Phoenix was waiting for the final people of her scheduled portal assignments when an unexpected pair walked up to her. She tensed and internally groaned when she realized they were who she was waiting on.

  It was the pretty cinderen girl with ash gray hair in a messy bun that had been pushing Dazien to join their party instead. Murinah, she thought her name was, as well as another younger cinderen that she didn’t know but recognized as one of the other Crystal Casters that offered portaling services. They both strode up purposefully towards her as the woman spoke with a smile, “Hello, you’re Phoenix, right?”

  She nodded, and the woman seemed to double-check with her, “I’m Noble Murinah Ruwena, and this is my younger brother Camrin. We’re here for our scheduled portal?”

  Phoenix nodded again, slightly startled by the woman’s friendly behavior. She couldn’t recall her even gncing in her direction during the trials when Dazien had been taking most of the group’s attention.

  “We need to go to the mountains in the east. Preferably the northern ridge, if you’re capable,” Murinah informed her, “Can you help us out?”

  She wondered if she had been too quick to judge the woman who smiled happily at her. Maybe she had just been trying to fit in with the group or was trying to act the way she thought Dazien would want her to in order to have him join her party?

  Phoenix bowed her head in acknowledgment and reconfirmed, “I have a location in a cave near there. Northern ridge of the Razorteeth Mountains?”

  When the older woman nodded, she conjured the portal and stepped back for them to go through.

  Murinah gestured to the silver ring and said, “You said it was a cave? Can you go with us and at least help guide us to the entrance and get our bearings?”

  Phoenix looked up at her in surprise, “Th–that’s not exactly standard procedure…”

  The noblewoman waved a dismissive hand in the air, “I know, but this is your st portal for the day, correct? The attendant mentioned it when we scheduled. Just a quick hop through, lead us out of the cave, point us in the right direction, and hop back. It should only be for a few minutes, and when we get back in town ter, I’ll buy you a drink as thanks!”

  She hesitated again but didn’t want to argue with a fellow Adventurer, and Paul did say she should be more open to making new friends… she could spare a few minutes to make sure they didn’t get lost.

  Phoenix nodded in acquiescence, and Murinah happily cpped her hands, “Wonderful! Thank you so much for making this easier for us!”

  The pair walked through the portal, and Phoenix followed behind them a step ter. She arrived in the small cave where she had fought an angry bear monster. Luckily, the cave was not currently inhabited, and she couldn’t hear the weather outside of the entrance, which she knew was around the bend, so it should be a decent day for traveling.

  As Murinah turned and smiled in a way that made her feel slightly uncomfortable, she hastily informed the siblings, “It’s right this way to the exit,” she gestured down one of the paths and finished expining, “I won’t be able to give you a return portal back to Tulimeir obviously, but it should be about a two-week walk to the southeast from here. You’ll run into the eastern trade road if you just go straight south.”

  Camrin walked past her and said with a wave of his hand, “Don’t worry about that. One of the reasons we scheduled a portal was so I could gain that aural imprint for myself to help you out more during portal duties.”

  As he headed towards the entrance, Murinah put a hand on her shoulder, which caused her to flinch slightly in surprise as she looked back toward the cinderen. The woman leaned closer to her and said sweetly, “Thank you again. You’ve been so helpful.”

  Then Murinah lifted a fist as though to show her something held within it.

  Maybe a tip? Phoenix wondered. She hadn’t seen much of the tipping system in this world and found herself curious.

  Murinah surprised her, however, when she opened her palm and blew into it at the same time, causing a fine dark powder to whip up into her face. Phoenix began to cough and pushed the smiling woman away from her, taking a few steps back in her panicked reaction. Then she felt something hard and cold cinch around her neck, giving an audible click, and she remembered that Camrin was still behind her.

  Phoenix conjured her [Night Bde] and swung it around towards him as he held something in his hands that was connected by a pair of chains to whatever had gone around her throat. She tried to pull it from his grip but only managed to make him drop one, which swung around behind her from the force.

  As she pulled her arm back to thrust the dagger into the man’s arm holding the other chain, another click sounded, and her attack was interrupted by a manacle snapping around her wrist. In her growing haze, she had forgotten Murinah was now behind her.

  “Now, now, little human, don’t fight the inevitable,” the noblewoman cooed.

  She tried to swing her dagger again, the chain silent despite the movement, but her aim was severely off as she stumbled. Murinah ended up catching her and saved her from a mouthful of cave dirt.

  “Shhh, there now. We’ve got a surprise for you ter. Sleep now, and you’ll see it soon,” the cinderen whispered to her. Another click sounded from far away, and her previously free wrist felt heavier but distant.

  Phoenix slumped against her assaint as the room started to spin, and the st thing she noticed was her portal flickering out of existence.

  Her brother caught the unconscious redhead, who began to fall as Murinah pushed the annoyance backward to free herself from the extra weight. Camrin set the limp form down in a position that would allow him to finish restraining her legs and connect her wrists closer together as he pulled the rope from his dimensional bag.

  Murinah wiped off her powdered palm carefully with a kerchief before cpping her hands together and giggling, “I can’t believe how smoothly that went. What a naive idiot this one is.”

  Camrin grumbled sourly, “I don’t think anyone would expect an attack like that from a fellow Adventurer.” He hadn’t been exactly fond of Murinah’s pn to haze the younger woman, but she had been able to assure him that it was all simply part of scaring her before reassuring their good intentions of friendship. The reminder made her remember that she was still in the middle of her con, and she tried to reassure him until the charade was up.

