“I see what you’re saying,” Det said, finishing one painting across the ground and grass, then moving to the next. “And why you think you’re doing the right thing. Don’t agree with you, though.”

  “Wasn’t it you who just said it doesn’t matter what any other ReSouled thinks about somebody else’s drive?” Weiss countered.

  “It was, it was,” Det said. “There’s a difference here, though, based on what you said.”

  “And what’s that?” Weiss said.

  “You have to fight,” Calisco said. “Kind of our whole purpose as ReSouled.”

  “Then I’ll have to live with being the worst ReSouled ever,” Weiss said bitterly. “I’ll understand if you want to find another healer for your party. I will fulfill my duties like Zedic does; somewhere far from the front lines.”

  “Nope,” Det said.

  “You’re not the one who…” Weiss started, a bit more fire back in his voice.

  “The difference,” Det continued over Weiss’ words. “It’s not that we have to fight. My drive is getting home. How I do that is up to me. Whether it’s in dungeons like this, delving ancient ruins in the Corelands for treasure, or stealing some kind of artifact, those are all just methods to achieve my goal. To fulfill my drive.

  “People can argue against the methods—how I’m getting to the end of my path—but not the goal itself.”

  “So?” Weiss said, the fire gone, and replaced with something more like curiosity.

  “Your drive,” Det said. “Isn’t to not fight. It’s to make amends for what you did in a past life. Right?”

  “I… yes,” Weiss said. “But committing more violence is just going to lead me down the same path again. I killed a man because I was angry. I can’t be trusted.”

  “You hurt a man because you were angry,” Det said. “The dying part was an accident. A really unfortunate one you should regret, because you believe you made a poor choice. I’m saying ‘believe here’…” Det held up one hand to make half of air quotes. “… because it’s not my place to judge you. So, sure, feel guilty. Feel like you need to make up for it. I have no objections to any of that.

  “What I don’t agree with,” Det paused his painting to look back and meet Weiss’ eyes. “Is how you’re planning on doing it. Punching a Wordless isn’t the same as going around murdering kids in their sleep.”

  “I would never do something like that,” Weiss cried.

  “Good,” Det said. “What I’m saying here is, when we leave the dungeon again, take a look around, then tell me what you see.”

  “What do you mean?” Weiss said. “There’s nothing outside the dungeon, unless you mean the wall?”

  “Past the wall,” Det said.

  “Nothing,” Weiss said. “The pillar is empty.”

  “Exactly,” Det said. “Cept, two weeks ago, it wasn’t empty. There was a town all around here. Families. Lives. Community. It’s all gone now, because nobody got in here soon enough to punch a Wordless.

  “I’m not saying violence is always the answer,” Det continued. “There are times it doesn’t have a place. Talking to the guy instead of punching him in the throat might have worked. That was back on Earth, though. There are actual monsters here on Elestar. The same rules don’t apply. We can’t negotiate with the Wordless. Can’t ask them nicely to turn around, or call the police if they crank their stereos up too loud.

  “Here, there is only one currency that works with them. Violence. You said you want to make a difference and make amends for things? Really want to make amends? If that’s your drive—if it’s anything like mine—you’ll at least consider any option to get you there. You might throw some out because of things like ethics or practicality, but you’ll at least consider it.

  “So, consider this, you can save a lot of people by stopping a dungeon burst. If we’d gotten here earlier, we’d still be talking about the town of Ironsalt, instead of the pillar of Ironsalt.”

  “I… don’t know if I can,” Weiss said. “Even if what you’re saying makes sense to my head, my heart… I don’t know if I can.”

  “You’d be surprised what you can do,” Sage said. “What you’d be willing to do, do satiate your drive.”

  “Yeah,” Calisco said. “Look at me. I put up with Det because he’s in our party. That’s way harder than killing some Wordless.”

  “Thanks for your two cents,” Det said flatly, shaking his head and going back to his painting.

  “But I froze,” Weiss said, ignoring Calisco—as one should—to direct his statement to Sage. “As soon as I saw a fight breaking out, I was right back there sparring.”

  “Anybody who isn’t in the Mistguard—and knows about the drive—will tell you the scariest part of it is how it justifies anything the ReSouled believes will further their goal,” Sage said. “And, before you say anything, I want you to stop and really think about what I just said.”

  “… anything the ReSouled believes will further their goal,” Tena said, repeating the line.

