Phatagin, along with Bridget and Charlemagne, barreled through the air at speeds that were unsafe for pre-System creatures (with the possible exception of peregrine falcons, the world’s former fastest birds of prey). The current fastest bird of prey was still unconscious, and the pangolin wasn’t sure of his exact condition. The System hadn’t given him a message that his Party member was dead, so there was still hope that the bird could recover from the grievous wounds that the pack had inflicted on him. That was, assuming that Phatagin didn’t drop him by accident.

  The trio was more or less flying blindly through the southern outskirts of Porto Novo, trying to find the Lippity Dungeon, which was in the exact center of the ruined city. Although the city had once been home to half a million people, the only things that lived there now were the System-generated monsters that had thrived in the radioactivity left behind by the nuclear explosion that had destroyed the city. Phatagin had attempted to locate the Dungeon once before, an attempt that had almost cost him his life. The pangolin shivered in the warm night air as he recalled the horrors that he had come face-to-face with that day. It was small wonder that, despite his status as a Champion, he had noped out of the situation.

  Are you sure we’re going the right way? Bridget asked as they hurtled over murky, slightly luminescent puddles, muddy fields, and charred but still serviceable patches of concrete.

  I remain uncertain, the pangolin shot back. How are you feeling?

  I’m worried about Charlemagne. I can’t tell if he’s stable or slowly getting worse inside. I can’t really tell from how he smells to me.

  I must confess that Skill unnerves me. But what I meant was, how are you feeling physically? This whole area makes me sick…there is a substance in the air called ‘radiation’ that is poisonous to most lifeforms.

  I feel normal. You? Bridget responded.

  The pangolin, taking the advice of every yoga instructor ever, checked in with his body.

  My stomach is…unsettled. It’s unclear if that’s from pushing myself too hard or side effects from radiation.

  Well, buck up; if I can survive it, so can you! Bridget said in a reassuring but firm tone. She was, of course, confidently incorrect: all things being equal, a mosquito can survive about 30 times more radiation than a pangolin.

  Phatagin, who was also unaware of this distinction, was indeed reassured.

  Onward it is. Please keep your eyes open for any sign of the Dungeon.

  At the speed the trio was flying, it did not take long for them to encounter the first of the System monsters that inhabited the area. Several misshapen creatures that appeared to be roughly human in shape spotted the pangolin and raced to get underneath it.

  We’ve got company! Well, more company than before, Bridget called out, having already forgotten about the cloud of vampire bats still on their collective tail.

  I am aware, the pangolin responded, manipulating his momentum just a bit to shift his heading a few degrees back and forth in order to make himself more difficult to hit. His evasive maneuvers came just in the nick of time: from below the trio, beams of sickly green light lanced out through the darkness, narrowly missing Phatagin. One of the beams struck Charlemagne instead, but the pangolin couldn’t tell what damage, if any, the rooster had taken. He swiftly gained altitude to stave off another volley.

  Do you spy any more of these wretched creatures up ahead? The pangolin queried his Party mate.

  I, uh, I don’t have great distance vision. And these things don’t have any blood. I can tell you that the bats are still right behind us, and that the dog pack is still somehow on our tail. But I can’t see or smell these things at all.

  Wonderful, Phatagin groused. The only one of us with distance vision worth a hill of ants is passed out. Maybe we should just fly higher and forget about the dungeon?

  Actually, I just gave myself an idea, Bridget responded. Can you slow down a little bit and fly a lot lower?

  Slow down and fly closer to the ground? Have you lost your mind?

  Yeah, just trust me. It’ll all work out. Maybe.

  The pangolin sighed.

  All right, I’ll do it. What now?

  Keep your short-sighted eyes peeled for that Dungeon entrance and get ready to dodge again.

  True to his word, Phatagin slowed down gradually and reduced his altitude, allowing the bat swarm to slowly close the distance between them. They had yet to encounter another cluster of monsters, but the pangolin was sure that they’d come across another group before too long. They had penetrated past the outskirts of the ruined city and were heading deeper toward the center. The further they went, the stronger the queasy feeling in Phatagin’s stomach grew. Two tense minutes passed as the pangolin passed over the remains of a bridge and skirted the site of the previously abandoned and half-disassembled Parliament building, which was now entirely dismantled with the rest of the city.

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  The pangolin’s head began to hurt, and Charlemagne’s dead weight began to feel heavier. The radiation was starting to get to him.

  Dodge! Bridget yelled, her cry snapping Phatagin back to reality. On instinct, he forced his body to accept another jolt of adrenaline, spiking his nausea but granting him the strength needed to alter his trajectory. But not quite fast enough.

  Two bolts of the strange green energy struck him, forcing a pained cry from his mouth. He started to lose altitude, not from the loss of momentum, but because the sheer shock had thrown his equilibrium for a loop, and he was no longer sure which was way up.

  Don’t drop him! The mosquito shouted. I think I see something, just beyond the group that’s shooting at us. Go left!

