Now’s not the time to panic.

I fucked up... again.

John was almost stunned with the realization. By his slack pose and half-lidded gaze, the creature just a dozen feet away had the instinct that the human was weakened, falling ****, even ****. The dinosaur-like monster, a kind of featherless raptor with a bull’s set of horns, had just turned the corner to attack its detected enemy; it was still feeling the damage from the unseen counterattack to that failed charge. The prey had moved too fast for it to track until now, but now the enemy was ****, or so the beast understood. The sigiled pearl on its head flashed with a mustard yellow light. It shrieked briefly in pain and, with its jaw snapping open to swallow John’s head whole, charged.

I can’t waste any more time.

Your serpent’s lunge deals 546 damage to pulikano!
CRIT! Your quickcasted serpent’s lunge deals 1,638 damage to pulikano!

The pulikano has been slain!
+1,102XP
+$105
+4 pulikano teeth
+1 pulikano hide
+1 **** pearl

The creature’s body jerked violently as the blows landed on its skull, causing it to tumble and fall dead. John didn’t pay any heed as the corpse slid to a stop at his feet. It had only been a level 13 beast, starved and branded as a **** of Juniluny. The pearl on its forehead, now loose in John’s inventory, had what was probably her mark: a folded loop of cloth circling a clenched fist, its grip dripping coins, set in black. John understood his enemy more, then, as well as why the barrier had so many entities inside. It also explained why she was so eager to bring him here.

This is her Temple. The comparison cooled John’s anger; this was an enemy he understood, in a reflective, awful way. Given the moment to think, of the differences between them thus far, he realized how he might beat her... if the labyrinth worked as he guessed, and only if he could find her again. That he didn't think of it sooner made him curse in his thoughts. I let myself give in to fear... and given her silence, it looks like she really did leave to go and hurt someone else... someone who's probably here because of me. I can’t keep letting this happen... John stepped back from the corpse and sat down. Chasing blindly after her through this... zoo of hers isn’t going to help me. The fights could slow me down... so could my feet... I just need to find the way to her or to whoever came in after me so I can keep that crazy midget from killing anyone. Moira. He hoped it was anyone else. Maybe Juniluny would toy with anyone else, horrible as that was to imagine; John could fix that damage, even erase the memory of the pain if he felt so bold. If not, the Order could do both. But what would happen to Moira? Warden or no, she had only so much mana to keep her levels from being drained. More, she’d get blindsided in this maze; what would a Cabal mage do to a Warden, given what said mage was willing to do to civilians and him? He didn’t dare imagine it. John stared out at the crossroads up ahead.

His plan solidified into a wish for a way to track his progress through the maze... and a function he had never needed or seen before appeared on his UI: a black square, which then grew a tiny blue line with a blinking green dot at its center. The two crossroads he had seen mapped themselves out on either end, and the unseen turns and stairwells faded into the black background of the minimap.

This was no coincidence; the Game knew what he wanted to do. But was it futile? How large was this labyrinth... if it even worked on rules of space that made sense? Marching blindly would do him no better, John realized; for the sake of others, he couldn’t sit and wait for the Cabalist to return. But if I can get to her... even just near her... He imagined the portals he would make, thought of how they could work... and with the careful designs in his mind, he opene his first tunnels. He resisted the urge to blink at the discomforting feeling on his eyes... and, realizing it worked, smiled in relief. This could work... but he was left hoping it could work fast enough to matter.

The fire alarms continued to shriek as the tidal wave of students and faculty thinned, leaving only one student behind.

Now hiding in the art classroom's supply closet was a half-naked Moira, struggling to shove the rest of her school uniform into the shield with her phone pinned between her cheek and shoulder. "Yes, it's the Cabal, and yes, I'm going after him!"

