Rue threw out a red piece of cloth. It unfolded to something at least five times bigger than it should have been, and the trio of wasps coming for her face all instantly diverted course to ram into it. Unfortunately for her, there were two more wasps behind the first group, and the magic of the distraction cloth had already been used up.

  It barely took a thought and a whisper of anima to activate Quick Step, her newest soulprint. The red cloth she’d gotten from the Floor 1 Antechamber had felt useless at the time, but once they’d lost Sorin, she’d quickly discovered its worth. By contrast, the soulprint she’d gotten for clearing Floor 2 had been immediately useful.

  She couldn’t actually say whether the soulprint was teleporting her or not, because it moved her to her desired location so fast that no time at all passed in between. That was a bit disorienting, but she was getting used to it after nearly a week of constant use. Pouring anima from her kills into it seemed to be helping with that, too.

  The two wasps went by, too fast for Rue to take a proper swing at, but she didn’t necessarily need to see to hit something, so she didn’t hesitate to slash blindly behind her. Aura Sense told her where the wasps were, and it was with no small amount of satisfaction that she felt her blade bite into one of the monsters.

  The other circled around, already coming in for another run and joined by its three companions from the previous attempt. They didn’t so much assume a formation as all just rush her, and this time she had no distraction to split their numbers.

  “Down!” Nemari called from behind.

  Rue dropped without hesitation and fire roared through the air above her. It caught the leading edge of the wasps’ charge and melted two of them outright. The remaining monsters tumbled into the sand, where Rue quickly finished them off.

  “You got the nest?” she asked, standing back upright and looking over to where her brother and team leader stood. Weird to think of her as in charge again, but… someone has to do it.

  “Burned it to a crisp and Od got the queen,” Nemari confirmed.

  “Any soulprints?” she asked, already knowing the answer. The insectoid monsters were so small that even if they did have a soulprint, Nemari was going to destroy it with her fire magic. They weren’t farming the wasps for loot, but rather because this was the meeting area. Keeping it monster free was important for as long as they were here, and besides, a bit of extra anima didn’t hurt either.

  “I don’t think so. I didn’t feel any, but you should double check.”

  Rue picked up the red cloth and folded it neatly before slipping it into a pocket. It was times like this that she missed Sorin. Even though she was the one with Aura Sense, he’d spot a soulprint from twenty feet away and be able to tell them what it did with a few seconds’ observation. Now they had four soulprints in their bags and no clue what any of them were for.

  She’d only even absorbed Quick Step because the Antechamber always gave out personalized rewards. It wasn’t until after it had settled into her soulspace as a singular shoe inside its display case that she’d actually understood what it was for. Nemari and Odric were still hanging onto theirs, just waiting until they knew exactly what they were before doing anything with them.

  Twenty minutes later, they’d finished their lap around the ravine and cleared out the rest of the wasps from the various crevices they’d been hiding in. Tomorrow, there’d be new ones conjured up by the tower, but for the moment, they were probably safe. That was never really a guarantee, but there was nothing more they could do but stay vigilant for potential trouble.

  “Think he’ll show tonight?” Rue asked as they settled down in the shadow of a stone wall that stuck out of the sands. It was the only evidence of anything man-made for miles, but she doubted it was really anything more than a tower creation. Maybe there was more to it buried under the sands, but they weren’t about to go digging to find out.

  “If he doesn’t, he’s just going to be that much further behind us,” Nemari said.

  Rue snorted. “Yeah right. He’s probably going to be rank 8 or something crazy.”

  “All the better,” Od said. “If we were worried about monsters on Floor 3, I’d say it was overkill. But we’re worried about climbers two or three times our rank. If Sorin shows up, and he can fight them on even footing, then good. It gives us that much more time to grow strong enough to defend ourselves.”

  “Assuming the Black Hellions don’t have people climbing, too, which we can’t afford to do,” Nemari pointed out. “Even if they’re not, there’s still Samael. Nobody is even sure what his real rank is, which means it’s probably high.”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “And he only cares about Sorin, which in a way is kind of good for us. It sucks for Sorin, but if they catch up to him and we’re not with him, we’ll probably be forgotten.”

  Nemari’s face darkened. “I haven’t forgotten what the Black Hellions did to us, though.”

  “Samael might have forced your family to choose, but they were the ones who decided to throw you to the tower,” Rue said.

  “And I’m looking forward to coming back with enough power to have a conversation about that someday. But for now, nothing’s changed. Keep growing stronger, keep climbing. Sorin will show up, or he won’t. We’ll wait a few more days before we decide what to do without him.”

