“You sure you want to do this?” Andy was poking his head over the guardrail of the highway and looking down at the funnel of mana coming down.

“We need to do it,” I said. “Plus, Carter is ready, and we need to destroy as many dungeons as possible.”

“It just feels wrong to try to invade a random city hall.”

“It’s not just random, though, is it?” Carter said. “For some reason, the mana funnel is stronger than the ones we’ve seen before. We need to find out why.”

“Corey said it’s probably because it’s at the peak of Jade,” I said. “It might have been able to absorb another dungeon.”

“That would explain the undead down there as well.”

“I dunno,” Chavez said, “I think they look like regular government employees, don’t you?”

“Aren’t you all government employees?” Bragg said. After the previous night’s rest, he was back to cracking jokes. The smile didn’t quite meet his eyes, but at least he was trying.

“Ouch!” Chavez placed his hand over his heart as if someone had stabbed him there. “But you see what I mean.”

“Definitely undead,” I confirmed. My eyes were better than ever after moving to Citrine. Even a hundred yards away, I could make out the pallid skin and even exposed bone on some figures. “It’s strange, though. Why would there be undead at city hall?”

“Yeah, but see that?” Bragg was looking through his scope to get a better look at the layout. “On the north side of the building.”

I immediately understood what he meant. A group of the mana-corrupted humans — wights, I reminded myself — made their way through the undead toward the front of the building to the entrance. They passed safely through the undead shambling about.

Each of the wights carried a body over their shoulders. I couldn’t tell if any of the bodies were still alive, but I doubted it. The wights carried the bodies through the front door and fifteen minutes later, the wights came out, followed by the same number of undead.

“They’re giving the corpses to the dungeon, which turns them into new undead.”

“That’s fucked up,” Andy said. “Why would wights help a dungeon? Wouldn’t it try to kill them too?”

“That’s what I want to know too,” I said. “Plan of attack?”

“We circle around and look for a back door to City Hall?” Carter suggested though it sounded more like a question.

“Like a shortcut?” Chavez asked.

“Couldn’t hurt to look,” I shrugged. “Something tells me it won’t be that easy, though. Dungeons are sentient. Possibly more intelligent than we are.” I winced immediately after I said it. Corey could hear and see everything around him. The dungeon core was an asshole, and there was no way I wasn’t going to regret my choice of words later.

“So, you think we should go in the front door?” Andy asked.

“How do we keep from being overwhelmed by the undead and wights?” Carter followed up with her own question.

“The wights are going out and killing people, then feeding the bodies to the dungeon. We should start by taking the wights out.”

“Whittle them down one group at a time,” Chavez said. “I like that.”

“That would stop the dungeon from being able to make more undead,” Andy said. “But we will need to deal with them eventually.”

“We can burn that bridge when we get to it,” I said with a wink. It earned me a frown from Andy, but a snicker from Chavez. “If we can’t take out a group of seven wights, then we can’t exactly go attacking the dungeon itself.”

*****

Less than an hour later, we had a trap set. The wights weaved east to west, switching back along each intersection. They didn’t go into the houses and shops, like when I cleared houses as a trench monkey. They stayed on the street as if they were looking for an idiot out in the open.

In fact, there were five of us. Bragg was in the back with his high-powered rifle. He’d taken up a position behind a parked car. As soon as we engaged, he could cover us and mow down any clear targets. Carter and I waited against the wall, she with her makeshift spear, and me with my sword. Andy stood behind us, handgun ready, and Chavez had his crossbow loaded and ready to loose, followed by the shotgun swinging at his side.

I listened to the group of seven wights approach around the corner. With my improved hearing, the shambling footfalls seemed like they were just seconds away from turning the corner. I kept my eyes on Bragg, who held his fist up next to his head. I narrowed my eyes and focused on my breathing, slowing my heartbeat. Thirteen heartbeats later, and Bragg dropped his hand.

I swung my sword at head height as I pivoted around the corner. They say that no battle plan survives first contact. That’s actually not true. I’d been in many engagements where every detail went to plan. Granted, I’d been in more engagements where not everything went quite to plan. As far as first contacts went, this was one of the worst. The wights, stunned by the sudden engagement, were not nearly as surprised as I was when my sword cut into the first wight, then suddenly stopped, wedged against the creature’s spine. It was the first time my sword hadn’t cut through something.

“Fu–“ I was cut off when the second wight in the front grabbed at my face. The fingers clawed at my eyes right before Carter’s makeshift spear punched into the monster’s chest, pushing it back several steps. It tried to pull me with it. My weight said no, but parts of my skin said yes.

The world turned red with pain. Blood eliminated all sense of sight and smell. With my mana vision, I could still see the wights, their cores shining brightly, though twisted with corruption mana. Mana which I needed to heal my face. My blinding blade lunged forward, taking the wight in the heart. Power rushed up the blade and into me. I willed the energy toward my face, and I felt my mana channels burn even as the wounds closed.

