They were ten minutes from the tower when Zara spoke.

  "Something's behind us."

  John didn't turn around.

  "How do you know?"

  "The thralls keep looking past us."

  "Since the tower?"

  "Yes."

  They kept moving. The street ahead bent at an angle that didn't make sense, curving upward slightly before leveling out, as if the ground itself had buckled and no one had bothered to fix it. The thralls were sparse here. Just one or two, standing in alcoves, doing nothing. Waiting for instructions that were yet to come.

  John risked a slight glance behind them. Just a single thrall standing motionless against a wall.

  "It's still there," Zara said. She wasn't looking back. "The thrall you just passed. Watch its head."

  John stopped and waited. Behind them, the thrall's featureless face slowly rotated. Not toward them, but past them. Tracking something farther back in the corridor.

  "What's in the second ring that would follow us?" Zara asked.

  He didn't know. In the game, this section was simple. You fight your way to the plaza, kill the boss, and move on. Nothing followed the player. Nothing guided them. The boss just waited.

  "There are higher castes here," he said. "These ones can think."

  "So we’ve only killed the dumb ones."

  "So far."

  Zara looked at him but said nothing. They walked faster.

  Behind them, a thrall turned its head.

  They kept moving. The street widened, the stone darkened, and the city started feeling like a real place. The thralls changed too. They were still grey-skinned and faceless, but these ones moved with more purpose. One crouched over a section of unfinished street, pressing stones into place with care.

  It paused and looked behind them.

  Whatever was following hadn't closed the gap, but it hadn't fallen back either.

  "It's guiding us somewhere," Zara said.

  The worst part was that it was pushing them exactly where he wanted to go. With a boss in the plaza and something behind them, they'd walk straight into a two-front fight with no way out.

  Better to face it now.

  "Stop here," John said.

  They turned together and waited.

  Thirty seconds. A minute. Nothing moved. John scanned the buildings, the alcoves, the rooftops. Nothing.

  "I don’t think it’s behind us anymore," John said.

  "Then where is it?"

  He had a bad feeling he already knew.

  The street they'd come from was narrowing. The buildings on both sides groaned and leaned toward each other. Stone met stone. The gap sealed like hands pressing shut.

  At the next intersection there were three paths forward. The left street had thralls working in it, rebuilding a collapsed wall. The right had a group standing motionless, blocking the way. Only the center path was clear.

  "It’s not being subtle," Zara said.

  John studied the clear street. It led directly toward the plaza. Exactly where he'd been planning to go anyway.

  "Then neither should we," John said.

  They entered the plaza. The boss that had waited here in the game wasn't there. The platform sat empty. John felt something loosen in his chest then immediately tighten again. An empty arena was just an arena that hadn't started yet.

  Behind them, footsteps. Not the shuffling gait of worker thralls. These were unhurried and sure.

  A figure approached down the street. Taller than the workers. It wore robes that looked almost real, the stone carved so thin it moved. Its face had crude but distinct features, and eyes that gleamed with intelligence.

  "Finally," it said. Its voice was like stones grinding together. "You've taken far too much of my attention."

  The worker thralls stepped aside as it passed, creating a clear path.

  "The astrologer," John said.

  "I was. I am. I continue to be." It stopped twenty feet away. "You killed my guardian. Stole my stone. Disturbed work that has taken centuries."

  "Centuries," John said. "And yet the outer ring is only being built now."

  The astrologer's crude eyes narrowed.

  "The manifester," John said.

  "Where is she?" Zara's voice was raw and too loud for the quiet plaza. Her fists clenched at her sides.

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  The astrologer's gaze snapped to her. Its crude eyes locked on the mask with revulsion.

  "Dreaming our dreams." It tilted its head.

  "You will feed the city instead. Like all those above. They will come. And they will stay."

  "You're the one spreading it. Beyond the dungeon."

  "Dreams travel far. Every night, more minds touch the city. Every night, more see what they could be."

  The astrologer raised its arms. "Perfect. No conflict. No want. Only peace."

  The thralls around them moved closer.

  "Join willingly, and have purpose. Or join unwillingly, and serve in silence."

  Zara's whips formed. John raised his sword.

  Neither the sword nor the shadows gave it pause. The astrologer's gaze settled on John like a weight.

  "You are different," the astrologer said. "The others who entered this place were lost and confused."

  John said nothing.

  "But you walked straight to my spire. The first building you entered." Those crude stone eyes narrowed. "You have been here before. In some fashion."

  "I haven't."

  "But you know. How?" It took a step forward.

  "Ancient texts," John said.

  Another step.

  "We do not write. And you are dreamless."

  Another step.

  "How?"

  The plaza was silent now. Even the thralls had stopped moving, their half-formed faces tilted toward John as if waiting for the answer.

  "It doesn't matter," he said.

