“Alright, does anyone have a map?” I asked.

The four demons stared at me with blank expressions, remaining silent. That was unfortunate. I’d intentionally asked the question to bait Toll into ousting one of the other demons. However, the balaam was choosing not to reveal this information.

Well, if Toll had thought to hide it from me they were greatly mistaken. If nobody had a map, the obvious choice was to say no. That way, Toll would get a question and provide me with nothing of value. It was a deal with no downsides and there was little incentive to hide that fact. On the other hand, if Toll had answered yes, they would be revealing information that was important to the group, potentially putting them at odds with that group member or just outright revealing information that they did not want revealed. Hence, if somebody had a map, the best thing Toll could do was say nothing. Which is what they did.

I rested my foot up on a fallen tree in the middle of a clearing. If I wasn’t mistaken, a fight had taken place here earlier between other demons and digressers, given that a bunch of trees, with their leaves still intact, lay sideways across the area. Or it could have been Silica’s doing. Nothing was certain anymore and that pissed me off.

“Listen,” I sighed. “By staying silent, you’ve all practically told me that someone here has a map. Who has it?”

The demons all glanced at each other. Just as Toll opened their mouth to speak, Enzi’s hand shot up and a smile split her face. Toll’s beak snapped shut. They gained little to nothing from answering a question that someone already knew the answer to.

I held out a hand, asking for the map.

The corners of Enzi’s eyes crinkled as she pulled a thick, rolled-up parchment from her inventory. She stepped forward and held out the map, but before I could swipe it from her grip, she yanked it away and snuggled it between her breasts.

“Asking a woman to reveal her secrets is so un-gentlemanly,” she gasped, feigning offence. Then slowly her back straightened and her cheeks reddened. She looked away. “But I suppose if you want me to show you mine, you’ll have to show me yours as well.”

I stared at her deadpan with my hand still held out. My knife was in my other hand, the arm resting across my knee. I gave the knife a small flourish, to indicate that it was the only thing of mine that I had. The reason why was because she, along with the other demons, had swiped all the rabdoses.

Of course, she’d meant that she wanted me to reveal an intimate secret of mine. I’d offered her a fair trade instead: my only rabdos for one of hers.

Enzi pouted at me. “You’re no fun.”

Beside her, Volce had been squatting in the air and grinding his jagged teeth. Unable to take it anymore, he floated up to Enzi and screamed in her ear, “Give him the fucking map, Tits!”

Without a single change in expression, Enzi’s arm shot out and punched Volce square in the nose. The little demon went flying with a yelp and smashed into a tree. A second later, Enzi’s jaw dropped and she pulled her hand to her lips.

“Oh goodness,” she gasped. “Whatever just came over me?”

“Enzi,” I snapped. “Map.”

I was already pissed off after my run-in with Berlin. To think the only other human in the Culling was that psychotic really had me on edge. I’d wanted to believe she was just troubled, angry because she’d been dealt an injustice and lashing out at anyone around her. However, Berlin’s convictions were sealed, and there was no room for me in that ride she was on. Therefore, I was stuck with these insufferable demons.

The enepsi looked like she was about to comply, when Markus held up a finger.

“Now, one moment.”

I put my head in my hand and let out an audible groan. The haures seemed to take pleasure in that because he flashed a smug grin my way.

“Before we go giving maps or any other kind of rabdos to our human companion,” Markus began in that oily voice of his, “I want to pose you a question. Is it wise to grant an item to a participant who has failed to secure any rabdoses of their own? Other than a measly knife, of course.”

“Fuck you, Markus,” Volce growled from his burrow in the tree.

“Still wrestling with those charms, I see,” Markus commented to Volce.

“Markus,” I said, unable to hide my anger. “Do you want to erase an estray or not?”

Before Markus had a chance to answer, Toll opened their beak. “He does,” they answered. “However, you will have to forgive me for being sceptical about you having a plan that can allow four demons to erase such a powerful estray.”

It was a reasonable scepticism, yet Toll was still maddeningly annoying.

Estrays are not an easy thing to deal with, even for a one-name like Markus. Though they’re technically demons, there’s a fundamental difference between an estray and your average demon: the estray’s sigil is broken.

