The passage was long, winding, and cramped. Stone walls were tight to their side, forcing them to proceed single file, while the low ceiling forced everyone but Celia to frequently stoop to avoid striking their heads on an overhanging light fixture or outcropping.

After several minutes of travel, the line of electrical lights ended at the mouth of a wide cavern, their weak bulbs only illuminating a few dozen feet into what sounded like a much larger space, given the acoustics. The five of them lingered at the mouth of the cave, pondering how best to proceed before the newest member of their group made the obvious realization with a double snap of her fingers. “Command: Login Asch. Command: Full Equip.”

Arms and armor shimmered into existence as her fellow players followed suit. It was a reassuring feeling, to have a sword and shield in hand once again, even as it also promised new challenges ahead. Cayden incanted the same runic words he had uttered an hour before, and this time a mote of light sprung into being, orbiting overhead of the party, bathing them in a sterile white light that revealed much more of the chamber before them.

It was enormous, a stadium-sized void in the earth, populated by stalagmites, stalactites, and a lazy stream that disappeared into the distance that Cayden’s light could not reach. It was one of those places that probably could have existed in the real world, yet still felt distinctly Babel by its nature. It felt fictitious, which gave the whole of it a sense of surrealism.

“Looks empty,” Shifty remarked, his voice dour.

“My money is on earth elementals,” Celia said, equally non-plussed.

Michael shook his head. “Too obvious.”

“You know.” Celia scowled. “Usually when a person shoots down an idea, they have one of their own.”

“I was thinking!” Michael protested, sweeping a hand back through his thick, dark hair as he pondered. “Dragon? No pile of gold, but the place is big enough.”

“This isn’t helpful. We’re on a time limit, remember?” Asch said, advancing into the room. She barely made it a handful of steps before stopping abruptly. “Undead.”

“What makes you…” Cayden began to ask, only steps behind her. Then the smell struck him, and he understood instantly. “Damnit that is foul.”

The others had similar responses as they crossed the threshold and entered the chamber proper, each curling their nose up in turn as the stench of rot and death assaulted them.

Death wasn’t natural in Babel. A monster died and it dissolved into ash, while a person’s body was whisked away and held in repose at a temple to be collected. Death in Babel was sterile, this was not.

“I’m going to be sick,” Celia said, hands over her mouth, eyes closed as she struggled to find a way to breathe that could help fight down the waves of nausea that washed over her.

“Mother of…” Cayden said with a mixture of wonder and horror as he pressed forward, his light spell revealing the source of the toxic odor.

Bodies. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of them filled a trench that dominated the far end of the room. They were laid haphazardly, a mountain of necrotic flesh tangled together with one another that evoked images from Cayden’s education, of the worst horrors that humanity had ever inflicted upon itself during wartime.

They were Elan, dressed mostly in civilian garb, though a few bits of chain mail or mages robes could be seen amidst the pile. At a glance, it was impossible to tell what had killed them, and despite his best efforts, Cayden couldn’t bring himself to linger on any one body for more than a fraction of a second, afraid he might recognize someone, afraid that this trial had collected the bodies of those who’d died to wardens over the past few weeks.

A slap to his bicep startled him from his thoughts.

“Are you alright?” Asch asked, genuine concern peeking out from her usual stoic demeanor. “Cast another light spell on me and go back to the others. I’ll look around.”

Cayden wanted to protest, but the words died in his throat. He was not equipped for this, and he knew it, so for once, he followed instructions. He waved off the others as they tried to approach, and the three of them retreated to the safety of the passageway, the stench dissipating entirely the moment they crossed out of the chamber proper.

His empowered light spell allowed them to track Asch’s passage around the room, the four keeping a steady watch on her as she scanned the perimeter of it and returned to find them all nursing their nerves in the tunnel.

“I’d ask for the bad news first, but your face says there is no good news,” Michael said.

“None that I can find. I don’t have any enhanced senses or magic detection, but this tunnel looks like the only way in or out of there.”

“I can give it the once over for secret doors,” Shifty replied. “But this doesn’t seem like the sort of thing where they put a mountain of dead bodies in for set dressing.”

