Crossing the dome to the second stage didn’t feel any different than the first one. The world blanked white for a second, and Alex felt a coldness spreading across his skin. The jolt of passing through into a dungeon didn’t affect him as much this time, and he came through on to the other side with a firmness to his steps that didn’t match the thundering of his heart.

Cedric was already turning about with his spear in hand, dark eyes watchful of their surroundings. Valerian and the siblings came through behind Alex a moment later. It took him a second, but Alex was on guard as soon as he noticed. He scanned the woodland around them, the wind-blown birches and maples, the gnarled oaks and the prickly bushes and the thick undergrowth.

There was nothing different there, the green aroma of the forest and the whistle of the breeze were the same, only everything was… dim.

He blinked once, twice, rubbed at his eyes, but nothing changed. The colors are all wrong. The realization came with a sinking sense of menace. He could feel it tingling across his skin, setting the hair in his arms on end. It’s like we don’t belong here.

The forest was stained in a hazy red-purple coat, just faint enough to seem like a trick of the eye while being impossible to ignore. He looked down at the ground beneath him, at the grass and loose twigs and fallen leaves. No, they were still the same color, just… tainted.

Finally, Alex turned his eyes upward, toward the visible purple sky. Unlike the dome of air in the first dungeon which just softly—and near invisibly—shimmered above the land, this one had a visible tint to it. A smokiness that diffused and smeared the light until you couldn’t find the sun in any one spot in the sky. The whole forest looked like it was in perpetual twilight.

Alex shivered, and he could see Diana and Daven to either side of him looking just as putout.

“And this is a tame dungeon?” Diana asked, cautiously stepping away from the dome behind them. She gazed around warily as if a beast straight out of her nightmares would jump them at any moment.

As far as Alex knew, it just might.

“It is,” Cedric said, giving a final examination of their surroundings before he turned back. “Are you ready for it?” The question didn’t imply the possibility of denying it.

“More than ready,” Daven said, a confident smile plastered on his face. It would have been believable were he not gripping his bow like he wanted to break it.

Cedric smiled as if he expected the answer. “Just remember to not take any unnecessary risks,” he said. “And make sure to conserve your energy as much as you can.” Then he turned and walked off, spear ready and out in his hands.

Alex followed behind, his steps crunching old leaves beneath. The siblings stepped to either side of him, whether to keep the same formation as before or to maximize the distance between each other Alex didn’t know. With his tower shield secured on his arm—though his sword was still sheathed on his side—Valerian stalked at their rear, his face ever grim.

As they walked, Alex’s eyes peeled off to every little shuffle in the undergrowth, every twig snapping off around them. Occasionally, a terrible wail sounded deeper in the forest, the sound you would expect a deer to make if its skin was being peeled off. Or a person.

No one asked anything, and Cedric didn’t offer explanations. It seemed the crew leader really wanted to test them here.

Despite the nerves, Alex didn’t draw his power out just yet, instead he let the wave of mana flow to just beneath the surface, letting it boil there, eager to be let loose. As was the nature of fire.

He had found that he was only a flicker away from summoning the flames this way, while saving considerably on his mana expenditure. It still ticked away at about a point seven per minute rate, but that meant his mana regeneration had taken it down from being two full points.

He hadn’t bothered being so careful as to passively spend mana just to be ready, not after the first half hour in the first stage anyway, but for now he wanted to keep on his toes. The atmosphere of the forest with its perpetual twilight-glow unsettled him. It was as if his instincts were constantly whispering of danger but never quite screaming about it.

And sure enough it didn’t take long for them to come across the first monster. Not two minutes after leaving the proximity of the dome, the crew stopped abruptly when something sharp rasped against tree bark above them.

Heads swiveled, and an arrow was knocked and drawn in a heartbeat. Blazing flames and hard shimmering air emerged from bare hands. As Alex held his breath, a trace ready to turn this new monster into burnt dust, something shifted in his peripheral. He turned—

But Daven proved faster than he was. The arrow flew quicker than he could blink and something screeched from the canopy in response. Another followed, parting jumbles of leaves to strike at its target. It missed, and the answer came with a Killer Sloth dive bombing the crew, knife-like claws glinting in front of it. It had a bleeding gash on the side of its white-furred head where the first arrow scored it.