If you think of demons as complex computer programs, then an estray would be one whose data has been corrupted. Things that should happen simply don’t, and vice versa. An estray might look like any old demon, or be some twisted monstrosity. It may speak, but in reverse. And all the contracts and laws that bind demons don’t exactly apply to an estray. Or they can. I have to be careful not to state any absolutes here because even the claim that it breaks the rules is itself a rule, and therefore it may not apply, or it might, or—you get it.

Consequently, an estray’s corporeal form is as broken as their sigil, meaning it could look like anything—and not necessarily anything that exists in Euclidean space: arms that fold in on themselves, legs that walk across the sky, eyes that see only blood, and heads that sprout from the earth. There’s nothing normal about them, and therefore there’s nothing normal about the location of their sigil.

When dealing with a powerful estray, demons bring an army. Even when dealing with the weakest estrays—the equivalent of an eight or nine name demon—you’d still fight in a group because their ability to ignore the rules can catch an unweary demon by surprise.

What I was suggesting was that we fight an estray that was powerful enough to spawn digressers. It was suicide. For anyone but us, that was.

“Then let me borrow the map and I’ll show you,” I said through gritted teeth, then turned to Enzi.

The enepsi held the rolled-up parchment in both hands. “You never said you only wanted to borrow it,” she pouted.

“You’re the one who assumed.”

Markus sucked air through his fangs. “Well, unfortunately, that doesn’t change anything. Crazy plans made by irrational humans are never a good idea.” He winked at Enzi. “Trust me, I order these hamsters to run on wheels all the time. Even that’s a struggle! They can’t follow simple orders.”

Toll dipped their head. “Humans are not wise creatures. Not even you, Algier, can compare to the wisdom of a demon that has been sealed for hundreds of years.”

“Oh, I think you’re all being so harsh,” Enzi sighed. “Algier has many redeeming qualities. All he needs is a leash of sorts around his neck and—hey!”

During their argument, Volce had floated up behind Enzi and snatched the map off her. The deuce hovered over to a wide shorn trunk, muttering a string of incoherent curses. Even without the connection between us activated, I could feel his rage bubbling through.

He unrolled the map then slapped it down on the trunk’s surface, using it as a makeshift table. Then he slapped the map repeatedly. “Come on, let’s get to planning! You’re all just wasting time.”

I made no remark and trudged over. I was grateful for Volce’s stunt, actually. Who knew a bit of theft could solve so many problems? Positioning myself on one side of the trunk, I raised my eyebrows at the other demons.

“Well, hurry up.”

In a few moments they were gathered around. Enzi was pointing at the map.

“Now if you allow me to press on this—oh.”

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The map, like everything else of use in the Culling, was a rabdos. Listen, I don’t know who names these things, but it’s clearly not one person. Briary is an elegant name while Rise and Shine is whimsical. But in all, they’re good names.

This rabdos, for some unholy reason, is called, “††† Here be plunder! †††.” Yes, with the daggers. And the exclamation point. I hope whoever named it is long gone.

Anyway, ††† Here be plunder! ††† is a Class 3-S rabdos. It appears as a mostly blank parchment with some odd symbols on the side. Each of those symbols are actually controls, and if you know how it works it’s a sinch to use. The only problem is that the buttons change based upon what it displays. When it shows nothing in its middle, there are five buttons scattered around its edges.

I had pressed on three of them in a sequence, and the centre of the parchment began to ripple. Then like a water fountain, the middle shot up and formed a three-dimensional dome out of parchment. Surrounding that was a flat doughnut, also elevated, then another doughnut surrounded that and then another. There were seven of those rings in total, getting lower as they fanned out. Each of them represented one of the Rings of the Culling, with the dome in the middle being the last Ring. The reason they appeared that way, as nothing but a flat surface, was because all information of what was inside those Rings was sealed off from all forms of scrying.

The outermost Ring, however, showed a perfect three-dimensional model of the Ring of Betrayal. Inside the Ring were thin spikes for trees, mounds for hills, and tiny boxes marking abandoned towns that were yet to be swallowed by the trees. Each of these features were shaded in yellow, with darker and lighter patches depicting the general hardness of the surfaces. Brighter meant grass or even water, darker was stone and concrete. Flanking both the inner and outer edges of the Ring were two tall walls: the same as the walls which I’d see curving off into the distance if I chose to look up.

