You know, you’d really think that climbing a giant pile of smooth river stones stacked into the sky would be harder. When I first started, I instinctively searched for handholds or some obvious cracks I could use to pull myself up. These rocks weren’t jagged cliffs with grips to dig into—they were rounded and slick, almost like they’d been polished by industrial machinery.

  It took me about thirty seconds of fumbling and swearing before I realized the trick. I could wedge myself between the boulders and shimmy upward, spreading arms and legs and basically inch-worming my way higher. Awkward as hell, but it worked. Each push felt like I was pressing against gym equipment designed by someone who hated me, but slowly, steadily, I climbed. The hardest part wasn’t climbing, it was picking a path. The stones weren’t laid out in neat rows as they were dumped haphazardly, and sometimes that meant moving sideways just to find a gap I could squeeze into. Half the time I was climbing laterally, and looked like some deranged penguin waddling the way I had to move.

  Still, I was gaining ground. After about twenty minutes of sweaty, graceless work, I figured I was a hundred yards up. I risked a glance back down, heart lurching, and saw the forest spreading out below me in a patchwork of green and shadow. The hills and ridges I’d trudged through looked smaller now, like toys scattered across a rug. I couldn’t see the glade anymore, but that made sense as I had been winding through bends in the stream all day.

  I kept my ears open the whole time, straining for voices or footsteps drifting up from below. Nothing so far, either the trees were swallowing the noise, or the raiders had finally lost interest. Or maybe they were waiting for me somewhere ahead. I didn’t know, but I wasn’t taking chances.

  Honestly, it was probably a blessing that no humans were around to watch this spectacle. I must’ve looked ridiculous. Soaked through, boots slipping, grunting with effort as I inched my way between boulders. If anyone had been watching, they’d have seen me clinging to the wall like a terrified cat shoved into a bathtub.

  Speaking of bathtubs, I was still completely soaked from walking through the stream for several hours. The wet marks I left behind worried me at first, but as I kept climbing, I noticed they were already fading. My clothes were drying in the breeze, leaving less behind. If anyone came this way, they might not even notice I’d been here, not unless they arrived immediately. I clung to that thought the way I currently clung to the rocks.

  The work wasn’t silent either. Boots scraped rubber against stone, shoulders brushed rough edges, and the shuffle of fabric echoed louder than I liked. Every noise made me wince, waiting for a shout or call but none came.

  And weirdly enough, the higher I went, the better I felt. It still sucked — but I had a path, a goal. For once I wasn’t just wandering blind through forest hell. As much as climbing a massive unnatural cliff sucked, it was progress. It was away from the glade, away from corpses, away from lunatics tearing apart their own leader.

  And best of all, no fireballs exploding against my back.

  On the downside, I was starting to feel the exhaustion settle deep in my bones. The last eight hours had been a nonstop disaster reel. I went from a life-or-death jam session in the middle of a lake slaughtering literally thousands of animals, to stumbling half-dead out of a corpse field and running upstream without stopping. That brief blackout in the mud earlier? Yeah, like sleeping on a plane that didn’t count as rest. My body made sure to remind me with every aching muscle fiber that I was still on borrowed time.

  Food was another problem. It had been way too long since my mossy fish meal, which at the time I thought was gross but right now sounded like a luxury. My stomach growled, sharp and insistent, and I told myself I’d hold out until the top. Maybe I’d get lucky, find another pond or a bigger stream, maybe something with fish that didn’t taste like pond scum mixed with algae. But that was a “later” problem. For now, water would have to fill the gap.

  At the top of the next stone, I paused, unscrewed my battered metal water bottle, and took a cautious sip of the stream water I’d scooped up earlier. Relief washed through me when it tasted fine. A little mineral-heavy, like hard tap water back home, but not foul. There was a chalky hint, calcium maybe, but nothing gag-worthy. I told myself that getting it from where the spring bubbled straight out of the rock made it cleaner. Fewer bacteria, fewer parasites. That’s what I wanted to believe, anyway. I really wished I could’ve boiled it. But when you’re halfway up a nightmare cliff with crazies maybe below, you don’t exactly get to set up a cozy campfire.

  I sealed the bottle and shoved it back in my bag, then pressed on.

  After a while, I found a rhythm. Not graceful, not fast, but steady. Each climb was just a matter of wedging into the right crack, pushing against the boulder above, then inching sideways until I could repeat the motion again. The rocks angled slightly, maybe sixty degrees, which kept me from having to scale straight vertical. Still hard, still terrifying, but doable.

