As evening came on, Rory found himself getting a lot more tired. He’d been walking around the whole day with hardly any breaks, and his old bones and muscles really weren’t having any more of it. He tried not to show it, but Viv was giving him those looks that meant she knew exactly what was up.

Rory was sitting against the column with the Settlement Sigil when Viv approached and settled down next to him,

“Is there anything that you really need to do that you’re stressing over?” she asked.

Rory shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

“Look at all the things we’ve accomplished so far. We’ve got some food and water that will last us a few days, we’ve got clothing and functioning toilets, your traps are helping to keep us safe. I’d say we’re getting closer and closer to being a functioning society over here. Fantastic, right?”

Rory laughed a little. “That does sound pretty fantastic when put together like that.”

She nudged his shoulder. “Then stop worrying so much for once, will you?”

Rory grumbled, then smiled. “Just for you,” he whispered.

Viv suppressed her own smile and rolled her eyes.

Unfortunately, if they’d thought they could relax until dinner time and then have a nice night’s sleep—albeit, interrupted according to the watch schedule Viv had drawn up—they were mistaken. Alyssa was rushing up to them about half an hour later, worrying loose strands of her curly brown hair.

Viv was up in an instant. “What’s wrong?”

Alyssa grabbed Viv’s hand and squeezed it. Her eyes were wet, but she didn’t cry. Of course. Rory noticed her little girl trailing her with a confused expression just behind.

“Malcolm,” she said, her voice also struggling to hold itself together. “He hasn’t come back yet. None of them have. It’s been several hours now, and I’m starting to worry something’s happened.”

Rory got up as fast as he could too, ignoring the twinges in his protesting bones and muscles. Curse his aging memory. He had completely forgotten about Malcolm’s expedition party. It had been a while since his group had left to explore deeper into the palace’s large main building.

“Have any of the others gone to look yet?” he asked.

Alyssa shook her head, her curls whipping her face. “No, not yet. I thought I’d inform you guys first.”

“Then we’ll start looking,” Viv said. “I’ll call the others.”

As Viv rushed off, Rory tried to question Alyssa to get a better understanding of the situation. Malcolm had been gone for nearly four hours now, from what they could tell without properly functioning clocks. He and his group had invaded deeper into the central palace building. Scouring the entire third floor had been their main target.

“We’re going to go check things out,” Viv said. She had gathered Ned, likely to make use of his Perception. Trish and Allen had volunteered to join them. They all had a few packs of Mana.

“I’m coming with you,” Rory said, stepping over to the group.

“Rory.” Viv faced him with a resolute expression on her face. “You need to rest.”

“After we’ve made sure they’re alright.”

She leaned in closer so that her voice was hissing in his ear. “It won’t help anyone if you run yourself ragged and end up unable to do anything for who knows how long.”

“I’ve survived this far.” Rory took a deep breath. Arguing was a waste of time. “Look, we need to find the others fast. Let’s go. You trust me, right?”

Viv ground her teeth for just a second before whirling around and leading the way to the third floor. Some of the others had noticed something was up, but Rory told them to remain calm. Things were under control. They just had to remain alert for the time being.

The higher they climbed on the staircase, the eerier it got. They had two sources of light—Allen had brought an old-fashioned lamp and Viv had summoned her red sabre. It didn’t help relieve the strangely brooding atmosphere. The walls were stark, the doors threatening to burst open, and the hollowness of the hallways suggesting any number of things could be waiting in the dark.

Rory had the feeling whoever owned this place hadn’t really lived here for long.

At some point, they heard a terrific boom. Rory’s heart stopped as everyone froze. That noise. It was all too familiar.

Thunder.

It hadn’t been as high as it had gotten with the Thunderclaw Knight, but Rory knew a Thundershell when he heard one. He didn’t understand. One of those creatures was inside the palace somehow. With all the entrances guarded and trapped, none of them should have been able to enter without alerting someone.

Rory swallowed. The only explanation left was that the palace itself was a spawn point for the monsters. That would be a terrible stroke of luck.

“We need to be careful,” Viv whispered. “Lower the lights.”

