The sense of dread hung over me like the vestiges of a bad dream. I knew, intellectually, that whatever we were about to get into wouldn’t be as dangerous as the trial, or even the early floors of the adaptive dungeon. It probably wouldn’t come close. But I couldn’t shake it. This deeply unsettling feeling that the system could scrub us at any time. That I was malware, cowering in the depth of the system’s archives, and bringing attention to myself like this was all but asking for deletion.

When I squinted directly up, through the intensity of the white beam, I could make out the rolling white artifacts of a sparsely clouded sky. “There’s no ceiling.”

“Get ready.” Nick unsheathed his sword and brought his shield to bear, his expression grim. I drew my crossbow, spun the dagger in my hand a few times, making sure of the weight, glancing over Nick’s new gear. He’d upgraded since last time. His sword was black and gray, both shorter and thicker than his previous, more heroic looking blade. Keith drew a wand topped with a stylized golden sun, his face pale.

“Why are we freaking out that there isn’t a ceiling?” Halima looked between the three of us, puzzled.

“Dunno.” Keith admitted.

Why did the order bother with Users this green? I waited for Nick to explain. When he didn’t, I shot Halima a look. “No ceiling means good odds there’s not a safe entry point. They’re not putting us into a staging area, unless there’s some kind of force-field—which I doubt. Meaning something could jump us the second we’re up there.”

Halima absorbed this. Her body-language shifted, legs bent slightly. She flicked the guard of her sword with her thumb, exposing the blade around an inch, and placed her other hand on the hilt in a stance that anyone who's watched Saturday morning cartoons for longer than an hour would recognize.

“What?” Halima asked. She didn’t look at me, but she raised an eyebrow.

I just hope you have some practical experience, and it isn’t all from watching Kurosawa films.

I drew and dropped it at my side; it collided with the ground, and Talia appeared in her feral dog form. “Asena. Get ready.” I told her, using the alternate name we’d agreed on. She heeled at my side, cuing several dubious glances from the others.

Nick gave our distracted members some serious side-eye. “Keith. We talked about this. You need to be welded to the tank’s ass every time we enter a new area.”

Keith scurried, placing himself next to Nick.

Nick moved on, “And Hal, as much as I appreciate the level of focus you’re putting out, aren’t you forgetting something?”

Halima’s gaze rested on Talia, mouth quirked in irritation. She released the death-grip on the hilt of her sword and clapped her hands together. A sphere of swirling, transparent wind appeared at the steeple of her fingertips. Moments later, a small, quadrupedal creature made of leaves appeared in front of her.

So Halima was a fellow summoner.

I could see why she was reticent to bring it out. It bobbed back and forth on four, fragile looking legs. Its eyes were black and beady, mouth high on its face, naturally quirked up in a position that gave it a permanent dumb smile.

It spotted Talia and waddled over, pouncing on the larger summon’s paw. Talia raised her arm slightly off the ground and flicked it. The movement and amount of force applied was delicate, but still sent the leaf-creature flying across the platform, rolling several times.

“Patta.” Halima hissed. “Heel.”

Stunned but otherwise unperturbed, Patta ignored his master and waddled back over to Talia, rearing back and pouncing on her foot. Talia was obviously irritated, but otherwise let the summon be.

Halima’s summon looked useless, but then again, so did Audrey until she opened her mouth. Regardless of why Nick picked these two Users, it was better to disregard them until they proved themselves.

I bumped Nick. “Gonna draw aggro once we’re up there. Do some initial damage. Then lead them back to you.”

Nick nodded. He was trying to look calm, but the knuckles that gripped his sword were white, his posture tense. “I can do cleanup. Just try not to pull too many.”

“Done.”

“What about us?” Keith asked, gesturing between himself and Halima

“Support the tank.” I answered, hoping that was enough to shut him up so I could hear. The bright white light was fading away, sky coming into clear focus. We had seconds, if that. I cast on two bolts, sliding them into my newly purchased quiver.

The sense of dread grew stronger as the platform pushed us up, closer and closer to the destination.

A shadow flitted overhead, round and circular.

I tensed. I’d underestimated the situation. The tower wasn’t even going to wait until the elevator landed to throw shit at us.

“Incoming!” I shouted. Nick reacted immediately, spotting the projectile and hefting his shield above his head. A dark orange glow overtook the shield, offering full coverage to Keith and Halima.

“New plan.” Nick growled. “Flank. Take out their ranged.”

“Got it.” I prepared for impact, hoping Nick could block whatever was coming. Otherwise, this would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Still obscured by the light, I watched as the object struck Nick’s shield—and bounced off perfectly, reversing its trajectory and flying back out of the opening. The deflection method was new to me—a sort of return-to-sender ability I’d never seen him use before.

I smiled. Whatever just tried to sucker-punch us had another thing coming.

The opening was close enough. I dropped low, gathering the strength in my legs, and leapt straight upward, grabbing the rim of the lift’s landing point and yanking myself upward, mantling over the edge and rolling, crossbow in hand, ready to take a cheap shot at whatever was waiting.

I brought the sights to bear. Only for a dozen barefoot people and in swimsuits to shriek and back away from me.

