Time Limit: Eight Hours, Seven Minutes

  The six of us—the twins, Jessica, Calvin, Tori, and I—stood on a boat next to the final boss of the Tour de City dungeon—a greenish water elemental that had risen from the Chicago River and promptly exploded under the combined attentions of four Rank One dungeon delvers. The loot wasn’t worth discussing. Calvin had already picked it up for the stockpile growing in the fortress outside the Field Museum, and now the only thing that remained was slipping into the Seared Wilds Tower.

  It had taken…a while…to figure out where the entrance was. Longer than I wanted to admit, but looking at the timer shoved the truth in my face. There were six Tier One Dungeons surrounding the tower, and each led inside the Tier Three.

  We’d gotten lucky that no one had cleared the Tour de City this week.

  Tori stood stiffly in front of the angriest-looking fog gate we’d seen. Both of us were still Level Fifty and Rank One. So were the Twins; the boss and trash monsters together hadn’t even given us enough for a level. “So, we ready?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” Jessica said. Worry had etched itself across her face, and she looked like she was about to make one final attempt at keeping her fifteen-year-old stepdaughter out of the dungeon. Then Tori gave her a hug and whispered something in her ear, and Jessica relaxed. It wasn’t much, just a fraction of an inch in her shoulders, but it was enough to know she was, if not happy about this, at least willing to let it happen.

  She’d changed a lot since we first found her in Museumtown.

  “Okay, now we’re ready,” Tori said. She gave Zane a handshake, hugged Carol, and waved goodbye to Calvin.

  “We’ll be back in less than two and a half days, I promise,” I said.

  Then we stepped through the portal and into the Seared Wilds Tower.

  Everyone still called it the Sears Tower, even though it hadn’t been owned by Sears in a couple of decades. It was the focal point of the Chicago skyline, its black bulk towering over every other building even though it had been fifty years since its completion. As far as I knew, it was full of airline employees, lawyers, accountants, and the whitest of white-collar jobs.

  At least, it had been three weeks ago, before the Consortium showed up.

  I was expecting something corporate. Every other dungeon we’d fought through had been thematic. The Watery Grave was an aquarium—sort of. The Twilight Menagerie was a zoo.

  Instead, the heat hit Tori and me like a truck.

  Tier Three Dungeon: The Seared Wilds Tower (Floor One)

  Objective: Survive the Great Fire (0/1)

  Completion: 0%

  Fragile Walls: This dungeon is close to breaking. Its inhabitants will be freed if a threshold of Delver deaths inside is reached.

  Break Counter: 0/5

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

  Environmental Hazard: This dungeon’s denizens are not its only threat.

  Gauntlet: Dungeon monsters respawn quickly. They do not drop experience orbs until the dungeon is cleared

  The whole floor was a maze, but not like in the Void. This one was cubicles. Hundreds of cubicles. Monsters—flame-imbued farm animals, for some reason—charged Tori and me through the maze, spreading fire as they went.

  Tori caught on first. “Gauntlet! Based on the Great Fire! Let’s get moving!” She sprinted toward the nearest animal, a chicken the size of a sedan, and cast Crush. The bird exploded before I even got a chance to see its nameplate, but the bull behind it looked like it’d be a lot harder to bring down.

  Leering Steer: Level Forty-Eight Monster

  “That’s so dumb!” Tori said as I revved the Trip-Hammer.

  I’d made a few changes to it.

  Heavy Trip-Hammer 2.0, by Hal Riley (Created Item, Charge 25, Rank One)

  The Trip-Hammer uses magical energy, external power sources, and salvaged parts to apply incredible destructive force to a small area. First created by Hal Riley of Earth.

  This upgraded version includes two separate hammers, one with the Hemorrhage debuff and the other with increased piercing damage in addition to the Trip-Hammer’s already-potent armor-crushing effect.

  Rank One Upgrade: The hammers continue spinning until stopped by the user—or by a target capable of surviving multiple impacts.

  The Leering Steer and I hit like two tidal waves—on of fire and one of electricity. Then the Trip-Hammer slammed into the monster’s side, again and again. Gore exploded out even as the thing’s horns punched into the Autoplate Pauldron and stopped. Searing pain erupted in my shoulder, but it didn’t stop me from holding the trigger down.

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  Blazing hot gore covered the nearest cubicle, and a moment later, the Leering Steer shimmered and vanished. There wasn’t an experience orb, and I hadn’t been expecting one.

  Gauntlets really sucked.

  Tori was busy exploding the rest of the flock of Flaming-Hot Chickens with a combination of Push and Pull that acted like Crush, but more explosive. I didn’t bother asking her how she’d gotten enough power to sustain two spells that worked oppositionally to each other. Rank One was clearly a big deal.

  Instead, I fired the first railgun bolt into a charging ram, the second into its twin, and kept pushing forward into the maze.

  We’d been fighting for a good hour, and it felt like we’d barely made any progress.

  Sweat poured down my face, and even though the stairs up were in sight, the maze itself wrapped away from them, looping almost all the way around the building before doubling back. We were in it for the long haul.

  And we didn’t have long haul time.

  I’d caught a glimpse of the Floor One ‘boss’ ten minutes ago, and I didn’t like anything about it.

  Mrs. O’Lighter: Level One Boss

  Ephemeral: This boss cannot be harmed or interacted with.

