Tree bark and dust pattered down on Kat like unwelcome rain. She grunted slamming one of her climbing pitons into the side of the tree before glaring upward at Kaleek. The big otter was clinging to the side of the trunk with an ease and agility that seemed to ignore both his size and the heavy steel armor that covered him from neck to ankle.

He clambered down toward Kat, tearing another wave of moist wood from the tree. She ducked her head to the side at the last second, but it barely helped. Bark bounced off of her neck and shoulders, but Kat’s hair was another story. Despite being tied back in a short ponytail, it was covered in detritus.

She shook her head, unable to clear the bark entirely before resuming her climb. Kat tensed her left arm, pulling her other climbing spike out before jamming it back into the tree at a lower level.

Once the spike was secure, she pulled her right foot free, disentangling the metal claw-like attachment she’d affixed for the climb before digging it into the tree again. She was moving fast compared to an ordinary human, but both Dorrik and Kaleek had the benefits of natural armor and claws. For them, the most difficult part of the descent was making sure that they didn’t outpace Kat.

Just as she was preparing to move her right piton lower, a high pitched shriek echoed through the great forest. Kat glanced up anxiously at the canopy where the eighth floor’s cities and adventurer halls resided. She couldn’t see much through the highways and causeways of branches, woven together with age and magic.

A nervous look down confirmed her fear. She was halfway to the forest floor. Traveling back up would take at least twenty minutes, and even a rushed descent would need five or ten minutes. They had fought some of the eighth floor’s denizens before while rushing to and from dungeons. Most of them weren’t too bad. Magical aphids that spit acid to defend the football field-sized leaves they called home, and ten legged lemurs that could use simple weapons were the most common.

But all of those fights had been on the forest floor or on the roads and paths worn into the trees’ weathered and interconnected branches. Kat’s agility would mean nothing while clinging to the side of a trunk.

As if to underscore her fears, another shriek echoed through the forest, stilling the sounds of the smaller herbivores as they went about their days. Distantly she heard the flap of wings as predators approached.

Her eyes darted around, looking for some place to hide. There were other trees, but all of them were more than ten paces away. Theoretically a possible jump with the help of Levitation, but at the same time, running wouldn’t gain her anything.

Although the canopy was lush, filled with cities, branches and the leaves that gave the massive forest life, their trunks were spartan. Bare wooden cylinders that did little more than hold the five hundred pace monsters up and transfer nutrients between the plants’ roots and leaves. The best Kat would be able to do is try and scurry around the side of a tree, interposing its bulk between her and the approaching monsters.

Another shriek, this time close enough to make her teeth ache, rocked Kat from her frantic search. Three shapes swooped between the trees, each of them almost five times the size of any of the climbers.

Before Kat could even make an attempt to hide, one of the creatures noticed her. It banked to the right on a pair of massive bat wings, leering at her from beyond a canine muzzle studded with razor sharp teeth.

It opened its mouth, and something inside of Kat screamed a warning. She didn’t question her instincts, kicking free of the trunk and jumping into open space even as she cast Levitate. A fraction of a second later, the monster screamed again.

Even as she soared through the air, Kat could feel the noise assault her eyes and eardrums. Then, the tree trunk exploded where she had been climbing, spraying splinters and wood chips everywhere. A trickle of blood leaked from Kat’s nose, the only real sign of the handful of hit points shaved off by the near miss, as she finished her spell.

Then she was floating. Safe from falling to her death, but an easy target for the monster as it wheeled around for another pass at her. She pulled the crossbow from her hip, frantically casting Pseudopod as the creature bared its teeth and swooped toward her.

She managed to crank back the string on her bow and slot a bolt into place before the flying predator had closed half the distance to her. Kat’s shot hit, lodging a venom smeared bolt in the tough, leathery skin of the monster’s shoulder. It barely blinked, leaving her with no idea whether the arrow had even penetrated its hide.

WIthout wasting a movement, Kat slammed the hand crossbow back in its holster and drew her combat knife. The monster opened its jaws, revealing a double row of sharp teeth, all about the length of her hand.

It dove toward her floating body, neck lunging forward on a surprisingly long and supple neck as it sought to decapitate her in one brutal snap of its teeth.

