Time stopped.

My pulse drove a heavy rhythm, and the red strands from <Harrowing Anticipation> pulsed alongside it, accelerating. I read the cave like sheet music, every cavefiend a note, the path forward annotated as if clearly marked with a piece of paper. I tweaked the threads with <Probability Cascade>, adjusting them minutely until the pitch was perfectly in tune with the vision, pounding in my head.

I was dimly aware, somewhere in the back of my mind, that I couldn’t fully accomplish what I intended. I couldn’t grasp it. The notes themselves were an unknown quantity—I didn’t know how the cavefiends danced. Which left a question of how to fill the gaps. I could go overboard—compose alternate pieces based on how the notes reacted—but it felt like if I did, the threads would disappear before I could use them.

“See?” a voice whispered. Almost reverent. The cavefiends were still frozen in place, but I felt the same presence I felt during the Transposition. A presence that washed over me like a wave of molten iron. “All you had to do was call.”

Though I couldn’t see her, I was certain. Nychta stood beside me.

Had I called her? I couldn’t remember.

“It’s… beautiful, but I don’t… I don’t know how to fix it,” I said without words, still obsessing over the trailing threads.

“It’s not the grimelings that trouble you. While it’s true you’re missing information, that’s a trivial fix,” Nychta answered.

As she spoke, a vast quantity of information filtered into my mind. I understood the grimelings better now, was reasonably confident in how they’d react. They were constructs, the base from which many humanoid monsters formed. This batch was tainted by the only other beings present—the mandrakes—and they were useless now as anything other than guard dogs, shoved within the depths of the ripple.

More important than anything else? They were monstrously strong.

The music reordered itself in my mind clearer than before, but as Nychta had warned me, it wasn’t fully clear.

“You can’t make sense of it because you’ve taught yourself that violence is a tool. A dull implement, used only when there’s no better option,” Nychta whispered. “While the marauder within you wishes for one thing above all others.”

“What?” I asked.

“To be free.”

That felt wrong somehow. I felt a strong desire to argue, create a counterpoint. All I could manage was token paranoia.

“Is there a price for your help?”

Nychta balked. “A price? No, child. I came only to attend the offering you prepared for me. And though your attempts are rudimentary, and the sacrifices you offer only one step above mindless monsters, I see the same potential I always have. The potential that once stayed my hand. Nudging that potential in the right direction to ensure our joint satisfaction is my duty as your patron, nothing more.”

“What do I have to do?” I asked. “To see it clearly?”

“Let go,” Nychta whispered.

Time resumed.

I slumped the coil of rope off my shoulder and Audrey manifested, scampering silently across the dirt, avoiding the grimelings I mapped out for her, across from the group attacking Nick. She scaled an inverted tree, a handful of vines extending like thin, thorned fingers and smacking against the ground.

Teeth clicked loudly, shattering the quiet. Hands jutted from the dirt as grimelings emerged. But they were vulnerable exiting the ground, and Audrey capitalized, looping her vines around their necks and lifting them into the air, where they struggled and lashed out, attempting to free themselves—but their mouths stayed firmly shut.

I pulled the <Hand Crossbow of Pathos> from my inventory and fired a bolt into the center grimeling. It clamped both hands over its mouth, swinging back and forth by its neck from the impact of the bolt until it couldn’t hold its silence anymore and screamed. The scream was guttural and terrifying, the sort of sound that haunted dreams and intensified nightmares

The two grimelings hanging on either side of the target immediately seized, reacting as if the noise alone was torture, and grabbed at the center grimeling in a blind panic, trying to stop the noise. They attacked it—punching, kicking, eventually tearing, ripping skin from muscle.

Across from the makeshift gallows, several grimelings among the group surrounding Nick were cringing, pressing their hands against the sides of their head. The big grimeling had stopped trying to get Nick’s mouth open and turned around, staring back toward the chaos. It roared once, slapping one of the smaller grimelings when it stepped forward and tried to cover the larger grimeling’s mouth.

I reached inside their minds. They had no fear to play with, just irritation and anger. I amped it up, tried to direct it at their companions.

If I had more time, I probably would have turned them against each other.

Unfortunately, that was the exact moment Nick tried to make his escape. He dislodged an arm, only for two of them to push it back down. The big grimeling—having apparently cut his losses—wheeled on Nick, intent on killing him before he could slip away in the pandemonium.

I covered the distance in a dead sprint, instinctively avoiding the burrowed grimelings. Some were rising anyway—teeth clicking, faces grimacing at the noise—but others were burrowing deeper.

Talia got there first and sunk her teeth into the grimeling’s ankle, yanking violently until it toppled. Brutish and single-minded, the grimeling ignored Talia and dug its claws into the ground, crawling toward Nick.

Even with everything else going on, I was drawing attention—more attention than I wanted. There were two of them chasing me, and while I was faster, they weren’t slow. I didn’t have time to line up a shot.

I spun mid-stride and fell, trusting <Page’s Quickdraw> to guide the shot as I pulled the trigger. The arrow lodged itself in a grimeling’s shoulder, and this one didn’t get its hands over its mouth in time. It screamed, and the others turned on it immediately. I inventoried <Pathos> and drew <Wretch> mid-roll, taking aim at the big grimeling that was still wiggling through the dirt toward Nick, waiting for it to pause.

It swatted down toward Talia and she jumped away, giving me the window I needed.

I pulled the trigger. The bolt flew true mostly thanks to <Probability Cascade>, dropping vertically while maintaining momentum in a shot that probably wouldn’t have passed muster if someone caught it on video. It sunk into the base of the large grimeling’s neck, killing it instantly.

But of course, nothing is simple.

With the big one out of the way, the smaller ones were unbound by hierarchy. And they were all hungry. Nick’s dark-orange aura flared to life as he struggled, simultaneously attempting to regain his sword a few feet away and knock them off of him.

An icy hand grabbed me by the back of the neck and lifted me up. I’d drawn the attention of another grimeling.

I grabbed its arm with one hand, drawing <Vorpal Gnasher> from my inventory and driving it into the elbow joint. The blade stabbed through bone effortlessly, and the grimeling dropped me.

But it lunged forward, teeth snapping, and my leg went out from under me. I still had the knife. I could probably fend it off, but Nick was running out of time—

The tip of a sword plunged through the grimeling’s skull, and it went still. Halima stared down at me, looking uncertain. I pointed to the dead grimeling.

<Myrddin: They’re blind and hunt by sound. Strong though. Watch your step and don’t let them grab you.>

Halima’s eyes furrowed. Behind her, Keith incinerated the group of grimelings gathered beneath Audrey in a massive fireball. She banged the flat of her blade off the trunk of a tree, facing off with another grimeling that charged toward her.

<Halima: We’ve got your back. Go get him.>

I was already running.