“The casket necklace works,” I said, a little embarrassed. “I, um, think I need to get used to how well it works, though.”
“And you reckon the middle of the night’s the time for that?” Warcry growled.
“Yeah, Grady,” Sushi snapped. “Did you reckon?”
I tried not to laugh as I picked up the wash bucket. I did feel bad for scaring them.
“Sorry, guys, I did not reckon. That’s my fault. But I think I’ve figured out a better time and place for getting used to this.”
Price Tag
BY AFTERNOON THE NEXT day, we made it back to camp with the artifact team. We weren’t attacked on the way, which felt wrong after everything from the night before. I’d kept a wide net of Dead Reckoning active the whole time, but never felt a peep of an enemy life point.
Valthorpe didn’t act nervous or suspicious. Either he was an independent cinema-quality actor, or he was just a nerd who didn’t realize he’d been giving away Eight-Legged Dragon secrets to a Jianjiao agent the night before.
He sighed when we got to camp and the hooligans immediately started to settle in for an early night.
“I guess we’ll pick up where we left off with the temple in the morning,” he said, round shoulders slumped.
“Actually,” I said, “Warcry and I are going to the temple now.”
“Now?” Valthorpe’s face lit up. “You’re sure? Of course you’re sure! Okay, yes, we’re doing this!”
We wolfed down a couple MealBagz so we wouldn’t have to stop and eat later, then headed over. The shadows were already getting long when we got to the temple, but Valthorpe had thought ahead, bringing the lantern from camp.
“I didn’t know how long you guys would want to be out here,” he said as if we couldn’t tell he would happily stay all night.
I nodded. “We’re going to need it. We’re not going back to camp until the fourth floor is clear.”
The academic could barely stand still he was so excited. He fidgeted and looked from the top tier back to us.
“Did you have some sort of epiphany on how to defeat these ferals?” he asked.
“More like he had a breakthrough,” Warcry said. “They’re easy to come by when your kishotenketsu’s at such a low level.”
I smirked. “I was beginning to think you forgot how to insult me.”
“Let’s go, ya clown.”
We made our way through the darkening interior of the temple. None of the skelebuddies from the fourth-floor mob had taken our absence as a chance to drift downstairs. Maybe on some level they understood safety in numbers, or maybe they had just been set to guard that floor and weren’t interested in exploring any of the others.
At the entrance to the fourth floor, Warcry hung back on the stairs and let me go in first so I could gauge where I was at, strength-wise. On the last step, I hit the Ki-enhancements, then blasted freezing Miasma across the surface of my body. Necrotizing frost broke out, but I kept it confined to the top couple layers of skin as I stepped onto the tiles. Dead Reckoning had a tendency to blur into one long, meaningless warning siren when I was up against too many opponents at once, so I let it drop.
The first ring of skelebuddy pairs attacked, spears and kamas and daggers flying. I dodged, jumped, kicked, and threw Death Metal-covered elbows.
Fire constructs geysered up every other step, trying to cook me alive, but the frost covering my skin absorbed the majority of the burn. The turquoise ice crackled and sublimated, but with Reclaiming the Dead going, I dragged the Miasma back inside before it could get far. The temple was loaded with ancient Death Spirit, but already the new type of breathing was second nature.
The fight itself made sense like nothing else I’d ever experienced. Even without Dead Reckoning going, I could see every little twitch miles away; I had all the time in the world to block and counter. I’d been training and sparring and fighting for my life since I first got to this universe, but I’d never seen a fight that way before. It was like up until right then I’d been floundering through a foreign language, but now I was suddenly fluent in it. I didn’t have to think about fighting. I was fighting. I was battle. I was Death.
Skulls exploded. Gemstones shattered. Ancient weapons clattered to the floor. The air was clouded with a constant fog of yellowed bone dust. Fountains of fire shot at the ceiling in never-ending streams where bone dust or weapons piled on the wrong tiles.
I might’ve gotten overconfident, though.
The fourth and fifth ring of skelebuddies closed in all at once, ring swords and urumis and machetes hacking at me from every side. I could see and sense each blow coming, but the sheer number of them didn’t leave enough room for me to dodge everything. Shots started to land, cracking through the Ki-hardening and the layer of frost and chopping into muscle. The script tattoo couldn’t keep up with the healing, and the more Miasma I sent to stop the bleeding, the less I had to focus on keeping myself from burning alive from the fire-fountain tiles.
Luckily, Warcry had already figured it out and was picking up the slack. He kicked and smashed his way through the mob until we were fighting back-to-back. Between the two of us, we were able to hold back the crush and pick off the overeager skelebuddies who charged out of the mass. We’d been fighting together for so long now that it sort of felt like we could read each other’s minds. When he moved, I moved. We never tripped over each other or accidentally nailed each other with friendly fire.
But even working together flawlessly, we were still just holding our ground. If we wanted to clear this place and get that artifact, then we needed an edge in this