Kat blew out a final breath, tensing her muscles so that she could spring into action on a moment’s notice even if there was nothing for her to push off of. Then, her Pseudopod, its end curved into a wide loop, slipped around the monster’s neck.

The spell pulled tight. Not enough to actually choke the rampaging beast, but, given Kat’s almost negligible weight, the magic was more than enough to curve her upward, out of range of the monster’s slavering jaws.

Its head curved to follow her, eyes widening in almost comic bewilderment as Kat pulled herself past its reach only for her Pseudopod to yank downward. She landed on the thick leather of the creature’s back, digging the claws attached to her feet into its armor as she dropped to her knees.

Then her knife bit home. The first slash didn’t do much on its own, simply cutting a strip off of the monster’s armor. It shrieked in pain, a nearby tree shaking under the force of the sonic onslaught.

Her second stab drew blood as the knife easily parted the monster’s flesh. The blade didn’t sink deep enough to do real damage to the massive bat, but for the first time in the fight, it actually experienced pain.

It pulled its wings in tight, diving toward the forest floor below, but Kat ignored the provocation, slicing another chunk of armor from its back even as the animal reached speeds only attainable on a car or motorcycle.

The monster pulled up at the last second, unwilling to doom itself in order to kill Kat. He knife flashed in the twilight that existed below the canopy and more of the monster’s orange blood sprayed into the air as she hit a minor artery.

Wind whipped past her as the creature banked to the right, trying and failing to curve its neck around and snap at the figure crouched on its back. Instead, Kat’s blade just bit deeper. Her armor was soaked up to the elbows in orange blood, and with each stab she found herself cutting further into the monster’s back.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

With a flap of its mighty wings, the creature inverted, spinning into a barrel roll to try and buck Kat off. She reached into the hole in its back with her left arm, trying not to think too hard about the warm wet squelch as she thrust her hand up to the wrist in the creature’s flesh to hold on.

Between the Pseduopod around its neck, the claws affixed to her shoes and her hand clutching at the slick, bloody muscles, the creature’s struggles only made Kat a little dizzy. She didn’t even slow, working her knife under another layer of thick skin, prying the hardened brown leather off to reveal even more orange muscle.

It thrashed, bucking its back while it mewled pitifully, but once again, its actions did nothing to slow Kat. Her dagger rose and fell, carving a tunnel through its body until the edge of her knife tapped against the creature’s spine.

She burned stamina, activating Penetrate. Then Kat pushed the knife downward. Crippling Blow guided its descent. Her hand wiggled a little to the left and then back to the right as the skill found the gap between two of the monster’s vertebrae.

The spine held for a moment, the monster below Kat whining in pain as blood poured from the open wound in its back. Then, the red glow of Penetrate prevailed and the bone gave way. Her knife slid downward, cutting through some sort of tough flesh or cartilage, and the lower two thirds of the bat creature went slack.

That included its wings.

Kat dismissed Pseudopod, kicking off of the monster’s back the minute the spell released her. She sailed upward, Levitation letting her float peacefully in the half-light that managed to spill through the leaves above.

The bat monster she had been fighting crashed to the forest floor, wings and neck twisting at unnatural angles from the impact. After a second glance to confirm that the monster wasn’t moving, she returned her attention to the other two monsters.

One was flying away from the tree, its wing flaps slow and labored from some sort of significant damage inflicted by her teammates. Then a storm of purple enveloped the final monster. Dozens of Ego Shards erupting from thin air and scouring the monster.

Its muscles locked in place as the ability took hold. Kat had no way of knowing how much damage the psi ability dealt to the monster. The purple energy disappeared as soon as it touched the animal’s body without leaving a mark, but at the same time dozens of shards struck the creature. However many hit points it had, Dorrik’s psi ability was clearly doing a number on it.

Ultimately, the damage caused by the ability was secondary. The most powerful aspect of Ego Shard and the Iron Tier upgrade, Ego Storm was that it had the potential to stun opponents with weak wills, robbing them of their ability to think or move for a short period. One attack might be enough to give an ally an opening, but the constant barrage of Ego Storm paralyzed the creature while it was on a collision course with the tree that Kat’s party was climbing.

The creature struggled, wings twitching but ultimately unmoving as it tried to regain control of its body. Instead it glided into the trunk. The crash almost happened in slow motion, with the creature gliding limply into the wooden pole before its shoulder snapped like a twig from the force of the impact.