Cayden nodded grimly. “Asch was probably right when she said undead, this reeks of a combat encounter. They’ll probably all start getting up as soon as we get too close.”

“Great. A horde of zombies.” Celia said, clearly grossed out. “We could probably lead them back here. It’ll take a little longer, but fighting them a couple at a time at the mouth of the doorway is going to be a lot safer than trying to deal with them by the pit.”

“Assuming the door doesn’t close behind us as soon as we provoke them.” Michael pointed out. “Which, given the number of boss rooms I’ve been locked into is not exactly a safe assumption.”

“Still not a bad plan.” Cayden shrugged. “Worst case scenario we put our back to a wall and that will at least keep us from behind totally surrounded.”

“We might want me to hit and run, if they’re slow. I could probably kite a decent chunk of that mob for…” Shifty trailed off mid-sentence to start blankly at Asch as the latter busied herself cutting open a lemon she’d produced from her inventory. “Do uh… do zombies have some citrus-based allergy I’m not aware of?”

“The Doom novels used rotten lemons to confuse the zombies' sense of smell.” Cayden offered.

“I’m… wait, what? Doom novels? No. Why would I even be carrying…” Asch rolled her eyes. “You’re all still looking queasy, and I think we’re going to have a hard time winning a fight if you start puking your guts out.” She produced a cloth from her inventory and squeezed the lemon over it. Once the cloth was well saturated, she began to cut small strips out of it, handing a few to each of them. “Up the nose, it’ll keep out the worst of the smell.”

“That…” Michael started to protest, before realizing that he had no real counterargument. “Is a good idea. Thanks.”

Their conversation returned to tactics, but it didn’t linger there for very long. After a full hour in the cabin, several minutes spent walking and preparing, along with a few minutes lost talking with the Gremlin, they were closing in on two and a half hours remaining. With no way of knowing how many challenges waited ahead of them, every second could be precious.

They marched their way back into the cavern, weapons drawn and at the ready. Cayden had his buff spells layered one atop the other, increased speed, increased strength, and durability, along with a reinforcement enchantment for his simple replacement shield.

Beside him, Shifty tossed their opening salvo from one hand to another in the form of an oversized flask of alchemists’ fire, courtesy of his most recent new carnivalist abilities:

Brew Fire

Type: Creation Skill

Skill Level: Novice Level 3. 8% to next level.

Effect: Create a short-lasting flask of alchemist's fire. Deals 30% level appropriate damage per second for up to two minutes or until the target is extinguished.

Cost: 1200 TP

When in doubt, lighting the threat on fire before the start of hostilities was a tried, tested, and true tactic.

“Ready Celia?” Shifty asked.

“When you are.” The girl replied, grip tightening around the rough wood of her staff, the Stick of the World Tree.

With a nod, Shifty pulled back his arm and heaved the flask through a wide underhanded throw. It flew through the air on a trajectory that would take it to the far end of the pit, but it would never make it anywhere near that far as Shifty followed up, “Skill Use: Pinpoint throw.”

Pinpoint Throw

Type: Active Combat Skill

Skill Level: Novice Level 10. See skill trainer to advance this skill to intermediate.

Effect: Unerringly strike a target you can see for 50% true weapon damage.

Cost: 100 TP.

His knife flew with unerring accuracy, puncturing and igniting the flask in mid-air. Its contents poured from the open wound, spraying a napalm-like substance across two-thirds of the pit in a matter of seconds and filling the chamber with a blinding new source of light.

“Quick Incantation: Accelerated Agony!” Celia intoned as the fire spread out before her, completing her part of a combination that the two of them had been dying to use.

Accelerated Agony

Type: Active Combat Spell

Skill Level: N/A.

Effect: 200% Damage per second of an existing effect for up to 30 seconds. Shorten the duration of an existing effect by up to 15 seconds.

Cost: 120 MP

But she wasn’t done yet. The quick incantation of her ability had allowed Celia to skip the lengthy spellcasting process of one spell, and she used that time to follow up with a second less intensive spell that further compounded the damage. “Quick, quick, quick. Skill Use: Double Time!”

Double Time

Type: Channeled Combat Spell

Skill Level: N/A.

Effect: All effects on target creature (both positive and negative) act at double speed.

