She watched as Sam crept a little closer to the unassuming, blocky building. He peered through the front door, which had been broken at some point in the past. For a long moment, he stared through the opening and then began to pick his way back across the parking lot.

Alex took the chance to scan the parking lot one more time. Joanna's next two victims hadn't told them much, but then a third had revealed a new Outpost in this place. If she guessed right, it had been some kind of police station before the world had become an abandoned ruin; she could see the moldering remains of half a dozen police vehicles scattered through the lot, their broken lights still in the same familiar configuration.

It seemed to take forever for Sam to creep back to them, but his dark eyes were glowing when he reached their position. "It's another Outpost, all right. A bunch of Hidden Flowers at least."

They all broke out in grins. It had been about two hours since they'd entered the portal, and the prospect of finishing the Survey was getting more and more attractive. Alex started off towards the entrance of the place, followed by the others.

As weary as she was, Alex had her Skills all at maximum now, and she wagered the others did as well. The past two patrols hadn't lasted long against any of them, and neither had the Camp. Outposts might be a little tougher, but she wagered it wouldn't be much worse.

Her suspicions were confirmed as she tore through the doorway and found the station filled with Knights, Brutes, and Archers. They had been lounging against the walls and lying down on the broad front counter and across the various desks. Before they could get to their feet, she was right on top of them, axe hacking and chopping through their smokey flesh. Sam was right beside her a moment later, stabbing and striking so quickly that his spear became a blur. Fire and thorns ripped through portions of the room as Joanna and Clara arrived, increasing the carnage.

More Grue piled in from the offices on either side. They ran in with their weapons held high, but half of them didn't get the chance to strike with them before Alex and her friends cut them down. Others began falling back, as if attempting to fortify other portions of the station. Alex chased after them, leaving the entrance lobby and finding herself in a large room filled with cubicles. There were several rows of them, clearly once a kind of workstation for the local officers. Now each one seemed to be filled with a planter of sorts, and Alex felt a vicious sense of triumph as she identified a Hidden Flower in one of them.

The battle continued to rage as the Surveyors pushed the Grue back. A Brute tried to smash her into the ground and seemed shocked when she blocked the attack outright. It staggered backwards, but failed to move quick enough to avoid her axe. She hooked it around the thing's ankle, and it sprawled backwards into a pair of Knights. None of them recovered before she and Sam were on them, finishing the lot of them in a matter of heartbeats.

As the Grue continued to fall back, they retreated into a set of double doors near the back of the room. It joined up with another set of office cubicles on the other side, and Alex caught sight of Joanna and Clara forcing their way up that side of the building as well. Killers had started to make their appearance, and they died burning or frozen as Joanna got to them. Clara shot another of them and shouted over the rising chaos. "More of them through there! A lot more!"

Alex nodded and pushed further in, her axe leaving a trail of ruined Grue behind her. As she finally smashed a frantic Killer aside with her shield and finished another with an axe strike, she darted forward and slammed through the double doors as well, expecting to find yet another floor of offices.

Instead, she was in a stairwell. To her right, the stairs ascended up to a landing before they reversed and headed up to the second floor. There were already Grue on the stairs, some of which were drawing arrows to shoot at her. Straight ahead, there was a much more heavily fortified door that was in the process of closing shut.

Alex ducked behind her shield, weaving through the flurry of arrows. A burst of wind staggered the Killers and Archers long enough for Sam to sprint up the stairs after them. As they toppled over dead, she sprinted for the closing door and wedged the edge of her shield in the narrowing gap, stopping it from closing completely.

Her shout of victory was cut off when a beam of purple light slammed into her. Alex went flying backwards into the space beneath the upper flight of stairs, her armor smoking from the hit as the door slammed completely shut. Pain filtered through her as she tried to fight her way back to her feet; her vision seemed clouded for some reason. She didn't know if it was a sign of the extent of the damage, or just some effect of the magic, but either way, it was not ideal.

A moment later, Clara was there, kneeling next to her. Healing magic pulsed from her in waves, and Alex blinked as the pain spiked for a moment, and then began to clear. She grinned at the Acolyte. "Thanks, Dryad."

"Thank me by not dying, Valkyrie." Clara glanced upwards. "There's a decent amount more upstairs. Sam will need help."

"Go with him, then." Alex struggled back to her feet, already feeling better. "Joanna and I can get in there on our own."

