“So we have to betray all the strongest people in this city?” Akilah said, her upper lip twitching.

  I met them outside the Labyrinth walls. We walked slowly and paused before the vine wall of Heartland Park, where Jake gave me a quick field patching. He flicked a thorn away and shook his head.

  “What does he take us for, a bunch of ignoranuses?”

  “Ignor-anuses?” Frag asked.

  Jake shot him a glance. “I meant what I said.”

  Fig cracked up, folding over.

  Akilah smirked, then stepped aside for a small troupe of dwarves leading a donkey cart. I watched them pass, the rocking, creaking sound of the wagon, the clop of hooves, the smell of unwashed dwarf. I waited until they were well away before continuing.

  “Snai—the district lord said he’d give us the secret for dirt on them. He said he’d send me a list.”

  “Sounds like a coup of some kind,” Frag mused.

  Akilah rubbed her chin thoughtfully. She glanced at me, then leaned on her staff and asked Fig, “What does the System do when it seems like a faction will go up against another faction?”

  “Recorded history is sparse,” Fig said, her eyes faraway. Reading her aspect screen? “The districts go into chronofreeze, and a Mod Inquiry is executed. The instigators are removed from the System and replaced into stasis.”

  “How’d you know?” I asked.

  Elora gave me ‘the look.’ “She’s a bard. They can opt into history as a skill. Fig’s is about Convergent City.”

  “Cool, so, Snail has access to at least one bard. How come he doesn’t know that? Why would he try for a power grab?”

  “If there’s no actual war, the System doesn’t interfere,” Fig said, her eyes coming back into focus.

  That sounded chillingly correct. He was the type. I glanced at Loogie, who had jumped into Elora’s arms as soon as it saw her.

  “Loogie thinks he’s been outside the walls, though he lied about it.”

  “The goblin lied? So his promise could be fake, or a loophole in the making,” Jake suggested. He’d already put his kit away and crossed his arms over his chest, chin dipped in thought.

  I glanced around, searching the sky for drones, then the vine wall for—robot bird spies. Paranoia ticked away like a bomb. Was he watching us? He’d found a way to hack the System Arena, but could that extend outside?

  As I thought about it, I relaxed. If that was the case, he could’ve spied on the other district lords without my help.

  The floral scent of the park rode the breeze, enticing me to let go of the conspiracy for a while. I thought of the pool. And what happened there. Shaking my head, I said, “Hey. Let’s go soak in the spring and relax.”

  Elora’s lashes fluttered, and she glanced around at the others.

  “Yes,” Akilah said. “But I’m not stripping naked in front of all of you.”

  I shrugged and couldn’t have cared less if anyone went bare-assed or not. Loogie would probably like playing in the water. Jake and Fig cheered. I swore then to Tan’Fukshan and Magara there would be blood if they did get naked. I wanted to relax, not drown in pheromones.

  A sudden stench hit me. I whipped around to see a Patchwork Priest crouched beside the entrance, bony and hollow-eyed. He crooked a finger at us. Elora stepped up beside me, hugging Loogie.

  “In Yaralet’s name, come, child.” The old man’s voice quivered, the reek of his breath unfurling like a carrion bird’s wings.

  “Do you have a job for me?” she asked, shuffling forward.

  “Take this urn,” the priest said, holding up a ceramic vessel fastened with a thick coat of red wax. It glistened like blood in the sunlight. “Return it to the vault in Subterrania.”

  Elora handed Loogie back to me and bent to take the urn. [Restoring Peace to a Restless Soul: Take the remains to the alcove within the vault of Yaralet in Subterania]

  Elora took the urn. We accepted the quest. My desire to soak in the spring was soured, but it still held. I pointed at the urn in her hands and said, “We are not doing that right now.”

  “Put that away,” Akilah waved at the urn and smiled. “We should relax and have fun for a while.”

  Elora glanced at the wax-sealed top, swallowed, and it vanished into her inventory. She shook her hands out and frowned, as if it had been unpleasant to touch. Jake blasted past me, skipping down the path into Heartland. He spun and gestured for us to follow.

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  “Let’s get wet!” He shouted, red eyes blazing with unrestrained energy.

  Fig whooped and ran after him. I was not running unless I had to. I’d had enough explosive action for one day. They beat us there, and, when we pushed past the honeysuckle bushes, they were thankfully in undergarments and splashing each other. Loogie squirmed in my hands, screaming in my head. “Down! Down! Down!”

  I crouched, and the Vash’Ora bounded off me to scamper into the water with a splash. Clothes were shed—me to my undershorts—and I soaked in the sun as I reclined. The air felt perfect. The noise around me… tolerable.

  My thoughts? Unstoppable. Sitting still didn’t help. I stayed a while, pretended to converse and be a part of the gathering, until I couldn’t manage it anymore.

  I made an excuse, saying I’d promised to do some things for Alga, and left. Not before slipping on a slick rock and crashing back in, of course. [Bad Luck]

  Instead of Bauring Dath, I went beyond the baobab trees, to the plain, where the artificial distance felt right. Beside the rock. There, I climbed and sat, staring at a horizon that wasn’t real. Or, maybe it was real. Somewhere.

  Loogie played in the grass for a while, then got bored. “Hungie!”

  “Alga has food,” I muttered. I barely noticed the rustle as Loogie scampered off.

