Cal stood in the Null Arena’s secret room with the rest of Team Six and the breakroom cores. Perkle and Gwen had taken the three IBM copier tanks and combined them with the breakroom cores, so they had three fully armored assault copy machines for the attack on Barb’s dungeon.

“How long do we wait?” Gwen whispered the question.

Cal couldn’t answer. He was trying not to pass out. His ears were still ringing, and he was still dizzy. Creating the Null Arena had felt like someone shattered his Funk Soul and then tried to glue it back together. He was pretty sure several important pieces had gotten lost. Every so often, his vision would get blurry.

He’d watched as the entrances were joined together by an interdimensional space, sealing both off. No one could get into the two dungeons, and no one could get out…at least through the entrances.

Thanks to his Intermediate Dungeon Meld, he didn’t need to be within five feet of the pedestal anymore. And he didn’t need the parallelogram battery. As long as he stayed within the mile range of the spell, part of him remained in the inner sanctum of the Halls of Red Tape, a.k.a. the Wet Works, a.k.a the Cornhole (thanks to the creamed corn fountain), and part of him was in the secret room waiting for Barb’s fifth-floor minions to pass.

Perkle had fallen back to his playpen, which would be flooded, like the rest of the dungeon. His main job was getting that HVAK ductwork down to the fifth level figured out. Harvey was far more cantankerous than the breakroom cores.

Cal had a Triple A spell running, though a good portion of his Apothos had gone up in smoke after creating the Null Arena. Amorfo barely had any energy left as well, and they’d used up all the parallelogram batteries. All that meant was that the A Team would have to run Barb’s dungeon as quickly as possible.

The evil aromatherapist would be coming for the first floor’s Celestial Node. Yes, she could get to Triple S without it, but Cal had the idea she was growing impatient. Besides, she probably had enough troops to both defend her current Nodes and capture the one she’d lost.

Cal looked over his scan:

<<<>>>

Triple A Enhanced Initial Results – Exterior Obstacle

Room Type: Null Arena

Room Name: The Technological Terror Dome

Room Purpose: To connect the entrance of one dungeon to another (It’s like a cage match. Two dungeons get connected. Only one dungeon will survive!)

Room Description: In some parts of the multiverse, people like to tell stories of massive Electronic Abacuses that will solve all of life’s problems. Sometimes these massive computational devices are on vessels that traverse the stars, and sometimes they are in big steel rooms buried under the wreckages of advanced civilizations, but they all look about the same: Blinking lights, screens that display cryptic information, and all sorts of impressive doohickeys, mostly stainless steel, that are meant to imply that the place is impressive, and that technology can save us all! Most of the time, these are on worlds where there’s not much Apothos and people don’t believe in the magic of a young girl’s heart. Or the magic when I’m with you.

The Null Arena looks like that except throw in some of Amorfo’s statues of himself, of course, as well as other members of the AT1 back before they were evil. There are also statues of Audit Team Six, only these states Several of the screens have pictures of Amorfo’s Mural Minions but the painting won’t come alive.

Note: One wall of blinking lights and cryptic screens has an extra layer of illusion that is hiding the most important minions in the Null Arena.

Minion Description:

* Audit Team Six, the best team of auditors the Department has seen in several generations. Doubly impressive because they’re not dungeon cores, but former dungeoneers determined to atone for their past murderous mistakes.

* Coffee Tank: Fullgeers has been upgraded from Perkle’s scooter to tread tracks, and has his hot coffee blast, his various spoiled milk mayhem, and new compression bombs he creates with his steamer. Gwen and Perkle didn’t have time to fix his telescoping sawblades. Maybe next time.

* Full Faucet Attack Vehicle: Daphne has a barrage of water attacks, from freshwater to super-corrosive saltwater and everything in between.

* Mobile Combat Freezer – Never in the history of the miliary on any world has there been a deadlier freezer. Karl isn’t just a bomber anymore. He can launch frozen meals (including twelve dubious hardboiled eggs) from a central turret he can feed from the depths of his aged but powerful freezer unit. He also has his ice bomb attacks.