Cost: 5 MP/Second

The combined effects of the three abilities were every bit as impressive as they had expected them to be. Damage over time effects typically made up for their delayed impact in one of three ways, easy targeting, low cost, or high damage. Shifty’s ability required preparation, moderate stamina cost, and was difficult to aim, which meant that its damage was surprisingly high. Accelerating it so that the damage was done over the course of seconds rather than up to two minutes was a lethal combination. It scorched through the pile of bodies as though they were made of paper, burning the top layer down to ashes before they could even move.

Then the second. When the fire reached the third layer, Cayden had to ask the obvious. “Did we just set a bunch of regular dead bodies on fire thinking they were going to turn into zombies?”

The answer to his question didn’t come from his party but from a sudden rumble and a shift in the earth beneath them. Stone cracked, throwing Celia and Michael to the ground as something ripped its way free.

Loose bodies cascaded down around them as the giant mass crawled from beneath them, an eldritch horror that Cayden had difficulty comprehending.

It had the general outline of a human body, two arms, two legs, a torso, and a head, though none of it was in proportion to any human that had ever lived. Its arms and legs were short, perhaps half the size of what they should be given its towering height, while its head was bulbous and misshapen. It had no features, no eyes, no mouth of its own, yet at the same time, it had a thousand of each. After all, its body was composed of so many others, the shattered and fragmented remains squeezed densely together to form a core. Meanwhile, the most outward layer hung half in and half out of the creature, flopping this way and that with each move it made, occasionally slipping or breaking free of the main body to tumble dozens of feet down to the floor beneath.

And of course, it was on fire.

“What do we even… how do we even?” Celia murmured in utter shock as she stood back up on shaky legs. Free of the pit it towered over them at nearly a hundred feet tall, far and away the largest monster any of them had ever seen.

“It is slow. Stick and move, don’t let it hit you.” Cayden replied, his voice less than convincing. There were videos of monsters like this from the upper floors. Raid bosses, world events, that sort of thing. But those were the type of monsters you fought when you had skills capable of fighting them. What was his sword going to do against something like this? “Keep eyes on it. Look for a weak spot.”

Then it attacked.

It was clumsy, not surprising given its size and composition, but the sheer area it could cover with a single swing of its ‘fist’ made dodging its attack a very near thing for Asch. The shockwave of its attack sent her sprawling, though to her credit she rolled with the attack, coming up with her oversized ax in hand and cleaving three bodies from the mass of its arm in retaliation.

“At least we can damage-“ Asch began, only to lose her voice in sudden fright as one of the limbs cast away by the chop of her ax began to thrash on the ground and then drag itself in her direction by way of its fingertips. “Oh hell no.”

“Size or no, keep to your role. Michael, see if you can skewer the limbs to make them stop getting back up..” Cayden shouted. “Shifty and Dinah, do your damage. I’ll try to get its attention.”

Doing so was easier said than done. The conglomeration of flesh was so large that its steps shook and disrupted the stone beneath their feet. Combined with its sheer mass, its normal movements were a threat in and of themselves, requiring careful timing for him to successfully get into range. “Personal Skill Use: Leap Attack!”

The jump carried him into the belly of the beast, his sword slashing along the abdomen of bodies that reached and kicked at him as he descended. Once he hit the ground Cayden darted forward between its legs, narrowly avoiding a pound of a fist followed by a stomping foot. Two quick slashes along what would have been its Achilles heel seemed to irritate the monster but it wasn’t until he used his Taunt skill that it lumbered sideways, turning in a heavy arc in order to target him exclusively, leaving its back to his allies.

Up close the amalgamation was so much worse. He could see individual faces moving in agony, half-melted fists opening and closing by reflex, feet twitching in reflex responses as he passed by. It was a thing of nightmares that would live in his nightmares when this was all over. Assuming it ended in his favor, rather than with all of them becoming a part of it.

Fix Natha whatever! Cayden chanted as its leg struck out toward him with alarming speed, his magic teleporting him a dozen feet to the side, safely out of the path of the attack. It was a very different sort of fight from many of the more life or death battles he’d fought, so all or nothing. He had little doubt he’d survive more than one or two hits, even if he managed to block. But so long as they kept dodging it could deal no damage at all.

