Reidar crouched behind the twisted remains of a concrete wall, watching the school grounds in front of them.
The rest of the group was scattered, so that everyone could hide. Malcolm, Kate, and the core people were close to him.
The sight made their stomachs clench into a knot.
The Rift-Sprites were everywhere. They swarmed the playground like a living carpet of porcelain and malice made creatures.
They scuttled between rusted swing sets, clustered around collapsed monkey bars, and prowled the area of the school building itself.
They were too weak physically to bring the doors down, which had been visibly reinforced by the teachers still inside the school, and they were too stupid to use their magic to bring it down.
The system wouldn't have given them the quest if the kids were dead.
"Jeez," Malcolm said. "There's got to be thousands of them."
