The Trial was overwhelming.

  With Tori and the twins taking care of the Reliquary of Bones’s first boss, and with Calvin’s promise that he had teams who could handle The Void, The Field of Warriors, and The Watery Grave, I had time to sit down and work. But the puzzle in front of me felt exactly like the woman with the Ford Explorer. That sat against one of the lab’s bare walls, guts still spilled onto the cement floor. I wanted to work on it, but I needed to work on the Trial.

  The Voltsmith’s Grasp was so complicated, though. And there weren’t any guidelines. So instead of working through the mess of Charge-wires and scribbled notes on my desk, I wiped all of that away and grabbed my remaining emitter and the remains of the Rose-Tinted Compass. I set the Small Charge Battery, the tiny coffee filter, and the lights on the table.

  I’d been talking to Tori, and she’d told me about the enemy detectors in a lot of video games. There were two types.

  The first was a minimap with glowing red dots everywhere a possible enemy was. That was way beyond my capabilities—although it was something the System felt like it should be able to do. I didn’t have the ability to map the world around me.

  But the second had potential. Tori had talked about a compass that covered a thin line at the top of the screen. It had similar glowing dots for enemies, but instead of mapping them, it used relative size or brightness to show how far away they were. According to her, she could also put pins in the map to mark important locations.

  I didn’t care about that. I just cared about making a better Rose-Tinted Compass—one that I wouldn’t have to check like a pocketwatch, and that would alert me to possible threats. I could build armor to help with my Body score, but this was the best way I had of increasing my Awareness. With it, I wouldn’t have to worry as much about being ambushed or walking into a trap. The vision in my head was clear—I just…needed some time with it. And more importantly, away from the Trial.

  One hour. That’s how long I’d give this side project. Then, it’d be time to focus on the Trial again.

  The emitter had to be the key. I hooked it up to the filter. The second I did, the whole thing went completely haywire. It started sucking Charge from everywhere, and the ball of energy overhead grew out of control until I shut it down.

  So that wasn’t right.

  Or was it? I jammed some resistors into the wire, forcing the Charge to slow down. When that didn’t work either, I pulled the Small Lens Array out of the pile I’d built for the Voltsmith’s Grasp—I’d want the Medium Array for it, anyway. A bit of playing around with it solved the ‘too much Charge’ problem, but it also opened a whole new can of worms.

  I needed the lenses and mirrors in the array to project the Charge into the air near my eyes, and now I didn’t have any more.

  This device was going to be a problem. I didn’t have time for real problems—I had the Trial to get back to.

  Where had I seen mirrors in use before?

  It took a bit, but I got it figured out. The Eyes of Perfection in the Twilight Menagerie had been a puzzle fight with mirrors. I replayed the battle as best I could in my head. The lasers bouncing from one mirror to the next. The reflection not getting any weaker or more powerful, but turning into something I could use against the boss.

  Double bounces. Maybe I could use the back of a mirror just like the front. Or maybe…yeah. I took the whole device apart and started rearranging it again. This time, the filter and emitter were both tucked into the center of a nest of mirrors and lenses. This time, it didn’t pull energy from the surrounding area.

  But that was okay. It was all part of the plan.

  I adjusted the Small Lens Array slightly, and a thin stream of Charge flowed into it, solidifying into a ball of glowing orange Charge, but before it could grow too big, the emitter siphoned off it and projected the energy back through the array on a slightly different path. This bounced into the air, and I couldn’t help but grin.

  I’d look pretty silly with a sun visor, but that was exactly what I needed. A sun visor or a ball cap over my head for the energy to project onto. And as luck would have it, one of the guys always kept one in the shop.

  From there, it took less than fifteen minutes to lock the tracker into place, wire it into my Autoplate Pauldron, and orient it so it fired from my sternum and hit around my hairline.

  Bio-Electric Scanner, by Hal Riley (Created Item, Charge 0/10)

  The Bio-Electric Scanner uses Charge to pick up life signs—as well as other sources of both Charge and electricity—and signal the user their approximate location. The current iteration detects all applicable targets within twenty yards on use, but does not work through significant barriers. First created by Hal Riley of Earth.

