Colt offered to help Nick up off the ground, but the Light Archer was reluctant to take any aid; so he gave him a few minutes as the rest of the group gathered around the exit to the dungeon. The swirling gateway marked the path to freedom; the stark black top of the mountain was getting old to him, so he asked after a few minutes if they were ready to go.

  The arrows wounded Nate, but the Soldier carried on anyway, already cycling his Edict to heal.

  Almost all of them were, aside from Nick.

  After losing his fight, the guy wiped at his eyes, a veritable mess of a human. He glared at Nate—and there were hard feelings there, that much could be seen from the hate swirling… Nate, for his part, gave Nick all distance on the world, not trying to make things better because there wasn’t really anything to make better, was there?

  “Go without me.” Nick insisted.

  “You want us to leave you in a dungeon? One with monsters still around,” Colt said and glanced out at the gigantic forest that lay like a carpet of green off the mountain. Inside, there were countless more dinosaurs, overgrown vegetation, and deadly animals—he didn’t kid himself into thinking that they’d even made a significant dent in the population.

  This veritable fortress of life was lush with things that would kill the guy if he made the wrong step, unsupported by the rest of them.

  “Yes.”

  “He wants to level, best to leave him to his work,” Nate concluded, his voice gruff as he didn’t look at Nick; the soldier’s eyes were honed on the portal of light after his victory.

  What use was looking into the past, Colt supposed?

  “It’s dangerous,” Colt warned, but it was on deaf ears; Nick didn’t bother to respond.

  He gave a tired sigh and ran a hand through his hair—looking for confirmation with the rest of the group. Sarah met his eyes and gave a firm nod. Nate shrugged. Julia looked blankly, a bit broken since the fight with the boss and the once again near-death experience. It was an agreement then, mostly, to go onward without Nick…

  To Colt, this was just a symbol of what was to come to happen. People didn’t tend to get over stuff like this and in the case of Nick… That didn’t make the stab he felt in his heart seeing it any better, though.

  Well. They’d see him in New Nashville and see if things went in a direction Colt didn’t expect.

  “Take care, man.” Colt offered him, gesturing for the rest of his group to breach the portal.

  Nate was first, striding through the gateway of light like a man on a mission. He’d come, he’d seen, and he’d conquered. Sarah went in after, her scowl still on her face, unhappy with how everything had gone down.

  Julia needed to be prodded to head through, and for a moment, Colt wondered if she’d finally snapped the rest of the way in the same fashion as Donny back in their kitchen. This new reality was heavy, too much so for some to bear. Her skin was pale, and she had a shakiness of someone broken.

  Lastly, Colt hesitated at the gateway, staring at Nick.

  The guy lay on his back on the pitch-black stone, surrounded by darkness. All of the light above winked out; it was like he was in a pitch-black void. Alone. Not willing to take any hand to get him out. Colt ran through things to say in his head; were there words that could still yank him out of this pit? Some way of letting his light shine once more?

  It felt wrong; his insides twisted as he saw the image of a comrade broken and left here… But what could he do? It was Nick’s choice, and he didn’t have the words to save him from his own decisions.

  No. There weren’t any words. None at all, at least, that Colt had the ability to give.

  He gave one last wave and then went through the portal himself, feeling the bright warmth of the liquid-like magic ripple as he walked through. His skin tingled and warmed with their victory over yet another dungeon—their deadliest dungeon so far.

  ###

  Rio leaned over on his desk. It was a fine thing, carved of a life tree from a realm of vitality that sprouted out of the carcass of a forgotten Chaos God of Nature.

  None of that mattered much past the memory of what this was made of. The First Captain ordered the carcass split up and made into furniture like a trophy. As with such things, now the name was vanished from the cycle forever.

  It was late, and Rio had a splitting headache from the repetitive work. But his environment was made to counteract that.

  Rio’s office was a bit more barren and less grandiose than such a titled desk would imply. He kept his walls empty. He kept a little hourglass—nothing magical to it—on the desk for when he needed to set time aside for certain tasks. Other than that, there were, as always, a bunch of stacks of folders and his modest metal cabinet to put them in.

  Nothing special, nothing extra, and minimal, with the explicit goal of being purpose-driven. That was the ideal way to work and focus. Today, though, he was looking through the same folder he’d been in for the last month.

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  On his desk were more reports about this year’s integrated world and the new associated documents he’d ordered.

  Dubbed planetary name, Sol of Reality String 2220DAX932329C27—normally, this type of report never went to his desk past the initial integration report. Archived for tracking purposes since real interest in integrated worlds didn’t happen until they reached the labyrinth.

  This being the twentieth world with a declining population initial survival rate, Captain Ash, his captain, had managed to persuade a majority of the other captains that it was time to take more action than sitting on the sidelines.

  In the grand scheme of things, twenty years was a short time.

  Among the people who could fight on the level of a Chaos God—a couple of their captains probably being able to slay multiple—sure, twenty years wasn’t a lot.

  But data, trendlines, and the steep and exponential decline of newly integrated worlds made it clear that something was influencing the natural cycle of things.

  Order and Chaos.

