Three minutes.

That was how much time I decided I would spend outside the safe zone on each foray. Wrapping one end of my makeshift rope around my waist, I cast my buffs.

You have cast heightened reflexes, load controller, fade, and trigger-cast quick mend.

The other end of the rope was tethered to a beam in one of the ruined buildings. Serving as my lifeline, it would allow me to find my way back in case I got lost.

Strapping my makeshift bag across my back, I stepped onto my first marker. I had staked over a hundred small boards—each clearly numbered—along the perimeter of the safe zone and intended on using them to map the area beyond.

I inhaled deeply. I was ready. Go time, I thought and sprinted forward.

You have exited a safe zone.

Dismissing the Game message, I plunged onwards.

One yard. Two. Three… Nine.

Rocking to a halt, I scanned the stygian cordon. It remained stationary. Perfect. Pulling out a wooden stake from my bag, I hammered it into the soil.

The ground was hard, but luckily not as rocky as elsewhere in the dungeon, and the sharpened stick eventually went in. Returning the hammer to my bag, I focused anew on the stygians. Time to get casting.

Drawing psi, I advanced another yard and released my spell.

You have charmed 9 of 10 targets for 20 seconds.

The nether creatures fell easily under my control, and knowing the clock was ticking, I set them against their former fellows.

Surprised cries and angry hisses broke out amongst the stygians, prompting a spate of Game damage messages to scroll through my mind. Ignoring them, I wove more psi.

You have terrified 6 of 6 targets for 40 seconds.

The fight started by my nine minions had expanded to embroil their entire section, and the six terrified stygians only added to that chaos, with some of the other nether creatures mistaking their flight for aggression.

Unfortunately, that did not stop the rest of the cordon streaming towards me. Converging into a mass so tightly packed their mindglows were indistinguishable from one another, the spear of living nether flew at me.

The charging horde did not daunt me, though. I had prepared for just this eventuality. Retreating, I wove psi again.

You have cast astral blades.

Twin violet daggers materialized in my hands, and I flung them forward, not bothering to aim. I could hardly miss.

You have injured a stygian hydra.

You have injured a stygian serpent.

Taking another careful step back, I cast anew. A split-second later my arms flew forward, releasing a second round of daggers. Then a third. A fourth.

I continued backstepping but didn’t let up on my assault. My arms windmilling, I unleashed a near-endless stream of daggers at the charging nether creatures. By now, the closest stygian—at the tip of the spearpoint—was less than twenty yards away. Focusing all my attacks on it, I drove a slew of astral blades into it.

You have killed a stygian serpent.

The nether creature died ignominiously, trampled by its fellows even before my final blade could ram home.

Ten yards separated me and the stygians.

At my back, I could feel the comforting closeness of the safe zone. It was only inches away. I didn’t step through, though. Holding my ground, I kept up my attacks.

You have critically injured a stygian hydra.

You have injured a stygian hydra.

You have crippled a stygian serpent.

You have killed a stygian crawler.

You have…

More stygians fell.

My minions were all also dead by this time, but they hadn’t gone quietly, claiming their own fair share of victims.

A blot of ichor appeared on my right, then another on my left. Disdaining to dodge, I stepped back.

You have entered a safe zone.

Letting the half-formed weaves of psi in my mind dissipate, I lowered my arms. They were trembling, I noted in surprise. As were my legs. My heart pounded too, and my mouth had gone dry.

Who’d thought that standing fast in the face of onrushing death could scare near one witless, I thought wryly. .

I laughed, releasing the last of my tension. The danger had passed, and I had survived. Lifting my gaze, I studied the opaque wall of nether ahead. Now, there was nothing to do but wait.

A second later, the horde appeared.

Unable to stop their charge, the heaving mass of stygians crashed headlong into the invisible barrier.

And were stopped cold.

Folding my arms, I watched as snarling faces and gaping jaws gnashed impotently at me from the other side. They would not get in, no matter how enraged. More stygians arrived. Spilling over the ends of the spear tip, they pressed up against the safe zone until a full quarter of its rim was coated in dark, smoky bodies.

Impassively, I waited.

Eventually the build up against the barrier reversed course, and the wave of nether creatures began to recede. Still, I didn’t move. One particular stygian had yet to show himself, and until he did, I was not about to venture out of the safe zone again.

A bright mindglow dipped into range.

I smiled tightly. The harbinger had finally come. Turning tight circles in the sky—at a height of about three hundred feet—he waited as patiently as I did.

In anticipation of me leaving the safe zone once more?

I thought so.

Betraying no sign that I was aware of his presence, I resigned myself to more waiting. The harbinger still appeared ignorant of the true range of my mindsight, and I wanted to keep it that way.

Long minutes passed.

The stygian cordon reformed at its original position and the harbinger flew away. Still, I waited, unsure if the stygian Power had really left or had merely retreated further.

Five minutes later, I stepped back from the safe zone’s rim, finally accepting the skirmish was over. Retreating to the rebirth well, I sat down to review the results of the battle.

You have reached level 180 and rank 18!

For achieving rank 18, you have been awarded 1 additional attribute point and 1 Class point.

Your Mind has increased to rank 87.

By my estimate perhaps thirty stygians had died in the battle. It was enough to gain me one additional level. None of my skills had ranked up though, not even telepathy and nether absorption which had been in near-constant use during the skirmish. But that was all right. I expected both skills would get plenty of use in the coming days.

Days, I mused, lingering over the thought. I had no concrete plan for escaping the harbinger’s trap—yet. Much would depend on how the stygians responded to my attacks in the coming days and the terrain itself.

I knew for certain, though, it would take time.