* Note: All of the IBM tanks have automatic rubber band paper clip machine guns with over fifty thousand paperclips each. They also have a paper tray attack, an ink spray, and various other office related battle gear. The tanks are powered by the mysterious parallelograms taken from the corner office.

Trap Description:

* No traps

Treasure Description:

* No loot here. No need for lures. Both dungeon cores are desperate to destroy the other for various reasons.

Apothos Usage Effectiveness: Yellow Green (Null Arenas eat up the Apothos like no one’s business, but you’re using an illusion projector to help hide your secret room, so that helps.)

Challenge Level Rating: B-Class (Minions are High B Class! This is synergy at work! The room itself is E-Class, since its main purpose is to simply seal off both dungeons.)

Manifestation Type: Endogenous and Exogenous Manifestations from a variety of Apothine Energies.

<<<>>>

Cal felt torn as he read through the descriptions. On the one hand, they had an impressive strike force.

He still had a bad feeling in his gut.

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If Barb didn’t take the bait, if she didn’t send at least some of her minions, he and his team would be forced to invade her dungeon first. Maybe that would be okay because then they wouldn’t have to worry about the iffy defenses in the Halls of Red Tape.

Amorfo’s guardian form had progress from toddler to grade schooler, like an Aldaleeran kindergartner. He didn’t look that fierce, not with his oversized sunglasses on, but his Stone Gaze still worked. That was the important thing.

Cal glanced at his friends in the glow of the overhead projector aiding the illusionist. Their faces glowed with sweat in the scarlet light. The secret compartment wasn’t comfortable, and there wasn’t much ventilation, but what should they expect from an extra-dimensional space? Comfort? They were outside of reality at that point.

Cal was near Gwen. He turned to her. “Hey. Uh. This might be a bad time. But how are you holding up?”

She gave him a long look. “I can’t stop thinking about how you yelped when you and Amorfo created the Null Arena. Uh, yelped isn’t the right word. More like a whimper. Whining? Like a dog in pain. That’s exactly what you sounded like.”

Cal felt his face heat up. “Well, that’s not very flattering.”

Gwen held up a hand. “No. Wait, Cal. You asked me about me dealing with my father’s death, and I deflected. We’re going to get through this, we’re going to win, and then I’m going to fall completely apart. For like a week. Then we’ll figure it out.”

Cal smiled. “We will.”

Gwen furrowed her brow. “But who are we going to be working for after this? I can’t wrap my head around the idea of having a new manager. Part of me thinks that anyone would be better, but then I think of the morons who work at DUDE, and I know we could get a whole lot worse than Weavelord.”

“Aye, girl,” Helga said in a quiet voice. “When it comes to managers, there is nae bottom. We’ll just have to hope for the best. Maybe they’ll promote one of us.”

“Nope,” Gwen replied. “They will not be breaking up Team Six. Not now. Not ever. Because I will not work with anyone else. We’re a team. Always will be.”

She reached out and gripped Cal’s and Helga’s hands.

Kronke was over by the tanks, with the Pink Reaper out, pulsating. The sight of the scythe pulsating with a grim pink light was eerie. It also didn’t give Cal much confidence in their plan to basically pump Apothos into the Pink Reaper.

The troll paladin didn’t seem to be listening to their conversation. He sighed. “Kronke so bored! Out of cookies. Karl have cookie dough, but frozen. Too frozen to eat.”

Karl disagreed. “You’re just not trying hard enough, sonny. You could eat if you wanted.”

Cal knew the geezer freezer was right. Why wasn’t Kronke eating the cookie dough?

This was bad. Cal was definitely re-thinking that plan. Maybe he should super charge one of their breakroom tanks. Fullgeers, with more power, could use his coffee powers to do some serious damage.

Cal was shaken out of his revere by Amorfo.

Cal transferred his consciousness back to the dungeon core. He was suddenly seeing the Null Arena. On one end was the entrance to Barb’s dungeon. In a swooping font, in an off black paint, was the name of it. Spa of Horrors. But there was a subtitle in smaller, even more swoopier font. Insanus Per Aquam.

Amorfo laughed.

