We emerged, still soaking wet, from the Watery Grave and into Museumtown. From the Shedd Aquarium’s entrance, everything seemed to be more or less in order. I nodded to the two Level 20-somethings who stood on either side of the dungeon entrance. “Should be clear in there. We got one hundred percent. But there are five bodies.” I told them where to find the Delvers I knew about and what kind of condition they were in.

  “Got it,” the Level 24 Rogue said, nodding his head. He hesitated. “Ms. Silvers came by this morning with that girl, Carol. Said if you came out, you needed to come talk to her right away. Said it was an emergency, but not to try going in after you.”

  The Level 22 Mage interrupted. “So, no dungeon break?”

  Tori smiled. “Shouldn’t be, but we’ll know in an hour and a half. Might get wet around here, though.”

  The Rogue saluted sloppily. I blinked; that was new. Then I tried returning it. The motion felt unnatural, and I was pretty sure my own salute was, if anything, worse than his.

  “So, we’re after Jessica?” Tori asked.

  “Yep,” I said. “Let’s try to track her down quick.”

  We passed a group of Dungeon Delvers, all in their Twenties, with Calvin standing in the middle of them. Zane stood behind him, arms crossed and staring off into space. I looked at the sky. The sun was still above Lake Michigan; it couldn’t be more than eight or nine in the morning. Calvin waved at me and made a hurry-up motion at the group of ten or twelve. They started to break into smaller groups, and I watched them head for the town’s outskirts before disappearing into Chicago.

  We ignored him as best we could; he was doing his job, and we’d done ours. That we all any of us could do for now. Instead of going to Jessica’s clinic, I headed for the fortress outside the Field Museum. “Where you going, Hal?” Bobby asked.

  “You get some new stuff when you hit Level Fifty,” I said. “Class-specific stuff. I’m trying to figure out what to do with it. Tori, can you find your step-mom and let her know that I’m at the fort? Calvin will probably find me on his own. He’s good for that.”

  “Whatever,” Tori said.

  “Wait, were you going to tell me about that before I asked?” Bobby asked, holding a hand up as I started to answer. “Doesn’t matter. I need to find a Tier One to run. Tori, are you interested? You can have the loot.”

  “Nah. You go for it,” she said. I saw her eyes narrow just a little, and she looked down at her feet. “I need to find my mom.”

  Then she disappeared. “Oookay, Bobby Richards. You have got to figure out why she doesn’t like you.”

  I shrugged. “Good luck with your Rank One Trial.”

  “Bobby Richards doesn’t need luck. He makes his own.”

  I said my goodbyes and headed up into the tower to get my Voltsmith’s Laboratory going.

  It didn’t fit in the tower.

  System Error: [Voltsmith’s Laboratory] requires [Three] slots to install.

  Available Slots: One

  Total Slots: One

  I looked at the wooden bedframe I’d turned into a workbench, then at the tiny room I’d done most of my best Voltsmithing. It wasn’t much, but it had turned into the closest thing I had to the garage. And the System wouldn’t let me use the Voltsmith’s Laboratory token to upgrade it.

  The token sat in my hand. I gave it a good look—it was bronze, with a silver lightning bolt on one side and a pair of crossed hammers on the other, and maybe the size of a quarter. I hadn’t seen change in a long time, but yeah, about the size of a quarter.

  [Voltsmith’s Laboratory] Token (Rank One): This token allows a promising beginner Voltsmith of Rank Zero to construct a basic Voltsmithing Laboratory, opening the door for the Rank One Voltsmithing Trial. Success at the trial will advance the Voltsmith to Rank One, allowing them to craft more elaborate creations.

  I stared at the System’s description of the token, then at the error message again. I needed this, and there wasn’t a space in Museumtown both big enough and isolated enough to set up my lab. I liked the tower room. It wasn’t just that it controlled the entrance to the Reliquary of Bones, keeping other people from walking into the jaws of the Queen Tyrant. It was that even though I’d only spent a handful of nights here, it was home.

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  Someone knocked at the doorframe at the bottom of the rickety stairs, and a second later, Calvin’s voice came in. “Hal, you here?”

  “Yep. Just a second.” I put the token away and quickly tossed the stuff I’d been moving around into my inventory. No matter what I got rid of, the tower room wasn’t going to magically grow two new ‘slots.’ I needed somewhere bigger, but first, I needed to hear what Calvin and Jessica had to say.

  As I stepped down the stairs, Calvin’s salt-and-pepper beard and shockingly piercing eyes greeted me. “You get it taken care of?” He asked.

  “Yep. It was going to break, but we got it.”

  “That’s good, then,” he said. Then his voice dropped as he sat on the museum steps. “Listen, Hal, Jessica’s losing her shit. Tommy disappeared last night. No idea where he went. I tried to tell her it ain’t a big deal, and that he’s a grown-ass man, but she’s convinced he took something we needed.”

