When the dungeon finally did turn red, Lacey rushed to the screens. Colt, on the other hand, slowly put a leaf in his book as a bookmark and sighed. Colt took the time to stretch lazily and stroll into the control room like it was Easter Sunday at his mom’s.

  It wasn’t like they weren’t all set up for practically anything. They had kept the entrances as they’d been, but Lacey had layered Manchester rooms and trapped mazes between each level, just in case. There were another dozen copies of their worst traps, designs, and more for any rule-breakers. It was all stuff that they’d had already, but it was more than an army could batter through in a week. It was also what Colt had designated as the final trap, not that they were going to let anything get that far.

  “Okay,” Colt stalled further by stopping at the snack cabinet for yet another treat. “What’s coming in to kill us now?”

  “A barmaid?” Lacey frowned at her display, throwing the image up on the wall for Colt, not that he seemed to be paying attention.

  The woman looked like a barmaid, wearing medieval clothing that belonged on a wench and carrying two large mugs of ale. Her red hair was half-tucked into a worn handkerchief that worked to hold back curls that belonged in the 80s. The apron overskirt was worn and lightly stained, and the woman wiped her hands on it after setting the two mugs on the table where Adam sat in front of Temple Run. Out of a pocket in that apron, she pulled out cake that made Adam and his Elite’s eyes bug out.

  “Is that chocolate cake?” Colt leaned away from the snack cabinet.

  “How can you be hungry?” Lacey chided him good-naturedly, switching on the audio to catch what the woman was saying to their goblins. “You already ate half a cabinet of powdered donuts this morning.”

  “I’ll wait,” the woman smiled at the goblins and turned to sit in a chair near the entrance.

  Adam scratched his head and sent a surreptitious look at the ceiling. The goblin chief didn’t want to leave his post, but the woman didn’t look perturbed by the delay. She sat and ate what looked like a hand-pastry filled with some kind of dark meat.

  “I love being able to eat anything and everything and not gain weight,” she made conversation with Adam, even if it was one-sided.

  Lacey took the time to carefully scan the other entrances, but they were deserted. Adam called out to one of the Reject animal handlers in the Menagerie to send word to the dungeon masters. She felt a bit like a voyeur with the sound from them turned off, but neither she nor Colt were feeling chatty this morning.

  “What new trick is this?” Colt scowled.

  “Where are Bernard or Kat?” Lacey asked in return.

  “My weapons consist of bakery products,” the barmaid said to Adam, holding up her hands to show she was unarmed. She wasn’t wearing armor either. “I swear I come in peace, just to talk to your dungeon masters, Lacey and Colt.”

  “Dungeon masters in control room,” Adam eyed the ale and cake, but like a very loyal denizen, he didn’t sample any. “They no visit here when one of you in dungeon.”

  Rather than answer, the woman shrugged and nodded. Lacey was pretty sure that everyone concerned knew that Lacey and Colt could talk over the intercom speakers if they wanted to, but those in the entrance lobby of the Temple Run were pretending to not know. The Reject wasn’t running to fetch the dungeon masters as Adam had suggested. It had only run into the next room and hid out, listening at the doorway.

  “I assure you that no one else is coming into the dungeon while I’m here,” she reached into another pocket and pulled out a battered book. Seemingly without a care in the world, and as if she was willing to wait all day, the woman proceeded to read her book.

  After a brief silent communication between Lacey and Colt, Lacey toggled on the speakers and cleared her voice, “You asked to speak with us?”

  “Lacey?” the woman stood, tucking her book back into the pocket that appeared to be able to hold anything and everything. “I’m Karma, and I’m requesting an audience.” She paused then pressing her lips together when there was no response. She didn’t appear to be annoyed, but rather flustered. “I, uh, I know that your new power to grant visitor access also makes it so that the visitor cannot attack the dungeon. If you could just pop that on me, the dungeon should go green again and we can talk in person?”

  Colt toggled off the sound. “Does the visitor tag do that?”

  “How should I know?” Lacey fumbled through some help pages. “You are the one who reads all the fine print. Not me. I was making maps, not researching our rewards. And you told me to read a book, not the manual.”

  Colt frowned and hurried to his desk to look it up.

  Lacey turned the sound back on, “Um, hi, Karma, what’s up?”

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  “Oh good, I’m not the only one who’s nervous,” Karma replied on a soft laugh. “Sorry to barge in unannounced, but you weren’t checking your dmails either. I didn’t want to make anything worse, but um, can we sit and talk for a bit? I promise to be a model guest!”

  It took some finagling, but a half an hour later, Lacey found herself sitting in Adam’s spot next to Colt and across from Karma, where she’d scooted her chair up to the table. While Lacey and Colt had quickly verified the rules and traveled to the Temple Run entrance via elevator, Karma had set the table with various bakery foods that had not come in a package. There was also tea from a real china pot, complete with sugar and cream dishes. How Karma knew more about their recent visitor tag than they did was a sore spot for Colt, but he wasn’t willing to admit it.

  “Who are you?” Colt asked, his tone more accusatory than friendly.

  “Uh, well,” the woman stammered, more intent on arranging finger sandwiches on her plate than meeting their eyes. “I’m trying to think of which title will make you least likely to have Adam there kill me.”

