Low-hanging branches snagged against my armor as I ran. Every upraised bramble, root, and vine threatened to trip me, send me stumbling off-course or into the unforgiving trunk of a tree as I split my attention between watching my footing and checking my progress against the coastline.

Is the tower itself trying to stop me?

It was a paranoid thought. A stupid one. The tower along with the surrounding region had bigger agendas of their own. And while I was certain the higher levels of the tower would be more in line with the malevolence I expected from dungeons, this was little more than a tourist floor.

No. The actual source of turmoil was my rising panic. Even now, my mind warred with the reality of what I’d seen. Created excuses. Sugar-coated. Like, maybe I’d read Nick wrong, and there was nothing sinister happening at all. Maybe because I was so laser-focused on him, I was mis-attributing trauma to malice. Maybe they really were just going for a fucking picnic.

The maybes were seductive, because the alternative meant a much larger error in judgment. That Nick wasn’t who I thought he was. And I’m not sure I’d ever gotten something this critical so utterly wrong.

There had to be a reason. A justification. Something to explain why Nick was even considering this. People were running around, spewing fire from their hands and summoning fantasy creatures out of their bodies. It was possible there was mind control in play, or mental reprogramming, or hypnosis or NLP or a god damn shapeshifter.

Because Nick wouldn’t do this. He wouldn’t.

A mandrake screamed up ahead, and my lungs burned as I sprinted around a small group of three, smacking the small root creatures around with dull-looking weapons.

“Hey!” One of them, a guy still sporting Oakleys, shouted after me. Could be he was just asking for directions, but we were deep in the forest. I couldn’t take the risk that someone might take issue with my abrupt departure and follow me. Every second counted, and there were already too many variables. A slight miscalculation and I’d be too late, if I wasn’t already.

I chanced the side effects from a low-mana cast and barged into his mind with sending him the mental equivalent of an amber alert, drawing attention to the blood on my armor and not-so-kindly amplifying the concept of minding his own fucking business. Oakley sputtered something in a higher pitch as the blues and browns that had returned to my vision retreated, leaving my view of the blurring trees and overgrowth almost entirely monochromatic.

Which of course, made it almost impossible to differentiate the rock from the ground.

THUNK

The bones in my foot crunched as I went down hard, catching myself in a half-assed tumble that took me down a small slope. A sap-stained tree took up my entire vision, its rough bark mere inches away.

I pulled myself to my feet, favoring my left leg until the pain faded enough to be confident there wasn’t a break. My mana was lower than I’d thought, judging from the easing headache and partial restoration of vision. was an efficient skill compared to the rest, and it was probably better that I’d found out this way rather than gone in ignorant.

Still, I’d lost time. And with most of my abilities inaccessible, I needed a summon.

Without giving myself a chance to overthink and consider the reality that this was exactly how people in stories ended up stuck with cursed or bound items, I tore off my gauntlet and hesitated for just a second before I placed on my finger.

Now it was just a matter of deciding which.

Azure had the most utility. He could distract Keith, delay Nick, and since we were in a Realm of Flauros, batter everyone present into daze-eyed submission if it came to that. But he was still carrying out orders in the lobby and using him in a manner that the geas considered hostile could cause it to trigger.

Talia was the fastest of my summons by several orders of magnitude, and would probably at least agree to give me a ride if I asked. If she kept her original form—the hulking, raging arctic wolf that still haunted my dreams—it might have been an actual option. In her current form, however, she wasn’t much larger than her real-world counterparts, and there was a reason humans rode horses instead of dogs. Even if she was willing, there was no point in trying it if her back gave out at the wrong time and launched me as a byproduct.

So. Audrey, then.

As soon as I decided, I felt the beginnings of the usual cuticle-pulling sensation and braced myself. But instead of getting worse, it stopped, and Audrey popped into existence a few feet away. The cast took maybe a tenth of the time it usually did.

“Ah! Was nowhere. Now somewhere. So quick and… odd.” Audrey looked around, bewildered.

“On me!” I shouted behind me, not bothering to slow down.

Audrey lashed to my arm and reeled herself in, bounding awkwardly across the ground. “Where—are—we—going?”

