One of the spiders sprinted up the side of a small wooden fence and launched itself at the Corpse Hunter. He batted the creature away with his shield, sending it flying through the window of a burning hut. The arachnid wailed in pain as the flames consumed its body.

Two more fell to the ground in pieces as Aiden’s blade met them at the apex of their jump attack. The remaining three skittered towards him at ground level. He crushed one beneath his leather boot and smashed another into the ground with the edge of his shield, nearly crushing the spider in half.

With the Corpse Hunter’s focus split between multiple enemies it wasn’t surprising that one had managed to slip by him. A stinging sensation in the back of his calf told the man in gray that one of the monsters had succeeded in their assault. Looking down he saw one of the dinner plate size spiders wrapped around his right leg.

Aiden dropped his sword and tore the creature off his leg, hurdling it against the stone fireplace of a hut ten feet away. The spider’s carapace shattered on impact, leaving a large purple blood stain against the stonework as it slumped to the ground. It did not get back up.

The man in gray picked up his sword and began calling out. “Hey kid!”

Silence.

“Kid!” he continued to shout as he made his way through the small village looking for any signs of the child. “Godsdamnit say something!”

When the sound of coughing caught his attention Aiden ran towards its source. The small building was fully engulfed in flames causing the man in gray to shield his face from the heat as he approached.

“Maria, get away from the door!” he shouted.

Moments later the wooden hatch was ripped apart as the Corpse Hunter slammed into it with his shoulder. He scrambled to his feet, looking for the young Ascender in the dim light of the smoke filled room. A small humanoid figure was curled up in the corner of the room wheezing and coughing.

Aiden wrapped the girl in his overcoat before picking her up with both arms. Then he sprinted for the exit, leaping over the splintered remains of the door. They rolled onto the ground before coming to a stop in the middle of the dirt road. As the Corpse Hunter released his grip on Maria the vulture, who had been waiting outside, jammed a healing potion into her mouth with his talon.

“Thanks for the assist Vagrant,” the Corpse Hunter said, rising to his feet. “I think we’re done here.”

“No,” Maria said shortly after gulping down the potion. The bite mark on her wrist faded along with the minor burns on the back of her hands and face. “I’m not ready…”

“I meant with this floor. I finished off the last of the spiders while you were…gone.”

“I didn’t run away,” the girl said defensively.

“Didn’t say you did.”

“I’m not a coward like the ones that were in my party. The ones you scared away.”

“Didn’t say you were.” Aiden reached down to help the child to her feet.

The girl looked at the man in gray skeptically.

“Why are you being nice to me all of a sudden?” Maria asked.

“The door is back this way, let's get going,” the man in gray said, ignoring her question.

The marble door to the next floor was built into the doorframe of one of the huts, replacing the ordinary wooden door that all the others had. It was attached to the only building that hadn’t caught flame. Exits, as it turned out, were impervious to damage.

While no Ascenders had gone out of their way to try and strand themselves in the Dungeon, it was observed over time that the doors were unharmed by the collateral damage of Fate abilities, scrolls, and magical weapons. The true purpose of the Dungeon had yet to be revealed but none could argue that it was designed solely to kill Ascenders. Otherwise the exits wouldn’t have been crafted in such a way as to ensure each floor had a permanent escape route provided the level was properly cleared.

The Corpse Hunter pulled the door open and walked through. He waited for the girl to follow and when she didn’t immediately appear he thought she’d chosen to leave. Nearly dying tended to have that effect on Ascenders both young and old.

Maria appeared beside him a moment later, stepping through the point in space where the magical door connected the eleventh level to the twelfth level. She had a look in her eyes that Aiden couldn’t quite describe. It was like she was completely exhausted but stubbornly determined to move forward at any cost.

The cave that they had spawned inside of was illuminated by large glowing mushrooms. The colors ranged from bright greens to light blues. Were it not for the fact that they were in a Dungeon filled with deadly monsters it might have been a more pleasant scene to look upon.

