Amalarys had been of two minds. One focused on the missions. The other suffering at the prospect of no longer proselytizing to Vera. The two were at war during her presentation, words occasionally becoming snarled. “I don’t care how many missions your team has been on, Javier. This is another one suited for yours. Your team is well equipped to travel to Old Titan City and investigate what’s going on there. I won’t stand for another threat to the city to be unaccounted for.”

“Ethel’s team? Veronica’s? What about Betty’s?”

“Ethel’s been unfortunately assigned to guard duty for the nobles. Concessions made in light of Lord Nonan’s death… my condolences once again, Amelia.”

Mia gave a brief nod, unwilling to speak on the matter. She had already said enough over the previous months.

“Veronica’s busy in Malagost, scoping out their continued threat to Titan City, whereas Betty is tracking rumors of a threat I don’t even want to speak into existence. Everyone’s tied up, Javier. Your team is the only one available who I trust enough to deal with this.”

Javier sighed, hand resting against his forehead. “There’s no one else then. No one else you can trust. No one else capable enough to fight off a horde of spike feeders.”

“The more you say words doesn’t make me more incentivized to let you off, Javier. You can repeat words all you want and you’ll still have to do this mission with your team.”

“… Is this because you no longer get to torture Vera?”

“How could you say such a thing? It was never torture, it was always bonding. And no, that’s not the reason. I’m a professional, Javier. Your team is the best for the job. Get over it. I’ve entertained your pointless arguing out of the kindness of my heart but I’ll do so no longer.”

Javier had the good temerity to look properly chastised, cheeks flushed a shade of rose. “Fine then. What’s your expectation for the full scope of this mission?”

“You and your team will clear out any spike feeders you see and find the source of the signal. In theory, the two should be connected. If you can’t find it this time, we’ll hook you up with Brunhilde and work towards devising a solution, but I’m sure you wouldn’t want to disappoint me.”

Disappointment was a relative term that lingered in my head I stared down the cliff wall. Below was the eventual entrance to Old Titan City, and far below that a forest teeming with spike feeders if not something worse. While I could potentially survive the fall, that didn’t mean I wanted to. The thought of falling filled me with a persistent dread, although the same couldn’t be said for the rest of my team.

Javier stuck to the craggy exterior by his will, held aloft by a suction force even without his own active effort to cling to the rock face. He didn’t need to spend any effort looking for a proper trail. It was all second-hand nature to him to crawl on down, unbound by the cruel nature of gravity.

For as easy as Javier made it look, Vera looked even more unbothered. Her third tier capacity to scale any surface made her walk as though she was on the street, no effort needed. Mia obviously was able to flutter down from suitable ledge to ledge, taking care to not land too harshly lest the rocks break under her feet. Her descent was carefully controlled and managed; reckless abandon was the path to an uncontrolled plummet.

Even Alain had a means of safely traveling down the cliff side, traveling within patches of shadow cast by alcoves. It wasn’t the most comfortable descent, but there was certainly greater comfort than the kind of climb I had to do, a measured path with a rope tethered to Vera in case of any bad footholds. We had made sure to confirm she could hold me steadily enough in case of a bad situation, Mia asserting that she would be able to react in time to assist if need be. Of course, Javier couldn’t be only not offering assistance, noting that his tongue would be an uncomfortable but functional means of pulling me out of free fall.

The possibility of being wrapped in Javier’s tongue was enough to ensure that I took my time climbing down, although that wasn’t to say I wasn’t griping at Javier along the way.

“Remind me again, Javier. Why is it that the only way into Old Titan City is through the back door?”

It wasn’t a literal back door, of course. Given most people weren’t able to have the skill set of the rest of my companions, there was no official rear gate to Old Titan City. There was, however, openings for refuse and waste to be dumped. With the ravages of time, these entrances should have eroded more to the natural elements and have been cleaned of any unsavory remnants.

There was entrances to Old Titan City elsewhere, but access required official passageway in areas largely controlled by other nobles, Mia’s house unfortunately not one of the ones in scope. Making the other nobles aware of further stress was not part of Amalarys’s plan, especially given the possibility that more of them were corrupt, like the late Lord Nonan.

With no other options to go through, that left our awful trajectory which I hated ever so much. It had only been ten minutes of climbing and yet I was certain there would be a minimum of ten more, given the need for Titan City to have a sufficient foundation over Old Titan City to ensure the structural integrity of our fair city.

That was the lingering thought I had in the back of my head, glad that my fighting prowess wasn’t enough to destroy buildings given that we were under the city. Alain, Vera and Javier would have to show restraint, while Mia and I could attack unfettered, given the smaller nature of our attack techniques. They were more focused in nature as opposed to the others wide-spread methods.

That was the advantage of a team, in the end. Covering for each other’s weaknesses with your own strengths. A balance for the unbalanced. Together we were stronger, weren’t we?

It was another mantra to repeat as I clung for dear life to the rock wall, wishing we were already in the ruins of the old city. Anything that would remove me from the cliff exterior, clinging for my life. If we didn’t do all of the running Javier mandated I would not have the stamina to keep this up. I hated how the running made more and more sense each time I thought about it. It was like a little joke he snuck into my head, a confirmation my mind was becoming more like his own.