  “That’s what made it such a great pn,” she expined, “Now, hurry up. That powder won’t st long on a Crystal Caster. We need to make sure she can’t possibly escape to make her properly panic before revealing the surprise. She’ll be so relieved, and we can celebrate the new camaraderie ter.”

  Her brother finished linking the rope between the wrist Silencers and ankle cuffs he had tied around her, then compined, not for the first time, “I’m still not sure she’ll be so happy about this. Plus, aren’t these Silencers a controlled magic item? Couldn’t we end up in a lot of trouble for using them?”

  “That’s why I took this one from Father’s private stock,” she rolled her eyes at him, “And she doesn’t know they’re controlled. Besides, even if she does, it will help show her that we trust her with our secret. Instant friendship!”

  Camrin grunted in acknowledgment as he wrapped a long strip of cloth around the pale woman’s mouth a few times to keep her silent, then hefted the dead weight over his shoulder. Despite being only fifteen, her brother was still a Crystal Caster already, which made carrying the slight girl an easy feat. “Let’s just get this over with,” he grumbled, then asked, “What was the mission to scout out for this anyways?”

  Murinah led the way out of the cave and moved further north after assessing their location, “Some miners from a nearby facility had sent reports of miserlings nearby. Of course, nobody likes going after those. We’re to scout out their nest, then return to inform the AOA of the actual size of the threat.”

  “Miserlings?” Camrin said with a disgusted look, “Those things are nasty, Muri. I don’t care if they used to be part of Father’s research. I don’t want to go anywhere near them.”

  Her expression darkened as she said coldly, “Suck it up, Cam. If you want to be an actual Adventurer someday, then you need to accept that sometimes you’ll need to get your hands dirty.”

  They were silent for the remainder of the walk, and as they reached a small outcropping of rock that overlooked a dip between the ragged edges of the mountain they were currently on, the pair were able to look down on a rge nest of bones and rocks where a dozen pitch bck creatures y asleep in the shadows of the mountain.

  The miserlings had sinewy, hound-like bodies with six gangly legs that ended in a trio of serrated cws. Their long necks extended into a rounded blob of a face with three eyes, four nostril slits, and a wide mouth with matching serrated teeth.

  Camrin set the redhead onto the outcropping into a kneeling position between them, and Murinah bent down to give the temporary captive a sharp sp to wake up the thorn in her side.

  Phoenix seemed groggy after the sudden smack, change of location, and the after-effects of the poison she had dosed the outsider with. When it seemed like the woman finally registered the tight ropes around her legs and binding her wrists behind her back, the cliché captive tried to struggle out of them.

  Murinah grabbed the red curls that seemed to have stolen Dazien’s attention and gave the annoying woman the most wicked and maniacal grin she could muster as she whispered quietly into the pale ear, “I just wanted you to know that miserlings are best known for pying with their food. I want you to remember –when you start to feel the pain– that you brought this on yourself. You should never have gotten between me and Dazien. He and I are destined for greatness. And you?”

  She started to slowly drag Phoenix towards the edge near the monsters, and the redhead’s eyes widened as she struggled harder, “You should have stayed in your pce, you worthless peasant.”

  Then Murinah shoved the restrained woman off the side of the sheer mountain and into the pile of monsters sleeping below before quickly turning and retreating, grabbing a shocked Camrin by the hand and dragging him along behind her.

  “What in the frozen abyss have you done?!” Camrin angrily excimed as she pulled him down the path they had come from, “You said we were going to scare her, Muri! Not feed her to a pack of monsters! We have to go back and save her!”

  “Not unless you want them eating us next, idiot,” she retorted, triggering one of her stealth abilities to assist in their retreat.

  Phoenix’s mind was racing as she fell through the air, barely registering the sound of the younger boy yelling in outrage at his sister before she nded hard on the packed snow and rocks, her bound body tumbling a bit further toward the nest. The loud thud and sound of dispced rocks were all the warnings the monsters needed to rise from their slumber and stalk toward the intruder.

  She gnced up to get her first sight of the miserlings and immediately regretted it. They were void creatures of nightmares. Their skin wasn’t fur but glistened like it was wet. The three solid white eyes on each of them stared at her, but she wasn’t sure if they could even see anything. Their long tongues shed out as though tasting the air, and she wondered if they could somehow taste or smell the fear permeating through her.

  Phoenix tried to stand and make a run for it, but they were on her in an instant, and Murinah’s words finally made sense as the serrated cws tore into her, not deep but slowly tearing her flesh. She screamed against the cloth over her mouth, and tears blurred her vision. This only seemed to excite the monsters.

  It was not over quickly. True to the psychopath’s words, they pyed with her, trying to squeeze out every bit of pain they could as they slowly devoured her.

  When Phoenix regained consciousness, she was lying on top of her bed, completely naked, with her [Guide Book] floating in the air above her.

  You have died.

  All equipment has been returned to your collection.

  [Waypoint] has guided your soul back to your designated location.

  You have been reconstituted to a state of full integrity.

  Twenty-four hours remain until this effect can be triggered again.

  Phoenix stared at the message silently as her mind slowly comprehended what had happened. She simply y there, and for the first time in a long time, she sobbed.