“Don’t touch anything,” the Corpse Hunter said, as they navigated the bioluminescent fungus.

“I wasn’t going to,” Maria replied, sounding annoyed at the implication.

They followed a series of winding corridors and tunnels that weaved throughout the subterranean level. More than once Vagrant had to warn Aiden of the low hanging stalactites to keep him from hitting his head or knocking the vulture from his shoulder. A piece of partially scorched spider web from the previous level momentarily anchored Maria to a wall as she brushed up against it. But those were the worst inconvenience they faced after nearly an hour of travel.

“Finally,” Aiden said to himself as they came to a deadend that was void of the strange glowing mushrooms.

“I don’t see what we’re supposed to be fighting,” Maria said when they stopped. “Or am I supposed to figure that out by myself again?”

She pulled a lantern from her backpack and lit it with a small piece of flint and steel. As the light filled the chamber she began scanning the area for any hint of what might be lurking nearby.

“You’re learning,” Aiden said approvingly. “But that’s not what we’re doing. We’re going to sit here for a bit until you’ve had time to rest.”

“Rest?” the girl asked. “I don’t have time to rest, I need to train.”

“You’ve used your primary Fate ability at least three times today since we’ve met. Am I right?”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I look, I listen, and I wait.” Aiden crossed his arms as he spoke. “I know you’re a teleporter, kid. That’s how you got across the snake pit, out of that giant frog’s stomach, and ended up in that burning hut.”

“Please stop talking,” Maria said as she backed up against the rock wall behind her.

The man in gray sighed. “And I know you have a restricted Fate. By my guess you’re either a Time Weaver, a Voidmancer or a Rift Caller.”

The girl bit her lip as she looked down at her feet.

“So which is it, Maria?”

Fates that could manipulate time and space were almost always on the restricted list along with the other Fates deemed to be a risk to the safety of the Column as a whole. Such as Nullifiers and Organic Alchemists.

Those with the Time Weaver Fate could choose a simple course of action that had yet to occur and have it happen immediately. That action had to be something they were capable of doing unassisted and under ordinary circumstances. Such as walking up a flight of stairs or swimming across a river.

While many often confuse this ability with super speed or enhanced reflexes the Fate Holders cannot react to their course of action until it has been completed as originally intended. Any adverse effects like stepping in a slippery substance or triggering a Dungeon trap that might happen along the way trigger immediately.

Voidmancers are capable of creating a transparent Ethereal bridge that joins two individual points in space together, thus eliminating the distance between them. This allows the Fate Holder to take a single step and end up at any location within line of sight that is spacious enough to fit their entire body. For example, a Voidmancer could teleport through the keyhole of a bedroom into a hallway but not through the keyhole of a small jewelry box into said box.

Rift Callers, as the name suggests, open dimensional rifts which can teleport them from one pace to another. Unlike Voidmancers and Time Weavers they do not need a line of sight when attempting to teleport. However, they are still restricted by the size of the space they wish to teleport to and any attempts to target a location that is too small will prevent the ability from activating.

When a Rift Caller teleports, any worn objects and organic material within a predetermined radius travels with them. Anything outside of that radius is left behind, like limbs or other bodily appendages. Naturally it is this teleportation Fate that is the most heavily scrutinized of the three.

“I’m a Rift Caller…” Maria said so softly that Aiden barely heard her.

Aiden didn’t curse under his breath this time. Though he would have liked to. Especially when the young Ascenders' confident resolve began to fall apart.

“You know what that means, right?” she asked.

“Yes,” the Corpse Hunter said almost reluctantly. “I do.”

Tears began to form in the corners of the girl's eyes. “My mother works for the Academy, that’s the only reason they gave me so long to train. But I couldn’t go to class like the other kids. They were afraid of what might happen…”

“I know what happens when someone is outside of your primary ability’s radius.”