  Waxing and Waning. One couldn’t exist without the other; though they fought bitterly and to the death, both sides were in acknowledged the other, and as with Icons, they could cross the line and balance the individual, bringing a little chaos to the order and a little order to the chaos to make both stronger.

  Why, then, would Chaos be intentionally ruining the cycle? At this rate, twenty more years would see the tutorial dungeons wipe out the entirety of any new potential beings of Order? On the scale of hundreds or thousands of years, such indiscriminate murder would lead to their own destruction as well.

  Rio rubbed at his eyes; burning a little of his Edict; focus to wipe away any of the remaining sleep. His eyes once more sharply scanned the document; and… They detailed his orders and measurements within the Labyrinth, the barest data they found therein that spoke of these unconnected worlds.

  The numbers swam in his vision, and his Edict ran his brain like a computer as Rio analyzed each bit of data from the different detectors.

  “It is being influenced,” he summarized again. Maybe for the hundredth time

  These worlds were being altered, and the tap opened wide to Chaos—but whatever mechanism was allowing it was outside of the System, outside of the Edicts that governed both Order and Chaos.

  Rio rubbed at his eyes again. The conclusion had been at his desk for the last five days. Yet he hadn’t brought it to the Captain and First Lieutenant.

  “By what?”

  In these numbers and raw data, he was seeing ghosts. Things that didn’t exist, that couldn’t exist, and things that he the second lieutenant of the Research and Intelligence Community within the court squads couldn’t make heads or tails of. He, who had pored over tens of thousands of years of data with his focus, failed to draw a conclusion.

  “What is this?” Rio whispered and shook his head. When he looked down, he saw his hand trembling.

  ###

  At the other end of the portal of light was Nashville—once more blanketed in the cool ghostly fog that had become common to this city now. What was causing it was a mystery, but in their world, weird weather was a phenomenon that no one had the time or intention to waste. Yet, it still tangled in the air, a question that hung thick around Nashville, like many Colt still had.

  For now, anyway.

  The four remaining group members looked around; the Scout was gone, which was well enough. No more dinosaurs prowling around outside… The doorway back into the dungeon was now gone on this side, and if they wanted, they could turn around and enter the Adventure Science Center the dungeon had spawned in.

  Not that he wanted to; instead, his eyes ran over the rampant jungle around this place, searching.

  He didn’t have to wait for long. A man with long hair jumped out of a tree and started jogging toward them.

  “You did it!” he yelled—Faithful, at least that was what Colt had started to call him in his head. He was the guy who’d approached him like a dumbass in New Nashville with only a hope, a prayer, and a dream Colt wouldn’t turn him into Denny.

  “Yep,” Colt folded his arms and Inspected him for the first time.

  His name was Tony.

  “Well, Tony; the dungeon was massive. I’m not going to sugarcoat it; the place was a gigantic forest with way too many trees to search well. Your friends could be literally in there, but it was also swarming with level fifty monsters; we cleared so they could escape if they were still alive. And the exit is easy to find. But I have no proof that they made it.” Colt said his friends were moving around him, taking in this guy for the first time. Julia limply followed behind Sarah, her breath in short gasps.

  He was worried about her, but whatever happened would have to wait until after their quick meet.

  Considering they’d gone along with the mission, he was sure they were just as curious as he was to take a look at the guy who issued it.

  Tony’s head hung low—and he looked at the ground.

  “You gave’em a fighting chance, or you honored their death. It’s as much as any of us can ask for now. I’m going to leave a note by the entrance and do what you said after a few days of waiting—we’ll get out of Nashville.”

  Colt gave a nod, then set a hand on Tony’s shoulder.

  “Good. I’m sorry if they didn’t make it, for what it’s worth.”

  “They were good people... And they are still alive, so there is no need to be sorry. You must have faith, friend. Your cloak is here,” Tony said and then pulled his backpack off—riffling through the contents as he pulled out the Apprentice’s Concealment Cloak; payment was rendered for services provided. Colt gladly accepted the item, still not sure how he planned to use it, but he knew that the concealment property was invaluable. “By the way… Things have gotten a little more active in New Nashville. My people and I have stopped going since the security tightened, and they’ve been better vetting citizens.”

  Colt tilted his head.

  “Denny released a slew of orders in the name of freedom and growth—the city has grown to over a thousand—and now they’re killing any groups which stick around and ‘compete,’ and absorbing the people they were taking care of as laborers. Some of the groups are gathering forces, planning to push back… I know you warned me to get out, but… I think you should, too. I don’t think Nashville will be safe for much longer.” Tony stared into his eyes as he said it and appeared… Downright terrified.

  Colt didn’t know what to make of that. One immediate concern was his friend still in his walls. But the Orders, and everything else…

  “Thanks,” Colt offered. Tony gave a goodbye and headed back over to his tree where he might scout out the exit to the Dungeon.

  Colt then studied the rest of his allies. Nate’s jaw was tight, and his eyes were stern. Sarah looked confused. Julia was still despondent as if the words didn’t quite register. She wiped tears away from her eyes and gave a little shake.

  “…This isn’t a game, is it?” Julia said, breaking the silence; her eyes were wide, and her face shocked white like a ghost. She looked like a piece of glass, shattering against the brutal reality.