Then, it tumbled to the ground below, its one functioning wing flapping frantically while the other hung, dead and inert after the crash. All of its struggling only served to spin the creature in a shallow circle before ultimately it slammed down on an outcropping of rocks, breaking its body as surely as a ship plowing into a reef.

“Are you all right?” Dorrik called out softly, clearly not wanting to alert any other predators. Kat didn’t entirely see the point. Whatever the bat things were, they’d made enough noise to alert the entire floor as to their presence. Still, the lokkel knew more than her about the threats presented by the eighth floor.

“Just floating,” Kat replied, trying to match their volume. “Climbing was fairly strenuous so I thought I would take a quick break.”

Kaleek snorted, but Dorrik ignored him, their attention fixed on Kat’s drifting form.

“Hurry to the ground then,” they replied hurriedly. “banshee gliders are a threat, but none of us want to deal with a canopy spider if we can help it. Those take more than just quick reflexes to handle.”

Kat glanced upward. She didn’t even really know what a canopy spider looked like, but given the massive sizes of everything else on the eighth floor, she could guess.

Not spotting a car sized tarantula clinging, she cut the flow of mana to levitation. Almost immediately she recast the spell, letting herself accelerate to the forest floor for a couple of seconds before activating it a second time.

She kept her knees tucked to her chest, doing her best to cut down on wind resistance as her weight dropped to that of a baseball. Despite her best efforts, Kat began slowing almost immediately. By the time she reached the ground, Kat was barely moving any faster than Dorrik and Kaleek.

At the last second, she kicked her legs out, landing in a crouch on the forest floor. She jogged back over to the tree Dorrik and Kaleek were descending, her eyes scanning the undergrowth for predators as she moved.

There were some plants, but there wasn’t enough light filtering through the canopy for anything more than scraggly grass and a couple waist high mushrooms growing on a nearby felled tree. Really, there wasn’t much to see beyond the trees themselves and surprisingly frequent rocky outcroppings.

Kaleek dropped next to her, lifting his hands up over his head to stretch his shoulders as he walked away from the tree. He nodded at Kat, and a couple of seconds later, Dorrik landed on the ground in front of the tree as well.

“How much further until we reach the dungeon?” Kaleek asked, leaning back to work the last kinks out of his shoulder and back. “I don’t think you have any idea how annoying it is to be stuck clinging to the side of a tree while the two of you fight.”

Dorrik pulled a small map from a pocket, inspecting it for a couple of seconds before taking in the landscape around them. They reached up with a spare arm, pointing toward a distant tree.

“We shouldn’t be that far away,” they replied. “Most of the journey was through the canopy for a reason. Monsters are just as common amongst the branches as they are here on the forest floor, but the threat posed by the beasts on the ground is… significant.”

“Not to mention those bat things,” Kat said, beginning to walk in the direction indicated by the lokkel. “They don’t exactly seem fun to fight while immobile.”

“They are not,” Dorrik agreed. “Many inexperienced avatars will simply jump from the canopy, using magic to slow themselves right before they hit the ground in order to avoid the banshee gliders. That tactic is not advised. As difficult as the banshee gliders are to fight, they aren’t even the eighth floor’s elite monster. That would be canopy spiders. They will often weave massive invisible nets through areas where individuals tend to jump.”

“Unless you are willing to set yourself on fire,” they continued, “once you are in a canopy spider’s net, there is no escape, and even if you could break free, it is very unlikely that an unsupported individual can defeat one on their own.”

Kat made a face, glancing up uncertainly. She couldn’t see anything above the three of them, but based on Dorrik’s description, that wasn’t terribly surprising.

“And there aren’t any iron tier dungeons amongst the tree’s branches?” She asked, knowing the answer, but feeling like she needed to articulate the question anyway.

“There are plenty of wood dungeons amongst the great trees’ branches and leaves, but no iron,” Dorrik responded. They paused for a moment, crest fluttering slightly as they pondered something.

“That was not intentionally a pun or any sort of wordplay,” they continued. “At least on my part. I would not put it past the elders or gardeners to intentionally place only wood dungeons in the trees' wooden branches. It seems to fit with their senses of humor.”

“Oh well,” Kat said with a shrug, dismissing the battle and threats of the descent from her mind. “The things we do for unfathomable magical power.”