"L-Lady Brighton," sputtered Cornelius on the other end, "must I find your father so you might believe him where you will not believe me?! I promise, we shall deploy a task **** as soon as able; there are a dozen registered mages and two squads of knight-errants ready to serve, if they're only given the time-"

"Then get them all over here, before-" Moira's words cut off as she sensed it, though her experience had never felt so odd a sensation. The barrier is... no, but barriers don't... It was one of the few times Moira had a question anymore about the Abyss; as luck would have it, her father's Sage was already on the line. "Cornelius, can barriers move? I mean, in where they're positioned in our world?"

"W-What? Well, theoretically yes, though such sorcery has been treated more as myth than any proven science of-"

"Lady help us, this one is moving! Forget myth!" Moira pulled her newest hauberk, her third in only a month's time, from the shield. Her request for enchanted armor from Europe would likely fall on deaf ears if she ruined this one, too.

"Lady, please, promise me that you'll-" A tap, and Moira stashed the phone into her shield as she focused on getting dressed... just as the classroom door slammed open. Heaven help me, if one of these damn civilians gathers or eats one of the mushrooms-!

Heavy footsteps stomped past the growing Abyssal fungus of the classroom and towards the tiny supply closet. Moira's senses suddenly warned her of the approaching being's nature. The impression was subtle, but it was surely a mage; though she sensed no evil, Moira prepared her hammer and shield, her face turning red as she realized she had to face whatever was coming with naught but her bra and chastity belt. What now, then?!

The blue pixie mohawk caught her eye first, followed by the the surprised wide eyes of what she suspected to be a woman in a male student uniform... sloppily worn, no less. Her face was long and pointed, and her eyes, relaxed on meeting Moira’s, grew wide as she scanned the Warden’s scantily clad body. This happened once, then twice, until the stranger finally exclaimed,"Lady Moira!" Her deep voice nearly threw the Brighton for a loop, but her sudden turn to the opposite wall made her seem too innocent for Moira to keep her guard up. "Lady Moira," the tall woman repeated, clearing her throat as she spoke at a methodical pace, "I'm Registered Magus Gallows. Your father had me sent here to extract you in dire situations."

Fantastic. Moira eyed the mage's haircut. Not very undercover, either... is this a trick?

"'Affinity hails from art, and faith from affinity.'"

Moira relaxed her guard completely as she heard the day's password. "Good! I thought Cornelius was simply ignoring me. Well then, my orders are as follows: you're going to help me save another Order mage from the Cabalist's barrier-"

"You've got it wrong," the mage stated bluntly enough to shock the Warden. "I'm here to extract you. I'm not to take any orders from you."

"E-Excuse me? I am the Warden of the Golden Rose! I speak with the authority of the Order!”

"Yeah, but your father was Warden first, so you’re out-ranked on this one. Now let's go." Galley turned around only to find Moira quickly slipping into the hauberk, letting it fold and messily stick to her as she tried to quickly worm into it. "I've got permission to take you by **** if you make me."

Moira grimaced at that. It seemed implausible that a mage serving her father would make up his orders... but what kind of mage did he trust to take her anywhere by ****? “My father told you to attack me?”

“Only if you're... what was his word... 'difficult.'”

Discipline is the greatest gift a father can give. Her father’s maxim followed her into adulthood, it seemed. Moira focused on the invisible barrier as it moved: it was huge, and its drift was slow enough, but Moira could sense that it's back-end was slowly approaching from the north. The barrier was heading south, then; but she was out of time to instruct the Sage anew... and certainly out of time to negotiate with the brute her father had sent.

“Good,” Moira decided. Galley raised an eyebrow. “You know how to enter and exit barriers, I hope?” She sealed her mouth as she focused her energy.

Galley's frown deepened as she realized Moira's plan. The mage reached for her right sleeve and clenched her teeth as she lunged at the Warden-

“The Lady guides me!”

Galley cursed as her charge vanished. She was alone in the closet... and no new barrier had appeared. Slowly, the woman sighed and let go of her sleeve. She cracked her neck as she sniffed the air. So she wants me to go in there to get her home, huh? Good grief... how do I end up with these gigs? Galley, shaking her head as she sensed the barrier's movement, knew she had all of a dozen seconds to make her choice. It took her three.

