I spun Switchblade south and cranked the throttle wide, tearing across the grasslands, heading for the mountains I’d hunted all night. Tomas’s message had said they’d gone south.

  Lucas: “Where are you exactly? Are you okay?”

  Tomas: “We’re in trouble, but we’re surviving. We can’t escape without help.”

  Lucas: “Where? What’s the monster?”

  As I raced south, Tomas filled me in. He and Jane and their teams had been assigned to make another sweep of some of smaller mountains south of the plain. They had fought a few monsters and even found a group of people who needed help getting to Stepstone.

  Tomas, Jane, and 2 teammates had continued on while the rest escorted the people back to town. That’s when they’d climbed higher and discovered a strange black stone pedestal with rune markings on it. When they drew close to inspect it, they were teleported into a huge cavern filled with a twisting maze of stone walls.

  It was the lair of some powerful monsters, most with levels in the high 30s. Worse, there was a boss monster hunting them. They’d only caught glimpses of it. Apparently it had cloaking abilities, but seemed to be much stronger.

  They were playing a cat-and-mouse game through the maze, trying to find an exit, but Tomas feared the boss monster was just toying with them. Jane’s telekinesis had helped save them from the shadowy monster’s first attack.

  I pushed Switchblade until the thrusters screamed. The sound resonated with the new fear racing through my veins like ice as I chatted with Tomas, drawing as much information from him as possible. I’d hunted all over the southern mountains and had probably passed that peak on a higher mountain. If I’d taken a lower track, I might have found the pedestal first.

  I needed to find them and help them escape, but I was just as excited to fight the monsters. They might have high enough levels to give me the experience I needed.

  Tomas’s messages abruptly cut off and my fear spiked as I tore through the lower hills, dodging trees, boulders, and the occasional monster. Without Switchblade, it would have taken me at least a couple hours to reach the pedestal. With it, I planned to reach it in 20 minutes.

  Tomas finally answered after I’d sent 15 increasingly urgent messages asking what was going on.

  Tomas: “We’re on the run again. It almost caught us. Lana is injured and we’re getting low on potions. Jane thinks it’s trying to herd us to one side of the maze to trap us. Hurry, Lucas. It might be getting tired of the game. If it hits us with all its minions, they’ll overwhelm us.”

  Lucas: “Nearly there. Hang on.”

  Wind tore at my face and Switchblade’s thrusters screamed so loud, I feared something might break as I kept the bike pegged at full throttle up increasingly steep slopes. I fought to keep my muscles relaxed as I focused every shred of my enhanced perception and intelligence on maximizing my speed and threading my bike through the winding landscape as fast and efficiently as possible.

  I recognized the landmarks Tomas had mentioned and could see the ridge of stone that looked like a half-peeled banana that he said overlooked the hidden valley with the pedestal. I’d passed on the north side of that same peak just hours ago. If only I’d known.

  Minutes later, I skidded to a halt in the valley, heat pouring off Switchblade in waves that would have charred my flesh back on Earth. I barely noticed. The picturesque location would have been a tourist hotspot back on Earth. Ringed with craggy mountains and complete with a lovely teardrop-shaped pool of water beneath a 100-foot waterfall, it seemed idyllic.

  The 15-foot obsidian pedestal definitely caught the eye. It glinted in the morning sunlight, polished smooth, and covered in runes that glowed faintly silver. They were pictographs, more like Chinese than any writing I recognized on Earth. Even from a distance, the faint hum of magic was clear.

  I banished Switchblade, drew Soulrend and my metal-wrapped fighting stick, and ran to the pedestal. Tomas hadn’t said they needed to do anything specific to activate it. Hopefully it would work for me too.

  I slowed, peering at the runes, but before I could memorize any of them, the world lurched. An invisible hand grabbed me by the head and yanked me off my feet. That was different than other teleports I’d felt. Weird, but not painful.

  The world came back into focus and I found myself standing on a stone floor in a dim cavern. The roof of the vast cavern loomed high overhead, several hundred yards at least. I stood in an open-topped stone room with walls made out of rough stone that reared nearly 30 feet into the air. Wide openings gaped in 3 of the walls, leading into stone passages of more rough stone.

  Each of the passages looked similar, just empty paths of stone about 15 feet wide, with walls that ranged between 30 and 40 feet tall. The air was cool and dry, with a faint scent of musk and rot. Distant moans echoed through the cavern, like people in terrible agony crying out their last gasping breaths.

  That sound made me shiver. Tomas had mentioned the boss’s minions made it. They were floating, tentacled monstrosities that Tomas had not gotten a good look at. They’d been too busy running.