  The only problem was that I couldn’t test it here. The Charge density was too great, and every time I activated it, the glow over my eyes was overwhelming and in every direction. And that I didn’t want to bring it into the dungeon we’d be clearing tomorrow evening. I put it into my inventory—I’d make sure it did its job later—and pulled up my stats.

  [Hal Riley] [Class - Voltsmith] [Level - 50]

  [Stats]

  ?Body - 30

  ?Awareness - 42

  ?Charge - 4/59 (55 Used)

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  Stat Points Available: 0

  [Class Skill - Decharge/Recharge - Drain the charge from magic items to power your own creations]

  [Skill - Spellcoding - Transfer spells from Tomes to Spellscrolls, allowing weaker versions to be cast with Charge instead of Mana]

  Items

  ?Autoplate Pauldron (8 Charge)

  ?Voltsmith’s Grasp (15 Charge) - Rail Gun Module

  ?Heavy Trip-Hammer 2.0 (25 Charge)

  ?Warrior’s Sheath (Spellcode Scroll-Reader) (7 Charge)

  Yeah. This was the loadout I’d be taking to fight the Queen Tyrant tomorrow. If our math was right, we’d have six days before the dungeon reset, so Tori and I would hold off on clearing it until then. That gave me a little time for other projects—or to get back to the Rank One Trial.

  The Ford Explorer loomed in the corner, its engine ripped apart. I’d been working on it, too, but hadn’t gotten it to so much as turn over yet. It had a long way to go, and right now, I didn’t have the time to make it run. But soon, I would. I needed it; it was the only car I’d found so far that wasn’t changed and wrecked by the Consortium’s terraforming, and eventually, I wanted to get home. Tori would need to get to Green Bay, too. But not yet.

  Right now, I had a gauntlet to work on.

  With a shimmer, the Voltsmith’s Grasp appeared on the workbench. I stared at the orange outline and got to work. One problem solved meant another to work on, and time was running out before the end of Phase One.

  Time Limit: Two Days, Twenty-Two Hours, Thirteen Minutes

  I’d wanted to delay this.

  So had Tori.

  We had a lot of good reasons not to be in the Reliquary of Bones. Neither of us had passed our Trials yet, so the best-case scenario was that we’d end exactly as strong as we’d been when we started. There were other teams that could handle the Queen Tyrant. We needed to be prepping for the Seared Wilds Tower.

  Tori even tried to play the ‘you really want me to risk my life in there, Mom?’ card.

  But in the end, Tori and I were the best candidates to beat the Queen Tyrant safely. More importantly, Jessica and Calvin were both having anxiety attacks about the Reliquary of Bones, and they both wanted it cleared. Tonight.

  So, instead of working on the Voltsmith’s Grasp or whatever Tori was doing, we stepped through the gray fog gate and into the marble-and-tile first floor of the Field Museum.

  Tier Two Dungeon: The Reliquary of Bones (Floor Two)

  Objective: Defeat the Queen Tyrant

  Objective: Survive (0/1)

  Completion: 0%

  Paid Exit: Dungeon Delvers may leave this dungeon, but only by sacrificing a level.

  Open Floor: Once triggered, the dungeon’s bosses will roam freely.

  Activation Code: The dungeon’s boss will only become active once certain conditions are met.

  The Queen Tyrant is in its lair. All Dungeon Delvers in The Reliquary of Bones, tread carefully.

  Tori shrugged. “Yeah, it said that when we beat the mummy. Both times. It’s not a big deal, just don’t go upstairs until we’re ready.”

  “Sure. We ready?” I asked.

  “Yep.” In spite of her confidence, Tori glanced at the marble stairs rather than heading for them right away. I raised an eyebrow at her, and she shrugged. “I mean, there’s one small problem, but it’s pretty minimal, really.”

  “What is it?” I was already halfway up the stairs.

