Sunlight speared down through the gaping maw of the sinkhole, illuminating the lush patch of forest below. Songbirds flittered around the rim, and their calls lit up the sky as surely as the morning sun.

I looked over at Sadrianna as she plonked herself down against a rock. She closed her eyes, crossed her arms beneath her head, and began to sun herself on the large slab like a lizard. As if sensing my ire, she popped one eye open and squinted over at me.

"What? My job's done. You're here at The Lost Grove, safe and sound. I'll wait right here until you're done, but Jorge was very clear; you're on your own down there." She winked then, or blinked? I wasn't quite sure what it counted as when she only had one eye open to begin with. "You had best get to it, Lamb, sunlight's wasting."

It wasn't the best pep talk I'd ever been given, but she was right in one respect. There was no time like the present.

I turned back to the sinkhole before me, stretching out my back that had begun to stiffen up from the long hike here. We were near the edge of the Titan's Crown now, with the lakes around which the clans gathered nothing but specs in the distance, the morning sun reflecting off their calm surfaces making them seem like jewels glinting in a bed of green.

I shrugged my shoulders, feeling the reassuring weight of my sleeveless vest settle against my back. My arms were bare except for a bracer of dark metal covering my right arm from wrist to elbow, and my boots were newly reinforced with steel plates affixed to the foot and shin. I was still under-armoured, but it was a far-cry from the dismal lack of protection I'd had before coming to the Dragon-Spine Mountains.

I hefted my bronze-alloy shield in my left hand, and my right gripped the familiar grain of the haft of my spear. Both artifacts were settled within my soul-space as they were within my hands, and I felt my confidence return.

The sinkhole was daunting to behold. Far larger than the one in that held the arena, it was at least a few hundred feet in diameter and perhaps double that – it was hard to tell from here. It was shaped as an irregular circle, with the mouth being the narrowest part. It bulged down and out, resembling nothing so much as the shell of a sea urchin, and I shivered as I imagined what may be lurking within the shrouded darkness at the edges.

In the centre of the sinkhole, illuminated by the glorious sun, was a small grove of ancient oak and beech trees perched on a small hill. The forest looked inviting, dappled light playing off the faces of a million leaves of green and gold. The songbirds flitted around ceaselessly, going about their small lives with abandon. Focusing on only the grove brought a measure of peace to my chest, but I couldn't help my eyes from slipping from that beautiful sight to the darkness at the edges.

But I had my weapons, and I had my Skills. Sadrianna had battled wild creatures and the occasional monster on our trek to this ancient place, but none had been particularly high-levelled, and I suspected I could have handled them myself. Of course, she had taken on the role of guard so that I wouldn't waste my strength before arriving here, but it still gave me hope that nothing in that hole in the earth would be too far beyond me. As had been made abundantly clear though, I didn't have the best luck with underground excursions, so I'd keep my weapons ready.

I spent half an hour walking around the lip of the sinkhole, examining it from every angle and trying to plot a path down. The first option was to sling a rope down, secured to a sturdy boulder at the top, and descend that way. Something about descending directly into that darkness, with no rock to place my feet against, filled me with a terror I couldn't quite place, but even the tallest of the trees were too far below the edge of the sinkhole to safely jump across.

I returned to Sadrianna, and luckily as a resourceful mountain clan warrior her storage device was filled with useful equipment. A long sturdy rope was soon in my possession, and I set about securing my abseil point. She wandered over to check my knots, but I had taken to Jorge's survival lessons well, and she begrudgingly nodded before heading back to her sunbathing rock.

I stood at the edge of the lip once more and took a final look around at the sinkhole below me. The moment stretched on for a while, something within me rebelling at the idea of falling into darkness alone and unprepared, but I eventually sighed heavily. When you've got a task to do…

I fed the rope behind my shoulders and stepped backwards off the ledge into open air.

I landed softly, a bed of moss cushioning my feet from the final ten-foot drop. Not that it was needed – a fall like that was easily absorbed by my enhanced musculature by now – with over 70 points in strength proving more than enough for such a task.

The rope was pooled on the floor nearby, but I wished to spend no more time than necessary in the cool darkness beneath the small hill. I couldn't see the rocky edges of the enormous cavern, shrouded in shadow as they were, but I could taste the dampness in the air. I imagined the beads of rank water trickling down the stone, flowing over small holes through which centipedes and spiders would frolic and slither.

I shivered, my imagination doing me no favours. I returned my shield to my hand from where I'd strapped it to my wrist, hefted my spear, and set off towards the light once more.

