Rory would have been caught by the monster’s sudden attack if it hadn’t been for Trish. She snapped in with rapid agility, hauling him back as she summoned a shield of steel with the other. The monster’s claws scratched across the shield with ear-piercing slashes.

“Get back,” Trish shouted as she pushed him and Evelyn behind her.

The monsters hammered on her shield, thumping her back a few steps, but then she slammed it forward with a yell. It made the creature scrabble backwards, its hiss revealing that it didn’t appreciate the show of strength.

Rory was thankful for the reprieve. It let his mind get back into proper gear and his Sigil of Knowledge finally observed the creature enough to get him some information on it. The monster was apparently an Stormscale Neophyte, a lesser version of the Stormscale Wyvern. Its scales were a tough nut to crack, as proven by Trish’s axe swing leaving little more than a scratch on its midsection.

The Neophyte slashed with its claws again, but Trish jumped back and ground herself. They continued exchanging blows, axe swing versus claw swipe. The former did little damage, while the latter required constant dodging. The battle was stalling.

Miles shouted at Trish to give him some space so he could throw some flames at the monster. She jumped back. Unfortunately, the subsequent blast of fire had zero effect on the Neophyte. Rory grimaced, filing the new information away. The creatures were immune to burning effects.

Growling in frustration, Trish let her axe drop. The Neophyte saw an opening and rushed to claim its advantage, draconic mouth opening in vicious snarl. But Trish wasn’t defenceless.

No, she had crafted a maul.

It wasn’t a whole steel creation. Trish had combined her Sigils of Concrete and Steel to create a new weapon, one which had a haft and hammer head made of concrete. The latter was also capped by sharp steel just to deliver a crushing punch. It turned out to be far more effective than her axe. Just as the neophyte reached her, Trish swung with a yell, twisting to use the strength of her entire upper body behind the blow.

The monster screamed as it was flung back, its chest caved in thanks to Trish’s blow. It crashed down several feet away.

Trish didn’t relent. Dropping the maul too, Trish summoned a steel spear. Then she ran forward and leaped, raising her spear high at the peak of her arc. When she landed, the momentum behind the impact was enough to drive the spearhead through the Neophyte’s scaly chest so hard, Rory could tell it was buried in the ground under the monster.

With a final scream, the monster died, purple blood spreading in a growing pool around its corpse. Trish didn’t move for a moment. She twisted the spearhead around until she was finally able to pull it free with a sickening squelch.

“Wh-what was that thing?” Samson asked, shaking like a leaf. “It said it was converted?”

Rory didn’t want to think about it. Now that the exhilaration of the life-or-death encounter was ebbing away, the hollowness in him was swiftly taken over by dread. It was likely they’d find more of these creatures.

More people who had been transformed into monsters by this Stormscale Wyvern.

“Least it’s dead,” Miles said. “No thanks to me,” he added quietly.

“Use your Sigil of Earth next time,” Rory suggested. “Maybe damaging it with fire is impossible but we can still stop them in their tracks.”

“What are we going to do now?” Trish asked. Despite her successful kill, her voice sounded small. Weak. “Aren’t the rest of them just like this?”

“Maybe we can heal them,” Evelyn said. “There’s no point being afraid of maybes and possibilities.”

Rory nodded. He couldn’t muster his pragmatism to that extent, but Evelyn was right. There was no point in letting fear hold them back. “We find more of them. If they turn out to be monstrous, we take care of them. And if not, well, we still take care of them, just the other way.”

He wasn’t really banking on being able to fix whatever process was transforming people into monsters. Maybe Evelyn’s healing would do the trick, but Rory doubted it. He didn’t voice it though. First, they needed to find the survivors.

“Samson,” he said, which was all he needed to say.

The lanky man started hunting after their next survivor. As they began following Samson, Rory began to wonder if there was anything he could have done to help the poor woman. He was distracted from such thoughts by Evelyn calling Viv’s party with the Sigil of Calling on her walky-talky. She reported that they had found nothing yet but had encountered and killed another creature, which they confirmed was a transformed Neophyte.

