We didn’t have to wait long. The guard’s eyes shot open in a panic and he instinctively reached for the sword at his hip.

Or, he tried to.

Red was wrapped around the man, pining his arms to his side. Our mass was boosted so high that his attempts to squirm free didn’t even budge Red. I waited a beat for him to recognize the futility of the situation before speaking.

“Here’s the deal—”

A shout formed in his throat, his mouth opening wide. Red and I had talked about this while he was unconscious and she acted instantly. Her material filled his mouth, turning rigid like a red-ball gag. His eyes went wide with fear and pain as he mumbled past the magical material.

“It’s rude to interrupt people, you know?” He bucked once more against Red, trying his damnedest to scream or break free. “Hey, can you look at me when I talk to you?” His struggles subsided after a few more moments and he locked hateful eyes on me. “That’s better. Now, as I was saying: here’s the deal. You tell me the combination for the vault or I start cutting pieces off.” To punctuate my statement, I pulled a dagger from my Inventory and grabbed his hand down where Red had it pinned to his side. Peeling back a single digit from his clenched fist, I placed the blade at the base. “What do you say?”

With a thought, Red began loosening the gag to let him speak. I was ready to stuff her back in if he started to yell, but to his credit, he realized the futility of that.

“If I tell you, he will do worse than you ever could.” His panicked expression shot up toward the ceiling.

I narrowed my eyes.

“He, who?”

“The commander,” came his whispered reply. His voice quivered at the words and I had to resist rolling my eyes. I had to give Kurian that, these simulacrum things were authentic.

“Bud, I don’t know who this commander is, but he’s not your problem right now.” Red liquefied and crept up his cheek, pulling away a few inches as she formed into a needle. Slowly, that needle drifted toward his eyeball. “Normally, I wouldn’t be down for this sort of brutality. But this isn’t real anyway, so I’m prepared to go all the way.” I paused, leaning in so that my face was right next to Red’s needle point. “Are you?”

In the end, I only had to cut off three fingers before he caved. Each time, I’d gritted my teeth and done the damn thing, but after every digit, I had silently prayed that he’d give in. He had screamed through the gag piteously and I had asked him the same question each time.

“What is the combination?”

After the last cut, he was crying so authentically that I cursed Kurian for putting us in this situation. But once he gave us the info we needed, I sighed in relief. He stared up at us then, his face a mask of pain and fear. I’ll admit, I had started to think of him as a real person and it kind of fucked me up.

Athena’s blade stabbed into his neck and was back in her Inventory in a flash. I stared at the spurting wound in shock, then whirled on the girl.

“What the fuck?” I hissed. “We coulda just knocked him out.”

She eyed me incredulously, but didn’t argue.

“Dirk,” Lacy’s voice said in my ear. “He wasn’t real…”

I sighed, rubbing a hand across my face. Fuck, she was right. I knew she was right. But it didn’t matter.

“Lacy, that’s not good enough. You know how many times I told myself something didn’t matter in the past redos? I always knew in the back of my mind that I had a reset in my pocket. But those thoughts lead down a dark road.” I turned to look at Athena, who had a thoughtful look on her face. “Did those people I saved in those past redos matter?”

It was Lacy who responded, though Athena’s eyes went wide as she considered.

“I…see what you’re getting at, Dirk. But we have to do what we have to do to pass Kurian’s test and get stronger.”

“I’m not saying we don’t try our hardest…I’m just saying…” I sighed in frustration, the words not coming out right. “What I’m getting at is, we should do what needs to be done, but always recognize the cost on ourselves. You can’t indiscriminately kill people—even simulated people—without the weight of that blood staining your mind. Especially not simulations this realistic. I mean, Christ, that guy was sobbing for his mother at the end. If you can brush past that without a care, more power to ya…but I don’t think anyone can—not really.”

“I hear you, you’re totally right.” It was hard to tell if Lacy was bullshitting just to get me to move on, but she sounded sincere.

Athena nodded, then glanced down at the guard she’d killed. His eyes were wide with terror, his mouth stuck open in an aborted shout. Crouching down, she reached up to his eyes and closed his lids, giving him a more humane appearance.

I sighed, feeling at ease suddenly. “Thanks, guys, for not making me feel crazy.”

“Oh, you’re crazy,” Lacy said with a chuckle. “Just not about this.”

Athena raised her eyebrows in agreement and gave me a wry smile.

“Fair enough. Thanks for not making me feel crazy about this, then.”

“No problem, old man,” Athena replied and we shared another soft laugh.

“Okay, everyone all decompressed and shit?” Lacy asked. “Cause you’re gonna wish this next part wasn’t real.”

“Lay it out, Lace,” I replied.

“It’s not pretty,” she answered, her tone all business. “You already know there’s an Adept guarding the vault. But the really terrifying part is that the Adept’s powerset changes every reset. We reached the vault a handful of times and had to adapt each and every time. There was an armored brute whose defenses we couldn’t break. A mage that literally filled the entire vault with flames so hot they scorched my players’ skin from across the room. And more.” She paused and I felt my anxiety begin to rise. It was obvious she felt the same, because her voice was quiet for this next part. “That’s not even the kicker. Even if it’s something you two can handle eventually, it’s not just about killing the guard. You also have to keep it away from the alarm rope.”

