The huge silver pinball left Weavelord’s crumpled body and struck the bumper pedestal hard, sending Weavelord’s core gem flying.

In a cacophony of bells and boings, the ball rolled back over the Spidercrat’s already crushed body.

His core gem floated end over end, heading toward the floor and its destruction.

Hitting the floor might not crack it, but it might. Something worse, though, was coming for it.

Another pinball thundered down—the second extra ball must’ve been released from its cage. It was heading straight for Weavelord’s gem.

Shrimpie sailed down with Karl attached.

With a swoop, the zeppelin swung Karl upward, his freezer door open.

Weavelord’s gem went right into Karl’s freezer.

Gwen gasped in a breath, gauntlets raised, goggles glowing. “Oh, dang, that was a close one. Is he in there, Karl? Is he all right?

Shrimpie came to a rest above them.

Karl’s gem flashed. “Weavelord is just fine. His core gem is. But his body, uh, is not so good.”

It looked like every bone in Weavelord’s body had been broken. Kronke drew up the Spidercrat into his arms. The troll continued to glow, healing the damage, but so far, all of Weavelord’s eyes were closed.

Most of his glasses had been shattered, but there were two pairs—the tortoiseshell glasses and the wire-rimmed glasses—that look as good as new. Those had to be magic items, just like his tie.

Gwen shook her head. “This whole thing is traumatizing but seeing him in leather and spikes is going to send me straight to therapy, I know it.” She looked around. “Hey. Watch out. Here come the nerdy spider guys.”

Hurricane was alive, lying on his side, but he was still too banged up to fight.

Helga stood in front of them all, brandishing her crowbar.

Around them, though, the room was changing, melting away. The Celestial Node was still active, but there wasn’t a dungeon core attached to the pedestal, so all of the Endogenous Manifestations were being reabsorbed into Weavelord’s core gem.

The two pinballs vanished along with all the bumpers, metal tracks, and the giant bright backboard rising high above them. The room was still large, yes, but now there were empty shelves and empty filing boxes everywhere, strewn around, in complete chaos.

Cal was confused. This wasn’t the main filing room. What was this place?

The Dweebers stopped their attack. The leader guy, the one with the most pens in the pocket of his short-sleeved button up, sheathed his sword and put his hands on his hips. His high-pitched voice didn’t match his angry stance. “Hey, what happened to our manager? Do we have to report to you? This is highly irregular.”

Helga approached him. They were about the same height. “I like your tie, boyo, and so I won’t kill ye. Like yer manager tried to kill us.”

“HELP!” Daphne wailed. “I’M GETTING WATER ON THE FILES! I DON’T WANT TO GET WATER ON THE FILES!”

Cal went to help her. The magical sink had saved his life. It was the least he could do.

He grabbed Daphne, who was surprisingly light, and carried her back to where the other members of Team Six were clustered around Weavelord and the remains of his minions.

Kronke, back to his loveable troll self, had healed Weavelord, so his guardian form looked a lot less smushed. However, the Spidercrat really perked up when the troll paladin attached his core gem to his belly. The Spidercrat looked down at himself and realized he was wearing leather and spikes over his normal suit and tie. “Oh, drat. This will never do. Could someone help me off with the added accoutrement? So many belts and buckles, I don’t know where to begin.”

Cal glanced at Gwen, who widened her eyes and shook her head. “That would legit kill me.”

Helga started undoing the harness.

Cal had never seen the Spidercrat so humble and cowed. He tried to make his boss feel better. “It’s okay, sir. We know you were under the influence, of, well, we don’t know. I’m hoping—"

Gwen stood with a hand on her hip. “Oh, no, Dave. We will not be feeling sorry for you. You tried to kill us. You nearly killed Hurricane. And we want to know everything you know, right flippin’ now.”

It was clear that their manager was going to get very little sympathy from his estranged daughter.

Weavelord swallowed hard as he shed the leather. “You have every right to be angry, Gwen. For any number of things.” The Spidercrat stopped talking for a long time. Then he cleared his throat. “I don’t remember much from my time under the spell of My Vanilla Master. I had a scented candle in my office, I got it from someone at some point, I don’t remember. I wasn’t looking forward to the Fiscalia tonight, not really. But then when the Nodes opened up. Perkle came to me. But by then, my allegiances were to this Vanilla Master person. To be honest, I have no idea who it might be. Not one single clue. I would imagine it’s the same dungeon core that has been leaching Apothos from sites we audit.”

Cal found the pendant he’d thrown—it had shattered, but there was still the silver chair and the fragments. He lifted it up. “Do you remember putting this on, Weavelord?”

The Spidercrat licked his nips nervously. “No, I mean, I smelled the candle, and then…” his voice faded away. He was staring at nothing for a moment. Then he spoke in a weak voice. “I put it on. Someone gave it to me…they said they made it for me special. I loved it. It smelled so good and made me look so good.”

