In the Emerald dungeon, miles beneath the earth in a dungeon designed to test the limits of what mages could achieve under lethal pressure, Drakka was growing furious with Rhys.
While every other team had run right from the start, Rhys had decided to sit down and wait.
"What are you doing, Vile Blood?! We only have an hour, let's go!" Drakka screamed as veins began to pop out of her neck and spit flew from her mouth.
Rhys turned to his team with the kind of absolute calm that came from understanding variables that everyone else was still scrambling to comprehend.
"Drakka," he said quietly, his voice carrying across the dark stone corridor that constituted the dungeon's first chamber, "we don't actually have an hour. We have twenty-four. Every other team is going to race to the fights and the bosses and wear themselves out, and with a lack of food, they will be in trouble."