Finally, there was a red X marked onto the southern side of the Ring of Betrayal. That was us. Unfortunately, the map did not show plunder, nor Participants, and no amount of tinkering with its ever-shifting icons revealed anything of the sort.

Glancing up at the demons, I pointed at a spot near the X where the parchment troughed between a set of trees to represent grass fields. In the middle of it was a small box representing the broken tower where I’d had my unfortunate encounter with Toll.

“I started about here,” I explained.

The icons had all changed and I tapped on one of them. It produces a set of notches in one corner, which I knew from my pouring over of past Culling footage that it was a scale where each notch represented one kilometre.

“It’s twelve kilometres anticlockwise from here, circling west. And if everyone recalls, the digresser furrows have never criss-crossed our path. They always slither along it.”

Markus rolled his eyes. “If you’re trying to divine the intentions of digressers, then you’re awfully naïve. They’re digressers. Nobody knows what they want. Not even a balaam.” He dipped his head towards Toll. “No offense.”

“It is the truth,” Toll replied, cocking their head. “As far as I am aware.”

“Not intent,” I said, as though speaking to a child. For all intents and purposes, I may as well have been. “I’m determining a pattern. If you consider the direction that we’ve been travelling, the direction of the digresser furrows, and how our location and direction has resulted in more or less digressers swarming us, it’s clear they’re travelling anticlockwise.”

Volce looked up from the map with his eyes narrowed. “Really? This is what you wanted to tell us? Your assumptions?”

“No need to be so mean to the poor human,” Enzi said, wearing a comforting smile. “I’m sure he’s trying his best.”

Of course, while demons are excellent at making deductions, their capacity for inductive reasoning is almost non-existent. They’re logical, pragmatic creatures. Determining patterns or rules based upon a set of evidence, especially when limited, makes about as much sense to a demon as pouring milk on a rock—mostly because they don’t understand why humans drink milk to begin with as water should suffice for providing hydration.

Despite Volce’s protests, however, he seemed intrigued, as did the rest of the demons. Gritting my teeth, I held up a hand to get their attention. This was the most important part.

“So if the digressers are following a pattern, or a program, if you prefer, then that begs the question: who created the program?”

They all blinked at me. Even Toll cocked their head, the question too abstract for them to provide a semi-useful answer.

“The estray that created them, of course,” I supplied.

“Ah, of course!” Volce said, slapping his forehead. “That was an easy one. Man, these human questions are weird.”

“So if the digressers are following a pattern—that is, they’re travelling anticlockwise,” I explained, “it stands to reason that the estray which they spawned from is doing the same. Therefore, all we have to do is determine where it is—”

“And set an ambush!” Markus finished. His eyes glinted with a red flame.

“Exactly.” Well, at least one of the demons didn’t need me to hold their hand.

For the briefest moment, Enzi glanced at Markus and flashed an anxious expression. When it passed, she looked at me, raised her hand, and flashed a welcoming smile.

I stared at her deadpan. “We’re not at school, Enzi. Just ask.”

Her cheeks flashed red. “Sorry. I’ve always wanted to go to school. But that’s irrelevant right now. I’m curious, Algier. How can you be so certain of this? As wonderful as your plan seems, I think we’ll need a more definite rationale before risking our beings to hunt an estray.”

I held up a finger. “One. We encounter more digressers when standing still than what we do walking. Two.” I held up a second finger. “The digressers tend to come more often from the west. Three. On the first day, the number of digressers was thinning out the longer we walked.”

I skipped over the second day in my calculation as I had a feeling that Silica had only started controlling digressers then. My rationale was that the patterns of digressers changed drastically on the second day, while they remained relatively consistent on the first. All of this was a hunch, mind you. I couldn’t prove it one way or another. That wouldn’t have been acceptable for the practical minds of demons, so I opted to skip that part of my explanation.

I held up a fourth finger. “Four. We started closer to the outside of the Ring and gradually moved inwards as we travelled due east. The closer we were to the outside, the larger digresser packs were. We would encounter packs of twenty at a time when we did find them, rather than the ten or so we encounter closer to the inside. That makes a lot of sense since the exit is on the inside of the Ring. If you were the administrator, you’d want digressers to be further to the outside to make participants choose between getting to the exit and farming points.

