1

They finished the meal and walked through the portal leading to the seventeenth room. Damon entered the room first, following their usual formation, and was struck both by how small the room was and how gigantic the monster in it was.

It looked like a skeletal bird, only its skeleton was composed completely of a dry wood which reminded Damon of driftwood. The monster took up half the room and its outstretched wings blocked the view to the courtyard almost completely. Patches of green grass grew all over its wooden frame. Underneath its brownish-gray, wood-ribbed body and neck, an orange light shone brilliantly.

Damon could see scant rays of light pass through gaps in the creature’s body. His Creature Description details appeared.

RUKH (Level 49)

HP: 765

MP: 215

STRENGTH: 68

CONSTITUTION: 76

DEXTERITY: 35

INTELLIGENCE: 21

WISDOM: 1

XP: 202

DESCRIPTION: Legendary bird of prey.

The Rukh turned its gigantic head toward the arriving Inmates. From the top of its twenty-foot-long skull to the tip of its wooden beak, more grass grew down the middle of its head like a mohawk. Inside the dark shallows of its two eye sockets, icy silver eyes regarded the team with malice. The giant bird opened its ridged mandibles and cawed deafeningly at the eight members.

“Everyone, run your Defense Buff spell,” Harper said quietly, “and in a small room like this, our formation won’t help so—”

The Rukh thrust its head at them. Seven Inmates lunged for the sides of the room, but Janna was taken completely off-guard. As the monster’s mandibles crashed into the wall and entry portal, chunks of gray wood exploded outward in a spray.

Janna screamed. The Rukh pulled its head back slowly. The nurse’s body was caught in its closing mandibles, which were now a shattered mess of gnarled wood. Janna screamed again, painfully. Blood flowed down her arm, which dangled off the edge of the Rukh’s lower jaw.

The orcs ran forward and plunged their bone-axes into the monster’s ribbed neck.

The Rukh emitted a muffled caw through Janna’s pinned body. Tilting its head upward, the monster allowed Janna’s body to roll deeper inside its wooden mandibles.

Janna clutched at one of the ridges on the Rukh’s lower mandible, but her hand slipped. Her body rolled into the thickest part of the giant bird’s mouth.

The Rukh closed its beak, and the Inmates could hear the audible crunch of Janna’s bones breaking.

2

Harper wasn’t sure if Janna was dead or just passed out, but from where the orange light shone through the Rukh’s ribbed neck, she saw Janna’s blood trickle down the monster’s throat. The nurse’s crumpled body hung limply from the edges of the giant bird’s mandibles. From her position on the right side of the room, Harper sent a stream of Fire Scorch at the beast, targeting the top of its head in an effort to avoid Janna’s body. The fire burned away the grass, and as the flames spread, the Rukh dropped Janna’s body.

It turned to face Harper. God, how are we going to defeat this thing with no room to move around? she wondered.

The monster swung its broad wing at her. The wood’s blunt force catapulted her back to the center of the room, where she crashed painfully against the wall.

Damon lunged at the Rukh’s outstretched wing and pounded his hammer down through it. The Rukh screeched painfully as half its limb broke off and landed on the floor.

Getting back up, Harper grabbed her staff and checked her HP. It was at 271. The blow had cost her 42 hit points. She launched Boulder at the giant bird. The large marble ball soared through the air like a bullet and punched a hole through the monster’s neck. She checked the Rukh’s hit points. 623 out of 765. She noticed that its HP was regenerating. Hunters, use the Boulder spell, she telepathed.

Suddenly, the Rukh’s head sped toward her. Its mandibles opened. Harper saw Janna’s blood smeared on the flattened wooden ends. She slid to her right. The monster’s beak crashed into the portal. The wall around it collapsed. Large bricks fell from the wall like dominoes, obscuring the green portal and flooding the room with sunlight. Oh, no! The portal!

Hearing more crashing sounds, she turned away from the gaping hole in the wall. The hunters had followed her advice. Three new holes were smashed through the bird’s wooden skeleton. The Rukh’s hit points had dipped to 379. Meanwhile, the orcs continued bashing the creature with their hammers the whole time. One of the bird’s silver eyes was destroyed and its wings were shredded. The orange light that shone through the monster’s wooden ribs was pale now. Its life force, Harper thought. With much of its body destroyed, Harper saw the monster’s talons clinging to the second bridge outside the room.

The Rukh lunged at its attackers. Ethan responded by burying his hammer into the Rukh’s skull, and more wood flew from its ravaged body. It was down to 260 hit points.

With the Inmates continuing their assault, Harper wanted to check on Janna. She scanned the left side of the room and found Emma kneeling beside the fallen nurse. Harper ran to her. “Is she alive?” she asked desperately.

Emma looked up at her with tears in her eyes. “For now,” she muttered dejectedly.

3

While Angie and Jordan were blowing holes through the Rukh with their Boulder spells, Damon kept bashing at the monster’s head with his hammer. With every bit of damage they delivered to the beast, its movements slowed. Damon could see that the monster was down to its last 50 hit points. The orange light that had beamed from the creature’s center was now barely visible.

Zack’s swung his hammer and took out the Rukh’s other eye. The giant bird squawked weakly.