Behind it, Shifty, Asch, even Celia were laying on the damage. It staggered under a particularly brutal impact from Asch’s Earthbreaker skill, forcing Cayden to Taunt once more to regain its attention. They were doing damage, slow but steady.

So what’s the angle. Cayden wondered.

The answer came soon enough as the lumbering behemoth shifted its stance in response to another of Asch’s heavy attacks. Its foot stomped down on a pile of dismembered limbs, some recently removed from its body, others having fallen from it as it first emerged. The body parts cracked and distorted as they came in contact with the mass, then were quickly absorbed into the main bulk of it, writhing and rippling as they appeared to swim through its putrid flesh to patch up wounds they had already inflicted.

“Oh come on. Give us a break!” Asch growled through clenched teeth as she too caught sight of the regeneration. “Any bright ideas Cayden?”

“I’m thinking!”

The answer was no. Celia could use her powers to accelerate decay which might render parts of it unusable, but she wasn’t speced to deal the sort of damage that it would take. It hadn’t absorbed the bodies damaged by fire, but Shifty didn’t’ have anywhere near enough alchemist fire to do the job, and Cayden needed all the MP he had available to teleport in case an attack came too close for comfort.

It was a different type of endurance fight. So long as they couldn’t kill it, it got to keep rolling the dice until one of them slipped up and got pounded into paste. Or until they just flat ran out of time.

“Celia! Go look in the pit, see if there is an exit. It might just be here to waste our time.”

And waste their time it did, the remaining four continuing their waltz of death with the world’s most dangerously incompetent partner, all while Celia circled deep around the edges of the fight to gain access to the pit the creature had emerged from. “There is a door!” She shouted excitedly once she reached its edge, the burnished steel frame gleaming ominously amidst the lingering pools of alchemist’s fire.

“Is it open?” Cayden yelled back, irritated that he even had to ask that sort of basic question while in the middle of trying not to get stomped in by a small undead kaiju.

“No.” She admitted. “It is probably locked, but maybe I can pry it open if we get the fire out?”

If. Maybe. Probably. None of those were words they needed to hear in the midst of a life or death battle. He needed some level of certainty.

Cayden brought a hand to his neck, flipping open the locket he’d been given and jamming the big red button with the thumb of his sword hand. “Uh, hey. Could use a little bit of that help you promised.” There was a pause with no answer, and Cayden pushed it again. “Mr. Glasses?”

“Relax my boy, relax. I’m just checking my notes for the appropriately cryptic hint.”

“Your notes?” Cayden asked, slashing down at his own ankle to slash the fingers off a hand that had managed to wrap itself tightly around one of his grieves. “You realize you’re supposed to be a Gremlin, not a troll, yeah?”

“Oh fine, fine. Deny me a bit of fun why don’t you.” Cayden could practically hear it scowling, though he wasn’t entirely sure how he was hearing it talk to him at all. “ It says “Try using a potion.”

“I’m sorry. I must have misheard you.”

“Did you hear ‘Try using a potion?”

“Yes.

“Then you did not mishear me. Best of luck, toodles for now.”

“Come on, you have to give me more than that,” Cayden shouted to empty air. “What kind of a hint is-“

Corpse Golem's slam attack hits You for 1812 Physical.

The corpse golem’s fist struck Cayden on his unprepared shield, shattering it into splinters. The remaining impact of the blow powered through into his upper body and sent him flying, his ragdoll form skipping across the chamber like a pebble thrown across a lake. He came to a hard stop in the middle of the shallow stream, the short-lived stun effect of the blow preventing him from moving a muscle, even though he would have been far too shocked by the violence of it to do much more than groan.

He had never been hit that hard, not even during his battle with Temujin. It hurt so bad that Cayden briefly wondered if the diminished sensation of pain normal inside Babel had been disabled for the trials.

“Cayden! Are you okay?!” Came Celia’s concerned shout, along with similar worried cries from his remaining companions. They could see his health bar on the party member enough to know that he wasn’t dead, but the human impulse to check on him overrode whatever game statistics told them.

