“Let’s continue down the tunnel,” said Kabi, without turning to look at me. “We keep finding things that shouldn’t be down here. If they were doing the same on the surface, it’d be easier to spot.”

  “As much as I hate to say it, I agree,” said Lenna as she joined us, along with Dengu. She carried something in her hand and tossed it at Holls. He snapped at it, making it crack in half. “While I miss the stars, Kabi’s right.”

  That made it easy.

  Holls turned to Dengu, and whimpered twice, which caused the dinosaur to lower his head closer to the creature.

  “Holls says, we should save the princess.”

  My brain skidded to a stop at the phrasing. I doubted Dengu knew what a princess was. This had to be the translator being weird.

  He added, “Someone the enemy keeps trapped.”

  “That’s something we should check out. Holls, can you lead the way?” I nodded at Lenna, knowing the sacrifice she made. “Plus, they will expect you to come back.”

  He nodded and loped down the tunnel.

  I silently followed, taking the next place in our line. Everyone else waited before continuing after us. I stretched my senses out in front of me as far as they would go, missing Strange's extra distance. He was doing an important thing, but his scouting ability had become a natural extension that I relied on. I’d just have to make do.

  The stone walls tapered in, making my breathing speed up ever so slightly. It took a few moments for me to regain my calm and easy pace forward. Kabi slowed down behind me and I spotted him crouching a little.

  Holls continued on without a problem, outpacing me in the dark.

  A slight tingle came from that direction, much farther down the tunnel.

  Crystals.

  I sped up slightly to regain some of the distance that Holls had gained. The tunnel widened again as he slowed down in front of me, but not by much.

  Holls barked once as he approached a doorway, not even slowing down.

  [An OFFENDER has been detected in your area with a bounty. You have been given a temporary boost to stats and abilities.]

  [Palic, The Binder, Level 120, Prey, Unknown, OFFENDER.]

  Prey? This was the first time the notice had said an OFFENDER was prey. And only at level 120? Something had to be going on here.

  The door sprang open and Holls raced inside without a problem. The door remained open and I crept in, carefully reviewing my surroundings.

  An acidic smell lingers around the area. Piles of straw dotted the room, which looked like makeshift beds for the Hunters.

  Light shone around a corner, around which Holls’ tail vanished.

  The ping of the crystals came from ahead in various locations.

  There had to be slaves in this place. The movements from the right made it clear that we had at least 10 people moving around in the space.

  From the left, though, the crystals didn’t move, and something felt different. I didn’t have time to think about it as Kabi, Lenna and Dengu entered the room. The door remained open.

  Three barks echoed around the corner and I peeked ahead.

  The cavern opened up and my chest burned as white tile took over.

  Half of the cavern looked like a laboratory, just like from near the lake. Metal tables, screens, and beakers were scattered all over the place. A glass wall separated the space from the rest of the cavern. A large metal table with straps took up the center.

  Metal doors stood equal distance apart along the wall. Holls pawed at an open archway that somehow he couldn’t pass through.

  The Forger wasn’t in this room, but beings filled each of the other rooms we could see.

  At least two of the small rooms held slaves, while the Forger must be resting behind one of the others.

  “What is this?” asked Lenna, right behind me.

  “Science. It's like the cloning facility, but not for cloning,” I whispered back.

  Someone approached the archway in front of Holls, but whatever kept him back blurred the form. I couldn’t get more information on them.

  Holls leaped up as they approached, but the archway held them in the air as he pawed at it.

  The Forger behind one of the doors finally moved.

  I held a hand up to the others and yanked out my knife.

  Everyone readied themselves.

  The door slammed open.

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  “Get down from there you mangy animal!” The Forger who stepped out had orange skin, but that was the only similarity to the rest of them I’d seen. He only reached my height and wore a lab coat. The white lab coat sent warnings up my spine, but it wasn’t the one from before. Instead, this was some sort of multi-headed humanoid. Two heads, each with a single eye, swiveled around, surveying the room. One landed on Holls.

  He held a wand out to the wolf, which quickly retreated away from him with a whine. Holls lowered his head and crept away from the door.

  “Get back to your resting area. We have work to do.” Both heads turned to the laboratory, and the doorway. Then to the creature on the other side. The Binder touched the archway and the area cleared.

  [Jemity, Crystal farmer, Gem-based Matilo, Level 101, Prey, Unknown]

  She stood taller than the Forger, and reminded me of a golem. Bits of crystal grew out of her shoulder, and along her scalp. Glowing purple eyes sat deep in her face, along with two small holes and a slash for a mouth. She was only two armed, with a brightly colored jumpsuit that almost hurt my eyes.

  Her eyes flickered in my direction, but she quickly smiled at Palic. “We made progress today, a scrap of growth. We need more of the slurry mix 1183.”

  “I will be the judge of that.” He held the wand up to her and she stepped back. “No trouble today, or I’ll hurt your friend.”

  “No trouble, I need water and food.” She held up her hands, which had too many fingers on them, and stepped back. “No trouble at all.”

  Again, her eyes flickered to me and she smiled down at Holls, who crept back in our direction. He crouched down, targeting the back of the Forger.