The Adept had just arrived, her hands still smoking. She gave Alex a speculative look. "I don't think I want to get shot by that, thanks. There's Mages in there?"

Alex nodded. "Seems that way. We don't want them flanking us if we all go up, though." She looked at the door and frowned. "Can you ice it? That way, it'll take them some time to break through."

Joanna nodded, and frost formed over the door. In moments, it was coated in ice. "Should we…"

"Go help Sam." Alex took a deep breath and managed not to wince from the ache. "I'll stay here and watch."

Joanna ran up the stairs immediately. Clara paused long enough to give off one more pulse of healing and then went up after her. Alex heard the chaos of combat continue up above, but she shut it out and tried to focus on the door ahead of her. She knew the Grue weren't going to just hole up and wait for the Surveyors to break through to them. They were too hungry for blood to do that, even if it was the smart move. That meant…

The ice cracked. Something heavy impacted the other side, and the cracks spread. Alex dropped into a crouch, gathering the power of the Storm inside her. Each breath still brought a little pain to her chest, but it just fueled her anger a little more. Shoot her from ambush, would they? It wasn't going to end well for them. Not now.

Another impact put more cracks in the door, and some chips of it cascaded across the concrete floor. She thought there was some kind of explosion upstairs, telling her that the fight up there was still going strong.

Which meant the Grue inside this place were all hers.

With one last impact, the door shattered open. Fragments of ice and steel scattered across the floor of the stairwell, spraying dozens of pieces all over the ground. Alex barely paid them any attention. Instead, her gaze was locked on the surprised-looking Brute that had just come through the door.

The Brute had just enough time to grunt before she slammed into it, shield first. The impact sent it straight into the doorjamb, trapping it there for two brutal strikes to the neck. As it dropped its hammers and clutched at its torn throat, Alex spun and unleashed every ounce of lightning she could channel into the room beyond. Mages, Killers, and Brutes cried out and howled as the energy seared through the air.

It was not a large space. Most of it was just a plain concrete hallway that stretched to a dead end further on. To one side of the doorway was a small alcove where a desk and some empty gun cabinets were stored. The other side boasted a small box filled with keys of some kind.

Along the hallway were cells, three on each side. The bars were backlit by strange lights inside, which seemed to shimmer as Alex moved into the room. None of them appeared to be locked; in fact, three of them had either been smashed open from the inside and another two were so twisted from neglect that any attempt to shut them would have been futile.

Alex took note of all of it in a corner of her mind as she charged into the hallway. Her lightning burst had caught at least three of the Mages, but several more were still on their feet. She tore her way through the pair of Brutes that were trying to block her way, and as they fell, she lunged past them to rip into the Mages that had ducked behind them.

Her attack was blocked by a Killer's sword, and a backstroke nearly took her head. She dodged back just enough to feel the blade pass by. Then she slammed the edge of her shield into the Killer's chest and sent it bowling back into a pack of its kin. As they crumpled, she ducked beneath a panicked burst of grey fire and put her axe through a Mage's skull. Another one tried the same purple beam that had struck her before, but she darted to the side and closed the distance fast enough that she took its arm before it could pivot.

She heard the creak of a bowstring and jumped back just in time to dodge an arrow coming from inside one of the cells. Alex mustered up enough lightning to blind the offending Killer, and then finished off the maimed Mage. A Brute batted the corpse aside, trying to get enough space for its hammers. By the time it managed to clear a spot, Alex had already dashed inside its reach, where she hacked away at its vulnerable torso until it tumbled backwards, flattening another unlucky Mage.

More Killers sprang forward, but she smashed and cut her way through them so quickly that they didn't have the chance to slow her down. The Mages died as soon as she reached them; only the Brutes had the toughness to live through more than a single hit, now. Some of the Grue continued to spring at her through the wrecked bars of the cells, but she saw their shadows in the lights and rewarded their ambushes with brutal counterattacks.

Finally, it seemed like they ran out of room to retreat or dodge. Alex slashed through two Killers, slammed a third into the spiked remnants of the bars to her left, and spun through their corpses to deliver a back slash that removed the head of the final Mage. As the Grue fell to the ground, she finally permitted herself a real look inside the cells.

There were crystals, growing on the bunks of each little prison cell. They sparkled and shone with faint grey light, and she could almost smell the magic flowing from them.

Curious despite the battle she could hear upstairs, Alex stepped past the corpses and grabbed hold of one of the crystals. It sang and vibrated beneath her grip, and she frowned for a moment before she ripped it free.