It was a short climb up the steep hill, and I had to skirt around the edge of the hillock for a while before I found a good place to scramble up. Spiky grass stabbed at my hands as I pulled myself up the uneven surface, but the occasional tree-root binding the earth together offered ample handholds.

Upon cresting the small hillock, I was met with the true majesty of The Lost Grove. The hundred or so trees standing proudly in place seemed to shine in the sunlight. Their many leaves sparkled, water droplets flickering like diamonds as light lanced through them and split into a million piercing blades.

I recognised oak and beech as I walked slowly between them, all ancient and thick-trunked. I felt as though I entered a new world of dappled green and gold, the light refracting as if I was underwater. Birdsong echoed strangely off the trunks around me, and I felt the worry in my chest ease, the dank edges of the cavern feeling further away somehow.

After touring the entire copse, I felt at peace once more. Wondering through the venerable trunks, I was overcome by a sense of calm. Time passed without notice, and it was with shock that I realised the warmth beating down against my head was of the afternoon sun rather than that of the morning.

I felt closer to nature here though, as if I was absorbing some minute aspect of the wisdom that these trees had inherited over centuries, and I was loath to waste the opportunity. I turned my gaze inwards, sitting back against the bough of an ancient oak, and examined my status.

Status:

Ancestry: Human (unevolved)

Level: 45

Class: Blood Of The Mountains

Titles: God-Touched

Attribute allocation:

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Strength: 71

Agility: 50

Endurance: 36

Perception: 25

Cognition: 35

Available attributes: 0

Skills:

Guerrilla Warfare: Level 10. Passive.

Heart of the Hills: Level 6. Active.

Check Step: Level 10. Active.

Indomitable Prey: Level 9. Active

The Forgotten Spear: Level 8. Passive

Mountain-Born: Level 9. Passive

Faultline: Level 7. Active

Tilt: Level 1. Active

It hadn't changed in what felt like weeks, though in reality it had only been a few days. So much had happened, so many battles, and yet my status was identical. Still, it didn't tell the full picture.

I turned my gaze to my soul-space, and there I began to see progress. Once again, the constellations of my Skills showed further interconnectedness. Strands of starlight wove between them, nourishing one another and drawing them close in a tighter bond. Indomitable Prey hung above the seven Skills, protecting them from the darkness and nurturing them with its light. I suspected it was having a subtle transformative effect on them too, sharing its flavour of defiance into each of my other Skills.

Some were new – Tilt, specifically felt like a newborn babe, fresh with potential but tiny and fragile next to the more patterns of starlight. It was swollen though, almost bursting at the seams. Clearly, my activities in the Blending had pushed the Skill to its limits in terms of its requirements to level. All I needed now was experience from a few kills.

The same seemed true with many of my other Skills, to be fair. Guerrilla Warfare had had no real chance to be used in the controlled environment of the arena, and other than utilising my fang dagger, which I supposed counted as an improvised weapon for the purpose of that sub-Skill, and my regular weapons which helped level Tinkerer, I hadn't done much to push it beyond the soft cap – no experimentation or new application of its abilities.

The same was true of Check-Step – it had seen use, but not of the right kind to push it beyond level 10. Heart Of The Hills I hadn't used at all, and I knew that its days were numbered. It had come in use to keep me grounded and moving in a terrifying new world, but I had adapted myself to Tsanderos now. With the help of my pathbound Skill, and my companions, I didn't feel like a fish out of water any longer, and so the mental Skill wasn't required, and consequently didn't see much use.

Indomitable Prey would likely level at least once – perhaps using it as a distraction in a battle, or as a means to shock me away from defeat, was enough to count as experimentation, but I wouldn't hold out hope. I also expected to see levels in The Forgotten Spear and Mountain-Born soon. I'd both given and taken a hell of a beating during the tournament. Likewise with Faultline and Tilt – both had seen heavy use, and both were relatively low levelled in comparison to my other Skills.

It was interesting to review, and sparked a sliver of excitement in my heart for what was to come. Five levels, that's all I had left of the 1st tier. And yet, that was twenty-five attributes. Could I reach level 10 with all of my Skills? Probably not, but as I was currently, I had beaten many of the prospects of this generation of the mountain clans, and I still had more power to grasp before tiering up.

My mind tried to wander to my next class, and what that process would bring, but I forcefully yanked it back into place. No good could come from looking too far ahead. I had work to do in the present – wisdom to find and experience to gain, not to mention my reward from the Blending.

Rousing myself from my introspection, I returned to a world of emerald and orange. The afternoon sun had given way to a soft evening glow, and the birds no longer sang, chattering quietly to one another instead.