  I readied myself to leap across the room as well.

  Then, Holls moved. He charged into the back of the Forger’s legs and sent him smashing to the ground.

  I leaped closer, aiming for the back of his neck with my spear. Yet, Palic twisted out from under Holls, like an ooze.

  Jemity dove to the archway, and started hitting codes into a screen I hadn’t noticed.

  The tip of my spear brushed the edge of the ooze, and he suddenly screamed. A pulse went through the room and pounding echoed from behind the metal doors across the way.

  “You better hurry before the bound join him,” her voice came out in a rush as she frantically tapped at the screen. “The doors will only hold them so long.”

  Kabi cut off a limb, which then started inching away from all of us, creeping.

  For once my stomach rebelled at the sight of something, and I gagged. I pushed more energy into my crystal and started repeatedly stabbing the creature.

  Each time the ooze touched the burning crystal it tried to flee even harder, but it couldn’t push me off. It stretched out in all directions under the lab coat, getting thinner and thinner. The wand suddenly pointed up and electricity arced at me.

  I leaned away and it slammed into the area behind me. Screams echoed through the room.

  I instantly switched to cold.

  It froze. The ooze froze with the wand still pointed in my direction.

  Palic stopped moving as the cold crept across every part of its body. Like frost across a pond, slowly it turned blue. The body part that Kabi cut off continued at a frantic pace but he kicked it back to me.

  I pulled my knife out of the frozen carcass then stabbed the second piece.

  I held my breath as the blue quickly covered it.

  [You have gained bonus experience from combat for surviving against a level 120, Palic, The Binder.]

  Calls for help echoed behind me and I twisted off the frozen thing.

  A bunch of Kabi’s people were pulling at the metal door which had been blasted open. Pounding continued from the other door.

  “Damn, I thought his death would do it!” Jemity tapped more buttons on the panel.

  I ripped the labcoat up, sensing a crystal somewhere in its remains. This time it wasn’t a ring, just a round crystal embedded in the former Forger’s foot.

  I used my knife to break it out before diving into the stone.

  Only 7 collars connected to it. I quickly cut those bonds.

  “They should be fine now,” I said to Jemity.

  Holls gnawed on a frozen limb, and I turned to see where everyone else was.

  “Alex, we need your healing!”

  I darted to the person who Lenna knelt next to and yanked my healing crystal out to the stump. Blood was everywhere and I ignored it all, as I knelt down to try and reattach the hand. The crystal pulsed with energy as I touched it to the area that Lenna held in place.

  It drained quickly. Way too quickly for what we needed to do.

  “Let me help,” said Jemity as she touched the crystal. Energy blazed through it, refreshing it to full, which then funneled back out into the wound.

  My hands tingled as the energy pushed into the crystal changed into the correct type, and then flowed into the wound. I focused on the change of the energy when it entered the crystal. It was like when it recharged, except Jemity actively pushed it into the crystal.

  But the energy was different. The crystal grabbed at it, unlike my own. Then everything went dim.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” The young woman stumbled over the words again and again. A crystal hummed at her neck.

  I reached out and pulled it off as easy as I would have if it’d been made of paper. I was getting really good at removing the slave collars.

  “It’s okay.” I nodded and climbed to my feet. “Is everyone else okay?”

  “We lost three,” said Lenna, as she helped the Azurafolk to her feet. “Only a few minor injuries left.”

  “I’ll remove the collars,” I said with ease. I needed the crystal, and I wanted to figure out why it felt different from what I was used to.

  It didn’t take long, and everyone relaxed as soon as their collars were removed.

  Kabi moved among his people, talking, as I removed the crystal bits into one glob.

  “You do that strangely,” said Jemity, staring at me. The crystal growing out of her shoulder pulsed.

  “It’s part of my profession,” I said carefully. “From the world that these came from.”

  “That makes more sense.” She motioned for me to follow her. “I didn’t understand why they kidnapped me from my home, but they want more of those crystals.”

  She headed for the archway, which no longer had a barrier.

  Inside, it opened up into another cavern, with small crystals pulsing along one edge. A makeshift bed and table were on the other side.

  “Where did they grab you from?” I asked.

  “The homeworld, of course, though I don’t know why they all just don’t leave. None of them want to stay there.” She shook her head and none of her spiky hair moved. It pulsed with the same light as her shoulder. “He had me trying to grow more of those.”

  I stepped closer to the crystals along the wall. They pinged on my radar, but felt strange. I knelt down and touched one, trying to compare it to the ones I had.

  All I could come up with was that the vibe was different.

  “So, they wanted to grow the magic crystals from the other world here…” I shook my head, wondering just how different magics worked in different places. “Why not where you're from?”

  “The homeworld? Magic doesn’t grow on the homeworld. Things change too rapidly.” She motioned to herself. “My form is already changing, just from the time spent on this world, though I do not know how long it's been. At least 1,183 experiments with growing the crystals.”

  “Changing?” I didn’t understand what she was talking about.

  “Our traits include adaptation, so we can survive our homeworld,” said Jemity without a care.

  Everything inside me froze, and her words felt like they were coming from far away. Adaptation, like me?