One more blow, Damon thought. He brought his hammer across in a roundhouse swing, obliterating the Rukh’s head in a shower of wood. Its remnants shot over the guardrail and descended into the tower’s courtyard. Damon rushed to the guardrail and watched the skull drop; it seemed to move in slow motion. As the remains of the skull shattered against the courtyard floor, Damon rose to level 59. Harper would tell him later to drop his 4 attribute points into dexterity.

Turning away from the rail, Damon saw that the monster’s wooden wings had landed on the floor, broken into many large and small pieces. He looked around to survey the condition of the team; five Inmates were huddled around Janna while Ethan stared incredulously at the second bridge. The Rukh’s two severed talons were still wrapped around the platform of the second bridge. Ethan swung his hammer and knocked the wooden talons off the bridge.

4

Standing at the crash site of the Rukh’s attack on Harper, the Inmates stared out the gaping hole in the wall at the full vista of the earth realm. Earlier, they had determined that the room they were in was thirty stories above the courtyard. Now from their vantage point, they could see the village, the orchard, the river, and the forest. What they saw beyond the forest removed whatever hope they had left.

The river had continued tearing its path through the forest, mowing down trees and cutting its way through to the field at the beginning of the realm. Submerged under at least thirty feet of rushing water and completely out of view was the portal they had used to enter the earth realm.

5

“What the hell are we going to do now?” Damon asked as they stared at the lake at the beginning of the realm. The water had flooded the territory from the eastern, western, and southern borders to the beginning of the forest. They watched as large waves chopped up against the invisible barrier of the southern border. The parts of the borders that were above the lake reflected back the churning water in a distorted kaleidoscope of images.

“We finish the tower,” Angie answered Damon.

He glanced at the woman he wanted to marry. “What in the hell for?”

Angie stared straight ahead, her eyes focused on the panorama below them. In the bright sunlight, she could see ptero birds flying, circling the changed landscape. “Because that was the plan and we’re sticking to it.”

Damon scoffed.

“And besides,” she continued, “we have no way to backtrack now, anyway.” While they stood on the brick rubble at the edge of the twelve-foot hole, she gestured at the ruined wall. “As you can see, we don’t have a portal to return through.”

A gust of wind swooped up from below them and they all took a step back from the precipice.

“She’s right,” Harper said. “We should move on. There’s supposedly a portal at the end of this tower that will take us back to the beginning of the realm.”

Damon grunted. He watched the borders of the realm, wondering if he would see the Harris’ face again. That seemed like a million years ago.

“What do we do about Janna?” he asked.

No one answered initially. Zack kicked a piece of rubble through the hole. They watched it descend silently into the lush green world.

“That thing just about broke every bone in her body,” Harper replied. She glanced at the Inmates. “Unless we’re willing to take a couple of days off, wait for her to heal, we have to leave her behind, in this room.” Damon and Zack, who were on either side of Harper, gazed at her. She didn’t return their gazes. “We leave Janna some food,” Harper continued, “some water, her bedding. Fuck, I wish we could leave her some painkillers, but we have to move on.”

No one responded. They knew she was right. The Rukh had shattered Janna’s legs, two ribs, and her left arm. She had a thirty-inch gash across her thigh and a fifteen-inch gash across her stomach. Emma and Angie had splinted her legs.

Harper glanced at the two orcs at her side. “This isn’t a case of a few healing spells repairing one bone. We’re lucky she’s not dead.” She glanced at Emma, who never left Janna’s side. “Emma will have to take over her duties.”

She sighed. “It’s not going to get any easier,” she told them. “What I mentioned earlier about mana conservation is going to apply even more now. We are down to seven members and you’re all going to need to think on your feet.” She turned away from the hole and faced her teammates. “Like it or not, you’ll have to make decisions that will affect our lives.”

This time, no one argued, but she still stared at Damon as she finished. “I hope each of you have learned enough through this process to make the right choices.”

6

The Inmates made Janna as comfortable as possible. They placed her bedding in the corner, far from the hole in the tower wall, to minimize the wind chill. Zack grabbed the large wooden blocks that remained from the Rukh’s carcass and stuffed the hole up as much as he could.

With no idea when they would see Janna again, they started a fire with the smaller wood pieces to keep her warm through the night. They piled the extra wood close to her bed. Jordan cooked two salmon from Harper’s food inventory, and they left the nurse three wineskins filled with water.

They said their goodbyes to Janna individually, letting Zack be last. He knelt beside her and touched her hair as she lay flat on her back, drowsy from the ordeal. “How’s the pain?” he asked.

“Terrible,” she muttered, then thought about it. “Actually, it’s down to a throbbing ache now.”

He smiled briefly. To Zack, her legs looked like they were made of Silly Putty. “Is there anything else we can do for you before we go?”

Her eyes met his. “Promise you’ll come back for me.”

He smiled. “You have my word on that.”

Janna grimaced as a sudden bolt of pain ran through her body. “Ugh, I guess it’s a good thing I’m the healer.” She barely waved her right hand, sending Intermediate Heal to her body. Janna preferred it to Mana Heal, which required more mental involvement.

He touched her hair again. “I’ll see ya soon, princess.”

Janna snorted. “See ya, Zack.”

Zack stood and joined the group waiting for him at the guardrail. As Harper climbed over onto the second bridge, he glanced back at Janna. She was fast asleep.