I tried to stifle everything else but the climb, unwilling to let my stray thoughts condemn me to slam into the rock wall. With my focused will, I made it down to our designated opening, requiring only a few minutes to catch my breath. If it cost muttered jokes at my expense, I was willing to accommodate my team.

With no more waiting for me required, they rose from their sitting positions and we headed through the entrance into the ruins of Old Titan City.

The only light that filtered through the area was from holes in the wall, whether originally intended as windows or something else that had eroded over the years. They cast long shadows, strange shapes crawling around corners, stretching out onto a fractured wall. The architecture was reminiscent of what I saw back in the village, evidently a relic of an earlier time, although how much that could be attributed to the rotting structures was hard to say.

The street was the most intact structure, a pathway for us to follow through the dilapidated environment. For all that there was supposed to be a signal calling the spike feeders here, nary one was to be seen as we slowly walked forward. A critical mistake, to only rely on one’s eyes and ears, but novelty had a profound effect on dampening rationality, the mind wasting thoughts on reinterpreting the context of the area around you.

A writhing arm lashed out from against an intact wall, the underside covered in curved discs intermittently broken up by the signature spiraled chitinous spikes. The very tip touched Vera on the shoulder before a hasty swipe from Alain severed the arm, only the limb destroyed from his protective reaction.

The beast recoiled, its seven other limbs pulled back in shock. Evidently the hasty attack had taught it a modicum of reason: do not expect to fight us and come out unmarred.

Already taking advantage of the opening created by Alain, one of Vera’s condensed storm balls coalesced around her horns. She lunged into the spike feeder, easily avoiding errant spikes in her impact. The orb bore into the spike feeder’s skin, gyrating through the tender flesh before it erupted, sending the limbs spread throughout the area, main body blown to bits.

“See what training and experience does for you?” Javier crowed, pride evident on his face.

“I’ll have you know I could have killed it one hit too,” I remarked, throwing a wide wink back at our leader.

“Not without getting far more injured, Perry. Don’t discredit the experience you’ve built up in fighting not only the spike feeders but other competent fighters. Experience is a key component to a fight’s success. Reading the distance between your foes moves, the timing of their actions, the reactions that haven’t even been acted upon yet. The more you learn how to fight, the more you’ll understand the fighting habits of others. Just take care when fighting not to show your own habits too much, as that gives those with a similar depth of experience to feed on you.”

“Did it have to be a lecture?” I groaned. “I thought you said we did well.”

“Confidence is no reason to get cocky. I want you to be aware. We’re going to be fighting an unknown amount of spike feeders, so remain vigilant and conserve your strength. This will be a war of attrition.”

We nodded, skulking about the ruins once again. Every now and then we passed a stray village-rank spike feeder, easily dispelled by our efforts, no longer the imposing threat it would have been when I had set out and left Levin behind.

I really didn’t want to admit how Javier was right. Any of the other stray spike feeders that were scattered throughout the ruins were easily dispatched by the team, no real effort required. It was smooth sailing going through the ruined city, untouched other than by the hands of stray beasts.

“How did they even get here if we had to climb the cliff?” I grumbled.

“Probably there’s another entrance somewhere outside of the city,” Javier replied, quickly bludgeoning a spike feeder to death around the corner. It splattered against the wall before collapsing.

“We didn’t want to look for that?”

“Maybe that will be the how we leave once we find where the amassed horde. We haven’t seen nearly enough of them yet for how long that signal’s supposed to have been running.”

“How much longer will it take though? The city is vast.”

“I don’t know. We’ll have to see,” he muttered, wiping his mouth clean of the incidental blood from his technique.”

A few more twisting and winding streets were all it took for the noise to grow louder and louder, senses activated to detect what what we were running into.

“How could there be so many of them?” I wondered aloud. My electroreception sensed an open square filled to the brim with spike feeders standing about, occasionally jostling against one another. I could tell these wouldn’t be the placid horde of a culling night. Their signals were different, more active. This would be a continued onslaught, requiring killing wave after wave of the monsters.

“We need to come up with a plan,” Alain interjected. “We can’t just run into them head first, even if they’re all village rank spike feeders.” We had found a suitable series of housing that was sufficiently eroded to give us proper line of sight into the open area, while making sure we were sufficiently far enough away to not trigger them into attacking us preemptively.

“What if we lure off groups of them to take out, slowly eroding the horde?”

“I don’t know if that would work, Mia, but I don’t know what other options we have. Hit and run tactics wouldn’t be worth it within this dilapidated place.”

I couldn’t help but realize Javier had stepped back from the planning, focused on keeping the perimeter secure. Whatever options we had were few in number. Did we have the time to mull them over?

“Maybe we take a stand against a place with good cover, so that we can’t be flanked,” I offered.

“There’s always a chance they could circumvent it but that’s probably the best we can do in these circumstances, Perry,” Alain said. “Let’s get moving. Vera, Perry, get into position as the vanguard. We’ll strike from the southern corridor.”

We nodded, aligning to prepare and clash with the amassed horde.