The mission site was a jagged stretch of rock-strewn highlands, where a mountainous wall of obsidian and crag towered near the edge of an ancient forest. Gnarled trees scraped the sky, their roots tangled around glowing stones and remnants of a forgotten civilization.
The air shimmered with unnatural heat—deep within the mountain's belly lay a dormant volcano, its breath warming the nearby waterfall that cascaded into bubbling, mineral-rich hot springs.
Like all Leak missions, it was far from civilization. No rescue. No noise. Just the wild, and what had bled into it.
Tess was winded. Her breathing ragged, her knuckles stained with the black ichor of monstrous insects. She and her commrades had been in that godforsaken place for hours—fighting off oversized, hairy, screeching creatures that had likely swarmed in through a rift torn in the Vale.
"No heroics."
Lanse's last words echoed in her skull.
But he wasn't around to enforce them.
