The rift was in Neo-Aiter to the north of Aegis, the district of Wardens… or something like that. I was first on site. First of the fireteam, at least. The other two hadn’t shown up yet. I was technically ten minutes early though. It took way less time than I thought it would to get a coffee and get over here.

  It was another unknown rift. No one had any idea what lay on the other side other than its rank, which was Disruptive. This was also my promotion rift. One of the fireteam would be an observer sent by the Bureau to figure out whether I was good enough to move on. Shouldn’t be an issue to pass this evaluation.

  I waited just inside of the defensive line for the rest of the fireteam. Five minutes till, a woman showed up. She was in full plate armor, and had the red of an Enforcer underneath her grey armor. No weapons, but that wasn’t all that surprising. She probably had a system bound one.

  “You must be Moon.” The woman greeted me with a rather valiant voice. She slapped her fist to her heart and nodded her head. “I’m Enforcer Blazing.”

  “Moon. Anchor.” I nodded my head in greeting. She was definitely the one here on behalf of the bureau. I couldn’t imagine an Enforcer tagging along for any other reason.

  “Vangauard, as well as your proctor.” She waited for a moment to see if I would say anything else then moved off to talk to some of the VDS mercenaries set up around the rift.

  A few minutes later, the third of our fireteam showed up. A minute before we were due to head into the rift even. He was a rather bulky man covered in chrome. Hard to see what was flesh and wasn’t underneath all of the metal. His heavy armor didn’t help.

  A massive looking mortar was strapped to his back, and he had a plate armor covered in spare magazines. A MirroSynth AR was slung over his shoulder marked with runes. There was a heavy bag over his other and a Mascot floated just above him.

  ”Moon.” I took the initiative for once and introduced myself first.

  ”Bruce.” He stuck out a hand to shake. “Striker. I’ll be in your care.”

  ”Anchor.” I shook his offered hand. He looked like a gunner style Warden? There weren’t any ether fluctuations though.

  Bruce unslung his bag and pulled out some weird kind of magitech device. After a few button presses, it started to glow a deep blue similar to the color of ether. Standing so close to the cyborg, I felt an uncomfortable sensation across my skin akin to burning.

  “…?” I took a few steps back away from the man.

  Bruce adjusted the device and settled it on his hip. “Are you asking about this? It’s the latest model of Miasma Purifier built by Cathedral Guild and MirroSynth: the MP-44.”

  MirroSynth was one of the major corporations in Bastion. Most chrome and genedits on the market came from them. They were a big advocate of making yourself better through modification. “Mundane?”

  He flashed a silver, merchant-class Sigil and rubbed at his chest. It was almost white like a Warden, but not quite. “If I can be considered that underneath all of this metal.”

  “…” So that was the device that let mundane enter rifts? Note to self—stay away from them in the future. It wasn’t exactly painful, but it wasn’t pleasant to be in its radius either. Thankfully, the radius was relatively short and he was a Striker. We shouldn’t be all that close in the coming rift.

  ”So you’re Throne’s newest experiment." Blazing approached the two of us, eyeing Bruce from head to toe. “How’s it been so far?”

  ”Not an issue. Arcanite guns still work just fine. We expect that I’ll be fine up to Crushing rank at the least, potentially Brutal at most.” He tapped the MP-44 on his hip. “That would require a lot more modifications though.”

  Blazing nodded her head a few times. “If something goes wrong, tell me immediately and I’ll intervene past my limitations as a proctor. Do you have backups?”

  ”Yes, ma’am.” Bruce patted the heavy bag. “Three of them just in case. It shouldn’t be a problem with me in a Striker position though.”

  Ah, right… if the thing broke, the contamination would start hitting him hard once more. Even with all that metal, he was a glass cannon with the restrictions of the MP-44. With such a big weakness, ranged Strikers and Anchors were probably the extent they could go? Unless they built the MP-44 into power armor or something, Vanguard was likely out.

  As for what kind of experiment, it was easy to guess at. Throne must be wanting to test if they could make fireteams of non-awakened. Over 75% of people chosen by the OS were useless, after all. Way too many Goblins among the ranks of Wardens who just consumed without providing anything. F-rank rifts popped up near constantly too, and the actually useful wardens were to busy on higher level stuff.

  “Before we begin, you’re both here for D-rank promotions. I’ll be the final decider on whether or not you promote purely based on what I see in the rift. I have some limitations, but otherwise I’ll be acting in place of a normal vanguard of this rank.” She nodded her head to the rift. “Questions? Otherwise, I’m ready when you are.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “Ready.” I called out in my husky voice.

  Bruce shivered, pulled out a transceiver, and set it next to the rift. Must be for his Mascot. He was part of an experiment, so it was likely that it was here for recording purposes rather than streaming. “All system’s green.”

  “Good. Your examination begins once we all arrive on the other side.” That being said, she didn’t hesitate and stepped through the crack in reality.

  I followed after her a beat later, feeling the rift rip and pull at my body from all directions.

  — — —

  I stepped out on the other side into a dune of sand. My foot slipped, though I steadied myself by summoning an ivory scythe and ramming it into the ground.

  “Gah!” Bruce popped out behind me a moment later and stumbled down the side of the dune. He went about halfway down before slowing to a stop.

  “Desert… ugh- why’d it have to be sand?” Blazing pulled uncomfortably at her plate armor. Sweat dripped from her face, shimmering with the faint glow of the rift. Sand was already caked into her armor.