Alex’s first fire-arrow was quicker than Daven’s third, finding a place in the beast’s gut. Diana’s air blade caught it on the side next, followed by a solid arrow to the heart. Cedric had to gingerly step to the side to let the Killer Sloth crash to the ground, dead on arrival.

The scene nearly mirrored their first encounter of the day.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Diana commented, her stance more relaxed now.

Daven kicked at the ground with his boot and grumbled, “Glassing waste of arrows.” A few minutes inside the second stage and the archer already thought the strongest monster in the first stage unworthy of his efforts.

Alex could only chuckle silently.

“Well,” Cedric started, “you said you just opened the… Gate of the Arrow, right?” Surprisingly, his tone was cautious. It seemed even knowing the archer’s disposition Cedric didn’t want to offend.

His fears were unfounded, however, and he only got a petulant nod in response.

The crew leader smiled.“Then you shouldn’t worry about it for too long.” He stretched down and picked Daven’s arrow from where the sloth had fallen, then a thin stick up from the ground beside it. “I know of archers who can create new arrows out of sticks and twigs the way Alex here shapes his fire. And second-rankers do it out of thin air.” He walked up to Daven and offered him the stick and the arrow in the same hand. “They didn’t say it like you did, of course, but I reckon that must be a trace they made with the Gate of Arrow. You just have to figure it out by yourself.”

Daven looked down at the two objects in front of him, thinking for a second, then grinned. He grabbed at the stick. “Thanks,” he said. “I will, you’ll see.”

Cedric nodded. “Good sentiment,” he said, then offered the arrow again. “Don’t take it too literally, though. Not here. You still need the arrows for now.”

The next monsters they found were a pair of bushtails, hanging down from a bough arching over the narrow path through the brush they’d taken. The big squirrels were dangerous once you were within their steely tails, but like this? More like target practice. The forest was thicker here, yes, denser and darker, but more sparse when it came to monsters, it seemed.

Daven scoffed. “Really?” He reached for the quiver at his side but stopped just short. Straightening, the archer shrugged and looked to Diana and Alex. “Whatever, it’s easier for you two to deal with them.”

Despite everything, Alex couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed as well. Still, he took a shot at the bushtail on the right, taking whatever satisfaction he could have from dusting another one of the little freaks, while Diana cut down the other one.

Alex watched dispassionately as the monsters fell to their death, squealing shrilly before thudding on the forest floor. Ah, screw this. Heaving out a sigh, he let go of his tight hold on the power. It wasn’t worth the effort. That tiny itch at the back of his mind hadn’t gone away, but it just felt like his gut was crying wolf to him for minutes on end.

Of course, that’s when everything went to shit.

“I can’t believe—” Diana had started saying, then she yelped and fell to the ground. Alex turned, taken by surprise, only to watch her body slowly being dragged down the slope beside the path.

Something had taken hold of her ankle. A vine of some kind, wrist-thick and angry-red. At the same time, at the bottom of the small decline, the earth shook, trembled. Then the ground burst open, shooting dirt and old roots and leaves into the air.

A form rose there as if birthed from this sick forest, a bulging mass of writhing red vines that reminded him of a giant intestine come alive. Thick stalks connected it to the ground, sprawling around it in a web of creepers, and a pus-yellow flower wider than Alex was tall unfurled at its crown like the wings of a hawk.

The vine trying to pull Diana down led to the monster’s large belly, twisting as it went. Something swelled within its organ-like bulge, and the petals of the flower above it fluttered as if ready to take flight. It stopped, pausing as if on the verge of belching, before letting out a thundering, rasping wail that reverberated in the forest.

It was similar to the one they heard before—only this time it wasn’t one of suffering. It no longer had to fool other animals and people to come and help the dying creature it impersonated. No, this wail was hungry, cruel.

The sound rang in Alex’s mind, rattling the inside of his skull—though his HP didn’t tick down like it did with the Killer Sloth’s shriek. His eyes flashed to the tag above it.