Fifteen years ago the family of a Rift Caller had tried to hide their Fate. The parents had spent their entire life savings to acquire a forged medallion that claimed the kid was a Voidmancer. They got away with it for about three months. Right up until the day the boy teleported out of the way of a runaway horse to avoid being trampled.

That first jaunt had been fine, but the child landed in the middle of a crowded street separated from his parents, confused and afraid. In a panic he teleported a second time, taking pieces of the other Column Dwellers around him along for the ride.

Seven people died in total. Some were killed instantly. Others followed soon after from the massive blood loss that came with suddenly losing their limbs and organs. Four more were maimed but survived thanks to a Fleshmender that happened to be shopping nearby at the time.

When all was said and done Corpse Hunter had been called in to tend to the bodies. He was called again the following day for the execution of the child and both of his parents.

Tears were now streaming down Maria’s face. “Mother said I need to get stronger. I need to learn how to control my Fate. I need to train.”

She slumped down against the cold cave wall and pulled her knees to her chest.

“But I couldn’t learn at the Academy like the others. I’m not allowed around big groups of people. I had a tutor…for a while.”

“That’s why you spend so much time in the Dungeon,” Aiden said when the child grew quiet.

“Yeah…if I can’t learn to control my Fate, mother said they’d exile me…or hang me. But they're the same thing aren’t they? Either way I die.”

“It could be possible to survive outside the Column.”

“How? There’s nothing out there. Nothing but darkness and…” She trailed off trying to find the right words to describe the horrors that were said to lurk just beyond the city gates.

“The Dwarves found a way to survive.”

“Do I look like a Dwarf to you?” Maria asked incredulously.

Aiden let out a sigh in lieu of the profanity he wanted to use. “When is your assessment?”

“Soon…” Maria said quietly as she stared at a small beetle trying to push a pebble twice its size up a stalagmite.

Everytime it got halfway up the pebble would slip out of its grip and fall to the ground. Then the beetle would climb back down and start over all. The girl held herself tightly as she watched the little bug that kept trying and failing over and over again.

“I won’t be ready in time, will I?”

“That depends. Did you mean to teleport into a burning building?”

“No.”

“But you made it across the snake pit and out of that giant frog as intended, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“So you have a sixty six percent success rate so far. That’s not a large enough sample size to draw any solid conclusions, but it’s something.”

“But it’s not enough.”

The Corpse Hunter watched the girl who in turn watched the beetle. “We’ll see. When they assess you they’re going to put you in situations designed to elicit fear and try to make you panic. That’s what you need to train for the most.”

“What does that mean? Elicit fear?”

“It means they’re going to stress you out as much as possible to see what you do when you’re scared. If you react the way you did when that monster swallowed you up you’ll be fine.”

“But if I react the way I did when all those spiders showed up then I’ll fail.”

“Well…yes.”

A long awkward pause filled the room.

“I wasn’t trying to run away,” Maria said a few minutes later.

“What?” Aiden asked.

“From the spiders. I was trying to get behind them so we could attack from both sides. But I didn’t end up where I wanted to go. I was tired…and nervous.”

“We can work on your nerves later. Right now you need to rest.”

The girl was too tired to argue, she pulled a bedroll from her backpack and curled up inside. Moments later she was sound asleep. Exhaustion had finally caught up with the eleven year old.

The Corpse Hunter sat down and leaned his back up against a rock. The small beetle in the middle of the room was still trying in vain to push the little pebble up the stalagmite. Aiden leaned over and picked up the pebble. Then he placed it on top of the stalagmite near some other small stones that were already there.

The beetle climbed its way to the top of the rock formation and spent a few minutes rearranging the small stones. When it was satisfied it crawled inside its new home and went to sleep. Aiden glanced back at the sleeping girl.

“She just needs a little help, that’s all,” he said as he closed his eyes and sighed. Then he cursed under his breath.