It took a moment to disregard them as targets. None of them were armed or armored. And they all looked more scared of me than I was of them. There was a tropical vista behind them, full to the brim with people lounging on foldout chairs, many wearing sunglasses, some reading as waves lapped up on the sand.

Instead of some system created hellhole, I suddenly found myself in the awkward position of being heavily armed and fully prepared to go to war in the middle of a beach party.

One of the few who didn’t scatter, a shirtless man with a well-oiled twelve pack and skin so tan it was almost bronze stepped forward tentatively.

I shifted the crossbow towards him, and he raised his hands immediately, offering me a serene smile. “Welcome to paradise, brah.” He pointed towards the sandy ground beside me. “Mind if we get that back?”

I feigned a glance, intending to bait him into attacking if this was all some weird distraction. When he didn’t budge, I actually looked.

There was a volleyball a few feet to my right, embedded in an imprint of sand. My mind ran through the last minute, re-contextualizing it and leaving me feeling slightly moronic. A few feet behind more-abs-than-god, a small group of similarly dressed users waited on either side of a cheap-looking net. We weren’t under attack.

“It’s clear,” I called down the elevator.

Nick, Halima, and Keith arrived on the platform moments later, looking thoroughly confused. I lowered the crossbow and stooped down, scooping up the ball and tossing it to Abs.

“Appreciate you.” Abs caught the ball in one giant palm. Then he cocked his head and stuck a finger at me. “First timers?”

“Something like that.” I said.

“Cool. You guys look savage.” He looked us all up and down, pausing on Halima. “You even brought a samurai. Or a shrine maiden, or whatever.”

A vein popped out on my forehead. “It is a dungeon.”

“Only if you want it to be.” Abs winked. “Monsters on the lower levels are pretty chill. The hardcore climbers rarely spend much time here. You get a HUD prompt?”

I noted the purple notification light in the corner of my vision and expanded it.

Tower Assignment: Slay Mandrakes (0/10)

Time: 58:11

“Yeah…” I trailed off, not particularly impressed with the tower so far. “Jesus. Did I stumble into WoW Classic?”

Abs threw back his head and guffawed. “Journey and destination my dude. The objective’s personal, so everyone in your party’s gotta do it, but if you got a healer or something, you can just let them get the last hit and it’ll count. Try not to kill more than you have to. People coming up the lift after you will need them to clear. That’s the journey part.”

“What happens if we run out of time?” I asked.

“If you take an L, you get sent to the back of the line and gotta pony up the entry-fee again.”

That was pretty lenient, by system standards.

“And after?” I asked.

Boss fight, maybe? Please?

“You go to the next floor. Or…” Abs grinned and struck a power pose, flexing a bicep. “Stay here and party like the sun’s never gonna set. Cause it isn’t!”

With that, he ran off, bounding back to his pickup game on the beach. I’d taken everything he said with a grain of salt. But Nick looked like he hadn’t been listening at all. Now that I’d switched mental gears, this floor of the dungeon looked more or less conquered. There was even a series of tiki-style thatch huts that appeared freshly built, with multiple serving drinks and refreshments.

Halima and Keith looked mostly delighted with the development. But Nick didn’t fully relax until Abs was long gone, and even then, he made no effort to put his weapons away.

Nick forced a smile. “Beach episode?”

“We have a job to do.” I watched him carefully.

“Yep.” Nick sighed and spun his sword. “Ripples are supposed to start on this floor. Remember, we don’t know what they look like, but we know that they’re here. We’re looking for something wrong with the environment. Could be a section of flat grass, or warped tree. Let’s get moving.”

We moved in a standard formation as Nick proceeded carefully into the green. The original plan was to stay together as we forged through the dungeon floor, away from the beach.

That plan didn’t last long.

Halima found the first one. There was a cluster of small white flowers jutting out in all directions I’d overlooked. She dropped to one knee—and for a moment, I thought she intended to smell them. Instead, Halima grabbed the cluster at its singular root and yanked.

The root was large, bigger than the flowers and probably larger than my head—but more than that, it had a face complete with a gap-mouthed expression as it dangled above the ground and stared at all of us. It slapped its stubby hands against its cheeks and screamed.

Halima dropped it, her eyes narrowing, and grabbed her sword. The draw-attack was lightning fast, but inaccurate, severing the Mandrake’s flowers from its head.

The mandrake paused, blinking several times, reaching a stubby hand towards its head to feel for the flowers and grabbing stem instead.

Realization dawned, and it screamed again, the scream crescendoing into a series of shrieks as it raced across the clearing. Its voice was barely decipherable. ”No no no no no no.”

Talia dashed around to cut off its escape. Instead of trying to go around her, or attacking, the mandrake pulled a 180 and dashed directly back towards us, still screaming bloody murder.

Keith stepped forward and mouthed something, then flicked his wand. A purple bolt of energy exploded from his wand. It smashed into the mandrake’s forehead, knocking it head over heels. I thought that was it, but the mandrake slowly staggered to its feet, drew in a giant breath, and screamed anew sprinting off to the side this time, only to be cut off once more and herded towards us.

Nick held his shield limply at his side and watched the scene. “This is just… sad.”

I had to agree.