Gwen wrinkled her nose and shook her head, mouthing the words, No, it didn’t.

Only Cal saw. He spoke quickly. “Other than the pendant, our main clue is vanilla. It might not be a candle. It might be something that deals with food. Maybe a kitchen ghast, or an evil baker.”

Kronke had been standing there, arms crossed, eyes closed, probably sleeping. He did have that Nap On Command ability. At the idea of an evil baker, he blinked. “Kronke know there are evil bakers in the multiverse. Makes Kronke sad. Kronke probably murder them slowly, very, very slowly, so he can relish their agony. Pinkerton likes the idea. Good thing Pinkerton not in charge.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

That brought a little of Weavelord’s attitude back. “Oh, right, the Pink Reaper. I read a little about that in your report on Tittikaka’s Omega Audit. One more time, you people are taking unnecessary risks. Shocking. Shocking.” He coughed some.

Gwen laughed bitterly. “You people? It’s us people who saved you. You’d better show us some respect, Dave. You threw your best at us, and we beat it. We could’ve ended you, but we didn’t, so enough of your nonsense.”

Weavelord turned all eight of eyes away. “I thank you for freeing me. You’re right, I did throw my best at you. It was probably the best dungeon I’d ever created, but I had so much power you see. There was so much extra Apothos to work with. Now, however, I’m so very weak. Weak. Exhausted. Sad. I’ll probably never have that much power again.” He sighed. “Perhaps I should be grateful. Power corrupts and all that.”

Helga had tossed away the harness and was petting a still weakened Hurricane. “Buck up, Mr. Weavelord, sir. For what’s done is done. Is there anything else you can tell us? Perhaps a wee bit of something about the deserted corner office upstairs.”

Daphne’s faucet turned on as she yelled, “PHIL PHAIRY’S OLD OFFICE! HE WAS OUR BOSS. HE TRIED TO KILL US. HE DID KILL STAEVIS! YOU GUYS WOULD’VE LOVED STAEVIS!”

Karl, hanging from Shrimpie above, chimed in. “Gotta say it, this isn’t the first time someone from the Department snapped. And why is that office deserted?”

Cal was excited to get up there. Now that Weavelord was back on their side, he could call off his huge caterpillar up there, and they had access to the entire Department, and that included the file room and the deserted corner office. Though the files strewn about in this room looked older and might have more information. Cal had already picked through the files in the normal file room looking for clues about Mr. Brown and the Omega Audit of Mimi Drybone’s homeworld.

Weavelord smiled wearily. “We all wanted that office. Every manager, director, VP, and president. Our CFO could’ve waltzed in there without an issue, but then that would’ve hurt moral. Mr. Jamalzak is probably pulling his hair out at this point. He’s a Greater Hairy Shoe Ghoul, so he has a lot of hair to pull out. He and the executive team all are probably at the Fiscalia.” The Spidercrat paused. “The Vanilla Master is still in the building. I can feel it. It’s not anyone from DUDE’s upper management. It’s someone else.”

Cal thought about the executive team. Jord Jamalzak was the CFO, Dr. Guddup Smood was the CEO, and the CDO, Chief Dungeon Officer was Vinnie Bluesuit. They were all dedicated S-Class guardians with good reputations, but Weavelord was right—they had been at the Fiscalia when the trouble started. Now? Were they working with Ji-Soo and the Arcandor Initiative to contain the madness? What did the executives think of Ji-Soo’s strategy to NUKE the site?

Helga grunted. “Aye, there are ten dungeon cores down here with us. Nine are accounted for. Weavelord, the AT1, the breakroom cores, and Mr. Tinkletwerp. The tenth core has to be the villain.”

All of a sudden Kronke was awake and talking animatedly. To go from sleeping the talking in seconds was a gift. “Remember bats with metal teeth? Kronke remember bats. Those from Inke. He mean troll with bad bat tattoos. He next dungeon core. Maybe Inke not so mean. He did call Kronke pretty. So that’s something.”

“Inke must be in the subbasement, where Cell 12E is.” Cal took out a Blackberry. “We’ll deal with him in a minute. I have to call Ji-Soo. It’s almost midnight. We don’t have much, but we did free Weavelord. Hopefully that will be enough for them.”

Weavelord lowered his wire-rimmed glasses. “Ji-Soo from the Arcandor Initiative? Oh, yes, of course they’d be called in. We have a rogue dungeon on the loose, and they are here to stop it. If you don’t mind, Mr. Illudere, I’d like to talk to them.”

Never, in his entire time at the DUDE had Cal’s boss ever spoken to him with such kindness.

