Rhen had reached the top of the tower. He could sense it in his weary bones. Either that, or the dehydration, sleeplessness, and malnutrition had finally done in his senses. Rhen had been climbing the guardian tower what felt like months, and his rations from the surface had run out long ago. He hadn’t seen fresh water in two levels, and the monsters had grown considerably larger.

Those weren’t coincidences.

The tower was designed to challenge the climber to the point of breaking. True power lies on the other side of suffering, Rhen recalled the words the Deathless Guardian had spoken to him when he was but a boy, freshly rescued from the Kavga invasion. If this wasn’t suffering, Rhen didn’t know what qualified.

Rhen got out of his tattered bed roll and packed his few belongings. He squeezed the last few drops of water from his deerskin flask, cherishing the feeling of moisture on his tongue. It wasn’t far now, he convinced himself. Just a few more fights and he’d have the power of the Deathless; the power to save his realm.

It was dark and wide open around him. It gave Rhen the creeps. Anything could come from anywhere in the pitch-black void. He pulled the jar of blue glow worms from the bottom of his bag and shook it. The six little grubs lit up from agitation. It was just enough light to walk by, but his stomach growled. Five worms will light the way fine, his stomach said.

Rhen reached into the jar and closed his eyes, then grabbed hold of the first worm it landed on. He opened his eyes and stared down at the thumb-sized insect with distaste. “Thanks for your sacrifice.”

He crunched on breakfast with a puckered face while he finished his gear check. Crescent moon blades at his hips, short bow over his shoulder, one fletched arrow left in his quiver, mostly empty pack around his shoulders with glow worms secured for ambient illumination. He exhaled long and slow.

This was it. He was going to die or become Deathless.

Rhen reviewed his dirt drawing from the day before, and memorized the twists and turns to the final, unexplored passageway. When he was ready, he took off at a quick heel-toed walk silently through the black. He’d encountered enough monsters on the journey to fill a lifetime and didn’t think he could handle another and have enough stamina left for the final threat: the level boss.

Soft-blue light reflected off the stone walls where he went, following him like a ghost. Kavga shadows walked in his periphery, but Rhen new better than to pay the silent stalkers any attention. Prolonged darkness did strange things to the mind, creating scary lies from old fears, and those shadows didn’t make a sound.

Rhen reached the “X” he’d scratched into the wall the day before and dropped to a knee to settle his heart. A gentle whoosh and pull of wind in a rhythmic fashion told Rhen something big slept at the end of this tunnel.

It didn’t matter what it was. He would defeat it.

Rhen had faced lizards as big as a bear with fangs to match, gelatinous blobs that burned like acid, and weasel packs with a venomous sting. He’d love a roasted poison weasel right about now. His stomach growled loudly, so he stuffed another two of the insects in his mouth and swallowed hastily.

“Time’s a-wastin,” Rhen’s deceased father admonished. Rhen wanted to reply, to tell the old man to beat it, but this close to the monster’s lair he knew better than to talk to a phantom.

He pressed on at the sight of something peculiar: light. Yellow glowed somewhere down the long tunnel—or he was going insane. The breathing of the large beast sent warm gusts of air whooshing through Rhen’s shaggy hair. It smelled of foul corpses, and made Rhen’s eyes burn, but he kept moving. He’d come this far, and some nasty rot-monster wasn’t going to stop him.

The light grew until he could see the features of the walls around him for the first time. It was blackened and porous, as if he were inside the belly of a volcano. The path twisted and Rhen slowed as he came to the opening of the final battle scene.

The room was circular, with a high ceiling and two overwhelming highlights. The first was the Guardian Judgement Stone sitting high on a pedestal at the back of the room; his destination. The second was a purple rose bud the size of a whale at the center of the room, blocking his path.

Rhen inspected the creature. He knew it was a creature because, well it was the only other thing in the room, and it was breathing that rancid death-breath that made him want to spew the glow worms.

Slender fingers taller than Rhen wrapped up the sides of the monstrous rose bud, and purple, leathery skin spread from finger to claw-tipped finger. If this was the monster closed up, he didn’t want to see it opened. This was enough nightmare fuel for tonight’s insomnia session.

He retrieved the crescent moon blades from his hips with shaking hands and heel-toed his way into the room. Maybe he could just sneak around the side of it and touch the judgement stone? No, he’d tried that before on the lower levels. Touching the gateway stones never worked until the threat in the room was fully defeated.

Rhen didn’t want to fight whatever this thing was, but he had the upper hand now, while it slept. He crouched half-way around the room and set his bag down, eyeing the monster more closely.

The knuckles halfway up caught his attention. Knuckles were tender and vulnerable, and if these…things were the legs, a good slice to a couple of those digits would cripple the monster and make it easy pickings. Easy. Right.

Rhen licked his lips and sent a prayer to his father for strength. He dashed forward, blades poised in twin snakes bare fangs, ready to catch and deflect any incoming strike. The leathery skin around the creature shuddered, the breathing stopped.

It was too late to back out. Rhen shifted his weight, water rises with the moon, and leapt into the air. His blades sliced through the first knuckle, spraying dark blood across his face and in his eyes. Rhen dropped to the ground and rolled as the monster screamed like a hawk. He heard the leathery fingers spring open wide like a trap while he rubbed the goop from his eyes.