I had gotten distracted, waylaid by the wisdom the world left for me, scattered in one of its many hidden places. My real purpose had been revealed the day prior. I was here for a weapon.

I once more began to walk, brushing past dangling leaves and occasionally running my hands along branches and boughs, looking for an appropriate target. As with everything else in this magical grove, I took my time searching for what I was looking for.

I didn't have a firm idea of the weapon I was seeking. I knew it to be a spear, that much was obvious given my class and training, but there were many kinds of spear, even before you factored in magic. My weapons-work with my companions had taught me that complexity could be found in everything, and weapons were no exception.

Given that I was in a semi-magical grove of ancient trees, I could only assume that the most sensible component I could find here was that of a haft. I tried to keep an open mind, but I did find my eyes tracking each new branch, searching for imperfections among any likely candidates.

A full hour passed unsuccessfully, and the evening sun began to wane. I was taking more notice of time now, unwilling to stay in this primal place when darkness set. The birds had stopped their play and now perched in their well-defended nests in the great trees. Shadows had begun to waver at the edges of the cavern, and I heard the occasional rustling and chittering from beyond that cone of sunlight.

Things were stirring beyond the light.

I gave myself one last loop around the grove but found nothing that called to me. I considered felling a branch with the hatchet in my belt simply to have something to bring back but thought better of it in the end. Jorge had been clear; inspiration was what I was looking for.

In an almost sacred place like this, where the world stores wonder and power, it does not do to take without the earth's blessing. Another confusing riddle from the old git.

Still, he was right – I didn't want to tempt fate. I could always return tomorrow for another look. Perhaps sleeping on it would shed some light on the correct approach? I had felt a slight fluctuation in the ambient mana suffusing this place as I circled but couldn't get a good read of where those fluctuations originated from right now, and I was nearly out of time.

I slithered down the steep embankment surrounding the elevated copse of trees and came to an abrupt halt. My heart sank.

The rope was pooled on the floor, sliced into ribbons. My escape route was lost.

I couldn't see all the details through the steadily encroaching shadow brought about by night's swift onset, but it looked very much like something had gnawed through the rope in several spots. It hung now at least sixty feet above me, well out of reach, even if I were to scale the side of the bulging cavern… which I definitely did not fancy given the scuttling that I could hear growing in frequency.

I backed away, returning to the protective sunlight of the hill in the centre of the sinkhole. Something hissed at me from the shadows, and I flinched. I felt an increase in the mana density once again but had no time to wonder why.

I didn't like the insectile sounds I was hearing. Please don't be centipedes, please don't be centipedes. I repeated the litany of hope in my head as my back hit the damp earth of the embankment behind me.

A patch of darkness, somehow more solid than the shadows around it, detached itself from the cavern wall and scuttled forwards. I heard the clicking of many hard points against stone and watched as a creature emerged from the darkness.

A chimp of some kind, muscular and stout, stepped out of the ring of shadow and raised its head towards me. It walked on two bowlegs, with long arms dragging across the ground to support its weight as it shuffled and hopped, its wide back bent and great shoulders pointing nearly to the floor.

Its roughly man-sized body was covered in dark bristles, which stood out in sharp contrast to the gleaming white bone of its hands and feet. They must have been responsible for the clicking I had heard. Funny how even after so much exposure to it, I couldn't recognise the sound of bone against rock. A cheery thought, that.

Its head was what captivated me though. An empty skull, large canines bared to the air, with an open nasal cavity and two empty pits where its eyes should be. Rather than darkness though, something red waved from within its eyes, and I strained to make out the details.

It took a few swaying steps forward, strangely graceful in its unpredictable movement, no matter how unorthodox it appeared, and I raised my spear. It looked to be alone, but I wouldn't bet tarrots on it being the only such creature in this sinkhole.

No matter. It was a single creature, a mammalian base with a bipedal form. The leering skull was off-putting, but at least it wasn't a giant bug, or gods forbid a swarm of some kind. It was a creature that needed killing, and I needed to kill something.

I steeled myself for a fight, and the creature roared. This was no ground-shaking cacophony, but more of a wet coughing sound, like a drunk man hacking his guts up outside a tavern. Its red eyes danced in their empty sockets, and I frowned in confusion. It almost looked like something was moving within the white hollows…

And then in a frantic spurt of movement, two wriggling segmented bodies burst from the sockets, wriggling towards the sky with their many legs clacking together and two long ribbon-like antennae on each head waving from side to side.

The creature stooped into a loping run, and the giant centipedes in its eye sockets oriented on me, snapping pincers my way with a distinctly malevolent sound.

Fuck.

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