Green. Putrid. The sight, and smell, invaded her senses, bringing Ayn out of the darkness and into something far worse. She lay flat on her back, staring up at a ceiling that glistened and pulsed in the sickly green light. The scent of copper and rotted meat clogged her nose.

  The alarm of her Sixth Sense still blared, yet it felt distant, as if removed and placed in a far-off cage. Or perhaps it had been so loud for so long, she’d got used to it.

  RISE

  Ayn’s body responded outside of her control. Her hands sunk into warmth, the squishiness of the floor reminding her of raw meat. Her stomach twisted into a knot, but still she stood, turning to face the source of the voice echoing inside and out.

  Her mind stalled. The being took up everything. Eyes, mouths, appendages, all coalesced and shifted. There. Not there. Knowable, then not. It merged with the ceiling, the floor, the walls, and Ayn scrabbled with the realization that the being wasn’t inside the room with her. It was the room.

  YOU WISH TO LIVE

  The words came in multiple tones, high and low. A small part of her knew she shouldn’t have been able to understand it. It spoke no language she knew, yet its intentions remained clear.

  “Yes.”

  Her answer came without thought. It felt foreign. Hadn’t she wanted to die not so long ago? Yet as she looked at the unknowable being, the idea of death became an endless abyss, ready to torment her for eternity.

  Bren, Sheyric, Kayara, and the wolverine appeared to Ayn’s left and right. They all stood tall, eyes locked onto the being as if they too had been commanded to stand. Ayn wondered if they’d been asked the same.

  THREE FOR SACRIFICE

  ONE FOR LIFE

  All of them drew their weapons. Even Sheyric dropped into a fighting stance.

  Whispers flooded Ayn’s head. You’ve already died to the Abyss once, they said. Why should you do so again? These people don’t want to be with you. They only joined because they had nowhere else to go, and they’ll kill you now without hesitation. Strike first!

  A simple truth rose to the fore. Ayn knew if she attacked her party here, her blades would draw blood. She focused on Kayara. The ranger stared back, a scowl deepening on her face. Under the sickly light, her usually vibrant eyes looked dead. Ayn was sure they’d had the same thought. As the sturdiest of the party, they were the biggest threats to each other. Kayara already had the upper hand with her damned insane agility and snarling wolverine. But she had the Aegis, and Sixth Sense. All she had to do was land a killing blow on the master, and the animal would follow.

  SHOW ME YOUR RESOLVE, AND FIGHT

  Whatever had been holding Ayn in place released. She dodged immediately, yet Kayara was at her side, dagger arcing down, before she could blink. A bloody gash bloomed on her side.

  HEALTH AT 306

  Ayn yelled in surprise and anger. Her Aegis didn’t trigger. She knew it wouldn’t trigger with Abyssal creatures. No shield worked against them, but why didn’t it work against Kayara?

  A flurry of blows disrupted Ayn’s train of thought. She blocked the worst of it as they dodged fire from Bren, yet enough got through to leave her covered in tiny wounds.

  HEALTH AT 212

  Damn it. She couldn’t get away. It took everything she had to not get sliced to ribbons by the ranger.

  A low whine distracted Ayn from her rising panic. The wolverine stood, head down and legs braced, a few feet away. Its whole body shook. Scared. The mass of teeth and fur could have taken her out while she danced ineffectively with its master, yet it was too afraid to move.

  Ayn slipped up a block, and Kayara’s dagger plunged into Ayn’s shoulder.

  HEALTH AT 133

  No, not fear. Sadness.

  The realization hit Ayn with the weight of the world, dropping her to her knees. What were they doing? What was she doing? Her sabers clattered to the ground. She didn’t want to hurt Kayara. She didn’t want to play this game.

  They don’t care about you, the whispers insisted.

  Ayn put her hands over her ears and waited for the death blow. Instead, arms wrapped around her.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Kayara repeated, her cheek pressed up against the back of Ayn’s hand. The smell of sour candy almost overpowered the stench.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  A loud rumble, followed by odd squelching noises, added to the confusion. Kayara’s grip on her tightened, and suddenly, she was flying sideways and hitting the wet ground as a large boulder rolled over the spot they’d been sitting. One of Bren’s new spells. There’d been no singing, no drum. He’d seen an opportunity to take them both out and seized it. He was just as willing to kill as she had been a moment ago.

  “That thing,” Ayn said as Kayara let go and pulled her to her feet. “It’s making us do this!”

  “But only if we let it,” Kayara said. “Don’t listen to the damned whispers. They’re full of shit. And whatever that thing is,” she waved toward the being without looking, “I don’t think it can attack us directly, or at least it doesn’t want to.”

  Her explanation was cut short as a cone of fire blasted their way. Without Kayara’s blades beating her down, it was easy to dodge, and Ayn slipped past and to Bren’s side before he finished casting. “I won’t fight you, Bren!” Ayn showed her empty hands to the mage, who growled and swiped at her with his drum.

  “Quit fighting, idiot,” Kayara said from behind him. “Is the son of Cristak’s only Crafter’s Guild really going to let roadkill control him?”

  Bren’s face twisted in rage. With a guttural yell, he turned and charged at Kayara, who sidestepped out of the way as if avoiding a rambunctious puppy.

  “Ayn,” Kayara said. “Go talk some sense into Sheyric. I’ll kite Choir Boy until he gets tired.”