Allen dimmed the lamp and Viv decreased her sabre’s intensity. They crept forward as Rory’s eyes adjusted to the gloom.

Of course, they didn’t have an exact goal in mind. They could start calling out names but that might attract unwanted attention. Better to scour the whole floor no matter how long it took. They’d have to come across whatever had happened to Malcolm and his group at some point.

After another few feet, they turned a corner to another hallway. Sudden footsteps made them all halt.

“Who’s there?” Viv shouted, stepping forward.

“You guys came!”

Rory recognized the voice as Malcolm’s. As Viv brightened her sabre, Rory breathed out a huge sigh of relief. The entire missing group materialized from the gloom, looking spooked and worried, though there didn’t seem to be anything outwardly wrong with any of them. No injuries, no signs of fighting, nothing.

“Where have you all been?” Viv asked.

Diane and the office workers cringed under her disapproval, though Malcolm stood his ground.

“Didn’t you meet any of the monsters?” he asked back.

Rory’s heart skipped a beat. “Monsters? You mean Thundershells.” Then he remembered these people hadn’t been at the substation or at the bank. “They’re like rocky crabs that shoot lightning.”

“Yeah, those things!” Oliver said. “There were a lot. We ran when we saw how many there were, but then they started spreading out and we had to hide before we were discovered.”

“I’m just glad you’re alright.”

“We need to warn the others,” Trish said.

She was looking back, her axe back in her hand, as though the Thundershells would pop up at any moment. She probably wasn’t wrong.

“I’ll go,” Ned said. “Even if those things pop up, I’ve got my Burnwing to get past them.”

“No,” Rory said. “We stick together.”

“But the others—”

“Dez is there,” Viv said. “He’ll know what to do if any of them get to the main hall. But that’s the thing—we’re not letting any of these monsters get off this floor. There’s enough of us here. We’ll find every single one and destroy them. Understood?”

The others all nodded grimly. Viv’s eyes landed on Rory. He hadn’t signed up for it, but he wasn’t about to back out now, regardless of how his body felt. He nodded too.

Lightning flickered in the darkness. It was as if the Thundershells had heard Viv’s violent words and were intent on responding in kind. Thunder followed a microsecond later. Rory’s heart began thumping. So, the monsters were on both sides of the hallway.

They were trapped.

“This can’t be normal,” Viv said.

“What do you mean?” Diane asked.

They all gathered closer together. Probably not a great decision, considering the monsters threw lightning to kill.

Viv kept twisting this way and that, trying to keep the monster on both sides “This trap is too intelligent for them.”

“Oh!” Diane swallowed. “You’re saying we weren’t hiding so much as these things keeping us alive here until a rescue party showed up so that they could kill everyone together.”

“That’s messed up,” Malcolm said.

Viv sighed. “It sure is.”

“Viv, you take the right,” Rory said. She couldn’t keep trying to cover both sides. That was a slippery slope to perilous defeat. “I’ll cover the left. My Weaving will keep the lightning off.”

“I’ve got a better idea. All of you, duck now.”

Several of the group lowered themselves closer to the ground. The rest, however, were too surprised or looked to question why they ought to duck when they needed to be able to move if the Thundershells attacked. Viv was having none of it.

“Duck!” she screamed. “Now.”

The force behind her voice made them all act. Rory threw himself to the ground, as did the rest of them. Seeing the sudden movement, the Thundershells still hidden in the gloom charged forward, lightning flashing off their rocky bodies.

Viv acted faster than the monsters. Her Omnipresent sabre flared brightly, turning the whole corridor into a crimson zone like a photography darkroom. Two quick swings of her sword sent burning arcs on both sides, which crashed into the Thundershells with explosive force. The monsters screeched as they died before they could get their attacks off.

“All dead,” Viv said, lowering her sabre’s intensity. “We should move.”

“Back to the others?” Diane asked hopefully.

Rory rose. It was nice the gloom hid the shakiness in his legs. “To the source. We need to destroy the spawn point.”

He was mentally cursing himself for not thinking the palace could have been a spawn point for some monster. The Thundershells had to have been biding their time before revealing themselves, apart from that first one they’d met earlier in the week.