  Nothing jumped out to kill me, which was kind of disappointing. If I had more time, I’d love to explore the entire area. I loved mazes.

  ‘Focus, Lucas. Short on time. Tomas in danger.’

  Lucas: “I’m in. What part of the cavern are you in?”

  Tomas: “Southwest corner.”

  Lucas: “On my way. Can you send up any signal?”

  A pause, then Tomas: “We’ll come up with something. Hurry. They’re definitely closing in.”

  I didn’t have time to navigate the maze. My mini map showed less of the area around me than usual. It was as if the game didn’t want to make it easy for me to solve the puzzle by showing me too many of the upcoming twists and turns.

  So I ran at the nearest wall and jumped, soaring nearly 15 feet into the air. Pulling a polearm weapon with an ax blade and spike on the head, I slammed the spike into the wall with all my strength. It drove in only a couple inches, but that was enough.

  With my advanced agility and strength, I swarmed up the polearm and jumped up off the top, easily reaching the top of the wall. There, the expanse of the maze spread out around me, an eye-twisting pattern of passages, turns, and dead ends.

  I ran southwest. When possible, I followed the tops of the walls, which were nearly a foot wide, easy purchase for me. At times, when passages cut across my path, I vaulted over to the opposite wall. I found a double somersault did the trick handily if I got up enough speed.

  I kept an eye out for monsters and watched my mini map for telltale red dots, but spotted nothing. The sounds of moaning grew louder as I ran. It looked like Tomas was right. They’d drawn all the monsters after them.

  A deeper roar echoed through the cavern and my pulse quickened. Now that sounded like a boss monster worth fighting. Almost instantly, Tomas messaged me again.

  Tomas: “We’re on the run again. The boss is right on our heels. It’s fast! Still can’t see it clearly. Smaller monsters are closing in from all sides.”

  In the distance, near the far edge of the cavern, flashes of fire and distant rumblings of detonations punctuated the escalating fight.

  Lucas: “Nearly there. Hold on!”

  I increased my pace to a full sprint and flew across the distance. My legs blurred as I tore over the top of the maze, heedless of danger. At that pace, even I would get winded soon, but I did not relent. More flashes of light, bursts of fire, and thunderous explosions marked the path of the running battle.

  The moaning of the minions reached a fever pitch. It sounded like there were a bunch of them, and the sounds were all coming from the same area. Tomas’s team were trapped.

  Every second seemed to stretch like an hour, but I finally reached them. Tomas, Jane, and 2 other bloody people were backed into a crevice cut into the outer wall of the cavern on its southwest side, facing a large open space where 10 different passages terminated.

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  Flames formed a wall between them and their attackers. Over 20 huge blobs of slime, oozing with puss-like gel, floated in a half circle not far from that wall of flame.

  Each blob glowed with different colors, and dozens of long tentacle arms protruded from their bodies. The arms had to stretch at least 25 feet. They were thick and leathery and as I vaulted off the roof into the open chamber, I realized they were all covered in fleshy mouths crammed with rows of sharp, black teeth.

  I focused on the nearest one long enough for Identify to trigger. “Maze Guardian, level 35. Rare. This unique creature is the remnant of the soul of a chattering gorilla, consumed and reconstituted by the Maze Fiend. Its body is little more than a poison sack housing ravenous tentacles of endless hunger. Once it latches on with all 14 tentacles, it can devour an average human in 4 seconds. Not that it will, though. The Maze Guardian only softens up its prey, feeding on its pain and spirit before delivering it to the Maze Fiend”

  The description made me pause in my tracks. Despite the imminent danger to Tomas, Jane, and their 2 teammates, I blinked and read it again. What the hell? Those things were beyond disgusting.

  Every one of the Maze Guardians I checked had similar descriptions. Their levels ranged from 34 to 39, and they each had originally been different species, all rendered down by the Fiend into monstrous horrors.

  Another ground-shaking roar drew my gaze to a shape pacing just outside of the wall of flames. The air around it shimmered and warped, making it hard to see the monster. Flashes of color and brief images rolled across it.

  In one second, it looked like a pacing lion. In the next, a huge bear. Then something that reminded me of a wooden nutcracker like the ones my mom collected at Christmas time. The thing had powerful illusion magic, but Identify finally kicked in.

