Stormblade [Skill Merge Portal Break] (B1 Complete)

Eighteen years ago, Eleanor Traynor had been a toddler, and the Traynor Corporation had been a newborn idea in Robert Traynor's head.

He'd invested his life savings into both of his girls, into making sure his daughter had exactly the education she'd need to keep his company alive, and into making sure the company would be worth inheriting when the time came.

It had started with construction and demolition. After the Portal Blitz, Phoenix was in ruins. The rubble of the city needed to be taken away and put into massive storage piles for the 303 Wall, and new buildings needed to be built. Those were opportunities for Traynor Concrete and Traynor Electrical, and those two companies provided the seed money for the Traynor Corporation to start finding competition and consuming it. Within five years, Traynor was the name in construction.

Then it was on to agriculture. With the Wickenberg break, Bob saw an opportunity. Now, his machines harvested eighty percent of the city's food, and his trucks hauled over ninety-five. From there, it was computing, cybersecurity, energy, and entertainment. Every aspect of life in Phoenix—of life anywhere in the post-Portal Blitz world—either ran on Traynor or would run on Traynor soon.

He was proud of his baby. She'd grown into a strong, self-sufficient girl who didn't need him to help her. She moved on her own, as she saw fit, and occasionally, when she needed advice, he'd give it to her.

And then there was Eleanor.

Bob Traynor pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes, letting the pressure relieve his tension headache for a second or two before it roared back with a vengeance. He stared at the blank wall of his office, a half-finished and forgotten drink in his hand.

Eleanor had been so promising. She'd succeeded at everything he'd asked of her. At ten years old, she'd been the perfect CEO-in-waiting, ready to help her little sister keep growing into the jewel of Phoenix that Bob knew she could be.

Six years later, she'd taken her first car to Tucson.

And from there, everything had fallen apart.

Bob had no idea what to do about her. She was too strong. Too self-sufficient. She didn't need or want him to help her achieve her full potential. Just like her little sister, she moved on her own, as she saw fit. But unlike the Traynor Corporation, she never needed advice. Never needed a strong, steering hand at the rudder. Or at least, she thought she didn't.

She was wrong. But she was also too headstrong to see the opportunity of a lifetime Bob was handing her.

He rubbed his eyes again, picked up his building phone, and dialed a number. "Get the team in here. All six of them. Yes, even her. Five minutes." Then he hung up.

It was time to save his daughters—both of them. Even if he had to save one of them from herself.

Five hundred thousand dollars.

A tenth of the B-Rank portal's value. Each.

A million dollars, ready for us to spend it on the guild building, for one night's work. That felt good. Even Ellen was shocked at the value until the next day, when we drove out to Arrowhead and watched the guild teams mine the portal. The infrastructure they'd built around the red, B-Ranked Rime world's portal was impressive: steel-framed cranes, a pop-up railway that led to the portal's entrance, and helicopters to move the most valuable material away quickly. The Portal Tyrants didn't screw around.

"We need to get a hold of one of those," Ellen said under her breath.

"A helicopter?" I asked.

"No, Kade. A B-Rank portal. We need to go in with the whole team and clear it slowly, with an eye toward value. If we can find just two of them…"

"I hear you, babe," I said. Ellen stared at me for a second, then smiled, and I kept talking. "That'd pay for the Tyrants' building and get us established. But B-Rank portals are pretty rare. In Phoenix, they're a once or twice a week thing. We can't rely on them."

"I know, but we can put Jessie on it, right? Maybe she can secure one for us. Even one would be huge."

Ellen's eyes shot down toward the ground, and I put an arm around her shoulder, but didn't say anything.

She still had Deimos—for now—but she'd slept at my place last night—in my bed. I'd taken the floor. I didn't mind at all, but it was getting crowded in my apartment between Jessie, me, and now both Ellen and Jeff staying over. My sister didn't want to deal with it anymore.

Neither did Ellen. This morning, she seemed anxious and frustrated—and hyperfocused on the money that had entered her account and just as quickly disappeared into the guild coffers.

I understood. She'd never had to stress about money before, and now, all of a sudden, she had to. "I'll talk to her, see what she can do," I promised.

It only took Jessie four days. She was a miracle-worker.

The portal was a glowing red thing that had appeared in the middle of the freeway, literally eating a car before traffic could react. It didn't break, and it didn't trigger like a trap portal.