  “If you’re who I think you are, then why would you even let Adam kill you?” Colt crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Because, I figure you’ve got a lot of reason to hate my guts, so I came without any powers,” she answered nervously. “I’m just a level 5 tavern wench. You can have Adam kill me as many times as makes you feel just a little less angry with me?”

  “If we do that though, we’d be fired, right?” Lacey asked, rolling her eyes.

  “Oh,” Karma sat back, non-plussed at that. “I guess you could think that way, but it’s not true. I’m not here to fire you. I’m here to praise you for a job very well done. I’m grateful. I’m here to discuss your continued employment and ask you what you want.”

  “Aren’t you also Kat’s mom?” Lacey cocked her head to the side.

  “And Dom’s wife?” Colt wasn’t feeling as nice.

  “Yes, I’m both of those,” Karma looked down at her hands, then took a quick breath to steady her nerves and rushed on. “I’m also the one who supplied all the quest rewards like endless snacks, soda, and hotel beds. I designed the back valley expansion, approved all the outrageous mob enhancements you kept sneaking in, Lacey.” The last was said with a mischievous smile. “I can tell you that the system did not want me to let you have fire-breathing lizards. I had to compromise with the size, but they will grow full-sized eventually.”

  “Really?” Lacey found herself sucked in.

  “Yes,” Karma gushed. “Just put them in a dozen or more time compression overnights and they’ll be up to your hips at least.”

  “Hold on,” Colt interrupted gruffly. “You are also the one who trapped us here with…”

  “Now wait,” Karma held up a hand and Lacey was surprised that it stopped Colt. “You signed up for that. Both of you did. Both on the forums and with those forms for the contest…”

  “A rigged contest,” he grumped.

  “No, it was not,” Karma shook her head. “We had four groups competing and you were the only one to complete the rooms in the time allotted. That said, you were the ones I was hoping would win. I probably wouldn’t have invited any of the other teams to the game servers.”

  “Why us?” Lacey said before Colt could open his mouth.

  “Uh, that’s a long story,” Karma hedged. “Then again, we have a little time, so I’ll try to keep it basic. When I was sucked into this world, it wasn’t this nice.”

  “Nice?” Colt scoffed, but Karma mostly ignored it except for a slight wince.

  “I was alone,” Karma forced out and Lacey could tell the woman had trouble speaking about it. “I was torn away from my family and into here by a, by a… nevermind. He wasn’t a nice person, and he was old and magical and a terrible writer, but again, that isn’t what’s important and I doubt you care anyway. The worst part was being away from my family. They thought I was dead. I thought I was insane. But in the end, I picked you two because you were family to each other, so neither of you would be alone.

  “When I realized that Colt was close to his family, I arranged to have you both exit the system to visit them, but it cost me,” she continued. “It’s just that we didn’t want you to go through it as bad as it was for us.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell us in the beginning?” Colt wasn’t letting it go.

  “You’d have thought I was crazy!” Karma laughed. “Or worse, you’d have thought I was some kind of stalker or something… after all, I found you from an anonymous post on a website that was supposed to be a joke. It’s totally unbelievable until you’re inside.”

  “You could have told us then,” Colt insisted.

  “I could have done a lot of things differently,” Karma’s tone got a touch sharp, but she again took a breath and continued in a more respectful way. “I’m not saying I did everything right, but it was a damn sight better than my initiation to this world and you two are literally the first dungeon masters we’ve tried to pull in.

  “We’ve tried adventurers, but half of them aren’t really ready for all this,” she waved her hands around in the same way that Kat sometimes did when she was frustrated, and it made Lacey smile a little. “You met some of the best I could find in Hughe and his group. The waitress wasn’t so bad, but she opted to go back to the main world.”

  “Hughe was a nightmare,” Lacey agreed with a shudder.

  “But so was Monty and he wasn’t a player. He was an NPC,” Colt argued, still not having taken a single piece of food from the table.

  “I knew this would come up, but you don’t understand,” Karma ground her teeth. “I’m not the sole owner/controller of all this.” And she waved her hands around again. “I’m not its creator, nor do I have complete control of it. I will say that the creator was a completely narcissistic asshole that makes Dom look like an angel, but the system isn’t all that bad. It’s just young and immature. We’re trying to work with it, but I understand if you’ve had enough and just want to go home.”

  “Good,” Colt’s eyebrows rose, but Lacey frowned at him, giving him a slightly less than gentle kick under the table.

  “All that’s the stupid stuff though, because you did it,” Karma tried to be cheerful. “You made a dungeon system. You did that. I know you didn’t have any more idea of how to do all this before you got here, but you managed it!”

  “Wait,” Lacey paused in reaching for a macaron that looked too pretty to eat. “Is that why there wasn’t a manual?”

  “Of course,” Karma smiled. “We couldn’t write a manual for something that didn’t exist. This whole thing? We could nudge it this way or that way, but it didn’t exist before you got here. All this, the dungeon, the mobs, the controls, even the help system. You did all that. Your dungeon, Cryptic Descent, and its creation as you learned, and we learned with you. All that. You wrote it all by doing it. And all that is included in the next Tier. Tier III has all your changes, and it looks so amazing. Don’t you want to try it out?”