“However many there are, I don’t think there’s enough to worry about the others being overwhelmed,” Viv said. “Not after we killed this bunch. Remember, we’re stronger now. Can you guys take us to the source?”

Diane rose. “I’m not sure. We were just stumbling around back there.”

“No way,” Malcolm confirmed. “Nothing’s recognizable in the dark.”

“It’s fine,” Ned said. “My Perception is going a little haywire. I can get us there, assuming the concentration the Perception is pointing at is the same place as the exact spawn point.”

Rory nodded. “Worth a shot. Let’s go.”

Ned led the way, Viv following close behind while Allen and Trish guarded the rear. He took them past the stairs leading downstairs, through a short hallway that led to the west wing, then went back until they were nearing the back of the place. All the while, Rory hoped the Thundershells were amassing and attacking the others back near the main hall.

A few of the monsters popped up along the way, but Viv was quick to get rid of them all. She seemed to be on a one-woman-crusade to eradicate all the Thundershells.

There was also lot of the metallic rocks that shot sparked with stray lightning here and there. They made sure to destroy any that came across. Rory did his part by Weaving them away to get more Sigils of Electrium.

“We’re here,” Ned said. “Careful.”

Viv nodded. “Let’s go.”

She kicked open the door they had halted before. The room was a dining hall, smaller than the one they occupied near the entrance, but still spacious and tall. All the tables and chairs had been broken, replaced with more Electrium covering the walls and floors.

For a moment, the darkness made it seem as though there were hardly any Thundershells in the chamber, but then electricity started flashing everywhere. The monsters thundered to life, their sheer numbers making Rory’s heart quail. Not good.

“Crap.” Trish let loose more curses. “Too many.”

Of course, Viv had already attacked. Several crimson arcs had shot into the monsters’ midst and killed a few Thundershells. But Rory’s mouth fell open a little as one of the Electrium deposits on the floor flashed, an arc of lightning connecting it to a large growth on the ceiling. The one on the floor split, cracked, and crumbled, a newly-formed Thundershell climbing out of its ruins.

“Well,” Allen said. He sounded far too calm. “Now we know how they’re born. Reborn? Something.”

The large Electrium deposit flared with more arcs of electricity, hitting more of the smaller deposits on the walls and the floor.

“We need to destroy that thing,” Viv said.

She tried to attack it with her sabre after taking care of the surrounding Thundershells with ease, but the large growth started to regrow as soon as her scarlet energy finished ravaging the ceiling. Rory grimaced. It was just like the Thunderclaw Knight reforming after being destroyed at the substation.

“I’ve got this,” Rory said. “Just keep me covered.”

“Go,” Viv said. “I’ve got your back.”

As Rory started towards the centre of the hall, he pulled Allen with him. The other monsters surged forward to attack them, but Viv and Trish charged in to take them out. Allen created rubber shields for all of them, though Trish was the only one who used one. Viv relied on her teleportation to stay abreast of the lightning.

Even with the others’ help there were more Thundershells coming at Rory. Their lightning couldn’t get past Allen’s shield, so they attempted to jump at them. Thankfully, Allen had his Sigil of Wood to ensnare them in a sudden growth of stiff plants.

“Won’t hold them for long,” he said. “If you could hurry up.”

Rory was already on it. “Almost got it.”

His Weaving was struggling with the deposit’s regeneration. He’d already received a few Sigils of Electrium, but the deposit kept regrowing. So, Rory homed in on its regenerative capability and received a Sigil of Resurrection. That made the large deposit finally shattered into a rainfall of rocky sprinkles.

“It’s done,” Rory announced.

The others had finished up their sides of the business too. All the Thundershells had been reduced to chunks of sparking rocks.

“You think that’s the last of them?” Trish asked.

“Maybe we should head out to others now and make sure,” Ned said.

They did so, but only after waiting a little longer and making sure none of the Electrium deposits or Thundershells were reforming. Even then, Rory wasn’t satisfied. The whole excursion had felt a little too easy. Sure, they had grown stronger, and their Sigils were more powerful. They should be able to handle old threats without trouble.

But something told Rory this was far from done.