Time to painstakingly survey the surroundings and reduce the stygians numbers. Time during which I would steadily advance my nether absorption and telepathy skills. Sadly, with no usable weapon and my stealth negated, I couldn’t train my sneaking and melee skills.

I eyed the new Class point, tempted for just a moment to invest it in void armor. But it made more sense to upgrade slaysight to tier five first—assuming, of course, I could advance my telepathy to rank twenty in the coming days. The increased mindsight range alone would make the upgrade worthwhile. Reluctantly conceding it was wiser to wait, I set aside further thought of the new Class point and, closing my eyes, began to meditate.

My opening strike against the stygians had gone exactly as planned. Now, I had to duplicate its success as many times as I could.

✵ ✵ ✵

Over the course of the next few hours, I executed six more assaults against the stygian cordon. Each attack was launched from a different marker, but the outcome was always the same.

I bespelled a few stygians, they surged forward.

I responded with astral blades, they smashed into the safe zone’s barrier.

Each and every time the harbinger responded, but always too late. Still, I made certain to note his response times.

After my seventh successful foray, the stygian Power countered by pulling the cordon back another twenty yards.

The move pleased me.

I had been expecting a response of some sort all day, and while the harbinger’s response was not the most desirable outcome, it was one I could work with. All told, I had killed just over two hundred nether creatures and gained one level, and a rank apiece in telepathy and nether absorption. Satisfied with my handiwork I called it quits for the day.

✵ ✵ ✵

The next morning, refreshed and hale, I began anew.

But instead of attacking the nether creatures, I spent the day exploring the area outside the safe zone. The stygian cordon was now at the eighty-yard line, and since they would only attack when I was within fifty yards, that left me a whole thirty-yard ring to explore.

With wooden stakes and handmade ropes in tow, I did just that, and by day’s end, gained another two ranks of nether absorption. I also spotted multiple crevices deep enough to fit into should the need arise, and I carefully marked those. I didn’t enter any though, aware of the unseen watchers.

The rest of my time was spent attempting to find the spores.I could neither see, smell, nor hear them, and had to rely purely on the Game alerts to figure out their locations. It was hardly precise work. Still, slowly but surely, I narrowed down the possible areas they occupied.

On the third day of my imprisonment, I resumed my campaign against the cordon. Traveling to the thirty-yard line I launched my attacks like before—with almost identical results.

This time though, it took the stygians longer to reach me, giving me yet more time to bleed them with my astral blades. The harbinger was as slow to adapt as before, and it took eight successful forays before he responded.

His counter lacked imagination, though.

Repeating his earlier response, the harbinger pulled the back cordon again.

The stygian Power’s lackluster maneuvering left me puzzled. There were far more aggressive tactics he could have employed, including pushing the cordon right up against the invisible barrier— which might have stopped me from venturing out of the safe zone—or joining the cordon himself.

His responses smacked of afterthought.

It was almost as if the harbinger was distracted, as if he had other duties elsewhere that preoccupied him, and his only interest was to keep me pinned down.

Whatever the case, I took full advantage of my foe’s folly, and by the end of the day, killed another three hundred odd stygians, gaining one player level and ranking up both telepathy and nether absorption again.

✵ ✵ ✵

Day four.

Yawning, I opened my eyes and stared gloomily at the bank of grey fog peeking through the broken roof. It was only my fourth day in the safe zone, and yet already I felt myself yearning for open sky.

There was something about the nether… about the way it robbed my sight and filled my nostrils with it stale, sterile stink that left me desperate to escape.

I’ll be free soon. Things are going well.

And they were. Better than expected in fact, and with the harbinger’s latest move, I had another busy day to look forward to. Forcing myself to my feet, I munched through a handful of fruits while I walked a slow circuit around the safe zone and inspected the stygian’s latest cordon through my mindsight.

For the most part the nether creatures had pulled back to the hundred-yard line, leaving me plenty more ground to explore today. But near marker fifty—in what I had designated the eastern side of the safe zone—their line curved inwards to ninety-five yards.

Drawing to a halt at the marker in question, I frowned. Hmm, why the deviation?

However, the harbinger induced obedience from the lesser stygians, it was effective, and I had yet to witness any signs of them deviating from his orders. And so far, the stygian Power had been extremely rigid in his formation of the cordons. The first and second ones had been perfect circles, but this one… it was misshapen on the east side.

Deliberately so.

It was almost as if the nether creatures on that side had been forced closer. What would cause that?

My eyes widened as realization struck.

The stygians had run up against a cliff—or something similar. Had I just found the east end of the safe zone’s canyon?

Perhaps. Probably. I hope so.

That I was in a canyon, gorge, or some other form of indentation in the plateau, was only assumption on my part, of course. But where else would the safe zone be located?

It made no sense for it to be atop the plateau. That would be inconsistent with the rest of the dungeon’s design. The only question that had been plaguing me over the last few days was how big the canyon was. But if the stygian cordon had already run up against the eastern wall of the canyon, then the answer was: not so large.

Freedom was close at hand—from the stygians themselves, if not the nether.

I expected the central fog bank occupied multiple chasms in the dungeon’s center, but crucially, I’d not encountered any stygians on the plateau so far, and except for the harbinger himself, I had no reason to believe the other creatures could reach the plateau’s heights.

The chances of finding any spores atop the plateau were therefore low—which meant if I reached the clifftops, I would be safe from detection.

But before I could get too excited, I set aside my scheming.

There was the not so little matter of the spores in the canyon to take care of. Until I found a way to deal with them, I would not be scaling the cliffs. The other stygians would mob me the moment they saw me doing such. And I still had to confirm there actually was a cliff to be climbed.

But, despite these challenges, I felt reinvigorated and strode out of the safe zone with a new spring in my step.

It was time to begin the day’s explorations.