His vision was blurry, but he’d been quite wrong about the creature. It wasn’t legs at all, but wings—one of which wouldn’t fully extend. The thing unfolded in a flurry, revealing two, rending raptor legs below a sleek scaled body. Rhen forced tears to wash away the gunk and came up to a defensive stance.

The beast took a swift step forward, snapping out with a sharp-beaked face on a long neck. Rhen deflected the blow and rolled to the side to avoid the follow-up stomp that would’ve ripped open his guts. He slashed the raptor’s ankle, eliciting another ear-splitting screech from the monster.

Something whapped Rhen in the back, sending him skidding face first across the clearing. He rolled onto his back and put his blades up to catch the five-inch clawed foot from caving in his chest. Rhen strained under the weight of the massive beast. It flexed its claws around Rhen’s hands, digging into his wrist.

Rhen cried out and twisted his blades, severing the skin between the creature’s claws. The raptor pulled back its leg and dove in with its sharp beak. Rhen rolled backwards, feet over his head, and landed in a crouch. The beast’s beak smashed into the stone with a pained cry and Rhen didn’t waste a second. He twisted side to side, fog on the lake, slashing at the monster’s face.

The raptor jerked back and Rhen’s strike slashed across the creature’s beak with a grinding scrape. Rhen didn’t stop, pressing forward in an uppercut motion that caught the raptor on the neck, but the attack only clanked against its hard scales. Rhen twisted like water away from a stomping foot and dragged his blade over the creature’s belly, then danced under and between its legs, both blades out.

The creature’s blood rained down on him, then the whole creature rained down as it sat on him. Rhen’s body exploded in pain as they both hit the ground, and something cracked. It stank under the damn thing, and Rhen was not ready to die surrounded by so much stink.

With the blood having him as slippery as a frog in slime, Rhen squeezed his arms out from under the massive creature and crawled toward its thick tail—probably what had smacked him into the dirt before. He stabbed his blades into the side of its tail and held on tight as the creature reflexively pulled him the rest of the way out from under it. Rhen landed with a thud a few feet away, wheezing.

Wheezing wasn’t good. Wheezing meant crushed ribs. Rhen only hoped none of them had punctured his lungs.

The raptor turned to face Rhen, its good wing held up to shield it from him. It shrieked and Rhen winced, gritting his teeth, but keeping his mettle.

“I’m sorry, but you have to die,” Rhen replied. “I’m getting to that Judgement Stone.”

The raptor croaked and strafed, wing still shielding its body. Rhen put his blades up again in twin snakes bare fangs, and let it circle until the exit was cut off. It didn’t matter to him; he wasn’t going out that way.

The creature charged so fast, Rhen barely had time to deflect. He pushed against the raptor’s beak and turned, running his blades along the knuckles of the good wing. The leathery appendage went limp, and the beast roared.

It turned and snapped, but Rhen moved faster, water flows around the rock. He dragged his knife across the raptor’s face and punctured its eye. The beast retracted its long neck and fell back a step. Rhen went to pursue but pain stabbed through his gut and the taste of blood rippled across his tongue. There was a long gash across his stomach, but the cut hadn’t gone so deep to spill his guts. The blood in his mouth must’ve been from those wheezing lungs, punctured now from his twisting and dodging.

The raptor took its time, watching Rhen carefully with its one eye, then lashed out again. Rhen hopped back, not trying to get a retaliatory strike in edgewise. The raptor was getting slower between attacks, saving its strength, and waiting for Rhen to slip up. So was he, waiting for the right opening.

“You know how this ends.”

The beast squawked angrily, as if it understood Rhen and didn’t appreciate the implication of its untimely death. It limped forward, dark blood dripping down its rent legs. Rhen stepped back and his foot nudged his bag. The jar of grubs rolled out, giving Rhen an idea. He grabbed it with the toe of his worn boot, holding it steady.

The raptor turned its head just slightly, presenting the good eye. Rhen pushed down and back on the jar, slipped his toe underneath, and kicked it into the beast’s face. The raptor dodged the strike low, dipping its head and bringing the last good eye into range. Rhen lunged forward, planting his crescent blade in its eye, and digging down into the socket.

Rhen pressed himself against its face as it reared its head into the air. He wrapped his legs around its neck, not letting the thing’s sharp beak snap one off. Rhen twisted the blade and dug in deeper, pushing for the soft backing to the brain.

The raptor fell onto its back, using its legs to claw at Rhen. Hot agony raked across his back, but he didn’t relent, stabbing deeper until finally, the beast went still.

Rhen wrenched his blade free and dropped to the ground with a groan. “You just had to make it difficult on both of us, didn’t you?”

It was hard to stand, so he sat for a moment, back leaned against the defeated raptor. He coughed, blood peppering his lips. “If I don’t live to become a Deathless Guardian, I swear on my realm’s fate I will haunt you in the afterlife, you stupid, oversized, purple chicken.”

Rhen’s vision was blurry, the yellow glow of the Judgement Stone making little starbursts against his lashes. His legs were tired, but he found a way to stand. He tucked the crescent moon blades into their holsters on his hips and staggered toward the stone, one bloody hand outstretched.

“I must become… Deathless” The pedestal canted in his vision, and he staggered.

“I promised her.”