  She wasn’t the only one feeling the sticky heat that saturated this place either. I wasn’t starting to sweat quite yet, but I could definitely feel the spike in temperature here compared to the coolness of Bastion. Made me want to go back. We were trapped until we cleared the rift’s core though.

  [Nighteye’s fur raises. She’s got a bad feeling about this place, outside of just the sand.]

  Did you have issues with sand too? I could be a bit annoying, but it wasn’t that bad, yep? Hmm… I could use Ebonshroud to easily remove even a grain off myself though. I could see how it’d be worse for someone that had to sit around with sand stuck to them. Or a cat who couldn’t easily get it out of her fur.

  It was dark out, though there were no stars in the sky. Or the moon, for that matter. Might be the source of Nighteye’s unease? It was just a vast empty plane darkness. Why was it so hot if there wasn’t a sun in this rift? I thought deserts were supposed to be cold at night anyway.

  “Can you see?” Blazing summoned a pair of glasses from the OS. She put them on, and looked around the area. Probably some kind of night vision glasses? Cool.

  ”Yep.” Darkness didn’t really have an effect on me. I could see as clear as day out here. I didn’t need any of those fancy gadgets or magic items.

  All around sat dunes and dunes of sand. Off in the distance, a pyramid made of sandstone stuck out of the surrounding area like a sore thumb. It seemed to glow with an internal light. “Head. Over there?”

  “I’m just here to observe. You and Bruce need to-“ She cut herself off and slammed a freshly summoned greatsword down into the dunes to stabilize herself.

  The entire desert seemed to shake fiercely. I used Brace to control my positioning and leaned heavily on my scythe. The earthquake caused the nearby dunes and terrain to instantly shift with the heavy tremors. In the distance, the pyramid grew hazy with displaced sand filling the air. Thankfully, the shaking subsided.

  ”Ugh-“ Down below us, Bruce fought back a wave of sand washing down the dunes like water, slowly covering him up. His chrome wasn’t just there for appearances though. He pushed his way back up the mountain, prongs shooting out of his shoes to better stabilize the heavy cyborg.

  “Earthquakes. Of course there are earthquakes. As if this place wasn’t bad enough with all the sand.” Blazing knocked the side of her head with her pommel. “Shoulda let Hank take this shift…”

  “Haah.” Bruce finally made it back to us. His eyes glowed a faint green. Maybe some kind of night vision? “Any idea where to start? I doubt we’ll find too many etherblooms in this place.”

  “Pyramid. Over there.” I motioned to the shadow faintly visible through the stirred sand caused by the earthquake. It was the most obvious place here.

  ”Hmm…” Bruce shifted, and part of his back popped off into a drone. He stretched out his hand like grasping a controller. The drone followed his movements up into the sky. “I’ll scout the area. See what we can see.”

  While controlling the drone, he tossed a small puck onto the sand. It popped open to reveal a micro-hologram projector, which in turn showed us the drone’s view. It flew up and up, giving us more and more intel on the surrounding area.

  We were in the middle of a desert. That much was obvious with just a glance. It was a flying island of some sort though. On the edges around the central pyramid, it just cut off sharply into a void.

  Bruce tried to fly closer to the void to get a better look, but his drone stalled out before it could get close. “The winds are too strong. This is as far as I can get without losing control.”

  ”S fine… boss there.” I pointed to the pyramid on the hologram. It practically screamed that it was hiding something, and it was dead center of the massive desert. There weren’t any other visible POIs either.

  ”Probably.” Bruce controlled the drone, manipulating it back down to us. “What do you think it’ll be? Mummy? Undead?”

  Definitely undead. Can’t imagine much else dwelling on this barren floating island. There wasn’t a speck of water as far as I could see. Then again, last time I was sure I’d face an undead there hadn’t been one. Except the General, maybe. Archaic Battlefield was such a peculiar place.

  “Scorpions?” They were a safe bet too. Sand and scorpions always went together. Or maybe some kind of giant sandworm? No—the trembles were definitely caused by this place being some kind of flying island, not something massive moving underneath the surface.

  “Hmm… I hope not. They always freaked me out.” The cyborg shifted, grabbed the drone out of the air, and stuffed it back into its slot. “Contaminiation levels are still steady. MP-44 is holding strong.”

  Blazing nodded. ”If it spikes at any moment, don’t hold back. You can always attempt a promotion again.”

  The entire flying chunk of desert shook once more, causing him to stumble. The braces shot out from his boots and stabilized him. I shifted while holding onto the scythe and cast a glance around the rift. If these tremors were a constant thing, this would get annoying quick.

  It subsided shortly after, though whipped a sandstorm up into existence. I dropped Brace again, Blazing pulled her greatsword out of the ground, and the cyborg’s boots returned to normal. At the very least we all had ways of resisting the tremors somewhat. If it happened in the middle of a fight though…

  Bruce shifted from foot to foot. “Then let’s get going? The rift isn’t going to close itself.”

  “Yep.” No reason to stick around here. Marking the rift shouldn’t be an issue either. We’d be able to spot it anywhere with that drone of his even with if we missed the bright glow of the hole in reality.

  Beside us, Blazing pulled out a data pad and took a few notes. I eyed her for a moment and then followed after Bruce toward the pyramid in the distance.