Her voice took on an ominous tone, barely above a whisper.

“Because if the guard triggers the alarm, you two are fucked…”

That didn’t fill me with confidence.

“What is it, Lace? Do we get swarmed by Adepts or what?”

She sighed on the other end of the comm. “Let’s just assume it’s an auto-fail and leave it at that, hm? Kurian asked me not to say and I don’t want to push him on that.”

“Fuck…” I muttered. Turning to Athena, I lightly punched her shoulder. “You ready for this?”

A humorless grin flashed on her face and her still-bloody short sword appeared in her hand.

“Always.”

I nodded. “Then let’s go.”

Before I spun the vault dial, I pulled out my diskslinger and checked that all three slots were primed. Red took that moment to cover me in her full armor form, sliding up my forearm to create a katana. Placing the diskslinger back in my Inventory, I put my hand on the dial.

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“Soon as the door opens, I’m firing all three shots. I’ll aim one at the rope to make it harder to pull, but send two at the Adept.” Athena nodded, blood matting her hair and clothes from when she’d killed the first guard from the alcove. It gave her a feral look, like a demonic child from the pits of hell. Her wild grin didn’t do much to take away from that image either. “Lace, should we close the vault behind us or leave it open?”

“Pros and cons,” she answered. “Closing it will keep the Adept from fleeing and sounding the alarm if they can’t get to the one inside the vault. But it’ll also mean that your escape route is effectively blocked. If you leave it open, you have to guard the exit and the rope…”

“Shit,” I muttered. “Let’s try open this time. I don’t like closing off our only escape route. Worst case scenario, you grab the prize while I hold the Adept off, okay?”

Athena nodded, though I could tell she didn’t like being the one fleeing.

“Okay, here we go.”

I cycled Fate energy, pushing it out to try and see what was waiting for us in the vault. But for the first time since I’d learned how to express it externally, I hit a block. The vault door felt impenetrable and I wondered if it was made of Starsteel like the manacles Astrid had used to block my powers in a past redo.

Fuck it, we were going in blind. I swapped the Fate energy with Mass and ramped up my Agility. Who knew how fast this Adept would be and I didn’t want to be caught by surprise.

Athena and I shared a silent look and I started twisting the dial.

As soon as the combination was finished, I yanked on the turnwheel and pulled the door open. Three disks fired from my diskslinger a moment later, before I’d even taken a look inside the vault.

They buzzed out with an ominous sound, cutting through the air as I directed them to separate corners of the vault. Thankfully, the room wasn’t overly crowded and I spotted both the rope and the Adept at the same time. One disk changed trajectory to slice high up on the rope while the other two went at the guard from two different directions.

I followed behind them, while Athena cut right against the wall to flank the guard. The Adept was a woman wearing leather armor with two forearm-length daggers on either hip. Her eyes went wide as she registered our arrival, but only for a moment. She noticed the two disks coming for her and a wry smile touched her face. I raced toward her, casting [Analysis] as I approached. The Status Sheet filled my vision but I minimized it with a thought, turning my attention back to her.

Just as the two disks were about to sever her in half, she winked and disappeared. The disks flew past where she had been and I quickly modified their pathing to keep them flying low arcs around the vault.

“Rogue type!” Lacy practically yelled. “She’s stealthed and incredibly fast—”

Athena cried out as two daggers stabbed into her of their own accord, both low and under her ribs. They drove up, levering the girl into the air as she tried to scream. There was no blood from her wound due to the safe zone, but it was obvious they were mortal. Her feet kicked out convulsively and seemed to collide against something in front of her. With a start, I realized that the daggers weren’t moving telepathically, but that the Adept was stealthed while her weapons had become visible as she struck.

With a thought, I sent the two flying disks at the invisible target while I started cycling my Fate energy to combat the rogue’s stealth.

The buzzing sound of the disks gave away their position and the Adept chucked Athena’s body away before even the blades disappeared entirely. The disks passed through where she had been a moment earlier, missing their target for the second time.

But my Fate energy was at full power now and I felt the impression of my quarry—

Right up until she barreled into me like a linebacker.

Red acted on instinct, hardening for the impact while stabbing out at the invisible enemy. The blow knocked the wind out of me, but I felt Red penetrate something soft and knew we had given as much as we had got.

Somehow, through ragged breaths, I managed to keep the Fate energy going and was able to track the rogue Adept through the vault. If I had had any time to think, I would have been annoyed at how broken it was that her stealth didn’t break when she attacked. Literally every game in existence didn’t give rogues permanent stealth because it was fucking overpowered otherwise.

Good thing I had my Fate energy as a trump card. The only issue was that she was fast—like, stupid fast. Faster even than me when I had my mass bottomed out to boost my Agility. In the corner of my eye, I examined her Status Sheet and groaned.