  “Shadow Maze Fiend. Level 48 secret dungeon boss. This terrifying monster is as cunning as it is fearsome. It has plans of conquest and only needs to build an army before unleashing destruction across the world. Maze Fiends conscript any living entity they can sink their claws into by consuming their spirit until it cracks, digesting their body until its soft enough to mold into a new form, and breaking their mind through torture and agony. The Maze Fiend won’t kill you, but you’ll wish it would.”

  “Oh, hell no,” I muttered, licking suddenly dry lips. What had Tomas gotten himself into?

  No way I’d let that thing turn my brother into a hunger death blob, but it was level 48. This was no simple monster to slaughter like most of the creatures I’d been hunting all night. This was a secret boss.

  Images of Bristleback, the boar-taur flashed back through my mind. That horrible lightning arrow burning me from the inside, pinning me to the ground while Bristleback charged in, naginata rising to deliver a one-shot kill.

  The Maze Fiend was only 2 levels below Bristleback, by far the strongest monster I’d faced beside the boar-taur. I suddenly wished I had a lot more spells and more time to plan my assault.

  If wishes were donuts, I’d probably weigh 500 pounds. I had no time. The flaming wall was beginning to dim and it was clear Tomas and his team were nearly out of tricks.

  Tomas and Jane looked tired and battered, but not visibly injured. Lana was a member of Tomas’s team I’d met only once. She had the dark hair and permanent tan of one with latin American descent, and she leaned against the wall, one arm hanging bloody and useless.

  The last guy was Scott, from Jane’s team. He stood defiantly facing the monster, but his face looked sunburned, and he held one hand over an eye. He was on team X-Men with Jane and had an optic fire blast reminiscent of Cyclops, but it appeared he’d over-used it.

  The good news was that no one had noticed me arrive yet. Time to say hello and see if I could turn the tide before that boss slaughtered us all.

  Casting aside my cold fear, I summoned Switchblade, jumped on, and hit the throttle. If I was going to die today, I’d prefer dying to save my brother and Jane. My fear faded to iron resolve and I cast aside all else but my target. It was me or the Maze Fiend, and by god, I’d kill it or at least take it with me.

  As I accelerated across the large area, I targeted the Maze Fiend and triggered Shattercore Ballista. The glowing spear of light erupted from the front of the bike and leaped across the space. The monster somehow sensed it because it turned just in time to catch the ballista in the chest. The spear punched deep with an explosion of blue fire, knocking the fiend stumbling back into the wall of fire.

  That fire might have been fading, but it wasn’t out. The flames surged around the monster with sudden new life. Apparently it was very flammable. No wonder it had hesitated and not simply rushed through the flames earlier.

  The Maze Fiend shrieked in pain, a high-pitched sound that made my head ache. The flickering illusions hiding it from view winked out, giving me my first good look at it.

  “Great, it’s the Aliens hive queen.”

  That was the best way to describe the black horror that appeared standing in the flames. Huge, powerful limbs, long claws dripping with obvious poison, and a bony skull. I hadn’t thought the match-up could get worse.

  “I knew you’d appreciate it! I loved that movie,” Cyrus exulted.

  “I loved watching it. That doesn’t mean I want to live it!”

  Tomas, Jane, and Scott shook off their shock fast and launched a barrage of attacks against the Maze Fiend. I couldn’t see many details because all of the Maze Guardians spun toward me and floated in my direction, long tentacles reaching, nasty tentacle teeth gnashing the air in anticipation.

  I hit the brakes and spun my bike into a slide, plowing through the crowd of floating monsters just as I triggered Shield Dome and Corrosive Cloud.

  “Corrosive Cloud. Spell. Deliver a cloud of gas from the rear of the bike for 5 seconds. Area of effect spell that corrodes metal and flesh on contact. Cloud remains active for 2 minutes.”

  The protective barrier knocked the tentacles aside and bumped floating horrors out of the way as I slid through the middle of the pack. At the same time, billowing clouds of dark gas streamed from the back of Switchblade, spreading to engulf the floating monsters and their thrashing tentacles.

  I accelerated, banking hard over, throwing the hover bike into a tight turn and circling the crowd of monsters, who had bunched up to make my job easier.

  Inside the cloud of gas, the monsters’ moans of hunger turned to guttural howls of pain as their soft bodies melted under the intense corrosive effects of my cloud.

  I had feared their poison, puss-filled sack bodies might be immune to the cloud, but it looked like just the opposite. They lost altitude, splatting onto the stone floor, tentacles writhing and slapping with disgusting, wet splotches against the stones as they tried vainly to pull themselves out of the cloud.

  The horrors died in seconds. That worked so much better than I’d feared. I waved away the notifications and spun back around to face the Maze Fiend.