  “Exactly,” Sage said. “Back to Det’s earlier example, if Tena really believed it would help her achieve her goal—to be known by everybody—her drive would justify ‘murdering children in their sleep’.” The air quotes made sure it wasn’t really a suggestion, just an elaborate exaggeration.

  “Now it’s my turn to say I would never do that,” Tena said, crossing her arms to glare at Sage.

  “Wouldn’t you?” Sage returned, his voice thoughtful enough the Bulwark didn’t immediately respond. “Do it enough, across enough pillars, and your infamy would spread. People would know your name. They would fear it.”

  “That would be wrong,” Tena said.

  “So?” Sage prodded. “Right and wrong don’t matter to our drives.”

  “That’s what makes them—us—so dangerous,” Det said.

  “But I don’t want to be feared by normal people,” Tena said. “I want to be worshipped.” The words came out of her mouth so suddenly, even she was caught off-guard by them. “I want to be… worshipped?”

  “Then, what if killing those children sent a message to people trying to oppose your rise in fame?” Sage said, twisting the question a bit. “What if silencing those dissenting voices allowed you to ascend from a no-name ReSouled to the most famous one in the entire Nivelhime Kingdom?”

  “I…” Tena started, but couldn’t finish the statement. Because she was considering it. “No. It’s wrong. I wouldn’t do that.”

  “You say that now,” Sage pressed. “And, don’t feel guilty about considering it. What if murdering those children was part of a ritual to create a gateway back to Earth?” Sage looked in Det’s direction. “Or to find the answer to an ancient secret that couldn’t be discovered any other way?” He looked at Eriba.

  “Sorry, kiddos,” she said in her usual, quiet voice without looking up from the Wordless.

  “If I’d already tried everything else,” Det said. “And I had a good reason to believe it would work? I might do it. If nothing else, I would consider it.”

  “… it’s wrong,” Tena half pleaded, like she needed somebody to confirm what she was saying, even though she didn’t entirely believe it would stop her from also making the same choice.

  “There is no right or wrong when it comes to our drives,” Sage repeated, then looked back to Weiss. “What I’m saying here, Weiss, is that if you can convince yourself—even a little bit—that violence is a means to saving people, your drive will justify it. Just like our bodies adapted to drowning, to getting broken and electrocuted, to the illusions that filled us with terror, being a ReSouled can also adapt to this. More easily than you might like to think, too.”

  “If I believe fighting will save people, I can fight?” Weiss asked.

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  “Yes,” Sage said. “It may not happen immediately. It may even take days, for it to settle in your mind, for your body to adapt to it, and for your drive to take hold. It can happen. In fact, now that we’ve simply had this discussion, it probably will. The seed has been planted. All that’s left is to see how it will grow.”

  “I have… avoided violence since I was reborn,” Weiss said. “I thought this was my chance to escape from it, while making up for what I’d done. I’d never considered that which I was trying to avoid was the thing most necessary for me to do the most good.”

  “Sometimes the key to reaching our goals is in the most unlikely of places,” Sage said. “Or through the most unlikely of means.”

  “Speaking of violence and means,” Calisco said. “I think we’re about to get a bit more of each of them. I see a couple of those little groups of ants coming our way. Be here in a minute, I guess? Maybe.”

  “How many groups?” Det said, adding the finishing touches to his second, large mural. Then again, from how big these two were, they were almost Nazca lines.

  “Two groups,” Calisco said. “One coming from each side of the temple-thing. Hey, Tena, are you going to get one of those when you get worshipped? With your face on the top like that?”

  “That’s a little gaudy for my tastes,” Tena said, crystal armor fully covering up her face where she’d exposed it to talk to the others. “I’d definitely want a full-sized statue.”

  “Because that would be less gaudy on the top of a temple to you…” Det said under his breath as he replaced the cork on the empty ink bottle, then put it and his brush back in their holders. Louder, he said, “I’ll take care of the two groups, if nobody minds? I’d like to try something out.”

  “Doing something to get even further ahead of the rest of us?” Sage asked, his pet ant circling him as he stood up to look in the direction of the coming patrols.

  “Might be,” Det said.

  “I’m ready too,” Eriba said, a collection of jury-rigged gadgets arrayed around here. Those dozen, grapefruit-sized objects looked too much like grenades to be anything else. Next to them, she’d built a pair of ant-carapace boots—probably after seeing what one ant did to Tena’s foot—as well as a backpack-connected rifle of some kind.