Name: Agatha (Training Room Adept — Simulacrum)

Class: Shadow Friend (Rare)

Level: 150

Body:

Strength: 90

Agility: 425

Endurance: 45

Mind:

Intelligence: 75

Perception: 105

Mastery: 125

Spirit: N/A

425 Agility…

How was I going to beat that? My stats were capped at 150, no matter what I did. The only saving grace was that she was a one-trick pony from the looks of it. Her Strength and Endurance were about in line with my own given all my trait bonuses. And if I bumped up my mass, I’d even eclipse her.

But in order to do that, I’d need to drop my Fate energy. The thought of braiding my energies together occurred to me. It was something I hadn’t had a chance to explore with Kurian yet. Then again, his last warning to me had been about it possibly burning out my cores…so maybe not.

She didn’t give me to time to think and I braced as she flashed toward me in my Fate sight once more. There was no other options, I had to hunker down and try to win via attrition. Mass energy coursed through my body, boosting my Strength and Endurance to 150 each, but causing me to lose sight of her.

But I felt her as she thrust with both daggers directly into my gut as she’d done with Athena. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t quite have the Strength to break through both Red and my enhanced Endurance.

Unfortunately for me, I lost sight of her completely once I dropped the Fate energy and she was gone in a flash. My Red-katana slashed out, but the strike was painfully slow in comparison, whiffing through the air.

I felt blind as I waited for her to attack again. The hairs on the back of my neck were tingling and I swung out over and over again, hitting air each time. In the moment between strikes, another attack came from behind, knocking me forward as her daggers failed to penetrate again. I swung behind me but knew it was more from frustration than strategy.

Though her attacks weren’t hitting flesh, that wasn’t to say they weren’t doing damage. I felt each impact like a battering ram and knew that the internal damage was stacking up, even if I wasn’t bleeding out from any particular wound.

In the corner of the room, Athena lay still—presumably immobilized within the rules of the scenario—but I could see her eyes staring at me intently. With a flick, they moved from me to a different part of the vault and I risked a quick glance over.

My own eyes went wide as realization dawned on me, but before I could act, another attack barreled into my side. I swung out with a snarl, then turned away and raced toward the far side of the room. A second attack smashed against my knee, but I gritted my teeth and kept running.

The Adept must have realized what I was doing and the attacks came in fast and hard now, no pauses in between like before. I weathered the storm, swinging out with Red once to buy me a moment before bending down to pick up the item that had been laying discarded on the floor—a golden crown bejeweled with gems ringing its edge.

With the prize in hand, I started running for the exit, swinging Red in front of me like I was bushwacking in the jungle. I expected the Adept to continue her assault, nipping at my heels to slow my escape, but was surprised when nothing came.

“Oh, fuck,” Lacy whispered. “It’s over.”

“Lacy, I got the prize. It’s a crown! If I can get out, we win!”

“No, Dirk. She stopped attacking for a reason…”

“What do you—”

A loud siren went up all across the castle, blaring in my ears.

“Oh, shit,” I muttered as I realized what Lacy was getting at. “She ditched me to hit the alarm somewhere else…”

Before Lacy could respond, a loud thump shook the entire castle. If I had been at my baseline mass, I probably would have hit the floor from the reverberation. It felt like a fighter jet had just passed by, shaking the walls and the floor like an earthquake.

“The fuck was that?” I asked Lacy.

A gust of wind hit me from the vault entrance, sending me flying back against the far wall. The sound of cracking stone echoed out as my back slammed against it. Even with my maxed out mass, I felt my ribs crack from the impact.

Blearily, I looked up from where I lay slumped against the wall. Standing at the vault door was a small, unassuming man with white hair and a wiry build. His eyes burned, two green fires where his pupils should have been. The weight of his stare pinned me in place even as I tried and failed to stand.

The back of my mind was still processing what had happened, while my surface thoughts were consumed with an uncharacteristic animal panic. I felt like an injured gazelle watching a pride of lions loping toward me.

When he spoke, his voice cut across me like blades jamming into my ears.

“A Nascent? Come to steal from me?” He shook his head like a disappointed parent. “Foolish and weak. Will you face death on your feet?”

With a groan, I pushed up to my hands and knees, using Red to keep me balanced when I almost fell back down. Facing the old man, I stood shakily with my head up and shoulders back.

He nodded once in respect. Then, it was over.

My body exploded with pain, every bone snapping as I rocketed through the stone wall and dozens of feet of packed soil.

When I came to however long later, the scenario was gone and I lay on the training room floor looking up at the ceiling. Lacy, Lex, and Athena were there, too, looking down at me in concern.

But I ignored them as my mind played that final scene over and over again.

I was certain of it, though it seemed impossible. Though the old man hadn’t crossed the dozens of feet between us, he’d killed me easily and then some. And it hadn’t been an Affinity attack or wind magic or anything of the sort.

He’d killed me with a simple punch. From across the room. With only the displaced air of his attack. Not his actual fist, but the Goddamned air. It was straight out of a fucking anime.

“Dirk! You okay?” Lacy asked as she crouched over me.

I shook my head softly.

“We are so fucked…”