“Forward.” I double-checked the coastline through the trees on my right, then pointed straight ahead. “Fast. Speed over everything. Doesn’t matter if I get banged up a little. Use the trees to stabilize us and try to avoid hazards.”

“Swing?”

“If there’s a clearing.”

Six tough looking navigation vines shot out from Audrey’s body, extending in all directions. Her grip around my shoulders tightened, and it felt as if I was hardly touching the ground, my weight reduced to almost nothing. It took her a moment to adjust to the new environment, then our speed picked up to the momentum of the sort of breakneck sprint that would have winded me in minutes. The trees blurred by so quickly they were almost indistinguishable.

“You’re… afraid.” Audrey’s voice was just audible over the wind whistling in my ears. “Is it bad?”

Bad didn’t cover it. Nick was my touchstone. He could be pragmatic, but he was also stalwart, and loyal, and kind, even though the world had done nothing but kick him in the teeth for it. That tenacity, that refusal to change made him a rare breed. Authentic. And despite our opposing views on almost everything his authenticity somehow placed him as the person I used to measure tough decisions I couldn’t trust myself to make. The person whose opinion mattered most. I needed him now more than ever.

And he was about to do something so heinous that even I couldn’t imagine it.

You take someone I love. I take someone you love.

And I couldn’t shake the feeling that if he followed through, my friend would be gone forever.

The trees thinned, golden light emanating from up ahead. With fewer obstacles to contend with, Audrey positioned us low to the ground in a slow swing, my boot catching bits of dirt and detritus on the zenith, then warned me right before she let go. I kept the momentum and hit the ground running. My vision washed out by the eternal sunrise. As my eyes adjusted, I searched the towering bluff, hoping to see two lone figures, still climbing their way to the top.

My heart sank as I spotted movement up at the top. It looked like the back of someone’s head. If Keith was still alive, it wouldn’t stay that way for long. Nick would want to do it quickly. Before he lost his nerve.

Do I even make that?

I forced my legs to keep pushing forward, even as a curtain of despair descended.

There was at least a hundred yards of clearing between me and the bluffs. Audrey could help with the climb once we got there, but there weren’t enough trees along the way for her to close the initial gap more than she already had. The flight charm was still offline for at least another day. I had two pending levels, and there was probably a feat in the King’s Ranger tree that could help, but I didn’t have time to take five and read descriptions—

The skill points.

There were eight available. I’d only gained two levels in the ripple so the number seemed wrong until I remembered the event’s multiplier wasn’t limited to experience. It promised increased leveling rewards as well. In the chaos of the self-equipping artifact and the terrifying new Ordinator Ability, I’d overlooked them.

This was going to suck.

“Keep us moving. Drag me if you have to.” I said.

“Why?” Audrey asked, alarmed. But her vines had already pierced the surrounding ground in response.

I slammed all eight points into Agility and hit confirm. The muscle spasms started, and I ground my teeth together hard enough that I could feel them moving. A charlie horse from hell obliterated my calf muscle, and Audrey awkwardly hefted me upwards and forwards before I could fall to my knees, moving like a giant spider as I writhed in her grasp.

After thirty seconds that felt like infinity, the pain subsided.

The exhaustion that had seeped into every muscle was gone, replaced with a strange glowing energy that radiated in my chest, begging to be set loose.

“Drop me,” I said, staying focused on the ground.

My summon lowered us to the ground, bits of dirt flying towards us as her anchored vines tore free. I realized, with no small wonder, that I could pick them out individually, see the trajectory of each tiny incoming projectile, and know intuitively how I needed to move to avoid them.

I crouched low and sprinted forward in an explosion of movement.

Audrey shrieked into my ear as we shredded down the hill at breakneck speed, blades of grass quivering as we shredded through them. And almost before I even realized what happened, my palms slapped against the stone base of the bluffs.

It was so easy to forget the difference stats made. They were incremental by nature, and after the initial distribution, when the number of points awarded dropped and those few points were often spread out among several attributes, it was easy to forget exactly how huge the cumulative sum was.

I climbed, praying that the slipshod level-up had bought me enough time.

And prepared for the absolute shitshow that would follow if it hadn’t.