There was a long silence when Viv learned it was a transformed human. After wishing them good luck, she hung up.

Samson’s Sigil of Gathering took them straight to the main school building. Rory didn’t like how the huge mounds of debris loomed over them all. Digging into that without cranes or other heavy equipment would be next to impossible.

Except, of course, for his Weaving.

“There are a lot of them here,” Samson said.

“Then we better get started.” Rory stepped forward. “I’ll begin Weaving. The rest of you keep watch for anything headed our way.”

“The bigger danger will be from a survivor,” Miles said.

He wasn’t wrong. But once again, that lent to fear. No point holding themselves back just because they could be attacked for an act of generosity.

With Samson’s guidance, Rory started Weaving away the debris to get more Sigils of Support, Concrete, and Steel. His Weaving’s range was high enough now that he could reduce the debris to Sigils from a far enough distant that, if the surrounding rubble came crashing down, they would remain safe.

Of course, Rory was doing his best not to let anything of the kind happen. He spread out his Weaving’s effect to make sure it covered a large area. That reduced the chance of the ruins collapsing even more.

“I see one,” Trish said. She had stuck close to Rory to protect him in case more monsters popped out.

Rory continued Weaving a little longer to make sure the area was stable, then moved on to see what she had pointed out. There was someone trapped under the rubble. Rory, Trish, and Samson helped move the broken masonry off the man, who had only survived being crushed thanks to the fact that he had partially transformed into a Neophyte.

Once that fact became clear, Trish hurriedly pulled Rory and Samson back, both of them stumbling on the uneven footing of the debris field.

“Please,” the man said. “I’m not one of them yet. I never wanted to be!”

The last bit was a strangled gasp. Rory swallowed. There was something more going on here. He needed to get to the bottom of it.

Evelyn climbed past them, the back of her hand already glowing with her Sigil’s outline.

“Hey, wait up,” Trish said. “That thing’s dangerous.”

“It’s fine,” Evelyn said. “He’s not a monster yet. We might be able to help him.”

The man in question had been slowly starting to rise, but at Evelyn’s approach, he stilled again. His morose look didn’t fade, but Rory detected a tiny bubble of hope blooming within him.

“Stay close to Evelyn,” Rory told Trish, pulling himself free. “Samson, show me where the next one is.”

Rory trusted Evelyn to help without putting herself at any unnecessary risk. With Trish by her side, there was no reason to fear

They continued moving around over the rubble. Samson indicated more spots where the shattered walls were hiding people and Rory continued his Weaving at a distance to make sure none of the debris fell precariously.

Everyone they found was alive and in various stages of transforming from human to Stormscale Neophyte. Only one of them had gone so far as to become outright hostile as the first one they had encountered. Rory was prepared this time, however. Where Miles’s flames didn’t work, Rory’s Staff of Deadly Winter left the monster paralyzed and petrified with the Frozen Lightning.

He felt a little guilty again, but there was no other recourse. Evelyn hadn’t found any cure, so to speak, for the transformation yet. If they were attacked, they would have to defend themselves.

On the fifth person they pulled free from the rubble, Rory called for a momentary halt. Their latest survivor was a teenaged boy. Half his face was covered in greyish-blue scales, the other pale enough to show the veins underneath the skin. Apart from an arm that had turned completely draconic, he hadn’t transformed much.

Rory swallowed down the lump growing in his throat. It really hurt to see such a young kid going through something like this.

“Hey,” Rory said, keeping his voice soft and gentle. “Are you hurting anywhere? Do you need something to drink?”

The boy coughed. “I’m good. Thanks for pulling me out.”

“You’re welcome. I’m Rory, by the way. What’s your name, and can you tell me what happened here?”

The boy nodded. “I’m Dustin. Thought I was a goner when everything fell, but then… I don’t know, things kind of fell so I wasn’t as trapped as everyone else. Well, I got trapped, but not like, crushed, you know?”