[Flesh Flower lvl 5]

Alex swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. He didn’t want to find out if the monster was named for its appearance or for what it was fond of eating. In the distance, roars and wails and long shrieks echoed.

He looked at the vine monster as a knot formed in his stomach. That hadn’t been a wail, he realized. It had been a call, and the forest all around them came alive in answer. A shiver crawled down his spine.

As the monster kept pulling her, Diana screamed, cursed, grabbed at a root above her.

Daven snapped out of it first. “Diana!” He clawed desperately for his quiver, pulling out an arrow. Before he could knock and draw, something whooshed from the brush, blurred in the air, and Daven was suddenly knocked on his back like he’d been punched. His bow flew from his hands to clatter against a tree.

The archer rolled onto his knees, clutching at his stomach, hacking like a dying man. Alex watched as the new monster responsible for it rose from beside him, standing on its back legs as if proud of its accomplishment.

[Spring Rabbit lvl 3]

Indeed, it was a rabbit. A little bigger than usual, sure, about as tall as Alex’s calf, but brown-coated and cute as they come. If you didn’t account for the curling ram’s horn on its head, the trickster-red eyes, and the abnormally thick legs that it stood on.

A wheezing scream seized Alex’s attention. A second vine had taken Diana by the neck, even as she clawed at the one pulling at her ankle. Her eyes were red-shot and wild, seemingly too wild for her to think of using her magic in that split moment.

Don’t just watch! Half stunned, Alex bit the inside of his cheek until he drew blood. Move, damn it!

And suddenly he could. Breathing deeply, he pulled on the power. Light swept through his veins, the welcoming heat spreading across his body through familiar pathways. A second later, the fire arrow that had been on the forefront of his mind took shape and flew toward the yellow crown of the Flesh Flower.

Almost contemptuously, a thick red vine sprung from the twisting mass of the monster like a giant limb and swatted the spell away. The fire construct broke apart in the air, but the flames caught on the vine. The fire ate at the limb for a moment, burning it like a fuse, until the vine was slapped down and ground against the earth.

Alex gaped. He needed something stronger. A new trace came to mind—something he’d only tried once at the end of his practice but by then he didn’t have the mana for it—and he opened his arms wide apart to accommodate it.

He had been so unbalanced by the last minute he only caught the smell when it was right behind him. Something rotten, fetid and musty. His eyes widened and he turned, just in time for a tree trunk as wide as his thigh to slam on his side.

Alex saw black. A grunt of pain escaped him, then another as he crashed hard against the earth, rolling over the forest floor until the bulky roots of a tree stopped him.

His ears were ringing. His ribs ached when he tried for a breath. Rolling to his back, he groaned and spat to the side. It tasted like blood. Blinking spots from his vision, he finally saw what had taken him by surprise.

It was a hulking tree monster, seven feet tall with long branches for arms and the main trunk bifurcating to form stout legs. Its wooden body was all peeling bark speckled with rot and dark blotches, and three cracks in its middle formed the twisted facsimile of a face. Thick black sap ran down from the eyes, pooling at its cruel, jagged mouth.

[Deadwood lvl 4]

The Deadwood loomed over him like an ogre, watching him as it would an insect. Another pair of eyes watched him too. Alex found the crew leader standing to the side. “Do something!” he yelled, voice raspy.

The only thing he got in response was a raised eyebrow. All this time, Alex realized, Valerian and Cedric had just been watching everything unfold, unmoved. What is going on!?

The crew leader ran a passing gaze over the three of them. “Monsters here are better at finding you,” he said, as calmly as if they were in the middle of a lecture hall. “That’s why we won’t need to go around hunting them down. Every creature who heard that first cry will make its way to this spot.”

He suddenly stepped to the side, nimble as a dancer, and a heartbeat later another Spring Rabbit shot past him like a bullet, flying off into the thick brush. Cedric acted as if it had never happened.

“So… decisions…. What will you do now? How do you act when your life's on the line?” He set the blunt end of his spear on the earth and leaned on it like he was bored. “Because I’ll tell you right now, Valerian and I won’t help you here.”