Unlike the nearby forest and inside of the HQ, John and his team were now faced with a mission in which there was not even a chance for help. They had been transported by car for almost two hours before they reached a small cave entrance lodged into the wall of a large cliff. Behind them was a shallow beach road that led back to the Council and stretched for miles along the mountainous area surrounding the beaches and ocean. It was beautiful, in an almost disturbing manner. Green and blue mixed in untamed ways as they could see dolphin-like creatures swimming between the currents.

John scoured the walls of the small entrance for clues as to what was inside, even before the two professors that had come with them there spoke. The scratches on the walls and floors and the various pieces of foliage which were dragged told him what was inside.

“This is a hideout of some dire wolves we’d like you to get rid of. Particularly, you will dispose of the pack leader,” Ember’s flat tone confirmed his fears, with Trails nodding behind her in affirmation, “you will be entirely on your own. But once you’re done you can contact us with this,” she threw John a small walkie talkie, which he soon hid in his inventory. Ember and Trails then took the jeep they had been brought there with and headed back down the roads, leaving the five teens alone.

Earlier in the day, when they all arrived in the Stealth class, Ember informed them of this new training exercise. Trails then also joined them in the room, and they explained they would have to navigate where they were brought to carefully while making a detailed enough map to find their objective. Whether or not their goal of killing the pack leader of the wolves would actually require those skills, John wasn’t sure yet. He was sure it wouldn’t take long for him to find out, however.

Looking at the rest, he saw on their faces a sense of enthusiasm he shared somewhat. Yesterday had been a long day, but he had learned a lot, and he was eager to put it into practice. John guessed they were just the same. After all, even Charlotte seemed less reserved than usual.

“Are we going in?” the healer asked firmly, after the two teachers had been gone for a couple of minutes. The rest of the team were standing around, readying their weapons or transformations. Bass had separated her halos and was almost sharpening them, and Yan looked to be focusing on her right hand. John had a feeling she had a new surprise up her sleeve.

“Let’s go,” John responded decisively, after he thought for a moment. They had nothing to do but enter. He didn’t feel like making plans beforehand, too much was at the back of his mind. All the same things that had troubled him the previous morning still did so now. Instead, he walked into the dark cave, using Orb of Light to show them the way forward. Slightly behind him followed the others. It wasn’t long before the downward slope of the cave entrance led to a large empty space. On all sides various tunnels split off from it.

Unsure of where exactly to go, John suggested they split up to cover more ground. There were only wolves in here after all, and he was sure all of them could handle those. Plus, it was unlikely that the cave would be big enough that they would lose the ability to see each other through the party feature. Yan and Bass volunteered to take the northern ones together, and Charlotte insisted on going east alone. So John and Matthew found themselves stuck together as they went to the western tunnels.

Every part of the cave was extremely dark, they knew this even before they entered. So the group was split into two halves. Bass and John were able to make light with their abilities, but Matthew, Yan, and Charlotte herself couldn’t. So they were all given torches made by the Council. That’s how she found herself walking through pitch black hallways made of stone with only a magical torch in her left hand to aid her. It emitted a faint yellow light, like a miniature sun on top of the small steel rod. Despite its light, the place was still unbearably creepy. Her back shivered with a gnawing feeling that they would find dark magic here, but she shrugged it off.

’Lena told you not to let your anxieties get to you,’ she told herself again and again, trying to calm herself down. Looking over the walls, Charlotte noticed far more life than she expected. They were covered with various small flowers, grass and moss, and marred by many scratches and stains left by the kills of the wolves. To her concern, she had noticed that the whole place was built like a giant anthill. Full of turns and labyrinthine structures, and from every direction terrible noises could be heard. Wolves barking and snarling, the crunching of bones, and claws scratching against stone, it all unsettled the healer. Nonetheless, she pressed on, unwilling to give up before anything had even happened. Repeating the same few sentences in her mind, and breathing to calm herself, as the energy around her slowly fueled her power.

Charlotte soon left the tight corridors of the caves that stretched out from the entrance and entered another large open space. The whole thing was incredible, every wall was lined with shining gemstones that looked to be natural. Light bounced off them and back towards her with a smattering of colors and shining shapes. Still, she couldn’t see the other end of the room, even with the various strange new and glowing mushrooms emitting light among the foliage. A light almost sickening green that died in the space of the cave. But in the distance she could see one thing, wolves running around, some of them moving corpses of strange looking rabbits, bats, and other small critters to somewhere she could not see. Two or three of them, a group of smaller wolves, were also eating parts of the corpses, making disgusting sounds and splattering the ground with red liquids.

She felt her hand clench, ’animals… I’m sorry... Death shouldn’t come this way,’ she thought with an almost grim demeanor.