  The nickname further incited Bren. He abandoned all pretense of magic, opting instead for flailing fists.

  The odd sight brought an almost manic glee to the roiling fear and confusion still fighting for control of Ayn’s mind. The whispers, too, had gained a bit of hysteria, as if they knew they were losing the fight. Ayn’s will strengthened at the thought as she scanned the fleshy green area for her last party member. Surprisingly, he stood a good thirty feet away, his short staff clutched in his hands as he stared in their direction.

  Ayn closed the gap carefully. The healer’s grip on his weapon tightened, his knuckles going white, but still, he didn’t move.

  “I won’t hurt you,” Ayn said.

  Sheyric’s hands shook. He raised his staff, paused, then dropped it to his side. “Too hard.” He sat down with a wet thud and pulled his knees to his chest.

  The mania hit a crescendo, and Ayn giggled. Sheyric’s apathy overpowered the mind control of an Abyssal the size of a room. Impressive.

  In the time it took her to reach the healer, Kayara had kited Bren to the point of collapse, and now he too sat on the fleshy ground, chest heaving as he glared at Kayara.

  “I’m going to make you take all of that back,” he said.

  Ayn frowned. She’d heard Kayara talking while she kited but had been too focused on Sheyric to bother listening. Now she wondered exactly what the ranger had said.

  “Hey, it distracted you, didn’t it? It seems the voices, and that thing, have a hard time controlling people caught up in stronger emotions.”

  “So you couldn’t have just been nice? That sure as hell would have shocked me to the core.”

  Kayara dismissed the idea with a wave of her hand. “Not near as fun for me, though.”

  “Naturally.”

  Ayn smiled despite herself. The fear, so overwhelming since they’d entered the floor, dissipated. Her party was fine. She was fine. She’d almost forgotten about the being which had instigated the fight when a thick mist descended over them all. The wolverine, looking far more lively now that they weren’t trying to kill each other, bounded over. Sheyric scrambled over and immediately pet it. It snarled, but not at the healer.

  Bones rattled, and low, painful cries filled the air. Mist poured from the walls, surrounding them and blocking their sight. The hounds from before were back.

  “Stay together,” Ayn said in a pained voice equal to the hounds. The fear was back with the blaring alarm, seeping into her very essence until she could think of nothing else.

  The others packed in around her, all anger forgotten. Kayara chanted. The sounds rolled over Ayn at first. Meaningless. By the second stanza, they cracked through her wall of terror. Kayara was reading off her tablet, casting a spell to keep the hounds at bay, and suddenly, Ayn wanted nothing more than to do the same. Her tablet materialized in her hands. The etchings across its rectangular surface shifted as everything in the place seemed to do, yet where it usually caused panic, it brought calm. In these little oddities hid their salvation.

  Ayn picked up on the right stanza to match Kayara’s position. She did it without thought, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Her chant melded with Kayara’s. The same, yet different. Shifting.

  Bren’s tenor joined in, and Sheyric’s muttering soon after. The mist had thickened. It had blocked everything from view and now crawled across their feet as if eager to devour them whole. A skull appeared in the mist. Then another, and another until they formed a circular wall, with Ayn and her party at the center. Still they chanted, and with each unknowable word, Ayn’s strength grew. The mist twisted, spun. Skulls and dark shapes intertwined, a tornado that promised more than physical destruction.

  The final words on their tablets left their mouths at the same time, a final undulating beat vibrating into Ayn’s core. All disappeared.

  FLOOR FIVE COMPLETED

  Ayn’s heart tripped so hard it felt like it stopped, then it started to race. Trees. Sky. Stone pathways leading in familiar directions. They’d been teleported back to Cristak.

  “Oh, thank God,” Bren said from beside her. His skin kept a tinge of green, although Ayn bet it had nothing to do with the light.

  Kayara sat down hard. “Let’s not do that ever again. Maybe we should revisit the whole admin idea. See if we can get a waiver for that theme or ask them why the hell they made it in the first place.”

  “That’s what I’d appreciate knowing,” Bren said. “I was promised a fantasy dungeon crawling experience. Not horror. I hate horror.”

  “New,” Sheyric muttered.

  “What?”

  “It’s new,” Ayn said. “At least, comparatively. From the adventurer guides I could find, it didn’t start popping up until about sixty years ago. In-game, of course.”

  The guides’ authors all had similar reactions to Bren, not that Ayn could blame any of them. There were challenges on all Dungeon floors, but most of them were still fun, or interesting in some way. Except for Abyssal. No one came back from Abyssal themed floors without nightmares. If they came back at all.

  “Sixty years, huh?” Kayara frowned and crossed her arms. “Not too long after the admins started ghosting.”

  “Yeah.”

  They all stared at each other in silence. A tinge of uneasiness crawled up Ayn’s spine.

  “Forget it,” Bren said. He threw his arms up. “We just crawled out of hell, so let’s leave the creepiness behind for a while, yes? I need a drink.”

  With that, he marched off toward the Crawler’s Guild.

  “Hmm,” Kayara said. “First good idea he’s had. You coming?”

  Ayn nodded and followed her party to their well-deserved rest. Yet, the Abyss, and its sudden appearance after the degradation of admin communication, stuck in her mind like a knife. No matter what she drank, she knew her nightmares had only begun.