  That would mean returning to the portal hubs, which was a risk, but Floor 3 was an especially bad environment to try scavenging for food. Nothing grew here, and most of the monsters were some sort of giant insect. Not the most appealing meal, Rue thought with a grimace. Their supplies were running low, too. Without Sorin to pick up the dead drops from Floor 0, and with no way of getting down there themselves, they’d be forced to end their climb soon.

  Rue honestly would have been fine with that, except that they were all very concerned about setting foot in the portal hub. Though they’d killed the Hellions who’d been personally interested in her, that didn’t mean the rest of the gang was obligated to ignore her.

  “Nothing against Sorin, but I hate that we’re so reliant on him,” Rue said. “If he’s dead, we’re completely screwed.”

  “We might be able to go back down to Floor 2, or even Floor 1, and survive there,” Od said. “Going through the portal hubs would be a risk, but better than starving here.”

  “Not to mention it’d be so much cooler,” Rue muttered, shooting a casual glare at Nemari. Heat Resistance was serving her extremely well on Floor 3, and Rue wasn’t afraid to admit she was jealous. Armor was important and all, but every night her shirt was completely soaked through. They’d have died of dehydration just getting to the mountain if not for a lucky oasis. It turned out Nemari’s Water Bond soulprint didn’t do much in a desert.

  Well, okay, no, that’s not true. But rationing the water would have sucked, and we’re going to need to get more soon.

  “Hey, do you feel that?” Od asked suddenly. “Look at the sand.”

  Small streams of it wiggled through the rest, barely visible even when she was looking for it. None of them would have noticed it except for the fact that Od had shifted in place and his foot had come down right on top of one.

  Rue groaned. “Damn it. Not again.”

  The sand built up into a lump, one that could have been confused for any wind-blown drift if they weren’t watching it happen in real time. When it got to be a bit over two feet high, a vaguely bipedal form with far too many arms stepped free.

  Nemari hit it with a firebolt immediately, which didn’t do much to damage it but did bake a hard crust across its surface. The little sand elemental froze in place for a moment, then broke free with a crunching sound. Nodules of blackened sand flaked off it, diminishing it in size but not in ferocity. It surged forward, only to be met by Odric’s stone-hardened foot blowing it to pieces.

  “There are more forming,” Rue warned.

  “Great. So much for taking a break.”

  * * *

  By Sorin’s judgment, he was in a line running straight west from the mountain. Of course, the mountain being considerably wider than a flag pole, that still left a lot of ground to cover. He’d done his best to center himself up and slowed his pace down as much as he thought he could get away with. Standing still was a good way to attract unwelcome attention, but he didn’t want to miss the people he was looking for because he was going too fast and overshot them.

  This would be so much easier if I could fly and see a hundred miles. While I’m at it, I wouldn’t mind some teleportation.

  But, lacking all of those things, Sorin resorted to running east in a gentle waving pattern that took him a bit north of center, then south, then back north again. The only good thing about the desert was that he could generally see at least a mile in any direction from the top of a sand dune, but there were still plenty of blind spots where other dunes blocked his vision.

  They’d said five miles out, and he was closing in on that distance. It might take him another day or two, but if they’d made it here, he’d find them. If not… Hopefully they just landed really far away and aren’t dead. This would have been so much easier if we could have used the portal hub instead.

  There was no point in wasting time wishing for the impossible, though, and they’d been under less than ideal circumstances when they’d been forced to split up. All he could do was keep working and hope for the best.

  “How many of these fucking things are there?!” a voice carried over the sand from the right.

  Sorin paused, blinking in surprise. Huh… Really thought this would take longer.

  A low flicker of light crept over the sands, barely more than a hint of color that he probably wouldn’t have noticed if not for the fact that the sun was setting behind him. It was still almost lost in the oranges and reds coloring the horizon, but he knew what he’d seen.

  A few speed bursts got him close enough to see what was going on, and he couldn’t help but chuckle. The little arachnid sand elementals were unbelievably annoying—not really all that dangerous but practically impossible to put down by normal means. Without Nemari there, Rue and Odric would have been forced to flee.

  He counted over a dozen of the elementals forming out of the sand, plus five more his team was already fighting. Part of him was curious how they’d manage, but he wasn’t patient enough to stand around and watch them fight. Ice blades were particularly effective against the elementals since the sheer heat of the desert quickly melted them while they were still lodged in the sand, turning it to mud and weakening the elemental spirits’ ability to control it.

  Over the next five or six seconds, about fifty knives went out in waves, breaking down all of the elementals still trying to put a body together and shredding them. The attack was too sudden and absolute for any of them to break their connection with the sand they’d been trying to inhabit, and they all collapsed.

  The rest of his team finished up the ones they were fighting as Sorin strode into their camp. “Normally, I’d have something to say about all the noise, but since it helped me find you, I think I can let it slide this time,” he said.