  A flamethrower or a particle accelerator? I guess we’re fine as long as we don’t cross the streams…

  “You might get your wish,” Tena said. “I see another patrol coming along the edge of the pillar on our left.”

  “Another from our right,” Sage said. “That makes four groups, all arriving around the same time.”

  “That’s a lot,” Tena said. “Can you guys all keep up?”

  Most heads looked at Weiss, though Det had his hands on his first painting, kernels ready to move.

  “I…” the healer started.

  “You don’t need to fight yet,” Sage said. “You do need to heal. Can you do that?”

  “I think…” Weiss started, then shook his head and clenched his fists at his side. “No, I can do that. I will heal any injuries you take.”

  “If it comes to that,” Det said, the two seconds necessary to bring his latest rendition to life completing as energy surged from his body. Complete with a second kernel. One, he’d put into the painting as he’d created it. The second, he’d added while summoning it. He’d tried to do two while summoning—like he had with the Pack—but that hadn’t worked for some reason.

  Something to experiment with later.

  Even without that extra burst of power, having one kernel in the creation, and another in the summons would already make the thing a beast. And, as it rose—and rose, and rose—from the ground, calling it a beast was an absolutely accurate description.

  Black ink seemingly spewed fifteen feet into the air as the rendition climbed out of the ground. The first heavy paw coming down shook the earth with the thing’s weight and power, before it threw its head back in a bellowing roar of challenge to the dungeon. Distantly, Det saw one of the packs pause at the volume of the roar that echoed from edge-to-edge of the pillar.

  The fifteen foot, black-ink bear that looked almost as big as a dump-truck likely didn’t give them any more confidence in their chances. Claws like small swords gouged the earth as the paws moved, while its wide head carried a maw with teeth that could puncture steel. Muscles beneath the thick, inky fur rippled with barely contained power.

  Then, as if the thing wasn’t intimidating enough, it reared up on its back legs. Now standing nearly twenty-two-feet tall, it cast a long shadow in front of it.

  “Oh, yeah,” Det said under his breath as the head nearly as big as he was turned to look down at him. Eyes of black ink awaited his orders.

  “Rampage,” Det said. “Destroy any Wordless you find.”

  Back went the head, while the jaws spread and a new roar shook the dungeon. Putting the first—by comparison—growl to shame, the ink-bear lurched forward, it’s tremendous weight and power shaking the ground and sending a shockwave rolling forward.

  Even before Det managed to steady himself, the ground was shaking again, this time from the bear charging forward at the pack of four, tiny ants in his vision.

  “Det!” Calisco shouted as she held her arms out to the side for balance. “What in all the hells is that?!”

  “It’s a very big bear,” Det said, already heading to his second painting. If the bear worked this well, the other one shouldn’t disappoint. The bear rendition had taken quite a bit of energy, and one of the two kernels he’d kept in his hands, and he moved the ones from his elbow down. Recovering the energy would take longer—as would reforming the kernels he used themselves—but it would be worth it.

  “No shit it’s a big bear,” Calisco said. “But how did you go from kittens to… that?”

  “I have to agree with Cali,” Tena said. “That’s not something I expected from you.”

  “Because all I needed before were kittens,” Det said, then looked at Eriba. “Or turtles. Here, I have a different need, and the time to set it up. Now, let me get my other rendition in play.”

  “You have another bear?” Calisco said.

  “No…” Det said, though he smiled as the energy flooded out of his hands. Doing two in a row of that magnitude was a bit more than he’d expected, and he suddenly felt like he’d sprinted up a mountain and back. The new rendition that crawled out of the earth was more than worth it, though.

  Unlike the bear, this thing didn’t tower above the party, or release a powerful challenge to all comers. It wasn’t an alpha with its need to prove dominance. But, it was an apex predator, and a killing machine. Scaled claws pulled this ink-black nightmare from the ground until over thirty-feet of it covered the ground.

  From the tip of its flat jaws to the end its heavily armored tail, the humungous crocodile seemed to burn with the rough lines of the ink-strokes making up its body. At the front of it, its head twisted slightly to the side, an inky eye locking on Det.

  “Go and destroy any Wordless you can find,” Det commanded it, and its wide jaws opened. From within, no roar came, but instead a kind of breathy, hissing, exhale. Then it launched forward like a loosed rocket, black shape tearing up clumps of earth as its legs propelled it far faster than anything that big had a right to be.