  "I will have my answers," the astrologer said. The grinding voice almost gentle.

  One stone finger extended toward John. "I will take your dreams. Peel them open. Find the answers you refuse to give."

  Its gaze shifted to Zara.

  "And you will stop pretending. The face you wear will become the face you are."

  "I know what I am," Zara said. But her hand went to the mask.

  "My friend." The astrologer lowered its hand.

  The astrologer raised his other. Not toward them, toward the buildings ringing the plaza, and the stone moved.

  Not the slow breathing John had seen before. The buildings leaned inward quickly, their walls groaning, windows narrowing to slits. The streets leading out of the plaza sealed shut one by one. Stone flowing like water to fill the gaps until there were no exits left.

  "I am not the guardian," the astrologer said. "This city is my creation. You are standing inside me."

  John's grip tightened on his sword. Beside him, Zara's shadows churned.

  The plaza came alive.

  Stone erupted beneath John's feet. A pillar shooting upward, throwing him sideways. He hit the ground rolling and came up with his sword ready, but the ground was already shifting again. Tiles rippled like water. Walls grew from nothing, cutting the plaza into corridors that changed every few seconds.

  Zara's whips lashed out at the astrologer. The stone floor rose to intercept. A wall forming between them in an instant, absorbing the strike. She cursed and moved, but the ground beneath her buckled, forcing her to jump.

  The thralls surged in. Dozens of them, moving with a coordination the outer ring workers never had. Zara's whips carved through three at once. They crumbled, then the pieces started to pull themselves back together.

  "They don't stay down!" she shouted.

  "Keep moving!"

  John charged toward the astrologer, dodging a stone column that burst from the ground in his path. A wall rose on his left. Another on his right. The plaza was building a maze around him in real time.

  The astrologer watched from a platform above, conducting the city with small gestures. A flick of its fingers and the ground tilted beneath John's feet. A turn of its wrist and a building groaned, shedding stone that rained down around him.

  John cut through a thrall and kept moving. The astrologer was thirty feet away. Twenty. A wall erupted between them. John went around it. Another wall. Around again.

  "You fight the city itself," the astrologer said. "How long can you keep that up?"

  Not long. John could feel the ground getting softer beneath his boots. Pulling like wet sand.

  John spun to see stone surge up around Zara in a ring, closing fast. She dissolved into smoke and flowed upward, but it followed her. She reformed too early and her hip and thigh had solidified inside the stone. The scream that came out of her was unlike anything John had heard before. She tore herself loose, and staggered sideways with shadows bleeding off her like an open wound.

  John ran.

  The astrologer brought both hands down.

  A massive fist of stone flew towards him. John braced and swung. His sword met the stone with everything he had.

  The impact broke the stone.

  It also shattered his grip. The sword spun from his hands, skittering across the plaza floor. It came to rest to his right, blade catching the violet light.

  John threw himself towards it, arm outstretched.

  But the ground shifted and he sank into the stone. John kicked his right foot back on instinct, but his left leg wasn't as lucky. Stone flowed up around his knee, and locked it solid.

  He could still move, but he couldn't take a step. His hands throbbed. The sword sat so close, perfectly visible, perfectly useless.

  Zara was buried to her chest now, whips dissolved, shadows flickering weakly around her fingers. She was still straining against the stone, jaw clenched, but the city held her tight.

  The plaza froze.

  The astrologer descended from the platform. Each step echoed in the sudden quiet. It walked past Zara without a glance and stopped in front of John.

  Up close, its face was worse. The crude features weren't carved, they pushed outward from inside the stone like they were trying to be born. The eyes had depth. Intelligence. And something old behind them that made John's stomach turn.

  It reached out.

  John swung at it. A straight punch, everything he had, aimed at the center of its crude face.

  The astrologer caught his fist. Stone fingers closed around it like a vice. It didn't flinch. Didn't even react. It just held John's hand in place and kept reaching with the other.

  John swung his left. The astrologer caught that too. Held both his fists like a parent restraining a child. Its crude mouth shifted into a smile.

  "Brave," it said. "Pointless, But brave."

  It released his left hand and cupped his face. The stone fingers were cold. John grabbed at its wrist, pulled, twisted. It was like trying to move a mountain.

  "Now," it said softly. "Let us see what you are."

  John felt a pressure building behind his eyes.

  The astrologer's mouth opened wider and a sound poured out. A deep, grinding hum that John felt in his molars. It was so close he could feel his skull vibrating, rattling his teeth in their sockets.

  One thought was all the spatial ring needed, and the object appeared in his hand.

  Not the gem he’d taken. Not a weapon he’d brought along.

  The broken necromancer's crown.

  It materialized in his right palm. Jagged, dark metal, warm with residual power. The astrologer was close. Its mouth was open, grinding out words he could no longer hear over the sound in his skull.

  John shoved the crown into the astrologer's open mouth.