  My HUD knew the edges of the map, and there was a gray line a hundred steps ahead of me. The actual barrier of our existence. Our prison wall stood invisibly before me, pretending to be open plains. I walked toward it with my hands up. It was smooth against my palms, cold resistance. Like the clearest glass, it showed me what I could not touch.

  I sat there until I felt my body get hazy, the pull of sleep drawing me back to my bed.

  The nightmares were intense that night. I stood on a sniper’s platform. Beneath, an ocean of Convergent City denizens screamed angrily. They swarmed up the sides. I didn’t have a weapon, so I fought them by shoving them off the platform.

  But there were four sides, and I could only reach one at a time. A minotaur grabbed me and lifted me over its head, throwing me off the edge…

  I woke with a jerk, the bedframe rocking as if it had caught me from a height. Loogie stared at me from the foot of the bed. “Bad Sleep.”

  “Fucking hell,” I groaned, rubbing my eyes. “Yeah, bad sleep. Go see if Alga has food.”

  Loogie bounced off the bed. I watched its funny little wave-like gait until it clambered down the stairs. And then something else drew my attention.

  My token was flashing.

  “Fuck you, Snailtrail!” I shouted, jerking upright and grabbing my pants before I got whisked away to the loading screen. I had another set of clothes in my inventory, but hell if I was gonna show up in my boxers like some unprepared dungeon crawler.

  The loading screen caught me with my pants unfastened, one boot in my hand and the other with my foot stuffed half in.

  Without my body, I stared at the screen. The battleground looked like a carnival mirror maze. That should be fun. If I had a heart in the loading screen, the beat would’ve picked up a notch when I imagined the possibilities.

  Cold glass pressed against my bare foot. I rocked on my other boot, then finished stomping into it, knowing I would later regret not taking the time to find my special socks. I looked up to see Akilah sneaking a glance at my crotch. Clearing my throat, I dropped my boot to fasten my pants. Was she judging me right now?

  Jake, Fig, and Frag seemed to be swapping their weapons and checking their armor fit. Ignoring me. My gaze flitted to Elora, who smirked and made a zip motion at her hips. Yeah, okay, they were judging me.

  As if they all got up before dawn. Maybe they did. Hell if I knew.

  I found a spare shirt in my inventory and equipped it, along with my armor. I drew Baneheart; my spear would suck for the tight turns in the labyrinth. I waited for the prompt.

  The worst joke Snail or the System could play would be that the instance never started, and we got trapped there forever. With that awesome thought, the System prompt popped up.

  [System Alert: Target: Legendary Hyperflect. All others are competition. No PVP until Hyperflect is at 10% HP]

  Another Veliyarix scenario. Wait.

  “It’s just us in here. Where are the other teams?” I said, glancing around.

  “Must have multiple start positions. Most of them have been,” Akilah looked around.

  “Veliyarix didn’t,” I mumbled, but she was right. It hardly mattered, anyway. Even if it was all of us against each other, we’d just nuke it down, and whoever got the last hit, good. Still. I didn’t like the implications of that possibility. We were a team, not competing against each other.

  The timer went off, and the glass shattered. I flung an arm up, squinting as shards tinkled on the floor. Hm. With a glance at the others, I led the way. Different paths glittered, reflecting an infinite distance each way. Each one was barely wide enough for me to walk comfortably with my weapon in hand. We wouldn’t be walking side by side, no matter which path we took.

  My map was mostly fog, so I nodded at the center path. “I’ll go this way. Let’s split up. Keep contact. Shout out danger and damage.”

  We hadn’t done a great job of that so far. Not since the first one. Our HP showed in party status, but knowing what caused the damage could help. I intended to increase our overall awareness and reactivity.

  At the first corner, Elora grabbed my belt. I’d already been on edge, and when she grabbed me, I stopped. Looking down at her, crouching to peek between my side and my elbow, I said, “Can you not do that?”

  She straightened and stuck her tongue out at me. I sighed. “I don’t want to elbow you in the eyeball if something’s on the other side of a turn.”

  “You make a good point. Go,” she said, pushing my back.

  I went, the soft soles of our boots making our stalking approach to the next turn nearly silent. The glassy walls bowed, suggesting this was a massive, circular arena. Easily as big as a stadium. I walked with my shoulder to my reflection, ignoring it… until I noticed Baneheart was in the wrong hand.

  I stopped so abruptly that Elora bounced off me. I glanced at her, and when I looked back, the mirror had Baneheart in my right hand. I shook my head, a low growl rumbling in my chest.

  In party chat, I alerted everyone.

  “These aren’t just mirrors, guys. Be careful, and don’t trust the reflections.”

  Akilah: “What?”

  Jake: “Could you say that with different vagueness?”

  Frag responded with a pushed video clip. A screen popped up on my HUD, showing Frag facing himself in a dead end. He was looking at Akilah behind him, whose usual purple OCP had triangular patterns instead of the usual amorphous shapes. She sneered at Frag’s back. He turned, and her tactical pattern was normal, her face tense but not with the hateful look the mirror showed.

  Frag: “The mirrors are not mirrors.”

  Akilah: “I officially hate this place.”

  I gave my reflection the side-eye and met Elora’s uncomfortable gaze. It was bad enough as a distraction. As a lie? Fan-fucking-tastic.

  -ARCHIVE-