  “A hidden mechanic. Lots of games have them—mobs that get stronger from unnamed buffs, parts of the arena that change and shift without warning, stuff like that. Hidden phases, sometimes. I think there’s a hidden mechanic to the Queen Tyrant. It’s getting more powerful every time it beats a party, but it’s not showing it.”

  “Then why do you think so?”

  “Look, let’s just go up and check, okay? I want to be sure.”

  The first Sky Hunter hit us a few second later, but the level disparity was almost laughable. The Level Forty-Two monster barely had a chance to attack before Tori ripped it from the air, and I didn’t even bother revving the Trip-Hammer to kill it. A massive brontosaurus turned its skeletal head my way, but I put it on ignore, and after a second, its neck shifted back toward the far balcony—as far away from the Queen Tyrant’s lair as it could get.

  Our first challenge hit us at the top of the stairs.

  Bruiser Beast: Level Forty-Seven Monster

  I hefted the Trip-Hammer and charged as the triceratops/ankylosaurus hybrid spun around, aiming its three horns at me and slamming its tail into the floor hard enough to shake the balcony. All three horns glowed a faint crimson, and as I closed in, they shimmered into a magical barrier. When I revved the Trip-Hammer and slammed the weapon home, it seemed to crack and fracture, but the monster behind it held.

  Its tail whipped toward me before I could recover. Then it slowed, and the whole dinosaur flew away from me. Not far. But far enough that the tail club smashed the balcony’s railing instead of my ribs. Tori nodded, holding the Gravity Well in place as I recovered.

  I activated the Autoplate Pauldron. Then I revved the Trip-Hammer and swung.

  This time, the barrier shattered. So did the bone ridge behind that, and the skull behind that. The whole Bruiser Beast shimmered and faded away a moment after it hit the ground, leaving behind a shining green sphere.

  I stared at it. “You need that?”

  Tori only shook her head. “We’ve been blowing them off. No point in picking them up. The System doesn’t bank our experience or anything—I tried. Some games work that way, but not whatever this is.”

  We kept moving, killing fossilized monsters and—for the first time—ignoring their experience orbs. The monsters defending the balcony died, and we stepped into the hallway that, according to Tori, led to Sue the Tyrannosaurus Rex. It was absolutely filled with dinosaur skeletons, but none of them were alive, and from deep within, a gentle but gigantic breathing sound echoed off the marble walls.

  I took a step forward.

  The Queen Tyrant awakens. All Dungeon Delvers in The Reliquary of Bones, use caution.

  Instead of using caution, I readied the Trip-Hammer and strode through the sterile slaughterhouse, looking for the Queen Tyrant.

  I didn’t have to look hard.

  Bobby Richards had been busy.

  It had taken him days—days he didn’t have—to push his Resonator class to Rank One. He’d had a few advantages over the Museumtown people, of course. For one thing, Bobby Richards only had one person to worry about, and that was Bobby Richards. That meant he wasn’t saddled with a settlement that wasn’t going to make it. He could leave the moment the writing was on the wall.

  And the fire he could see burning on the southern tip of Lake Michigan was very clear writing on the wall. With Hal and Tori fighting for their lives in the Tier Three Dungeon, Museumtown’s days were numbered, and that number was small.

  There would be other settlements in other safe zones—hell, he’d been playing the odds with all four of the settlements in Chicago, trying to maneuver as many as he could into surviving Phase One. Ideally, they’d survive deeply in his debt. All four were probably screwed, based on what he knew about Gary, Indiana.

  It was time to relocate, though. Time to wander west—maybe to Des Moines or Omaha. Maybe farther. There’d be settlements there, and with the smaller populations, they’d need a Level Fifty who’d passed his Rank One Trial. He could do more good—for himself as much as for those communities—there. Bobby’s momma had called him many things, but stupid had never been one of them. He was Rank One, and that made him a commodity he could trade on.

  In Bobby Richards’s line of work, trading on that name was all that mattered.

  That and the smoke on the horizon.

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