  There was a weird comfort in the repetition. Left hand, right foot, shove, shuffle, pause. Over and over. It reminded me of working in spreadsheets. Back in the office, I’d lose whole days buried in Excel. Set up the formula, drag it across, cross-check, enter, repeat. Hours vanished without me even noticing. Climbing this cliff felt the same. Muscle memory took over, and my brain drifted while my body just kept moving.

  Hey, I’m an auditor - I relate to things my own way. Some of us are perfectly happy to sit doing math all day and not talking to you.

  Ten more minutes passed, and I snapped back to the present when I noticed the sky changing. The light was dimmer, the air cooler. My stomach twisted with a new kind of worry. How much daylight did I even have left? Maybe an hour, maybe two. Hard to tell with the sun sinking low behind the treetops. It was hanging to my right, which made me think I was heading south. But then again, that was assuming this world’s sun worked like Earth’s. Big assumption. For all I knew, east could be purple and north could be sideways.

  I could definitely feel the boost from my stats. Back home there was no way I’d have made it this far, not at this pace. I would’ve been wrecked an hour ago, legs jelly, arms giving out. I was a hiker, sure, but I was the slow-and-steady type. Scenic trails, not death-defying cliff ascents.

  Yet here I was, hauling myself up house-sized boulders with nothing but grit and panic keeping me moving. The new numbers under my name were paying off, no question.

  Even so, my body was screaming at me to stop. My calves burned, my forearms ached, and every pull felt like fire was crawling down my shoulders. Tomorrow was going to be pure hell from experience. I knew if I pushed too hard and tore something, it was over. A twisted knee or pulled muscle on this climb meant I might as well dig my own grave.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  So when I found a break, I took it. The next stone I scrambled onto was massive, the size of a small house though most of it was buried with other rocks. Its shape left a natural gap under the stones above it, forming a shallow cave. One side dipped into shadow, the other stretched outward like a giant balcony. I crawled in, slumped against the cool rock, and let myself collapse against it. With my back against the stone, I let my head loll back. Just a moment to breathe. Just a moment to…

  I passed out. Should’ve seen that coming.

  I jolted awake, pain flooded my body.

  Not an attack of any kind, but the deep ache that comes from overdoing it. My arms felt like I’d cranked out four hours at the gym, the kind of soreness you had were lifting a toothbrush later would feel like lifting a car. My legs weren’t better.

  Blinking groggily, I glanced outside the cave. The sun had sunk lower. Sunset was creeping up fast. Judging from the angle, maybe thirty minutes of light left. Which meant I’d been out for an hour, tops. Not enough. Not nearly enough. My body begged for more rest, but something had ripped me out of sleep.

  At first I thought maybe it was just me. Maybe I shifted, breathed too hard, startled myself awake. But I hadn’t moved. I was still in the same slumped position, cheek now pressed to stone. I hadn’t gasped, hadn’t shouted. Nothing obvious.

  I held still, eyes closing again, and listened. Not the fancy music magic trick, just my ears.

  And then I heard it.

  A scuff. A shoe against stone. The drag of weight wedging up through cracks.

  My heart slammed into my ribs. I knew that sound. I’d been making it for the last hour.

  Someone was climbing.

  My first instinct was to bolt, to scramble further up before whoever it was reached me. But I shoved it down. Panic would only make noise, and noise would give me away. Instead I forced myself to sit perfectly still, every muscle tense, ears straining for details.

  Paying closer attention, I picked out the rhythm of the climber below. It was just one person. The sound was steady, deliberate. They weren’t far—maybe five or six of those massive river stones beneath me. I could hear them wedge into the cracks, pause to test a grip, then scuffle their way up the next gap. They’d rest a second, figuring out the path, then push higher. The sound was uncomfortably familiar, because it was the same pattern I had been making not that long ago.

  Which meant they were close. Too close.

  They must’ve spotted the wet streaks I’d left on the stones or heard me moving. Or hell, for all I knew the guy had bat sonar. Either way, my attempt to sneak away hadn’t been perfect.

  Damn it.

  I forced myself to stay still, not panic, and kept listening. The only active noise was the climber. No shouts, no backup closing in from below. My ears stretched out, taking in everything: the gurgle of the stream feeding the pond, the faint hiss of wind brushing the rock, leaves rustling below. Even birds chirped here and there, oblivious. No clinking armor, no voices, no heavy footsteps tromping through the brush.