By the time the barrier had cleared the Academy, the sprinkler-soaked art room had only the fungus for company.

A brief shadow fell over the art room closet, only to part like a half-remembered veil to reveal a rectangular stone room with only one exit. Galley had hoped to find Moira nearby, but the Warden was nowhere to be seen in the dim lighting of the flames above. Instead, with a glinting, single eye focused on the newcomer, a lump of fur and some dozens of clawed, goblin-like arms began to squirm in the corner of the large chamber, almost cutting Galley off from the exit that promised nothing more than an elbow hallway leading elsewhere. She's not here. Sure, this barrier is huge, so it makes sense we ended up in different places, but... I can't even smell her nearby. Every question she had would have to wait; the creature was stirring. Galley took in the air, sniffing it loudly as she tried to figure out the situation. The Warden was faint and distant; the smell of magic didn't need time to travel like the smell of life, so even now she could tell the relative distance between them.

Galley's left hand, still gripping her right sleeve, eased off as she took in the scent of the monster. The beast had a soul, and the soul reflected the base urges, wants, and fears in the kind of odor Galley could perceive. It’s starving and thirsty... weak... beaten and half-injured already. It's frightened of me; it's frightened of my shape. I'm what it considers its threat and abuser... but bigger. It thinks I've cornered it. It's too scared to hold back. It's going to attack me. A slight furrow appeared on the mage's brow. These Cabalists are all the same... The creature opened an unseen pocket to reveal a toucan's beak. It roared, revealing tiny fangs lining the inside of the hideous jaw, and began to lift itself off of the ground on its six most muscular arms. Upright, the beast stood at nearly five feet in height and almost as much in width. "Sorry, little guy... I can't take you home, and I don't think the Order would be much nicer if I let you live." Galley cracked her knuckles. "I'll put you out of your misery, and then get **** for you; it's the best I can offer. How 'bout it?" The creature screeched again as it charged. Galley apologized and swung.

A place of suffering... of pain and sickness... of hunger and anger... of slavery without end.

By focusing on the barrier's horrid nature, Kim Moon had arrived. She looked down at her clothes, now transformed into a sky-blue rendition of her gi back home: a dead tree bent and leaning under a hurricane wind and a tiger's roaring face hidden in the folds of air. It would hide blood poorly; that was the point, her father had said with one of his rare, grim smiles. The young Slayer of the Northern Wind rose from her kneeling position and closed her eyes.

The enemies were numerous; here, where reality was thin, she could feel them as if she were surrounded on all sides by carapace, hides, and claws. But they were as trapped as she was; more, most were slaves of this place.

Most, but not all.

Kim had to move quickly. She had started at the top of a corkscrew staircase only to leap down its steps, following her raw instinct as it guided her through the maze. The twisting path she was on ran by the denizens of this prison whenever the moment was opportune: the backs of Elven heads, the tiny and far-off forms of tall and muscular green men, a Minotaur so focused on urinating that she passed him before he could grab his axe. Kim sprinted as ki kept her limbs energized and mobile, feeding blood and oxygen into muscles that would never tire as long as she was awake.

I move with the grace of my predecessors... I kill with their hands... I find my foe with their eyes. I am ready. Kim was a martial artist, and decorum demanded that she maintain a low profile at school... but here, amid monsters all tied to the same, foreboding place above, she was the Slayer of the Northern Wind; she would destroy the evil that fell upon her quiet town. These petty monsters were not real; their threat, too, was an illusion. Their master, that tumor at the center of all these invisible strands of bondage, was all that was real that needed Kim’s deft hands. She was ready, she told herself.

I will show you, father!

