One of the controlled vampires rammed a pointed hand into the back of a smaller vampire in front of him, ripping out a red chunk. It was impossible to see at this distance, but given the location it was probably a heart.

A few others carried out the order a split second later, felling twice their number.

The Nosferatu’s ruthless efficiency chilled me. Azure was right. If even only a few of them cornered me, or drew me into an ambush the way the Grimelings had, it would be over in seconds. And not because I won.

I laid flat and withdrew my full-sized crossbow, loading the silver-tipped bolts. As I prepared, Talia leapt from her hiding place, all teeth and claws as she attacked the imps from the opposite side. At my direction, she aimed to disable, ripping out tendons from the back of legs, inner thighs. An imp leapt on top of her, only to be blasted by a wave of divine energy. It looked odd, coming from her doberman-like form, and probably wasn’t as effective as it would have been on something Eldritch, but it still flattened the Imp long enough for Talia to tear its burning throat out.

Meanwhile, the members of the adventurer’s guild moved with every intention of capitalizing on their sudden luck, though they were still confused and recovering. Tyler charged in, swinging his massive sword at the vampires. The blade caught one of the distracted creatures in the mid-section, bisecting it. He yelled something over his shoulder, and several of his tanks rotated backward, facing the imps instead.

Good. Tyler’s truth-sight ability might be compromised, but losing an eye hadn’t slowed him down. If anything, his situational awareness was better than it was during the transposition.

But now that the jig was up, my assigned vampires were in trouble. One’s head was ripped from his shoulders, another was dogpiled by the unaffected vampires, they pinned his arms and bit him repeatedly until tackling him to the ground.

Shit.

It was only natural that mine were getting picked off. I’d assigned twenty percent to myself. Discounting the adventurer’s guild, they outnumbered my forces five to one—slightly less in this battle, after the sneak attack, but slim odds just the same.

Fall back. Hit and run when their attention is on the humans.

I repeated myself several times before they listened, their hesitation costing me a couple more casualties. One of them struck out at an AG member that was displaced in the chaos who—thankfully—dodged just in time.

No.

The vampire turned, straight up stopped in the middle of battle and hissed at me.

Obey.

Another hiss.

Jump off a cliff, then.

The vampire scowled and spun around, digging his fingers into an unassigned Nosferatu’s chest, leaving a crater. I realized he’d reverted the previous command.

Okay, so my control over them wasn’t perfect. It made sense; they weren’t summons, didn’t have a bond or attachment to me. I held some sort of authority, but any monster I directed was disinclined to go against their base instincts. It was a little like Far broader and more powerful, but situational and harder to control.

“The imps are replenishing!”

I glanced at Talia’s side of the battlefield in time to watch a User with a war hammer knock a fiery humanoid into orbit. It pinwheeled into the chasm, emitting a distant shriek. A dozen more of them scrambled on top of each other to get to the User, scratching at his armor and faceplate. And he wasn’t the only one. Even with the rotated tanks in play, that side of the battle was going far worse than before.

“Regenerating?”

“No. Every time one falls, another takes its place.” Talia hesitated. “Comes around the corner back behind the outcropping. And they don’t feel demonic. They feel artificial, somehow. Not unlike that useless creature that follows Halima around.”

They’re not native to the ripple.

The information completely reframed the conflict. If Talia was right, it meant another summoner was in play. An opportunistic User, who saw the Adventurer’s Guild engage with the vampires and hung back, using their summons as proxy to attack from afar.

Sunny’s group aiming for the artifact. Had to be.

Below, the unassigned vampires broke ranks and ran. The last few tanks and melee Users rotated towards the back, engaging the imps. But as Talia said, the imps were growing in number, keeping the Adventurer’s Guild from retreating. It didn’t leave me with much of a choice.

Either abandon them and potentially lose allies, or take out the summoner.

A few more vampires arrived from farther out, coming around the corner and looking directly at me. With a simple thought, they rushed up beside Talia and engaged the imps fearlessly, despite a clear weakness to fire that left their wounds black and angry.

I jumped down to a lower platform, landing lightly and breaking into a run.

I got them into this. I’d get them out.

/////

I spotted the summoner’s hiding place immediately. There was a wide circular platform defended by palisades that looked built on the spot, cobbled together from materials that looked identical to the red stone that made up the posts. It was at the far end of a long, winding trail.

Problem was, the trickle of imps never stopped. I couldn’t help but wonder where, exactly, the summoner was getting so much mana. The imps were solid fighters and capable of speech, which put them at least on the same level as Audrey. They were obviously far higher level than me, and Intelligence increased mana capacity, but Intelligence was my second highest stat. Even if my intelligence was doubled, I doubted I could summon Audrey more than a dozen times consecutively.

Maybe there was a distinction between a traditional summoner manifesting generic mobs—even discounting that some of them were resummons, I couldn't imagine she’d found a monster core for each one—and my bonded summons. Dodging the imps on the open path was hard. Even with my stealth skill, they had caught me in the open more than once, and as far as I could see, there was only one route to the platform. Probably why the summoner chose it.

I still couldn’t justify using the flight charm, so Audrey and I took the low route. The imps were ferocious, but not observant. We gained ground at a snail’s pace, using Audrey’s vines to hang from the side of the posts every time a patrol came near.

We finally neared the barricaded dead-end. Audrey dropped us off the side and we made our way around the back.

In the middle of the final ascent, the rhythmic beating of leathery wings passed directly behind my head, startling me.

I drew my crossbow in a hurry. Three bats settled on a small outcropping I was about to use as a foothold. Their behavior was off. They’d landed this close. And their heads were all turned to the side, the black beady eyes behind their pig-like snouts boring holes into me.

Waiting for orders.

I told them to stay, wait.

Instead of acquiescence, I was hit with a wave of ravenous hunger. It came from the center bat, who was shimmying back and forth. In more than one way, it reminded me of Audrey.

Feed soon. I promised, hoping I’d be out of the dungeon before they could hold me to it.

Another wave of hunger blasted me, but it felt more like a reminder, rather than a demand.

Audrey hauled me as high up as we could reasonably go without someone hearing her movements, then hurled me up to the top. I caught the ledge with both hands and carefully pulled myself up.

If it was Sunny’s people, I’d pass myself off as backup. If it was a monster summoning the imps, I’d keep it busy long enough for the Adventurer’s Guild to get clear.

I thought I was prepared for whatever I found up there.

I was wrong.