And, in a twist of fate, it was both right on the border between the Roadrunners' territory and the Coyotes' and in a no-man's-land that neither had direct claim to—and it was less than twenty minutes from my place.

Thirty after spending ten convincing Jeff to get his butt moving and gear up.

By the time the four of us got there, with Sophia, Yasmin, and Raul less than five minutes away, the Governing Council had put up barriers to direct traffic around the thirty-foot-tall portal, and it was crawling with men in suits. Jessie hopped out of Deimos's passenger seat as soon as I cleared a path for her, hobbled over to the rep in charge, and started talking in whispers that quickly became heated.

I waited. So did Ellen and Jeff. He looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with his couch bed. But he was geared up and ready to go. That was an improvement over the last several weeks. "Good to see you ready to go," I said.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"We'll see how long that lasts," he said as we waited.

Then Jessie hurried back to us. "That's Representative Unger. He says there aren't any other full teams here, so if the rest of the squad's here in the next five minutes, the portal's yours. He's not leaving, though. A B-Rank portal in the middle of Phoenix isn't something you tackle with one squad and no backup. He'll take the second team that's ready and put them on standby, then send them in after six hours."

I stared at the hook-nosed man. His eyes were sharp, and they didn't waver from me. If his system had awakened, he'd be terrifying. As it was, he was still plenty intimidating; he was, by far, the most no-nonsense person I'd met in a while. He nodded, and I nodded back.

Ten minutes later, the team—the whole team, with tank, healer, fighter, support, mage, and my striker/fighter/mage hybrid build—stepped through the portal.

"Confirmed, it's not a trap," Yasmin said from the formation's rear.

I nodded as I stared at the red portal. It still being here was a relief. This wouldn't be all on us; we could back out of the number of C-Rankers we had was too heavy for Ellen to carry.

For her part, Ellen was already rattling off information. "We're looking at an Infernal world. Demons, rivers of fire—not lava, but fire—and, and I quote from the book, 'unnatural hazards.' Maybe bottomless pits, too. Move slow, make sure our footing is good, and keep our defensive buffs up."

"Like I ever let them fall off," Yasmin said as we applied our Scripts and Bindings. I summoned Cheddar, and he flapped into the air on his cloud prosthetic wing to join Pepperoni. Then I finally took stock of our situation.

I'd fought Infernal world enemies before. They'd broken their portal at my sister's field trip this spring, and I'd had to face off against a Gemini Demon and its twin. Those fights had been brutal, rage-filled affairs. This would be different. There was less at stake—and more to gain.

We stood on a peninsula of rock that jutted out into an abyss of blackness, but deep below, an almost invisible red glow broke through. It wasn't the glow of molten rock. No. It was more malicious. The only way forward was through a narrow cave opposite the portal; the gray walls pulsed with the same hateful red energy. It was almost like the portal world was alive.

And it stank like sulfur and burnt flesh.

I took point, sword and armor at the ready. B-Rank monsters wouldn't be a problem for Ellen, and the rest of us would be relying on her to knock our enemies down to a manageable state. The strategy was simple. Raul and I were independent. Our job was to kill anything we could as quickly as we could. Ellen and Jeff were a team. They'd handle the biggest groups of enemies so Raul and I could do our thing.

And Yasmin and Sophia were there to keep the whole thing running as long and as fast as possible.

The tunnel twisted counterclockwise, looping deeper into the stone with every pass. Three loops down, though, both sides of the passage fell away, exposing us to a drop into the abyss on both sides.

And on the far side of the bridge 'stood' a monster.

Hellpit: B-Rank

The Hellpit was hardly a monster at all. Instead, it looked like a towering spire of rock, with three legs that jutted out at uneven intervals around its body. Dozens of circular craters stuck out at every angle, glowing a similar reddish color to the pulsing stone walls and abyss below.

I stared at it for a moment. Then I nodded. "Let's go," I said.

And I threw a Lightning Chain across the bridge. It hit the massive rock dead-center, and as I pulled on the chain, I flew through the air and landed halfway up the Hellpit.

My sword sank into the surprisingly squishy flesh down to the hilt. Lightning ripped into the monster. And it screamed in pain—and in rage.

Then the craters started glowing so bright the red was almost white, and things began wriggling inside.

Before I could react, the craters erupted. They popped like a dozen disgusting pimples, and a monster erupted from each of them, along with acidic blood that hissed and crackled on the narrow bridge below.