  “You’re bloody kidding me,” Calisco said.

  “There are still two more packs to deal with,” Sage said, pulling everybody’s attention off the two monstrosities rushing to meet the packs they’d be responsible for. “Eriba and I will handle the one on the right. With support from Det’s wolf, though I’d ask it only distract the ants, and not kill any. We need the practice.”

  “We can arrange that,” Det said, looking at the wolf. The look on its face showed it understood the assignment.

  “Tena and Calisco,” Sage continued. “You two can handle the other side?”

  “Does that need to even be a question?” Tena said. “Of course we’ve got it.”

  “Armor up real strong,” Calisco said. “I’m gonna practice my aim.”

  “… I’m suddenly less confident in my assessment,” Tena said. “Weiss…?”

  “I’ll be ready to heal anybody who needs it,” Weiss said. “I won’t freeze this time. I promise.”

  “What about me?” Det asked Sage.

  “You…” Sage started at the same time the ink-bear brought one of its paws—along with all its strength and weight—down on an ant that was too slow to dodge. The whole pillar shook at the impact, followed by another dominant roar. “You,” Sage started again. “Sit down and recover the energy it took you to summon those two monsters. You’ve done your part for this fight, let the rest of us have some fun.”

  “Please,” Eriba added quietly, now on her feet with the backpack in place, and the flamethrower-like rifle in hand. “I need targets to test these.”

  “They’re all yours,” Det said, thumbing at the pack coming along the edge of the pillar from the right side of the camp.

  “Thank you,” Eriba said, a gleam in her eyes. “I’ll…”

  “Everybody, out!” Beauty shouted, suddenly among them, notes of music like a distant orchestra carrying on the wind.

  “Wait… what?” Sage asked the question everybody had to be wondering about. “If you’re in here, won’t…?”

  A new shudder rocked the pillar, while a deep, angry chittering echoed from the distant temple. A new thrumming joined that sound, reminding Det of heavy factory machinery, while the ants around the temple all suddenly began sprinting in their direction.

  “We’ve received new orders, and we leave immediately,” Beauty said. “You are to get out, get your stuff, then prepare for the airship pickup. It will be here within the hour. I will clear the dungeon solo.” At that point, he finally seemed to notice the two renditions gleefully smashing any Wordless they could get their teeth or claws on. And there were plenty of targets—er, victims—around them.

  “Correction,” Beauty said. “Those two will assist me in clearing the dungeon.”

  “Can’t we…?” Calisco started.

  “No,” Beauty said. “With my presence, the dungeon is already ramping up to produce Wordless that could threaten me. It will not be safe for you. Not even waiting back here. Leave the dungeon.”

  The finality in his voice brooked no room for arguments, not even from Calisco. Eriba, poor lady, looked the most dejected of them all as she put her backpack-weapon on the ground.

  “Can you test my grenades?” she asked their instructor quietly, while not being able to look at him. “Tell me how they work?”

  “Of course,” Beauty said, taking two from her hands as she held them out to him.

  “Pull the pin and throw,” she instructed, gave one more longing look at all her potential test subjects, then dragged her feet through the portal out of the dungeon.

  “Can we at least ask why the sudden change in plans?” Det said.

  Beauty looked at him for a long second, as if he was weighing whether he should answer the question or not. Finally, he decided to. “We got a distress call,” Beauty said. “From one of our dungeon monitors. A new dungeon has been discovered, and it is not in its infancy. A burst is imminent. We are the closest group available to handle it.”

  “Us?” Sage said. “We’re cadets.”

  “One of the emergences is E-Rank,” Beauty said. “Much like what happened here on Ironsalt. With two entrances, we need to take care of both Bosses, but I can’t risk being delayed in the E-Rank dungeon. It will be up to you.”

  “Do you think we can do it?” Det asked, looking back at how his bear and croc tore through the E-Rank ants. If he had time to prepare, the odds in their favor were good.

  “It doesn’t matter whether I think you can or not,” Beauty said. “You must. Or the pillar will bleed like Ironsalt did.”

  “Which pillar is it?” Sage said. “Can we evacuate the people?”

  “We cannot evacuate,” Beauty said. “Because the pillar is below the Mistline.”

  With the words and a look in his direction from the instructor, Det knew the next words out of Beauty’s mouth even before he spoke.

  “The dungeon burst is on Radiant.”