Governing Council Private Message:

Status: Extreme Emergency

Due to a lack of teams and an unclaimed, low-difficulty C-Rank portal in the Peoria area, your team has been temporarily authorized to delve C-Rank portals. Your team's leader has approved the authorization and confirmed a group of six is available for this clear attempt, and that all are full-build delvers with either three-plus merged skills or are ranked D or higher.

The Governing Council will waive their fees for this portal and will also reward your team if it is successfully cleared.

Location: Peoria Difficulty: Low C-Rank Estimated Time Until Break: Eight to Ten Hours

Yasmin: You're serious about this?

Jeff: Deadly serious. We can do it.

Yasmin: There aren't any other teams that could handle a C-Rank portal? They couldn't drop an S-Ranker on it like a nuclear warhead? The Light of Dawn would be perfect for that.

Jeff: I'm bringing the new team members into the chat. I've run with both of them. They're good - trust me. They need to be in the loop, though. Hello, Kurt. Hello, Alex. Roles, ranks, fighting styles, if you don't mind.

Yasmin: Thirty seconds. A minute, max. He'd be done just like that.

Kurt: Kurt McLander. 'Archer.' Slow, heavy hits. I don't use a standard bow. My Unique skill's focused on crossbows, and I got the Arbalest from my first D-Rank dungeon.

Alex: I'm a dagger fighter. Mobility and sustained damage.

Jeff: Kade's our spellblade striker/fighter hybrid, Ellen's a strong shadow mage for her rank, and Yasmin's the best support I've seen in a long time.

Yasmin: Flattery will get you nowhere, Jeff.

Yasmin: And you'd better be right about this - not like with the turtle!

Jeff: It! Was! A! Tortoise!

Alex: I'm missing something here.

Kade: I trust you, Jeff. If you think we can handle it, we can handle it.

Ellen: Same.

Jeff: Okay. Here's the plan. Meet at the Peoria GC in thirty minutes. We'll take Ellen's car and my truck. Be ready for anything in there—who knows what kind of C-Rank mess we'll be getting into?

I set my phone aside, taking a deep breath and looking at Ellen over the table. She looked pale and nervous. "A C-Rank portal? Things must be pretty desperate. I've never done anything like this before," she said.

"The only time I have it was a trap portal. It wasn't intentional, and this will probably be harder. The trap had enough energy to hit us with a massive double-boss encounter, but not to upgrade all the monsters inside. But we've got a good team, and both Jeff and I are a lot stronger than we were. If Alex and Kurt are any good, we'll be okay." I stood up. Ellen seemed unconvinced, so I put a hand on her shoulder. "We've got this."

She leaned into my arm for a second, head bouncing off my side, then pulled back and stood up. "I hope you're right, Kade."

"I don't. I know I am. We're ready."

Jessie couldn't help it. She'd gone to school like she was supposed to, but her GC tablet was tucked into her textbook, and she kept checking it. So far, Kade's team had been red-listed—injured and undermanned. As long as they'd stayed that way, Jessie could focus more on the big picture. It didn't look good, but the portal surge could end any minute. When it did, the delver teams would get a handle on it, and the guilds would go back to feuding over resources and mining rights.

She checked again. Her anxiety spiked, and she stood up quickly, grabbing her cane. "Bathroom," she said, ignoring her teacher's protests as she headed into the hall, tablet blatantly in one hand.

Maybe she'd get in trouble for ditching. Maybe not. Jessie didn't care.

The team wasn't red-listed anymore. They were back in business—and at full strength, with a pair of D-Rankers Jessie didn't know. She scrolled to the side. Tank, fighter, archer, support, mage, striker. Pretty typical layout for no-healer groups. They'd been assigned a portal. One Kade had no business being anywhere near.

A C-Rank portal.

Jessie: What the hell, Kade? Tell me my tablet's glitching.

Kade: No. We're going to shut it down. I'll be out of touch for eight to ten hours. Don't panic. We've got this.

Jessie: If you die, I'm killing you.

Jessie: Come back safe.

Jessie: I'll keep checking up whenever I can.

Kade: I will.

Kade didn't say anything else, and Jessie tried to swallow the lump in her throat. This was going to go badly. She didn't know how, but she knew.

The GC rep standing outside the yellow portal looked familiar, but I couldn't quite place her. Not until she glanced at me over her tablet. "Name, rank, and skills."

I shot her my truncated information, hoping she wouldn't ask too many questions. She'd been curious about my Unique skill the night Jeff's team had entered the trap portal, but maybe—

User: Kade Noelstra E-Rank Stamina: 250/250, Mana: 340/350

Skills: 1. Stormsteel Core (D-02, Unique, Merged) 2. Thunderbolt Forms (E-08 to E-09, Altered, Merged) 3. Mistwalk Forms (E-05 to E-08, Altered, Merged) 4. Cyclone Forms (E-01 to E-04, Altered, Merged) 5. Sunbeam Bond (E-01, Altered, Merged) 6. Energy Font (E-01) 7. Brendan's Hymnal (E-01)

"Delver Noelstra. I remember you. Looks like you got all five merges. That's impressive. Do you want to share your familiar?" she asked.