Hellbat: E-Rank

The first wave of massive bats ripped through the air, wings beating and metal blades scraping across the stone bridge as they surged straight for Sophia, ignoring Jeff completely. Their gray-red wings seemed dull compared to the bright, scarlet cores pulsing in time with the Infernal world's heartbeat.

Then Ellen's Shadow Shapes finished casting, and the double-handful of Hellbats evaporated as tendrils of darkness erupted from an octopus-like body and dragged the screaming, raging monsters into its maw.

I relaxed for a moment and focused on the Hellpit. It had deflated with the birth of the Hellbats. My sword was still jammed into its partially collapsed body. But even as I cast my next spell, its body filled up again, reinflating like a balloon and flickering like a fire being blown on. I dropped a Shade Scythe onto it, cutting deep into the monster's flesh.

Then the craters started popping again, this time in a ripple that reminded me of a motorcycle engine instead of as one massive wave. "Ellen, you got this?" I asked.

"Yep, I've got it!" Shadow Shaped ripped the first five out of the air, then Orbs of Darkness and Shadow Boxing started laying into the E-Rank monsters. I focused on cutting into the rapidly healing Hellpit. Every swordblow and spell seemed to repair almost instantly as the monster reinflated and shook.

Then it screamed in agony.

I looked down. Raul had stabbed it with his spear—straight through one of the pimple-like craters as it was about to pop. Something did pop—but it popped inside of the Hellpit. The acidic blood that had surged out of the craters with each birthing was trapped inside of it.

I redoubled my assault, focusing on the closest craters—and the ones closest to birthing another Hellbat. The whole monster shuddered every time an embryonic bat died, and within a half-dozen poppings, it wavered. I fired a second Lightning Chain into the bridge floor and pulled myself free as the Hellpit teetered, then collapsed over the side of the bridge.

"Jeeze," Raul said. "That was just one B-Rank, huh? Can we do this?"

Ellen nodded curtly. "It'll be hard, but we can get through this. That was the least optimal possible location for a fight. It'll get better."

"I hope you're right," Jeff grumbled. His armor was immaculate and undirtied; he hadn't even had an opportunity to close the gap and help.

That'd change soon, though. This world wouldn't all be choke-points and single, ranged enemies. And Ellen was wrong about one thing. The portal would certainly get worse before it got better.

Representative Unger wasn't a legend.

There were no legends in the Governing Council's representative core. Jessie had read all about it. The suits and tablets were there to create anonymity. Any given GC rep was supposed to be interchangeable, like cogs in a machine.

But Representative Unger had been doing the job for twenty years. He'd been doing it for longer than the Governing Council had been around. He wasn't the best rep. But he had survived the most bullshit. Portal breaks. Rogue delvers. The Portal Blitz. If the GC or its predecessors had seen it, so had Rep Unger.

Jessie watched him over the top of her tablet as she pretended to keep track of the half-dozen partial teams that had piled up outside of the red, B-Ranked portal. His gray hair was half a head taller than most everyone else, and he moved quickly from one group to another, updating the GC's information efficiently on his tablet. Everything he did was efficient and smooth. Jessie wouldn't ever be that—and she didn't want to be. It was still impressive to watch, though.

A pair of cars pulled up through the gap in the traffic barriers the GC had set up around the blazing red portal. Jessie gave them half a glance. Just another team queuing up outside a B-Rank portal.

Then the doors opened, and six delvers got out. A full team. A familiar one, too.

Representative Unger was already there, tablet at the ready. Jessie watched from her post near the portal's far side as, on her list of teams, a new one popped up. Five familiar names—ones she'd never seen in action, but that she was very aware of—and a new one. And next to each of them, the Traynor Guild's name.

But that wasn't the worst part.

The worst part was that only one of the Fritch twins was there. The tank. And that he'd hit B-Rank. So had the team's fighter, and the Lonely Mage.

The other Fritch twin was nowhere to be seen, and the fighter looked murderous and exhausted. Jessie's stomach dropped. She knew what had happened.

They'd failed their mission. One of the Traynor team's delvers had broken his core. And now the rest of them were standing outside of a portal with Kade—and Ellen—inside of it. And worse, as Jessie stared at her tablet, they moved up the list to second, right behind her friends.

The Traynor Team was the backup team. They'd be the next into the B-Rank portal.