Orange text appeared a moment later.

[Main Quest Progress: 1 of 2 targets obtained]

She grinned. At least they knew what a Shining Sliver was now.

Moments later, the bodies of the Grue began to burn, telling her that the others had finished off the rest of this group. She hummed to herself as she reached out for another crystal. It looked like she had another full clear in her future.

[Mission Report]

[Successful Return! +20 Experience]

[Main Quest Completed! +160 Experience]

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

[Secondary Culling Quest Completed! +80 Experience]

[Secondary Culling Quest Completed! +80 Experience]

[Secondary Purge Quest Completed! +80 Experience]

[All Quests Completed! Glorious Victory! +80 Experience]

It was, in fact, a complete triumph. Despite feeling a bit worn, Alex allowed herself to gloat for a moment before she permitted the text to move on.

[Battle Maneuvers increased from 0 to 30!]

[Battle Maneuvers has reached level 30! Skill is at Max Level and can no longer increase.]

[Reset Battle Maneuvers to gain a Title?]

Alex nodded to herself. Her combat effectiveness would still be strong, even if she lost the Skill for a bit. She had certainly proved that today.

[Title Coordinated upgraded to Title Systematic (Increases Skill grade of Battle Maneuvers, Anticipate, and Combined Arms by three.)]

[Motion Trance has reached level 25! Skill is at Max Level and can no longer increase.]

[Reset Motion Trance to gain a Title?]

She wavered over that choice and then agreed to it. Motion Trance was difficult to do without, and hard to increase even in combat, but the more effective she could make it, the better.

[Title Fast gained (Increases Skill grade of Motion Trance, Evasion, and Charge Assault by one.)]

Nodding again, she dismissed the options the Screen gave her for Combat Balance, Combined Arms, and Holy—Storm. Once their on-call duty was done, she'd feel better about taking the risk to advance them, but not before.

Feeling fatigued, but entirely satisfied, she let the light once more bring her back to the world where she belonged…

It was dark out when Alex woke up.

They were still on the train headed back to the Royal Purple facility. Jonathan had been fairly enthusiastic about the results of the Survey. Apparently destroying eight Camps and three Outposts had been more than he'd been expecting out of a single Survey, so he had been more than happy to send them on their way with the load of recovered materials.

Now they were on their way back, the Slivers, Flowers, and the rest tucked away in the luggage. The train had assigned them their own car again, as if the rest of the passengers were concerned about getting some kind of magic contamination from them. Alex and the others had been far too tired to care, either way, and they had mostly just collapsed into their seats to begin the journey home.

Between the quiet train car and the fatigue from the mission, Alex hadn't lasted long before she'd fallen asleep. She was already missing Motion Trance, but at least the train had given her plenty of time to sleep off some of the exhaustion.

Now, however, she had woken up again, and she could already tell that she wasn't going to be falling back to sleep again any time soon. Mildly irritated, she shifted in her seat and glanced around, wondering what had disturbed her.

She saw Sam, seated across the aisle in the empty seats there. His tablet was glowing in the dark, and his dark eyes were lit by the screen as he stared at it. He seemed utterly intent on it, at least until she stretched and grunted as the day's aches and pains made themselves felt.

Sam looked over and grimaced. He seemed just as tired as he'd been when they boarded. When he spoke, it was barely above a whisper. "Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you."

Alex glanced back and saw both Joanna and Clara were out for the count. Joanna had curled up in her chair, a curiously peaceful expression on her face. Clara, by contrast, had sprawled across the wall of the train and her own seat, her mouth hanging open and—unless Alex was mistaken—leaking a little bit of drool.

Suppressing a giggle, Alex looked back at Sam and shrugged. "Don't worry about it. What are you working on?"

Sam hesitated and then he gestured for her to join him. She stood up and walked over to him while he scooted over into the farther seat, making room for her. When she sat, he handed the tablet over to her. "I'm still trying to make sense of these… escalations. There's too many of them, too close together. How did Greylight prepare all of this ahead of time? Golden Swallow took forever to build their Anchor Point, and they only did it in one location. Greylight would have needed to do it half a dozen times, and do it with such good security that nobody noticed."

Alex studied the screen. It showed a map of the portals that had been affected by whatever it was that Greylight was doing. The dots were spread across the map in a pattern that didn't seem to connect to each other. "They've done a pretty good job not being predictable, at least."