  Its bleeding had slowed to a trickle and it had lunged out of the wall of fire and attacked Tomas and his team. They were all down on the ground, fresh wounds bleeding on exposed flesh.

  The Maze Fiend towered over them, long, serrated tail whipping back and forth as it lifted Scott into the air, its long claws punched through his torso. His body was tense with agony, his head thrown back in a silent scream.

  I punched the throttle and tore across the space, aiming for the monster’s back. My ballista hadn’t recharged yet, but the sight of the beast killing another person enraged me.

  The monster tossed Scott aside and spun to face me, enormous toothed maw opening wide as it roared, bloody, clawed hands opening to reach for me.

  I might be mad, but I wasn’t suicidal, and when the monster oriented on me, I got an idea. It clearly recognized me as the greatest threat. I could work with that.

  I banked over hard, cutting to the left. The monster leaped to intercept, and it moved with alarming agility. I might not have another ballista yet, but I wasn’t out of tricks.

  The harpoon worked best when close to the target, so I pulled one of the silver-tipped spears I’d taken from the herd of cows and hurled it at the monster while it was still in mid-air.

  It batted the spear aside and lashed out with its claws. I dropped Switchblade to the stone floor so hard metal screamed and sparks erupted from the undercarriage. The monster’s mighty hands smashed down across Shield Dome just as I passed. The blows shook the dome and its energy reserves plummeted, but it held.

  As I lifted back into the air and accelerated away, the fiend spun, ripping its serrated tail across the back of Shield Dome and cracking it. The dome winked out, its energy spent, but it had saved me long enough to shoot away.

  The Maze Fiend gave chase, roaring with rage, not seemingly slowed by the ballista I’d hit it with earlier. Either it was just that tough, lost in battle fury, or had some boss regeneration powers, I had no idea. I wouldn’t underestimate it.

  I sped across the open space, past the melting corpses of the maze guardians, and remembered to trigger Soul Feed. As energy poured into me, topping me off, I risked pulling open the menu and adjusting the amount of captured energy used to fuel Energy Ward. My health was already full and my bracelet already had enough stored energy to replenish my pools from empty at least 2 times over. So I directed all the new energy rolling in from the guardians to fuel Energy Ward.

  My defensive aura sprang to life around me. Even though no one else could see it, to me it looked denser than ever. The maze fiend gave chase, accelerating to probably 50 miles per hour. The sight of that nightmare creature hurtling over the stone floor after me would probably wake me up in cold sweats at night. Assuming I survived today.

  I could go faster, but forced down the urge to hit the throttle hard. I didn’t need to lose it. I just needed to draw it away from the others. When I’d crossed two-thirds of the open space, I spun Switchblade a full 180, letting the bike slide backward as I faced the chasing horror.

  I met its raging black eyes and cast Frostfire Nova.

  “Frostfire Nova. Spell. Elemental. Unleash a wave of freezing flames that immobilize while burning anything caught in its path.”

  I hated to use up two of my precious temporary spells in one fight, but I’d learned the hard way not to underestimate secret bosses. I didn’t have time for a prolonged fight, especially with Tomas, Jane, and their wounded companions so close.

  A torrent of blistering fire blasted toward the Maze Fiend. It tried to dodge, but the blast hit it mid-leap. The wave of billowing flames engulfed the monster and it fell, skidding across the stones. It started to roar in agony, but the sound cut off mid-cry.

  It slid to a stop, unmoving in the flames as the spell’s secondary effect kicked in, holding it immobile while searing it with deadly fire. I’d worried it might be strong enough to burst the spell’s restraints, but they held.

  The fiend had lit up like a torch inside the dimming wall of flames. In the middle of Frostfire Nova, the monster erupted like it had been soaked in gasoline.

  Maybe it was its poison, or its blood, or maybe it liked to lather its bony hide in petroleum jelly. Whatever the reason, the monster blazed hotter and hotter, the flames reaching high above the nearby stone walls. The air turned blistering and a nasty, volcanic reeking scent boiled off the incinerating monster.

  The spell only lasted a few seconds, but the flames only seemed to grow hotter even as the monster started writhing and howling within the inferno. It tried to flee, but its legs buckled, snapping and spraying what looked like powdered graphite that burned with the white intensity of magnesium.

  In seconds, the entire monster disintegrated into a steadily shrinking pile of rancid ash.

  “Congratulations, Lucas! You have defeated the Shadow Maze Fiend, level 48. Bonus experience for defeating a higher-leveled enemy.”

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