  That was all her nameplate said, but I had a bad feeling, and that feeling had only gotten worse as the heat in the tower’s first floor redoubled. I looked over my shoulder. Behind us, the maze—which had already been on fire in places—had turned into a wall of flame from floor to ceiling.

  Through the inferno, Mrs. O’Lighter waved a lantern in her hand, and her transluscent dress and hair burst into flames, wreathing her in flickering oranges, reds, and blues. She only lasted a second before a new System message came in.

  Mrs. O’Lighter’s mission has been accomplished.

  Time until First Floor Destruction: Eight Minutes, Fifty-Three Seconds

  The gauntlet was on a timer now, if it hadn’t been before.

  “Let’s go!” Tori shouted over the roaring blaze.

  Everything was on fire. The cows were on fire. Mrs. O’Lighter was on fire. The walls, the computers, the floor. Everything. A desktop tower exploded, pouring sparks out like a waterfall. A water cooler melted. Steam hissed into the air as five gallons evaporated almost instantly.

  I hammered a pair of sheep into nothing and sprinted down the hall. My skin popped and crackled like the store-brand cereal I’d lived on for years. Tori dropped a pair of Gravity Wells behind us; they caught a respawning Leering Steer and three more of the roosters, pinning them in place. The blaze spread.

  There was nothing to do but keep fighting.

  And the monsters were getting tougher, too.

  Leering Steer: Level Fifty-One Monster

  They still weren’t overwhelmingly strong. But they were definitely getting there. I had serious concerns about the next floor if we didn’t get a level or three out of this one—this was a definite step up from the Tier Two Dungeons.

  The cubicles turned right, then right again. It was a straight shot to the end of the maze. The first safe spot I’d seen in the gauntlet was the stairs at its end, but we were almost there.

  And that’s when the dungeon really poured it on.

  A trio of the Leering Steers appeared at the base of the stairs. As they charged toward us, building up speed, Tori’s Gravity Wells behind us ended, and the Steer and roosters behind us started charging, too. We were caught in a pincer, and there was only one option.

  I braced myself, activated the Autoplate Pauldron, and revved the Trip-Hammer.

  The first Leering Steer was only feet away when, out of nowhere, it catapulted into the air. The one behind us did the same thing, and they both slammed into each other overhead. Sparks rained down over use as Tori canceled the doubled Push spells and switched to a single Gravity Well. “They’re covered! I’ve got the chickens!”

  There wasn’t time to waste. I swung the Trip-Hammer into the third Leering Steer. Its head exploded, showering sizzling brains across the cubicle hallway like confetti. The wall of fire drew closer, but with only one enraged-looking steer in the way, it was only a matter of time.

  Leering Steer: Level Fifty-Three Monster

  Juggernaut - This monster will continue fighting after receiving lethal damage.

  Juggernauting - This monster has been killed, but is enraged and temporarily indestructible. It will pursue its killer for thirty seconds.

  Well, that was going to be fun.

  I fired another railgun blast into the thing. Its skull disintegrated, but it kept coming even though one horn had been ripped clean off. Fire poured from its wound, but its remaining eye locked on me, and I felt a crushing presence coming from the monster.

  Horrified: You cannot move as long as the monster’s eye is upon you.

  I didn’t feel horrified. It was more like something being forced on me by the System, like a game mechanic happening to my character. That’s how Tori would have described it, I was sure. But no matter whether it was ‘real’ fear or not, it was a problem, because the Leering Steer kept up its relentless charge toward me.

  “Tori!” I yelled through gritted teeth.

  She turned, took one look at me, and brandished The Queen’s Blessing. The staff glowed a brilliant yellow-gold, and a moment later, the Horrified debuff fell off. I felt stronger than ever.

  Elite - This Delver moves faster and hits harder than a similarly powerful Delver (Eighteen Seconds Remaining)

  And just like that, the fight was over.

  I didn’t bother revving the Trip-Hammer. I just swung it. It crashed into the Enraged bull, and its entire front side collapsed. The way to the stairs was clear.

  I grabbed Tori’s arm. “Let’s go!” I yelled, and I dragged her to safety as the wall of fire rounded the corner and started rushing toward us. My feet hit the stairs, and a moment later, System messages poured in.

  Objective: Survive the Great Fire (1/1)

  Level Up! Fifty to Fifty-One.

  Dungeon Delvers who were not in the arena will receive fifty percent of your team’s experience.

  Area Message: The Seared Wilds Tower’s second floor has unlocked. This floor will remain unlocked for twenty-four hours, after which time the first floor will reset.

  The stairwell was safe—neither part of Floor One or Floor Two, and I took a deep breath of the crisp, cool, air-conditioned air. Sweat salt stuck to my forehead like I’d been running for hours, and Tori looked exhausted. Even with the level-ups, we needed a break to recover.

  “Something’s bugging me,” Tori panted, lying on the stairs as we watched the first floor burn behind us. I raised an eyebrow, and she continued after sucking in a deep breath. “If someone else was already here, we’d either have seen a death on the Dungeon Break counter or the first floor would already be clear, right?”

  “Right,” I answered.

  “So where’s Bobby Richards, then?”

  I looked up the stairs, then at Tori. She was right; I’d expected him to come here as soon as he finished his Rank One Trial. This was the place for him to be—the place that’d get him the most power. If he wasn’t here…what was he up to?

  I didn’t know, but I had a bad feeling that it wouldn’t be in our best interests.

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