Ewan O’Meara checked the map again, automatically bending a branch away from his face as he went. In reply, an owl’s hoot drifted from above, filtered through the budding canopy and a sky that had already taken on the slight darkening tinge that warned of impending dusk.

He wouldn’t go home empty-handed, but he hadn’t planned on them being out quite this late.

As though answering his thought, a smug voice behind him called, “You don’t have a frapping clue where you’re going, do you?”

He winced. “Kate, language!”

“Mom’s not around. Besides, you’re the one who ought to worry about her right now, keeping your little sister out after dark looking for some Gems-forsaken cave.”

Ewan gritted his teeth and rounded on her as she crunched the twigs underfoot with her usual finesse. “This whole trip was your idea.”

“Getting lost wasn’t.”

Kate’s face was the picture of innocence, with hazel eyes twinkling through freckles and frizzy red hair, but her solid build and the pair of wicked hand axes dangling from the sides of her oversized backpack shattered the illusion.

That, and the smirk.

He opened his mouth, then broke into a grin of his own at the sight of a broad, sloping hole at the far side of a small glade, not twenty yards over her shoulder. “What about walking right past it, then?”

Her face colored to match her hair as she turned. “I’ll be nerfed. Good job, E.”

His grin broadened as they backtracked to the cave’s mouth. “My name’s more than a letter.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t like saying you-win.”

“You didn’t mind when you were little.” Ewan scrubbed his fingers through his curls. “Besides, I’ll take all the wins I can.”

She huffed and drew out her crooked dowsing rod. “That, I believe. You ready?”

Ewan reached back to loosen his swords in their scabbards, pretending his green eyes were gleaming like a cat’s as he peered into the hole. “Always.”

Kate lit her lantern and hooked it onto the pack, then followed him through the mouth into a comfortable tunnel, ten feet around. The air inside felt damp and cool the way only a cave’s air could, and as they left the fading daylight behind, a sprinkling of phosphorescent mosses retained a lingering glow from the lantern’s halo as they passed by.

For a while their footsteps were the only sounds, whispering in the corridors. Ewan closed his eyes, using the faint echoes to guess at myriad side passages as they went. He liked the darkness of caves. Granted, it was a bit creepy, and he was a lot more likely to get jumped down here than he was on the surface, but that was a good thing. Cave-diving was challenging, and he needed to be where the challenge was.

How else am I ever going to be the best? he thought in frustration as they rounded a bend. There’s got to be something worth hunting in here!

Suddenly he froze, sensing they weren’t alone anymore. He strained his ears, raising his hand to stop Kate before her clomping got them in trouble like last week. As the silence deepened, faint breathing became audible in a passage ahead, to the left.

Ewan drew his swords, their steel gently scraping against the leather as they slid out, then crept toward the sound.

The breathing stilled.

Now that’s more like it. Grinning, Ewan retrieved a pebble and tossed it against the opening.

A monstrous form sprang into being, landing gracefully in front of him on four padded paws. It squinted in the lantern’s light, its lupine face ringed with vicious spikes as it bared its teeth.

That squint was all Ewan needed. Whirling his blades, he rushed the beast. It swiped at him, but he sliced the clawed foot off cleanly, turning in and driving his other blade up between the spikes into its throat. He pressed in close, too close for the thing to land a decent hit, and after a moment’s deadly embrace it slid to the ground.

“Nice!” Kate clapped his back as she moved to take a closer look. “But what’s a graptor doing underground?”

Ewan winced in sympathy for the beast’s corpse as she wrenched a spike free. “They like to overwinter in woodland caves. Dad and I cleared out a nest last year, that time he had the cartographers north of the Helm. I stumbled right in the middle of them,” he admitted, smiling at the memory, “but he hauled me out before it got too rough.”

Kate scowled. “Rub it in more, why don’t you?”

He shrugged. “It’s not my fault Mom thinks you’re too young to tag along.”

“She thinks that because you always come back wrecked!” Kate snapped off another spike and jammed it in her pack. “I’d be a lot more careful. We all know it.”

Ewan chose to ignore the jab. “She probably just wants to have more time with you.”

