Tori sat on top of a massive stone statue, legs crossed and hands on her knees. She stared out over Lake Michigan as the sun set behind her.

  Mom—Jessica, but more Mom with every day—didn’t want her working on her Trial outside the walls of Museumtown. She kept saying things like ‘when you get sucked into something, you lose track of time’ and ‘I don’t want you out there if you’re not paying attention’ and even ‘because I said so.’

  Jessica was right, but that wasn’t the point.

  The point was that Tori had to lose track of time, and she had to pay attention—but not to what she could see or hear. The breeze blowing through the trees? The brilliant golds and pinks and oranges reflecting off the waves? Even the smell of the latrines that were, unfortunately, a little too close to her? That didn’t matter.

  What did matter were the rules.

  There were rules to magic, and as powerful as Crush and Gravity Well were, they were still only scraping the bottom of the barrel when it came to spells. Worse, her Trial wasn’t a puzzle like Hal’s. She’d win eventually. She was inevitable. It wasn’t solvable with anything except for grinding. The most boring, repetitive grinding she’d ever done in any game, even the crazy Korean MMOs Tammy had convinced her to try. Those had been worth it for a chance to spend a few hours a day alone with Tammy.

  The Rank One Trial wasn’t about fighting. It wasn’t about combat at all, not even pressing ‘1’ until she’d killed a thousand wolves. It was about the rules. About figuring them out. And it was about discipline—the willpower to force the rules to work for her.

  She hated it.

  But even so, she still spent six hours a day cross-legged on top of a concrete replica of a gigantic head. It wasn’t comfortable. Her ass was sore from the hard surface, and her back felt tight. But she’d been making progress. She had three of the rules of telekinesis more or less down. Her gut told her she needed five.

  Tier Three Dungeons Activated

  The Seared Wilds Tower has opened.

  Objective: Advance and Uplift

  Objective: Clear Tier Three Dungeon (1,322 Remaining)

  Time Limit: Six Days, Twenty-Three Hours, Fifty-Nine Minutes

  Tori blinked, letting her eyes uncross and focus. She pushed her hair out of her eyes—not that it was in the way of the System message—and read it again. Then she settled in to keep working. Everyone had expected it; they’d been pushing for two weeks, and Phase One had a single week left. It was almost time, and she needed to buckle down if she wanted to join Hal in—

  Time until Dungeon Breaks: Six Days, Twenty-Three Hours, Fifty-Nine Minutes

  All uncleared Tier Three Dungeons will break at the end of Phase One, along with all uncleared Tier Two and Tier One Dungeons in their area of influence.

  The weight of it all pressed down on her like a truck. She was up and running before she’d even finished the second line. She had to find Hal, or Calvin.

  No. There was one person who’d know what to do. She had to find—

  “Mom! Moooom!”

  Tier Three Dungeons Activated

  The Seared Wilds Tower has opened.

  Objective: Advance and Uplift

  Objective: Clear Tier Three Dungeon (1,322 Remaining)

  Time Limit: Six Days, Twenty-Three Hours, Fifty-Nine Minutes

  As near as Calvin could tell me, there were now five Level Fifties in Museumtown.

  Bobby had hit it only a few hours after me, and he’d vanished the next day, citing a “need to be alone for my Trial.” Given what his class did and how it worked, that didn’t make much sense, but I had no idea what a Trial even looked like, and I wanted to trust him—or at least, I wanted to trust that he’d be back, and he’d have passed his Trial when he returned.

  Days passed between him leaving and the next Level Fifty.

  Or, rather, the next three.

  Tori, Zane, and Carol hit on the same day, within an hour of each other, while re-clearing The Void’s first boss. The dungeon had reset, and they were the highest available team. They’d hit after The Void’s Embrace ‘died’—though Zane needed a quick trip through the Dozen-Path Descent to kill enough monsters for his Level Fifty.

  That had been…the day before yesterday? Or maybe just yesterday? Time had started to blur. Every day was the same: wake up, head to Cindy’s, and work until Calvin or Tori stopped me. I could feel the breakthrough. I was so close.

  Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

  So close that I almost missed the next announcement.

  Time until Dungeon Breaks: Six Days, Twenty-Three Hours, Fifty-Nine Minutes

  All uncleared Tier Three Dungeons will break at the end of Phase One, along with all uncleared Tier Two and Tier One Dungeons in their area of influence.

  I sighed and put down the Voltsmith’s Grasp, setting it perfectly on top of the Charge-wire replica projected on my workbench. It was about half-finished: upgraded battery, refiner and emitter, and multiple purpose-built plug-in locations for add-on tools. And even better, I’d figured out how to use the Small Lens Array; by wrapping it in the Mana Coil and alternating power flow through it, I’d gotten the red, concentrated Charge into a usable state.

  I wasn’t one hundred percent sure that what I was building was what the Tier One Trial wanted. It was honestly a mess, not a refined piece of Voltsmithing. But when I compared it to the original Voltsmith’s Grasp, it was a massive increase in both power and handling. And it had the start of what the guys always called ‘sexy lines’ on the cars that came in. Not exactly a luxury sports car, but a far cry from the ‘90s station wagon the gauntlet had started out as.

  But the rest of the trial would have to wait at least a few hours. There was no way Calvin and Jessica weren’t panicking about that message.

  If one Tier Two Dungeon breaking could be a threat to Museumtown, what would every dungeon breaking be like?

  Calvin didn’t look panicked.

  Surprisingly, neither did Jessica.

