We walked out into the desert, heading toward the pyramid in the middle of the space. Bruce dropped back between me and Blazing. He flew out his drone on occasion, checking our surroundings while we worked our way forward.

  It was after several dunes and about a quarter of the way to the pyramid that he called for a stop. “There’s something on thermals.”

  ”Is it just hot sand?” Blazing shifted in the sand, brushing off her armor. It just smeared the sand more than anything. “This stuff is burning.”

  ”Doesn’t look like it… just give me a minute to get in closer.” He pulled out a holographic puck and tossed it out, giving us vision once more. If nothing else, he made for a great scout. I was looking forward to seeing how effective all his guns would be, though.

  “…” I formed a spear and slammed it down into the sand, giving myself something to lean on while we waited.

  ”Some kind of… metal ship? Why would there be a boat in the middle of a desert?” Bruce shifted the drone closer and closer, revealing the mast of a boat sticking up out of the sand. The entire thing glowed under the drone’s thermals.

  “This is the first clear.” Blazing nodded to the ship. “Anything here can be taken out.”

  Right, this wasn’t a repeating construct formed of ether. This was a real world out beyond Bastion. Everything here was ‘real’ for a lack of better words. If there were people or monsters around, they’d be real thinking creatures. They weren’t just constructed memories eternally frozen and stuck to their instructions like golems. Or… what’s a good modern equivalent, Nighteye?

  [Nighteye’s brows furrow. Maybe ‘they weren’t NPCs anymore?’]

  Oh, game terms. I actually knew what that was thanks to my recent explorations of the Glass store. NPCs… yeah, that was a good term to describe the entities of a repeating rift. Repeating rifts were like games made of ether, but otherwise rifts opened directly into other worlds. Or fragments of worlds, in this case. It was part of the reason repeating rifts never broke but fresh ones could.

  “How long can your Miasma Purifies hold up?” Blazing asked the man.

  “Twelve hours each. There should be more than enough time.” The MirroSynth cyborg shrugged his shoulders. “Can’t quite reach the week you Wardens have before your OS protections degrade, but maybe one day.”

  “That’d be something, wouldn’t it.” The enforcer sighed and rubbed at her head. “Not sure how I feel about civilians getting access to this kind of tech.”

  Bruce picked up the holopuck once more. ”Doubt they ever will. Even an F-rank Miasma Purifies costs upwards of a hundred thousand Nytes to produce.”

  ”Ship? Pyramid?” I asked. The ship didn’t look like it’d be too far out of our way if we wanted to stop by it.

  “Ship’s buried in sand. The heat signature of the thing is interesting, but I didn’t bring a shovel. Unless you can form one out of your ivory-shaping?” Bruce asked.

  ”Yep.” Ivory-shaping—is that what they thought this was? For the best I didn’t correct anyone who came to that assumption.

  Bruce shifted from foot to foot. “Still… we should find the boss first just in case. I didn’t bring provisions.”

  “…” I doubt there’d be anything there anyway. Guiding Moonlight didn’t activate. Granted, the ability wasn’t the most consistent thing in the world. It didn’t activate all that often in Bastion either.

  [Nighteye defends her boon. She was a Guardian Star, not a thief. It didn’t mark owned items, just lost or otherwise unclaimed ones.]

  Hmm… So if I killed someone, would their items become ‘lost’? Or would they lose their ‘claim’? How did Guiding Moonlight even know what was claimed and what wasn’t? Was there some kind of esoteric marker people left behind when something belonged to them?

  Magic really was so interesting. So many different worlds had their own methods and sources of power that it was kinda mind-boggling. For instance, ether didn’t even exist in Serhymn. We just had the weave and a few darker arts. Outside of their sorcery, of course.

  “To the pyramid, then.” Bruce motioned for us to continue.

  I let the spear flow back into my jacket and under my skin and stalked off after the two. A few more tremors struck, but it was otherwise uneventful. The desert was, well, deserted. Nothing out here really except for that ship and the pyramid.

  Speaking of the pyramid, it looked a lot more intriguing when we approached. From afar, we could already tell it glowed. This close though, a faint red light glimmered through some of the cracks in the sandstone blocks.

  Giant statues stood on one side, clutching at lanterns. A defiant flame flickered within as if to ward off bandits. The statues depicted robed figures like some kind of creepy cult. Their faces hid in deep hoods that not even the flickering flames could reveal.

  ”Definetely something in there.” Bruce muttered under his breath.

  If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  “…” I stepped up beside him, looking off toward the statues. Looked like maybe an entrance between them? They were on the side of the pyramid, so we’d have to walk around.

  We headed around the side of the pyramid to the entrance. Grand doors covered in runic inscriptions sat pushed open. The crack in the door created a whistling wind tunnel leading further into the darkness of the pyramid.

  Along the walls, sarcophagus sat in perfectly carved grooves. Something was definitely going to pop out of them when we entered. Or maybe a boulder would fall from the roof and roll down the slanted floor. The entire room just had the vibe of a massive trap lying in wait.

  “I got a bad feeling about this.” Bruce paused at the cracked double doors. “Scan indicated a ninety-five percent chance of a trap based on old rifts.”

  Did he need scans to tell that? Just look at it! No way this wasn’t a trap. I looked over to Blazing to see if she might have any input, but the enforcer just stood there watching us. The decision was in our hands.

  ”Go in.” I cast my vote. It’d be better to just face-tank and deal with whatever happens. Splitting the fireteam would be a particularly bad idea too. I’d be fine, but I had yet to actually see either of the other two fight. No telling how they’d fare by themselves.