“Whatever.”

After she’d dismembered the carcass to her satisfaction they moved on, settling into their usual rhythm. Kate witched for whatever ore she was after this time, holding her stick out in front of her as Ewan updated his map to help them find their way back out later. When they encountered the occasional aggressive creature, she gave him the bulk of the kills, stepping in only now and then to help dispatch a few for good measure. Between skirmishes, she checked over their gear and patched up what minor injuries they took with the first aid kit in her pack, while Ewan kept an eye out for his next target.

The arrangement worked well for them. It always had, ever since Kate declared her professional intent three years ago. She got her materials, and he got some exercise and combat practice. Not nearly enough, these days, but some was better than nothing. Plus, framing these excursions as him helping Kate made them an easier sell to their mom.

Finally, toward the end of an especially long corridor, Kate pointed at what seemed more like a hole to Ewan’s eyes than any kind of material. She put her rod away and jogged over to it, doffing her pack and jacket to free up her shoulders.

“Sweet!” she said, hauling a pickaxe from the pack. “There must be half a ton, at least.”

And then she tuned him out, totally focused on whacking away huge flakes of the stuff, eyes sparkling and sweat dampening her sleeveless shirt.

Ewan shook his head and smiled, taking a breather while his sister did her thing. With all the smithing she did and the way it built her up, Kate had started getting her fair share of attention from the local boys in the past year. But she never seemed to notice, much less care, instead sending the hopeful little goobers packing with their flowers and telling them to come back with big chunks of rock and metal. She was bound and determined to become the greatest crafter in all Veridor, and at the rate she was going, she was on track to make it.

“You’re about due for an upgrade,” she commented after a while, her voice muffled by the pickaxe’s steady ring. “Using those overgrown knives of yours for the better part of a year now. How about I make you something new?”

He inspected his blades, recalling the story behind each nick in their edges. “We’ll see when we get home. You don’t make swords often, and I need quality. And no, for the thousandth time, I’m not switching to axes,” he added with a grin when she whirled around. “You want to be a great smith, you should be more flexible.”

She glowered at him. “You and your swords. What is it with boys and swords, anyway?”

“They’re the weapon of choice. The Church’s soldiers aren’t called Axes. Besides, all the legendary adventurers of old—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know!” she grumbled, before smirking. “Your man crush used two swords, so you’ve got to.”

Ewan choked. “Man cr—Old Max was an inspiration for plenty of us!”

Kate drew herself up and cleared her throat in a perfect imitation of their pastor. “Maximilian the Great represents the pinnacle of the Veridian Hero, as befits the last great adventurer of history. It’s a pity you insist on emulating the less reputable parts of his career, young O’Meara.”

“Oh, shut up.”

She laughed and went back to work.

After another good hour of making him wait—and miss out on bonus hunting—she stood and stretched, cracking her knuckles. And elbows. “All right. That’s enough for now, but there’s plenty more here.”

Ewan dutifully marked the vein’s location on his map, then sketched in the shortest route from the entrance. “There. You ready?”

Kate crammed the rest of her stuff in the poor pack, before hauling it up like it was full of feathers. “Yup. Lead on, Hero,” she teased, punching him on the shoulder.

Ewan smarted as he led her back out, and from more than the punch. If she can go for greatest crafter ever, why can’t I do the same with adventuring? It’s not like there’s any competition out there. All I need is a big break, something to help me off this frapping plateau!

Then he saw it. Right in the center of the passage, as if the Logos had simply been waiting for him to demand a bigger challenge.

He whistled softly and knelt, pressing his hand into a paw print almost as wide as he was. “Look at that.”

Kate groaned. “Are you for real? We’re already late, we’ve got a good hour back to home, and you want to go attack a—whatever that is?”

He glared back at her. “What? You already got your loot. I need to take on the big game if I’m ever going to get to the top.”

“Not in the middle of the frapping night!” She tried to roll her eyes, but they didn’t quite pull away from the massive print. “Just leave it, E. We can come back tomorrow.”

“It might not be here tomorrow; it’s here now. I want to at least try it.”