“Yeah. I think I just need to take a potion.” He laughed with grim resignation. “What a worthless hint.”

With a snap of his fingers, Cayden pulled up his inventory and cycled over to his potion menu. He selected a moderate healing draught, which should be enough to get him onto his feet and back into the fight, then abruptly stopped. “Keep its attention for just a minute, I have an idea.”

“What do you think I’m doing?” Michael’s voice came through the speakers of Cayden’s AR glasses with significant distortion. Probably to be expected, given that the arm housing it had nearly snapped in half and one of the lenses was a spiderweb of cracks. “Maybe I should take a hit? I could probably cripple it with unstoppable. If I survive the hit.”

“If,” Dinah said, pointedly.

“Don’t do anything stupid. That is my job.” Cayden said as he fought his way to rubbery legs. He plucked his sword from where it had fallen, then shook the remnants of his shield off the other arm before stating, “Command: Equip Item Quick Slot Nine.”

He took a breath to steady his nerves then started off at a sprint. He only had one shot at this attack, it was a big target, sure, but if he missed then they were probably going to have to retreat. Even if it hit, there was a chance it wasn’t going to work. If he’d had longer to think about it Cayden probably would have talked himself out of it, tried to come up with something more conventional. Fortunately, his sprint skill allowed him to close the distance back to the fight in a flash.

“Hey big guy, catch!”

The Elixir hit the flesh abomination just under center mass, the crystalline vial shattering into glimmering shards as the glowing mixture within splashed across a few of the multitude that made up its mass.

For a moment, nothing. Then it reacted, violently. It stomped, then lashed out at the ground with its fists, with its head. It scraped at the fluid in an attempt to clear it, but only ended up spreading it further along its body. A body that began to heal. All across the length of it, the bits and pieces of deceased Elan began to heal, the rot of their flesh dissipating, skin smoothing out, hair gaining new luster. Soon enough they began to fall away from it, first in ones and twos, then in small groups, and then by the dozens. Incomplete bodies disintegrated into ash upon striking the earth, while completed ones lay in serene repose for a time before they too began to flake away into a more dignified end.

Within a minute the creature had been reduced to only a handful of bodies, and as they fell away the core of it was revealed, a fist-sized tumor of meat that emitted a horrifying shrieking noise and godawful smell as it dissolved into a noxious puddle.

The five of them stood around the smoldering acidic puddle of their foe, struck with awe and exhaustion as they watched it go. Until at last, Dinah broke the silence. “Did you seriously drop a one-liner as you killed it?”

“It felt appropriate in the moment.” Cayden shrugged, his face already growing red.

“Uh-huh.” The woman replied skeptically. “So you did what exactly?”

“I threw an elixir at it.”

The woman blinked, then squinted in disbelief. Elixirs were extremely rare. That he had one at all bordered on the absurd. “How did you know that would work? How did that work?”

“Nerd lore. What are undead weak against?” Cayden asked.

“Point blank annihilation?” Shifty suggested.

“Besides that.” Cayden shot Celia a glare. “And no, not shots to the head either. They’re weak to positive energy, healing magic, that sort of thing. Our guide told me to try using a potion.”

“Did he do that before, or after you got knocked into orbit?” Michael smirked.

“Before.”

“So why didn’t you try using a potion?” Dinah pressed, incredulous. “For all you know, a potion could have killed it. We have dozens of potions between us.”

“I… uh. Hmm.” The Elixir in his inventory had been the thing to spark the idea, reminiscing back to his days watching his parents play Final Fantasy, coupled with the gremlin’s mention of the trial taking their gear into account. In the moment he hadn’t even considered starting small.

“Hmm? What if it had healed it back to full health?” She continued to push.

Celia scoffed at that. “Like we’d done much damage to it anyways.”

“That isn’t the point.”

“It is kind of the point.” Celia grinned. “He gambled and we won. Take the W.”

“You can make fun of me later.” Cayden agreed. “We’re still on the clock, lets go.”

“Uh… hey Cayden?” Shifty asked.

“Yeah.”

The other man looked at his battered party member, then glanced pointedly to the corner of his display where the party health meters rested, Cayden’s still dangerously red. “Maybe you should try using a potion first.”