“All of this leads to the following conclusions: the estray is on the outside of the Ring, it’s travelling anticlockwise, and its digresser spawn is following behind it. If Bell curves apply here, that means the bulk of the pack is probably somewhere close behind the estray, and they slowly thin out as they get further behind. In other words, we’re encountering less digressers as we travel east because we’re meeting the tail of the digressers’ path.”

All the demons watched the map curiously. I could tell what they were thinking: it made sense, but there wasn’t much information to go off. They’d probably need something more before they committed to this plan. Good thing a certain feathered demon was tilting their head side to side.

Toll looked up from the map and their feathers puffed up. “That is all well, but that still does not tell us where the ambush ought to be set. How will you gather the information necessary to make such a decision?”

“Obviously, I’m going to ask you a question,” I said, meeting Toll’s acute gaze. The balaam’s feathers shimmered in the sunlight.

They were excited. I held back a grin.

I pointed to three locations on the map: one at our location, and two spaced equally part in a perfect triangle formation. “Out of these three locations, which has the highest density of digressers.”

The balaam’s feathers settled immediately. Stepping closer, Toll pointed to the spot clockwise from us.

I nodded, then picked two locations half way between that spot and its adjacent ones. “Of these two spots, which one has the highest density.”

Toll fixed the map with a hard stare and their crest rose and fell. They pointed at the one furthest from us.

Good. Very good. We actually got very lucky on this one. With so much space between us and the estray, I could pick out any location I wanted. I just so happened to find the exact spot I was looking for near the edge of the Ring, free of trees and with a cliff overlooking it.

I pointed to the spot. “In two days, this is where we’ll set up the ambush. It’s an open area which works in our favour due to Markus’ rabdos. I’ll go over the plan once we get closer.”

Enzi’s brows furrowed and she placed a gentle hand on mine. I stared into her pleading eyes, trying not to scowl.

“Algier, dear, this is a well-thought-out plan you’ve put together, but are you truly sure it will work?”

Markus grinned, revealing a single long canine, and adjusted his gloves. “What? I think it’s a fantastic plan.”

“But there are too many unknowns,” Enzi protested. She squeezed my hand with both of hers. “Algier, please, reconsider this plan. It’s too risky. We could easily farm points in other ways—”

I raised a hand to silence her. “It’s not just about the points; it’s about suppressing a threat. As long as that thing is dropping digressers, Silica gets stronger. There’s a chance she’s waiting to see what I do. After all, she said she’s watching me, and she clearly disliked Markus.”

“‘Dislike’ is not the term I’d use,” Markus clarified.

“Right. We need to keep her in check. And fighting demons is not the best option because our group is too small. We got unlucky in that regard.”

“Speak for yourself, asshole,” Volce said.

I cocked an eyebrow at him. “What about you? Are you coming?”

The deuce’s arms were folded as he floated beside me. He stared at me deadpan. “Do I fucking have a choice?” Volce shot a look at Toll. “The answer is no, feather brain. It’s a rhetorical question.”

I turned to Toll. The balaam waited for a question which I refused to give.

“I’m taking your silence as a yes,” I said.

The balaam’s crest rose and fell, then they cocked their head and looked away.

“Oh, it’s a definite yes from me,” Markus chuckle.

Finally, I turned back to Enzi. Rather than looking concerned as she did before, she was… blank. Her face was completely unreadable, like she was processing something, performing some deep and complex calculation. I decided to keep silent, figuring she’d come around to the right answer.

“Fine,” she said suddenly, without inflection. Then she blinked and collected herself. A defeated smile crossed her lips. “Fine, Algier. I’ll be sure nothing unfortunate happens to you.”

A weight fell off my shoulders, a burden I hadn’t even realised I’d been carrying. Dealing with those demons was so stressful. Having a single victory was an enormous relief, though I knew that I’d need far more successes if I planned to live much longer. Sighing, I tapped on a couple of the map’s icons and its surface flattened. Then I rolled it up and handed it back to Enzi who took it with a curtsey.

“Alright. Now we move.” I turned westward and walked out of the clearing, forcing everyone to follow me again.

Once I’d turned away, I brought up my stat screen again.

[Questions owed]:

Toll: 3 mundane (was 2), 3 inquisitive (was 1)

A plan laid out and the demons at my beck and call, all for the low price of two middling questions and one insignificant. I was proud of that one.