“Do you even know what made that crater?”

He stood and grinned. “Nope. That’s half the fun.”

She facepalmed. “You’re going to get yourself killed! We’re tired, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a lot left in me for fighting.” She narrowed her eyes, gauging him. “Screw that. I do know about you, and you don’t have a lot left, either.”

“But think of the materials!” He tapped his foot in the print’s toe. “It’s got to have some serious claws or something.”

Kate stood there with crossed arms, rooted and unmovable and looking ready to try and haul him off on top of all that ore. “I’m so telling Mom.”

“Once she’s done scrubbing your mouth.” She didn’t budge, though, so he swallowed his pride and pulled out the big eyes, willing to lose a little face for a big kill. “Look, if it goes south, we’ll bail. Okay? Please?”

Her stony frown cracked, and she barked a laugh before glancing down the tunnel to where the print pointed. “Some mature example you are. Fine, but it’s your funeral.”

“Thanks.” Ewan chuckled as he peered into the darkness, trying to guess how far away the creature was, and whether it could already hear them. “You’d better nix the lamp. We might need the jump.”

“Might?” she said incredulously.

He tapped his nose, then drew his swords again and slipped into the tunnel.

It led downward, deeper than they’d gone so far. Kate kept grumbling as they went, but Ewan paid her no mind. He walked softly and swiftly, putting enough distance between them that he could listen for early signs of his quarry—and hope it would focus on her stomping instead of his own approach.

The passage opened abruptly into a wide, circular chamber, about fifty feet across and at least as high. Soft moonbeams trickled through cracks in the ceiling past roots dangling from above, warning him how late it really was.

He paused, then slipped in.

The beast was on him in a flash. Out of nowhere, a monstrous, hand-like paw sent him flying across the room, slapping his head against the wall and blurring his vision. Ewan ignored the blindness and pain, listening instead as the thundering footfalls drew close. He ducked away from the next strike, getting only sprinkles of shattered rock in his hair as he rolled to the side.

His vision cleared a few seconds later, and his nerve failed him as he finally got a good look at the thing.

A behemoth…oh, frap!

Even on all fours, the beast looked ten feet tall at the shoulder, its fiery breath glinting evilly off its long, curved horns as it wrenched them from the wall and moved to block the exit.

Then its head turned down the corridor, sniffing.

“Kate, don’t come in here!” he shouted. He was in for it now, he knew that, but he couldn’t let her die after all their work to get that ore!

Shouting like the lunatic he apparently was, he charged the behemoth. It glanced back and for a fleeting second looked surprised, but then it bellowed and belched fire at him.

His leather armor ignited, forcing him to the floor in another desperate roll to put it out, a roll he only just finished before the enormous paw slammed down where his head had been.

He sprang up between the beast’s shoulders, slashing and driving his blades into its underside up to the hilts, but all he accomplished was enraging it further. The behemoth spun, taking his swords with it as it launched him again across the room and into the wall.

He thought he heard Kate calling, but between his ringing head and the blood pounding through his ears he couldn’t make it out. “Go!” he shouted again. “Don’t let it get you too!”

He had no way to know if she’d heard, much less obeyed over the roars and stomping as the beast charged him. He crouched back against his wall, then put everything he had into a blind leap at the last moment. The behemoth aimed low, bashing into the rock again to deal itself a lot more damage than he’d inflicted so far. He landed awkwardly on its shoulders, blinking his vision clear as he looked down at the broad neck, as wide across as his arm was long. He laughed giddily, wished for a fleeting moment he’d been carrying an axe after all, and swung under the creature’s chest to lunge for his swords.

By some miracle, he caught them.

He held on for dear life, alternately pulling them out and driving them in deeper, again and again, as the monster reared up and beat at him with its paws, smashing his body into its own. Pushing through the pain, he gave one last desperate stab, heard the wonderfully satisfying shriek of the monster’s death cry, and whooped in triumph as the beast fell onto him with crushing force.

As the world around him faded out, a pair of sentences flashed up, blood red, in his mind’s eye.

You have died. Time to respawn: 1:00.