8

Seated on their boulders two hundred feet above the battleground, Harper and Sierra weaved around the Golem, trying to find a weak spot. “Do you see anything?” the veteran asked.

“Not a fucking thing,” Sierra called back as she remained focused on the dense layer of rock that covered the giant. “But if we lose our grip on these bowling balls, we’re dead.”

They had tried to convince Vlad to take to the air, but the thick-headed Russian insisted on staying on the ground. It was just as well. The two mages had exhausted their spells on the Golem with no real effect. The only spell that seemed to do any damage was Earth Flash. While that robbed the giant of 10% of its mana points, the physical side of the spell was less effective, shaving away only 3% of its HP as opposed to the traditional 15%. Still, the behemoth reacted to the attack, swinging all four of its massive arms at the mages.

They swerved out of the way, ascending higher to have a better look at its head. There appeared to be no weak spots there either. The monster opened its mouth, stretching its long, glitched interior. They had seen glitches infesting various parts of the monster’s body and avoided them deftly. The giant moaned at not being able to catch the flying mages. It was a deafening sound that overwhelmed the din of the waters below, then echoed through the torn landscape.

As she glided by, Harper stared into the beast’s mouth, hoping to see some sign of Angie. But, of course, there was none. She wondered if the veteran hunter was really dead, or living in some altered, poisoned reality.

From below, Armando shouted that the Golem needed to be drawn toward the dungeon, then was promptly punted across the landscape.

“Geez, poor guy,” Sierra said as they watched the orc vanish out of sight, descending into the trees. “So, how are we going to beat this thing?”

Harper studied the boss’s face. What they had initially thought were black eyes were sockets filled in by the glitch. Yet she could still see the remnants of dark pupils tracking their movements. She wondered what the monster viewed from behind the veil of the quantum void. Did its vision remain the same, or was what it saw altered?

She turned to Sierra. “I can still see its eyes. Earth Flash has a fifteen-second cooldown. Let’s time our blasts to run every seven and a half seconds. Maybe we can blind it and lure it toward the dungeon floor.”

Thirty feet away from her, her Grimalkin counterpart nodded. “Yeah, but they have to clear it first,” she said, gesturing to the teammates that still occupied the remains of the dungeon floor.

Harper telepathed the team, which were the size of ants from her perspective, telling them to evacuate. She saw the members clear the area, with the exception of two. Damon stayed huddled close to where they had lost Angie. And Jordan lay motionless in the streaming water.

She looked for Zack and, after a few seconds, found him returning from the woods. Is that Emma with him? she wondered. Harper was quite sure that it was her. And where did she learn to fly? For now, that didn’t matter. She telepathed the Marine and told him to clear the dungeon floor.

9

Emma heard the same message that Zack did. The orc turned to her. “You grab Jordan,” he said. “I’ll get Damon.”

They ran in separate directions. Emma sprinted to her former lover. In the bare seconds it took for her to reach him, her heart sank. The series of wounds he had suffered looked like ribbons of gray flesh. My god, his neck has been ripped wide open, she thought.

She reached him and squatted, then turned him over from his side. As Jordan flopped onto his back, Emma saw the severity of the wound. Under the bright day’s sun, his mangled throat was a mute gray. His cloudy eyes stared blankly at the sky.

“No, Jordan,” Emma whimpered, realizing the finality of what she was seeing. “No. It can’t be.”

She shook him, but the frigidity of his skin and rigidity of his flesh told her more than she wanted to know. She tugged his shoulders to her. As his head lolled backward, clear water leaked from the hole in his esophagus, and Emma knew he had died either from drowning or from blood loss. She pulled his chest into hers and sobbed uncontrollably.

After a minute, a shadow passed over her and she wondered if the Golem was going to relieve her misery. But it was Zack standing behind her.

“Come on, Emma,” he said soberly. “Let’s put him somewhere safe.”

She stared up at him and was momentarily blinded by the sun refracting through her tears. “Okay, you’re right,” she sniffled, and the orc gently pulled Jordan’s limp body from her grasp and carried it to the trees on the southern side of the dungeon.

Emma remained at the dungeon floor site for a few moments, staring at the weapons and armor that had bounced from Jordan’s corpse. She bent and grabbed the most valuable items—the steel bastard sword and splint mail—then levitated above the rushing waters and joined the rest of the team.