“No. It would give away our surprise attack.” Cal shifted his sight to see the name of their dungeon, The Hall of Red Tape, on a stained corkboard, in crooked black letters pressed into the cork. It was next to a generic beige corridor with a gray carpet. The carpet was as stained as the bulletin board.

Between the two entrances was the steel walls, the overarching dome, and the display screens flickering, some showing charts and graphs that Cal came up with, some showing Amorfo’s murals of himself in various poses. The mirrored statues were unnerving.

Then Cal saw Cardiganna Lowhand. How could she be there? Unless she’d been in Barb’s dungeon when the Null Arena was created. Both entrances were sealed off totally. Maybe Barb and Cardi had found a way to use the HVAK ductwork? Maybe Harvey had betrayed them and given the villains access?

Cal sent the gadget gnome the question.

Perkle answered from his station in his room up on the first level.

Cal watched the mob enter the Null Arena cautiously.

Cardi sent her minotaurs in first, and a few took swings at the steel statues, which was a bad idea. One BULLie broke a sword. Another notched up his battle ax. The statues were undamaged, but then, they weren’t alive.

Neither were the paintings.

A few of the Mean Ghouls went over and drew on the screens with lipstick. Their nightmare faces were clearly confused when nothing leapt out of the screens to attack them.

Cardi narrowed her eyes and lifted her voice. “Okay, Barb, uh, looks like Amorfo’s Null Arena is as useless as he is. He doesn’t have minions here. Or any minions that work at any rate.”

Cardi was in a very bright, very sparkly pink sweater and a white skirt. Even though it didn’t look like it, Cal would’ve bet her outfit was really armor. She snapped her spiked earring whip and broke a screen. She then whipped down a statue, and it fell onto its side with a clang.

“Very nice whipping,” a deep masculine voice intoned. Then the clatter of hooves started as over fifty centaurs entered the Null Arena led by the two most buff, most mustached of the herd. Mixed in with the horse men were horse women wearing hairnets, masks, and dressed all in white. White satchels hung off their sides. Who were they?

Barb’s voice called out from her dungeon. “Here are some reinforcements for you, Cardi! Don’t worry about the Null Arena. Just get to the inner sanctum as fast as you can!”

Cardi and her mob of schoolgirl ghouls, minotaur jocks, and skeletal students marched through the Null Arena and down the office-plain corridor of the Halls of Red Tape. A storm of centaurs followed them.

The minute the last horse butt was out of sight, Gwen hit the switch and the false wall slid open.

Cal kept the illusions of the wall going while at the same time shifting the projector to hide them all, giving Barb, who could see into the Arena, a recording of the room the way it was.

Cal then contacted Amorfo, who turned on the audio, since he’d gotten such good grades in his music and sound design class. They’d decided on a series of beats and beeps, which Amorfo called Aldaleeran Dubstep, a forgotten kind of elegant electronic music from a more civilized age. No more would Prince Skrullyx drop the beat. There were no more Aldaleeran beats to drop.

Barb’s voice yelled through the room. “I know you’re planning something, Amorfo, and it’s not going to work! Just give up now! I can do another Aroma Charm spell, make another custom potpourri pendant for you, and we can pretend you never betrayed me. What do you say?”

Amorfo didn’t respond, but by that time, Cal and the rest of Audit Team Six entered the dungeon.

Cal analyzed the pool of Apothos that he shared with Amorfo, and he was surprised to find how much there was still there. The idea of giving all of that raw energy to the Pink Reaper was frightening.

Cal was about to use the Dharmic Direction spell to super charge the weapon when he got another message:

<<<>>>

Ultra Audit Tipline Message

Helpful Hint: Never lead with your doomsday weapon. Only use it if you need to. Let’s see how far Audit Team Six can get without tempting the paladin with unimaginable power.

<<<>>>

Cal thought that was a great idea. Besides, Kronke wasn’t acting like himself. Why wasn’t he eating frozen cookie dough?

The Fullgeers rumbled forward into the Spa of Horrors: Insanus Per Aquam.

With tank treads churning, he entered into a reception room, and immediately sighed through his milk steamer. “Oh, hello miss. Can I offer you an espresso?”

Who was Fullgeers being so nice to?

No. It couldn’t be…