  I can’t…I can’t hold him much longer! The pangolin complained. I think I might be done for. Why did I listen to you?

  Shut up and DODGE! Bridget screamed through the Party chat, inflating herself to her maximum size and pushing off of Phatagin at an angle. The deflection was just enough to cause the next volley of sickly green beams to miss.

  We’re gonna make it! We’re gonna be all right, the mosquito declared, although her tone of voice was far from sounding certain. The bats…Yes! The bats are attacking those weird skeleton things.

  I’m losing too much strength, the pangolin complained. Are we…are we there?

  Just hang on a few more seconds, then focus on giving the boss a gentle landing. You’re almost there! The mosquito encouraged.

  Phatagin barely heard the mosquito’s last message. His head was pounding, and his stomach churned. His muscles felt like jelly. Even his vision was starting to get blurry. In his current state, he could barely keep himself aloft, much less a passenger that weighed more than he did. As his strength waned, he raised his head to see what was directly in front of them. By some miracle, he was headed straight for what must be the Dungeon’s entrance.

  The structure around the currently inactive portal to the Dungeon was a ragged ring of fused concrete and twisted rebar that had warped into an arch, as though the ruins had been blasted upward from the impact of a powerful explosive. Along the arch’s inner curve, shards of irradiated glass from shattered windows had melted and re-hardened into jagged crystalline teeth. Twin braziers with guttering green flames flanked the sides of the strange arch, and strange hollow cylinders filled with blackened and twisted metal dotted the area. The entire thing felt somehow blurry, as if the Dungeon entrance was not quite in sync with the rest of reality.

  It was the most beautiful sight that Phatagin had ever seen.

  I see it! he cried as he poured the last of his strength into making sure the landing would not be a complete disaster. Then his strength failed him. He dropped Charlemagne and surrendered to the pull of gravity, hoping that their momentum would be sufficient to carry them into the safe zone.

  Phatagin!!! Bridget cried as the pangolin crashed into the ground. But he had already lost consciousness.

  From her enormous yet comfortable golden throne, Liang Xing watched her favorite Champion slam into the irradiated ground just outside the Lippity Dungeon. She sighed. Phatagin had held so much potential between his mastery of kinetic energy and his ability to overdraw on his body’s adrenaline reserves to boost his reflexes and combat performance. But now he was as good as dead…if the bats didn’t get him, the monsters would. And if he somehow managed to avoid both of those threats, the canine pack that was hunting Charlemagne would most certainly kill him once they caught up. And even assuming that he survived all of that, he would die of radiation poisoning within a week.

  The pangolin Deity chewed a nail as she considered her next move. She could call Brett and beg him for forgiveness: after all, he had publicly acknowledged his debt to her. If he refused her now, it would make him look inconsistent. But the idea of calling the very Deity who had gotten her into this mess was too much to bear. Liang Xing would rather lose a hundred Champions than have to kowtow to that arrogant jerk.

  But what then could she do? Ask for help from a mosquito? The idea was ludicrous. Not to mention that Bridget was pretty much in the same boat as Phatagin. No, that would not be possible, either.

  Liang Xing frowned as she sank deeper into contemplation. Grimfalk could intervene, perhaps, but was she willing to pay the high price that the theropod Deity was sure to charge her? No, she needed to conserve the few resources she possessed. There was only one Deity she could call here, one right choice on who would help her out without charging an arm or a leg. She made the call.

  “Hello, you’ve reached the one true Dog,” the message began.

  “Oh, hello, Canius,” Liang Xing said, “I’m calling about…”

  “I’m sorry I’m not able to get to the phone, but if you leave me a message, I’ll get right back to you.”

  Liang Xing threw her communication tablet across the room, not caring that it slammed into a priceless imitation vase, breaking the porcelain into a million tiny shards.

  “Of all the indignities,” she snarled, that stupid mutt sends me to voicemail? “When did all these newer mammals get so uppity?”

  But in her heart, she already knew the answer. When it came to her place among the mammals, she ranked near the bottom. But not dead last…not by a long shot.

  “At least I’m higher ranked than Ailuro. Pfft...if I were him, I’d just give up on the Great Game of Life right now.”

  Comforting herself with her relative superiority to Ailuro, the pangolin Deity grabbed herself a new communication tablet from the pile of spares she kept stashed in the golden cushions of her golden throne and settled back in to see what she had missed. Phatagin was unconscious. The stupid rooster, Charlemagne, was still unconscious. The mosquito was buzzing around, trying to land on one of the rapidly circling bats, which were attacking the humanoid monsters that inhabited the ruined city of Porto Novo. But Bridget wasn’t able to catch one of the bats before they were all slaughtered; the long claws of the monsters were ideal for slashing the bats right out of the air.

  As the last of the bats dropped to the ground, full-throated barks rang out of the darkness, the kind that indicated to other hunting dogs that prey had been spotted. Liang Xing congratulated herself on having been correct. Phatagin was going to either be slashed up by the area’s roaming monsters or torn apart by the dog pack.

  Her self-satisfaction was short-lived, however.