"Not really. I've got a few enemies who've been keeping tabs on me, and I'd rather not give up all my tricks," I said. I was just happy that my status screen didn't dig into everything my three forms did. If it did, we'd be here all day while the inquisitive GC rep questioned me—and worse, anyone with access to the delver database could figure out exactly what I could do. I hadn't forgotten that Deborah was out there somewhere.

The GC rep nodded. When she cleared her throat, she managed to keep the disappointment out of her voice. "Officially, this is all of your first C-Rank portal. I know a couple of you were involved in a trap portal a couple of months ago, so you think you know what C-Rank is like. You're wrong.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"This is a big step up from E and D-Ranks. For one thing, it's going to be bigger. For another, monsters will work together in ways you haven't seen before, using tactics you haven't seen before. That thing we tell civilians about how the portals' directive to kill overrides monster behavior? That's only partially true. At higher ranks, they still have that goal, but they fight like they're intelligent."

She paused, breathing deeply. "In other words, expect anything, and be prepared for a long clear. Delver Carlson, did you bring snacks?"

Yasmin snorted. Jeff, however, nodded. "Yes, ma'am. We're prepared to overnight if necessary, but it'll be a rough camp. I don't expect us to get much sleep."

"Good. Glad you're prepared, then. You're cleared to proceed. Head on in when you're ready."

Jeff didn't waste any time. We all, in theory, knew what to do. He pointed at a man in chainmail and leather with two daggers on his belt. This is Alex. Sustained damage, high mobility. Sort of a similar build to yours, Kade, but with less bullshit."

"Har har," I said. "I have just the right amount of bullshit."

"And this is Kurt," he continued.

Kurt waved from behind the heavy crossbow he carried on a chest harness. It looked almost big enough to knock him over on recoil alone. I wondered how he planned to make it work until he smiled. "Wanna see?"

"Sure," I said.

Kurt flipped a wooden lever on his backpack, and a stool with an extra-long back leg appeared. He sat down heavily on it; it creaked beneath him. "I'm a turret. Jeff says he can keep me safe, and I don't see any reason to doubt him."

The rest of the team shook hands quickly, introducing themselves and double-checking their gear. In five minutes, we were assembled and prepped. This was the second-best team composition I'd been part of, behind the trap portal's team. But my stomach couldn't help but churn a little. What we were about to do was almost certainly beyond us. Ellen looked a little pale, and Yasmin wouldn't meet my eye when I glanced her way.

Jeff nodded. He also looked nervous, but underneath that was something else. Fear, and determination. I understood all too well; he had something to prove to himself, and this C-Rank portal was his first opportunity to make that happen. "All ready, then? Great. Let's go," he said, and he stepped into the mustard-yellow portal.

We followed him into hell.

Not literal hell.

But close enough.

I had just enough time to take in the war-torn battlefield filled with burning siege engines, half-collapsed trenches, and the stench of death. Then metal clashed on metal, and I spun as I summoned the Stormsteel rapier and breastplate.

Jeff was already fighting. His opponent was a hulking, green-skinned figure at least eight feet tall, with black hair in dozens of braids and a steel pauldron covering his shoulder. The rest of the orc was naked, save for a massive two-handed axe that Jeff had caught on his shield. The impact had dug two shallow trenches in front of Jeff's boots, each a foot long.

Blood Orc Hellion: C-Rank

Kurt set up his crossbow and put a single bolt as long as my leg into the monster's chest. It roared, a feral scream that spewed bloody air and phlegm across Jeff's shield and face, then whirled and slammed the battle axe into his shield. A second later, Alex's daggers both found purchase in the monster's back.

But its Health was hard at work, fixing the wounds as fast as they came in. The crossbow bolt popped free in another spray of blood, only for the gaping puncture wound to close with a slurping sound. It swung the axe again, this time cleaving into Alex's arm deep enough to gouge bone.

Alex screamed and staggered back, pushing Stamina into the wound just below his shoulder.

I dropped into my full offensive stance and launched into the battle. Mana consumption was going to be my biggest worry in here; I couldn't burn it too quickly, and definitely not for a single enemy. Instead, I lunged, driving a second puncture next to the still-slurping chest wound. The Lightning Charge I'd been waiting for appeared. I stepped back into a defensive stance.

The blood orc's axe swept down at me. I didn't bother parrying. Instead, I used Flashstep and reappeared behind the orc. My blade sliced across the back of its neck. It roared, jerked the axe free from the ground, and whirled. A second crossbow bolt hit it. I got a single awkward parry in before Jeff slammed his shield into the monster's chest hard enough for bone to crack.

None of that slowed the monster down. We lacked the firepower to overwhelm a C-Rank monster's healing. "Just wear it down!" Jeff yelled over the orc's hammering axe-blows. I rotated back to my offensive stance and kept hacking away.