  “The City Key?” I asked, worried. We needed that—not least because while we hadn’t gotten any new information, we had confirmed that at the very least, the Consortium thought they were helping us, and that they were, in fact, making a profit from doing it.

  “Nah, she’s got that around her neck. Far as I can figure, he didn’t steal anything but a couple cans of beans—and I’d’ve given those to him if he’d asked. But she’s losing it. Wanted me to get my delve teams looking for him, breaking up their training, all sorts of stuff.”

  “Alright. I’ll try talking her down. Thanks for letting me know.”

  “No problem,” Calvin said. He lounged on the stairs like they were the world’s most comfortable armchair. “How was the dungeon?”

  I told him all about it—the shark room, the final boss, and the level-up to Fifty and the Rank One Trial. He nodded at that part. “I’m willing to bet three cans of the green beans I have something similar coming up.”

  “Oh?” I asked.

  “Got a bunch of skills. Leadership, Survivalism, and Camouflage. Bet if I get enough or get some to Rank One, I get a similar trial. Remember, that message said something about Advancing and Uplifting. Bet Levels are the Advance and Skills are the Uplift.”

  That made sense to me. We talked for a while about Skills, but before we could get into the nitty gritty of my Rank One Trial, Jessica walked through the front door, a sulking Tori in tow. “You got her leg shredded!” she shouted. Then her voice dropped. “Thank you, though. For saving her life. But god dammit, Hal, I told you not to get her hurt!”

  “He didn’t get me hur—“ Tori started to say, but a look from Jessica shut her up, and she stared at the floor instead, glaring daggers into the stairs.

  I didn’t say anything. She was in one of those moods moms got into, where they were more like an angry black bear whose cubs were in danger than a human being, and pointing out that we’d had no choice and that her telekinesis had saved the entire settlement wouldn’t help. Right now, the best thing to do was let her be angry for a minute. Calvin wasn’t ready to interrupt, either. He just stayed sprawled on the stairs, listening.

  So instead of arguing, I weathered the storm. Tori’s leg was already healed—both by Body points and by her worried step-mom. No permanent damage had been done. And after a few minutes, Jessica pulled herself together—or just ran out of steam. “We’ll talk about this more later—just the three of us,” she said, nodding at Tori.

  The girl winced. I nodded along with Jessica. “Sure. That sounds great. I’d love to fill you in on what happened, but you’ve got something else you’re worried about, so I’ll go fast. We beat the dungeon. It was the kind that locked us in, and it was going to break. It’s not anymore—or if it does, it’ll just be a bunch of water. I told the guards to be ready for it.”

  “Thank you,” Jessica said. She took a deep breath, composing herself. “Calvin, did you already tell him?”

  “I did. I also told him that Tommy didn’t take anything as far as we can tell, and that there’s no reason to go after him,” Calvin said. “He’s not a threat to us, and he’s a grown-ass adult. If he wants to disappear, let him.”

  “Tommy’s gone?” Tori asked, eyes narrowing.

  “Yes, Tommy’s gone,” Jessica said. “I don’t know that I agree with you, Calvin. What if he runs into another gang and they show up to try taking over?”

  “Then we sic Bobby and Hal on ‘em,” Calvin said. “No offense, Hal.”

  I smiled. “None taken. I’m probably one of the strongest people in Chicago right now.”

  “The gangs aren’t a danger as long as we have those two, and Tori’s no slouch either,” Calvin said. He looked tired. They’d clearly had this conversation before.

  I needed to do something about it. “We have, what? A few days? Before the Tier Three dungeon, and one week after that? Let’s focus on that, not on one person who didn’t want to stick around. Calvin, you’re getting the Delvers to work together?”

  “Kinda,” he said, shrugging. “It took most of yesterday to build a list of dungeons and when people’d cleared ‘em, and we still don’t know everything. The Tier Ones Saul’s guys cleared are on an unknown timer. We’re making guesses, but the basic idea is to get Level 15 to 20 folks into Tier Ones with a single high-level Delver to help them through—“

  “Carries. You’re building carry groups,” Tori said. “I’ve seen this before. I’ve done this before. I can help you make it more efficient.”

  “I’d be happy if you did, Tori,” Calvin said, “assuming your mom’s cool with it. Anyway, we’re also trying to get a list of Tier Two dungeons folks can leave after the first floor. We build that list, we can get people up to Level Forty without putting them up against Floor Two bosses. I’m assuming Level Forties aren’t ready for those.”

  “Not alone,” I said.

  “Anyway, we’re asking groups to contribute loot they don’t want to Museumtown in general in exchange for the help in leveling up. They help each other out, it helps everyone out. Today’s Day One of making this happen, so there’ll be speed bumps, but in the long run, it should start going smoothly.”

  As Jessica cleared her throat and started talking about Museumtown’s infrastructure and the pipeline they were cobbling together to bring water into the fish-hugger’s fountain—which had stopped spewing water yesterday—I reached into my inventory and grabbed the token, squeezing it in my hand.

  I’d just gotten the perfect idea for where to use it.

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