He nodded. "There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. They're just hitting these places, and…" Sam's voice faltered for a moment, and Alex looked closer at him. For a moment, it seemed like he was struggling with something. Then he sighed. "Just look."

Sam tapped at the tablet's screen, and the screen shifted to a list of names. "These are all the Surveyors that have been killed or injured in these incidents. Each one kills at least five people, and it seems like it is getting worse each time. If this continues…"

Alex nodded, her eyes narrowed. Then she looked over at Sam. His hands were clenched on the table, and he was staring down at them in clear frustration and anger. She felt a flicker of the same emotions run through her, and she was forced to clamp down on them.

Carefully, she reached over and shook him by the shoulder. "We're going to find the pattern. You're good at this." He looked over at her, and she smiled a little. "I've given you enough practice, at least."

Sam stared at her for a moment and then gave her a crooked grin. "You do have a tendency to dig up trouble. Must run in the family."

"Probably." Alex shook him again and then turned back to the tablet. "You said there's no pattern, right? Can we work back to one from what we know?"

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

She changed the screen back to the map. "We know where they are doing things, and when. We don't know how exactly, but we know a few things, right?"

Sam nodded slowly. "They have to be doing it with something like an Anchor Point. It has to be close to the portal."

Alex broke in before he could continue. "How close?"

He paused. "The Golden Swallow facility was what, five miles from the portal? I think Zach—" Sam stopped for a moment, a hint of pain in his dark eyes. Then he shook his head and continued. "He said that it might have been able to be ten miles or so away if they wanted to push things."

"That's if they kept everything the same, right?" Alex looked back at the map. "Are any of these portals within ten miles of another portal?"

Sam's brow furrowed for a moment. Then his eyes widened. "You mean one that wasn't affected. Because it was out of range." She nodded, and he scooted a bit closer in his chair. He leaned over to tap a few instructions into the tablet, and a flurry of blue dots snapped into existence alongside the purple ones. Another few taps, and large orange circles appeared around each one.

They both leaned in a little closer. Alex found the first one. "Hey, here's one." She expanded one image. "This one is just six miles from the Redsun portal. A B rank portal, too. We would've heard if that one started getting a spike." Portals that dangerous were considered national news, and she hadn't heard a peep about it.

He nodded. "Yeah. They probably wouldn't have wanted to mess with it, either. I think it belongs to a Greylight subsidiary." A few more taps confirmed the information. "So either they built something in that really small window where they could hit the Redsun portal, but not the other one…"

"Or they've changed it somehow. Made the range smaller." Alex grimaced. "That's not very helpful, is it?"

Sam shook his head. "It could be. Just knowing they changed it means they might have changed some other things." His eyes were still locked on the screen as he leaned in a little further. "They'd still need to turn it on and off, though. When we went in, they'd obviously already stopped it, and the portal wasn't still going crazy today."

She grinned. "True. I think even Greylight would want an off button for that kind of thing. Especially if there were normals around."

He grunted. "Right. Because of the—" Sam paused, and his expression grew animated. "Because of the magic poisoning. The Golden Swallow one kicked up a ton of it, even when it was buried under a ton of concrete."

Alex looked back at the screen. "Which Greylight might not have had the time for. So if it is above ground and not shielded very well—"

"There should be some cases of magic poisoning, or at least some magic exposure. Not enough to set off alarms, but maybe I could check the local hospitals. Not sure if they would tell me about it, with the privacy laws and all, but… this could be something that would work." He turned towards her. "You really are just incredi—"

Alex turned towards him, and all of a sudden, it was clear just how close they were to each other. She saw a similar stunned realization in his eyes, along with something a bit… more.

Then he pulled back in something like panic and looked away, taking the tablet with him. She let go of it, feeling her cheeks heat for a moment. When Sam spoke again, he was almost muttering. "Incredible. That's what I was going to say. Sorry."

She felt her cheeks turn a bit redder. Could he tell in the dark? "Well, you're not so bad yourself." He glanced at her in surprise, and she shrugged. "Do you really think you could find cases of magic poisoning?"

He nodded. "Maybe. If we can trace them all back to a location… we might have a clue." Then he gave her that same crooked grin again. "For once, I guess."

Alex drew in a quiet breath and let it out. She felt the heat fade, and she nodded. "Well, we should have another plan if that one doesn't work, right? We know Golden Swallow used it for power generation, so wouldn't it…"

Alex woke the next morning with a dull, pounding headache. They hadn't reached home until late, and she hadn't gotten any more sleep on the train because she'd spent the last part of the trip going over theories with Sam. He'd already promised to start running down some of them the moment they reached home. Hopefully, he'd slept at least a little first.