Covered by their sounds, she took step by step towards them. With a slick movement of each hand she took off her silk gloves and tucked them neatly into the pocket of her dress. It was a portable pocket space, just like the rest, but built into the hem of her clothing so she wouldn’t need to use Mana. She now revealed the intricate black lines on her hands, which intertwined with each other and all flowed towards the center of her palms. As she got closer, those lines began pulsing, expanding and contracting as if they were veins.

She held her hand up, ready for one of the wolves to lunge at her without warning. Yet deeper into the cave she put the torch into her pocket space as well, knowing that she would be discovered if the light bounced off the walls. The pillars that had covered her sneaking up to now had thinned, and an almost hilly spot appeared in front of her. On it she saw what had caused all the noise, and the group of wolves in its entirety. Bodies of small critters were stacked up along the walls, most were stripped of flesh and mostly bone, but some were still half-eaten. A bit further away were groups of smaller wolves being fed or feeding on the corpses. It was a nursery of some sort, she figured.

’Life from all this death,’ she half smiled.

Luckily, the larger wolves she had seen earlier had already disappeared back into the tunnels, but there was still some danger. The threat of more wolves appearing was always present, and she discovered one more threat. A gigantic creature, barely resembling a wolf in its outline at all, came into her eyesight on top of the ascent of stone. It appeared to be a female of some type.

’Maybe a broodmother?’ she thought to herself silently, and as she drew closer and looked upon it her suspicion was confirmed.

The wolf-like creature was laying on its back, held down by the massive weight of what looked to be a heavily pregnant belly. Around it were even more corpses than she had seen in the rest of the cave. Even that look was enough to confirm her thoughts, and she found it calming and disgusting both.

Her relative calm didn’t last, as behind her she heard another sound, a sharp and loud howl. Wolves appeared from every part of the cave in front and behind her. She had been spotted, and she would have to fight now.

’I wish I didn’t have to use it,’ she thought, raising her right hand higher into the air. The black veins on it only grew more erratic in their movements, pulsing like veins of blood, and shadows streaked across the light of the walls in a similar rhythm.

As the pair of the shapeshifter and sound mage entered the dark caves they had volunteered to explore together the silence they encountered there slowly transformed to the ruckus of their usual chatter.

"You can't be serious. you finally managed it?" Bass was the first to raise her voice, happy for her friend's achievement after so long. She guessed that was why Yan had wanted to talk to her alone.

"Yeah, I am. I can finally do it. Just a wolf's paw for now though," Yan chuckled in a rare spot of pride in herself. It had taken her far too long to move on from just her basic owl form.

Bass returned the gesture with a chuckle and raised her hand to give her blue haired friend a high-five. Yan hesitated, but it didn’t take long before she reciprocated. The loud clapping like sound echoed through the cave slightly, far more than their voices.

"I'm happy for you, that's a big step!" Bass said with a giant smile on her face, and looked at Yan. Despite their relative enthusiasm, once they had both talked about the rest of their lessons yesterday, they remembered why they were in that cave and returned to silence.

That was when Bass noticed another sound had appeared. Her keen ears almost perked up as in addition to their swift steps, there was a third footfall every couple of seconds. Something else was behind them.

They didn't see what it was, but Bass could hear it. Four feet moved across the ground too rapidly to be two human steps. Her hand moved by sheer instinct, removing her halo and taking it into her hand. It broke into two with a distinct cracking sound that echoed through the small cave. Yan had a surprise expression on her face at first, but soon realized what was happening. Just the same as Bass, she prepared, and her fingers were replaced with razor sharp claws. Bass put down her torch, and a shadow was cast on the wall by it. It was in the shape of a wolf, a large one. Yan still held her own torch in hand, the shadows of two wolves intertwined on the wall. One being cast by each torch.

Bass breathed in and out as the figure approached, concentrating her Mana on the halo in her hands. The mana flowed through her body, encasing it. It moved and vibrated softly, almost like a wave. Only her eyes saw the shimmer of neon pink that floated around her weapons, like a thin layer of blacklight paint.

Tense seconds passed as the only sound that could be heard was the footsteps of the wolf and the pair’s breathing. Rocks broke under its feet as the powerful wolf lunged when it entered the light. It headed for Bass’ throat, but only a single yelp passed from its mouth before its head was cut off by one of her halos.

It was too late though, Bass knew that, as more howls joined that solitary sound. The sound of hundreds of rushed steps suddenly appeared from all around them. Luckily, Bass also heard something else further into the cave, human shouts in the distance. She spoke before she could think.

“We gotta run, now!” the sound mage half screamed at her shapeshifter friend and looked for where to head.

“Sounds like someone’s further in,” she pointed in the direction of the shouting. They both quickly sprinted down the cave towards that direction. Bass’ torch was left behind, and in their trail they left a wake of sound blast after sound blast.

“Do you feel that?” something bothered John. An incessant white noise of sorts in the tunnel, almost like something was pressing against the back of his head.