  She was definitely a nervous wreck. Her fingers wouldn’t stop tapping the stone steps in front of the Reliquary of Bones’s fog wall except to push her hair away from her face, and she kept looking from Calvin to me as if we had answers. I could feel the stress radiating off her in waves.

  She looked worried. A little—no, a lot—scared. But not panicked.

  “Good, you’re here,” Calvin said as I sat on the steps in my usual spot. “Don’t have to find a runner to track you down. I assume you got the same message we did, and that you don’t have good news for us about your Trial?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, it was worth a shot. You close?”

  “Yeah, I’m getting close. I think I’ll be finished today.”

  Calvin stared at me.

  “I’m serious. I made progress on the Mana Coil/Lens Array last ni—“

  He held up a hand, glancing at Jessica. “I believe you, Hal, but it could still be a couple of days. Things always go wrong in testing and assembly, and you’re one of Museumtown’s best resources—not to mention our friend. Bobby hasn’t come back, and if your Trial’s any example at all, Tori and the Twins won’t pass theirs for a while.”

  “She shouldn’t be—“ Jessica started.

  Calvin interrupted. “Jess, we’ve talked this over. She should be. You don’t have to like it, but the three of ‘em are working together, and they’ll keep each other safe. Might even speed things along. For all we know, Hal’s Trial’s unusually difficult, or slow, or he’s screwing it up. Tori will be fine. They all will.”

  Jessica didn’t look like she believed him, but the glare she stabbed him with was half-hearted.

  I stretched, feeling the tightness in my shoulders. Some of it was from working hard for as long as I had been, but not all of it. Some of it was the same stress Jessica wasn’t hiding and Calvin was. “What are we doing about this?” I asked.

  The room went quiet, with Jessica and Calvin sharing a look. Then Jessica took a deep breath and sighed slowly, deflating. “I’m not doing anything except trying to teach the other Healer how to do his job and keeping Museumtown running for as long as I can. I’ve got ideas, but that’s all they are.” She seemed to be struggling with something, and I waited. After a few more seconds, she kept going. “This is your show, Hal.”

  “No, it’s not,” Calvin interrupted. “This is our show. Here’s what I propose…”

  Tommy had screwed up. He had screwed up pretty fucking badly.

  He’d gone south out of Museumtown, expecting to hit I-80 near Joliet. From there, he’d had to decide to go west toward Des Moines, east until it merged with I-90 and into Gary and South Bend, or flip north and head to Milwaukee and Green Bay. His money was on Gary and South Bend. There were some tough motherfuckers in Indiana and up in Michigan, and they’d have all the dungeons cleared.

  They’d either take him in or they wouldn’t.

  He hadn’t gotten even a few miles down the interstate before he saw the glow against the clouds, though. Gary was on fire.

  And that was a surprise, because the gigantic industrial tanks didn’t have any pressure, and as far as he could tell, no one could light them up even if they did. The rules of the world had changed, and no firebug was going to set a city ablaze.

  Tommy had ignored the shiver that started in his shoulderblades and worked its way down to his tailbone. He had something that’d keep him safe—assuming whoever was in Gary was interested in talking first and shooting after.

  He’d regretted his choice every day since, but the system message had changed something. His ‘host’ seemed more interested in talking than he had at any point up till now.

  The heat from a hundred torches filled the warehouse. Outside, Gary was still burning, but even though he’d been sweating for days, it was nothing compared to the sheer heat boiling off of the man in the black armor—or the two things standing on either side of him.

  They were impossible. They shouldn’t exist.

  Flamecaller: Level Forty-Five Elite Monster

  Summoned Minion of Taven Liu

  They were each a solid five levels over Tommy—two-armed snakes made from equal parts bone, fire, and smoke. Each loomed over the armored figure, snapping their jaws at Tommy and hissing like a pissed off feral cat, but at a snap of the man’s fingers, they quieted and settled. Tommy felt naked and exposed, and not only because of his power level. He’d been stripped of all his magical gear and thrown into a basement closet in the warehouse.

  If the armored man sicced the monsters on him, he’d be fucked. And not in the good way, as Eddie used to say.

  “Thomas Wright,” the armored man said. His voice was a deep bass, so low it was almost a rumble, and it had absolutely no mercy to it. “I absolve you of your sins. By fire be cleansed, and by smoke reborn.”

  The Flamecaller on the right surged forward and reached a single arm out. Tommy jerked and screamed as the three claws clamped around his head, burning hair and flesh. The pain lasted forever; long after the monster’s grasp loosened, he was still writhing on the warehouse floor. The assembled crowd of men and women—all over Level Thirty—shouted and chanted as he slowly looked up.

  The armored man loomed over him, and he got a good look at the helmet, and the silver-forged flames that had been forged into the black steel. They were almost mesmerizing.

  Then the helmet came off, and Tommy saw a face from a horror movie. Not a single scrap of hair remained from neck to scalp. His skin was wrinkled and red, and fresh burns covered the older ones; a pair of eyes so brown they looked black pierced him, and he flinched again when he saw his nameplate overhead.

  Taven Liu: Level Fifty-Three (Rank One)

  Class: Fireborn Crusader

  “Holy shit,” Tommy whispered.

  The man laughed. It wasn’t a friendly one. “Indeed. Holy shit. Now, Tommy, as you know, things have changed. I’m suddenly very interested to hear what you have to say about Chicago, because the time has come for a crusade.”

  Patreon, if that's something you're craving! If you're not sure, you could also become a free member, and get access to one (1) chapter in advance!