  Bruce shrugged off his bag and swapped out his AR for an LMG. “We can set up a firing position at the door?”

  I summoned out Thron’s Defiance. “Yep.”

  Bruce and I discussed the plan a bit more and then grouped up with the ever spectating Blazing. Once we were set, the three of us squeezed through the cracked doors of the pyramid.

  Thump!

  The doors slammed shut behind us, casting us in complete darkness. A flashlight clicked on next to me and Bruce’s Mascot buzzed around behind us, illuminating the tunnel. Slowly but surely, eerie red light sparked down along the walls. Shuffling and groaning filled the space.

  I tried to force the door back open just in case, but it was well and truly stuck. I even used Ether Physique and Brace to boost my body far beyond its normal means. Blazing joined for a few attempts to no avail.

  ”Just as we expected, then.” Bruce leaned against the wall of the sandstone hallway. His body shifted slightly, the chrome shifting to brace him against the wall and better control the kick of his gun. “Something’s coming.”

  The red light was bright enough to see by now. All along the hall, sarcophagus popped open. Their lids clattered to the ground, revealing shambling corpses wrapped in blue cloth. They stumbled out, instantly filling the hall with dozens of monsters.

  Blazing took a step forward, blocking the path back to Bruce and I. Fire trailed out through the cracks in her armor, creating a flaming wall to incinerate anything that approached us.

  Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!

  Bruce started unloading down the hall, spraying into the approaching mass of mummies. Each bullet hit its mark, bowling over the mummies and outright killing quite a few. They weren’t even arcanite; they lacked the glow of arcanite rounds. Should just be low-caliber bullets. Weird.

  His bullets arced down, keeping the tide of dead back for a few moments. It was only for moments though. There were enough of them that they started to push forward once more on the sacrifices of their brethren. Especially when they showed some level of intelligence and used the sarcophagus lids as makeshift tower shields.

  I fired a shot down the hall, nearly winging Blazing with the follow-up scatter thorns. The main projectile shattered one of the wooden shields and punched down the hall through dozens of undead. The scatter of thorns followed through with even more damage. And then it went on cooldown. The monsters kept coming.

  I summoned up a bow of Ebonshroud and pulled back the string, releasing arrow after arrow into the approaching mass. Each one perfectly hit their marks, downing mummies. Still they rushed on in a seemingly endless mass. I flicked out my Will Wire, using it as a tether to recall the Ebonshroud fired off to save resources.

  The entire pyramid trembled once more. Some sand fell through the cracks of stone, drifting down into the hall. The entire pyramid groaned with the motion like it might collapse. It held strong though, red light pulsing between the gaps in the sandstone blocks.

  The same couldn’t be said for the mummies. While the fireteam was completely fine—each of us with our own techniques to stay stable—the shambling undead weren’t ready for the sharp tremor. They fell down one after another, clearing out the hall for a few moments.

  Once the tremors stopped, they pushed themselves up to face us. It gave us a few moments of breathing room, though. If the tremors kept up, this rift wouldn’t be a problem in the slightest to clear.

  Thorn’s Respite came off cooldown once more. I flicked it to Thorn Weave and took aim at the shambling mummies slowly closing in. Just before I fired, I plucked an Ether String for the Frost Fang spell.

  Pling!

  Ice coated the barrel of my sniper. As soon as it was in place, I pulled the trigger. The ice covered thorn launched down the hall, creating a scatter of electric brambles to stall the mummies out. Ice joined the electricity this time though, creating patches of slippery ice around each of the thorns.

  Not that the additional slow mattered. The electricity vaporized the mummies just like it did the Grimlins back at the F-rank Darkzone. I paused, watching it tear through the masses. I knew something was off. “Something. Wrong. Not D.”

  Blazing nodded in agreement. She casually pulled out a data-slate and made a few notes. “I was wondering when one of you would notice.”

  Bruce took the chance to reload while they were stuck behind the combo ice and electric wall. “What does that mean?”

  ”Considering they’re undead, there’s a necromancer somewhere reanimating them. We could be here fighting for weeks if we don’t try to push through and get to the source.” Blazing shook her head. “Usually, this type of rift shows up as D thanks to the low ether readings of just one monster—the boss. In actuality, it’s closer to Crushing thanks to the constant rush down of summons.”

  ”Does that mean these guys don’t drop ether cores either?” Bruce’s face twitched erratically.

  “If they’re reanimated by the necromancer, then no.” Blazing shifted, drawing the fire wall she set up back into her body. “It’s a good thing this is your promotion. Summoner type rifts aren’t known for being lucrative.”

  All those mummies… all of them complete wastes to take care of. I was glad I didn’t use a traditional gun. I would’ve lost money on this whole thing in ammunition prices alone. Speaking of, that was probably why Bruce looked so annoyed, yep.

  “We rush.” I motioned down the hall with an arrow. The longer we delayed at the entrance, the lower we’d run on resources. This just turned into an endurance rift.

  “Can you keep up your fire while moving?” Blazing asked Bruce.

  He shifted, detaching from his braced firing position against the wall. He slapped a chrome fist down on the LMG, finishing the reload. ”No problem. Moon, watch our back.”

  ”…” It’d probably be fine even if he couldn’t. Blazing definitely had a few tricks up her sleeves as an Enforcer, and we wouldn’t have to worry about the rear. I could handle it no problem.

  The Enforcer hefted her greatsword and pointed it down the sandstone hall. “Then when the electric wall falls, we charge.”

  — — —

  AN: Sorry I’ve been so late recently! I blame sleep deprivation. I just downed a Red Bull, though, so maybe I’ll get some wiiings? I hope.