“For the last time, no, I do not,” Matthew was getting increasingly annoyed with him, but the Gamer could swear there was something there. Like somebody was watching him from just around the corner.

“It’s there, you got to believe me!” John was also frustrated, the feeling was not pleasant, and he was worried about what it might mean. Soon enough, however, he had greater things to worry about. As he heard far too many footsteps coming towards them, “whatever’s making those, it’s probably bad, we need to get out of here,” he quickly said to Matthew.

“What are you talking about?” the ice mage immediately retorted, but before he could be answered by John shadows of wolves appeared to answer him instead, “damn it, run!” he shouted. That was the last thing either of them said before bolting off in the only direction they didn’t hear anything from. Moving to the north as swiftly as they could, the wolves kept closing on them.

John then heard something that could help, shouting came from somewhere nearby. It sounded similar to him, vaguely like their other teammates, and it was clearly getting closer.

The two noticed the wolves had closed the distance too light. Now they were practically snapping at their heels. One went down to ice, and a second to an Arcane Bolt but the third latched onto John’s calf before falling dead to another bolt.

Damage taken: 7 HP lost

John almost fell, so he turned back, hoping to spot any more who were that close. What he saw was far better for him and Matthew, Yan and Bass were in the distance, cutting a line through the wolves to get to them. Shockwaves of sound dazed the wolves, as razor sharp claws and talons ripped through their skin. Blood was splattered everywhere, but there was no end to the wolves. The Gamer shouted to the ice mage, and he turned back to help kill the wolves as well. All four of them working together meant it didn’t take long before they were united, standing back to back. Corpses of wolves gathered around them as more continued to swarm.

All they took was one hit to kill, but it was slowly draining the small team. Yan’s claws were battered and bloody, and she herself was in no better shape. Bass’ own weapons were in worse shape, a piece of metal had broken off one of her halos, but she was mostly uninjured. Matthew was the most composed of all of them, but even he was visibly sweating from exhaustion. John was in the worst shape of all, his legs were covered with scratches and bites, and they were healing quite slowly. Two thirds of his health were gone and his Mana was mostly depleted.

“We can’t keep standing here! There’s no end to them!” he shouted to the others, raising his voice so they would hear over the noise of their various abilities. John’s voice was pained, and he knew the rest could hear it. But this was not the time to care.

“Where can we go?” Yan fired back immediately.

“There! Not nearly as many are coming from that direction!” Bass pointed south, if John’s map was still accurate. It was towards an unexplored tunnel, but it was their best and only hope.

Bass and Matthew began moving within a second of her observation, running ahead and clearing what wolves were there. The corpses hit the walls and floors with horrendous sounds, and the smell was immense, and utterly putrid. Days ago, it would have made John vomit, but the situation at hand forced him to deal with it the best he could. Yan and John took longer, but were able to head in there protecting the other’s backs.

’I don’t know how much longer we can hold here…’ John shot an arcane bolt back, killing yet another wolf. They were standing at the choke point of the corridor. So far the wolves had only come from there. At this point he had killed about 50, but the XP gains were minimal. It seemed he had outleveled them as a source. He’d only gained about 300 XP from all of them, and that came at a serious cost,

’We need to get somewhere safe and fast,’ he looked at the others, he could tell they were in even worse shape now, despite the lessened burden. As they ran further into the tunnel, he tried to find somewhere they could hide. The tunnels felt endless as more wolves kept falling behind him. He smelt blood and the sick metallic taste spread through his tongue. Eventually, however, he spotted a small alcove in the right wall, where many bodies laid. John was barely sure all of them were the same species, but there was no time to wonder about that.

“There’s someone in there!” John shouted what he had guessed from the bodies, and hoped if not the alcove would at least help them defend themselves. Breaking off to the right, the others soon followed. Yan broke off almost immediately after he did. The other two screeched to a halt before following them soon after. More wolves were right behind them as they all ducked into the alcove, having only been barely held off before.

The first thing John saw inside was an extremely tired and battered Charlotte, whose gloves were nowhere to be seen. He spotted black dots in the middle of her hands, before she swiftly covered them.

“Be careful,” she quickly warned, her voice clearly pained. An army of wolves rushed on behind them, and one of them jumped on John before he could regain his bearings.

He was hit onto the stone floor, and the world spun around him. A blink and a wolf was centimeters from his throat, another one and he was gone. John’s ears were ringing and he felt his mind slipping away.

’No!’ he got up violently. There was no time. Desire to survive took over him and he did the only thing he could think of, what Ingrid had taught him. Not looking around, he erected an Arcane Wall at the entrance to the alcove. With every fiber of his being telling it to stay steady, to hold. Yelps and screams echoed through the alcove as the wolves through themselves uselessly against it. Despite John’s hesitation, It held.