Cal tossed Weavelord the berry. He popped it into his mouth and spoke quickly. “This is Weavelord, Spidercrat B-Class, Rank 10, class name is Arachtuary, senior manager of Dungeon Auditing Services, and I demand to speak to the Arcandor Initiative special agent in charge of this operation.

Ji-Soo’s voice filled the room, as chipper as ever. “Gosh, Weavelord, you’re still alive! We felt a shift in the Apothos flow. Ton of energy flooding in there, but you know that. Hey, I would imagine you got the Blackberry from Calcannis. He seems nice. A little odd. What is this Dungeon Meld ability? That smells like week-old gas station sushi to me, but it probably won’t matter. Uh, Weavelord, this is so awkward! But we have to kill you and destroy the office building and all the additional subbasements. Yeah, the whole thing. And everyone. Sorry!”

Weavelord paused.

Cal knew why. The Spidercrat was composing his dumb Blackberry message in his head. He spoke carefully. “Purging all Celestial Nodes, destroying all of our archive, killing innocent dungeons and Department employees is unadvisable at this point. Audit Team Six has secured the first of the five Celestial Nodes. We will protect this Node and secure more. We will also find the culprit who cast the mind-control spell on me.”

Cal was relieved that he wasn’t the one who had to do all the Blackberry messaging.

Ji-Soo, though, wasn’t buying it. “It took like four hours for Audit Team Six to secure this node. And now even more power is flowing to the other four nodes. Is that better? Probably not? But you do have a point. You know, murder and what have you, would be a total bummer! Wait, you were like evil five minutes ago. Should I be trusting you right now? Gosh, but it seems like you were under some sort of spell. I’d hate to kill you if, you know, you weren’t evil by choice. Sorry evil was thrust upon you. Totes bummersville! Decisions. Decisions. Wait. Hold on.”

Kronke was sleeping again, standing up. He did wake up to tell Cal, “Weavelord do Blackberry messages better. He not all pale and sweaty like you get.”

“It’s very difficult!” Cal protested.

Ji-Soo’s voice returned. “Mr. Jamalzak wants to give you more time. He’s here along with Dr. Smood and Mr. Bluesuit. For a second, I thought they might be involved, but nope, just executives wanting to fix things quick. They don’t want to, like, you know, murder you either. Speaking of unlikely allies, Dirndil Müeller is here along with the rest of Team Freundschaftsbeziehungen. They are very worried about you. But hey, have you seen the Quatros? We thought they were in there with you, but turns out, nope. And they still haven’t turned up. I think we can all agree. Super suspicious! But okay. The executive team wants to give you until noon, despite my misgivings. But if you don’t have the second node, and if nothing changes, then you’ll be saying ‘hi, guys’ to the NUKE. So much NUKEing! And oh, take control of that Node you captured. It’s like, leaking Apothos everywhere, and some of that is making its way down to the other Nodes. Get to work, guys, so I don’t have to destroy you! And keep us posted! Talk to you at noon! Bye!”

Weavelord belched and pressed a hand to his stomach. “Those message berries always gave me such indigestion. Well, we have until noon, twelve hours away, to get the second level’s Node. And to get answers. But first, she’s not wrong. Let me take control of the node again.”

“AND WE HAVE TO GO CHECK ON FULLGEERS!” Daphne yelled.

Weavelord winced. “The sink can talk?”

“No,” Gwen said. “The sink can yell. I might have to turn her off for a few hours. Just to give us a break.”

The faucet’s water formed a sad face.

Gwen sighed. “Okay, Daphne. You’re safe for now.”

Karl called from above. “Geez. Silencing someone that annoys you? Ha Talk about a hostile work environment. But Daph ain’t wrong. We have to go get our buddy.”

“Yes, yes,” Weavelord said. He stood up, but it was clear he was still weak. He almost fell, but Gwen caught him. “Easy, Dave. I’ll escort you over.”

“And Cal needs to be involved.” Weavelord closed his many eyes. “I don’t…I don’t trust myself. I need to be supervised.”

Kronke nodded solemnly. “Kronke find the dramatic irony touching. The supervisor has become the supervised.”

Cal was confused. “Involve me how?”

Weavelord gave him a steady stare. “A Dungeon Meld. If I turn again, I will need you to stop me from…from…hurting any of you. and then you should crack my core. End me for good.”

Cal wasn’t sure this was a good idea.

The pedestal was there, on the floor, a generic stone pedestal, waiting for a dungeon guardian to take control of it.

Weavelord had his core gem in his hand. “I’ll toss it onto the pedestal, and then, you should do the dungeon meld. Are you ready, Cal?”

Was it the first time that his boss had called him by his first name? He was pretty sure that was right. “As you wish, Weavelord.”

The Spidercrat placed his core gem on the pedestal. “You can call me, Dave. I think in a second, you and I are going to become very, very close.”

Too bad the Dungeon Meld didn’t work.