10

The two airborne mages watched what unfolded below with heavy hearts. At one point, Sierra glanced over at Harper and her eyes were filled with tears. They waited for the floor to be cleared, evading blows from the slow-moving Golem. Then the veteran asked Sierra if she was ready. She was.

Harper launched the first Earth Flash directly at the behemoth’s eyes. Rock chips exploded from its face and the boss swung blindly at the attackers. Sierra blasted the beast next, and its thick hands wiped at its eyes. The Golem roared and took one step forward.

They fired another double-shot at the giant. It took one more stride, bellowing its annoyance.

“It’s working,” Sierra called out, and the veteran agreed.

As they readied another blast, the Golem surprised them by opening its mouth wide and blowing particles of the glitch towards the mages. “Oh, shit!” they cried out almost in unison as they swerved to avoid the speeding black blobs.

Harper watched a two-foot-long section barely miss her right shoulder as she struggled to hang on to her boulder. She fired another Earth Flash and Sierra soon followed suit. The Golem, once again, reached for its eyes, then took two steps. They heard the dungeon floor break far below them. The monster roared as it tilted forward and started descending. Its arms flailed, extending to their limits, and the mages flew away from the behemoth as it came plummetted through the earth.

11

More than anything, Emma wanted to chase after Brett, find him, and kill him. He had broken their agreement and murdered Jordan. She could see him with her enhanced vision, sailing back to the river. But she knew the team needed her. Even if they refused to accept her, she would help them defeat the stone giant that rumbled through the destroyed landscape.

While the members continued to barrage the beast with their relatively puny weapons, Emma watched the two mages closely. They baited the Golem into moving forward. As a foot the size of a car crashed through the floor, chunks of limestone exploded into the air. Among them, the opaque green circular objects shot upward. As they flipped over and over again, the illuminated green columns of light shone from the other side, beaming through the growing dust cloud.

The Golem pounded through the successive floors of the dungeon. More slabs of thick stone burst out of the rubble. Half of the behemoth’s body plunged into the inverted pyramid shape of the structure before coming to a stop. The giant leaned forward, roaring, and slammed its four fists onto the landscape. The teammates dove to avoid being crushed.

“Everyone, back up!” Emma shouted. The team followed her direction, retreating to the trees. She looked up into the hazy sky and saw the mages spiraling back down to earth.

The Golem raised its broad arms and pounded its fists into the earth again. It tried to pull itself out of the hole, but its lower limbs were wedged into the tightening circumference of the lower dungeon floors.

Far below the ground, the monster that lived under the dungeon clamped onto the Golem’s legs. Its teeth splintered away, but its jaws tightened around the beast’s lower extremities. In the full darkness of the dungeon’s depths, its silver eyes shone against the thick, orange legs.

Up top, the behemoth pounded on the ground, sending tremors cascading through the landscape for miles. The water that flooded the area burst into the air like geysers. Emma looked for one of the team’s remaining hunters, intent on resuming the team’s Earth Flash attacks. She saw Thao hidden among the still-vertical trees and called her over. She explained how the mages were attacking the Golem. They agreed to time their blasts the same way, even though Emma was limited to her Mana Flash spell.

“It’s good to have you back,” the red-haired Grimalkin said before launching the first spell.

Emma, whose heart was aching from the day’s events, felt a little of the weight lift from her shoulders.

Soon the mages touched down and added to the barrage. Even with the four spells chipping away at the behemoth’s exterior, the damage wasn’t sufficient.

“We’re going to be here all day,” Harper grumbled, then paused. “Is Jordan okay?”

Emma just shook her head and felt a tear leak from her eye, drawing a clean streak on her dust-covered cheek.

Harper moaned audibly over the thrashing of the beast and the crashing of the waves. The Golem seemed to move faster now. It swung its arms at the team and slammed its fists into the wet earth. Vlad wrenched his leg, trying to avoid being crushed, then hobbled to the safety of the few trees still standing.

As they continued to attack the Golem, Thao turned to Emma. “So where did you learn how to fly?”

Emma told her it was one of three abilities she had gained from the Wendigo, then stopped herself, remembering the one ability she’d never used. The one she and Brett had called Explodo. She stared at the red-haired hunter and grinned widely.