He shook his head. There was a hollowness in his expression, especially in his eyes, that Rory was quickly coming to associate with people processing their shock.

Dustin pulled his scale-covered arm up to his face, expression unreadable. “I have no idea what this is, but I’ve been hearing the others. Bits and pieces, and—” This time, there was a hitch of fear in his throat too. “And they sound scared, scared real bad. Is this going to kill me?”

Rory wished with all his heart that he could honestly tell Dustin that he’d be fine. That this wasn’t anything abnormal. That they knew how to reverse the process.

He couldn’t bring himself to lie like that, though.

“I’m trying to find out what’s happening here so I can help,” Rory said. “Do you know what’s causing… this?”

He had no name for the issue, so he simply nudged his head at Dustin’s scaly arm.

The boy looked troubled. “I just… didn’t want to be crushed. There was a voice asking me if I wanted to die, and I said no, of course. It asked if I’d do anything to live and…”

He swallowed. That was all the answer Rory needed. He was slowly starting to piece things together. Something had caused this transformation.

“Did you receive any Sigils?” Rory asked. “They’re these weird crystal coins that let you use various powers. You said a voice… so you specifically heard something asking you, instead of words that you read in your line of sight?”

“What?” Dustin frowned and shook his head. “No, I don’t understand what you mean. This was a voice, like—” He paused, struggling to describe it. “Like how announcers to talk to you. It was public, not something in my head.”

Rory could feel his face twisting into a scowl. That settled it. There was something monstrous going on. “What can you tell me about this voice?”

“It’s… I don’t know how to describe it. Just a very loud voice that carries past everything, you know? Maybe it’s just something you have to listen to.”

Rory nodded. He was trying to think of some other way to quiz the boy and reveal more about this mysterious monster, but then Evelyn arrived and crouched down next to him. She started fussing over him, wrapping his scaled arm with her golden bandages.

“What happened to the other man?” Rory asked.

Evelyn didn’t answer, focusing her attention on Dustin as she assessed his condition with quick, specific questions. Rory turned to Trish and swallowed when he saw the dark cast on her face. The hollowness he’d been seeing on the survivors’ faces had transferred to her.

“Dead,” she said. “He was starting to act up, so we put him down. For good.”

A coldness bloomed low in Rory’s guts, as though he had used his staff within himself.

“We should look for the rest of them, right?” Samson asked.

“What if there are too many?” Miles asked. “We’ve already got more than we can handle. Any more and—”

“Miles,” Rory said. “Are you scared?”

The normally cheerful and upbeat demeanour that Miles almost always sported was nowhere to be seen. He couldn’t hold Rory’s eyes for long. “My fires don’t work. If they all start to attack, we’ll be hard-pressed to beat them back. That’ll only get worse the more of them we gather up, right?”

Rory took in a deep breath. He wasn’t wrong, not at all. Didn’t mean Rory had to like it. “The source. We need to find whatever caused this to happen and tackle that. That’s why we need to keep rescuing anyone we find, so that once we’ve dealt with the main problem, we’ll have people we can actually help.”

Miles nodded, if reluctantly so. “I guess that makes sense. We just need to find what’s causing this then. Kill the monster that turned them into monsters.”

“Force it to turn them back to normal first. As to where it might be…”

Rory didn’t have a clue, and neither did any of the survivors they were rescuing. They continued pulling half-monster, half-human people out of the rubble, occasionally needing to stop the ones who’d gone completely feral. By the time they paused once more, Evelyn got a call on the phone.

“Hello, Viv?” she said. “What—”

“It’s coming towards you.” Viv’s voice was loud through the phone. “The monster. It’s headed your way.”

Rory was utterly glad Viv had warned them, for when Rory looked up, his first instinct was to scream at them all to run. The monster really was headed their way. It flew through the air in a fast but graceful arc, silent as death—likely the reason none of them had suspected—then landed about a hundred feet away with a heavy thump.

The Stormscale Wyvern had arrived.