  So maybe it really was just one person.

  The raiders hadn’t exactly been singing campfire songs of unity back there. More like a band of psychos barely tolerating each other until things blew up. Maybe they’d followed my trail upstream for a while, but I’d made it vague enough that most gave up. Maybe they fought each other again, or decided I wasn’t worth the trouble. But then this one was stubborn or petty enough to keep going.

  That made sense. Unfortunately, it didn’t help me right now.

  I needed a plan. I scanned the cave. Nothing. The stones were too smooth, no debris, no little chunks of rock I could use. It was eerie how clean it all was, like erosion had never happened. No grit, no gravel. Just me and a blank stone world.

  Which left my gear. Metal water bottle, maybe heavy enough to clock someone in the skull. My boots, good for a kick to the face if I timed it right. That was all I had.

  So the plan formed: whoever it was would have to haul themselves up the side, wedging through the gap between stones just like I had. They’d be exposed for a second, face-first, and if I stayed crouched and ready, I could nail them. Whack to the head with the bottle, or slam a boot into their nose.

  Use gravity and surprise. That was my only edge.

  Of course, my edge was still against someone who probably knew this world better than me, maybe had skills, maybe had actual combat experience. I wasn’t confident, but I wasn’t helpless either.

  Slowly, carefully with my muscles screaming, I crept forward to the lip where I expected them to emerge. I crouched low, heart thundering, metal bottle clutched in one sweaty hand, boot braced for a kick.

  I had the high ground. I hoped that actually meant something.

  I heard the climber reach the stone beneath me, scraping upward at an angle. My chest tightened with anticipation. This was it. Do or die. My fingers clenched around the metal water bottle so tight the edges dug into my palm. I’d already resigned myself to what I had to do to survive.

  Then I saw it.

  A hand reached up over the lip of the boulder. Delicate compared to what I expected. Feminine. Another hand followed, finding purchase, fingers straining for grip. And then a head.

  Her head.

  The female warrior. The one who’d been making out with the bald raider before stabbing him in the back. Her hair clung damp to her face, eyes sharp even as she pulled herself upward. She spotted me instantly. Our gazes locked, and instead of surprise, she smiled.

  That smile froze me.

  I’d meant to launch myself forward, boot first, water bottle swinging, but her eyes caught me like a snare. She paused, half-risen, balanced between pulling herself up and lunging at me. The smile widened.

  “Well,” she purred, voice low and confident, “there you are fucker.”

  She started to rise further, shoulders tightening, about to spring.

  I braced to attack, but something else happened.

  It was like a click deep inside my chest, a spark that shot down into my gut. Suddenly I wasn’t just me anymore. I had a target. A button had appeared mentally where there hadn’t been one before.

  [Vicious Mockery]

  The thought wasn’t mine, but it was there, insistent. My soul demanded it. Almost panicking, I agreed. Yes. Use it.

  My lips moved on their own. The words spilled out, vile and sharp like they’d been waiting years to escape.

  “You’ll never be good enough for your dad to fuck you.”

  The second it left my mouth, horror hit me. Holy shit. Did I just say that? I almost blurted an apology.

  The effect on her was instant. Her smirk cracked, eyes going wide, face draining of everything but shock. Her body buckled, curling inward like she’d been stabbed in the heart. Tears welled before she even realized she was falling.

  She slipped backward into the night.

  I watched her eyes the whole time, the mean smile gone, confusion and pain frozen there. I don't think she even understood that she was falling, what I had said to her meant something that she was lost in.

  Her body tipped, gravity pulling her away from the lip. She fell hard, her scream cut off by the first impact.

  The sound was sickening.

  A heavy thud as her back slammed against one massive stone, the air punching out of her lungs in a strangled gasp. Then she flipped, head cracking against the next boulder below, a spray of blood smearing across the smooth surface. Her limbs flailed once, but the stones showed no mercy.

  She bounced again, shoulder snapping at an angle that wasn’t natural, bone tearing through skin. A final collision crushed her against a lower ledge, her neck twisting violently. Then silence.

  I couldn’t look away. I realized I had moved to the edge to watch.

  The trail of red streaked down between the gaps, just the echoes of flesh and bone meeting stone until it all went quiet. She had stopped only about ten stones below me.

  I sagged back, hands trembling. The taste of bile rose in my throat.

  And that’s when a glowing blue box blinked into my vision.