and I unashamedly followed her.

We kept up that pace for nearly half an hour. I’d slowly drifted towards the back of the group. My hands were shaking from nerves. I needed an opportunity to summon before we reached the Trial.

Thankfully, the others weren’t checking behind them often. I diverted the beam of my flashlight out of the view of the group, and rather than risking someone noticing the click, unscrewed the back-cap until it flickered off.

No one noticed.

Slowly, I began the process of summoning Talia. Beads of sweat formed on my forehead. I swiped at them until it was clear there was no point in doing so. It was all I could do to keep my breathing even and not draw attention to myself.

There wasn’t really a good way to do this. I needed her out now, in case something jumped us the moment we entered the trial. It was a risk, but this was possibly the only opportunity I had.

After a few more painstakingly long seconds, I felt her presence. To my right, I saw a flashlight beam pan across the tunnel wall. Someone was turning around.

”What—”

”Hide. Now.” I sent an image of my three companions, with making sure to draw attention to their flashlights.

I got a flash of displeasure in response, and felt a gust of wind rush against my neck. The flashlight blinded me. I held a hand up to block it, my eyes immediately watering. “Jesus.”

“Problem with the flashlight?” Sae’s voice called to me. She sounded genuinely concerned, rather than annoyed. I could feel my heartbeat in my throat.

Where the hell had Talia gone? I fought the urge to look for her, instead fiddling with the flashlight. “It—uh—just went off. Didn’t want to break silence unless I couldn’t fix it.”

“Not a bad way to get picked off, if that’s what you’re going for.” Sae’s voice echoed off the walls.

“We should be fine now. Looks as empty as last time. Make sure you use chat if something like that goes wrong,” Nick said. He sounded confused. Probably was wondering why I’d used chat to ask him about the bodies and not the flashlight.

I smacked the flashlight’s body twice and discretely screwed the cap in. The flashlight flickered back to life. “Fixed it. All good.”

After the others turned back, I felt another blast of displeasure mixed with smugness, this time coming from directly above me. I looked up, and immediately wished that I hadn’t.

The upside-down outline of a wolf clung to the ceiling. A long strand of venom hung from her mouth, her teeth bared as she breathed in and out.

“Get ahead of us. Find the Trial door. Get inside if you can." I attempted to keep the firm, revealing none of the uneasiness I felt.

“And if entrance is impossible? I am just a summon, after all.”The second half dripped with derision.

“Then wait outside, and say what I tell you."

“No.”

“Excuse me?” I felt the vein on my forehead, pulsing.

“I will follow your lead as long as our interests are aligned. But you will not puppet me, as you puppet the Flowerfang.”

“Fuckin—”

But she was already gone, her outline scampering along the ceiling, almost invisible unless you knew she was there. Up ahead, Jinny stiffened, her flashlight going to the ceiling just a minute too late. “We’re not alone.”

She placed her flashlight in her inventory and withdrew her staff, casting a handful of glowing white orbs that followed her. Talia had disappeared, using Jinny’s aside as a distraction. My palms were slick with sweat, cool air from the tunnel chilling my body.

This… wasn’t good. I could dismiss her, even at a distance. She was my summon. But I needed her for the trial, and the worst part was, the wolf knew it all too well. If Audrey had misbehaved, I had no doubts on my ability to compel her with But the revenant wolf was different. Harder to control. And any attempt to forcefully get the result I wanted from her would seriously limit her cooperation.

As much as it galled me, I decided to let Talia play this out. It took a long time to summon, but dismissal happened much more quickly. If she started saying anything I didn’t like, I could remove her in a matter of seconds.

“Heads up,” Nick called back to us. “Some kind of dog ahead.”

We’d reached our destination. The Trial was encased by a golden door, inlaid with inscribed patterns and violet gems that twinkled from Jinny’s halo of light. And sitting directly in front of the door, like some ancient guardian, was my goddamn summon.

Talia spoke aloud. “Welcome, humans. It is a good day for hunting.”

Even as the others spread out into formation, I fought the urge to bring my palm to my forehead.