Bragg’s rifle cracked behind me, and a flash of silver passed in front of me, almost too fast to see. One of the wights took a step back, a series of cracks now coursing along its chest, though it didn’t fall from the bullet.

That step back gave me the moment I needed to clear some space with my sword. I slashed open wide gashes that leaked blue and red mana from the bodies of the wights. I ripped into them, heedless of my own injuries, as I slashed among them. I could distantly sense the other four keeping two of the monsters at bay, while I tried to deal with the other three. I cut down one of them before the other two tackled on top of me, one grabbing for my throat while the other clawed at my chest. I drew the knife from my side and reached up with my other hand to pull the wight’s neck back. I brought the point of my combat knife straight into the wight’s eye, and the creature that used to be human screamed before going still. The last wight had torn through my shirt and the skin underneath, the fingers acting like talons as they dug into my flesh.

I pulled the knife from the eye of the first wight and stabbed it into the chest of the one on top of me. The blade snapped, the impact reverberating up my arm, and my killer paid no attention to the weapon as it tore through the muscles to get at my heart. Intellectually, I knew I had a ribcage, and the creature would have difficulty getting through that with his bare hands, even if he was able to cut open my skin. But intellect in a fight is for fools. The wight’s core was pulsing in its chest, the energy sustaining it and giving it this ungodly strength and savagery. Without thinking, I put my hand against the wight’s chest and called to the energy.

The wight fell on top of me, dead. I barely noticed the life energy enter me as it immediately moved to my chest and healed the wounds there, once again scorching my mana channels.

Groaning, I pushed the dead body off me, reaching for my sword. There were two wights still moving, though only one was still on its feet. Carter was trying to hold it off, while it was bent over her, and Chavez was trying to bludgeon it to death with the butt of his shotgun. Apparently, he hadn’t noticed that the metal was giving way under the assault instead of the wight’s skull.

I pushed myself to my own feet. Holding out my hand, I reached out and willed the mana out of the wight’s body, seeking the same feeling I had with the previous wight. The body collapsed, and the power entered my core. That left only one more. The wight lay on the ground, Andy holding it down with his one hand. It wasn’t difficult for him, since this wight was the first one I’d cut into. It was mostly paralyzed on the ground and bleeding out. I ripped the mana from its body as well, and it went limp. The mana that entered me was negligible since it was so close to death already.

“Were those fuckers stronger than usual, or is it just me?” Chavez said as he helped pull the body off Carter.

“I thought we were dead,” Andy said. “Then you went Darth Vader on them.” He was looking at me, where I leaned on my sword.

Even though new energy coursed through me, I felt a massive headache coming on, and I pressed my palms against my eyes, letting my sword clatter to the pavement as I groaned from the new pain.

“You okay?” I felt Andy’s hand on my shoulder.

“Yeah,” I grunted. “Just got a killer headache all of a sudden.”

“Water,” Andy said.

I held out my hands, still keeping my eyes closed, but I realized it wasn’t my eyes that were hurting. It was my mana sight. A water bottle slipped into my fingers, and I greedily drank.

“Let’s find a place to lie low for a bit,” Andy said, and I could tell from his voice that he was worried.

“Apartment complex three blocks over,” Carter said.

I couldn’t remember what apartment complex they were looking at, and I couldn’t open my eyes to look. I felt a firm hand grab my right arm by the wrist and settle it on his shoulder. Chavez, from the height and width of the big man.

“Come on, man. Let’s get you down the road.” Definitely Chavez, from the voice.

“Here we go again, carrying your ass,” Carter said as she took my weight from the other side.

“Useless as a burn bag,” Andy said in front of me. From the silence, I could only assume that Bragg was at the back again.

By the time we reached the apartment complex, my headache started to get better. My brain no longer felt like it was in a blender. It was more like the hangover after my twenty-one run. Everyone was talking too loudly. And the lights were too bright. And everyone was talking too loudly. And the shapes didn’t come into complete focus without a lot of effort. And could someone shut the hell up!?

Finally, the shouting died down, and I continued my movement. I was still trying to figure out how to turn off my mana vision, but no matter how I thought about it, nothing came to me.

We went up a series of steps, which, I assumed, were the front steps of whatever apartment building we were heading to. I stumbled my way up several steps. I lost count after three. Each jarring movement of my head brought new agonies into my mind. Each step put me back in the blender, punctuated by moments of slightly less misery.

Finally, someone had the decency to lay me down. It looked like someone found some beds, and I actually got to sleep in one this time. That was nice. I liked beds.

When I fell asleep, I dreamed about my daughter. The four-year-old stood facing me, a smile on her face. Behind her was a plague of zombies, their arms outstretched to touch her. Before they could, however, each one of them burst into flames and began writhing in agony, though none of them quite fell to the ground. The flickering flames became her backdrop and seemed to rise and stretch like wings behind her.

At that point, I just gave in to the dreams, or nightmares, or whatever the visions were. I was, however, constantly aware of the sound of a shuffling deck of cards.