She ran up a flight of steps, and then another, only to meet four more Elven guards at the top of the stairwell. They yelled in their native tongues; their bronzed flesh glittered with sweat by the light of the fires around them. Their obsidian spears glittered as they failed to make their marks on her flesh, and Kim was amid them when she spread her arms wide. Hira ichimonji. Not an incantation, as some mages did; a muscle memory, enchanted by magic in the blood, tempered by a life of training. The weapons swerved to pin her. The Slayer became a whirlwind as open palm strikes shattered thigh bones, collapsed rib cages and, for each, slammed into either the chest or head to send the shock of the blow directly into the brain or heart.

The last breathing soul among this first wave of guards, perhaps a veteran among the long-lived, managed to draw away before her final blow landed. Hicho. Her left leg raised as she posed. The elf continued to back up, spear ahead of him as a guard, until the intruder vanished.

“Heli-?!” His surprise cut off as she appeared again before him, against the left side of his spear and with her palm slamming most of his nose up and into his brain.

Kim withdrew into her earlier pose. She did not quiver or shake with effort to keep her balance; she had mastered the katas before middle school. But a bead of sweat dripped down her face as she remained tense. Something was still there... and it was coming up from beneath her. Kim shifted to change her stance to evade, but her eyes caught sight of the enemy: a small, almost human arm that carressed her right ankle.

“Guop a’lakar,” whispered the stones, and pain fired up Kim’s body as her ankle swelled and deformed against the leg of her gi.

“Tch-!” The urge to scream or panic was strangled by discipline alone; liquid fire ran up her leg and made her heart race as graying, excess flesh poked out from the white hem of her pant leg. The latter darkened with black stains, and she felt something grind unnaturally until she took the weight off of the rotting foot. The rage and panic was muted by the searing heat of it; Kim had never faced such a wound in her vision training, had never felt her body be violated so hideously. What monster was she facing? Her every trainer, the mages she had dared to study... no, nothing had prepared her-

She focused on a silver medallion from her youth, and the pain dissolved even as the flesh tried to do the same. I... am the Slayer. I move... with the grace... of my predecessors...

“Hoooo ho ho ho...!” Kim ignored the obnoxious laugh and continued to meditate on her leg. The blackened blood that tried to course through her veins was struck by her energy, and slowly fresh blood flowed back into the fetid wound. The damage was horrible, but it could be undone. “Not so fast now, hmm? Maybe you have time for some questions from your dear Aunt Juni...”

Kim opened her eyes slowly. The hall remained empty. An invisible enemy? No... but she was close. The sound coming from the wall was no illusion; the wall was speaking to her, or else something behind it and unobstructed by stone. The tumor. Her senses returned in full now that the pain had gone. It was the mage that spoke to her... and from only a few feet away. “I shall give you no quarter.”

“Really? That hardly seems fair... guop a’lakar.”

Kim leapt from her position on her good foot... and looked down to see the arm rising from the blackened ball of one of her shadows. There! Kim touched the ceiling with her fingertips and launched her kick downward, ready to crush the offending hand with her sudden counterattack... only to smash against the unbreakable marble of the floor. The hand had slid away with unnatural speed... just as her shadow by the fire had done. It moves with the shadow-!

Her observation had a price: the hand slapped the top of her foot before rushing back into the dark.

Her shoe began to swell and deform as she tried, and failed, to meditate ahead of the agony. Instinct drove her to lean more weight on the damaged ankle, causing the brittle, half-rotting bones within it to snap and collapse under her. A strangled gasp escaped the Slayer, a disgusting series of pops and ruptures filled the otherwise silent hall, and her gasp turned to hisses from between her grinding teeth. The Slayer lost her balance; there were few kata that one could do without feet. Breaking her fall on her shoulder and arm, she looked up and around as she continued to try and refocus her ki. Her shoe, a slip-on of linen, fell away as her foot blackened and started to leak.

Kim was alone, and her Clan had no idea she was in any trouble.

"If you think that hurts," the mage taunted, "just imagine trying to learn it!"