It took almost fifteen more seconds—an eternity in combat with the thing—before the four of us finally brought the Blood Orc Hellion down. It hit the ground, dragging itself toward Kurt, before a single dagger lodged itself in its massive, thick neck. Only then did it finally die.

"Holy crap," Yasmin said. "Holy crap, that's so much worse than D-Ranks."

"Yep. Let's get buffed up, patch up Alex's arm, and keep moving. We can't afford to stay still, and I've got a bad feeling about where the boss is," Jeff said.

Ellen nodded and pointed. "I bet it's at the top of that."

For the first time, I got the chance to look beyond the immediate battlefield. All around us was a plain that had once been farmland before every village and farmstead was burned to the ground. I couldn't see a single tree anywhere; they'd all been cut down to form makeshift fortifications and walls in front of trenches. Corpses rotted in the sun, bloated around their hewn and shattered armor.

And looming over it all, at the edge of a cliff, sat a city. It burned from dozens of fires; the smoke blew across the battlefield, and only a cathedral of glass and marble at its very peak looked undamaged. I couldn't see the gate, but it had to be hewn open.

"Yeah, that's gotta be it," I said. "Anyone know what this place is?"

"Archetype? No idea," Ellen said. "I haven't studied the C-Rank and higher archetypes too much, but it's not any of the D and under ones. Could be something like Besieged Fortress or Warzone, but I'm not familiar enough to know."

The second Alex's arm was covered, and Yasmin had burned half her Mana on buff Scripts, we dropped into the trench to break sightlines. Jeff went first; if we got into a shoving match with a group of Blood Orcs, we wanted the armor up front. We turned left, then right, making our way toward the burning city as we wove through the trench.

It took four or five turns to find our first group of enemies.

Blood Orc Novice: D-Rank

Blood Orc Hemomancer: C-Rank

There were eight of the Novices, all smaller than the Hellion we'd fought—and all more armored, though still naked under their scrapped-together plate. They carried reverse-curved swords and spears, and the moment they saw us, they started screaming and roaring. Spears flew through the air. "Hold!" Jeff yelled. Then he used his Split-Second Shield skill, blocking all the incoming weapons.

The shield fell, and we retaliated. I summoned a Zephyr and launched it into the throng of onrushing orcs. Kurt pointed at the Hemomancer, who was casting a spell. "Kill that one first!" Then he opened fire with his crossbow. Ellen followed suit, and the fight devolved into magic flying over the swarm of D-Ranked enemies as Alex and Jeff hammered away at them.

The Hemomancer took hits, and by the time he finished his first cast, he was bleeding freely. I watched him stagger, then right himself as two massive tendrils of blood lifted him high over the fight. They stomped forward, dying the dead grass and brown soil a bright red as the Hemomancer directed his spell toward us.

One leg hit a Novice, and the orc screamed as its blood drained into the Hemomancer's spell, fueling it further. I ran forward, switching to Mistwalk stance and sliding under a sword cut that nicked my cheek. "Cheddar, get in there!"

My familiar screeched from where he and Pepperoni had been hovering above. A sunbeam ripped into the Hemomancer's face, leaving behind a trail of burning, red-black flesh. An eyeball popped, then started to heal as the Hemomancer's gaze turned skyward, toward the new threat. I switched to Cyclone stance and jumped out of the trench, then leaped toward the Hemomancer. He started to cast a spell.

I used my Rainfall charge and countered it with a Zephyr and Saltspray. Then I switched back to my defensive, one-handed stance and used Gustrunner. My speed increased rapidly. I ran between the blood tendrils as they slammed the ground around me. The Stormsteel rapier lashed out wildly, cutting wherever it could.

A crossbow bolt slammed into the Hemomancer's chest right between the collar bones, and another sunbeam ripped across his arm. It fell as its blood tendril spell failed, and I stabbed it through the neck a second later, then cast Thunder Wave from point-blank.

Lightning swirled around me for a full second, then reached out for the closest targets it could find. A good ten feet around me turned to impending death; every rope of electricity wanted to find a link and pass its massive power from me to a target.

And there was only one target available.

Every one of the dozens of lightning tendrils hit the C-Rank Hemomancer as he struggled to his feet. His eyes went wide. Then he convulsed. And then he exploded in a gigantic thunderclap loud enough to rattle the windows in the far-away city—if any remained after the siege. I spun as gore splashed across my back, then ran back toward the battle in the trenches.

It wasn't a battle. It had turned into a slaughter.

All seven Novices were dead. Some were missing square sections of their bodies. Others had throats that'd been slit a half dozen times each. The dirt-bottomed trench had turned into a pool of red-brown mud a few inches thick.

"Good job, Kade," Jeff said, staring at the remains of the Blood Orc Hemomancer. "Can you do that again?"

Stamina: 186/250, Mana: 136/350

I closed my eyes, activating Energy Font. As my Mana began to recover, I shook my head. "Not too often. It's a ton of Mana, and I'd rather save my resources. I've got a feeling things won't get any easier."

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