She looked around her small room, mentally cataloguing what she needed to do for the day. The executive that had met them at the station had reassured them that there hadn't been another emergency call yet, which meant the other team was still in charge of the next Survey. The news had been a relief; two Surveys back-to-back might have been a problem.

With a tired stretch, she tried to convince herself to get out of bed and join Sam for a run. She doubted he'd already have news for her, but at least they would be able to start the process of getting Motion Trance and Marathoning back up to speed. Alex chuckled a little at her own mental joke and crawled out of bed despite her aching muscles.

A look around the room told her that some laundry and chores would be helpful as well. At least it would give her something to do after the hours of lectures they probably had scheduled. Anything to keep her from going crazy just sitting around and—

She paused, staring at her desk. There was an index card there, the kind used for brief notes or school projects the world over. It was tucked back into a corner, right up against both walls of the alcove, where a casual visitor to her room wouldn't have seen it.

It also hadn't been there when she left. More to the point, she couldn't remember the last time she'd used an index card for anything, let alone her work here at Royal Purple Contracting.

Alex looked around the room, searching for anything that seemed out of place. There was nothing aside from the uniform that she'd dropped on the floor the previous night on her way to passing out on the bed. The cleaners had been through the room the morning before Warner had sent them off to Emerald Bay. When she'd dropped by before they left, there hadn't been anything out of place then, either.

She looked back at the card, her eyes narrow. Then she stepped over to the desk and picked it up.

One side of the card was blank; it had been the side face-up on the desk. She turned it over.

There were only two lines, written in an unsteady hand. The first one had just three letters, followed by four numbers. It looked like some kind of door code or something.

The second line, however, was much more eye-catching. It was a date. Specifically, the date that the Emerald Bay portal crew had called for help the first time. Just below that was a doodled picture of a fire. Clearly, whoever had left the note wanted it destroyed as soon as she'd read it.

Alex felt a bolt of excitement and fear run through her. She looked around the room again, but nothing stuck out as unusual. It wasn't like she expected a bug or camera to be that obvious, but it was worth the try.

She looked at the card again. Clearly, someone had left it for her to find, but was it a clue or a trap? Was someone trying to lure her in, or help her?

Either way, she needed more than just her to look at it. She carefully laid it back on the desk and then got into her running clothes. It turned out that exercise was going to be that much more important today.

"I still don't… understand… why we can't… talk normally."

Alex glanced at Joanna, but it was Sam who answered. He didn't look much happier about their current activity, but he still rolled his eyes. "Anyone who leaves a note like that is going to… leave a bug. Maybe in… all our rooms."

Clara gave him a sharp look. "It better not… be in my room."

"Nobody cares… that you… snore, Clara." Joanna's temper had not improved with the news. She glared at each of them in turn, still huffing and puffing along. "Why are we… running?"

The sheer disgust in Joanna's voice nearly made Alex laugh, but she stopped herself. After all, the Adept had never been the fastest of them, and she was probably still incredibly sore from the day before.

For that reason, she tried to sound sympathetic. "It's harder to listen in on us this way."

Joanna shifted the angry look to her. "And you… want to… Skill train!"

As if to agree with her, orange text flared to life.

[Motion Trance advances to 2!]

Alex almost immediately felt some of the aches ease from her muscles, though a flash of guilt filled the hole they left. She slowed to a jog. "Sorry. Didn't mean to push the pace."

"Sure!" Despite the venom in the word, there was still a grudging relief in Joanna's expression as they fell into a jog.

After a few moments of catching their breath, Clara spoke up. "So what does it mean? Is it a password?"

Sam shook his head. "Probably not. It's too short and hard to remember. A computer would guess it easily."

Joanna nodded. "Maybe a… project reference? Serial number?"

"Seems more like it." Sam looked at Alex. "I haven't found anything in the hospitals, but I can try and ask around about this thing too. Give me a couple of days, though."

She grimaced. "Just be careful. We don't know if this is a trap or an actual clue, and they might be waiting for you to stick your head up so they could take it off."

Clara broke back in. "Wait, hospitals? Why are we looking there?"

Alex let her thoughts drift as Sam explained their conclusions from the night before. Time would tell if they had a hidden helper or not, but at the very least, they were making progress. One way or another.

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